• gustofwind@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Modern cement isn’t inferior at all and reinforced cement is an extremely advanced technology that enables structures Roman cement could never work for

    Modern cement could also last a lot longer than it already does if the public was willing to pay for it but most projects run at minimal cost

    • hakase@lemmy.zip
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      9 days ago

      You can’t reinforce cement - it’s already as hard as we can get it without Roman technology. Are you talking about, like, Roman legion reinforcements? Because I don’t think we’ll master time travel until we at least get usable fusion power online.

      It’s true that it looks like most modern public projects are underfunded, but that’s mostly because all roads already lead to Rome so most of the cement work is already done for us.

        • hakase@lemmy.zip
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          9 days ago

          Unfortunately, the only cement mix we have is the bastardized one handed down to us from Emperor Concretius, but that dates from after Rome had become a sea power, and consequently lost their ability to maintain their characteristically hard public erections.

          And we’re lucky to even have that! While it would certainly be nice to have the ability to bless our erections with the near-supernatural potency of our forebears, I highly doubt that we’ll ever be able to get as hard as the Romans were in the foreseeable future.