What is the path to electricity?

That strikes me as much harder to do. One of the differences between Safehold religion and Earth religions is that so much of the Writ is empirically provable.

Trying to get people to reject something they learned in childhood in its totality is already almost impossible. Add to that the force of reason. Anyone can see that if you violate Pasquale's rules about sewage disposal and taking limes on sea voyages you will be punished by plagues and rotting gums.

My money is still on a, b, c, or d;

A) a new technology that earth history passed over = best path to trumping the Ghaba...

B) the whole series us a possibly failed VR experiment to out invent the Ghaba with more time and with Merlin inserted to try to put it back on path...

C) or the Ghaba are going to show up and wipe us out before we reverse Langhorne's mistake, the proscriptions, and invent electricity...

Or D) with all the real work getting done by hardworking Safeholdians maybe they don't need power and will skip the 19XXs and invent chemical diamond making and light printing and jump straight to light based computing and fiberobtics with chemical based lasers... I'm sure Paityr will sign off on it all as some sort of advanced semaphore - even if it needs line of site for wireless (call it tubeless optics) with infrared

Expert snuggler wrote:That strikes me as much harder to do. One of the differences between Safehold religion and Earth religions is that so much of the Writ is empirically provable.

I think you are overestimating the relevance of reason to most people's beliefs.

EDIT: Emotional appeals are generally stronger. (And I'm not referring specifically to religion but ideologies, worldviews, beliefs of all sorts.)

SWM wrote:No believer (which is basically everone who does not know the Truth) will accept a violation of an explicit Proscription like electricity, under any circumstances.

That seems overly strong.

I'll certainly believe that the population at large, or at least a large enough portion to make introducing electricity impossible in practice at this point, would absolutely oppose it - that seems clear enough from what RFC has posted.

But Safehold must have plenty of people who are either willing to violate their beliefs for material gain, or give lip service to their religion but don't really deep-down believe or care.

Huge chunks of the Church power structure have no trouble violating doctrine for personal gain.

Oh, yes, emotion trumps reason. What makes things so difficult for Safehold is that the two are reinforcing each other to make belief in the Writ unshakable. Also, since SWM raised the point of the CoGA being different from every Earth religion, it made sense to zero in on one of the differences.

If the path to electricity requires blowing up faith in the Writ first, there's a long path before the general population would believe or even tolerate the Reveal.

Chemically pumped laser semaphores ... I like the idea. Bandwidth could be higher than you might expect. Imagine modulating the beam with punched tape or a Jacquard-card controlled mirror, and some kind of photographic pickup.

cralkhi wrote:

SWM wrote:No believer (which is basically everone who does not know the Truth) will accept a violation of an explicit Proscription like electricity, under any circumstances.

That seems overly strong.

I'll certainly believe that the population at large, or at least a large enough portion to make introducing electricity impossible in practice at this point, would absolutely oppose it - that seems clear enough from what RFC has posted.

But Safehold must have plenty of people who are either willing to violate their beliefs for material gain, or give lip service to their religion but don't really deep-down believe or care.

This is probably true. But you are not talking only about religious belief. You are talking about custom and social consensus. Right now on Safehold, social consensus, religious belief and custom are all powerfully reinforcing each other. What this means is that even those who don't find church or belief in God appealing would find themselves bound by taboos on certain behavior and feel compelled to at least minimal observance lest they find themselves shunned by their neighbors or in trouble with the law.

The only place where that is starting to change at this point is in Old Charis where innovation and change is becoming increasingly acceptable, especially given how instrumental it has been in enabling Charis to survive. Even there for most things to be accepted by society as a whole it is still necessary to get an attestation that what is being proposed will not violate the proscriptions.

Long after the proscriptions no longer have the force of law, they will live on as an inhibiting factor in people's minds. Changing that will be a multigenerational process. All that can really be done is chip away at it a little bit at a time.

Don

SWM wrote: Amber and fur can produce quite shocking amounts of static electricity. Safehold certainly knows of the existence of static electricity in situations not associated with storms.

The Proscriptions go into such details about electricity specifically because it is so easy to accidentally discover. The problem is not getting the general populace used to the concept of electricity--the problem is convincing them that it is not a holy symbol of the power of Langhorne.

It would not surprise me greatly if RFC had up his sleeve a few reserve terms like "Langhorne's Touch" or "Langhorne's Warning" showing up in popular usage to describe static electricity. It would be yet another of his devious mechanisms to slap down all of our recurrent speculation on the subject - after the fact.

SWM wrote:

Annachie wrote:I may have missed something, but there wpuldn't be that much in Safehold technologies prior to the schism that would generate static electricity would there?
And what does occur would be storm related aka the Anger of Schuler or whomever.
Point being, no easy way to get the general populace used to the concept of electrickery.

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You have missed something. The ancient Greeks knew about static electricity over 2500 years ago. It is quite simple to create static electricity. Amber and fur can

Kind of my point.
Things like amber and fur are a deliberate act. A clear intent to violate the perscriptions. Unless of course you brush your fury pets with an amber brush.

There's little or no common casual accidental way for a Safeholdian person to experience static electricity. No cheap poly carpets and door knobs. No rickety shopping trolleys. No nothing that I can think of.


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Annachie wrote:Kind of my point.
Things like amber and fur are a deliberate act. A clear intent to violate the perscriptions. Unless of course you brush your fury pets with an amber brush.

There's little or no common casual accidental way for a Safeholdian person to experience static electricity. No cheap poly carpets and door knobs. No rickety shopping trolleys. No nothing that I can think of.


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But you miss the point that the Greeks accidentally discovered electricity 2500 years ago. They didn't have carpets and doorknobs either. There are a lot more ways to accidentally generate static electricity than you realize. It does not require modern materials. Common primitive materials are just as good at accidentally creating static electricity as your polyester carpets. Take wool, fur, quartz, leather, or lead, and rub it against (or even just bring it into extended contact with) amber, nickel, copper, brass, silver, or gold, and you will generate static electricity. It can happen accidentally very easily.

And in any case, it doesn't matter. The people of Safehold don't have to accidentally discover static electricity. The Writ tells them about it! The Writ is quite explicit and detailed, so that everyone would recognize electricity if they saw it. The Writ almost certainly describes how to generate static electricity, so that the Inquisition can identify it. The Inquisition isn't going to hunt down every accidental shock people get putting on their clothes. But the Writ probably tells people that those shocks are a constant reminder that Langhorne is watching them.

I want nice, furry pets. I don't want the fury of an angry pet!

Annachie wrote:Things like amber and fur are a deliberate act. A clear intent to violate the perscriptions. Unless of course you brush your fury pets with an amber brush.