[throwawayiemso]

I regret emphasizing stem in my comment. I meant to offer it as an example of the kind of education that may be valuable. I don't see increasing production rate as the end goal, nor any other kind of "line goes up" political objective. I recognize human flourishing happens at the confluence of factors.

Nevertheless, I see the connection as follows: we are forced to play nice with enemy nations because of our economic independence on them: we turn a blind eye to what fentanyl did to the middle/lower classes largely because nationally we have our own addiction to Chinese products. We could significantly reduce our dependency by producing homespun expertise, despite it being less efficient. I value independence first of all.

Re: modernism, I'm not qualified to comment, but I expect that's just one perspective on the causes of those wars.