[mullingitover]

> why isn't the west's own supply chain options as immense?

The US explicitly chose to be a service economy. China explicitly chose to be a mercantile economy.

The US can absolutely switch paths, it will just take a long time and will require pushing millions into poverty. But we're on track to do it.

[palmotea]

> The US explicitly chose to be a service economy. China explicitly chose to be a mercantile economy.

In other words: the US wants its workers assembling hamburgers, China wants its workers assembling drones.

And when there's a conflict, the US will lose because you can't win a war with hamburgers.

[Levitz]

Rather, the US wants its worker coming up with the concept of drones to begin with.

Which is how China gets to make drones to begin with. You don't seem to have any understanding of what a service economy is.

[palmotea]

> Rather, the US wants its worker coming up with the concept of drones to begin with.

Sure, but that idea is too stupid and arrogant to event consider. China's not going to cede that kind of high-level work forever. They'll learn how to do it, and when that happens what will the US do?

And then, in the conflict, can your "concept makers" get their implementation done by the hamburger assemblers, with their hamburger assembler skills and hamburger assembly equipment?

[mullingitover]

> They'll learn how to do it, and when that happens what will the US do?

Continue coming up with even more advanced ideas. This is like the Winklevoss Twins getting mad at Zuckerberg for 'stealing their idea', and the dean of Harvard lecturing them about how they're Men of Harvard and as such they'll simply come up with another idea, because that's what Men of Harvard do. They don't just one and done with one good idea.

The US built the world's most advanced idea factory, but the people who hate smart people got into power and now they're stripping the copper out of the walls.

> And then, in the conflict

There won't be a hot conflict between nuclear powers. Or there will, and whoever can make the most drones will be irrelevant in the first 24 hours.

[Levitz]

>Sure, but that idea is too stupid and arrogant to event consider. China's not going to cede that kind of high-level work forever.

The "stupid and arrogant" idea has worked for decades and the only real problem with it is espionage. Stealing someone else's labor is an enormous amount of China's progress, and a good thing to remember when musing about a country's future.

[palmotea]

> The "stupid and arrogant" idea has worked for decades and the only real problem with it is espionage.

No, the stupid and arrogant idea is the one that the Chinese will be content to occupy the subordinate position forever, taking direction from Westerners and doing only the grunt work the Westerners often think is beneath them.

It's also stupid and arrogant to think the Chinese are not capable of innovation on their own. The espionage was a tactic to catch up more quickly, and now that they've done that, Chinese are innovating on their own now and have better technology in many areas. But that's not the only thing going on: Western countries are literally going over to China, teaching them what they'll need to know to out-compete them in the future.

[myrmidon]

"Explicitly chose" is a strong word.

US and China are on completely different stages of industrialization: The US had its massive boom of manufacturing almost a century ago, enriching its population massively. Those rich citizens make the same manufacturing uncompetitive today, because no one is going to work in a factory for $20k/year (median wage in urban China), when he can work for other "rich" people for more than twice as much.

Switching paths is not feasible for the US in the same way that it is not gonna be feasible for China to hold on to all its industry as wages rise: You can't compete globally at "poor people wages" while being "rich", as simple as that.

[vkou]

> But we're on track to do it.

The only thing that the US is on track to is getting a taste of what real corruption feels like, enriching Trump's friends, and hollowing out its middle class.

[CuriouslyC]

Joke's on them. If a wave of post-trump anti-corruption retribution doesn't come when the Republicans get swept out of power, we're going to have a whole generation of Luigis.