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Safehold Oil and Gas Industry

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: Safehold Oil and Gas Industry
Post by Keith_w   » Wed Jul 13, 2016 6:54 am

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Peter2 wrote:
PeterZ wrote:
[snip]

As to how easily the interface might be recognized, I think even that might be adjusted to become less obvious. The issue is that Merlin would prefer NOT to have Safeholdians rely in Terran Fed tech. He wants to firmly establish a culture of innovation on Safehold. The best way to do that is to instill in as many people as possible the mindset that supports the scientific method and then the habits to test their ideas and assumptions.

Afterall the Gbaba still had a sufficient advantage to doom the Terran Federation. Safehold needs to develop technology beyond the TF to defeat the Gbaba. They can't do that with all the NEATs in the world but no innovation. They might be able to with sufficient innovation but no NEATs. The best chance is if they had both. Getting NEATs too early would reduce Safehold's ability to innovate.


That's an excellent point, and absolutely true, in my opinion. There are not a huge number of people who actually enjoy thinking and theorising according to the facts (rather than daydreaming).
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There are actually very few people in each generation that actually innovate. That is, come up with something completely new. The rest of us are just here to support them.
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A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
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Re: Safehold Oil and Gas Industry
Post by PeterZ   » Wed Jul 13, 2016 8:11 am

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Its the rest of us supporting the innovators that will take longest. Safehold as a society needs to value innovators. They need to implement those societal incentives that reward innovation rather tva punish it. The best example comes from something Irys said. In comparing Charis and Corisande she asserts that in Corisande innovative is a pajorative.

So easy access to NEATs will simply make the massive technological leaps appear like magic rather than the fruits from the thoughtful consideration of the guy accros town you play baseball with. That initial process has to be easy to follow and generate mental comments like "why didn't I think of that?"
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Re: Safehold Oil and Gas Industry
Post by Weird Harold   » Wed Jul 13, 2016 1:54 pm

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PeterZ wrote:So easy access to NEATs will simply make the massive technological leaps appear like magic rather than the fruits from the thoughtful consideration of the guy accros town you play baseball with. That initial process has to be easy to follow and generate mental comments like "why didn't I think of that?"


NEAT interfaces aren't required to guide innovation; Merlin has been guiding innovation from day one. As people are added to the inner circle, even more "guided innovation" is happening.

Feed hints to selected innovators for the technologies you want developed and divert technologies you would rather weren't developed. A combination of propaganda, taxation, and in a very few cases, Imperial Edict can guide social acceptance or rejection of technologies.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

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Re: Safehold Oil and Gas Industry
Post by PeterZ   » Wed Jul 13, 2016 2:06 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:
NEAT interfaces aren't required to guide innovation; Merlin has been guiding innovation from day one. As people are added to the inner circle, even more "guided innovation" is happening.

Feed hints to selected innovators for the technologies you want developed and divert technologies you would rather weren't developed. A combination of propaganda, taxation, and in a very few cases, Imperial Edict can guide social acceptance or rejection of technologies.


Totally agree. However, I wasn't referring to technologies, but innovation. There is always some guy that thinks out of the box. Will he be the eccentric shunned by his neighbors or the visionary people seek out for advice?

Turning that guy from the eccentric that he would be in Corisande to the admired visionary he might be in Charis everywhere on Safehold will be a long and difficult road. Until that step has been taken, useful innovations themselves will be seen at best a necessary evil not the unmitigated blessing they truly are. The process of change will be embraced rather than feared.
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Re: Safehold Oil and Gas Industry
Post by Randomiser   » Wed Jul 13, 2016 5:01 pm

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PeterZ, I'm all for innovation in most circumstances, but it has been rare for anyone to regard 'useful innovations' as being 'unmitigated blessings' since sometime in the Edwardian era. Say about 1914 ... ?

In fact, people being what they are, it's pretty hard to think of any useful innovations which are 'truly unmitigated blessings', never mind assuming they all are. Something like vaccination probably comes closest, but even those sometimes have potentially serious side effects.

On the whole innovations are extremely positive but there is often some downside - how many buggy-whip manufacturers do you know and are you sure the younger members of your family aren't sexting right now?
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Re: Safehold Oil and Gas Industry
Post by PeterZ   » Wed Jul 13, 2016 5:20 pm

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Randomizer,

We are after all talking about innovations in Safehold. I suspect that Safeholdians will be thinking and talking about ideas in a religious context for a few generations yet. Whether before or after the Great Reveal, religion will be a central theme for quite some time.

That being true and unavoidable, it would be prudent for The Good GuysTM to move Safeholdians in general to begin thinking in terms of innovations being a blessing. Preferably good innovations would be seen as unmitigated blessings to any and all Safeholdians.
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Re: Safehold Oil and Gas Industry
Post by Keith_w   » Wed Jul 13, 2016 8:32 pm

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Famously, even innovators can fail to see the strength of innovations. Ken Olsen, founder of Digital equipment, when talking about PCs, asked "Who'd want a computer in their house?". IBM's Thomas Watson thought there might be a market for 6 or 7 computers. Neither suspected how much computers would change our lives. And sometimes, like Edison, they have too much invested in one innovation that they fail to acknowledge the utility of a competing innovation.
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A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
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Re: Safehold Oil and Gas Industry
Post by n7axw   » Wed Jul 13, 2016 11:21 pm

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Peter2 wrote:
PeterZ wrote:
[snip]

As to how easily the interface might be recognized, I think even that might be adjusted to become less obvious. The issue is that Merlin would prefer NOT to have Safeholdians rely in Terran Fed tech. He wants to firmly establish a culture of innovation on Safehold. The best way to do that is to instill in as many people as possible the mindset that supports the scientific method and then the habits to test their ideas and assumptions.

Afterall the Gbaba still had a sufficient advantage to doom the Terran Federation. Safehold needs to develop technology beyond the TF to defeat the Gbaba. They can't do that with all the NEATs in the world but no innovation. They might be able to with sufficient innovation but no NEATs. The best chance is if they had both. Getting NEATs too early would reduce Safehold's ability to innovate.


That's an excellent point, and absolutely true, in my opinion. There are not a huge number of people who actually enjoy thinking and theorising according to the facts (rather than daydreaming).
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I wonder if you will find teams of Safeholden scientists solving problems in virtual reality in compressed time the way it happened in the final days of the TF...

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Safehold Oil and Gas Industry
Post by Weird Harold   » Wed Jul 13, 2016 11:35 pm

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n7axw wrote:I wonder if you will find teams of Safeholden scientists solving problems in virtual reality in compressed time the way it happened in the final days of the TF...

Don

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Nahrman has already started that. It just depends on how many people Merlin or Nimue mind-strip on their deathbeds how big the virtual council becomes.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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