r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Nov 03 '19

Chemistry Scientists replaced 40 percent of cement with rice husk cinder, limestone crushing waste, and silica sand, giving concrete a rubber-like quality, six to nine times more crack-resistant than regular concrete. It self-seals, replaces cement with plentiful waste products, and should be cheaper to use.

https://newatlas.com/materials/rubbery-crack-resistant-cement/
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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '19

I mean, the other drawback is that their concrete is absurdly more expensive. We can reproduce concrete like that to stay around for thousands of years, but we don’t because it’s expensive and we don’t need our buildings to stick around for that long.

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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '19

In fact most investors will choose the cheapest least lasting option available. Because money

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u/FeculentUtopia Nov 04 '19

That's why the rest of us need to take the decisions that guide the development of our civilization away from investors.

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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '19

Agreed. But how?

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u/danielravennest Nov 04 '19

The end point of capitalism will be to replace all the workers with automation. All those unemployed people will no longer be able to buy the products made that way, and the capitalists will go broke.

Instead, people will work for themselves, as individuals or through cooperatives. When you do things for yourself, you tend to do it better.

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u/FeculentUtopia Nov 06 '19

You got me there. We had that down for a little while here in the US, a few decades where tax rates were high enough and finance regulations strict enough that the rich just couldn't get super rich, but we know how that turned out. I can imagine a global government or an alliance of the world's richest nations passing world-spanning FDR style regulations, but the nations of the world are so easily turned against each other that I not only can't see that happening, I can't even believe the world's governments will ever even talk about it.