“”” America has run this experiment before. In 1964 about half a million Mexican farmworkers were shut out. In 1965, 20% of California's tomatoes were picked by machine; by 1970 the figure was 99.9%.“””
I honestly had not considered closing down (legal) immigration as a forcing function for automation. Industrial policy as immigration law.
But I don’t think I get the rest …
Higher costs onshore mean machines give us an advantage - i get that. The rest I may be missing
[–] snovv_crash 1 day ago
[–] lifeisstillgood 23 hours ago
So industrial policy should be focused on high end engineering quality, more than bringing jobs back
(Might be spotting a political problem there but in general I think I agree)
[–] weitendorf 20 hours ago
People are much more likely to try something if they see peers and role models doing it. Even better if it’s something fun and exciting that they want to be a part of.
I think to convince someone to run a factory instead of trying to become MTS @ lab, they should know 1. it’s not a binary “make it or break it” where failure means doing some boring, poorly paid job (the downside is good but not so guaranteed that it’s abused/attracts the wrong people ) 2. it’s interesting and challenging and enjoyable at times 3. it’s meaningful at a societal or personal level. That's what made tech/AI/finance work and it's the competing pitch.
Why should someone with other options want to work in or operate a factory?
[–] ojbyrne 1 day ago
[–] lifeisstillgood 23 hours ago
(Again apropos of nothing I am assuming the rise of “on the vine tomatoes” in packets is presumably because cutting four off the branch is quicker and easier than twisting four or five.
And even possibly there is a robot doing it. Would be interested to know
[–] sumanthvepa 20 hours ago
I'm seeing this in India. Some really smart students are doing some fascinating startups at home because emigrating to the west has become really hard.
Still a very small effect, but one that gives me a lot of hope and cause for excitement.
5 years ago I was trying to get a custom aluminium enclosure for some circuit boards manufactured. We found potential suppliers in Taiwan, but they basically would have needed an expert onsite to be able to set up all the jigs. They also could have supported us through rapid scaling by switching to moulded raw stock which then was post machined, and would bring down unit prices a lot.
However, one guy knew a local SoCal machine shop that supplied parts to the auto modding scene and had a bunch of 5-axis milling machines. For 200 units they would beat Taiwan on every metric: cost, time, effort on our side, flexibility for changes.
We're engineers. From this lens, the difference between us and cavemen are the tools we have. We should lean into this.