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America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

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842 points putzdown | 2 comments | 15 Apr 25 13:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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mppm ◴[15 Apr 25 14:12 UTC] No.43692983[source]▶
Jonathan Blow's "Preventing the collapse of civilization" [1] makes a similar point. It is easy to assume that, if we can build EUV machines and space telescopes, then processing stainless steel and manufacturing PCBs is baby stuff, and is just waiting for the proper incentives to spring up again. Unfortunately that is not the case -- reality has a surprising amount of detail [2] and even medium-level technology takes know-how and skilled workers to execute properly. Both can be recovered and scaled back up if the will is there. And time -- ten or twenty years of persistent and intelligent effort should be plenty to MAGA :)

1. https://www.youtube.com/embed/pW-SOdj4Kkk

2. http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-...

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imbusy111 ◴[15 Apr 25 14:14 UTC] No.43693026[source]▶
But the important question is - is it worth it? Should we be doing something more valuable instead?
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mantas ◴[15 Apr 25 14:19 UTC] No.43693115[source]▶
Depends on how evaluate what is valuable. E.g. here in europe a lot of people think subsidising local agriculture is not valuable and we should just import cheaper food. On the other hand, a lot of people agree that food security is kinda valuable by itself. And want similar security in more fields. In that sense yes, doing „low tech“ is valuable in the long run.
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1. Paradigma11 ◴[15 Apr 25 14:49 UTC] No.43693557[source]▶
@agriculture.

Have you ever heard any concrete strategies and plans regarding food security?

Wouldn't there be policies about how many calories should be produced in what form, how long can it be stored, what would a local ramp up look like if there was a global catastrophe?

What percentage of agriculture is really relevant to food security?

Those are just empty words so farmers can get their subsidies and go on to produce more industrial rapeseed oil.

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2. mantas ◴[15 Apr 25 14:54 UTC] No.43693624[source]▶
As long as you have whole supply chain locally, you don't need to store too much.

The problem with agriculture is you can't really „ramp up“ it on a whim. That's why you need to keep it going and you can't just kick start your food production when outside suppliers start to blackmail you.