Comment by drivingmenuts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drivingmenuts | Hacker News Reader

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It's probably not possible anymore. One problem in the US, and presumably the UK and other first-world countries, we've lost not only the ability to make things, but we've lost the ability to make things used to make things. For instance, we need machine shops that no longer exist (with machinists that no longer exist, with training programs that no longer exist) to make machines used to build more complicated parts. We've been outsourcing it to China because it was cheaper and now they have all that expertise (despite the shabbiness of some Chinese products, some of their products are absolutely not-at-all shabby).

We did this to ourselves and some people got very rich doing so and it's in their best interests that this remains the case. These same people may claim to want to bring this expertise back home, but really, they want to bring it back, but continue to make even bigger profits. Politicians cry about it on the evening news, but they just want to make campaign promises that will be thrown out as soon as a political donation is made. Workers want it, but without training by people who don't exist, its not possible.

We are screwed, we did it to ourselves, and there's no unscrewing it anymore.

There's no unscrewing it quickly. If we could execute a decades-long plan (we can barely execute a quarter-long plan so that seems unlikely) the information needed exists, it's "just" a matter of having people learning how to implement it again & building the needed equipment. And that's largely an economic problem, and thus politically infeasible. But the skills were invented by people who didn't have training from others in how to do those skills, it's not inherently impossible to re-develop them, especially since there's documentation on a lot of the skills. It's just difficult, slow, and expensive.

We are screwed, we did it to ourselves, and we're not willing to pay the cost to unscrew it.

It would be nice if the maker movement could have more impact. While it is an interesting avocation (and sometimes much more), it is not widespread enough to have a major impact. Also, it is not exactly a low-cost sort of thing (I guess it could be, I just haven't seen those examples yet).

This is simply not true. Did you walk any US, UK and other first-world countries factories? A lot of them have separate machinist shops with tens or hundreds of machinists who can make pretty much anything given materials and time. Even every other small factory has a machinist shop where all kinds of things are made including whole machines, parts, improvements for existing machines, etc. In my small town there are two small modern machinist shops that can make anything you want. Look around and see if there are any factories or small shops and ask if you can take a look. You would be amazed by locally made high tech you see and what can be done.

I'm not really sure when and where the "we've lost the ability to make things" came from?

I agree that other countries caught up though.

We haven't completely lost the ability to make things that make things and yes, there are machine shops in factories across the US. But how many of those machine shops have the equipment and expertise to completely produce the machines necessary to make a, for example, car, from carburetor to computer chips, without going outside the US. An increasingly large number of foundational products are being made in other countries and shipped here for assembly (and even that is being outsourced now).

Note: I should mention that I'm actually mostly OK with this - I don't have a huge issue with globalism. What I do have an issue with is people who claim this is a horrible, horrible situation while these same people are the ones who put us in this condition and continue to profit from it, without attempting to actually fix it, and expecting someone else to step up and fix it.

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