Compete by tradition, not by innovation

People who should know better are pushing Innovative Disruption. Each city and country “must” compete to enrich Sam Altman and destroy civilization.

NO.

Competing to make Sam Altman richer will make you poorer and lose everything that makes you special.

If you want to improve your OWN city or country, boost and expand your OWN permanent specialties. Find a business that uses your OWN natural resources or local talents. Subsidize the business. Keep it going, give it more infrastructure, help it to train new workers.

I’m hotted up about this question right now because I’ve been delving into an obscure bit of tech history, the brief facsimile boom after WW2. (More details in a later piece.)

I came across one company that started in 1920, found a strong niche by mixing two traditional local skills, and kept going. It was the main employer in its OWN small town for 80 years, with its own culture and lore. It wasn’t stopped by the ’30s Wall Street coup or the ’80s Wall Street coup. It was finally halted in the 2000s by the Bush universal surrender to China. Now the name and the office staff are still there but the manufacturing is in Shenzhen, like all manufacturing of all products in the whole fucking universe.

China is doing the right thing, using each of its LOCAL resources and talents to the max.

The New Deal functioned the same way. It DID NOT push Innovative Disruption and DID NOT force cultural change. Every part of the New Deal reinforced and strengthened local traditions, local talents, local resources, and permanence.

Previous government efforts had attracted newcomers into farming, creating the Dust Bowl. Henry Wallace subsidized and trained EXPERIENCED farmers to maintain their skills, so the soil would stay in the same place.

WPA’s literary and entertainment services documented and emphasized traditional cultures.

TVA built permanent dams to provide steady reliable power, and expanded power to small towns and farms so they could farm more effectively. TVA and Bonneville are still running and their dams are still making electricity at a profit despite the Innovative Destruction by environmental crazies. The electricity I’m using to type this piece comes from Grand Coulee, and the Avista bill I sent in this morning’s mail gives profit to Bonneville. The postman who picked up the bill is part of an even more durable structure, beginning 300 years ago and enduring through a stupid revolution and dozens of self-destructive wars and depressions and Innovations.