• Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I don’t know, I think more difficult is accurate.

    Look at any major building project from a hundred years ago. How many man hours would it take from concept to completion? A similar project today could probably be finished in less than a quarter of the time with half as many people. Sure, they are doing it differently, but the tools make it easier so we can make more of them faster.

    Referring back to your example, today’s cars were impossible to make then because making a basic car was too damn hard to begin with, once that task got easier, they could focus on making slightly more difficult ones.

    • Alsjemenou@lemy.nl
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      3 days ago

      The processes in manufacturing largely remained the same. Doing things faster makes things easier not more difficult.

      Look at the Eiffel tower for example, immensely complicated, wild design and largely pointless (compared to modern standards).

      Or compare old wooden windmills to one of the most modern structures, large open water windmills. hundreds of meters tall, simple tubular construction.

      The ability that CAD and computer power in general gave us was the ability to simplify and not use more than necessary. The ability to model strength, rigidity and whatever forces necessary, that’s where the real power lies.

      and i think that we can’t really speak about more or less difficult. The structures and designs of the past clearly have a very high level of complexity, while most modern constructions deliberately eliminate complexity. But we can’t do that without computers.

      • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        It sounds like you’re arguing, but every one of those statements support the idea that “we have made these things easier to make”.

    • gramie@lemmy.ca
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      4 days ago

      They also took into account that a certain number of the workers would die from accidents and disease (see: the Panama Canal) and they were okay with that.