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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

> very difficult to replicate in deindustrialized United States of 2024.

While we might have deindustrialized a lot of commodity electronics and small consumer things, I'm pretty sure we're still totally fine when it comes to aerospace. What with our Air Force and NASA and SpaceX and all that. More than fine, even.

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Read up on restarting Stinger production. Retired engineers had to pitch in to train the current generation. So I wouldn't say "totally fine".

How is needing to train young people the same as deindustrialization exactly?

It's the taking engineers out of retirement that's deindustrialization. A properly industrialized nation would have an active program with educators in the prime of their career to do the educating, and not need to pull someone out of retirement because there wasn't a need for them to train their replacements until after they'd retired.

That's not what a "properly industrialized nation" is, and it's an impossibly high bar.

There are always going to be bits of technology and training that seem to no longer be needed for modern products. And sometimes, some new product will need to resurrect one or more of them.

The idea that there's an "active program" to train people on literally every previous engineering practice ever created isn't feasible.

Agreed. For super specialized advanced materials or processes, some Western-aligned country will usually be able to provide it, even if no one in the U.S. can.

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