[PenultimateManStanding]

The Romans built a system that lasted for a thousand years. They had no sophisticated understanding of hydraulics, but their aqueducts are still standing. We have a magnificent understanding of hydraulics and our pipes are on the edge of collapse. Something doesn't add up here.

[Revi]

Nothing we do is for any long term use. Cars have a useful life which is shorter than that of a cat. We live in wooden houses for the most part. They rot after 100 years, or sooner if they get a hole in the roof. We are a very impermanent society. There won't be anything worth keeping going soon.

[Bas]

on the other hand a dvd for example will hold as many as a thousand books on it and still be readable in a thousand years......but then again you'd still have to have a working computer too and those.....aren't exactly designed for a lifespan beyond 10 years...

[eastbay]

No recent constructions will last more than a few hundred years. Almost all residential structures and most other buildings will be gone by 2100.

Freeways and canals all over the world are temporary and will be absorbed by the earth within a few years of The Collapse.

Nearly all of the steel and glass towers will have crumbled by 2200.

No one will be able to operate the great dams and they too will back-fill and in a fairly short time, fall.

Also, by 2200 every river and canyon bridge will have fallen; never again to be replaced.

By 2500 there will be little evidence that The Age of Oil ever occurred, and absolutely, positively no one alive literate enough to understand what it was anyhow.

[PenultimateManStanding]

What I'm trying to say is that we have progressed to such heights undreamed of in the past, but remain as stupid as a shoe. That's the paradox to me.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Maybe this will make it more clear what I'm trying to say here. When they laid down all this modern infrastructure in the the early 20th Century they knew that it would need to be replaced. And they knew it would have to be done within 70 to a 100 years. What they didn't know was that we would be preoccupied with laying down fiber optic cables and there would be no understanding or money to do what they assumed we would do. They didn't understand us, and we didn't understand them, and now we're toast.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'W')hat I'm trying to say is that we have progressed to such heights undreamed of in the past, but remain as stupid as a shoe. That's the paradox to me.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'T')he Romans built a system that lasted for a thousand years. They had no sophisticated understanding of hydraulics, but their aqueducts are still standing. We have a magnificent understanding of hydraulics and our pipes are on the edge of collapse. Something doesn't add up here.

[TWilliam]

Of course most things today have a very limited lifespan. If stuff lasted for thousands of years, it wouldn't be long before there was no need to buy more stuff, since everybody'd have whatever they needed and it would last for the rest of their lives, plus the lives of many generations of their successors.

It's called "planned obsolescence", and it's what keeps the capitalist machine humming along...

[Zardoz]

A few minutes of Googling indicates that perhaps we shouldn't be quite so awed by the Roman system:

The Roman Aqueducts 313 B.C. - 128 A.D.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')ong regarded by practicing engineers as brilliant engineering feats, the Roman aqueducts, spanning a useful life of some 440 years, are still very much in evidence today, although few, if any, continue to convey water...

...Although the Romans engineered their aqueducts superbly, they were not watertight (portland cement wasn't invented until 1820 A.D.), which eventually caused them to fall into disrepair and decay. The last Roman aqueduct was built in 128 A.D. By the 6th century A.D., only a few of Rome's neglected aqueducts conveyed anything but crumbling beauty.

[jupiters_release]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', 'o')n the other hand a dvd for example will hold as many as a thousand books on it and still be readable in a thousand years

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jupiters_release', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', 'o')n the other hand a dvd for example will hold as many as a thousand books on it and still be readable in a thousand years

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'T')he Romans built a system that lasted for a thousand years. They had no sophisticated understanding of hydraulics, but their aqueducts are still standing. We have a magnificent understanding of hydraulics and our pipes are on the edge of collapse. Something doesn't add up here.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', 'W')e have no idea of how much maintenance it required.

[eastbay]

http://faq.nmmi.edu/fom-serve/cache/335.html

.... I got curious, so I googled it. Regarding lifetime of a dvd.

Basically as long as they last until replacement technology arrives, and one converts the data to the new technology, you should be ok. However, in a few decades it will be difficult to find equipment that can read them.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', 'h')ttp://faq.nmmi.edu/fom-serve/cache/335.html

.... I got curious, so I googled it. Regarding lifetime of a dvd.

Basically as long as they last until replacement technology arrives, and one converts the data to the new technology, you should be ok. However, in a few decades it will be difficult to find equipment that can read them.

[TheDude]

CDs aren't much better. Of course the plastic itself will last hundreds of years, so we won't be hard up for coasters. They recorded 78 RPM discs all over the world in the early years of the recording industry; in Central and East Asia sometimes you'd see shards of these records decorating yurts. One recording company in Indiana had the metal masters for making these records used to build shacks! Sic transit, baby.

I'm going to order some cassettes in bulk, there are 35 year old tapes that still do their thing.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', '
')I just checked the taps in our house. They all work. Is anybody reading this having trouble getting water?

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('golem', 'c')rumbling infrastructures are a symptom of prophecy

[PenultimateManStanding]

I got your point about the Roman aqueducts requiring maintenance. I guess I could restate my point as this: the Roman technology system was able to last a thousand years whereas ours was built a hundred years ago and it's falling apart bit by bit. We don't have the means or the resources to replace it now. Just another facet of the gathering storm.