On the subject of “this proves too much” (which is more or less what you’re saying, yes?), I disagree, but that is quite a long discussion and I’m afraid I don’t have the resources to devote to that right now.
However, as far as “retaining existing knowledge of metal working is hard”, I really don’t think this is plausible. Nobody has lost the knowledge of how to sand down a piece of cast iron so that it’s smooth. This is something you can do at home, there areinstructionsavailableonline… this isn’t a lost art. The “only a few old experts still know how to do this” argument, or the “this is a very advanced technique and so only the best people in the industry can do this” argument, do not make sense here.
The same applies to all the other examples I mentioned. We still know perfectly well how to make borosilicate glassware, how to cast aluminum, how to make simple plastic parts, how to use stainless alloys that don’t rust, how to stamp a piece of steel with a zigzag hole pattern, etc., etc. None of this is lost knowledge, nor any advanced techniques.
The “innovation” argument simply does not hold water.
OK. I retract the innovation part. My argument doesn’t hinge on this being advanced. I still think that you overestimate the strength of your counterargument:
This is something you can do at home, there are instructions available online…
I think you overestimate the impact of innovation and underestimate the effort needed to get even simple things reliably to production. Execution is hard.Really hard. And you need dedicated competent people to drive this. And competent people gravitate to more interesting and/or better-paying jobs. Except for the occasional Kickstarter.
Maybe this is easier to see with software: For all the technical problems you can find answers online. On Stackoverflow or already learn this in college. How to build a scalable resilient infrastructure. How to set up a secure cloud service. But if you check nobody does it that way. It turns out that knowing how to do it is not enough.
The software example is indeed a good one, but it supports my point, rather than yours. People don’t do these things in the right way, not because (almost) nobody knows how, or can execute, etc., but because they choose not to—because the incentives favor merely pretending to do things the right way (or not bothering even with that).
Fair point. It seems we agree that it is incentives driving this and we place different weight on which incentives specifically. Monetary incentives sure are key but there are both those of the consumer, the producer, the people and the producer, and maybe other actors in the relevant industries. I don’t see the primary weight on consumer and producer (and wouldn’t even be sure which of these more).
On the subject of “this proves too much” (which is more or less what you’re saying, yes?), I disagree, but that is quite a long discussion and I’m afraid I don’t have the resources to devote to that right now.
However, as far as “retaining existing knowledge of metal working is hard”, I really don’t think this is plausible. Nobody has lost the knowledge of how to sand down a piece of cast iron so that it’s smooth. This is something you can do at home, there are instructions available online… this isn’t a lost art. The “only a few old experts still know how to do this” argument, or the “this is a very advanced technique and so only the best people in the industry can do this” argument, do not make sense here.
The same applies to all the other examples I mentioned. We still know perfectly well how to make borosilicate glassware, how to cast aluminum, how to make simple plastic parts, how to use stainless alloys that don’t rust, how to stamp a piece of steel with a zigzag hole pattern, etc., etc. None of this is lost knowledge, nor any advanced techniques.
The “innovation” argument simply does not hold water.
OK. I retract the innovation part. My argument doesn’t hinge on this being advanced. I still think that you overestimate the strength of your counterargument:
I think you overestimate the impact of innovation and underestimate the effort needed to get even simple things reliably to production. Execution is hard. Really hard. And you need dedicated competent people to drive this. And competent people gravitate to more interesting and/or better-paying jobs. Except for the occasional Kickstarter.
Maybe this is easier to see with software: For all the technical problems you can find answers online. On Stackoverflow or already learn this in college. How to build a scalable resilient infrastructure. How to set up a secure cloud service. But if you check nobody does it that way. It turns out that knowing how to do it is not enough.
The software example is indeed a good one, but it supports my point, rather than yours. People don’t do these things in the right way, not because (almost) nobody knows how, or can execute, etc., but because they choose not to—because the incentives favor merely pretending to do things the right way (or not bothering even with that).
Fair point. It seems we agree that it is incentives driving this and we place different weight on which incentives specifically. Monetary incentives sure are key but there are both those of the consumer, the producer, the people and the producer, and maybe other actors in the relevant industries. I don’t see the primary weight on consumer and producer (and wouldn’t even be sure which of these more).