Comment on So, is the USA screwed?
VerifiedSource@sh.itjust.works 2 days agoThe US is still leading in aerospace and defense. Boeing is in a slump, but military planes are top notch. SpaceX is a decade ahead of the global competition at least.
computer science
All the biggest and leading companies in that area are still based in the US. American companies dominate the market for software and internet services. The possibly most disruptive technology AI is also firmly in the hands of the USA.
You’re also missing biotechnology as another key sector, where the US is doing very well.
the US does not have the technological edge it once did;
That much is clear. It’s still doing very good though.
The amount of money spent on R&D is still huge in the USA and it attracts top minds from across the globe.
Varyk@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
you first claimed that the US is still leading in most technological fields.
this is false, as I pointed out in my previous comment.
your new tack is the US “is still doing very good, though”
this is also incorrect.
“aerospace”:
a private company innovated aerospace technology despite the US government’s reluctance to invest in aerospace technology.
China has been investing in space, and are planning to build space stations and moon bases, and have been having regular launches.
“defense”: We are not ahead of the game anymore. US dod officials have been very clearly saying for Over a decade that the US might already be behind China in key areas of defense, AI weapons systems among those, despite spending 4 to 10 times as much on their defense budget.
“All the biggest and leading companies in that area are still based in the US.”
biggest? okay.
leading? in what world is Microsoft a leading technological innovator?
they cannot even compete with a free operating system despite decades of a head start and hundreds of billions more capital.
Apple? they haven’t been innovative in 15 years, depend on slave labor, and their newest phones aren’t even playing catch up with East Asian phones anymore, hardware or software.
“You’re also missing biotechnology…”
I wasn’t listing literally every field the US was failing in, I was refuting your false notion that the US was still leading in most technological fields.
“The possibly most disruptive technology AI is also firmly in the hands of the USA.”
not according to AI researchers, AI CEOs, computer scientists, and the US DOD.
and again, any prowess US companies had in AI was due to the mass exploitation of workers abroad.
“The amount of money spent on R&D is still huge in the USA”
it sure isn’t now, grants and federal funding have been cut by more than half since dumps took office.
“it attracts top minds from across the globe.”
this was true 20 years ago.
My point is that it is not true today, any more than it is true for any other country.
The US is not leading in most, if any, technological fields, it’s not leading in manufacturing, it’s not leading in most sciences, and it has one of the most awful education systems in the world, not to mention the living affordability crisis going on.
If people can’t afford groceries or a simple apartment to live in, let alone education, none of which they can afford in the US anymore, and have not been able to for the last generation, innovation falls by the wayside.
as it has been for a long time.
and now, US “dominance” will continue to freefall for at least the next 4 years.
you can’t do science without funding and support, and dumps has taken that funding away, and importantly does not believe in science or the benefits of research and development.
The US population has not been invested in, and your industries are suffering for that.
meanwhile, other countries are investing record amounts and setting technological records in innovative technologies like solar that the US has no hope of catching up to in the near future.
VerifiedSource@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Huh? The US government paying SpaceX made it possible to succeed in the first place. That’s literally the US investing in aerospace tech.
China is catching up, but still behind in defense and aerospace technology. The one area they are ahead is industrial capacity to build, especially ships. China builds a huge number of civilian and military ships.
Wages, manufacturing, etc. are all far more expensive in the US. It’s also much easier and cheaper to copy someone else’s design than to discover and build for the first time.
Microsoft has good support for Linux nowadays with Windows services for Linux and Azure Linux for example. On the desktop Microsoft Windows is still leading in market share and Microsoft Office is dominating as well.
Where are the biggest Linux companies located?
Apple’s AR/VR is innovative, if not particularly successful in the market. Their M-series chips are among the best chip available. Very fast with low power use.
Apple makes their products in same factories (Foxconn etc) as other companies. So the labor conditions aren’t unique to Apple at all.
I mostly agree. The quality of the US education system is similar to the health care system. The US has some of the best education and health care in the world. However, it’s neither cheap nor affordable for the majority of the population.
I agree mostly. Regarding funding under Trump, we will see. Elon Musk certainly know about R&D costs and benefits and is influential.
Yes, other countries are catching up steadily overall and are ahead in some areas, especially China.
Varyk@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
“China is catching up, but still behind in defense and aerospace technology”
this is a fiction, according to US defense officials, but if we pretended it was true, it doesn’t change the original point, that the US is falling behind in most technological fields.
you’ll notice that I didn’t mention aerospace in my original top of the dome list.
it looks like you’re agreeing with all my other points though, so I don’t have much else to say except that the important fiction to point out is this:
“other countries are catching up steadily overall and are ahead in some areas, especially China.”
10 years ago? you could argue that other countries were playing catch up in most technological Fields.
now?
The US is behind in nearly every technological field and especially now is uninterested in catching up to the rest of the world.
The US population cannot afford to live and is critically undereducated, and are about to have four more years of withheld R&D funding.
That’s the reality on the ground now.
any “we’re not doing so bad” mentality simply is not correct anymore, and it’s important to recognize the reason behind and the rate at which the US is failing to advance in critical fields.
You’re not going to be able to swerve back onto the road by pretending the guardrails you’re grinding against aren’t there.