Slow

Relationship to “Fast” and Intentional Slowness

• Many see the post as a deliberate counterpoint to popular celebrations of “fast” projects, noting that speed pieces can feel dismissive of teams that move slowly on purpose.
• Others argue the original “fast” essay only attacked waste and incompetence, not thoughtful slowness.
• Several commenters stress the distinction between projects that must be slow (because nature, generations, or data require it) and those that are merely mismanaged or over-bureaucratized.

Examples of Long-Term Projects

• Strong appreciation for scientific “slow” work: Framingham Heart Study, LIGO, long-term evolution experiments, the pitch drop, the cosmic distance ladder, domestication experiments, and Voyager probes.
• Cathedrals, Sagrada Família, Notre-Dame reconstruction, bonsai, and Japanese temples rebuilt every few decades are cited as deliberate multi-generational art/architecture.
• Long-running intellectual projects like The Art of Computer Programming, dictionaries, encyclopedias, niche academic subfields, and language evolution are seen as paradigmatic slow endeavors.
• Some tech systems (Unix time, TCP/IP, C, Fortran, SQLite, Linux, Wikipedia, Bitcoin) are discussed as “Lindy” technologies likely to persist, though there’s debate over whether modifications (IPv6, QUIC, 64‑bit time) count as replacement or continuity.

Governance, Infrastructure, and Dysfunction

• The Second Avenue Subway is widely criticized as an example of needless delay and extreme cost driven by politics, over-regulation, scope creep, and decision paralysis rather than inherent difficulty.
• Comparisons to historical projects (e.g., Alaska Highway) raise safety, eminent domain, and context differences.
• Discussion branches into democracies’ short electoral cycles versus autocracies’ capacity for long-term planning; some argue detailed long-horizon planning is futile given “black swans,” others say institutions like NASA can carry cross-administration goals.

Meaning, Motivation, and Human Time Horizons

• Commenters celebrate slow mathematical work (Collatz, antihydra halting problem) and the idea of becoming an expert in tiny niches over decades.
• Multi-generational stories (Oxford beams, long-lived forests, seed vaults) spark debate over whether they are literally true, but many value them as parables about stewardship.
• Several note that pride in sustained work (not ego) can be a robust source of happiness, yet warn about the dangers of tying identity to transient abilities.