8 ms·

Can you explain what is this secret sauce social infrastructure?

irrational 4y ago
Not OP, but I assume in regards to the garment district it means people with the requisite skills aren’t around anymore. Back in the day, nearly every woman knew how to sew and make clothes. Nowadays, do you know a single woman (or man!) who knows how to sew and make clothes? I don’t. People could learn, buts it’s a lot easier when you already have a large population with the required skills to draw from.
- Natsu 4y ago
  Oddly enough, I do know how, both via school (home ec) and more importantly, due to older relatives who were into quilting. I have zero interest in ever doing it, but I absolutely do know far more than I ever wanted to about sewing. I think you can find a few who still do such things in maker spaces, as well, but it only seems to be taken up by people who are already gainfully employed in things that make a lot more than low end manufacturing work.
- __pache__ 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - waboremo 4y ago
    Unless she's willing to work for minimum wage sewing, the above poster's statement still applies.
    - __pache__ 4y ago
      Yeah was just saying, proud of my wife. If I wanted to get pants hemmed or things repaired it's definitely worth more than min wage to me. Rip my favorite shirt? Leave it on the counter with a note and my wife will have it fixed by the end of the day ... Love my wife.
- pleb_nz 4y ago
  I know half a dozen family members and I can do rudimentary stuff. Maybe you mean people who do or used to do it professionally?
  - Retric 4y ago
    I don’t think they mean professionally, but rather being able to create clothing from scratch. How many people do you know that could turn raw fabric into a dress? I have can do the simplest repairs and even used a sewing machine a few times but that’s not particularly useful to a garment factory.
    - greedo 4y ago
      My daughter has made at least 10 dresses before graduating from high school. She's now progressed into a textiles program at our university. My step-sister made very elaborate dresses for her daughter throughout school as well. Sewing/dressmaking is a lot like woodworking. Being able to visualize things well in 3D is an asset, but also having good tools helps as well.
    - pleb_nz 4y ago
      Once you have the basics it's just a matter of scaling. Creating clothing isn't hard, creating beautiful clothing, now that's a different matter.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  The main missing ingredient is "Pattern Makers." These are the Garment District equivalent of Engineers. They are still around, but in far lower numbers. It's fairly obvious that people think that these folks can be replaced by software, but they say the same thing about engineers. Also, entire communities were built around textile mills and transportation/consolidation/intermodals. When we shut down the Garment District, and shipped all the work overseas (and my friend freely admits his company did the same), it destroyed these communities. Lot of skilled labor left, and stopped training the next generation. And, to answer another question, I don't have to "prove" anything. I was simply telling something that I heard from an extremely relevant source. I'm sure as hell not going to ask my friend to "prove what he said," for the convenience of Internet randos.
- stonogo 4y ago
  How do national chains of fabric stores exist? Your bubble is not representative.
crazygringo 4y ago
It's described in the link in the comment.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I do go over it in the linked entry. It's not a particularly long or technical article. Basically, it's the social structure that is built around a community's Raison D'etre, or reason for existence. This is schools, housing, curriculum (there's a reason that RIT is based in Rochester, for example), as well as oral and learned tradition. "Tribal knowledge" is a dirty word to efficiency nerds, but that doesn't change the fact that it exists, and is highly effective, for a reason. There are entire districts, known for the finest $WHATEVER. Lübeck, Germany, is known for marzipan (I don't really like it, but lots of others do). Bordeaux is known for wines and cooking, Afghanistan has some of the best opium, etc. Some of these are due to climate and soil, but others can be lost to other areas (Sonoma, for instance). They may have great soil, but they also have great farmers, who have been handing their skills down, for generations, etc. Once that is gone, there ain't no making new ones.
- enraged_camel 4y ago
  >> Once that is gone, there ain't no making new ones. You haven't made a single compelling argument as to why we cannot also rebuild social infrastructure.
  - elcritch 4y ago
    I believe the missing part is that it takes a lot of work to create that social network. Without a driving economic reason or lots of time and regional interest (ie generations) it would be difficult to redevelop. Much of this social capital requires lots of folks being interested in something since they were young and "playing" at it. Play is an important way to learn and understand it. Also I believe social capital requires adults to respect and take interest in the item, as children often take their cues from that. That said, I wonder if industrial clothing manufacturing requires that much social infrastructure? That industry seems to move very couple of decades to a new country with the cheapest labor.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    > You haven't made a single compelling argument as to why we cannot also rebuild social infrastructure. ...and I don't have to. Have a nice Easter/Passover!
ramblenode 4y ago
Imagine a software company with a 50M LOC codebase that shuts down and lays off all workers. The office is still there, servers are still running, and nothing has been touched--but the employees are all gone. How easily do you think a new team of the same size could come in and restart operations? Most likely it would take a long time and a lot of capital before that company was productive again. That's what the parent means by social infrastructure: institutional knowledge--all the stuff that isn't written down anywhere.
dctoedt 4y ago
> Can you explain what is this secret sauce social infrastructure? The NASA-industrial complex that built the Saturn V rocket is largely gone: The engineers, factory workers, etc., who had the necessary knowledge — much of it tacit — are retired or dead.

Not OP, but I assume in regards to the garment district it means people with the requisite skills aren’t around anymore. Back in the day, nearly every woman knew how to sew and make clothes. Nowadays, do you know a single woman (or man!) who knows how to sew and make clothes? I don’t. People could learn, buts it’s a lot easier when you already have a large population with the required skills to draw from.

Natsu 4y ago
Oddly enough, I do know how, both via school (home ec) and more importantly, due to older relatives who were into quilting. I have zero interest in ever doing it, but I absolutely do know far more than I ever wanted to about sewing. I think you can find a few who still do such things in maker spaces, as well, but it only seems to be taken up by people who are already gainfully employed in things that make a lot more than low end manufacturing work.
__pache__ 4y ago
[flagged]
- waboremo 4y ago
  Unless she's willing to work for minimum wage sewing, the above poster's statement still applies.
  - __pache__ 4y ago
    Yeah was just saying, proud of my wife. If I wanted to get pants hemmed or things repaired it's definitely worth more than min wage to me. Rip my favorite shirt? Leave it on the counter with a note and my wife will have it fixed by the end of the day ... Love my wife.
pleb_nz 4y ago
I know half a dozen family members and I can do rudimentary stuff. Maybe you mean people who do or used to do it professionally?
- Retric 4y ago
  I don’t think they mean professionally, but rather being able to create clothing from scratch. How many people do you know that could turn raw fabric into a dress? I have can do the simplest repairs and even used a sewing machine a few times but that’s not particularly useful to a garment factory.
  - greedo 4y ago
    My daughter has made at least 10 dresses before graduating from high school. She's now progressed into a textiles program at our university. My step-sister made very elaborate dresses for her daughter throughout school as well. Sewing/dressmaking is a lot like woodworking. Being able to visualize things well in 3D is an asset, but also having good tools helps as well.
  - pleb_nz 4y ago
    Once you have the basics it's just a matter of scaling. Creating clothing isn't hard, creating beautiful clothing, now that's a different matter.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
The main missing ingredient is "Pattern Makers." These are the Garment District equivalent of Engineers. They are still around, but in far lower numbers. It's fairly obvious that people think that these folks can be replaced by software, but they say the same thing about engineers. Also, entire communities were built around textile mills and transportation/consolidation/intermodals. When we shut down the Garment District, and shipped all the work overseas (and my friend freely admits his company did the same), it destroyed these communities. Lot of skilled labor left, and stopped training the next generation. And, to answer another question, I don't have to "prove" anything. I was simply telling something that I heard from an extremely relevant source. I'm sure as hell not going to ask my friend to "prove what he said," for the convenience of Internet randos.
stonogo 4y ago
How do national chains of fabric stores exist? Your bubble is not representative.

crazygringo 4y ago

It's described in the link in the comment.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I do go over it in the linked entry. It's not a particularly long or technical article. Basically, it's the social structure that is built around a community's Raison D'etre, or reason for existence. This is schools, housing, curriculum (there's a reason that RIT is based in Rochester, for example), as well as oral and learned tradition. "Tribal knowledge" is a dirty word to efficiency nerds, but that doesn't change the fact that it exists, and is highly effective, for a reason. There are entire districts, known for the finest $WHATEVER. Lübeck, Germany, is known for marzipan (I don't really like it, but lots of others do). Bordeaux is known for wines and cooking, Afghanistan has some of the best opium, etc. Some of these are due to climate and soil, but others can be lost to other areas (Sonoma, for instance). They may have great soil, but they also have great farmers, who have been handing their skills down, for generations, etc. Once that is gone, there ain't no making new ones.

enraged_camel 4y ago
>> Once that is gone, there ain't no making new ones. You haven't made a single compelling argument as to why we cannot also rebuild social infrastructure.
- elcritch 4y ago
  I believe the missing part is that it takes a lot of work to create that social network. Without a driving economic reason or lots of time and regional interest (ie generations) it would be difficult to redevelop. Much of this social capital requires lots of folks being interested in something since they were young and "playing" at it. Play is an important way to learn and understand it. Also I believe social capital requires adults to respect and take interest in the item, as children often take their cues from that. That said, I wonder if industrial clothing manufacturing requires that much social infrastructure? That industry seems to move very couple of decades to a new country with the cheapest labor.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  > You haven't made a single compelling argument as to why we cannot also rebuild social infrastructure. ...and I don't have to. Have a nice Easter/Passover!

ramblenode 4y ago

Imagine a software company with a 50M LOC codebase that shuts down and lays off all workers. The office is still there, servers are still running, and nothing has been touched--but the employees are all gone. How easily do you think a new team of the same size could come in and restart operations? Most likely it would take a long time and a lot of capital before that company was productive again. That's what the parent means by social infrastructure: institutional knowledge--all the stuff that isn't written down anywhere.

dctoedt 4y ago

> Can you explain what is this secret sauce social infrastructure? The NASA-industrial complex that built the Saturn V rocket is largely gone: The engineers, factory workers, etc., who had the necessary knowledge — much of it tacit — are retired or dead.