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I can't say for certain, but I believe that statement is being downvoted because the first paragraph is factually inaccurate in each sentence: > The US followe

by evgen 6y ago

I can't say for certain, but I believe that statement is being downvoted because the first paragraph is factually inaccurate in each sentence: > The US followed the advice of the business schools long ago and outsourced all its core competencies. Bashing metal and low-tech widget-forming has never really been a core competency of the US. It was useful to keep people employed for a 50 years or so but for the past century the US seems to have aimed for technological synthesis and increasingly high-tech production as a core strength. > The US' loss of technical and manufacturing expertise is going to be extremely hard to reverse, and reversing it is going to require a rejection of financial capitalist economic ideology and things like "maximizing shareholder value" as the prime directive. It is unnecessary to reverse something which was not lost in the first place. As others have repeatedly pointed out all over the comments on this article the US has continued to climb up the manufacturing food chain and dominates the top-end. It may employ fewer people, but the productivity and economic benefit of the US manufacturing sector has simply not declined at all and therefore no 'rejection of financial capitalist economic ideology' will be required.

michaelt 6y ago
> Bashing metal and low-tech widget-forming has never really been a core competency of the US. If you think the far east only dominates low-tech widget forming, you should look into where the iPhone and Macbook are manufactured :)
- evgen 6y ago
  I know where they are assembled. I also know where the displays are actually manufactured, where the RAM comes from, and where the CPU is fabbed, and where the various radio chips are sourced from. I also know where the software is written that makes it all work. I also know that the iPhone and Macbook are not particularly difficult pieces of engineering and that the tech required to make the shiny bit of tech you see in the store is the bit of the iceberg beneath the waterline that represents a lot of the value in what we are talking about.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    > I also know that the iPhone and Macbook are not particularly difficult pieces of engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
    - evgen 6y ago
      It is not a No True Scotsman fallacy, it is simply that the tech and machines/processes used to create the components are far more impressive and represent a more important tech base than the actual output from those processes. If we want to trade vaguely related aphorisms: “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.” The tip of the spear is less impressive than the logistical tail that makes it possible.
      - salawat 6y ago
        This. I've always been most fascinated by industrial machinery and process engineering more so than the end result of it. It's that piece that represents the Golden egg of industry; and like it or not, the capability to keep the people of your country employed making widget X, receiving paychecks, etc is valuable. Incredibly so. Possibly even more valuable than the money it makes as the know-how it takes to have formulated that process stand-up is nearly impossible to codify, and closer to a luck based emergent outcome than anything you can plan for. Similar, if you'll excuse the long-jump analogy to how all the enzymatic processes our cells must undergo to live and thrive are all based on a fundamentally chaotic process; diffusion.
billjings 6y ago
> It is unnecessary to reverse something which was not lost in the first place. As others have repeatedly pointed out all over the comments on this article the US has continued to climb up the manufacturing food chain and dominates the top-end. It may employ fewer people, but the productivity and economic benefit of the US manufacturing sector has simply not declined at all and therefore no 'rejection of financial capitalist economic ideology' will be required. For many years, I have observed that folks in the Bay Area (if I might use that as the shorthand for those at the "top-end" of the technical food chain) tend to dismiss and deride the work further down the food chain, whether that work is "bashing metal" or piecing together business applications. There are two truths I believe about this work that some do not acknowledge: 1. People who bash metal or piece together business applications have expertise and knowledge that folks higher up the food chain do not have. Most people who make their living high up the food chain did it by proving they could rise up above those further down the food chain, so it makes sense to believe that this work is beneath them. But the domains are different, and the choice to live high up the food chain necessarily means that one chooses to miss out on experiences and knowledge that those further down the food chain will have. 2. The folks higher up the technical food chain are dependent on those lower on the food chain. If I might pick up an imperfect analogy: Sharks are higher up the food chain than fish. Fish get bossed around by sharks. But sharks are dependent on fish to survive, not the other way around.
wokwokwok 6y ago
> It may employ fewer people, but the productivity and economic benefit of the US manufacturing sector has simply not declined at all... Unfortunately wanting something to be true, and it actually being true are not the same thing. Even if a whole bunch of your peers say the same thing, it still doesn’t make it true. I’m not really sure what to say... please go and do some actual research on this topic.

by evgen 6y ago

michaelt 6y ago

> Bashing metal and low-tech widget-forming has never really been a core competency of the US. If you think the far east only dominates low-tech widget forming, you should look into where the iPhone and Macbook are manufactured :)

evgen 6y ago
I know where they are assembled. I also know where the displays are actually manufactured, where the RAM comes from, and where the CPU is fabbed, and where the various radio chips are sourced from. I also know where the software is written that makes it all work. I also know that the iPhone and Macbook are not particularly difficult pieces of engineering and that the tech required to make the shiny bit of tech you see in the store is the bit of the iceberg beneath the waterline that represents a lot of the value in what we are talking about.
- michaelt 6y ago
  > I also know that the iPhone and Macbook are not particularly difficult pieces of engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
  - evgen 6y ago
    It is not a No True Scotsman fallacy, it is simply that the tech and machines/processes used to create the components are far more impressive and represent a more important tech base than the actual output from those processes. If we want to trade vaguely related aphorisms: “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.” The tip of the spear is less impressive than the logistical tail that makes it possible.
    - salawat 6y ago
      This. I've always been most fascinated by industrial machinery and process engineering more so than the end result of it. It's that piece that represents the Golden egg of industry; and like it or not, the capability to keep the people of your country employed making widget X, receiving paychecks, etc is valuable. Incredibly so. Possibly even more valuable than the money it makes as the know-how it takes to have formulated that process stand-up is nearly impossible to codify, and closer to a luck based emergent outcome than anything you can plan for. Similar, if you'll excuse the long-jump analogy to how all the enzymatic processes our cells must undergo to live and thrive are all based on a fundamentally chaotic process; diffusion.

billjings 6y ago

> It is unnecessary to reverse something which was not lost in the first place. As others have repeatedly pointed out all over the comments on this article the US has continued to climb up the manufacturing food chain and dominates the top-end. It may employ fewer people, but the productivity and economic benefit of the US manufacturing sector has simply not declined at all and therefore no 'rejection of financial capitalist economic ideology' will be required. For many years, I have observed that folks in the Bay Area (if I might use that as the shorthand for those at the "top-end" of the technical food chain) tend to dismiss and deride the work further down the food chain, whether that work is "bashing metal" or piecing together business applications. There are two truths I believe about this work that some do not acknowledge: 1. People who bash metal or piece together business applications have expertise and knowledge that folks higher up the food chain do not have. Most people who make their living high up the food chain did it by proving they could rise up above those further down the food chain, so it makes sense to believe that this work is beneath them. But the domains are different, and the choice to live high up the food chain necessarily means that one chooses to miss out on experiences and knowledge that those further down the food chain will have. 2. The folks higher up the technical food chain are dependent on those lower on the food chain. If I might pick up an imperfect analogy: Sharks are higher up the food chain than fish. Fish get bossed around by sharks. But sharks are dependent on fish to survive, not the other way around.

wokwokwok 6y ago

> It may employ fewer people, but the productivity and economic benefit of the US manufacturing sector has simply not declined at all... Unfortunately wanting something to be true, and it actually being true are not the same thing. Even if a whole bunch of your peers say the same thing, it still doesn’t make it true. I’m not really sure what to say... please go and do some actual research on this topic.