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Comment by 827a | Hacker News Reader

And, to be clear about one thing (which I believe is also raised in the book): Much of this is the direct result of Apple investing literally a quarter trillion dollars and exporting critical western IP toward developing Chinese advanced manufacturing capability (among other American technology companies). The story of startups only being able to manufacture in China is a cute tale that is true for startups. For Apple, investing in the strategic capabilities of America's geopolitical rivals was an active decision Tim Cook and other Apple leaders made.

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A big change from Steve Jobs' dream of a California factory where sand and other raw materials came in one end, and finished computers went out the other --- the NeXT factory was an excellent exemplar of early automation (greatly assisted by Canon, an early investor).

A company like Apple has very little incentive to care about geopolitics, other than by current or future government laws and regulations (a government mandate, tariffs, etc). In the absence of government intervention, Apple has determined that investing a quarter trillion dollars is the cheap choice; getting the same result in the United States would probably need much much more than a quarter trillion dollars worth of investment. If the United States thought that such investments by Apple would have undesirable geopolitical implications, Congress should have acted a long time ago.

Your learned helplessness is defeatist and boring. We need not be Moloch's subjects; Apple's business priorities are not the result of some natural and unstoppable force, and their leadership is not exempt from responsibility because of your belief that it is. Someone, sometime, in a surprisingly boring room, wearing a surprisingly boring suit, made decisions like those which opened a factory in China instead of Texas.

I do not have learned helplessness. Nor have I claimed Apple’s business practices are the result of a natural force. Nothing is natural here. I said that Congress could have acted. Is Congress part of the nature now?

In contrast you have provided no arguments for why Apple’s leadership bears responsibility rather than Congress.

Texas would need to train its people. And the people would need to be as hungry as the Chinese were, and are to a certain extent. You should read the book the OT is talking about, it shows how the U.S. didn’t stand a chance in manufacturing, even going back to the 80s. Literally just not getting back to potential clients for two weeks and saying X or Y can’t be done, while Southeast Asian companies were jumping at the chance to build stuff.

There’s a giant cultural shift that needs to happen in the U.S. to get that back—not sacrificing labor laws, like China does, but the same idea that X or Y CAN be done, and actually jumping at the chance to build stuff instead of feeling entitled to it.

We do have agency, but the agency actually starts in the U.S., in education and culture, and not with a company like Apple.

All these things sound like great reasons to force Apple, along with the rest of big tech, to pay to better our society in the form of taxes.

It doesn't seem like money is the only issue. Infinity dollars won't help if the culture is radioactively toxic and shitty. (Arguably if you had infinity dollars you could spend it on therapists and counselors to fix the culture.)

> Infinity dollars won't help if the culture is radioactively toxic and shitty.

And what's "radioactively toxic and shitty"? Not wanting to slave away for low wages in bad working conditions?

Business apologists like to slander American workers, and it's tiring. Most of the "radioactively toxic and shitty" culture is management culture.

As mentioned upthread, if you go to an American machine shop, they'll take two weeks to get back to you, and generally be a PITA to work with, vs China's jumping at the chance to build stuff.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjEVB5p2/

> As mentioned upthread, if you go to an American machine shop, they'll take two weeks to get back to you, and generally be a PITA to work with, vs China's jumping at the chance to build stuff.

Probably because the Chinese are working 996. I know people who work 996, in China, and they dislike it as much as I would.

That's "jumping at the chance."

You don't have to work 996 to have an attitude of let's help the customer take their product to market. The American machine shop will laugh at you for not being a machinist, and tell you oh we don't do powder coating, we don't make cardboard boxes or styrofoam inserts. So then you, as the customer trying to get a product to market gotta run around town figuring it all out.

Meanwhile, you start talking to the Chinese machine shop guy, and he's all yeah my brother's does powder coating, his uncle does cardboard boxes and styrofoam inserts are another relative. The American attitude could go that and not work 996, but that's why it's not just about the money.

So basically you're blaming American workers for an attitude problem, when the real issue is, due to offshoring, the supply chain either doesn't exist here or isn't so centralized/expansive enough that someone has random relatives in related manufacturing businesses they're motivated to send work to?

So basically, you're being unfair.

And, from personal experience, while it's not exactly the same, when I've worked with American tradesmen, they've always had someone they could refer me to for related work.

These people will never stop to think that they are the problem in society, society has been molded in their neoliberal image where everyone is a savvy consumer and worker. We have 40 years of living in such a society and income inequality is worse than the gilded age, life expectancy is regressing, and children are doing worse in school; people don't even have the time to enjoy themselves and are forced to consume to be part of culture. Why we took all this for granted because a couple of MBA fuckups thought they knew better than the rest of us, I'll never know. Well actually I do know, because they were so greedy they wanted to make slightly more money rather than provide Americans good jobs.

It's disgusting on so many levels.

So your argument is that because machine shops don't do the leg work for you in finding suppliers for the things you need, they're worse?

Yes. It's a fundamental attitude problem of "that's not my job, it's your problem". It's like after your car gets into a crash. You just want your car back the way it was before the crash, assuming you don't take the insurance pay out. You want to be taken care of. But no, you gotta take it to a mechanic, then a body shop, and then a glass place. Or for software "well, it works on my machine". Even if we take the attitude out of the picture, if you're operating a business, you don't have time to spare. Having to find vendors for each step of the process takes time that could be better spent working on the product.

First off, if you have a car accident and one shop doesn't do everything to fix it, you went to a terrible shop. I've never seen a body repair shop that didn't do all that.

But that's beside the point.

Do you honestly expect a machine shop, a place that specializes in creating or fixing or modifying pieces of metal, to find you packaging and fluff for inside the package and then ship it to your customers? Why?

I'm absolutely confused on why you would expect a company that has literally nothing to do with an area of business to just do that thing for you for your convenience.

Do you expect your plumber to also put your floors down? Do you expect your doctor to also clean your teeth or do your taxes?

This isn't an 'attitude problem', this is a 'you have irrational expectations' problem.

And now you're calling me irrational. Can you see why all those jobs moved to China?

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZThGL1ngx/

See my comment up thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47146484) about Tillman Fertitta.

I think US regulation is a huge part of what you're talking about though. In the US it is a literally pain to do anything new. I work at a chemical plant, and it took years (I'm not exaggerating, it was something like 2-3 years) to get all the permits to build a new unit. Because of how slow the city is.

So when you talk about how Asian companies were quicker to jump on new things, that's exactly what I think of. I haven't worked in Asia, but I imagine their government is not holding them back with red tape even a tenth as much.

Dell ate Compaq’s lunch with a BTO model. It’s pretty clear Tim Cook decided to put the factories out of reach after that experience. Putting the supply chain close to major customer markets is cheapest but invites competition.

> Acompany like Apple has very little incentive to care about geopolitics, other than by current or future government laws and regulations (a government mandate, tariffs, etc).

Isn't that massive? You make it seem like it's not important but look at Trump's tariffs that are connected to geopolitics. The US's relation with China could worsen to a point where certain imports are banned.

The alternative is to do nothing. That you are worried at all is proof we have to take measures to ensure we aren’t dependent on adversaries.

> Much of this is the direct result of Apple investing literally a quarter trillion dollars and exporting critical western IP toward developing Chinese advanced manufacturing capability (among other American technology companies).

Really love your 1990s style western centric view.

Care to explain how fancy western IP is not leading in more and more techs fields, e.g. drones, EVs, renewable energy, robotics, fighter jets etc.? because western companies invested in China and gifted fancy western IPs they don't even have to China?

All of those things you mentioned start small and build locally. As soon as they become big enough to want to manufacture and sell internationally, the only option is to move the production line to Asia. Unless somebody big like Apple invests in manufacturing plants and supply chains in western countries, Asia will still have all the investment and factories and this will never change.

Its a 2020s western-centric view, because the world is western-centric (though, from your viewpoint in the CCP propaganda farm, I can understand why you'd feel differently). Everything China has was taken from the West, either by theft, the soulless disregard of western business leaders, or by sending their children here for education (if they decide they even want to return; many hate to go back, and we welcome them!)

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