Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

construction-physics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 531 posts

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#81

Post by yanhangyhy »

stogot wrote: post #75
yanhangyhy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at Taiwan out competing China in silicon foundaries. it wont last long. even china dont use military to take taiwan, china will still win on this in the the end. It's just a matter of time. A lead of a few decades doesn't mean everything from the perspective of historical dimensions, it's still too short. also, china will take taiwan in short times(less than 10 years), so the result wont change anyway. From a…

So your solution to “Taiwan is outcompeting on silicon” is that the PLA Navy should take it by violent force and overthrow a peaceful nation and justify that calling that normal?

thats clear not what i said

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#82

Post by SanjayMehta »

jacquesm wrote: post #78
SanjayMehta wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their USP was their empire, a source of free raw materials.

I don't think so. It certainly did not hurt but there is another major factor: The UK is the house where the industrial revolution was born. And they still have the scars from it. And I think that is in part why they lost it: they were ahead but with fairly primitive stuff and then others overtook them because they didn't have that heritage to maintain and keep up. Just have a look at the London subway for an excelle…

The British used to export cotton from the colonies, process them in England and then ship them back.

I don't have the links handy but they taxed the colonies multiple times over both while exporting and reimporting.

Without the colonies they would have been nothing.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#83

Post by dingaling »

protocolture wrote: post #66
ggm wrote: post #2

The best time to try and fix this is 20 or 30 years ago, but absent a time machine, the next best time is now. Either you feel this kind of construction process is national-strategic and you ignore the cost over imports, or not. If you don't regard this as a core competency which should be kept in the national register, then sure, buy the ships from other places. But, don't come whining when the national-strategic in…

Australias Unofficial naval strategy is "bomb the shit out of scary boats with Growlers". Australias Official naval strategy is "We need more boats for reasons ( cough asylum seekers cough ), definitely not because it is politically expedient to keep boat builders employed"

Well I doubt they'd be using Growlers, but even if they needed to they cost too much ( $80 million a piece ) to be thrown into modern naval air defences, and don't have the range to be deployed where they could actually reach ships causing trouble.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#84

Post by yanhangyhy »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #82
jacquesm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. It certainly did not hurt but there is another major factor: The UK is the house where the industrial revolution was born. And they still have the scars from it. And I think that is in part why they lost it: they were ahead but with fairly primitive stuff and then others overtook them because they didn't have that heritage to maintain and keep up. Just have a look at the London subway for an excelle…

The British used to export cotton from the colonies, process them in England and then ship them back. I don't have the links handy but they taxed the colonies multiple times over both while exporting and reimporting. Without the colonies they would have been nothing.

I've read a book called Four Hundred Years In America before; I don't know if its English version is popular. It points out that one core reason for the South's defeat in the Civil War was how vital the cotton trade between the American South and Britain was to both sides. So the North used their fleet to blockade the South's cotton exports to Britain right away, leaving the South without the trade revenue to import steel and other materials needed for building railroads—basically sealing their fate. Britain just pivoted to sourcing cotton from places like India, still not relying on local production. This example really drives home how Britain's industrial foundation was way too dependent on raw material inflows from the colonies.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#85

Post by mmooss »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #60
mmooss wrote: post #57

There's a presumption that it would be beneficial to return mid-20th century manufacturing economies. If you look at economic output and productivity, and quality of life for labor (physical labor, especially repetitive physical labor, is hard to do for decades), we want to move forward and we did. We want to plan for a mid-21st century economy. The problem is a small group seizing the benefits for themselves.

It’s easy for a small group to seize the benefits when productivity is centralized in the hands of a small group. If you diversify the ability to build boats, then you may not be rich, but you’ll have a boat.

The increase in wealth concentration mostly happened after ship-building (and other manufacturing) departed.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#86

Post by palmotea »

hypeatei wrote: post #45
ggm wrote: post #2

The best time to try and fix this is 20 or 30 years ago, but absent a time machine, the next best time is now. Either you feel this kind of construction process is national-strategic and you ignore the cost over imports, or not. If you don't regard this as a core competency which should be kept in the national register, then sure, buy the ships from other places. But, don't come whining when the national-strategic in…

I'm of the opinion that things like shipbuilding don't really matter in times of war for countries with nuclear weapons. There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country. A lot of people seem to yearn for the "good old days" where we built giant, tangible things that did cool stuff. That's fine, but the "national security" arguments ring hollow as you're basically saying…

> I'm of the opinion that things like shipbuilding don't really matter in times of war for countries with nuclear weapons. There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country.

The flaw in that annoyingly common logic is 1) countries are very reluctant to use nuclear weapons, and 2) any kind of nuclear escalation is an instant loss for your own side.

I personally don't think any country would resort to nuclear weapons in the case of an invasion or blockade, and certainly not a democratic one [1]. They may threaten, but I don't think they'd actually put that gun to their own head and pull the trigger.

[1] An autocratic one may use them when the leader is close to defeat as one last "f*ck you", because he doesn't serve his people, they serve him.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#87

Post by rhubarbtree »

palmotea wrote: post #86
hypeatei wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of the opinion that things like shipbuilding don't really matter in times of war for countries with nuclear weapons. There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country. A lot of people seem to yearn for the "good old days" where we built giant, tangible things that did cool stuff. That's fine, but the "national security" arguments ring hollow as you're basically saying…

> I'm of the opinion that things like shipbuilding don't really matter in times of war for countries with nuclear weapons. There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country. The flaw in that annoyingly common logic is 1) countries are very reluctant to use nuclear weapons, and 2) any kind of nuclear escalation is an instant loss for your own side . I personally don't think…

We may add to that - the UK’s nuclear deterrent is onboard submarines.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#88

Post by agobineau »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
ggm wrote: post #2

The best time to try and fix this is 20 or 30 years ago, but absent a time machine, the next best time is now. Either you feel this kind of construction process is national-strategic and you ignore the cost over imports, or not. If you don't regard this as a core competency which should be kept in the national register, then sure, buy the ships from other places. But, don't come whining when the national-strategic in…

For a country that is an Island you'd think that the question of whether or not it is 'national-strategic' would have been answered in the affirmative.

australia has almost no fuel refining capacity

most of australia has less than 2 weeks of gasoline and imports it on weekly barges from singapore.

in the XXIer century some australia cities have run out of gasoline for half a day, an afternoon, a few days

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-15/singapore-bound-duel-...

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#89

Post by rhubarbtree »

mmooss wrote: post #57

There's a presumption that it would be beneficial to return mid-20th century manufacturing economies. If you look at economic output and productivity, and quality of life for labor (physical labor, especially repetitive physical labor, is hard to do for decades), we want to move forward and we did. We want to plan for a mid-21st century economy. The problem is a small group seizing the benefits for themselves.

Unfortunately, neoliberal bullshit only works out the long term in a political fantasy world.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#90

Post by jack_tripper »

rhubarbtree wrote: post #87
palmotea wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm of the opinion that things like shipbuilding don't really matter in times of war for countries with nuclear weapons. There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country. The flaw in that annoyingly common logic is 1) countries are very reluctant to use nuclear weapons, and 2) any kind of nuclear escalation is an instant loss for your own side . I personally don't think…

We may add to that - the UK’s nuclear deterrent is onboard submarines.

That's also my thinking that nullifies a lot of the discussion here. Like why would anyone start a naval beef with the UK, given the UK's nuclear submarine fleet?
Post reply on HN