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Comment by ajsnigrutin | Hacker News Reader

> why should we romanticize and pine for an era that has been passed by? Why shouldn't we have a vision for a new era and double down on the things we are best at?

Because if something bad happens, be it a war, trade war with tarrifs or a pandemic, or just a stuck ship somewhere blocking transport, you're left without everything that you were once able to make, but can't make anymore.

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but going back to processes that are essentially "artisan" at this point, instead of re-shoring efficient automated manufacturing is the problem. Doubling down on making high volume pencils in an inefficient way is a fools errand when, if the stated goal is to manufacture all pencils domestically used through domestic firms is going to require an entire domestic supply chain on top of entirely new manufacturing processes and machinery.

Trying to scale old systems is not going to solve the issue of not being able to make the things we want to own, if that is even a good or feasible goal in the first place.

I think that's a bit of a straw man, onshoring doesn't demand that it re-implements 1910-style production.

Maybe a new-tech pencil factory would only require 10 staff to run it 24/7. That's fine. Onshoring doesn't equate to full employment, but it does result in skills, knowledge and revenue remaining within a local OODA loop instead of being exported along with the actual production.

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