I mostly agree with the author's premise: we need to take a step back from the digital (Internet, social media) and return to the chemical/material/physical wor

I mostly agree with the author's premise: we need to take a step back from the digital (Internet, social media) and return to the chemical/material/physical world to drive future productivity growth. That's what drew me to research advances in the embedded industry - working with companies that fuse physical and digital in safety-critical/industrial products every day. His 2 calls to action: (1) for the readers of his blog to spend more time thinking about industrial problems (how to build an aircraft, run a cargo ship logistics company, "meditate on the importance of steel in the economy") (2) for VCs and investors to fund morale-boosting celebrations of industry, such as world fairs and more movies like "The Martian". I think #1 is unrealistic - a lot of highly-trained people get paid to do this already, and as productivity growth slows, the need for efficiency in these industrial processes has only increased. That's why the ML implications of IoT are so heavily touted by all major players across automotive, A&D, industrial automation, energy & utilities, transportation, logistics, etc. I don't think it would help much for everyone to go about their day thinking about how HVDC electricity grids work, or how gasoline is synthesized from petroleum. I think #2 would be helpful right now given the current political/media climate, but needs to be done extremely carefully. If done quickly/wrong many would be angry - look at the latest SV and QE-funded propaganda, so out of touch with the 99% of people in the rest of the country, can't solve pressing social and economic issues so they are making up some fantasy-land "world fair" to celebrate companies and people that stand for what the majority of the country perceives as social and moral decay. Overall I feel where the author is coming from, but I think this piece is a bit out of touch with reality - maybe hence the "optimism" bit in the title :)