Have people been doing hard things for millennia, or

A) people overstate how difficult a task was and through the lens of history we think it was actually difficult, or

B) they literally enslaved or conscripted people into doing the hard work , or

C) each individual contributor actually felt like they had a stake in tackling the difficult problem, instead of our current tragedy of the commons where it’s far easier and cheaper for individuals to act as though there’s no issue