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A cartoon depicts a chasm with a rope bridge, once connecting both sides, cut and hanging from the side of the cliff, sabotaged by a suit standing on the well forested right side beside a spool of rope and holding a saw. The left side of the chasm is a wasteland of sawn tree stumps. There’s a sign that reads “Please return saw and rope when done”. An empty box sits beneath the sign. The suit calls out to a person in the wasteland on the left side of the chasm “BUILD YOUR OWN DAMN BRIDGE LIKE I DID!” The person in the wasteland replies “WITH WHAT?! “

Caption: Capitalism at its finest

h/t to @dgar@aus.social

    • Bernie Ecclestoned@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Every country does. Every country doesn’t need to be building bridges constantly though, there’s only so many rivers. It’s inefficient.

      Better to contract that out via competitive tenders to specialist bridge builders.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Infrastructure needs to be constantly maintained and rebuilt. Do you think once someone builds a bridge, it’s fine and no one ever needs to replace it? Or that a river needs a new crossing somewhere else?

        • Bernie Ecclestoned@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          No, that’d be a stupid thing to think.

          People who maintain bridges are not the same as those who build them though.

          If your bridges constantly need rebuilding, you’re not building very good bridges.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Sorry, you think two different groups of construction crews exist and one builds bridges and the other maintains bridges? And you also think that, when even small countries have hundreds of bridges, they don’t need to be rebuilt on a regular basis?

            • Bernie Ecclestoned@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Yes, one is construction, one is maintenance… These are different things…

              Why do you think bridges need rebuilding? How many times has Arkadiko Bridge been rebuilt?

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I see. So one bridge has never been rebuilt and that means all bridges out of hundreds or thousands of bridges in a country last forever.

                Also, why would there be two different crews? You do know maintaining a bridge involves doing many of the same things you have to do when you build one, right? I don’t know where you live, but that sounds like a colossal waste of money.

                • Bernie Ecclestoned@sh.itjust.works
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                  1 year ago

                  Lol. How many maintenance crews are pouring thousands of tons of steel reinforced concrete?

                  How many architects are maintaining bridges?

                  It’s ok to admit when you’re wrong you know?

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Bridge maintenance requires pouring concrete all the time. Because concrete weakens over time. I know you think bridges last forever with no need to do anything but tighten a bolt here and there, but that is not how something with heavy vehicles passing over it constantly works. Roads have to be regularly repaved too. They use the same crews that lay the road down in the first place. You know that, right? You really don’t understand why it would be more expensive to have two completely different crews?

                    Seriously, you don’t know anything about construction.

                    Speaking of admitting you’re wrong…