[TML] Movement of skills and knowledge. Re: Firefly, wait no it is a Subsidized Merchant ship.

[Knapp]

On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 3:28 AM, Jerry W Barrington
<jerry.barrington at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/30/08 8:58 PM, "Knapp" <magick.crow at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  > The biggest on Earth now is 15,200 containers at a size of 6 × 2.6 ×
>  > 2.6 metres. (wikipedia) with a future size of 18,000 being the max so
>  > far. The limits seem to be engines and props for the ships.
>
>  Actually, from what I read the max is primarily determined by the size ship
>  that will fit through the Strait of Malacca, the busiest shipping lane on
>  Earth.
>
>
>  > That would translate into something really big in space for trips
>  > between really big pop planets in high tech areas, provided there is a
>  > reason for trade. Maybe the reasons could be about special learnings
>  > and plants to make special types of products.

>  And as for special learning...  it only takes a book or 1 person to carry
>  knowledge from world to world.  :)  And with Tech level 12+, I can't really
>  se any plant products being un-synthesizable.

Books are not so good for bringing knowledge from place to place, if
they were that good we would not have Universities or for that matter
grade schools.

One person might be better but still there are not that many high tech
products that I can think of where one person can make the whole
thing. You mostly need teams of well trained people to do the job.
Then there are trade secretes, great artist, brand names/reputations.
Given two cars to pick from, how many are going to pick the Toyota
over the Lamborghini, even if it had better specs?

Then you have the play of a great group of engineres and artists that
work well together with the backing of a great company. Hard to beat.

To keep this going you need to have a vast pool of teacher that have
this knowledge and even more important the skills to use it well. You
can't build this sort of team with ease. If you could, why would China
be sending it's people to MIT to learn, why not just buy the books or
bring over one person?

I only way I can see you catching me in this is that knowledge in the
imperium is old, and I would guess, easy to get.

-- 
Douglas E Knapp
http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page