7 ms·

That sounds like a result of brain drain, honestly. The people who stood up that hardware 50 years ago are 50 years older now. By contrast, the Chinese have ma

That sounds like a result of brain drain, honestly. The people who stood up that hardware 50 years ago are 50 years older now. By contrast, the Chinese have mastered process knowledge, transferring from one domain to the next. If we want to compete with them, it’s worth knowing what doing well looks like.

subscribed 1y ago
Smarter Every Day did a great video on that.
- spiresofagartha 1y ago
  what's it?
  - formerly_proven 1y ago
    Probably this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDzBE6vz5r0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDzBE6vz5r0
  - ssonal 1y ago
    Likely this one on the tooling & die industry, and the process knowledge that has evaporated from America over time. https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?si=SgZMaXmhydWHfb52 https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?si=SgZMaXmhydWHfb52
    - subscribed 1y ago
      Exactly this one.
ffsm8 1y ago
They built this knowledge up only in the last 10-15 yrs though. It's absolutely possible to reverse this trend within a much shorter time period then this argument always implies.
- simgt 1y ago
  How do you end up with 10-15 years? China is almost perfectly vertically integrated from raw materials to highly advanced finished products. Their industrialization started in the 70s. Getting to that level would require a lot of planning as well as the kind of hard constraints imposed on China through embargo. We're not even getting back to that level, we've never reached iPhone level of manufacturing in the US or Europe.
  - 3D30497420 1y ago
    It would also require a degree of consensus and quality of leadership which is completely lacking.
    - varjag 1y ago
      The leadership in democracy does what the population wants, even more so in the past couple decades.
      - simgt 1y ago
        Citation very much needed ;) Even our current voting systems are far from being the best we can come up with in term of fairness. The population most certainly wants to remain in an environment humans can comfortably live in, somehow that's not what our democracies are selecting for these days.
        kakacik 1y ago
        Yet people actively decided as they did, while almost fully knowing where it leads. It could also have been worse given progressing senility, attempt to overthrow government etc. We are not in a new territory after all, just continuation. Tariffs are new mexican wall. At least accept how your nation thinks on average, no weaseling around simple fact of today's reality.
        darepublic 1y ago
        In fairness while people do obviously want them they also want all the current conveniences of modern life and more. Completely off the cuff but I'm pretty sure the sum of those desires vastly dwarfs concern over longer term environmental effects. Essentially I think the average joe prioritizes their job and lifestyle over nagging climate concerns just like the gov does.
delfinom 1y ago
No the point is "overhead". You don't disturb working setups because you will cause engineering time to update the setup, that engineering time is added to the cost overhead of a job. Time is literally money, even if the employee(s) are salaried, their time is factored into the cost of a job. The knowledge is still there, but American labor is expensive as hell compared to overseas competitors and so any shop in the US has to contend balancing their profit margin and costs to remain competitively priced. When doing machine shop jobs, it's far easier to bury the cost of initial tooling/fixturing in the initial first job as a separate line charge for NRE. It's alot harder to sell to customers that you will charge them that cost on subsequent orders. You can charge customers for "setup overhead" on subsequent orders but that should be the cost of putting any existing tooling into service, not engineering new ones because you decided to change shit on a whim.
- egberts1 1y ago
  Modern shipbuilders know all about that.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > The knowledge is still there Tell that to the people who lost FOGBANK, or rather, the knowledge and most importantly the practical experience on how to make it. Or Emmentaler cheese - the one with the bubbles. Turns out, you need something only discovered when someone noticed the bubbles began to vanish... small contaminations from microscopic hay particles [1] that went away when manufacturing switched to fully sealed vats. There is always, always undocumented steps and unknown implicit assumptions involved in any manufacturing process. No matter how good the documentation is, you need the practical experience. And that, in turn, is also why the US is producing so much military surplus - should there ever be a full blown war with Russia or China, or there be any other need for a massive invasion land war for whatever cause, there is a shit ton of stuff on stockpile and the production can be rapidly scaled up by experienced personnel training fresh recruits. That would be outright impossible to do if there were no experienced personnel. [1] https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/mystery-of-disappearing-holes-in-swiss-cheese-120113009441.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/mystery-of-disappearing-hole...
- 1y ago

subscribed 1y ago

Smarter Every Day did a great video on that.

spiresofagartha 1y ago
what's it?
- formerly_proven 1y ago
  Probably this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDzBE6vz5r0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDzBE6vz5r0
- ssonal 1y ago
  Likely this one on the tooling & die industry, and the process knowledge that has evaporated from America over time. https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?si=SgZMaXmhydWHfb52 https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?si=SgZMaXmhydWHfb52
  - subscribed 1y ago
    Exactly this one.

ffsm8 1y ago

They built this knowledge up only in the last 10-15 yrs though. It's absolutely possible to reverse this trend within a much shorter time period then this argument always implies.

simgt 1y ago
How do you end up with 10-15 years? China is almost perfectly vertically integrated from raw materials to highly advanced finished products. Their industrialization started in the 70s. Getting to that level would require a lot of planning as well as the kind of hard constraints imposed on China through embargo. We're not even getting back to that level, we've never reached iPhone level of manufacturing in the US or Europe.
- 3D30497420 1y ago
  It would also require a degree of consensus and quality of leadership which is completely lacking.
  - varjag 1y ago
    The leadership in democracy does what the population wants, even more so in the past couple decades.
    - simgt 1y ago
      Citation very much needed ;) Even our current voting systems are far from being the best we can come up with in term of fairness. The population most certainly wants to remain in an environment humans can comfortably live in, somehow that's not what our democracies are selecting for these days.
      - kakacik 1y ago
        Yet people actively decided as they did, while almost fully knowing where it leads. It could also have been worse given progressing senility, attempt to overthrow government etc. We are not in a new territory after all, just continuation. Tariffs are new mexican wall. At least accept how your nation thinks on average, no weaseling around simple fact of today's reality.
      - darepublic 1y ago
        In fairness while people do obviously want them they also want all the current conveniences of modern life and more. Completely off the cuff but I'm pretty sure the sum of those desires vastly dwarfs concern over longer term environmental effects. Essentially I think the average joe prioritizes their job and lifestyle over nagging climate concerns just like the gov does.

delfinom 1y ago

No the point is "overhead". You don't disturb working setups because you will cause engineering time to update the setup, that engineering time is added to the cost overhead of a job. Time is literally money, even if the employee(s) are salaried, their time is factored into the cost of a job. The knowledge is still there, but American labor is expensive as hell compared to overseas competitors and so any shop in the US has to contend balancing their profit margin and costs to remain competitively priced. When doing machine shop jobs, it's far easier to bury the cost of initial tooling/fixturing in the initial first job as a separate line charge for NRE. It's alot harder to sell to customers that you will charge them that cost on subsequent orders. You can charge customers for "setup overhead" on subsequent orders but that should be the cost of putting any existing tooling into service, not engineering new ones because you decided to change shit on a whim.

egberts1 1y ago
Modern shipbuilders know all about that.
mschuster91 1y ago
> The knowledge is still there Tell that to the people who lost FOGBANK, or rather, the knowledge and most importantly the practical experience on how to make it. Or Emmentaler cheese - the one with the bubbles. Turns out, you need something only discovered when someone noticed the bubbles began to vanish... small contaminations from microscopic hay particles [1] that went away when manufacturing switched to fully sealed vats. There is always, always undocumented steps and unknown implicit assumptions involved in any manufacturing process. No matter how good the documentation is, you need the practical experience. And that, in turn, is also why the US is producing so much military surplus - should there ever be a full blown war with Russia or China, or there be any other need for a massive invasion land war for whatever cause, there is a shit ton of stuff on stockpile and the production can be rapidly scaled up by experienced personnel training fresh recruits. That would be outright impossible to do if there were no experienced personnel. [1] https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/mystery-of-disappearing-holes-in-swiss-cheese-120113009441.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/mystery-of-disappearing-hole...
1y ago