The problem imo is the slow deterioration of institutional knowledge that offloading the mental task of wisdom gathering to AI is causing.
One interesting comparison is to the history of manufacturing. West/America decided one day that manufacturing would be cheaper to outsource and better (short term) profit was to be made by outsourcing it all to China. The institutional expertise started to deteriorate, to the point that America simply didn't even have the capacity, or expertise anymore to produce stuff (such as grill brush [1])
I feel like you could take all the handwavy comment that are made today to dismiss this caution, and find equal dismissal back then when companies were actively outsourcing the manufacturing.
"I'm coding 10x faster"
"look at the output velocity per employee"
"we are producing much more (in China)"
"look at profit / number of (manufacturing) employers"
Seems ok if you're American / Chinese but I'm struggling to understand how the rest can be OK with allowing institutional knowledge to deteriorate while having an active dependency to the former two. We already see this with the tech dependency towards USA and manufacturing competition from China.
> I feel like you could take all the handwavy comment that are made today to dismiss this caution, and find equal dismissal back then when companies were actively outsourcing the manufacturing.
Absolutely people were extremely dismissive to anyone saying that we're losing the ability to make things in this country!
There were all these theories like Comparative Advantage that people would trot out to point out that, if you don't like outsourcing, not only are you ignorant and backwards you're also probably racist.
I specifically remember seeing the ricardian tables, featuring 8th grade math proving how competitive advantage means everyone wins. This was very persuasive to me as a college sophomore, all my professors were on board and I was young.
I remember being a young guy, blue collar background, but in the left-wing anti-globalization movement (think Seattle WTO protester types).
When I was in college or going to parties with New Yorker Reader types I'd try to argue against globalization and they would start smugly dropping their theories on me. I was too young and naive to refute them in any kind of convincing way, but my life experience told me that it was wrong.
But it was pervasive in the zeitgeist. Basically anyone trying to argue against it was backwards and stupid, or shrill if they were lefty.
I wonder if the exact date of anti-globalization switching from being a "left populism" to "right populism" thing could be determined.
However I'm not sure it could really be stopped or whether it was inevitable from containerization. Can you really prevent people from getting cheaper products forever?
Again containerization happened in the 1970s and 1980s. The China Shock was 2000-2010.
What technology was invented in 2000 that allowed everything to go to China? No technology. That was the year the US adopted Permanent Normalized Trade Relations with China. It was a government policy change!
By the way the US already had trade relations with China. All PNTR did was promise not to change the policy in the future. That was the starting gun that signaled to all American companies that they should start investing in production in China.
So would globalization happen on some scale just because of the march of technology? Sure. But the way it happened, the speed at which it happened and the extent to which it happened, were the result of policy choices.
I'm pretty sure that China demonstrating that they are a stable country, that they want foreign investment, that they won't gank your investment two weeks after you make it, and that they aren't going to do another Great Leap Forward may have had something to do with why foreign investment in it skyrocketed.
This sort of thing takes time, and by the 00s, enough time (and a recent Hong Kong transfer that did not result in mass liquidation) passed, and foreign investors were gaining confidence.
The world, and especially China has agency of its own, it isn't sorely driven by whatever American policy is it's flavour of the week.
Completely agree Jiang Zemin spent the 1990s courting global capital.
The point is that it wasn't technology it was policy, on the Chinese and American side, that drove the China Shock.
This was also what a lot of anti-globalization people were say at the time. The pro-globalization people were saying not only is it good but it's inevitable. There Is No Alternative.
The anti globalization people were saying if it's inevitable why does it need all these policy changes, trade agreements, and bigwig conferences?
Those would be part of the mechanisms of inevitability (under that hypothesis). Globalization is a phenomenon at the human societal level, they would be predicting human behaviors, it's not like rocks and rivers were going to precipitate it. It's not like those singular events "changed everything" either, it's an accumulation of decades of social sentiments, purchasing decisions, etc.
This whole subthread is from like an alternate timeline where the world actually found out or agreed that globalization was bad and stopped or slowed it somehow? Did the US meaningfully take back manufacturing or something?
If globalization is not inevitable, what's the alternative?
The globalization we are talking about here is not inevitable, and it is facilitated by global capital with their own interest in mind and in order to exploit the working classes in cheaper labor markets...
This is true, but, in their efforts to chase short term gains, they are moving us towards your "true globalization" whether they intend to or not. That's kind of the inevitability. You can't send all that economic activity and resources over there without lifting them up. They are inexorably chipping away at the reserves of cheap labor to arbitrage.
Yeah, it's tough, there are a lot of discouraging developments and backwards things still going on. I don't think it anybody would claim that it would all happen within our lifetimes. And even in the long term, I can't say whether we're headed toward an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots or a more egalitarian society, but there are some positive indicators. And I think the "global community" is steadily pulling together (when looking over the whole timespan of civilization).
NalNezumi · · focus · HN ↗
One interesting comparison is to the history of manufacturing. West/America decided one day that manufacturing would be cheaper to outsource and better (short term) profit was to be made by outsourcing it all to China. The institutional expertise started to deteriorate, to the point that America simply didn't even have the capacity, or expertise anymore to produce stuff (such as grill brush [1])
I feel like you could take all the handwavy comment that are made today to dismiss this caution, and find equal dismissal back then when companies were actively outsourcing the manufacturing.
"I'm coding 10x faster" "look at the output velocity per employee"
"we are producing much more (in China)" "look at profit / number of (manufacturing) employers"
Seems ok if you're American / Chinese but I'm struggling to understand how the rest can be OK with allowing institutional knowledge to deteriorate while having an active dependency to the former two. We already see this with the tech dependency towards USA and manufacturing competition from China.
[1] <a href="https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY
jordanb · · focus · HN ↗
Absolutely people were extremely dismissive to anyone saying that we're losing the ability to make things in this country!
There were all these theories like Comparative Advantage that people would trot out to point out that, if you don't like outsourcing, not only are you ignorant and backwards you're also probably racist.
nixon_why69 · · focus · HN ↗
I guess we were all lacking wisdom.
jordanb · · focus · HN ↗
When I was in college or going to parties with New Yorker Reader types I'd try to argue against globalization and they would start smugly dropping their theories on me. I was too young and naive to refute them in any kind of convincing way, but my life experience told me that it was wrong.
But it was pervasive in the zeitgeist. Basically anyone trying to argue against it was backwards and stupid, or shrill if they were lefty.
pjc50 · · focus · HN ↗
However I'm not sure it could really be stopped or whether it was inevitable from containerization. Can you really prevent people from getting cheaper products forever?
jordanb · · focus · HN ↗
What technology was invented in 2000 that allowed everything to go to China? No technology. That was the year the US adopted Permanent Normalized Trade Relations with China. It was a government policy change!
By the way the US already had trade relations with China. All PNTR did was promise not to change the policy in the future. That was the starting gun that signaled to all American companies that they should start investing in production in China.
So would globalization happen on some scale just because of the march of technology? Sure. But the way it happened, the speed at which it happened and the extent to which it happened, were the result of policy choices.
vkou · · focus · HN ↗
This sort of thing takes time, and by the 00s, enough time (and a recent Hong Kong transfer that did not result in mass liquidation) passed, and foreign investors were gaining confidence.
The world, and especially China has agency of its own, it isn't sorely driven by whatever American policy is it's flavour of the week.
jordanb · · focus · HN ↗
The point is that it wasn't technology it was policy, on the Chinese and American side, that drove the China Shock.
This was also what a lot of anti-globalization people were say at the time. The pro-globalization people were saying not only is it good but it's inevitable. There Is No Alternative.
The anti globalization people were saying if it's inevitable why does it need all these policy changes, trade agreements, and bigwig conferences?
jrowen · · focus · HN ↗
This whole subthread is from like an alternate timeline where the world actually found out or agreed that globalization was bad and stopped or slowed it somehow? Did the US meaningfully take back manufacturing or something?
If globalization is not inevitable, what's the alternative?
runarberg · · focus · HN ↗
jrowen · · focus · HN ↗
This is true, but, in their efforts to chase short term gains, they are moving us towards your "true globalization" whether they intend to or not. That's kind of the inevitability. You can't send all that economic activity and resources over there without lifting them up. They are inexorably chipping away at the reserves of cheap labor to arbitrage.
runarberg · · focus · HN ↗
jrowen · · focus · HN ↗