How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry • Hacker News Board

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#441

Post by brainwad » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:03 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #300

coldtea wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people are thinking just fine. With their wallets. Why would they prioritize national interests? Because they were elected to do so? After all they know they were actually elected because people were only given a couple of establishment approved choices, and in their naivety they happened to pick their side this time (after all they alternate between the two choices all the time). They also know they'll be fine…

>After all they know they were actually elected because people were only given a couple of establishment approved choices, and in their naivety they happened to pick their side this time (after all they alternate between the two choices all the time). Australia has ranked choice voting and mandatory voting. What else could be done to “give” people more choices?

As an Aussie:

* some kind of proportional representation in lower houses or parliament (see e.g. New Zealand for a Westminster-compatible solution, or Switzerland for something more radical while still working with seats allocated by state populations).

* referendums on laws/treaties, and popular initiatives to propose constitutional changes and/or new laws (like in Switzerland or various western US states).

* reinvigoration of the federal principle that things that can be done by the states (or the local governments) should be done at that level, rather than the feds sticking their nose in everything (see, again, Switzerland).

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#442

Post by boplicity » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:03 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #368

jack_tripper wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, this trend has been in reverse the past couple of years.

I don't know about the UK, but in the US this is only half true. Degree-requiring jobs still have better social status over trades and low/no skill work, at least from a "what do you want to be when you grow up" point of view. However, many more people than previously are skeptical of the math behind the cost of a college degree. Going into significant debt only to find a field flooded with others, competing with ove…

The state school I went to 20+ years ago, by contrast, has around $10k in annual tuition, which isn't bad compared to a trade school. No mandatory housing/food costs either. I got a great education there and am still friends with some of my profs. I also got one of the least practical (for most people) degrees (creative writing), and turned it into a comfortable job for myself, though I recognize that's the exception and not the rule.

I never thought of university as a way to get a job. It certainly did help me in many, many ways though, and can't imagine having my current career without it.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#443

Post by bootsmann » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:05 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #305

bootsmann wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the credibility of the Russian nuclear stack is questionable at this point. Its unclear how much capacity survived the past 30 years of graft. We have developed nations struggling to maintain theirs without layers of blatant corruption weaved into the process.

There is open evidente that Russia invested in keeping their nukes working. They gave more control over the military to leaders of the nuke program after the Soviet union fell. There are US - Russia nuke inspection treaties (only reciently are they ending) - while the results are classified those with access to them are behaving as if they think they are still working.

They still haven’t managed a successful launch of their new silo missile. If you were the US inspector, would you tell Russia if you thought their nukes don’t work?

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#444

Post by mike_hearn » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:08 PM UTC

chairmansteve wrote: post #62

mike_hearn wrote: post #5

It's a good analysis but probably over-fixates on shipping specific factors. The UK also lost its car industry, its steel industry etc. The root cause in most industries is the same, there were just too many Labour supporters and the unions got too strong as a result. From the comments: > I can relate to British union rules being head-bangingly stupid. In the mid-1970's I worked on the night shift as a spot-welder on…

"The root cause in most industries is the same, there were just too many Labour supporters and the unions got too strong". That's the conventional wisdom, but is it true? It was the Thatcher government that shut down those industries. Maybe they didn't need to. There was a lot of collateral damage, privately owned suppliers that went bankrupt etc. A lot of countries have state subsidised industries, including the USA…

Thatcher didn't so much shut them down as turned off the life support subsidies. They were already dead, commercially.

A bailout isn't great and Obama was criticized for it, but it's not the same as ongoing state subsidies and outright nationalization. Boeing and SpaceX get oney for selling the government unique services. The USA has historically not gone in for subsidies of industries like steel and coal, and that's one reason it's ahead.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#445

Post by boplicity » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:09 PM UTC

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #372

zdragnar wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the UK, but in the US this is only half true. Degree-requiring jobs still have better social status over trades and low/no skill work, at least from a "what do you want to be when you grow up" point of view. However, many more people than previously are skeptical of the math behind the cost of a college degree. Going into significant debt only to find a field flooded with others, competing with ove…

Theres simply no reason why college is as expensive as it is. The cynic in me says price increases are about setting up class boundaries and pushing people back into the necessary but less desirable factory/trade jobs of previous generations

Not every college has crazy tuition. The school I attended in 2000 to 2004 has kept pace with inflation generally. Annual tuition is now around $10k, which is a lot, but not unmanageable for many middle class families. I'm curious how this compares across universities throughout the U.S. Maybe the tuition story has bifurcated somewhat?

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#446

Post by kakacik » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:17 PM UTC

jack_tripper wrote: post #415

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres simply no reason why college is as expensive as it is. The cynic in me says price increases are about setting up class boundaries and pushing people back into the necessary but less desirable factory/trade jobs of previous generations

>The cynic in me says price increases are about setting up class boundaries and pushing people back into the necessary but less desirable factory/trade jobs of previous generations This makes absolutely no sense when you spend two seconds to think about the supply and demand. Case in point, college is free in Europe and that has led to the exact problem you fear: oversupply of college grads and devaluation of degrees…

Not true for ie doctors... and generally your example is an outlier not valid for most Europe.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#447

Post by mrguyorama » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:20 PM UTC

vintermann wrote: post #243

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…

> 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. Too bad it's hard to find a country which isn't autocratic by this standard in practice.

Even Putin did not fire nukes when Ukraine launched a fairly successful invasion of their soil.

US did not fire nukes during Korea or Vietnam despite several high up people wanting to repeatedly.

USSR did not fire nukes the several times they thought the US had launched. USSR did not fire the nukes during the Cuban Missile Crisis even though Fidel was adamant that they be allowed to sacrifice themselves to destroy the US.

Somehow, that generation was able to maintain a sober view of nuclear weapons. Even as Nixon himself drunkenly insisted we nuke most of the world, he was ignored.

As that generation has aged out, it seems like that respect may be going away. Trump wants to start detonating nukes again. There may be a genuine reason, like maybe we have lost confidence in our simulations and models to build new nukes and desperately need to build the next generation of deterrence, but maybe he's just a dumbass. China is going back to building a shitload of nukes, even though they had plenty. Geopolitical conflict is back on the menu the world over, and everyone is itching to claim some century old grievance to go beat up a neighbor. The Ukraine invasion and muffled response proves to everyone that if you don't have nukes, you are not going to be protected, while North Korea proves that if you do have nukes, you can do almost anything you want.

I think a nuke will be used this century in anger. I think the world will be too gunshy to respond adequately, or too split along some axis, and there will be geopolitical bickering about who is the bad guy for using N+1 nukes in a conflict.

We will have some great new video footage though.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#448

Post by variadix » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:21 PM UTC

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #372

zdragnar wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the UK, but in the US this is only half true. Degree-requiring jobs still have better social status over trades and low/no skill work, at least from a "what do you want to be when you grow up" point of view. However, many more people than previously are skeptical of the math behind the cost of a college degree. Going into significant debt only to find a field flooded with others, competing with ove…

Theres simply no reason why college is as expensive as it is. The cynic in me says price increases are about setting up class boundaries and pushing people back into the necessary but less desirable factory/trade jobs of previous generations

Government backed loans inflate demand. If banks had to consider the risk of repayment prices would come back to reality.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#449

Post by jack_tripper » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:23 PM UTC

kakacik wrote: post #446

jack_tripper wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The cynic in me says price increases are about setting up class boundaries and pushing people back into the necessary but less desirable factory/trade jobs of previous generations This makes absolutely no sense when you spend two seconds to think about the supply and demand. Case in point, college is free in Europe and that has led to the exact problem you fear: oversupply of college grads and devaluation of degrees…

Not true for ie doctors... and generally your example is an outlier not valid for most Europe.

Because med school still has, and for good reason, very hard barriers to entry and to exit, no matter if it's free.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#450

Post by iso1631 » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:28 PM UTC

brainwad wrote: post #435

nradov wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is obviously too small and poor to go it alone forever. The other option for them would be economic integration with North America. They could probably join up with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on relatively favorable terms.

That's far from obvious. The UK is 3x the population of Australia, which manages fine without deep economic integrations. The problem of Brexit is not that it is impossible to go it alone as a middle power; it's just an unnecessary handicap when you border a 450m head market but want to ignore them and act like you are an island at the arse end of the world.

Austrailia is 80 times the size of the UK, it has a lot of resources - 240 times as much space per person than the UK.

The UK is too large to be an independent city state, but too small to be self sufficient.