Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
By John Markoff, New York Times, June 27/28
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Etched into the base of Google'ss new wireless home media player that was introduced on Wednesday is its most intriguing feature. On the underside of the Nexus Q is a simple inscription: “Designed and Manufactured in the U.S.A.”
The Google executives and engineers who decided to build the player here are engaged in an experiment in American manufacturing. “We’ve been absent for so long, we decided, ‘Why don’t we try it and see what happens?’ ” said Andy Rubin, the Google executive who leads the company’s Android mobile business.
[....] the project will be closely watched by other electronics companies. It has become accepted wisdom that consumer electronics products can no longer be made in the United States. During the last decade, abundant low-cost Chinese labor and looser environmental regulations have virtually erased what was once a vibrant American industry.
Since the 1990s, one American company after another, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Apple, has become a design and marketing shell, with production shifted to contract manufacturers in Shenzhen and elsewhere in China.
Now that trend may be showing early signs of reversing.
It’s a trickle, but some American companies are again making products in the United States [....]
Comments
Google is not alone.
Check out the other things at that site. With 3D printing, the future is now. Closest thing yet to a Star Trek replicator. Between that and robotic assembly, I do not expect many jobs will return with the industry.
We really need to start rethinking our economy beginning with remembering what its first purpose: to provide for the needs and wants of people.
by EmmaZahn on Sat, 06/30/2012 - 11:26am
We really need to start rethinking our economy beginning with remembering what its first purpose: to provide for the needs and wants of people.
Yeah, well put .
A pet peeve of mine is I don't see how lots of assembly line jobs producing our own plastic wastebaskets, salad shooters, imitation Croc shoes, fly swatters, and tube socks would make Americans proud and happy. (Even in the post WWII boom of factory jobs, there were certain products marked "made in Japan," where no one complained "gee Americans should have the jobs making those.")
by artappraiser on Sat, 06/30/2012 - 12:28pm
Something comes to mind after writing that--the ads in the back of 50's/60's magazines: "learn to be a radio/TV repairman" targeted at people like miserable assembly line workers. It gets tiresome to hear the education/training mantra from politicos, frustrating in the "but yeah, can't you also give them some jobs they can do now?" way, but it really is all about the right training for future technology and always has been?
by artappraiser on Sat, 06/30/2012 - 12:40pm
I have some thoughts about a possible future economy but am not sure they are ready for prime time. Or maybe I am just overly concerned about where and how to cast my pearls of wisdom. ;-D What I have in mind is very, very radical and bound to antagonize the die-hards of all current politico-economic persuasions although that is not my intent.*
One obstacle to moving beyond jobs that I have discovered is how much many people's personal identities are tied to what they do, especially the professional occupations. Not surprising really considering how deeply that is woven into family histories and how overspecialized we have become. Now that It is now even extended into choice of many screen names, I have been meaning to ask your thoughts on the subject. How important to your personal identity is what you do, artappraiser?
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*Added after realizing orginal could be misinterpreted. See not ready for prime time. :-\
by EmmaZahn on Sat, 06/30/2012 - 6:06pm
How important to your personal identity is what you do, artappraiser?
Not a whole lot but that always hasn't been the case. It's a sort of be careful what you wish for thing (or even perhaps even a little bit of Capote's more tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. ) I don't even much like my own work anymore and prefer to assist my spouse in somewhat related work which is also less stressful financially and in other ways for me.
I have often pondered starting over with a new screen name precisely because people infer identity issues from it I chose it with my first major net activities which were on ebay, there the identifier assisted me with some work-related things that I wanted to do When I started to get interested in some news blogs/forums in the run up to the Iraq war, I registered with the same name and password as a matter of ease of remembering without thinking about that choice I keep it now because of the ease of searching for my past postings and meanderings. But people do seem to assume a lot from it that isn't true in my case. I wish my screen name had fewer associations, was more bland. But it's so second nature to me that I don't think about all that, what others are thinking about it, it as much as I probably should..
how overspecialized we have become
This is one of the reasons my own field is not as "fun" for me as it once was; I was lucky to get in on the tail end of the years when it was not so specialized, for only a couple years. When it wasn't so specialized, you were learning all the time while working and it was often like Christmas every day, very exciting.
It's not all about specialization, though, there is also the problem about when you are on a lower level in a professional area of work, with lower pay, you have fewer stressful responsibilities. (Not to suggest people on low rungs in non-professional work don't have lots of stress, they do, they have too many "masters". I know, I had lots of those jobs too, while working so hard to break into the kind of work I wanted.)
In a lot of white collar and professional work, I think this is often the case. If people have luck combined with ambitiously and single-mindedly working like a dog for years if not decades and get into the "job of their dreams," they end up with something that quickly changes and is not what they like anymore. It's kind of the reverse of the Peter Principle, if good and lucky people rise to a level where they are having to mostly do stuff they don't like anymore.
Generally, I think it's a young person's thing, having your identity tied up with your job. (Though those who are long time breadwinners of families also have it.) A bit of living and finding out there are few "dream jobs," plus seeing people you are close to die, gets you more into believing the adage about no one ever died wishing they spent more days at the office.
by artappraiser on Sun, 07/01/2012 - 2:01pm
Thank you for the thoughtful response. Love the Capote quote.
From what you wrote, I think you would like the economy of my new social order (cue menacing music). :-D It is based on the acquisition and sharing of knowledge, skills and experiences rather than jobs and earnings start very early in Pre-K.
I have to stop now. Typing time is growing shorter and shorter. I think I am finally going to have to get one of those speech recognition programs. Know any good ones?
by EmmaZahn on Sun, 07/01/2012 - 5:03pm
I found this on the NYT "most popular" list (it's currently #1 in "most emailed" & #3 in "most read") I suspect you'll also like what it says, and also note that the article's popularity is proof that some of you're ideas might not be considered as radical as you think:
Oh and on your link, I wonder about too strongly relating the surname origins thing to current tendencies, only because so few people seem to even know about much less think about the meaning of the name acquired by their ancestors many centuries ago. Where I think it mostly is a signifier is in the northern European culture of ages ago where what service you offered is what name you got, but that was before people even had the time or education to think much of "identity" the way we do, worrying more about where to get the next meal and protection from the cold and from violence (or next group of loyal lieges if you were of the only other class) Here's the thing: if many northern Europeans themselves could shrug off that history and go more "southern," not caring about work so much, so can anyone else.
by artappraiser on Sun, 07/01/2012 - 3:20pm
Great link. Thanks. Its best insight, imo.
It is not that I think any of my ideas for change are so radical that they have never been thought of by anyone else but in combination they do completely upend what many now think of as our way of life. And, I believe I know how to finance it without relying on our current wannabe masters-of-the-universe who have completely misled us about the nature of money. However it is not a quick fix or one that can just be legislated into existence. That is why I think the best way to present it is as a novel. Kudos to Ayn Rand for the inspiration there. It will, however, not include a 70-page manifesto disguised as a speech. :-D
Occupational surnames originally reflected a skill-based achieved status. They evolved into surnames when occupations were still largely hereditary. Eventually, of course, the names and trades disconnected but not the desire for a way to reflect achieved status. Screen names provide the first opportunity ever to tie a personally chosen name to an achieved or desired status. That part was just curiosity. It is the potential loss of achieved status that would be the obstacle.
by EmmaZahn on Sun, 07/01/2012 - 4:48pm
Noted that Yglesias think much of the Kreider's recommendation of more
leisureidleness which does seem to be in direct contradiction of his earlier yearning for more maids to have more time to spend with friends.Personally, I credit boredom as one of the great motivators in human history right up there with curiosity in parenting invention.
Plus there are way too many Peter Principles around screwing up things that I would rather were watching television instead.
by EmmaZahn on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 4:10pm