Comment by ryandrake
2 days ago
> Like if Elon said he "built the Falcon 9". It's not explicitly true, he certainly wasn't machining parts or writing code for it, but he was involved enough that no one would really call it a lie either.
Yea, that would be the way I read it: He "built" the sword just like the executives of your company "built" its products. It's like those home remodeling TV shows, where the remodelers don't really do anything besides write checks and drive around talking on their phones to other people who don't really do anything either. All the actual building is done by silent building contractors who are mostly off-camera.
I don't even think it's an foreign concept or lost to time - Trump said he would build a wall (and 'did' a bit, afaiu?); British PMs have said they'll build Hinkley Point, HS2, Northern powerhouses, etc. It's understood what their role is in building such a thing, I think it's just the unfamiliarity with kings commissioning swords that makes that example read more literally, and if it were something more unusual then the language would be less ambiguous ('used swords he even made himself').
Swords are usually made a by a single or a handful of people at most.
Nuclear power plants or walls that are supposed to cover an entire border require thousands of workers and engineers. At that point the organizational/management aspects, acquiring of funding etc. become much more important than the direct contribution of any specific engineer or craftsman.