[Leica] Walls that work

[spencer at aotera.org (Spencer Cheng)]

On Jan 4, 2010, at 17:10, Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:
> Actually some walls work very well. The Great Wall worked to keep Mongols
> out of China for several hundred years. Hadrian's wall kept what is now
> England from speaking Norwegian or Celtic. The Israeli wall is given credit
> for significantly reducing raids on Israel. The Maginot Line would have
> worked if the guns could have been pointed towards Belgium. The only wall
> that didn't work in recent years is Wall Street. ;-)

OK, OK. "Walls never work for long". :)

The raison d'etre for a wall (in human terms) is to keep people on the less 
desirable side from the desirable side. The only problem is that walls are 
static barriers. Humans are really good at going around/through obstacles. 
It's a survival trait.

The Chinese solved the problem ultimately by absorbing the invaders 
(Mongols, Manchus) into it's gene pool rather than relying on the very 
expensive Great Wall. Much more effective than any wall when one has time 
and a very large populace.

Regards,
Spencer