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Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by mitthrowaway2 on Friday December 29, 2023 @02:42PM (#38809310)
Solution for the future of American industry: Bomb US Steel?

Maybe this would also be an effective way of clearing out NIMBYs blocking the routes for high-speed rail lines?

Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by yetanotherloss on Friday December 29, 2023 @03:28PM (#38809834)
You jest but my friend is a professor in Toyama, Japan, and makes the occasional dark joke about moving the people out for a few days and having the US raze it again from time to time.

Sometimes getting rid of ossified organizations is a good thing, but there are probably better ways than high explosives.

Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by Aloha on Friday December 29, 2023 @04:09PM (#38810214)
Arguably the Occupation of Japan was more important than the carpet bombing for changing Japanese culture.

We brought in many new ideas - both in business and in government - most of which persist in some form today - and the Japanese in many cases have taken those ideas, refined them mightily, infused them with some Japanese culture - and re-exported them to us.

The best example of this that I can think of, is Kaizen - the various scientific management techniques exported to Japan by W. Edwards Deming - which was re-exported to us as Kaizen.

Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by nerdponx on Friday December 29, 2023 @05:42PM (#38811098)
This concept is related to the idea of "creative destruction": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction
Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by JumpCrisscross on Friday December 29, 2023 @02:47PM (#38809382)
> Solution for the future of American industry: Bomb US Steel?

Plenty of places are bombed into oblivion. What makes the rebirth is the rebuilding. The marshalling of public resources. You can replicate that without the bombs with a public-spending initiative.

Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by Fatnino on Friday December 29, 2023 @02:50PM (#38809419)
How do you spend away a bunch of NIMBYs? Their whole thing is that they refuse to cooperate with that.

Bombs would solve that, but come with a host of other... issues.

Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by pstuart on Friday December 29, 2023 @03:22PM (#38809761)
Eminent domain is the best we've got.
Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by mitthrowaway2 on Friday December 29, 2023 @02:56PM (#38809472)
The OP's contention was that Japan and Germany had an advantage due to their steel industry being bombed, which is apparently easier than upgrading legacy production facilities that haven't been blown to rubble.
Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by sokoloff on Friday December 29, 2023 @03:11PM (#38809624)
It’s often easier to rebuild rubble using other people’s money than to modernize in-place using your own.

Beyond just the “whose money is buying?” is that the latter costs you current production while the bombed-out scenario has no current production to forego.

Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by danans on Friday December 29, 2023 @08:00PM (#38811946)
> The marshalling of public resources.

Indeed, something like a Marshall Plan!

> You can replicate that without the bombs with a public-spending initiative.

You can, but the challenge isn't in the implementation as much as gathering the political will to do that. Since the New Deal and WWII, that has rarely happened in the US, and only recently: The ACA, the 2021 Infrastructure Bill and the Inflation Reduction Act. All of those barely had enough support to pass and both are at risk if there is a significant shift in power.

Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by altairTF on Friday December 29, 2023 @03:09PM (#38809606)
Every 100 years, the government send a warning and carpet bomb a city to the ground. This for sure would remove all the past vicious of the region affected. That would be something
Re:"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel by tandr on Friday December 29, 2023 @04:50PM (#38810649)
Sounds like a good plot for a (short) sci-fi story.