One hundred years ago, many of the things we take for granted were expensive or not-yet-invented luxuries. From Mollie Engelhart at The Epoch Times via zerohedge.com:
We are living in the most materially abundant moment in all of human history, yet most of us move through life unaware of it.
We turn on a faucet and clean water appears. We flip a switch and light fills a room. With the tap of a finger, we can access the sum total of human knowledge, entertainment, and communication. We not only expect these things, we consider them normal. But none of this is normal. It is extraordinary.
Here in the United States, nearly every home has running water, electricity, paved roads, refrigeration, sewage systems, and buildings engineered to withstand storms and time. Our daily lives operate inside a lattice of infrastructure so reliable we forget it exists. We drive across bridges without a single thought for the men who hung from steel beams suspended high above rivers to construct them. We rely on power lines without remembering that someone once risked freezing temperatures or electrical burns so that power could flow uninterrupted to our homes. We flush toilets without considering the generations of engineers and laborers who built systems to prevent disease and contamination.
Civilization did not happen by accident. It was built piece by piece by millions of people, many with blistered hands, injured bodies, and some who never made it home again.
Maybe I see it differently because I am a builder. I have built restaurants, farms, homes, and the systems required to keep them functioning. On my farm today, the water we drink comes from a well more than 400 feet deep. A pump brings it to the surface, and that pump has failed before. When it failed, the water stopped instantly. There was no gradual decline. No dishes washed. No showers. No drinking water. In those moments the illusion of modern certainty collapses and you remember that water is not convenience. It is survival.
They couldn’t be built now and once engineers are gone?
The AI rainbow Wakanda!
Yes we can.