[brown9-2]

I argue these are all things our society today would simply not be able to do if placed in the same circumstances. We are less effective.

What is this based on? Our society today is still capable of great accomplishments - look at what Google has built in 10 years, the amount of knowledge organized there.

I would argue that we seem to be able to accomplish less because as a society our ambitions are smaller. Large government programs get nowhere today because everyone fears socialism.

[drumdance]

That, and there really are constraints now that did not exist then. Building a dam back then did not require environmental impact statements and the like.