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| ▲ | vonneumannstan 7 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's an ancient proverb demonstrating early understanding of complex systems. Not an in depth philosophical argument. However there are plenty of real life examples of a single small detail causing outsize impact. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261 It's kind of absurd to think otherwise. |
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| ▲ | throwaway0123_5 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Tbh it seems entirely plausible to me that a messenger being unable to deliver an important message could have an outsized effect on that outcome of a battle. What if they're letting their side know about a surprise attack? |
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| ▲ | alwa 7 days ago | parent [-] | | Seems also plausible that risks might apply to the messenger that wouldn’t apply to the troops in garrison—that is, the thousands of other horseshoe nails in inventory could have gone unmissed or doomed a less important horse. |
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| ▲ | shadowgovt 7 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| A more robust treatment of risk factors in both ideas. You want to ask whether the system needs to be tracking nail quality if the kingdom relies on nails that much. You also want to be asking why critical information is being sent by only one messenger. |
