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I understand what you are saying, but in real life, I've seen this
work. Several years ago, about 10 years into my teaching career, my
family and I visited family in Michigan for our annual Labor Day
weekend get together. We were helping my uncle in building a bridge
so that he could take his tractor to the other side of a creek.
Since it was so hot, we built this bridge under the shade of a tree
with the hopes that we'll just drag it down to the creek and set it
up there. This bridge was built with a bunch of 4x4 and 4x8...it was
very heavy. When finished, we strapped a bunch of ropes onto it and
we were going to manually drag it down. Nearly 20 adults couldn't
make it budge. They got the tractor and the tires just spun. So my
dad, a farmer and steel worker with only a high school education,
wrapped a chain around a tree and the other end to the bridge,
tightened it up the chain, and lifted up on the chain. The bridge
moved, but just a little bit. He retightened the chain and repeated
the whole process again. We made some plywood sleds and he continued
to use that process to slide the bridge on the sled so that we could
use the tractor the rest of the way.
Yes, the bridge didn't move much, and even less the further along it
moved, but the accumulated effort does add up. My dad did make it
move a good 8 feet, much further than what a group of people or a
tractor could do.