• silence7OP
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    2 months ago

    Ships are a lot bigger and we expect a lot more reliability from them than we did in the wind-only era. This makes tugs necessary to enable safe maneuvering in harbor.

    Bigger and containerization have the effect of making shipping cheaper on a per-unit basis, which is why they’re used.

    • comradechestnut
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      2 months ago

      Yes but producing things locally improves resilience and allows for decentralization. Large container shipping is a feature of free market capitalism and highly centralized industries. In a decentralized economy there wouldn’t be anywhere near as much demand for container shipping.