Blond hair
Red shirt

Hello, Tom Scott…?

Good read, but should’ve been posted in a more fitting community.

Actually overenginnering is the thing with pre-modern structures, like the bottom bridge here. Survivorship bias played a role, where things they don’t build to last, evidently don’t last to this day, but mostly it’s because they don’t really understand the math behind all of it so they take the most conservative and the tried and tested rules of thumb when doing big structures. This is why big projects back then can take decades to complete.

In the modern day, we design specifically to balance durability and cost, and we are confident of our maths and understanding of material science to use the least amount that does the work for the design life that we choose.

They really should continue the tradition by building a fourth bridge over the current one when the time comes.

Hello world, meet the newest country, the Kingdom of Trumprica, joining the ranks of other absolute monarchies like Brunei and Saudi Arabia.

Freshly faded broccolis vs wizard beards

DEI bad
ROI good

(/s in case your sarcastometer is broken/not installed)