[dolbz]

> and there is no nation on earth with the inventiveness found on such a massive scale as in America.

Citation needed? This sentence and the next just made me stop reading. It's borderline supremacism. Whether the rest of the article has valid points or not such a sweeping statement can not be taken seriously.

[xiaoma]

Since the 1950's, the US has won over half the Nobel Prizes awarded in physics, chemistry and medicine. The car, airplane, internet, laser, sequencing of the human genome, manned lunar landings and a host of humanity's other technological triumphs each came from America. So did the modern PC, the web, and most likely the search engines and social networking sites you use.

I sense some bruised ego and a dash of nationalism, but if that line keeps you from reading the article because you want citations, then I have a couple of suggestions for where you can find them: Google and Wikipedia.

[Nick_C]

I'm sympathetic to the thrust of your argument, but you might like to rethink the airplane, the car, and the Web.

[xiaoma]

I might not. Much as the hamburger isn't technically an American invention, the hamburger as we know it is. For all practical purposes it is from America, not Hamburg.

Cars- It's true that a Frenchman made the first gas engine car, and that some of the very, very early cars (which were unaffordable and unusable by the masses) came out of central Europe. Nonetheless, it was US innovations that led to cars that were actually adopted by significant numbers.

Airplane- I really don't know what you're getting at here. From the Wright brothers' first flight to the mass adoption decades later, the US lead the way.

Web- The web as we know it started with Mosaic, which came out of Illinois. Even by 1995, the vast majority of internet users and sites were in the US. If one were to be pedantic, Lynx which came out of Kansas could be considered to be the start. I can only assume you're pointing at Tim Berners-Lee, who made the initial proposal for the protocol and a few proof of concept tools. He's an Englishman, but has chosen to do his work in the US out of MIT, which only goes to show the strength of the OP's argument.

I still stand by my remark that being seriously upset by that line in the article is an indicator of being out of touch with reality.

[Nick_C]

> it was US innovations that led to cars

Yes, Ford invented the production line, he did not invent cars.

> From the Wright brothers' first flight

Flight had been going on for decades. There is some evidence that a New Zealander did controlled flight under power first (which is what the Wright brothers are generally credited with), but did not publicise it. Wing-warping was already under trial in Europe at the same time as the Wright brothers; the Wright brothers' innovation was to get to the patent office first. (I don't share people's kudos of the Wright brothers. They got too much credit for what was going to happen anyway within weeks in Europe. They were extremely aggressive patentors and did much to suppress innovation by competitors.)

> Web

Berners-Lee invented the Web. Pure and simple. Other people made tools that used it, but that was not the claim.

[meow]

So is this statement : "Creative and industrious Americans will no longer be challenged by the low-cost assembly line workers of Southeast Asia and third world countries."

It almost feels like political speech.

[seclorum]

Whatever it feels like, the fact remains that the economy is being crippled by cheap plastic crap made on the other side of the planet and shipped - with much cost - to consumers who only play with it for 0.0000001% of the time that most of these things will be sitting there, forever, out in some landfill somewhere.

I say, bring on the 3D printing revolution. First order for my 3D printer: make me a 3D component shredder that spits out more reusable pellets for my printer!