America must embrace the Electric Age, or fall behind | Hacker News Reader

America must embrace the Electric Age, or fall behind

noahpinion.blog

America is too stupid and greedy to think past the next quarter. Our culture is so toxic and broken, we deserve to fall behind.

Maga will eventually consume itself and it will end. We'll spend the next 20 years rebuilding. That generation, will have the first chance to set us on a better path, becuase the path we are on now is fixed for the time being, and its not progressive or forward thinging in any way.

> America is too stupid and greedy to think past the next quarter.

And yet American business leaders are placing bets measured in the tens of billions dollars that don’t pay out for a decade or more.

How do you think MAGA will consume itself? What is the catalyst for MAGA consuming itself?

Since Jan 2nd I am thinking MAGA will be less talking and more doing, up to turning USA into a dictatorship. (Doing things like attacking Venezuela for no reason and providing immunity for ICE agents who murder American citizens)

Theres already a lot of infighting on Epstein files and Israel.

There are many things to criticize about China but they are absolutely to be admired in how they focus on building for the future.

The problem is that American industrial policy is based on quarterly earnings and not long term health of the republic as a whole. Biden's IRA program was effectively a step in the right direction but has been erased. We need our economic incentives to be aligned with long term growth and prosperity for all, not just wealth for those at the top of the dog pile.

> The problem is that American industrial policy is based on quarterly earnings and not long term health of the republic as a whole

I think it's even worse than that, the country's industrial policy is based on emotional appeal to the past. Gas cars, coal mines, etc etc, they are as much cultural touchpoints as they are economic factors.

That's a technique they use to get away with it. I'm not interested in blaming the populace for being manipulated, I want to call out the leadership directly as they fully know well what they're doing and they should be publicly castigated instead.

Another big issue is that policy is based on politicians trying to get (re)elected. Their focus is doing things that make them look good, rather than actually doing good. There isn't a ton of long-term planning because elections happen so frequently. Politicians are also often old and not educated about technology.

There isn't a lot of long term planning because American voters do not at all reward long term planning. They also don't reward realism, honesty, generosity, capability, intelligence, etc.

American voters objectively reward hatred, fear, anger, and retribution, lying, false narratives, ignoring the past, ignoring reality, ignoring society.

It's no surprise the politicians we get.

The thing is, a lot of the time, politicians make decisions that don't reflect majority opinion. They act against the will of the people... But people are forced to choose between two extremes because of the two party system. That's why less and less people are voting. They feel like politicians no longer represent them, that it's hopeless.

No they aren't. F*ck China and its genocidal dictatorship.

The fact that a country is doing a holocaust does not negate the fact it's building infrastructure for the future and raising living standards (for non-victims) faster than any other country.

Exactly. That's why I specifically led my comment with:

> There are many things to criticize about China

And the last time I checked the international news it was all about a shooting of an unarmed women in Minneapolis by paramilitary police who clearly did not run over or intended to harm anybody.

> We need our economic incentives to be aligned with long term growth

Isn't that asking for more TSLAs? I don't mean Tesla the company. I mean TSLA the stock. People hold it because they want to bet long on the future.

One other thing about the US is that they're stubbornly protectionist when it comes to jobs. They're scared to introduce efficiencies such as automating things like manufacturing because some people will lose their jobs in the short-term, even though it's better economically for the long-term. It's ironic that the country run by a Communist Party isn't afraid to embrace innovation like the US is afraid.

Do you think strong unions play into this protectionism in the United States vs China?

It's a factor but it's also true of non-union jobs. Politicians are against any short-term pain because they're afraid they won't be elected. But it's just a part of the culture, US voters don't like it either (even if they're not the ones facing potential job loss)

Reading the history of shipping, unions played a huge role in the slower transition from labor-intensive general shipping to containerized shipping.

multiple steps to get goods near a ship in a warehouse, prepared for the ship, manually loaded and packed, and more nonsense became just: drive the containers to the dock and load them when the ship showed up.

I probably read this the wrong way around. I thought the question was about how the huge Chinese unions are involved in the nation's technological ascendancy. Which I really would like to learn more about!

Once again, partisan politics is holding back progress. Annoys me as a centrist.

Democrats should avoid policies that promote central control and increases in national level regulations. They should specifically avoid subsidies and encourage private funding.

Republicans should ease off reactionary politics, and work to remove subsidies for entrenched oil/coal/hydrocarbon producers (but only where the cases where the oil is burned, one of the most ridiculous ways to use a resource).

Both sides should agree on removing subsidies for their respective "favorites" as a de-escalation and act of good faith.

All players should encourage nuclear within the above framework, as this is a potential win-win situation for all sides: reduces carbon emissions, promotes domestic industry, and many others.

You can’t both be against subsidies and say “encourage nuclear”.

Subsidies are the least corrupt way for the government to “encourage something”.

Your comment essentially boils down to “both Dems and Repubs are bad because they support something I don’t”.

subsidies > tariffs. seriously, injecting money is a pretty darn good shortcut, and you can really target money with agreements about its use. tariffs seem to be abstract theories that you hope work but often don't.

Is this just a PR piece for Elon Musk?

As for the title, we already are going to fall behind, the only question is how far are we going to allow ourselves to fall behind before we change our economic policies. Or alternatively, how far can we fall behind before American hegemony becomes impotent and can be completely ignored by the rest of the world?

Unfortunately I think we may just keep blindly worshiping all the worst aspects of capitalism until complete collapse. Gen Y and Z may have changing thoughts about it, but im not sure it will add up enough to change the geriatric political landscape for another 2 decades, by which time the US will have lost all its leverage to do anything but dog everyone else's footsteps trying to pick up scraps.

American hegemony is already in the process of collapsing. It is not about preventing it any more, only about how quickly America chooses to halt it, or not. I'm betting not.

Why not speed up the collapse? That would Effectively Accelerate our current timeline.

Quick collapse, slow collapse, the results will be vastly different, I think, with other parties taking advantage of the chaos whichever degree it will be.

Our timeline is moving on with or without the US. Electrification is going to happen, the US will just slow down how fast the number will go up. The world isn't reliant on US innovation anymore I imagine so it'll go up regardless.

Well mainly because it sucks living under the Trump Administration, even if supporting them is objectively the most accelerationist move.

ever get the feeling all of it is just giant rugpulls, one after the other?

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