Samo Burja: Why civilizations fail; lost technologies, failure to teach and social technologies.

“So let's talk a little bit about how great founder theory turns into institutions, right? So you have a leader at the top that has a vision, they are able to bring together a group of people to start enacting that vision. But the way it turns into an institution is if they find a way to pass on both the explicit and the implicit knowledge... what about all those things that you can't possibly write down.”

“I think about this in the challenge of a lot of the industry groups that have come up, particularly in agriculture. The challenge that they have is the people that were there to build the original institution... may not have the skills from within to be able to make the organization adaptable enough to change. But then also going outside brings in a new problem because now you may actually be changing the core focus or vision of the group.”

“Roman concrete was made with volcanic ash in a specific mix that allowed it to endure seawater very well... modern concrete, well, it just erodes and crumbles over time. They only recently recreated a recipe that has some of the same formula.”