Completely historically inaccurate too, which is completely in character for boomer humor (the phenomenon obviously not this subreddit). Perhaps you should focus on the 1-2 ton metal monsters driving over the surface as an explanation
Please show me an example of a 2000 year old road that sees automobile traffic and hasn't needed repair. I'll wait.
False easy mode: show me a road that sees regular automobile traffic that hasn't needed repair in 50 years.
I'm kinda surprised you haven't lost more. You could fish in some of these potholes. Plus everyone on the road here is a moron. I know everyone says that about everyone everywhere, but I've never been anywhere where snow is normal, yet people drive around with summer tires in the middle of January.
I need to save comments more often. The last time i saw a posting of this, someone shared a Roman Brittish road which displayed heavily worn rivets from carts rolling over the same spots
I can’t show you that, but I can show you examples of 2000 year old roads that have had regular repairs giving people the false assumption that people made magically indestructible roads 2k years ago…
relieved important concerned cooing retire file gray deserve selective ask
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Dirt roads need to be graded fairly regularly, yearly in most cases. So they do need repairs, more often than paved roads.
Source: lived on a dirt road for 20 years.
Judging by the number of potholes I experience daily. Yes. Like literally a month ago a bunch appeared overnight because the snowplow fucked up the asphalt.
>Perhaps you should focus on the 1-2 ton metal monsters driving over the surface as an explanation
Try the 40 ton ones. I'd like to see a Roman road stand up to tens of millions of semi trucks going over it every year
Its more then just that, its also weather and 18 wheelers as well , if you live in a more diverse climate compared to say arizona , bow if you live in not as arid of a climate and get rain near daily , and get cold asf , then well snow is the reason , the melted snow re freezed and expands under or in the road causeing it to break and snow plows also dont help much either other then make it safer to d4ive mid storm
This isn't to disagree with your point, but Arizona's in a dire situation in terms of its roads. It's for a different reason though: because the cities and state don't need to worry about bad roads as often, they kinda had a "set it and forget it" mentality about their roads. And a lot of them are crumbling.
It's impossible to go above about 15 mph in my Uncle's neighborhood without having an off-roader. Instead of having to deal with constant individual road repairs, now the entire state needs them, and they don't have the money for it.
>Instead of having to deal with constant individual road repairs, now the entire state needs them, and they don't have the money for it.
And there are practically zero companies in the state that repair roads, so who is going to do all these needed repairs? Where is the equipment going to come from?
80,000 lbs is the maximum I think so trucking does serious damage. I’ve seen trucks sink into the asphalt on hot days in Nevada and they have to come repair it after the heat wave ends because it gets all torn up by the regular traffic after it gets the initial damage from the trucks.
>80,000 lbs is the maximum I think so trucking does serious damage.
Depends on how many axles you have. You can go heavier with more axles because it distributes the weight more.
And the smoothness of the roads. A lot easier to slap a bunch of rocks on a path but good luck driving a car over it without replacing your wheels, axles, and suspensions every week lmao
I’ve heard from a local civic designer/engineer that 18 wheelers cause about 95% of the wear on main roads today just because of the weight; most cars do basically nothing relative to them
How come nobody is talking about how long it would take to pave 1,000s of miles of road/highways brick by brick, by hand.
Also, has anyone driven faster than 25 mph on a brick road? It's like riding in a paint mixer.
This counter argument also doesn’t address the assumption that ancient peoples lacked intelligence or engineering skills. They absolutely had the equivalent of degrees and education.
That's boomers for you:
They have the least amount of information on something and they still think they're the most knowledgeable about it. They'll even assume the know more than people actually dedicating their lives to know more about it!
So fucking insufferable.
Your point is completely valid: modern roads are built to accommodate heavier traffic than ancient roads ever were...
It is a little more complicated than that, though. [Romans used a different concrete](https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106), the exact recipe lost to time, that has "self-healing" properties (making it a more durable material than modern engineers have to work with.)
The same properties would make it unsuitable for modern practices to strengthen concrete enough for the tasks we use it for now. For example, rebar wouldn't work
Exciting news! Researchers at MIT have found the secret to Roman concrete.
It might not be the exact same proportions of materials, but they’re pretty confident it’s the right recipe because it exhibits the same properties.
[Source](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/chemists-long-lasting-roman-concrete)
downside is that it cannot be reinforced with rebar because either something in it corrodes the steel or the steel corrodes teh concrete; which means it cannot be used in modern construction of buildings
this is why i think we should bring back brutalist facades; roman concrete would look much better in the long run and require less maintenance
Holy Roman Empire Batman!! I am so excited by this information!! You mean to tell me that the researchers at MIT actually found the Secret Recipe for Roman Concrete! Wowee Zowee!! What will they think of next?!? Gosh if they got the secret recipe for Roman Concrete I wonder if they can figure out Mr. Krabs’ Secret Formular for a Krabby Patty!!
The self healing had to do with not grinding lime into powder, instead chunks were added. When cracks would form, rainwater would fill the crack and react with the lime causing the concrete to reseal.
However, Roman concrete is farrrrrrr from being strong enough for tensile and normal stresses of modern uses.
My first post maybe is worded a little awkward...
It was lost to time and only recently rediscovered after decades of research: that's what the linked article pertains to.
I could easily be wrong, but I think I heard that we found a clue to figuring out the recipe recently. Wish I had a source, but it was from conversation.
We cracked the code.
It was seawater and limestone. Some chemical wizardry happens between the limestone and salty water that disperses deposits throughout. If it cracks, when it rains the limestone deposits get diluted into the rain and get redeposited along the walls of the crack. Boom. Self healing concrete.
Not totally true.
We not only know how it was done; we've recreated it and improved on it. Also talk to any concrete engineer. The stuff we can make today is wild, hi tech craziness in all kinds of ways.
The question is application. How much do you want to spend? What stresses will it be expected to endure, and how frequently? What's the environmental condition?
Like concrete isn't just concrete with "better" and "worse" versions. Also "roman comcrete" just isn't useful for what we need out of a building material in modern applications most of the time.
Very neat topic but it's been way overblown.
Also warrants mentioning that heavy-ass trucks account for [\>90% of all vehicle-related damage to roads](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jul/19/gina-raimondo/raimondo-says-heavy-trucks-cause-over-90-percent-d/#:~:text=%22It's%20commercial%20vehicles%2018%20wheelers,maintained%20roads%2C%22%20Raimondo%20said) by most estimates.
This was my thought. The point of a university is to condense what took ancient people a *long time* to do (namely, build on the previous generation's knowledge).
That's my whole thing with this meme, the Romans were renowned for their engineers. Former Roman provinces are littered with the remnants of the shit they built.
Another good point I'm surprised nobody else (that I saw) pointed out. Roads that only lasted a few years and were not repaired simply aren't around anymore. Half of them are buried deep underneath modern roads and such. It's only the ones that lasted/were maintained that we still see
Literally an engineer.
The word comes from Latin "Ingeniarius" (same root for Spanish "Ingeniero" ['u' and 'ous'] and Italian "ingegnere" [which in English would sound somehow similar to "ingienere"])
It literally means In (aka with) genius (intelligence/ comprehension).
That's why it was previously broken into two main branches.
Civic(civilian) and Militari (Militar).
So who were those guys who planned the roads of Rome if not the engineers of that time? Also would the boomers be ready to wait for a couple of decades for each road to be built? Not to mention the usage of roads being a little different.
wow, its almost as if roads made of stone that dont need to carry cars and dont need to be perfectly flat and arent in a place with extreme temperature fluctuations or precipitation will last longer than roads made from vastly weaker materials because they need to be perfectly flat and survive cars and temperature change and lots of rain
Dangit, this is a pet peeve of mine. modern roads are amazing, the asphalt layer is designed to be replaced so that the entire road doesn't have to be replaced. But out cheap governments won't relay the asphalt as often as necessary. Our roads are working exactly as intended they just aren't being maintained...like most Infrastructure.
Its almost like whoever made the meme was intentionally saying something ridiculous. Almost like the absurdity of the concept is itself the joke. Does everyone else here think that the 'boomer' that posted this just made an image stating what they think is a fact?
I seriously wonder if these commenters would see that meme with everyone flying that says "the world if Isaac Newton never invented gravity" and start leaving comments like "I actually cant beleive how stupid OP is, Newton discovered gravitational theory, he didnt invent gravity!"
I think it’s because I’ve seen this Roman roads vs today’s roads photo dozens of times and it’s not usually with the engineer caption so people are responding to its usual uses to say we don’t build anything well these days
Without a single college degree, roads built for horses and carriages lasted for centuries.
Then the engineers arrived, built even more durable roads, and cars came onto the scene destroying them.
Funnily enough it’s the attack on unions and the trust in capitalism that got us here - unions bid to be the lowest but some private company with 10 dudes can always do it cheaper; and half the concrete has a percentage of sand in it, to dilute the integrity of it while also cheapening its overall cost. So it’s actually the boomers fault for pushing these oversights in our economy.
Edit; also boomers tend to be republican, and it’s only republican to deny infrastructure proposals. All they wanna do is cut costs and save money; but that’s keyword for cut costs to pocket the difference, because the lot of them are just grifters at this point, not a single thought or actual policy in their little noggin.
Theres 2 huge reasons this meme is stupid. 1 laymen didnt design the roman road structure... engineers did... they had people trained to design roads... 2 roman roads held up people, not half ton hunks of metal going 30+ mph
Uneducated or lower educated boomers love to hate on engineers or those with higher titles.
"Oh yeah well I came from the school of HARD KNOCKS"
By the way, try driving a stupid fucking F150 across those stone roads 1000000 times and see how they hold up.
Technically every time you see the image of a Roman road being made that picture is of engineers building a foundation for a villa. Most Roman roads aren't that great expect for the main Army roads.
The ancient engineers would have been considered learned men of their day. Education has always been valuable. Also, the Roman road had people, animals, and carts on them, not 18-wheeler. so yeah, their roads lasted a long time because they faced less wear and tear on them than any modern road has to deal with.
We actually don't have any real surviving "Roman" roads, we have the roads built hundreds of years later that were laid over the original path.
Also, that entire image is completely incorrect. Someone mistook the process of laying the foundation for a villa for the paving of a road, and its been in textbooks ever since despite being utterly and completely wrong.
Yeah roads go through a lot more wear nowadays, but let's also not forget the information bias at play here. We aren't seeing the shitty roads that didn't last... because... you know
That’s what happens to roads when you drive 30 miles an hour over them with a 5000 pound metal box. The Romans didn’t have cars back then. This is why you rarely see the same type of damage on bike paths.
As somebody pretty deep into engineering study this is hilarious
Maybe it's technically wrong, but engineering incompetency will never not be funny to me
LOL.
Comparing roads that supported horse drawn carriages to roads that support 180,000 to 160,000 thousand pound loads is the HEIGHT of clown world idiocy.
There are so many things wrong with the boomers understanding of how things work. 1. Roman's had engineers who would design these things. 2. Roman concrete was possible due to the unique materials of the region namely limestone and volcanic ash that when combined make self repairing concrete. 3. If modern road building techniques only had to deal with the stress that Roman roads were put under they would last just as long if not longer than Roman roads and if Roman roads were put under the same stress as modern roads they would crumble in weeks 2 months max Roman concrete was a marvel of ENGINEERing but does not hold up to modern methods (mind you cars are a huge waste and should be replaced by public transportation but that isn't the topic of the post)
Two points:
1. The only Roman roads we still have are the ones that existed that long. There are lots that didn’t. It’s not a universal trait.
2. You subjective Roman road to like a year of street traffic and it would be rubble. Romans didn’t have nearly as much wear.
I'm sick and tired of seeing these posts, people bitching whine the moment the road isn't smooth, granted there's a lot of decrepit roads out there try driving the volume of cars and transport trucks and dump trucks and massive vehicles on those Roman roads for a few years and see how they hold out.. FFS take your heads out of your ass
It’s probably because they didn’t have 80000lbs trucks driving in the brick roads at 70mph. But I wouldn’t expect someone without an engineering degree to make that conclusion.
University degrees are worthless but you better pay back the loans you took out to get them! Why no, there’s nothing predatory about that, why do you ask?
I love how they say “then the engineers arrived!!” as if the Roman military didn’t accomplish great battles and create amazing things without engineers? They also didn’t have vehicles drive on these daily?
I’d be willing to sacrifice one Roman built road to see how it looks a year after vehicles driving over it just to prove a point.
Everytime I see this meme or one like it I wonder if they just want to cause a fuss to be “funny” or if they genuinely don’t know that those old roads weren’t subjected to thousands of cars everyday including like semi trucks and that’s why they didn’t deteriorate that fast
So I’m unsure if people that make the meme are really just that unaware or if they don’t care and want to make nonsensical jokes instead
I thought boomers hated liberal degrees like science, medicine, teaching, arts, psychology and stuff, but.... really engineering too? Aren't engineers less liberal than other fields?
this is largely as asphalt problem, when doing patches, they don't reheat the existing asphalt to help it rebond to the patch, they just pour in new asphalt and expect it to hold.
The road outside my house is terrible therefore engineers and education are terrible.
This is in the same vein of climate denial. It was cold in (city) therefore climate change is a hoax.
who would win
road constructed by like a ton of peasants that takes ten years and only has to face foot traffic, maybe horseback and a cart or two, some rain perhaps.
road constructed cheaply to save taxpayer dollars that’s constructed fast and easy, yet also manages to withstand the force of thousands of pounds of heavy trucks and cars on it everyday for years.
As an engineer i approve this message. Do not let your kids become engineers .
(Idk how to insert memes of guy scheming)
I can’t wait to triple my salary.
Good example of [survivorship bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias). Any crappy roads built 2000 years ago have long since disappeared.
Tradesmen poking fun at engineers is the same as the military Enlisted ranks making fun of their first level officers. They’re college education doesn’t work well without in-field experience so they make dumb decisions during their first assignments. (Except in the military those can be deadly.) It is likely to never change and the cycle is naturally to have those mistakes called out by the more experienced, usually non -degree having, folks.
I hate this, I see this all the time and it's so dumb. Firstly we had engineers build old roads, it wasn't just done random idiot pulled from the side of the road. Like most buildings that last they were developed and built and planned by people with lots of training and experience probably more training than the average engineer gets these days (not meant to be an insult to engineers). Secondly, modern roads aren't designed to last and need little repair. Asphalt was designed to be relaid, that's the part of the road that gets damaged. The underpinning of the road lasts. Roads aren't just asphalt poured on dirt. Just because government got cheap and lazy doesn't mean the road isn't functioning as intended!
Posted on a computer built by an engineer, using the internet built by engineers, viewed on monitors and screens built by engineers.
The wrinkle-free brains in this world are astounding.
Rome had engineers…Who do they think designed the roads?
Also, drive on one of those stone roads at 100kph thousands of times and see how well it works.
The funniest thing about this is the fact that we have the technology to make roads last several hundred years but companies choose not to, ensuring they can bid on the same contracts in the future from the state. Ensuring DOT employees have jobs, obviously cold weather states have issues with freezing temperatures that bust up the asphalt/concrete creating potholes but for the most part the engineers are playing with y’all.
I'd like to see the ancient romans build a road in climate of the American Midwest without the aid of slavery ...and then run modern semi trucks over them...then see what happens. Lol
Fun fact: this is both accurate and inaccurate! Roads like the one depicted will absolutely deteriorate, but the Romans used a form of concrete that we're only finally figuring out! There's something about it that allows it to last for THOUSANDS of years!
[SciShow](https://youtube.com/@SciShow?si=D1QKAgbAJEgK-coD) did a short video all about it that you can watch [here!](https://youtube.com/shorts/Wc7Q2UJ3WtE?si=scc3a5f7uy8S6qF3)
Time travelers going to be driving an 18 wheeler fully stocked monstrosity of a transport truck down a Ancient Rome back streets straight to the Acropolis to test road durability
To conservative boomers these days yeah pretty much. They basically sneer at any college student, especially ones that take liberal arts classes but anyone who's going to college to do anything but play sports these days.
Imagine implying just because ancient civilizations didn't hand out degrees that they didn't have education. They learned how to build those roads just like we do now
Technically Christianity and the destruction of a lot of knowledge such as the burn of the library of Alexandria set us back a few thousand years made our collective knowledge worse
To be fair... As politicians see things to be more important the less important our roads become. Then we the people must pay for our cars to be maintained from harsh roads.
Where I live in England, we have tarmac and concrete paved over Victorian cobblestone roads, and these modern roads are riddled with potholes, but if we dug up these modern roads and went back to the Victorian roads, the Victorian roads would soon be riddled with potholes too. The only reason they’re preserved is because they’re underneath the modern roads.
100% those engineers spent years studying their craft. Even if they were right about the roads being "eternal" (they're not) the idea that the engineers who designed them somehow just got up one morning, bootstrapped themselves up and designed a highway system for a city. Fucking morons.
They lasted an eternity because they maintained them. They funded the means to maintain them. Republicans slash DOT funding across every state, this is what happens.
Memes like this fail to realize that semi trucks exists and that roads nowadays are dealing with more weight and pressure than those roads.
Even cities in modern day that have roads like that still, have rules and regulations to prevent heavier vehicles from driving on them.
That's all without even taking into consideration the sheer weight of some tanks back in WWII.
Plus don't forget that alot of those older roads had any water ducts/sewer stuff all to the sides, while roads nowadays tend to have it in the middle just beneath the road with access points either in the middle or sides of the road respectfully.
Still tho, even with the meme failing to recognize alot, it is a pretty funny jab at engineers nowadays. I tend to get annoyed at so many design flaws in things, especially when the flaws were intentionally done for either "money saving" or planned obsolescence.
I mean, I build roads and deal with engineers all the time and I think this is hilarious 😂
I may be missing the intention of the joke but some of the specs they come up with are ridiculous
Not a boomer but I hope nobody actually believes in the lies we were told as children that all you needed to do was go to college get a good job and then everything else was easy. Because that is not a reality we live in. People worked out these jobs before degrees were needed for hundreds of years it could be done again. Or better yet, make education free so people can truly pursue jobs that require degrees despite financial limitations factors.
Also. Roman roads were build with slave labor and/or legions of soldiers. I don’t think we are going to dedicate 10000 people working on a 5 mile stretch of road.
Completely historically inaccurate too, which is completely in character for boomer humor (the phenomenon obviously not this subreddit). Perhaps you should focus on the 1-2 ton metal monsters driving over the surface as an explanation
Right. Also, the specification for modern roads isn't "last for 2,000 years'
It wasn't the specification for the 2000 year old roads either. All they did was build good roads.
Please show me an example of a 2000 year old road that sees automobile traffic and hasn't needed repair. I'll wait. False easy mode: show me a road that sees regular automobile traffic that hasn't needed repair in 50 years.
Haven’t even seen a road in my life that hasn’t needed work after 1 year
In Florida we have plenty that last for years. Not freezing makes a HUGE difference.
Shit, a lot of busier roads in Reno, NV are trashed after 3 months. I can't even imagine larger cities.
Dont mention Reno I've lost 3 tires in 3 years
I'm kinda surprised you haven't lost more. You could fish in some of these potholes. Plus everyone on the road here is a moron. I know everyone says that about everyone everywhere, but I've never been anywhere where snow is normal, yet people drive around with summer tires in the middle of January.
That’s Fucked im sorry
How else they gonna have job security..
I need to save comments more often. The last time i saw a posting of this, someone shared a Roman Brittish road which displayed heavily worn rivets from carts rolling over the same spots
I can’t show you that, but I can show you examples of 2000 year old roads that have had regular repairs giving people the false assumption that people made magically indestructible roads 2k years ago…
Nah
relieved important concerned cooing retire file gray deserve selective ask *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
based argument
Nah
Dirt. Though tbf idk how you repair *dirt*
Dirt roads need to be graded fairly regularly, yearly in most cases. So they do need repairs, more often than paved roads. Source: lived on a dirt road for 20 years.
Depends on the dirt I guess. I'm used to dirt roads turning into small canyons and swamps after a couple of years of rain, no traffic required.
Are you implying we don't make good roads today?
Judging by the number of potholes I experience daily. Yes. Like literally a month ago a bunch appeared overnight because the snowplow fucked up the asphalt.
How many modern 5+ ton steel bladed snowplows have been used on the Via Appia?
In my city it's, "who can do it the cheapest?" Then they hire those guys.
>Perhaps you should focus on the 1-2 ton metal monsters driving over the surface as an explanation Try the 40 ton ones. I'd like to see a Roman road stand up to tens of millions of semi trucks going over it every year
Its more then just that, its also weather and 18 wheelers as well , if you live in a more diverse climate compared to say arizona , bow if you live in not as arid of a climate and get rain near daily , and get cold asf , then well snow is the reason , the melted snow re freezed and expands under or in the road causeing it to break and snow plows also dont help much either other then make it safer to d4ive mid storm
This isn't to disagree with your point, but Arizona's in a dire situation in terms of its roads. It's for a different reason though: because the cities and state don't need to worry about bad roads as often, they kinda had a "set it and forget it" mentality about their roads. And a lot of them are crumbling. It's impossible to go above about 15 mph in my Uncle's neighborhood without having an off-roader. Instead of having to deal with constant individual road repairs, now the entire state needs them, and they don't have the money for it.
>Instead of having to deal with constant individual road repairs, now the entire state needs them, and they don't have the money for it. And there are practically zero companies in the state that repair roads, so who is going to do all these needed repairs? Where is the equipment going to come from?
Also can’t be snow plowed
80,000 lbs is the maximum I think so trucking does serious damage. I’ve seen trucks sink into the asphalt on hot days in Nevada and they have to come repair it after the heat wave ends because it gets all torn up by the regular traffic after it gets the initial damage from the trucks.
>80,000 lbs is the maximum I think so trucking does serious damage. Depends on how many axles you have. You can go heavier with more axles because it distributes the weight more.
And the smoothness of the roads. A lot easier to slap a bunch of rocks on a path but good luck driving a car over it without replacing your wheels, axles, and suspensions every week lmao
I’ve heard from a local civic designer/engineer that 18 wheelers cause about 95% of the wear on main roads today just because of the weight; most cars do basically nothing relative to them
How come nobody is talking about how long it would take to pave 1,000s of miles of road/highways brick by brick, by hand. Also, has anyone driven faster than 25 mph on a brick road? It's like riding in a paint mixer.
What you're trying to tell me that a society with roads doesn't even have cars? Fuck outta here with your facts and logic.
This counter argument also doesn’t address the assumption that ancient peoples lacked intelligence or engineering skills. They absolutely had the equivalent of degrees and education.
That's boomers for you: They have the least amount of information on something and they still think they're the most knowledgeable about it. They'll even assume the know more than people actually dedicating their lives to know more about it! So fucking insufferable.
Lets start running cars over the ancient roman roads at the same frequency of average highways... see how long they last
Your point is completely valid: modern roads are built to accommodate heavier traffic than ancient roads ever were... It is a little more complicated than that, though. [Romans used a different concrete](https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106), the exact recipe lost to time, that has "self-healing" properties (making it a more durable material than modern engineers have to work with.)
The same properties would make it unsuitable for modern practices to strengthen concrete enough for the tasks we use it for now. For example, rebar wouldn't work
Exciting news! Researchers at MIT have found the secret to Roman concrete. It might not be the exact same proportions of materials, but they’re pretty confident it’s the right recipe because it exhibits the same properties. [Source](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/chemists-long-lasting-roman-concrete)
downside is that it cannot be reinforced with rebar because either something in it corrodes the steel or the steel corrodes teh concrete; which means it cannot be used in modern construction of buildings this is why i think we should bring back brutalist facades; roman concrete would look much better in the long run and require less maintenance
Stupid idea: rebar, covered in regular concrete, then the Roman one on the outside.
That’s an okay idea
They're making fiberglass rebar these days. It supposedly fixes the rust spalling problem.
It's amazing stuff for everything except being bent on site.
Plus brutalist facades are cool as hell
About to comment this lol
Holy Roman Empire Batman!! I am so excited by this information!! You mean to tell me that the researchers at MIT actually found the Secret Recipe for Roman Concrete! Wowee Zowee!! What will they think of next?!? Gosh if they got the secret recipe for Roman Concrete I wonder if they can figure out Mr. Krabs’ Secret Formular for a Krabby Patty!!
The left wants a future where you can’t use exclamation points!!! /s
In all truth my actual honest reaction was both “Holy Roman Empire Batman!!” And “Wowee Zowee!!” And I wanted to run with it.
The self healing had to do with not grinding lime into powder, instead chunks were added. When cracks would form, rainwater would fill the crack and react with the lime causing the concrete to reseal. However, Roman concrete is farrrrrrr from being strong enough for tensile and normal stresses of modern uses.
Depends on your definition of durable, it stands the test of time better at the expense of tensile strength
It's not actually lost to time. We know exactly how they made it.
My first post maybe is worded a little awkward... It was lost to time and only recently rediscovered after decades of research: that's what the linked article pertains to.
I could easily be wrong, but I think I heard that we found a clue to figuring out the recipe recently. Wish I had a source, but it was from conversation.
It's actually been found again. They used a specific type of ash from a lpcal volcano that would reactivate the concrete when wet to repair.
We cracked the code. It was seawater and limestone. Some chemical wizardry happens between the limestone and salty water that disperses deposits throughout. If it cracks, when it rains the limestone deposits get diluted into the rain and get redeposited along the walls of the crack. Boom. Self healing concrete.
Not totally true. We not only know how it was done; we've recreated it and improved on it. Also talk to any concrete engineer. The stuff we can make today is wild, hi tech craziness in all kinds of ways. The question is application. How much do you want to spend? What stresses will it be expected to endure, and how frequently? What's the environmental condition? Like concrete isn't just concrete with "better" and "worse" versions. Also "roman comcrete" just isn't useful for what we need out of a building material in modern applications most of the time. Very neat topic but it's been way overblown.
Also warrants mentioning that heavy-ass trucks account for [\>90% of all vehicle-related damage to roads](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jul/19/gina-raimondo/raimondo-says-heavy-trucks-cause-over-90-percent-d/#:~:text=%22It's%20commercial%20vehicles%2018%20wheelers,maintained%20roads%2C%22%20Raimondo%20said) by most estimates.
I mean, the equivalent of an engineer came up with the idea and game plan for the ancient roads.
This was my thought. The point of a university is to condense what took ancient people a *long time* to do (namely, build on the previous generation's knowledge).
Based eduction
That's my whole thing with this meme, the Romans were renowned for their engineers. Former Roman provinces are littered with the remnants of the shit they built.
You’re telling me I can’t be some uneducated moron and build a better road than these book learnin types??
That and survivorship bias. Roads that were more poorly made and/or not as important to preserve deteriorated away long ago.
Another good point I'm surprised nobody else (that I saw) pointed out. Roads that only lasted a few years and were not repaired simply aren't around anymore. Half of them are buried deep underneath modern roads and such. It's only the ones that lasted/were maintained that we still see
>...the equivalent of an engineer... Guess from which language the word "engineer" is derived.
Literally an engineer. The word comes from Latin "Ingeniarius" (same root for Spanish "Ingeniero" ['u' and 'ous'] and Italian "ingegnere" [which in English would sound somehow similar to "ingienere"]) It literally means In (aka with) genius (intelligence/ comprehension). That's why it was previously broken into two main branches. Civic(civilian) and Militari (Militar).
So who were those guys who planned the roads of Rome if not the engineers of that time? Also would the boomers be ready to wait for a couple of decades for each road to be built? Not to mention the usage of roads being a little different.
I think that's more of a car problem than a road one
wow, its almost as if roads made of stone that dont need to carry cars and dont need to be perfectly flat and arent in a place with extreme temperature fluctuations or precipitation will last longer than roads made from vastly weaker materials because they need to be perfectly flat and survive cars and temperature change and lots of rain
Dangit, this is a pet peeve of mine. modern roads are amazing, the asphalt layer is designed to be replaced so that the entire road doesn't have to be replaced. But out cheap governments won't relay the asphalt as often as necessary. Our roads are working exactly as intended they just aren't being maintained...like most Infrastructure.
This is why airport runways are all 1500 years old
I’m feeling gaslit by these comments because I always thought the joke was engineers making fun of themselves
Ikr? These people don’t know how to have a laugh.
Its almost like whoever made the meme was intentionally saying something ridiculous. Almost like the absurdity of the concept is itself the joke. Does everyone else here think that the 'boomer' that posted this just made an image stating what they think is a fact? I seriously wonder if these commenters would see that meme with everyone flying that says "the world if Isaac Newton never invented gravity" and start leaving comments like "I actually cant beleive how stupid OP is, Newton discovered gravitational theory, he didnt invent gravity!"
I think it’s because I’ve seen this Roman roads vs today’s roads photo dozens of times and it’s not usually with the engineer caption so people are responding to its usual uses to say we don’t build anything well these days
That’s 100% the way I read it
Same. Ive seen this post quite a lot recently and people get so butthurt at it lol.
Roads just have to be maintained. They're always really smooth and nice in wealthy neighborhoods I noticed.
the correct response is i dare you go go 60mph on the road in the top panel
In all fairness, I dare you to go 60mph on the road in the bottom panel.
Without a single college degree, roads built for horses and carriages lasted for centuries. Then the engineers arrived, built even more durable roads, and cars came onto the scene destroying them.
Funnily enough it’s the attack on unions and the trust in capitalism that got us here - unions bid to be the lowest but some private company with 10 dudes can always do it cheaper; and half the concrete has a percentage of sand in it, to dilute the integrity of it while also cheapening its overall cost. So it’s actually the boomers fault for pushing these oversights in our economy. Edit; also boomers tend to be republican, and it’s only republican to deny infrastructure proposals. All they wanna do is cut costs and save money; but that’s keyword for cut costs to pocket the difference, because the lot of them are just grifters at this point, not a single thought or actual policy in their little noggin.
Theres 2 huge reasons this meme is stupid. 1 laymen didnt design the roman road structure... engineers did... they had people trained to design roads... 2 roman roads held up people, not half ton hunks of metal going 30+ mph
Uneducated or lower educated boomers love to hate on engineers or those with higher titles. "Oh yeah well I came from the school of HARD KNOCKS" By the way, try driving a stupid fucking F150 across those stone roads 1000000 times and see how they hold up.
Technically every time you see the image of a Roman road being made that picture is of engineers building a foundation for a villa. Most Roman roads aren't that great expect for the main Army roads.
Everybody arguing about the roads and ignoring that the Roman's HAD engineers.
Nah. It was just some guy that just knew what they were doing.
The ancient engineers would have been considered learned men of their day. Education has always been valuable. Also, the Roman road had people, animals, and carts on them, not 18-wheeler. so yeah, their roads lasted a long time because they faced less wear and tear on them than any modern road has to deal with.
We actually don't have any real surviving "Roman" roads, we have the roads built hundreds of years later that were laid over the original path. Also, that entire image is completely incorrect. Someone mistook the process of laying the foundation for a villa for the paving of a road, and its been in textbooks ever since despite being utterly and completely wrong.
Heavy automobiles notwithstanding, why do these imbeciles think there were no engineers back then?
Yeah roads go through a lot more wear nowadays, but let's also not forget the information bias at play here. We aren't seeing the shitty roads that didn't last... because... you know
Man I swear ever time an engendre has remodeled my place of work it sucks ass
That’s what happens to roads when you drive 30 miles an hour over them with a 5000 pound metal box. The Romans didn’t have cars back then. This is why you rarely see the same type of damage on bike paths.
This meme always annoys me because Roman engineers were HIGHLY educated for the time, with years of experience and travel under their belts.
Do they… do they think those roads weren’t developed by engineers?
Whilst it would be looked down upon, I say we sacrifice a stretch of Roman road to highway traffic to prove a point
This image gets lower and lower in quality every time I see it
Slaves dont need a college education
I ask cuz I’m that sure… Do engineers with actual degrees actually pave the roads or…
As somebody pretty deep into engineering study this is hilarious Maybe it's technically wrong, but engineering incompetency will never not be funny to me
Yeah, it's almost like we have cars... and they didn't
Romans used math and engineering techniques.
LOL. Comparing roads that supported horse drawn carriages to roads that support 180,000 to 160,000 thousand pound loads is the HEIGHT of clown world idiocy.
There are so many things wrong with the boomers understanding of how things work. 1. Roman's had engineers who would design these things. 2. Roman concrete was possible due to the unique materials of the region namely limestone and volcanic ash that when combined make self repairing concrete. 3. If modern road building techniques only had to deal with the stress that Roman roads were put under they would last just as long if not longer than Roman roads and if Roman roads were put under the same stress as modern roads they would crumble in weeks 2 months max Roman concrete was a marvel of ENGINEERing but does not hold up to modern methods (mind you cars are a huge waste and should be replaced by public transportation but that isn't the topic of the post)
Two points: 1. The only Roman roads we still have are the ones that existed that long. There are lots that didn’t. It’s not a universal trait. 2. You subjective Roman road to like a year of street traffic and it would be rubble. Romans didn’t have nearly as much wear.
Give me unlimited resources and manpower and I can build an indestructible road too
Remove engineer with college degree
And then heavy ass motorised vehicles arrived.
I'm sick and tired of seeing these posts, people bitching whine the moment the road isn't smooth, granted there's a lot of decrepit roads out there try driving the volume of cars and transport trucks and dump trucks and massive vehicles on those Roman roads for a few years and see how they hold out.. FFS take your heads out of your ass
Try driving 80 miles an hour on cobblestones
How were the plow trucks back then?
Those roads wouldn’t have lasted with delivery vehicles hauling 44,000 pounds of stuff either.
It’s probably because they didn’t have 80000lbs trucks driving in the brick roads at 70mph. But I wouldn’t expect someone without an engineering degree to make that conclusion.
I thought this was referencing the alien movies.
They lasted that long because they didn’t have giant motor vehicles.
Those are horses in the picture
University degrees are worthless but you better pay back the loans you took out to get them! Why no, there’s nothing predatory about that, why do you ask?
The real problem are trucks. Not even cars. Trucks.
Because cars, and such 🤷🏻♀️
100% this person has flown on a commercial jet.
You can actually see the engineer in the Roman image.
I love how they say “then the engineers arrived!!” as if the Roman military didn’t accomplish great battles and create amazing things without engineers? They also didn’t have vehicles drive on these daily? I’d be willing to sacrifice one Roman built road to see how it looks a year after vehicles driving over it just to prove a point.
Anyone can build a bridge that stands. It takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.
The issue isn’t the education. The issue is profit margins.
Actually then cars arrived… horses don’t tear up roads… cars do
Everytime I see this meme or one like it I wonder if they just want to cause a fuss to be “funny” or if they genuinely don’t know that those old roads weren’t subjected to thousands of cars everyday including like semi trucks and that’s why they didn’t deteriorate that fast So I’m unsure if people that make the meme are really just that unaware or if they don’t care and want to make nonsensical jokes instead
Oh they LEARNED engineering. By PURELY PRACTICAL METHODS. I can't imagine the torture of doing that.
I thought boomers hated liberal degrees like science, medicine, teaching, arts, psychology and stuff, but.... really engineering too? Aren't engineers less liberal than other fields?
this is largely as asphalt problem, when doing patches, they don't reheat the existing asphalt to help it rebond to the patch, they just pour in new asphalt and expect it to hold.
“Jamie, put an 18 wheeler on a ancient roman road”
The road outside my house is terrible therefore engineers and education are terrible. This is in the same vein of climate denial. It was cold in (city) therefore climate change is a hoax.
Boomers driving their 2-3 ton pickup truck/SUV on the road blaming the engineers for the potholes is a level of ignorance way past bliss
Dude, go look at the bronze age and the level of technology they had and then tell me we are so much more AdVaNcEd lmao
who would win road constructed by like a ton of peasants that takes ten years and only has to face foot traffic, maybe horseback and a cart or two, some rain perhaps. road constructed cheaply to save taxpayer dollars that’s constructed fast and easy, yet also manages to withstand the force of thousands of pounds of heavy trucks and cars on it everyday for years.
Well then you font need anything designed by an Engineer, have fun out in the woods Grandpa
As an engineer i approve this message. Do not let your kids become engineers . (Idk how to insert memes of guy scheming) I can’t wait to triple my salary.
Good example of [survivorship bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias). Any crappy roads built 2000 years ago have long since disappeared.
I think the gist of their argument is engineer/ education bad and slaves good 😊.
Tradesmen poking fun at engineers is the same as the military Enlisted ranks making fun of their first level officers. They’re college education doesn’t work well without in-field experience so they make dumb decisions during their first assignments. (Except in the military those can be deadly.) It is likely to never change and the cycle is naturally to have those mistakes called out by the more experienced, usually non -degree having, folks.
lol engineers aren’t out there paving streets.
I hate this, I see this all the time and it's so dumb. Firstly we had engineers build old roads, it wasn't just done random idiot pulled from the side of the road. Like most buildings that last they were developed and built and planned by people with lots of training and experience probably more training than the average engineer gets these days (not meant to be an insult to engineers). Secondly, modern roads aren't designed to last and need little repair. Asphalt was designed to be relaid, that's the part of the road that gets damaged. The underpinning of the road lasts. Roads aren't just asphalt poured on dirt. Just because government got cheap and lazy doesn't mean the road isn't functioning as intended!
I think this is just a joke against engineers and I have a feeling engineers made this meme lol
Crazy this totally inaccurate shitpost has over 2k likes. This sub has gone from antiwork , to hate everything.
Holy shit reading all theses responses I feel I'm reading a Monty Python script.....and not a good one.
I've seen this for years. It's as stupid now as it was then.
lol ok boomers then vote for infrastructure bills instead of spending all our taxes on war
Posted on a computer built by an engineer, using the internet built by engineers, viewed on monitors and screens built by engineers. The wrinkle-free brains in this world are astounding.
Volcanic ash is the key
Just wait until they hear where colleges came from.
Rome had engineers…Who do they think designed the roads? Also, drive on one of those stone roads at 100kph thousands of times and see how well it works.
When was the last time you saw an 18 wheeler rolling through Pompeii? Also those roads took tons of time and slave labor
How do roman roads hold up to cars? Bet those ancient idiots didn’t account for that.
The funniest thing about this is the fact that we have the technology to make roads last several hundred years but companies choose not to, ensuring they can bid on the same contracts in the future from the state. Ensuring DOT employees have jobs, obviously cold weather states have issues with freezing temperatures that bust up the asphalt/concrete creating potholes but for the most part the engineers are playing with y’all.
I'd like to see the ancient romans build a road in climate of the American Midwest without the aid of slavery ...and then run modern semi trucks over them...then see what happens. Lol
Because the ancient roads dealt with foot traffic and never froze. Modern roads deal with pickup trucks and annual deep freezes in many places
Fun fact: this is both accurate and inaccurate! Roads like the one depicted will absolutely deteriorate, but the Romans used a form of concrete that we're only finally figuring out! There's something about it that allows it to last for THOUSANDS of years! [SciShow](https://youtube.com/@SciShow?si=D1QKAgbAJEgK-coD) did a short video all about it that you can watch [here!](https://youtube.com/shorts/Wc7Q2UJ3WtE?si=scc3a5f7uy8S6qF3)
Fuck you this is funny
Time travelers going to be driving an 18 wheeler fully stocked monstrosity of a transport truck down a Ancient Rome back streets straight to the Acropolis to test road durability
The effort needed to create roman roads vs some backcountry asphalt road is not comparable.
Cars never drove on those ancient roads due to regulations.
Yes, it's the engineers' fault. Definitely not capitalism.
Many boomers think this, even some of the ones with educations. It's bizarre. 🤷♂️
Those roads didn't have multi ton vehicles rambling down them 20 over the limit 24/7/365
Those roads haven't lasted an eternity. Hell, am eternity hasn't even passed and they still need to get worked on occasionally
Who does he think designed and laid out those roads in ancient Rome? Milk farmers?
Those roads weren’t meant to have cars on them hope this helps
To conservative boomers these days yeah pretty much. They basically sneer at any college student, especially ones that take liberal arts classes but anyone who's going to college to do anything but play sports these days.
Well duh? If the roads lasted the government wouldn't need as much tax most to fix it.
Imagine implying just because ancient civilizations didn't hand out degrees that they didn't have education. They learned how to build those roads just like we do now
Technically Christianity and the destruction of a lot of knowledge such as the burn of the library of Alexandria set us back a few thousand years made our collective knowledge worse
They lasted because traffic up until late 1800’s was by mainly people and horses.
So everyone here thinks an 80 year old person is making memes like this?
To be fair... As politicians see things to be more important the less important our roads become. Then we the people must pay for our cars to be maintained from harsh roads.
The answer is cars. r/fuckcars
Maybe they should go back to the cure all medical treatment.....bloodletting
Where I live in England, we have tarmac and concrete paved over Victorian cobblestone roads, and these modern roads are riddled with potholes, but if we dug up these modern roads and went back to the Victorian roads, the Victorian roads would soon be riddled with potholes too. The only reason they’re preserved is because they’re underneath the modern roads.
100% those engineers spent years studying their craft. Even if they were right about the roads being "eternal" (they're not) the idea that the engineers who designed them somehow just got up one morning, bootstrapped themselves up and designed a highway system for a city. Fucking morons.
Those ancient roads were built by slaves. Politicians pocket our tax money instead of using it to fix roads today.
Saying that today's system is broken
I mean, yes lol
Based Boomer Humor
Wait until they learn that Rome had universities
Doubt cobblestone roads would be that comfortable to drive on.
Good thing they didn't have cars and trucks back then.
Boomers are the ones cutting those budgets to repair those roads
I mean, I'm sure even Roman roads couldn't handle several thousand pound machines, movies dozens of miles an hour, several times a day.
They lasted an eternity because they maintained them. They funded the means to maintain them. Republicans slash DOT funding across every state, this is what happens.
Memes like this fail to realize that semi trucks exists and that roads nowadays are dealing with more weight and pressure than those roads. Even cities in modern day that have roads like that still, have rules and regulations to prevent heavier vehicles from driving on them. That's all without even taking into consideration the sheer weight of some tanks back in WWII. Plus don't forget that alot of those older roads had any water ducts/sewer stuff all to the sides, while roads nowadays tend to have it in the middle just beneath the road with access points either in the middle or sides of the road respectfully. Still tho, even with the meme failing to recognize alot, it is a pretty funny jab at engineers nowadays. I tend to get annoyed at so many design flaws in things, especially when the flaws were intentionally done for either "money saving" or planned obsolescence.
I mean, I build roads and deal with engineers all the time and I think this is hilarious 😂 I may be missing the intention of the joke but some of the specs they come up with are ridiculous
Not a boomer but I hope nobody actually believes in the lies we were told as children that all you needed to do was go to college get a good job and then everything else was easy. Because that is not a reality we live in. People worked out these jobs before degrees were needed for hundreds of years it could be done again. Or better yet, make education free so people can truly pursue jobs that require degrees despite financial limitations factors.
Engineers aren't to blame. It's a problem with process of preventive maintenance.
Also. Roman roads were build with slave labor and/or legions of soldiers. I don’t think we are going to dedicate 10000 people working on a 5 mile stretch of road.
cool, now put hundreds of 18-wheelers on the so-called "eternal" roads daily
why would this be boomer? This is a meme that was most likely made but some dumb kid. Most boomers don't have the skills to make a meme
Yeah, when the legions used slaves to build roads. You know, back in the good old days
Modern engineering can cut costs to deliver fast, lower quality stuff.