Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Exactly. Precision manufacturing requires a lot of things to go right. Then they have to be provably right, which was a recurring problem for the Soviet system.
I think the latter danger is real but not for that reason. Comparative advantage pushed Americans out of manufacturing. We still produce excellent technical professionals*, but they have little incentive to start up an industrial plant. The money is in finance, pharma, software.
When I was in college, the perception of academia was already pretty grim. People were aware of the employment prospects and the shift towards adjunct professors. It’s hard to imagine it getting better in the last ten years.
I’d say cultural work has also taken a beating, though that’s even more subject to my bubble. This is a damn cynical generation. Are they really eager to fight over the last scraps of journalism? Of mass culture?
* I wanted to show this via bls.gov, but the data retrieval tool was “under maintenance.”
After a friend wanted to talk about it, I listened to Smarter Every Day on the problems with capitalism stemming from his trying to "manufacture" something 100% in the us. One of his lament is the lack of metal stamping. And while of course there are many sneaky hard things, I strongly believe that there are plenty of smart technical people in the US that could figure it out in relatively short order with the incentives were there. Especially at the level of stamping BBQ scraper handles.
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