News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by jgalt212 on Thursday November 24, 2016 @11:25AM (#13031099)
perhaps not, but the more automated a factory is the less the labor costs matter to the whole. For this reason, I think automation is the key to bringing back manufacturing and manufacturing jobs to the US.

Not that total war, of a conventional nature, is likely to repeat itself, but the US won WWII largely on the back of its unparalleled manufacturing capabilities.

Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by wheelerwj on Thursday November 24, 2016 @12:26PM (#13031448)
The US won world war 2 because the British gave us a shit ton of IP, which we then built in our factories, which weren't being bombed to shit like the rest of Europe, because of two gigantic oceans separating us from war.

To repeat the poster above you, correlation doesn't equal causation.

Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by imbeau on Friday November 25, 2016 @08:58AM (#13036738)
First of all, the US didn't win the Second World War -- a coalition of the US, Britain, France, China, and, especially, Russia did.

Secondly, the US's biggest contribution to the war was manufacturing capacity. Period. Sure, some of the things built in America were designed elsewhere, but the US could outproduce everyone by an order of magnitude thanks to abundant natural resources, a large population, and a heavily industrialized manufacturing base. Not being bombed isn't really a factor in that equation.

Also, America produced its share of extraordinary weapons during (and before) the war -- the Thompson submachine gun, the Jeep, the 50 cal machine gun. American submarines were first rate along with aircraft like the P-51. American trucks were the backbone of both the Western and Eastern Allied supply lines.

It's pretty disengenuous to summarize Americas contribution to the war as you have above

Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by jgalt212 on Thursday November 24, 2016 @07:55PM (#13033767)
> the British gave us a shit ton of IP

While I don't necessarily agree with the statement, it is interesting to see how many things the Brits invented post 1900, but did not have the wherewithal to fully commercially exploit. For more on this, I recommend visiting the science museum next time anyone here is in London.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/

Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by rm999 on Thursday November 24, 2016 @02:01PM (#13032108)
You're right that the fact that US factories weren't being bombed was critical, but it's important not to underestimate the scale here. The USA was a world powerhouse before wwii, with a higher gdp than all axis countries combined. Switching to a high-throughput wartime manufacturing powerhouse was straightforward.
Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by wheelerwj on Thursday November 24, 2016 @02:38PM (#13032291)
I understand we produced a TON of stuff, and I don't mean to belittle it, but to credit the success of the war on our ability to manufacture is an oversimplification of the actual events.

Of course we had more stable manufacturing post world war 1, where we took only 10% of the losses of the other developed nations, and 2% of the worlds population was wiped out. It's not surprising that a country who lost only 0.13% of its people was able to move faster and build more stuff than a country who lost 13% of its total population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties

Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by merpnderp on Thursday November 24, 2016 @06:28PM (#13033437)
Historians hotly debate the effectiveness of allied bombing on German factories. "Bombed to shit" is an improbable description of German manufacturing during the war.
Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by ascotan on Friday November 25, 2016 @12:00AM (#13034502)
I'm sorry what were the inventions that the Brits gave the US that won the war? I think I might have missed something in my history class.
Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by flukus on Friday November 25, 2016 @12:03AM (#13034509)
Computers, jet planes, nuclear weapons. All in varying stages of completion.
Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by wheelerwj on Friday November 25, 2016 @03:49AM (#13035184)
Also radar.
Re:US auto industry installed 135K robots and added 230K jobs by blakeshall on Thursday November 24, 2016 @12:23PM (#13031431)
That and the fact that our factories weren't being regularly bombed.