That's a quote that sounds great until, say, that self-built building by somebody who's neither engineer nor architect at best turns out to have some intractible design flaw and at worst collapses and kills people.
It's also a quote from a character who's literally immortal and so has all the time in the world to learn things, which really undermines the premise.
I would like to replay with another quote by another immortal(or long lived) character, Professor „Reg“ Chronotis from Douglas Adams:
"That I lived so much longer, just means, that I forgot much more, not that I know much more."
Memory might have a limited capacity, but of course, I doubt most humans use that capacity, or well, for useful things. I know I have plenty of useless knowledge ..
I sort of view that list as table stakes for a well rounded capable person.. Well barring the invasion bit. Then again, being familiar with guns and or other forms of self defense is valuable.
I think most farmers would be somewhat capable on most of that list. Equations for farm production. Programming tractor equipment. Setting bones. Giving and taking orders. Building houses and barns.
Building a single story building isn’t that difficult, but time consuming. Especially nowadays with YouTube videos and pre-planned plans.
I'm not saying that our ancestors were wrong. Hell, I live in a house that was originally built under similar conditions.
That being said, buildings collapse a lot less frequently these days. House fires happen at a lower rate. Insulation was either nonexistent or present in much lower quantities.
I guess the point I'm making is that the lesson here shouldn't be "we used to make our houses, why don't we go back to that?" It also shouldn't be "we should leave every task to a specialist."
Know how to maintain and fix the things around your house that are broken. You don't need a plumber to replace the flush valve on your toilet. But maybe don't try to replace a load-bearing joist in your house unless you know what you're doing? The people building their own homes weren't engineers, but they had a lot more carpentry experience than (I assume) you and I.
>If a house builder built a house for a man but did not secure/fortify his work so that the house he built collapsed and caused the death of the house owner, that house builder will be executed.
If even professionals did get it wrong so often that there had to be law for it... Yeah, maybe it is not that simple.
In a village most houses were built by their owners. I am not talking here about nicely decorated brick buildings in a city: they were obviously designed and built by professionals.
> That is exactly how our ancestors built houses. Also a traditional wooden house doesn't look complicated.
The only homes built by our ancestors that you see are those that didn't collapsed and killed whoever was inside, burned down, were too unstable to live in, were too much of a burden to maintain and keep around, etc.
That’s…not what I asked. Y’all need to recognize that Darwinism was intended as an explanatory theory, not as an ethos. And it’s not how we judge building practices.
Honestly having gone through the self build process for a house it’s not that hard if you keep it simple. Habitat for humanity has some good learning material
It's also a quote from a character who's literally immortal and so has all the time in the world to learn things, which really undermines the premise.