5 ms·

> It seems like nobody knows how to build things anymore. The Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Germans, etc might disagree. There's a lot of people out there who se

> It seems like nobody knows how to build things anymore. The Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Germans, etc might disagree. There's a lot of people out there who seem to be able to build very high quality things fairly quickly. It seems like it's the Americans that are struggling. We have for a long time, actually. I would argue we just have a shitty building culture. We chase trends, cheap out on materials and salaries, overcharge for services, ignore maintenance, and shun process. We're way more interested in the shiny and shooting by the hip than the boring careful measurement. Growth is more important than quality to us. Greed and the new are our gods. HN is the pulpit. Laziness is the ladder on which we climb toward the heavens, ignorance our fuel. Watch this, I'm going to reinvent the wheel! We won't be able to roll on it but we can sell it for a bundle before it collapses. It doesn't seem this way because we have so much money keeping us afloat. Like Google, the company renowned for its tech culture, but really makes most of its money selling eyeballs to Nike and Kraft.

wewtyflakes 3y ago
It has been my experience that there are good and bad engineers from all origins; Americans do not have a monopoly on it in either direction, nor does anyone else.
- ttoinou 3y ago
  If you can't generalize then you can't think. Of course any affirmation can be turned down on the basis that it is not specific enough. OP is pointing at differences in cultures, they do exist.
  - wewtyflakes 3y ago
    It sounded like the person I was responding to just wanted a lazy poo-poo soundbite. There are many examples of all of the countries mentioned making ridiculous/awful products and also amazing products.
  - alex_lav 3y ago
    > If you can't generalize then you can't think If you blindly follow others' generalizations without question, you can't think.
    - FredPret 3y ago
      Compression is a form of intelligence
      - scubbo 3y ago
        Short good
      - wewtyflakes 3y ago
        Sure if it isn't a losing material information in that process. It is easy to compress anything to true/false if you're willing to live with information loss. I think material information was lost in the aforementioned "Country X can't build anything" hot-take.
        FredPret 3y ago
        So people compress to the point where the speed vs information loss tradeoff makes instinctive sense to them. You can dramatically increase your computing power if you're not constantly deriving everything from the fundamental physics and instead rely on some stereotypes. This ranges from "objects that look like that are chairs" to "I can sit on chairs" to "Americans can/can't do X"
        alex_lav 3y ago
        It's amusing that this text chain is about derivations when in reality we can reference a direct quote. We're not deriving any meaning here. I'll leave it as an exercise to you to find that direct quote, as it'll be sure you actually read the comment :)
      - Rury 3y ago
        Sure, but blindly following something without question, isn't compression, even though both happen to involve reduction.
- financltravsty 3y ago
  Good and bad in the sense that they can achieve management's directives? Yes, anyone from any culture so long as they have a practical grasp of the language they're working in can adapt to the circumstance. But the culture starts at the top. Everything within the U.S. spiritual ecosystem is geared towards a superficial approach to all things. One example in the vein of engineering is Ford vs. Toyota. Anyone who has owned both of these can attest to the difference. There is a craftsmanship culture within Japan that I'm sure we're all acquainted with, but there are also much more subtle values at play (f.e. duty, sacrifice, etc.) that color everything an individual, and the society he makes up, touches. The individuals of America do not have strong values or sensibilities. I want to say this is because of its quality of being a "cultural melting pot." But this aspect of it doesn't turn it into a stone soup, where all the different and varied ingredients work together to make something unique, with surprisingly complimentary flavors. Instead, I think it turns into an actual crucible, where people of all different mettle are melted down; and all of the extraneous spiritual slag is scooped off the top, before being poured out as a completely uniform metal, without a noticeable difference batch-to-batch. Instead of refining and building upon a culture, as 99% of other nations do, America specializes in annihilating it, and integrating the stray quality here and there that it finds useful towards its ends. And its ends is something I cannot even begin to know.
  - wewtyflakes 3y ago
    "Everything within the U.S. spiritual ecosystem is geared towards a superficial approach to all things" This is hyperbole, I don't think there will be any way to convince you.
    - financltravsty 3y ago
      I agree that there isn’t much of a chance I can be convinced otherwise, having travelled and having not been born in the U.S. I disagree that it is hyperbole. The main motive of this country seems to be exerting power over others. Whether that be through military, monetary, or quasi-cultural means: onto other nations and onto its own citizens. It’s very Prussian in its pursuit; and nothing that requires sensitivity can flourish here.
- a-french-anon 3y ago
  pg's essay on the subject is a must-read: http://www.paulgraham.com/usa.html http://www.paulgraham.com/usa.html
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
D_Alex 3y ago
>> It seems like nobody knows how to build things anymore. >The Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Germans, etc might disagree. It's funny, after riding the Chinese HSR network, this quote from the article had me shaking my head: "California is spectacularly behind schedule and overbudget on its quest to build the world’s slowest high-speed rail. It seems like nobody knows how to build things anymore."
- gonzo41 3y ago
  Well China may have a HSR. But it's sort of bankrupt on arrival outside of the main metro's. China has the luck in this scenario of being free of oversight, and able to create it's own money. Most western Infrastructure isn't built in a vacuum that allows it to arrive as a gold plated entity.
mulmen 3y ago
America has the most productive economy in the world by dollar. We make everything from rockets to disposable forks. Don’t confuse meeting a price point with a lack of ability.
hibikir 3y ago
It's ultimately about practice: Spain's first high speed train was massively over budget, and seen as a boondoggle. If building had stopped there, it would have been a curiosity, but the government kept asking for more track, and with practice come better results. It's difficult to succeed in early projects of all kinds, but it's not just people that learn: organizations do too. Set up good incentives, and be OK with early failures. And if you lack expertise, but someone else has the knowledge, just hire a few experts away. On most problems where America is very inefficient, it's either a matter of lack of practice or horrible incentives. If there's a cultural failing, it's unwillingness to deal with those bad incentives.
- fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
  Especially for big projects, I often get the sense that failing a couple times is seen as unthinkable in the US: so a lot of ambitious initiatives lose funding or become laughingstocks because of publicized early failures. As a result, there’s a tendency to over-engineer in some areas and reduce ambitions in others.
NBJack 3y ago
I'd love to try the software products from these countries, but I can't deny that some of the very things spoken of in the article came from the origins of which you speak. Samsung made Tizen, and many of the 'TVs with eyes and ears' out there. BMW was apparently the flagship for heated seats as a service. To be fair, Nintendo is pretty good at innovation in both hardware and software, but not so much at cutting edge power these days. Or, like, people trying to have fun with friends (whether online or in tournaments). I can't speak for China on your list; would love to hear of some battle tested counterexamples though. All of that said, greed is undoubtedly a leading cause for many of these industry wide ailments. Why innovate when you can coast? Why invent something in your spare time for nothing when someone can pay you good money to transform JSON?
- ryoshu 3y ago
  Nintendo purposely doesn't focus on cutting-edge or power. Hasn't since the the mid-80s. Having fun with friends is a core concept of what they do. Hand a Switch to a group of people to play party games. It's really interactive and social.
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    Nintendo is good at social if all the players are in the same room: their internet services leave a lot to be desired.
- defrost 3y ago
  China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is a nifty bit of now proven novel engineering with active shaping and nimble receiver positioning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Spherical_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Sp...
- xmodem 3y ago
  Ableton comes from Germany for instance - not my cup of tea personally but by all accounts great software. Samsung meanwhile has a significant software development presence in California.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
oceanplexian 3y ago
The US for sure knows how to build things. SpaceX alone delivered over 80% of mass to orbit while China’s entire space program can’t keep pace with a single American company. We are also killing it at EVs, again, all the great might of the Chinese economy is playing catch up to Tesla. The thing is, we know how to build things. Those things aren’t crappy block apartments or faster trains. They are: space ships, artificial intelligence, robotics, cutting edge medicine, etc. The name of the game is individuality, entrepreneurship, and freedom (The ingredients that built the most powerful economy in the world). These are antithetical to both their political system and their culture.
- bigiain 3y ago
  "As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery" -- Neal Stephenson, Snowcrash, 1992
- throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  Most of what you mentioned is research & development, not building. I don't know why you say we're killing it at EVs, when there's many competitors, and Tesla churned out dreck for years until it finally produced a decent car without defects, and had to be floated constantly on US government subsidies. SpaceX is the only thing that seems to work reliably, probably due to sheer will from passionate engineers and a ton of QA (and a whole lot of NASA experience). Anyone can come up with a new sandwich, given enough time and money. Not everyone can churn out 1 million sandwiches, quickly, perfectly, every time. That's what building is about.
  - 3y ago
black_13 3y ago
[dead]

wewtyflakes 3y ago

It has been my experience that there are good and bad engineers from all origins; Americans do not have a monopoly on it in either direction, nor does anyone else.

ttoinou 3y ago
If you can't generalize then you can't think. Of course any affirmation can be turned down on the basis that it is not specific enough. OP is pointing at differences in cultures, they do exist.
- wewtyflakes 3y ago
  It sounded like the person I was responding to just wanted a lazy poo-poo soundbite. There are many examples of all of the countries mentioned making ridiculous/awful products and also amazing products.
- alex_lav 3y ago
  > If you can't generalize then you can't think If you blindly follow others' generalizations without question, you can't think.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    Compression is a form of intelligence
    - scubbo 3y ago
      Short good
    - wewtyflakes 3y ago
      Sure if it isn't a losing material information in that process. It is easy to compress anything to true/false if you're willing to live with information loss. I think material information was lost in the aforementioned "Country X can't build anything" hot-take.
      - FredPret 3y ago
        So people compress to the point where the speed vs information loss tradeoff makes instinctive sense to them. You can dramatically increase your computing power if you're not constantly deriving everything from the fundamental physics and instead rely on some stereotypes. This ranges from "objects that look like that are chairs" to "I can sit on chairs" to "Americans can/can't do X"
        alex_lav 3y ago
        It's amusing that this text chain is about derivations when in reality we can reference a direct quote. We're not deriving any meaning here. I'll leave it as an exercise to you to find that direct quote, as it'll be sure you actually read the comment :)
    - Rury 3y ago
      Sure, but blindly following something without question, isn't compression, even though both happen to involve reduction.
financltravsty 3y ago
Good and bad in the sense that they can achieve management's directives? Yes, anyone from any culture so long as they have a practical grasp of the language they're working in can adapt to the circumstance. But the culture starts at the top. Everything within the U.S. spiritual ecosystem is geared towards a superficial approach to all things. One example in the vein of engineering is Ford vs. Toyota. Anyone who has owned both of these can attest to the difference. There is a craftsmanship culture within Japan that I'm sure we're all acquainted with, but there are also much more subtle values at play (f.e. duty, sacrifice, etc.) that color everything an individual, and the society he makes up, touches. The individuals of America do not have strong values or sensibilities. I want to say this is because of its quality of being a "cultural melting pot." But this aspect of it doesn't turn it into a stone soup, where all the different and varied ingredients work together to make something unique, with surprisingly complimentary flavors. Instead, I think it turns into an actual crucible, where people of all different mettle are melted down; and all of the extraneous spiritual slag is scooped off the top, before being poured out as a completely uniform metal, without a noticeable difference batch-to-batch. Instead of refining and building upon a culture, as 99% of other nations do, America specializes in annihilating it, and integrating the stray quality here and there that it finds useful towards its ends. And its ends is something I cannot even begin to know.
- wewtyflakes 3y ago
  "Everything within the U.S. spiritual ecosystem is geared towards a superficial approach to all things" This is hyperbole, I don't think there will be any way to convince you.
  - financltravsty 3y ago
    I agree that there isn’t much of a chance I can be convinced otherwise, having travelled and having not been born in the U.S. I disagree that it is hyperbole. The main motive of this country seems to be exerting power over others. Whether that be through military, monetary, or quasi-cultural means: onto other nations and onto its own citizens. It’s very Prussian in its pursuit; and nothing that requires sensitivity can flourish here.
a-french-anon 3y ago
pg's essay on the subject is a must-read: http://www.paulgraham.com/usa.html http://www.paulgraham.com/usa.html

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

D_Alex 3y ago

>> It seems like nobody knows how to build things anymore. >The Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Germans, etc might disagree. It's funny, after riding the Chinese HSR network, this quote from the article had me shaking my head: "California is spectacularly behind schedule and overbudget on its quest to build the world’s slowest high-speed rail. It seems like nobody knows how to build things anymore."

gonzo41 3y ago
Well China may have a HSR. But it's sort of bankrupt on arrival outside of the main metro's. China has the luck in this scenario of being free of oversight, and able to create it's own money. Most western Infrastructure isn't built in a vacuum that allows it to arrive as a gold plated entity.

mulmen 3y ago

America has the most productive economy in the world by dollar. We make everything from rockets to disposable forks. Don’t confuse meeting a price point with a lack of ability.

hibikir 3y ago

It's ultimately about practice: Spain's first high speed train was massively over budget, and seen as a boondoggle. If building had stopped there, it would have been a curiosity, but the government kept asking for more track, and with practice come better results. It's difficult to succeed in early projects of all kinds, but it's not just people that learn: organizations do too. Set up good incentives, and be OK with early failures. And if you lack expertise, but someone else has the knowledge, just hire a few experts away. On most problems where America is very inefficient, it's either a matter of lack of practice or horrible incentives. If there's a cultural failing, it's unwillingness to deal with those bad incentives.

fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
Especially for big projects, I often get the sense that failing a couple times is seen as unthinkable in the US: so a lot of ambitious initiatives lose funding or become laughingstocks because of publicized early failures. As a result, there’s a tendency to over-engineer in some areas and reduce ambitions in others.

NBJack 3y ago

I'd love to try the software products from these countries, but I can't deny that some of the very things spoken of in the article came from the origins of which you speak. Samsung made Tizen, and many of the 'TVs with eyes and ears' out there. BMW was apparently the flagship for heated seats as a service. To be fair, Nintendo is pretty good at innovation in both hardware and software, but not so much at cutting edge power these days. Or, like, people trying to have fun with friends (whether online or in tournaments). I can't speak for China on your list; would love to hear of some battle tested counterexamples though. All of that said, greed is undoubtedly a leading cause for many of these industry wide ailments. Why innovate when you can coast? Why invent something in your spare time for nothing when someone can pay you good money to transform JSON?

ryoshu 3y ago
Nintendo purposely doesn't focus on cutting-edge or power. Hasn't since the the mid-80s. Having fun with friends is a core concept of what they do. Hand a Switch to a group of people to play party games. It's really interactive and social.
- rcxdude 3y ago
  Nintendo is good at social if all the players are in the same room: their internet services leave a lot to be desired.
defrost 3y ago
China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is a nifty bit of now proven novel engineering with active shaping and nimble receiver positioning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Spherical_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Sp...
xmodem 3y ago
Ableton comes from Germany for instance - not my cup of tea personally but by all accounts great software. Samsung meanwhile has a significant software development presence in California.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

oceanplexian 3y ago

The US for sure knows how to build things. SpaceX alone delivered over 80% of mass to orbit while China’s entire space program can’t keep pace with a single American company. We are also killing it at EVs, again, all the great might of the Chinese economy is playing catch up to Tesla. The thing is, we know how to build things. Those things aren’t crappy block apartments or faster trains. They are: space ships, artificial intelligence, robotics, cutting edge medicine, etc. The name of the game is individuality, entrepreneurship, and freedom (The ingredients that built the most powerful economy in the world). These are antithetical to both their political system and their culture.

bigiain 3y ago
"As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery" -- Neal Stephenson, Snowcrash, 1992
throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
Most of what you mentioned is research & development, not building. I don't know why you say we're killing it at EVs, when there's many competitors, and Tesla churned out dreck for years until it finally produced a decent car without defects, and had to be floated constantly on US government subsidies. SpaceX is the only thing that seems to work reliably, probably due to sheer will from passionate engineers and a ton of QA (and a whole lot of NASA experience). Anyone can come up with a new sandwich, given enough time and money. Not everyone can churn out 1 million sandwiches, quickly, perfectly, every time. That's what building is about.
- 3y ago

black_13 3y ago

[dead]