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@gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de

2026-04-08 15:45 UTC

> It’s not because of efficiency that things last less time now. well, yeah, a lot of over-engineering makes things fickle and it increases the number of potential failure points. simpler technology *is* simply more durable. My grandma has equipment they used for farming when she was a kid (that was 70 years ago). Stuff like buckets, pushcarts, manual hoes (those you use for farming, think minecraft hoes). They still work flawlessly. Also there's literally a proverb that says: "You don't need an engineer to build a bridge that stands. You need an engineer to build a bridge that *just barely* stands." In other words, modern mathematics has taught people how to build houses that are *just* stable enough that they will last for a lifetime, then they collapse. Meanwhile the house that my uncle lives in was built around 500 years ago and still stands. It's one of these old houses with extra thick walls (think 1m thick cutstone walls), it has a cellar and multiple stories. People back then did *not* cheap out on construction materials. Also the egyptian pyramids still stand because they are in *no* sense of the word "efficient".

Replies (1)

  • @WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2026-04-09 01:02

    Eh. It made more sense hundreds of years ago for people to build houses that lasted for centuries. That kind of construction makes sense in periods of slow technological and social change. But think of how differently people live now vs just a hundred years ago. Imagine buying a house without running water, electric wiring, or insulation. Sure, old homes can be renovated to have these. But that requires tearing the thing down to the bare stone or wood walls and starting from scratch. You have to gut the entire building. The only thing that remains is the shell, a shell which represents only 20% of the cost of the building, if that. Most of the cost of a building is not in the structure itself, yet that's the only part that gets saved in a complete gutting and renovation. If you build a house today that lasts centuries, the only way that house will still be occupied 300 years from now is if it's been gutted down to the studs multiple times over the generations. And at that point, why build an ultra-durable house in the first place? Why not build something lighter that requires fewer resources up front, and can simply be torn down and recycled once it's become obsolete?

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