Why manufacturing jobs aren't coming back to the U.S

Re:Why manufacturing jobs aren't coming back to the U.S by DaggerDagger on Monday May 01, 2017 @01:42PM (#14239702)

China's middle class will rise out of their oligarchy in the next 100 years and then you will have the largest cultural middle class cluster the world has ever seen. Then all that cheapo labor will come from somewhere else. I personally think this is irrelevant, the US doesn't need any more toxic waste dumps (a.k.a factories).

The truth is MFG is not what the US needs to be doing, the US needs to be working on automation and permanent systems design related to agriculture.

F* making some future recycling nightmare in the form of a fashion accessory and telecom unit, we need to be figuring out how to actually feed people on a massive scale without dumping phosphate and nitrates and plastics into the ocean, we need to figure out how to avoid the massive and unsustainable aforementioned supplies of chemical inputs required to sustain the BS process that is modern plow and sow automated factory farming. We need to shift the global food diet away from beef and other carbon nightmares and into more localized food sourcing.

This is going to require robots, and entirely new disciplines combining agriculture, industrial/agricultural/robotic engineering, and systems design.

Do you think anybody is going to give a shit about the iPhone 12 when half of the world is eating itself alive in the Water Wars of 2030? I doubt we will be as extravagant in our tastes when that new world order arrives.

tl;dr who gives a shit we have bigger fish to fry (or none really because they all died in toxic algae blooms)

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Re:Why manufacturing jobs aren't coming back to the U.S by douche on Monday May 01, 2017 @02:07PM (#14239923)

The Malthusians don't have a great track record. Every time someone predicts that we're going to run out of food and starve to death, we just get more efficient at producing it, with greater yields on less acreage, with less labor.

There is so much under-utilized, fertile agricultural land it's not funny. We're still paying people not to grow crops on it.

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Re:Why manufacturing jobs aren't coming back to the U.S by contingencies on Monday May 01, 2017 @03:21PM (#14240610)

Also don't forget that 40% or some horrifically large proportion of food produced is wasted. That's a great deal of scope for slack.

Gratuitous plug: We hope to increase distribution and preparation efficiency @ http://8-food.com/

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Re:Why manufacturing jobs aren't coming back to the U.S by DaggerDagger on Monday May 01, 2017 @05:44PM (#14241989)

Agree agree. Misuse of resources is the key problem. New systems required.

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Re:Why manufacturing jobs aren't coming back to the U.S by DaggerDagger on Monday May 01, 2017 @05:43PM (#14241972)

Black Swan fallacy. And I never claimed to be Malthusian so please leave your tar brush at home.

Also you may note that my criticisms are aimed directly at the current broken systems under utilizing and abusing our agricultural and water resources. We absolutely have enough land and water to go around, but the way we misuse it is going to have the extraterrestrial archaeologists digging through our powdered bones and plastic wrap shaking their heads in sadness.

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Re:Why manufacturing jobs aren't coming back to the U.S by root_axis on Monday May 01, 2017 @06:13PM (#14242202)

That's fallacious thinking. Just because someone made incorrect predictions doesn't mean that the trajectory is incorrect. Clearly, at some point along the path of exponential population growth we will experience diminishing returns in the yields of engineering efficiencies. Ultimately, we really are dealing with a zero-sum game.

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