(Obligatory plug for @patrickc’s https://patrickcollison.com/fast here!)
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Show this threadThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Very excited for this; thank you!
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Interesting/macabre to contemplate industrial accidents during construction. The exact number of fatalities seems to be somewhat difficult to track down, but the record here (broken down quite a bit) suggests the number was about 100 or so: https://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/history/essays/fat1935.html …
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That's an extraordinary (& incredibly tragic) number - one hundred or so people who died due to falls, machinery accidents, in blasts, heat etc. Heat prostration alone was 13(!) people.
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Does anybody WANT to build a Hoover Dam equivalent today? I can’t think of a single construction project that is at all exciting.
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That strikes me as a need for an imagination booster shot! :) How’s this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall …
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The same forces that can achieve such goals struggle to figure out what the goals should be. Top-down societies can do amazing things and amazingly wasteful things. They struggle to take account of what might have been and are prone to corruption.
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But many of the projects were not top-down in that sense and I don’t think such central orchestration is a precondition. Walt Disney built Disneyland in a year.
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A recent obsession of mine! Two recs for you: https://www.amazon.com/Construction-Hoover-Dam-Department-Interior/dp/0916122514 … And https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-management-knowledge-work-7148 … Interestingly, the Hoover Dam was the creation of six companies that merged because none had the budget or talent to do it alone. Was literally named the Six Companies

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Not to mention the 30 years of political negotiations and surveying that happened before construction! I very much enjoyed this book about the process: https://smile.amazon.com/Colossus-Turbulent-Thrilling-Building-Hoover/dp/141653217X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=colossus&qid=1571933912&s=books&sr=1-1 …
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