On the one hand, you're correct that it does nothing for the American worker to bring manufacturing back if it means huge buildings with skeleton crews and machines that effectively run themselves. I don't particularly have a solution for this. Americans have gotten used to the price of goods being artificially low because of inexpensive labor in impoverished countries. Unless we want to take a manufacturing approach akin to Germany or the Nordic countries, focusing on high quality precision built or luxury items, we simply can't produce goods at commodity prices while both paying people enough to live well on and producing the kind of profit that is required by investors. So that's where YC sees machines as solving that conflict, at no benefit to working people.
That said, there is the advantage that we have seen how fragile the global JIT supply chain is to disruptions. Either political, environmental or just plain Acts of God like COVID. Having goods produced much closer to where they're consumed is something I think every country needs to invest in. Especially for goods that aren't just nice-to-haves but necessary for basic functioning of society. Things like construction and repair materials, medicines, medical devices, etc. I support building up a greater local resilience over global dependence, especially what with climate change on the horizon.
I wish we could do this in a way that meant good blue collar jobs with strong benefits and union wages. But you can't ever expect a investors YC to take that path.
This seems analogous to the transition from bespoke manufacturing of goods to mass production.
I think what we need is leadership that can get people excited, in good faith, about a future where small groups of people can produce goods for orders of magnitude less capital, effort, etc. with robotics, ML, and other tech.
Today a popular dystopian narrative of tech is that it’s being deployed by the elite to enrich themselves and build moats around their fiefdoms. Feudalism doesn’t get pluralities excited. How can that mainstream narrative be changed in a manner that makes people clearly understand how they can be a beneficiary instead of an exploit?
The problem is not the need for a narrative change. The need is actual change.
Maybe take a crack at it, what is incorrect with the "feudalism" narrative? what is the better way of framing it that you're implying exists?
I don't think that right. It still means goods are being produced in America, which means:
1. Greater security of production against geopolitical threats, and
2. More goods being produced overall, meaning cheaper goods.
Even without significant employment, those are good things!
I address this in the second paragraph.
> More goods being produced overall, meaning cheaper goods.
I'm not convinced cheaper, more abundant goods are the top problem to solve right now. Especially as wants get cheaper, needs are getting much more expensive. And low and stagnant wages at the bottom means survival becomes increasingly difficult, despite cheaper candy and toys.
> My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
But if the losers of globalism keep getting purposefully shortchanged I can more easily foresee them deciding to change the system by force.
I don't think that's a terribly likely outcome, but much more likely than Red Dawn.
Maybe it does those things. But clearly it doesnt do “nothing but” those things. It brings manufacturing back which is the entire point. I really think you’re ignoring the whole point to go off on a highly partisan political tangent.
If the point is to bring back manufacturing salaries in the quantity and amount previously available, it's not the entire point.
It is completely unsurprising to me that those making this nonsense claim never accept the burden of proof. If they did, it would only further reveal that they are pushing total bullshit.
Its not that automation necessarily brings back manufacturing, its that if it does its not only going to increase social and political division.
