UK's hardware talent is being wasted • Hacker News Board

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#871

Post by GasVeteran » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 8:40 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #820

GasVeteran wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you mean by "Quality of Life". I literally won't go to see friends because that would mean travelling to London. I hate the place. It is expensive, hostile, dirty and everyone is rude. I live on the outskirts of the peak district. I can walk/cycle less than 30 minutes out of town and be walking along the old canals, through old villages and get amazing views of the countryside.

People in London probably live nearer to a canal or river, on average, than you do. They're all maintained nicely for walking. 30-60 minutes would take many Londoners to the countryside, the South Downs, Chilterns, etc.

They don't have the countryside, clean air and amazing views.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#872

Post by creer » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 8:41 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #690

hintymad wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK ignited the First Industrial Revolution. It's sad to see that UK has slipped to number 16 or lower when it came to the market share of global manufacturing. And the problem is not to just UK, but to pretty much all the developed countries. Many nations and people have benefited greatly from globalization, but I have to ask: is it worth it if the cost is forfeiting my own country's manufacturing know-how and supply…

Even the Americans can't manage economic isolation. It takes a global civilisation to build a smartphone. We might have been able to get closer to it by being in the EU, but now we're on our own on that one.

That's not entirely true (about global civilization being needed). Any nominally developped but not too wasteful country or even just California could do it. It's just that that ship has sailed and we collectively decided a long time ago NOT to go that way. Recovering from these choices would take a lot of time and a lot of money that we would rather spend on railroads to and from nowhere (California). Sarcasm aside, americans, europeans, japan in particular are not ready to pay the price for that - even while they could totally afford it. They are busy paying the price for lots of other things and can't be bothered.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#873

Post by GasVeteran » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 8:41 PM UTC

twic wrote: post #851

GasVeteran wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you mean by "Quality of Life". I literally won't go to see friends because that would mean travelling to London. I hate the place. It is expensive, hostile, dirty and everyone is rude. I live on the outskirts of the peak district. I can walk/cycle less than 30 minutes out of town and be walking along the old canals, through old villages and get amazing views of the countryside.

> everyone is rude I take it you've never been to Yorkshire then?

It is the combination of what I described is the real issue. If it was just "people are a bit rude" I personally wouldn't be that worried about it.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#874

Post by constantcrying » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 8:43 PM UTC

creer wrote: post #869

constantcrying wrote: post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bob bakes bread, Alice grow apples. Everyone is better off because of specialization. America is 300 Million. Europe is almost a Billion. These populations are more than large enough to specialize in everything. >Everyone is better off because of specialization. Why?

> These populations are more than large enough to specialize in everything. My impression is that population size is not very relevant in the math of trade specialization profit. It's still more profitable to play on relative strengths and weaknesses. You can find other things to worry about like security (from droughts and earthquakes perhaps), or political or strategic desires. In particular, trade is likely benefi…

Why would European population of almost a billion people need to specialize on anything? What would it even specialize on. What does that world need that there need to be 10% or the world working on it?

>In particular, trade is likely beneficial even when local production would be cheaper than remote production - just because there are other things that can be done localy and even stronger

This only matters if you can not do both. If your population is large the amount of things which it can do especially good can easily be exhausted before you run out of people.

I don't even see how you can specialize. What does China specialize in? (Before answering, think about the things which China is not trying to produce or the services it is not trying to perform. Can you name even one?)

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#875

Post by creer » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 8:45 PM UTC

talldayo wrote: post #756

hintymad wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I do recognize that. I just wish that the US could have a healthy mixture of light and heavy industry, so that the cost building any mission critical systems will not go through the roof, and so that we will be able t build anything domestically if we want. Even though it's likely a pipe dream now, but at least the US can do so for the WW II and after WW II for quite some time.

That ship sailed. It's like the other comment said - China embraces manufacturing to make other countries inept at it. It's not only that American precision engineering is mostly at parity with China, it's that manufacturing anywhere else is a waste of money. When unibody aluminum Macbook cases are machined, they never are machined in America. They're sold to Americans, marketed as an American company, but your devic…

> unibody aluminum Macbook

This to me is a super interesting example. Nobody but nobody NEEDS a unibody aluminum anything. But it's cool, light, beautiful - and sells great - so it's what gets produced even when the only place that makes sense for that is China. The Macbook could temporarily return to more manageable production - like plastic - and the world would not end.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#876

Post by fmajid » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 8:49 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #363

fmajid wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK’s case, feudalism is alive and well. The entire tax system is designed so parasites descended from thugs like the Duke of Westminster or Charles of Battenberg-Saxe-Coburg und Gotha never have to pay property taxes on their extensive land holdings.

That was worse in the 18th and 19th century, and yet people were willing to ground new corporations back then. I think the answer is something the left won't like - we (Europe) are killing ourselves with bureaucracy, often environmental bureaucracy. A road to hell paved with good intentions. The documentation to the Lower Thames Crossing, a planned highway tunnel, already exceeds 360 000 pages. This is just crazy. ht…

Since Europe is to the left of the US, whatever the US is doing right (pun intended) is bound to be something the Left won't like.

The US also has plenty of bureaucracy, and what's worse, a lot of it stems from Common Law and capricious courts that interpret it, which is partly why large civil engineering projects like upgrading the NYC subway cost 4x more than the equivalents in Western Europe (minus the UK) or Japan.

I think the biggest factor is the sheer size of the unified US market and its economies of scale, and a second one the fact the US Social Security is limited compared to European retirement systems, and thus people have to save in their pension funds, freeing up a huge amount of capital for investment, while at the same time creating enough competition that they don't have the sense of entitlement that British feudals or continental bankers have, leaving entrepreneurs with crumbs.

Source: I'm from France but I moved to San Francisco to found my two startups, because I'm not a glutton for punishment. Then again I moved to the UK (for family reasons), so I guess I am a masochist after all.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#877

Post by speedbird » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 8:50 PM UTC

shawabawa3 wrote: post #722

ashergill wrote: post #663

> The reality for most graduates is even grimmer: > • £25,000 starting salaries at traditional engineering firms > • Exodus to consulting or finance just because it's compensated better This is _exactly_ my career so far. The key thing about the British economy is that while most things operate in a free market, construction is centrally planned by councillors who are incentivised to block most development. So the wh…

> but politically suicidal for any government that tried to implement it Labour just got into government and literally the third bullet point in their manifesto is: * Reform our planning rules to build the railways, roads, labs and 1.5 million homes we need and develop a new 10-year infrastructure strategy. So i would hope it's not political suicide to follow through on that

1.5M new homes won’t even keep up with immigration. Not to mention schools and hospitals.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#878

Post by inglor_cz » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 8:53 PM UTC

fmajid wrote: post #876

inglor_cz wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was worse in the 18th and 19th century, and yet people were willing to ground new corporations back then. I think the answer is something the left won't like - we (Europe) are killing ourselves with bureaucracy, often environmental bureaucracy. A road to hell paved with good intentions. The documentation to the Lower Thames Crossing, a planned highway tunnel, already exceeds 360 000 pages. This is just crazy. ht…

Since Europe is to the left of the US, whatever the US is doing right (pun intended) is bound to be something the Left won't like. The US also has plenty of bureaucracy, and what's worse, a lot of it stems from Common Law and capricious courts that interpret it, which is partly why large civil engineering projects like upgrading the NYC subway cost 4x more than the equivalents in Western Europe (minus the UK) or Japa…

Yeah, when you think of it, the US economies of scale are huge.

In the European single market, you still don't have, for example, an affordable parcel service. For a Czech e-shop to send a package to France, as I did a few days ago, is something around 12 eur postage fee. It would be 4 eur within Czechia.

American e-shops can send packages from Florida to Alaska for peanuts, and they don't have to bother with translations into 20 languages.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#879

Post by talldayo » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 8:59 PM UTC

creer wrote: post #875

talldayo wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ship sailed. It's like the other comment said - China embraces manufacturing to make other countries inept at it. It's not only that American precision engineering is mostly at parity with China, it's that manufacturing anywhere else is a waste of money. When unibody aluminum Macbook cases are machined, they never are machined in America. They're sold to Americans, marketed as an American company, but your devic…

> unibody aluminum Macbook This to me is a super interesting example. Nobody but nobody NEEDS a unibody aluminum anything. But it's cool, light, beautiful - and sells great - so it's what gets produced even when the only place that makes sense for that is China. The Macbook could temporarily return to more manageable production - like plastic - and the world would not end.

It's a commercialized and well-distributed example. You could replace it with any other machined commodity - engine blocks, turbojets, ablative shielding, toilet seats, you name it. The industries have all moved in the same direction and have no hope of ever coming back. Capitalism fought authoritarian subsidy, and capitalism lost.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#880

Post by creer » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:06 PM UTC

constantcrying wrote: post #874

creer wrote: post #869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These populations are more than large enough to specialize in everything. My impression is that population size is not very relevant in the math of trade specialization profit. It's still more profitable to play on relative strengths and weaknesses. You can find other things to worry about like security (from droughts and earthquakes perhaps), or political or strategic desires. In particular, trade is likely benefi…

Why would European population of almost a billion people need to specialize on anything? What would it even specialize on. What does that world need that there need to be 10% or the world working on it? >In particular, trade is likely beneficial even when local production would be cheaper than remote production - just because there are other things that can be done localy and even stronger This only matters if you ca…

"Specialize" is not quite the right word. In trade economics (from the very crudest level), trade is beneficial to BOTH parties EVEN when etc etc etc. i.e. higher profit. It's really hard to beat trade.

It's not that anyone needs to specialize as in "otherwise it won't work". It's that it's more profitable and so people will tend to prefer that plus some extra money in their pocket.

And it's not specialize as in only do wine, cheese and perfume and nothing else. It's systematically favor some things that you are relatively better at than others, and trade for the others (not even 100%, you can export some plastic parts and import some similar plastic parts at the same time). Even if the other country could themselves be better at it. So for France, engineering of all kinds, wine, cheese, perfume, meds, etc but also any manufacturing that by chance has gotten and remained strong (say, like airplanes, some electrical equipment, whatever else that really any other country also could possibly manufacture).