[nickelpro]

> Modern ships didn't pop into existence from nothing. Nothing does.

They didn't evolve from some minor capital investment. The problem is not one of ideas it is one of scale. In that sense, yes, they popped into existence from nothing.

The Panama canal is the result of centuries of technological development in the technology of canal construction generally, but fundamentally it is not the result of a startup or even a hundred startups building tiny canals until they had enough capital and expertise doing so to build a big canal.

It is a result of governments (plural, the first attempt failed), in a one-off immense expenditure of capital and manpower unable to be mustered by the entirety of the global shipping industry (for everyone with eyes and a map could see the potential), constructing something that was not there before. "From nothing".