| ▲ | Arubis 5 days ago |
| Being the sole western industrialized nation that hadn't just had most of their infrastructure bombed to rubble can't have hurt. |
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| ▲ | Permit 5 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Canada and Australia are smaller but surely count as industrialized western nations (Canada is like 9th by GDP) whose infrastructure was not bombed to rubble. |
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| ▲ | someNameIG 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Here in Australia we just didn't have the population to have a large global influence. We had a population of around 7.5 million in 1945, compared to the US that had about 150,000 million. | | |
| ▲ | femto 5 days ago | parent [-] | | We also emulated the British centralised model, with the Weapons Research Establishment. Like the British, Australia struggled to get research out of these centralised labs and into products: computing (CISRAC, 5th computer), satellites (WREsat, 7th nation in space), ... |
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| ▲ | klipt 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The USA's huge population and large internal free trade area give it better economies of scale. | |
| ▲ | randunel 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Canada's population was 10mil, maybe less, when ww2 ended. |
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| ▲ | apercu 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Absolutely, but what did that give the United States, a 10-year advantage? Last time I checked, WWII ended 80 years ago. |
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| ▲ | bee_rider 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It kicked off a feedback loop. The best scientists and engineers wanted to work on the projects that were 10 years ahead. As a result US companies were at the forefront of new technology and developments… attracting the next generation of the best scientists and engineers. This was quite robust until <group that disagrees with my political opinions> screwed it up for ideological reasons (fortunately, I guess, I can say this in a non-partisan manner because everybody thinks the other side blew it. My side is correct, though, of course). | | |
| ▲ | laughingcurve 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Schrödinger's politics | | |
| ▲ | bee_rider 5 days ago | parent [-] | | The hope is that the ambiguity will lead people to think about their general principles. If they agree or disagree strongly depending on how the variable is resolved, what does that say? |
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| ▲ | mixermachine 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Science and progress are not a one off thing.
The scientist are not used up after 10 years.
They keep working and keep the advantages going.
The advantage attracts even more intelligent people from every corner of the world. | |
| ▲ | frank20022 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Bretton Woods is not a 10-year advantage.
US had enjoyed pretty much free money until Vietnam, point at which had to kill the gold standard to enjoy free money some more. | |
| ▲ | yabitts 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | VWWHFSfQ 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The US provided billions in aid and resources under the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and especially Japan after the war. And provided billions again to Korea after the Korean War. Japan and South Korea obviously made the most of it with their massive science and technology industries in the post-war era. |
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| ▲ | croes 5 days ago | parent [-] | | The Marshall plan’s effectiveness is more of a myth https://miwi-institut.de/archives/2898 | | |
| ▲ | VWWHFSfQ 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm aware that Europeans think the post-war stimulus was a myth. What isn't a myth is the billions of dollars given to them. The same billions were given to Japan and Korea and they actually used it to bootstrap an advanced, sustainable technology-driven economy. Europe squandered the opportunity. |
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| ▲ | slowking2 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Also, being far enough from Europe that a huge amount of talent decided the U.S. was a better bet for getting away from the Nazis. And then taking a large number of former Nazi scientist's post-war as well. The article mentions but underrates the fact that post-war the British shot themselves in the foot economically. As far as I'm aware, the article is kind of wrong that there wasn't a successful British computing industry post war, or at least it's not obvious that it's eventual failure has much to do with differences in basic research structure. There was a successful British computing industry at first, and it failed a few decades later. |
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| ▲ | foobarian 5 days ago | parent [-] | | And yet here we are with Arm cores everywhere you look! :-D | | |
| ▲ | slowking2 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Fair point! That's a great technical success; I didn't realize Arm was British. If the main failure of British companies is that they don't have U.S. company market caps, it seems more off base to blame this on government science funding policy instead of something else. In almost every part of the economy, U.S. companies are going to be larger. | | |
| ▲ | VWWHFSfQ 5 days ago | parent [-] | | My understanding is that the British "Arm" is just a patent holder now. I don't think they actually make anything. Companies outside the UK are the ones that actually make the chips licensed from the Arm designs. |
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| ▲ | pizzalife 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Sweden was not bombed. |
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| ▲ | randunel 5 days ago | parent [-] | | But they were aligned with the nazis until close to the very end. It was easier to remember back then, but people have mostly forgotten nowadays. | | |
| ▲ | lonelyasacloud 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Indeed, although Sweden was officially neutral, they most notoriously permitted German trains to roll through their country to Norway with soldiers and materials both during and after its invasion. |
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