9 ms·
Reposted because 1)you might have been too young to have read it (1992) 2)outsourcing and trade balance was in the full quote >When it gets down to it — talk
by gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
Reposted because
1)you might have been too young to have read it (1992)
2)outsourcing and trade balance was in the full quote
>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 away 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
--Snow Crash,1992
- franktankbank 1y agoSorry, I'm not sure the relevance of a fiction from 30+ years ago. I know I sound like a dick but seriously why should I care about it?
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoYou don't have to care about the book. The point of a quote is the quote. Why should you care about a quote from any time period? Because it expresses something well. Why should you care about an older quote? Because it expresses something well enough to have endured.
- franktankbank 1y agoIt's a quote from a fiction of a bygone era though. You think China can't write microcode? You think only USA has big breasted women and men with chiseled abs? None of this makes any sense. High speed pizza had to be tongue in cheek as written. Maybe you missed the point and it was all written tongue in cheek because who truly cares about those things if you don't have all your other bases covered? Maybe I missed the point. Are we already pinched off?
- gsf_emergency_2 1y agoYou're no dick just not fully aware of the situation :) As of today China hasn't totally, or indeed really, caught up in the first 3. (Think about why). You might argue the Eurozone is up there in music but then you remember TikTok isn't quite YouTube. High speed pizza delivery is the most hilarious because it's the only material domain that they won't make progress at (in the foreseeable future). They have better EVs better batteries and maybe better food (in general). Just not pizza because pizza is pizza, and drones still lag behind the fastest nuclear bike when it comes to shipping frozen pizza from Shanghai to your doorstep (is there even a market for frozen pizza in Hong Kong?) (I'm glad he didn't mention games at all because it would have been the obvious one in 1992, but wrong 2025)
- franktankbank 1y agoHa thanks, I'll think about it. It's not immediately obvious though... My grandfather was one of the first "missionaries" to China in the 50s, wonder if that has anything to do with it.
- gsf_emergency_2 1y agoWas he Pentecostal and a fiber-optic monopolist?
- franktankbank 1y agoLutheran actually.
- gsf_emergency_2 1y agoThen there's no reason for you not to appreciate the book ;)
- jajko 1y agoAnd that music part was by no small means helped with British exports over past 60 years