U.S. manufacturing output is almost at an all time high. At its peak in 2007, it was only 5% higher than today. The current trend is upward.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS

We did lose manufacturing jobs, but not because we "sold" them, it's because productivity has increased so much. This happens to all mature economies, where services and knowledge work become a larger percent of GDP as productivity, education, and living standards increase. It's a sign of progress that we have more people working in offices and fewer people working in hazardous conditions for low pay.

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phainopepla2 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> We did lose manufacturing jobs, but not because we "sold" them, it's because productivity has increased so much.

It's because of both.

Mature economies would do well to hold onto some basic manufacturing capacity as a matter of national security. Or at the very least, retain some of that capacity within the sphere of close and trusted allies, assuming allies of that type can even be maintained by the US at this point.

	▲	fasterik 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Is there any evidence that we aren't doing that? For example, U.S. steel manufacturing is down 40% from the peak in 1973, but we still manufacture 80-90 Mt/yr domestically, which is more than enough for national security purposes. That's roughly the same level we had during the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War.

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deaddodo 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

People always talk about how the US has "lost" manufacturing. It's still the second largest manufacturer by a huge margin (three times the next highest, 15.5% of world output vs 5%), only being beaten out by China (27.5%). And, when compared per capita, it out-manufactures even China.

The numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing#List_of_countrie...

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pchristensen 5 hours ago | parent [-]

2nd largest manufacturer by dollar value, not overall activity, employment, share of employment, value relative to other industries, percentage of consumption manufactured domestically, etc etc etc. America's manufacturing is specialized on highly valuable outputs.

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fasterik 5 hours ago | parent [-]

So what is the metric we should use to determine whether the U.S. has "lost" manufacturing, or "brought it back"? What should the target be?

	▲	bruce511 6 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think most people here would say "jobs". While it's true the US is a massive producer, it focuses on automation, which means more productivity per job. And this is the crux of it all. US factory jobs weren't Los "overseas" as much as they were lost to machines. Each production line needs fewer and fewer workers. Yes, you can cherry-pick examples (software jobs going to India or coal mines closing etc) but even mines use much less labor today per ton of say coal than they did 50 years ago. So really, I think, the sense is that good blue-collar union jobs are what's dwindling. It's less about raw output and more about job losses.
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	▲	excannuk 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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bubbluppugus 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Well, effectively "sold" jobs to invest in the automation to output more with fewer jobs

I did not intend to imply it's good or bad what happened, it's just the capital exchanges and consequences are obvious

Not really about the political/ finance jargon to me but the change in ground truth for us

Now what?

https://aeon.co/essays/the-key-to-jobs-in-the-future-is-not-...

We just do the last mile "human work"? Mow lawns, make zines, hack RPis for fun and teach maintenance of the robots. Cook and socialize but the robots make sure neighborhood grocery and hardware store are full?

Semantics aside giving everyone a direct handle to submit issues also can act like MAD nuke policy: https://aeon.co/essays/game-theory-s-cure-for-corruption-mak...

I mean what're the Founders and our living but aging elders going to do? Stick around and make sure we stick to the script? The Founders didn't even either.

Law and code that feeds the fed gov AI could conceivably be built and deployed be blocked like usual by need for sufficient sign offs given a geographic region

So I mean; the language impediments and language that doesn't currently exist can be changed. I mean we don't default to Latin; evolution of social language is not gonna stop with us. We could be intentional about it same as we are with code.