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by trhway 2 hours ago
As the latest affair shown, US is falling behind in drone tech. Now another key modern tech is going to be similarly outlawed.

Note that in particular banning of 3d printing severely decreases chances for bringing back manufacturing - high labor and other costs makes domestic manufacturing feasible only when it is highly automated and highly customizable.
1 comments
TacticalCoder 1 hour ago
> As the latest affair shown, US is falling behind in drone tech. Now another key modern tech is going to be similarly outlawed.

My bet is the US militaro-industrial complex is busy preparing juicy contracts to sell shitload of drones and drones-related tech to the US government now that they understood that drones in warfare were a thing (Ukraine vs Russia showed it and Iran-vs-the-world showed it too).

The US has something like 12 tech companies in the top 20 biggest companies by market cap in the world: do you really think the US is "falling behind in drone tech" because a country that has never invented anything (besides mass killings of their own citizens) since religious extremists took over managed to fly a few low-tech drones into US military assets?

That a country bent on violence (including towards its own citizens) where pick-up trucks armed with .50 cal, AK47s and explosive are the norm can slap explosive on DJI drones is resourceful but I wouldn't exactly call it "passing ahead in drone tech".

I don't gamble but I'd make an exception and bet big that the US is going to end up right next to China, at the very top, when it comes to drone tech. While I fully expect the EU to fall behind in drone tech.

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trhway 1 hour ago
> a country that has never invented anything … managed to fly a few low-tech drones into US military assets

And de-facto won the war as a result. That is reality. That is the power of that weaponry, and that is the falling behind. And that after 4 years of such a war in Ukraine.

I agree it is very possible that US would be at some point able to build up those capabilities. Though, limited to established players, it most probably would be very expensive and thus go against the key feature - cheapness - which in itself allows for the other key feature- mass scale of the drone weapons.

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