The land quality of the area is such that most who lived there would only be able to live subsistence-style lives.
That makes more sense, yeah.
It’s not like even if I had technical schematics that stealing them would do any good: they didn’t HAVE technical schematics in those days… If you can’t tell the difference between the kind of knowledge that comprises technical competence and the kind of knowledge that comprises awareness of technical competence...
You are compartmentalizing the facts too much, and missing the bigger picture. Put yourself into the shoes of your ambitious, greedy and moderately smart neighbour—let’s call him Avaritus. He knows that you have begun extracting wealth from what was formerly known as a financial Tartarus of a plantation. He knows that your peasants and smiths are now equipped with various hitherto unknown devices. He has no idea how these things work, only that they do. He knows that your guards can be bought (or otherwise influenced). He doesn’t know what “technical schematics” are, but he does know what “trained personnel” are. If you were Avaritus, what would you do at this point ?
I’m only preserving the secrets of how to actually do it.
Are you building everything yourself, personally, or are you training people to do it for you ? If it’s the latter, then your secret knowledge isn’t hidden, it’s just scattered. If your employees are capable of any form of communication, then the knowledge can be reconstructed. More on this below:
Furthermore, unlike software development, mechanical products are VERY susceptible to industrial line-assembly techniques.
That’s true. But those techniques, in turn, are dependent on being able to crank out identical items to very high degrees of tolerance. Thus, at the very minimum, all of your smiths (and I doubt that your plantation would initially have more than a couple of smiths living there) will have to be trained to manufacture items to an absurd (to them) degree of tolerance, as well as in assembly-line techniques. This will take time—more time than you seem to think—and, in and of itself, constitutes a piece of secret knowledge that’s almost trivially easy to steal.
software engineering requires a whole swath of cognitive skills—logical analysis, creative design, high working memory for retention of relevant details, etc., etc., that the rote assembly of parts simply does not require.
It does, if you want your pistons to actually fit inside your cylinders once the smiths make each part separately..
Everyone of any wealth either had a mystery cult of their own, or else belonged to a mystery cult of their own.
Did their mystery cults paint big targets on themselves, by proclaiming, “look, I’ve got a flying machine” ?
Put yourself into the shoes of your ambitious, greedy and moderately smart neighbour—let’s call him Avaritus.
Here the region I’d be moving into would play some effect. The plantations that did exist in the plains of Spain were geographically isolated from one another. Most of the people in the area would’ve been hardscrobble farmers barely living at-or-above subsistence. And them I’d be actually helping out by-and-large (by way of expanding my economic empire.)
Many of the simpler techniques I’d want to get spreading out; it would make it easier for me to expand my influence. I’d be able to offer trade/transport of goods and the services related; I’d be able to capitalize fractional-reserve-banking to help bootstrap up my neighbors—just not as far as me—and so on. I would only for the first year or two rely upon direct production of goods, as opposed to becoming the financier to the production and transport of said goods. That’s what step 4 was all about.
I would also, however, have to hide the efficacy and usefulness of my weaponry. I suppose I could sell leafspring crossbows to the guardsmen for other local plantation owners. The technical expertise needed to reproduce them would still be fairly high, and their rate of fire would be atrociously low (Even an expert crossbowman would take upwards of fifteen seconds to recock the bow.)
Thus, at the very minimum, all of your smiths (and I doubt that your plantation would initially have more than a couple of smiths living there) will have to be trained to manufacture items to an absurd (to them) degree of tolerance,
I’d have to recruit smiths from other geographic areas. Not very difficult. I could also have journeymen upskilled somewhat more quickly, given the use of machine tooling and metalcasting. (Push comes to shove there’s also tDCS to increase learning rates.)
This will take time—more time than you seem to think—and, in and of itself, constitutes a piece of secret knowledge that’s almost trivially easy to steal.
You keep insisting on this. I see absolutely no reason to take your insistence seriously. One or two weeks at most would be sufficient for them to “get the idea” of line assembly. It’s a very simple concept. And I also don’t really care if it gets out. Let it. The primary thing that I need to maintain technological secrecy on is the actual assembly of the air rifles. Everything else is an ‘expendable’ secret. Even that is too. And even then; that’s why I’m keeping the guards present with orders to kill defectors or apparent defectors amongst the technicians. And said technicians won’t have any real way of leaving the plantations—so people would have to come to them. The guards would be kept under rotation to ensure bribery is less effective, and I could also implement other forms of information security (listening devices of various technical levels—radio transmitters or secret listening tubes—and other forms of spying. Honeypot traps to test the loyalty of both guards and technicians by giving fake opportunities to defect, etc., etc..) And lastly—again, I think you’re strongly overestimating the amount of time it would take to first notice the manufacture, second plan to adopt them, third achieve the stealing of the tech, and fourth manage to do so at any scale at all. Especially since unlike anyone stealing these techs, I would know what to look for and their value. Which means I could engage in secret sabotage and assassination to eliminate/foil early imitators.
Technological advantage isn’t about secrecy. It can’t be about secrecy. What it is about is the rapid leverage of gaps in technical competence. All of my efforts above aren’t meant to stop the spread of the new techniques—that’s literally impossible. Instead, they are meant to impede their spread outside of my controlled areas of influence.
If I wanted to be especially absurd I could also use things like aerosolized oxytocin to artificially increase the loyalty of my guards and technicians to me personally. Plus, I could select guards whose children I’d saved the lives of. (Remember; I’m planning to use medicine to increase devotion/personal loyalty amongst the peasantry.) And so on.
It does, if you want your pistons to actually fit inside your cylinders once the smiths make each part separately..
There would not be any pistons. Are you simply not familiar with aeolipiles or other forms of turbine engines?
Did their mystery cults paint big targets on themselves, by proclaiming, “look, I’ve got a flying machine” ?
I find this inscrutable. What’s your point? What are you driving at? Why is this a relevant thing to be saying/asking?
Most of the people in the area would’ve been hardscrobble farmers barely living at-or-above subsistence. And them I’d be actually helping out by-and-large (by way of expanding my economic empire.)
Fair enough, but this doesn’t eliminate the problem of Avaritus, it just pushes it toward a later stage, and makes him a bigger player (since, by the time you encounter him, you will be a bigger player).
Many of the simpler techniques I’d want to get spreading out...
You seem to be assuming, throughout this thread, that your knowledge is unique, and so are your plans. Other people might be able to steal it, or learn it from you, but they wouldn’t be able to figure it out for themselves. In some cases, this is an entirely warranted assumption—no one in Ancient Rome could even conceive of a vacuum tube—but in other cases, the inferential distance is much shorter. Things like pulleys and fractional reserve banking are self-evident once they are deployed; they’re kind of like HTML and “view source” that way. Transparency is inherent in the functionality.
And as for your long-term strategic plans… well, if you were Avaritus, and you learned of a freshly-minted Patrician who is generating massive wealth, hiring up a bunch of smiths, buying metal in bulk, and is engaged in secret military maneuvers—what conclusion would you make from this ?
Remember that, while these Romans are (as specified in the scenario setup) dumber than you, they’re not total idiots.
I would also, however, have to hide the efficacy and usefulness of my weaponry.
How will you accomplish this ? After all, you’ll need to train your soldiers in the use of your weaponry. Wouldn’t they all have to be in on the secret ? How many soldiers are you planning on training ? How will you guarantee their unshakeable loyalty and discretion ?
One or two weeks at most would be sufficient for them to “get the idea” of line assembly.
There are modern classes you can take on assembly line training. They take longer than two weeks, and they assume that the audience can read, write, and add, at the very least, which is more than I can say for your backwater Roman peasants. At this point, I’d like to see you produce some evidence that your two-week training period would be sufficient.
In addition, have you personally ever tried to construct something relatively simple, like the Giordani air rifle, in your garage in the modern world, using modern tools (other than, possibly, CNC) ? How long did it take you ?
And even then; that’s why I’m keeping the guards present with orders to kill defectors or apparent defectors amongst the technicians.
Who death-watches the death-watchers ? In the rest of the paragraph, you discuss various methods for turning your plantation into a police state, but that type of thing makes your men even less loyal than they’d normally be, and becomes a full-time 24⁄7 endeavour after a while.
Especially since unlike anyone stealing these techs, I would know what to look for and their value.
If I were Avaritus, I’d focus on stealing one of your assembled prototypes (remember, I know that you have them, I just don’t know what they are). It would be easier than stealing your actual smiths, though that’s an option, too.
Technological advantage isn’t about secrecy. It can’t be about secrecy. What it is about is the rapid leverage of gaps in technical competence.
At last we can agree on something; but then, why are you so focused on all the rotating death-watch guards ? Why bother keeping anything a secret at all ?
There would not be any pistons. Are you simply not familiar with aeolipiles or other forms of turbine engines?
I used pistons and cylinders as a convenient example tolerances that matter. High-pressure valves in your pneumatics would be another example; even the feeding mechanism for your rifles would need to be fairly precise, in order to avoid jamming. But I do confess that I have trouble seeing how you’d use actual aeolipiles for industrial-grade applications; I was assuming that you were using the word to refer to the general class of heat engines, but maybe I was wrong.
Why is this a relevant thing to be saying/asking?
Your financial, political, and military success is directly proportional to the number of enemies you end up making. As you build your empire, making the right kinds of enemies (weak, easily crushable ones) will become increasingly important. Priests are the wrong kinds of enemies.
Fair enough, but this doesn’t eliminate the problem of Avaritus, it just pushes it toward a later stage, and makes him a bigger player (since, by the time you encounter him, you will be a bigger player).
Good. That means a stronger economy for me to work with. Especially since, if he were really my neighbor, I would very likely have a strong business relationship with him by then, providing fertilizer, transportation, and banking services for him. If he manages to steal a few of my technologies… GOOD. That makes him my ally. In all likelihood I would probably be setting up client sub-patricians as a surrounding buffer to myself anyhow, and feeding them inferior versions of my technologies for them to work with.
There are modern classes you can take on assembly line training. They take longer than two weeks, and they assume that the audience can read, write, and add, at the very least, which is more than I can say for your backwater Roman peasants. At this point, I’d like to see you produce some evidence that your two-week training period would be sufficient.
They’re also producing vastly more complicated products. And are training general assembly workers—workers who can move freely from line-position to line-position. Using a vast array of modern tools in dynamic situations. Exactly the opposite of what I’d be doing. Your objection just doesn’t hold water. You’re making assumptions about what I’d be doing that directly contradict what I have explained I’d be doing.
It’s making any hope of this dialogue go anywhere quite vanishingly small. What part of: “I would train individual workers in individual rote tasks and ONLY those tasks” is such a difficult concept for you to grasp? Why is this such a cognitive stumbling block for you? You keep doing everything in your power to misunderstand me on this point.
Why?
In addition, have you personally ever tried to construct something relatively simple, like the Giordani air rifle, in your garage in the modern world, using modern tools (other than, possibly, CNC) ? How long did it take you ?
The Giardoni air rifle is not “simple” to make by hand. While the metalsmiths of Rome frequently had the skillset necessary to achieve it, I myself do not. It also required a number of small-ish parts that would not be obvious as to their function in a damaged state. It could be reverse-engineered, certainly, but without an understanding of the mechanical principles involved the mere process of reverse-engineering it and constructing a successful prototype would take as long as a year even for a skilled metalsmith. If we presume merely a three month window for that, it would STILL take at least that long for that metalsmith to train others in its making, and without line-assembly to assist him in so crafting the numbers they could turn out would be far, far smaller. And the rate of fire available to others given the lack of motorized pumps would be far smaller than it would be for my troops. Which is part of the point: all of the technologies selected contribute to one another in non-trivial ways. Extracting the secrets of one or two of the above would result in a bootstrapping period of their own that would also be significantly inferior to my own.
If I were Avaritus, I’d focus on stealing one of your assembled prototypes (remember, I know that you have them, I just don’t know what they are). It would be easier than stealing your actual smiths, though that’s an option, too.
This wouldn’t become an issue until at earliest the third year. And even then the process of reverse engineering without foreknowledge of the actual function of all given parts is less than spectacularly useful.
Also—without a ready fuel supply both the engines and the guns (which are being recharged via motorized pumps, remember) -- would be at best far less effective for any outside agent. And the methylation process itself (along with distillation) would also be subjecct to deathwatch scrutiny, so as to suppress their adoption time by outside actors.
At last we can agree on something; but then, why are you so focused on all the rotating death-watch guards ? Why bother keeping anything a secret at all ?
What exactly is it about the concept of “trade secrets” that you are having such a difficult time grasping? Why is it that you can’t figure out—despite my repeatedly explaining this to you—that there is a HUGE difference between “knowing about” a thing and “mastering” a thing?? What exactly is it about the concept of “maintaining technological advantage” that you don’t get? I don’t care if the secrets get out the slow way. That’s fine. But I can certainly work to maintain my technological advantage for a longer window. And the best way to do that is to suppress the direct transmission of technical competence away from those areas under my control.
By making it harder to bribe or kidnap or cause the defection/capture of my technicians I reduce the flow of information outwards. Seriously—why is this a difficult concept for you?
Again: I’m not depending on a total suppression of knowledge. That would be pointless and idiotic. Instead I am working with the first mover advantage. I liinked you to the Wikipedia article on First Mover Advantages already. Please actually read that link, and stop bringing this topic up.
This is not a legitimate objection on your part. Please stop bringing it up.
Your financial, political, and military success is directly proportional to the number of enemies you end up making.
Financial, political, and military success each create more allies and friends than they do enemies. Especially if you are gracious to your enemies.
Priests are the wrong kinds of enemies.
You don’t understand religion in Rome, then. Priests were essentially irrelevant. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. There was no such thing as a centralized, powerful religious body in Rome. It didn’t exist. “Priests” did not have political power in the Roman era. That’s just not how the structure of the day worked. Mystery cults were numerous and plentiful—and small. What individuals within a given cult that did have power had said power not because of their religious affiliations but in spite of it.
This, too, is an entirely spurious concern on your part. Please stop raising it.
But I do confess that I have trouble seeing how you’d use actual aeolipiles for industrial-grade applications; I was assuming that you were using the word to refer to the general class of heat engines, but maybe I was wrong.
Because I wouldn’t use them in industrial-grade applications. I would use simple, low-efficiency turbines. And I wouldn’t use them in “industrial applications”. I would use them as power trains for wagons and to power ultralights. Also, you’re strongly underestimating the technical competence of roman metallurgists of the era. Especially after having introduced metal-casting (or sintering) to the era. Cock valves, for example, were in widespread use—and in massive dimensions—at the time, as well as hand-carried water-pumps.
So again, no single item I’d be introducing would—in and of itself—be far outside of the scope of the competencies of the Roman era. But to adopt all of them? Even by reverse-engineering after being exposed to the existence of the concept, adopting more than a handful here-and-there would require several years.
And by then I’d already be in possession of vast sums of money and materials, at which point having trade partners I could use to accelerate my acquisition of the needed materials, parts, and equipment to achieve my ends would only be beneficial to me.
Remember, also, that I’d have a buffer zone of several hundred miles between myself and the nearest actual city, and would otherwise be surrounded almost exclusively by the kinds of people the word “pagani” originally referred to: rednecks. This was not an accident. The geographical placement in mind was also designed to help suppress the dissemination of my technologies outside of my scope of influence.
Your goals of secrecy and widespread economic development are in direct conflict.
You underestimate the time it would take to execute your plans.
You underestimate the social opposition to your plans which would develop once you began making progress.
With this in mind:
Good. That means a stronger economy for me to work with. … GOOD. That makes him my ally. In all likelihood I would probably be setting up client sub-patricians as a surrounding buffer to myself anyhow, and feeding them inferior versions of my technologies for them to work with.
Great, but then, why do you need all the death-watching rotating uber-guards ? Why not just make your technologies available at a reasonable cost ? You’re going to be one step ahead of the competition no matter what, so what do you have to gain by keeping secrets ? Do these gains outstrip the productivity losses and potential PR disasters ?
They’re also producing vastly more complicated products. And are training general assembly workers—workers who can move freely from line-position to line-position. Using a vast array of modern tools in dynamic situations. Exactly the opposite of what I’d be doing.
I was under the impression that what you’d be doing is, training your smiths to crank out plow/rifle/air pump/aircraft parts to precise tolerances. This process would start by explaining to them the concept of “tolerances”. This can be done, and it can be done relatively quickly, but not as quickly as you claim—especially since, as you say, “there is a HUGE difference between “knowing about” a thing and “mastering” a thing”. Every time I bring up the potential difficulties involved, you just assert your position more boldly. At this point, I need to see some evidence. This is why I asked you whether you personally ever tried to construct an air rifle, to which you replied:
The Giardoni air rifle is not “simple” to make by hand. While the metalsmiths of Rome frequently had the skillset necessary to achieve it, I myself do not.
Your character in this game we’re playing would have the detailed schematics for the Giardoni air rifle memorized. Do you believe that, therefore, he would have not only the “skillset necessary to achieve it”, but also the ability to teach it to average provincial smiths in Ancient Rome ? Or look at it in this way: you are not your character, but you have access to the Internet, so you don’t need to memorize stuff. How long would it take you, today, using modern hand-operated tools, to manufacture a working Giardoni air rifle ?
There was no such thing as a centralized, powerful religious body in Rome. It didn’t exist. “Priests” did not have political power in the Roman era.
No, they did not, but they had the power to excite a population, just like they do in any other era.
I would use them as power trains for wagons and to power ultralights.
Ok, so I guess I don’t understand what you mean by “aeolipiles”. Can you explain what an aeolipile drive for an ultralight, yet heavier-than-air craft would look like (or, preferably, link me to the relevant Wikipedia article) ? Or possibly I misunderstood what you meant by “ultralights”; perhaps you actually meant “lighter than air” ?
The geographical placement in mind was also designed to help suppress the dissemination of my technologies outside of my scope of influence.
In this case, where will you procure your raw materials, and what will you trade for them ? You can have isolation, or you can’t have trade, but, historically, it has proven impossible to have both.
I have downvoted your comment. I have done so because you continue to raise spurious objections to positions I do not hold and insist that I address them.
This is contradictory of rational discourse and as such should be discouraged on LessWrong.
No, you downvoted me in retaliation. Your arguments are spurious and I have repeatedly identified them as this. I have repeatedly rejected your insistence that I’m “depending on secrecy”. I have repeatedly attempted to explain to you the difference between ‘secrecy’ and conservation of technical competence. I have repeatedly explained how I would be able to both engage in trade/commerce and maintain relative geographic isolation relative to all other actors of the era. Case in point: your most recent reiterated objection:
I was under the impression that what you’d be doing is, training your smiths to crank out plow/rifle/air pump/aircraft parts to precise tolerances. This process would start by explaining to them the concept of “tolerances”.
-- This is false. I have explained this to be false. No such concepts would be conveyed. Instead, the line workers would be trained to make parts in an exacting manner and be given tools necessary to that end. Notched gauges for example. No conceptual explanations would be needed—only rote mechanical actions. I stated essentially exactly this, more than once. (Providing such conceptual frameworks rather than rote memorization of tasks would, furthermore, allow for the easier dissemination of technical competence outside of my control. A goal contradictory to my ends.)
Your response was to claim that I reacted by “merely making my claims bolder”. The problem with this, of course, is that your objections were invalid from the outset—they did NOT map to anything I was claiming. Take for further example on this very topic your usage of the general line assemblyman course as a ‘citation’ for your objection.
It was wholly and entirely inappropriate to the task of acting as a valid citation for an objection to what I was claiming for the simple reason that it did not address any claims of mine.
You continue to raise these objections despite their entirely spurious nature, and you continue to demand in this dialogue that I address these objections.
This is, as I said previously, contradictory of rational discourse and as such should be discouraged on LessWrong. I noted this and you in return downvoted me claiming the same of me as I have made clear of your positions.
This, too, is spurious and irrational behavior and as such should bee discouraged on LessWrong.
That makes more sense, yeah.
You are compartmentalizing the facts too much, and missing the bigger picture. Put yourself into the shoes of your ambitious, greedy and moderately smart neighbour—let’s call him Avaritus. He knows that you have begun extracting wealth from what was formerly known as a financial Tartarus of a plantation. He knows that your peasants and smiths are now equipped with various hitherto unknown devices. He has no idea how these things work, only that they do. He knows that your guards can be bought (or otherwise influenced). He doesn’t know what “technical schematics” are, but he does know what “trained personnel” are. If you were Avaritus, what would you do at this point ?
Are you building everything yourself, personally, or are you training people to do it for you ? If it’s the latter, then your secret knowledge isn’t hidden, it’s just scattered. If your employees are capable of any form of communication, then the knowledge can be reconstructed. More on this below:
That’s true. But those techniques, in turn, are dependent on being able to crank out identical items to very high degrees of tolerance. Thus, at the very minimum, all of your smiths (and I doubt that your plantation would initially have more than a couple of smiths living there) will have to be trained to manufacture items to an absurd (to them) degree of tolerance, as well as in assembly-line techniques. This will take time—more time than you seem to think—and, in and of itself, constitutes a piece of secret knowledge that’s almost trivially easy to steal.
It does, if you want your pistons to actually fit inside your cylinders once the smiths make each part separately..
Did their mystery cults paint big targets on themselves, by proclaiming, “look, I’ve got a flying machine” ?
Here the region I’d be moving into would play some effect. The plantations that did exist in the plains of Spain were geographically isolated from one another. Most of the people in the area would’ve been hardscrobble farmers barely living at-or-above subsistence. And them I’d be actually helping out by-and-large (by way of expanding my economic empire.)
Many of the simpler techniques I’d want to get spreading out; it would make it easier for me to expand my influence. I’d be able to offer trade/transport of goods and the services related; I’d be able to capitalize fractional-reserve-banking to help bootstrap up my neighbors—just not as far as me—and so on. I would only for the first year or two rely upon direct production of goods, as opposed to becoming the financier to the production and transport of said goods. That’s what step 4 was all about.
I would also, however, have to hide the efficacy and usefulness of my weaponry. I suppose I could sell leafspring crossbows to the guardsmen for other local plantation owners. The technical expertise needed to reproduce them would still be fairly high, and their rate of fire would be atrociously low (Even an expert crossbowman would take upwards of fifteen seconds to recock the bow.)
I’d have to recruit smiths from other geographic areas. Not very difficult. I could also have journeymen upskilled somewhat more quickly, given the use of machine tooling and metalcasting. (Push comes to shove there’s also tDCS to increase learning rates.)
You keep insisting on this. I see absolutely no reason to take your insistence seriously. One or two weeks at most would be sufficient for them to “get the idea” of line assembly. It’s a very simple concept. And I also don’t really care if it gets out. Let it. The primary thing that I need to maintain technological secrecy on is the actual assembly of the air rifles. Everything else is an ‘expendable’ secret. Even that is too. And even then; that’s why I’m keeping the guards present with orders to kill defectors or apparent defectors amongst the technicians. And said technicians won’t have any real way of leaving the plantations—so people would have to come to them. The guards would be kept under rotation to ensure bribery is less effective, and I could also implement other forms of information security (listening devices of various technical levels—radio transmitters or secret listening tubes—and other forms of spying. Honeypot traps to test the loyalty of both guards and technicians by giving fake opportunities to defect, etc., etc..) And lastly—again, I think you’re strongly overestimating the amount of time it would take to first notice the manufacture, second plan to adopt them, third achieve the stealing of the tech, and fourth manage to do so at any scale at all. Especially since unlike anyone stealing these techs, I would know what to look for and their value. Which means I could engage in secret sabotage and assassination to eliminate/foil early imitators.
Technological advantage isn’t about secrecy. It can’t be about secrecy. What it is about is the rapid leverage of gaps in technical competence. All of my efforts above aren’t meant to stop the spread of the new techniques—that’s literally impossible. Instead, they are meant to impede their spread outside of my controlled areas of influence.
If I wanted to be especially absurd I could also use things like aerosolized oxytocin to artificially increase the loyalty of my guards and technicians to me personally. Plus, I could select guards whose children I’d saved the lives of. (Remember; I’m planning to use medicine to increase devotion/personal loyalty amongst the peasantry.) And so on.
There would not be any pistons. Are you simply not familiar with aeolipiles or other forms of turbine engines?
I find this inscrutable. What’s your point? What are you driving at? Why is this a relevant thing to be saying/asking?
Fair enough, but this doesn’t eliminate the problem of Avaritus, it just pushes it toward a later stage, and makes him a bigger player (since, by the time you encounter him, you will be a bigger player).
You seem to be assuming, throughout this thread, that your knowledge is unique, and so are your plans. Other people might be able to steal it, or learn it from you, but they wouldn’t be able to figure it out for themselves. In some cases, this is an entirely warranted assumption—no one in Ancient Rome could even conceive of a vacuum tube—but in other cases, the inferential distance is much shorter. Things like pulleys and fractional reserve banking are self-evident once they are deployed; they’re kind of like HTML and “view source” that way. Transparency is inherent in the functionality.
And as for your long-term strategic plans… well, if you were Avaritus, and you learned of a freshly-minted Patrician who is generating massive wealth, hiring up a bunch of smiths, buying metal in bulk, and is engaged in secret military maneuvers—what conclusion would you make from this ?
Remember that, while these Romans are (as specified in the scenario setup) dumber than you, they’re not total idiots.
How will you accomplish this ? After all, you’ll need to train your soldiers in the use of your weaponry. Wouldn’t they all have to be in on the secret ? How many soldiers are you planning on training ? How will you guarantee their unshakeable loyalty and discretion ?
There are modern classes you can take on assembly line training. They take longer than two weeks, and they assume that the audience can read, write, and add, at the very least, which is more than I can say for your backwater Roman peasants. At this point, I’d like to see you produce some evidence that your two-week training period would be sufficient.
In addition, have you personally ever tried to construct something relatively simple, like the Giordani air rifle, in your garage in the modern world, using modern tools (other than, possibly, CNC) ? How long did it take you ?
Who death-watches the death-watchers ? In the rest of the paragraph, you discuss various methods for turning your plantation into a police state, but that type of thing makes your men even less loyal than they’d normally be, and becomes a full-time 24⁄7 endeavour after a while.
If I were Avaritus, I’d focus on stealing one of your assembled prototypes (remember, I know that you have them, I just don’t know what they are). It would be easier than stealing your actual smiths, though that’s an option, too.
At last we can agree on something; but then, why are you so focused on all the rotating death-watch guards ? Why bother keeping anything a secret at all ?
I used pistons and cylinders as a convenient example tolerances that matter. High-pressure valves in your pneumatics would be another example; even the feeding mechanism for your rifles would need to be fairly precise, in order to avoid jamming. But I do confess that I have trouble seeing how you’d use actual aeolipiles for industrial-grade applications; I was assuming that you were using the word to refer to the general class of heat engines, but maybe I was wrong.
Your financial, political, and military success is directly proportional to the number of enemies you end up making. As you build your empire, making the right kinds of enemies (weak, easily crushable ones) will become increasingly important. Priests are the wrong kinds of enemies.
Good. That means a stronger economy for me to work with. Especially since, if he were really my neighbor, I would very likely have a strong business relationship with him by then, providing fertilizer, transportation, and banking services for him. If he manages to steal a few of my technologies… GOOD. That makes him my ally. In all likelihood I would probably be setting up client sub-patricians as a surrounding buffer to myself anyhow, and feeding them inferior versions of my technologies for them to work with.
They’re also producing vastly more complicated products. And are training general assembly workers—workers who can move freely from line-position to line-position. Using a vast array of modern tools in dynamic situations. Exactly the opposite of what I’d be doing. Your objection just doesn’t hold water. You’re making assumptions about what I’d be doing that directly contradict what I have explained I’d be doing.
It’s making any hope of this dialogue go anywhere quite vanishingly small. What part of: “I would train individual workers in individual rote tasks and ONLY those tasks” is such a difficult concept for you to grasp? Why is this such a cognitive stumbling block for you? You keep doing everything in your power to misunderstand me on this point.
Why?
The Giardoni air rifle is not “simple” to make by hand. While the metalsmiths of Rome frequently had the skillset necessary to achieve it, I myself do not. It also required a number of small-ish parts that would not be obvious as to their function in a damaged state. It could be reverse-engineered, certainly, but without an understanding of the mechanical principles involved the mere process of reverse-engineering it and constructing a successful prototype would take as long as a year even for a skilled metalsmith. If we presume merely a three month window for that, it would STILL take at least that long for that metalsmith to train others in its making, and without line-assembly to assist him in so crafting the numbers they could turn out would be far, far smaller. And the rate of fire available to others given the lack of motorized pumps would be far smaller than it would be for my troops. Which is part of the point: all of the technologies selected contribute to one another in non-trivial ways. Extracting the secrets of one or two of the above would result in a bootstrapping period of their own that would also be significantly inferior to my own.
This wouldn’t become an issue until at earliest the third year. And even then the process of reverse engineering without foreknowledge of the actual function of all given parts is less than spectacularly useful.
Also—without a ready fuel supply both the engines and the guns (which are being recharged via motorized pumps, remember) -- would be at best far less effective for any outside agent. And the methylation process itself (along with distillation) would also be subjecct to deathwatch scrutiny, so as to suppress their adoption time by outside actors.
What exactly is it about the concept of “trade secrets” that you are having such a difficult time grasping? Why is it that you can’t figure out—despite my repeatedly explaining this to you—that there is a HUGE difference between “knowing about” a thing and “mastering” a thing?? What exactly is it about the concept of “maintaining technological advantage” that you don’t get? I don’t care if the secrets get out the slow way. That’s fine. But I can certainly work to maintain my technological advantage for a longer window. And the best way to do that is to suppress the direct transmission of technical competence away from those areas under my control.
By making it harder to bribe or kidnap or cause the defection/capture of my technicians I reduce the flow of information outwards. Seriously—why is this a difficult concept for you?
Again: I’m not depending on a total suppression of knowledge. That would be pointless and idiotic. Instead I am working with the first mover advantage. I liinked you to the Wikipedia article on First Mover Advantages already. Please actually read that link, and stop bringing this topic up.
This is not a legitimate objection on your part. Please stop bringing it up.
Financial, political, and military success each create more allies and friends than they do enemies. Especially if you are gracious to your enemies.
You don’t understand religion in Rome, then. Priests were essentially irrelevant. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. There was no such thing as a centralized, powerful religious body in Rome. It didn’t exist. “Priests” did not have political power in the Roman era. That’s just not how the structure of the day worked. Mystery cults were numerous and plentiful—and small. What individuals within a given cult that did have power had said power not because of their religious affiliations but in spite of it.
This, too, is an entirely spurious concern on your part. Please stop raising it.
Because I wouldn’t use them in industrial-grade applications. I would use simple, low-efficiency turbines. And I wouldn’t use them in “industrial applications”. I would use them as power trains for wagons and to power ultralights. Also, you’re strongly underestimating the technical competence of roman metallurgists of the era. Especially after having introduced metal-casting (or sintering) to the era. Cock valves, for example, were in widespread use—and in massive dimensions—at the time, as well as hand-carried water-pumps.
So again, no single item I’d be introducing would—in and of itself—be far outside of the scope of the competencies of the Roman era. But to adopt all of them? Even by reverse-engineering after being exposed to the existence of the concept, adopting more than a handful here-and-there would require several years.
And by then I’d already be in possession of vast sums of money and materials, at which point having trade partners I could use to accelerate my acquisition of the needed materials, parts, and equipment to achieve my ends would only be beneficial to me.
Remember, also, that I’d have a buffer zone of several hundred miles between myself and the nearest actual city, and would otherwise be surrounded almost exclusively by the kinds of people the word “pagani” originally referred to: rednecks. This was not an accident. The geographical placement in mind was also designed to help suppress the dissemination of my technologies outside of my scope of influence.
To summarize my objections to your plan:
Your goals of secrecy and widespread economic development are in direct conflict.
You underestimate the time it would take to execute your plans.
You underestimate the social opposition to your plans which would develop once you began making progress.
With this in mind:
Great, but then, why do you need all the death-watching rotating uber-guards ? Why not just make your technologies available at a reasonable cost ? You’re going to be one step ahead of the competition no matter what, so what do you have to gain by keeping secrets ? Do these gains outstrip the productivity losses and potential PR disasters ?
I was under the impression that what you’d be doing is, training your smiths to crank out plow/rifle/air pump/aircraft parts to precise tolerances. This process would start by explaining to them the concept of “tolerances”. This can be done, and it can be done relatively quickly, but not as quickly as you claim—especially since, as you say, “there is a HUGE difference between “knowing about” a thing and “mastering” a thing”. Every time I bring up the potential difficulties involved, you just assert your position more boldly. At this point, I need to see some evidence. This is why I asked you whether you personally ever tried to construct an air rifle, to which you replied:
Your character in this game we’re playing would have the detailed schematics for the Giardoni air rifle memorized. Do you believe that, therefore, he would have not only the “skillset necessary to achieve it”, but also the ability to teach it to average provincial smiths in Ancient Rome ? Or look at it in this way: you are not your character, but you have access to the Internet, so you don’t need to memorize stuff. How long would it take you, today, using modern hand-operated tools, to manufacture a working Giardoni air rifle ?
No, they did not, but they had the power to excite a population, just like they do in any other era.
Ok, so I guess I don’t understand what you mean by “aeolipiles”. Can you explain what an aeolipile drive for an ultralight, yet heavier-than-air craft would look like (or, preferably, link me to the relevant Wikipedia article) ? Or possibly I misunderstood what you meant by “ultralights”; perhaps you actually meant “lighter than air” ?
In this case, where will you procure your raw materials, and what will you trade for them ? You can have isolation, or you can’t have trade, but, historically, it has proven impossible to have both.
I have downvoted your comment. I have done so because you continue to raise spurious objections to positions I do not hold and insist that I address them.
This is contradictory of rational discourse and as such should be discouraged on LessWrong.
FWIW, I downvoted your comment for exactly the same reason.
No, you downvoted me in retaliation. Your arguments are spurious and I have repeatedly identified them as this. I have repeatedly rejected your insistence that I’m “depending on secrecy”. I have repeatedly attempted to explain to you the difference between ‘secrecy’ and conservation of technical competence. I have repeatedly explained how I would be able to both engage in trade/commerce and maintain relative geographic isolation relative to all other actors of the era. Case in point: your most recent reiterated objection:
-- This is false. I have explained this to be false. No such concepts would be conveyed. Instead, the line workers would be trained to make parts in an exacting manner and be given tools necessary to that end. Notched gauges for example. No conceptual explanations would be needed—only rote mechanical actions. I stated essentially exactly this, more than once. (Providing such conceptual frameworks rather than rote memorization of tasks would, furthermore, allow for the easier dissemination of technical competence outside of my control. A goal contradictory to my ends.)
Your response was to claim that I reacted by “merely making my claims bolder”. The problem with this, of course, is that your objections were invalid from the outset—they did NOT map to anything I was claiming. Take for further example on this very topic your usage of the general line assemblyman course as a ‘citation’ for your objection.
It was wholly and entirely inappropriate to the task of acting as a valid citation for an objection to what I was claiming for the simple reason that it did not address any claims of mine.
You continue to raise these objections despite their entirely spurious nature, and you continue to demand in this dialogue that I address these objections.
This is, as I said previously, contradictory of rational discourse and as such should be discouraged on LessWrong. I noted this and you in return downvoted me claiming the same of me as I have made clear of your positions.
This, too, is spurious and irrational behavior and as such should bee discouraged on LessWrong.