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Patrick Collison has a fantastic list of examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together since the 19th Century. It does make you yearn for a time that feels... different, when the lethargic behemoths of government departments could move at the speed of a racing startup:  

[...] last century, [the Department of Defense] innovated at a speed that puts modern Silicon Valley startups to shame: the Pentagon was built in only 16 months (1941–1943), the Manhattan Project ran for just over 3 years (1942–1946), and the Apollo Program put a man on the moon in under a decade (1961–1969). In the 1950s alone, the United States built five generations of fighter jets, three generations of manned bombers, two classes of aircraft carriers, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and nuclear-powered attack submarines.

[Note: that paragraph is from a different post.]

Inspired by partly by Patrick's list, I spent some of my vacation reading and learning about various projects from this Lost Age. I then wrote up a memo to share highlights and excerpts with my colleagues at Lightcone.

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BpTDJj6TrqGYTjFcZ/a-golden-age-of-building-excerpts-and-lessons-from-empire

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