4 ms·
No there isn't. Technology knowledge is extremely ephemeral and easily lost once you stop using it because so much of it is "tacit knowledge" that is only pres
by xyzzy21 6y ago
No there isn't.
Technology knowledge is extremely ephemeral and easily lost once you stop using it because so much of it is "tacit knowledge" that is only preserved by active use and passed by mentorship/apprenticeship.
We've lost many technologies this way. In some cases like FOGBANK and the recent B2 bomber heat exchange system, there was enough incentive to reconstruct it from scratch at great cost. For most lost technologies, that incentive will never exist. If you are very, very lucky, some other country will maintain it by continuing to manufacture it.
This is a major reason why "bringing manufacturing back to the US" is so hard. We literally lack the technology/knowledge context as a society to do that most of the time. It's like pondering a semiconductor fab project in Chad or Sudan!
Otherwise it becomes like pyramids and monoliths that some "moderns" can't imagine came from anything other than space aliens! "They couldn't have made anything like that back then because we can't do it today."
- dv_dt 6y agoWell yes and no. Sometimes you can bring the industry back, but with a newer generation of technology. High capital investment industries like manufacturing I think are particularly amenable to generational leapfrogging because the original capital investors are very tempted to keep operating old methods for the margin. This gives an opening for any entity willing to make a new capital investment. This is essentially what China did to a lot of US manufacturing, as well as SpaceX to old line aerospace giants.