Comment by itake

> IMHO, with the Big Tech boom winding down, what is more valuable for us to do?

Tech isn't winding down; tech, as the sector that draws the most investment based on long-term development, had the biggest response to tight monetary policy designed to slow the entire economy down, but that response demonstrates that tech is where most of the marginal dollar goes.

> Manufacturing could prepare us for the next wave, whatever that might be.

Trying to work our way down the raw materials -> manufacturing -> finance/services ladder that countries usually try to work their way up for maximum prosperity in globalized trade isn't going to prepare us for anything other than lasting economic decline. And why would “manufacturing”—which you can't build generically, but only by specific, usually impossible to reallocate to a different use that isn't closely similar without sacrificing most of the value, major capital investments in particular subareas of manufacturing, prepare us for anything else even ignoring that we’d have to regress to do it?

The big tech boom is winding down?

Just because we ended the era of cheap money to try and stop runaway inflation doesn't mean the tech boom is winding down.

Look at everything that's happening with gene editing, in physics, with the jwst, with LLMs and robotics and computer vision, with alt energy sources, batteries, in material sciences, etc.

I mean this is such a myopic take. We are in just now in an era where people are now capable of finding needles in needlestacks.

You are confusing easily manipulated economic vibes that feel bad right now with the rapid approach of a complete overhaul of the human experience.

The U.S. has basically supported the strip mining of our economy by value sucking predatory investment firms. There is a reason why China have more robotics per capita in their factories than we do and it has to do with a complete failure in strategic thinking, long term planning and ultimately a hatred for our youth.