Extent of replacement of common tools with TK/PK abilities

General
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Regarding my recent reply here, and in connection with this post, I have a bit of a question. To what degree does the average Imperial (assuming the possession of such capabilities) substitute the use of it for various basic (and not so basic) tools and items, particularly those at the smaller end of the scale WRT magnitude of the action performed? From things like trowels and spades, to cutlery and silverware, to various minor tools such as one might find on pocketknives, multitools, and other such things?

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Replacement isn’t really the thing, in most cases.

By which I mean that PK takes energy, just like doing something with your muscles, and where simple (unpowered) tools are concerned, their purpose isn’t to replace your muscles, it’s to get more productive output for the same erg-input.

What you’re looking for are tools that you can wield with your brain.

(And in many cases that can be wielded either way, for the sake of maximal flexibility.)

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To extend the above in a few directions:

Trivial things that don’t take much energy are everywhere (like your classic stemless, round-bottomed wine-glasses that mean you don’t get greasy fingerprints on the crystal and can show off a little flair, belike).

With regard to tools, you’re still going to invent the screwdriver, because regardless of whether you’re turning the screw with your fingers or with your brain, it’s still a tiny thing and your leverage is limited. Using PK to turn the driver will always be easier than using PK to turn the screw directly.

(Where the PK adept really wins is that they can maneuver a smoldriver through the guts of the machine without having to strip down everything to get to the place where they can use it.)

And while initially there’s a big advantage in agriculture because rather than using a hand-plough you can derive considerable advantage from being able to stand on a hill and blow up the ground, eventually, you’re still going to invent the ox-plough and then the mechanical tractor, because it possesses the killer advantage that you don’t have to do the work at all, the oxen and the machine do.

(Although it may involve at some point oxen turning a flywheel which you can tap to ‘splode the furrows. But that still leaves you being there, belike, and haven’t you got something else that you could be doing?)

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Though I’d assume that the Eldrae have not suffered the same set of idiocy (okay, optimization for assembly as component instead of disassembly as finished product) that leaves so many poorly/not accessible fasteners that humans do.

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Although the meaning of accessibility does change a bit when you can maneuver tiny tools around with a thought. (What they really hate in assembly plans is glue.)

As a side note to this thread, incidentally, not all substances are equally responsive to psychokinetic manipulation thanks to quantum foo: already mentioned in the linked mentalics post is orichalcium, which for the same reasons that make it an excellent superconductor is also eminently suitable for constructing, say, warp swords to use to conduct mindblades. But at the other end of the scale are psychokinetic “insulators” which are particularly easy to grab hold of, whose main canonical use is the construction of teidallan (which you can think of as dynamic sculptures or desktop toys used to amuse children while also helping them master their PK), but which can also be used to add psychokinetic “handles” to tools.

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Yeah, I can definitely see PK making some things easier. Those [expletives deleted] bolts that are hidden under the cowl of a car, for example.

I’d love to see the Eldraic opinion on the typical Ferrari or BMW, which requires pretty massive disassembly to be able to change the oil filter, or do the 50k scheduled maintenance (on V8s).

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Probably along the lines of “ We recognize that you are trying to optimize this engine for high performance above all else, but that in itself should only emphasize how important it is to regularly maintain the bloody thing and why that should, therefore, be easy. And as engineers, you should be capable of solving multivariable optimization problems. Now get me the drawings and we’re going to review this to within an inch of your lives. Mm? Its life. Yes.”

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