Let’s celebrate America at 250. What have we accomplished as a people, working together, that is great? Let’s leave out our military heroics because those are regularly celebrated in statuary, political speeches, etc. Let’s leave our literature because books are usually written by one person. Same deal with software, much of which is substantially created by small teams. In the comments, please leave what you think we’ve done that has done the most good for humanity overall outside of military.
I’ll go first: integrated circuit fabrication. While the transistor was developed by a small team, including Nobel laureate William Shockley, who later set up Silicon Valley, and the IC itself was invented by Jack Kilby, it literally takes a village to fabricate ICs in significant quantities.
What are some resources that we can use to teach tweens and teens about the miracle of birth (of their smartphones)? Here are some with promise…
From our brothers and sisters in Korea (indirect shout-out to the U.S. military since the South Koreans probably wouldn’t be fabbing chips today if not for our willingless to cooperate and sacrifice as a society in the military domain):
More detailed (from a comprehensive channel):
A high school kid who built a fab in his parents’ garage and, after attending CMU (“the school that actually builds instead of talks”), runs his own semiconductor company (example of American suburban greatness; Europeans don’t have A/C and they don’t have garages so Sam Zeloof’s counterparts in the Old Country wouldn’t have been able to do this):
Happy birthday to us and maybe readers will come up with an even better idea for something that Americans working cooperatively can take pride (not “Pride”) in!
What did I reject? Air conditioning, even though Carrier World HQ is a few minutes’ drive from our house and A/C has enabled people to work hard and achieve in parts of the world where that was never previously possible, because it was mostly achieved by one person. I also rejected aviation, even though the U.S. did a lot at the systems level (airports, radio comms, air traffic control, etc.) because there were contemporaneous efforts in other nations as well. I rejected spaceflight because the Russians started it and the impact on humanity from our headline space achievements has been limited (communications satellites have had a huge impact, of course, but we weren’t the first to put a radio station in orbit). I rejected politics because most countries that have a U.S.-style government, rather than a parliamentary system, have devolved into dictatorships.
(What did our AI Overlords suggest? ChatGPT: “Immigration and assimilation at massive scale”. Gemini: “Eradicating Disease & Public Health Breakthroughs” (absurd; all of medicine relies heavily on European biology, especially German) and “The Interstate Highway System” (guess which German got there first?); Grok: “Genome sequencing and biotech” (how much benefit has humanity actually derived from this? where exactly in America was Francis Crick born?); Claude: “The development of the polio vaccine (Salk and Sabin)” (“American” Albert Sabin was a Polish Jew born “Abram Saperstejn”; Salk was an American Jew, but how many collaborators did either of these guys need? This wasn’t a collective achievement) and “The long, hard-won expansion of civil rights” (absurd, since we’re informed that DEI remains essential due to rampant discrimination and a lack of civil rights, e.g., Republicans preventing nonwhite Americans from voting by requiring ID) and “The Interstate Highway System” (Claude says that it was only “influenced by Hitler” and not “inspired by Hitler” so I guess that’s okay to label as 100% American).)
Related:
- a University of Texas class by Chris Mack (for extremely patient and nerdy teens!)
- this channel from Spain (Barcelona) has good Spanish-language content and some in English
- chip-related, but not exactly American: a tour of Micron’s Taiwan factory
- The New York Times explains computers circa 1967
- Happy July 4: Why doesn’t Congress do anything? (representative of my non-250th July 4th output, from 2018) “We celebrate our traitorous rebellion against a legitimate government so that we could govern ourselves and yet it does not seem that our current government is any more responsive to the people than was King George III and his Parliament. Politicians ask for our votes by saying that the current set of laws and/or implementations of laws is intolerable. Yet once they get elected and the paychecks begin to flow they don’t seem inclined to change anything.”
- How was the mask compliance at July 4 gatherings? (2020)
- Reinterpreting MLK’s ideas of freedom for the Age of COVID (2021)
- What’s great about the United States? (vs. if we’d stayed part of the UK, 2019; Answer: “aviation”, sort of the same answer in 2017 with Harrison Ford on flying and freedom)
- Our first July 4th in Florida
Music for the day, by Louis Moreau Gottschalk (2021 performance). Wokipedia says that Gottschalk was rejected by the Paris Conservatoire not for his Jewish background, but because he was American and “America is a country of steam engines”. (Ironic that in the subsequent the U.S. not only ran away with industry, but also with dominance of the music world. The French turned out to be comparative failures at both industry and culture.)
Happy birthday America!
I liked this one https://engineering.purdue.edu/online/semiconductors/semiconductor-fabrication-101
National Parks System?
Lifting a lot of people out of poverty through free trade (this is different from USAID). Europe and Asia benefited a lot. The $40 trillion national debt must have helped somebody somewhere.
Cultural influences. Here is how America influenced, for example, Japan (other than demilitarizing it, and completely overhauling its politics and society). Educational System. Economic ideas – assembly line (Henry Ford), quality control (Deming) etc. Baseball, Music (Pop, Rock, Jazz), Hollywood (some), Fast Food (Starbucks etc.), Fashion.
AL: Free trade is pretty awesome, but I don’t think it is an American idea. There was Adam Smith, part of the legacy population of pre-Islamic Scotland, David Ricardo, a 19th century economist in pre-Islamic England (“comparative advantage”), etc. It was Great Britain (pre-Islamic) that actually implemented free trade long before Americans began thinking globally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line#History credits the Venetian Arsenal with coming up with the assembly line idea and also various 19th century factories in the pre-Islamic Republic version of England. Interchangeable parts, which Ford needed, were used by Carthagea and later some folks in pre-Islamic France.
philg:
OK, free trade was invented by Scottish & Sephardic guys. But 20th century implementation was largely American. The USA opened China in the 1970s. Before that millions of Chinese were starving to death. Now they have glittering skyscrapers. Not that they are grateful. Korea had slavery in the beginning of the 20th century. North Korea still has slavery. Prosperity of South Korea is due to the USA. Not that they are grateful. Japan, Taiwan etc. The USA can take pride in carrying out free trade in the 20th century, while England was fading away.
Asianometry is the definitive source of manufacturing videos. It took him an hour to describe the current processes at TSMC. It made us appreciate why prices stopped going down 7 years ago & why a computer can’t fit in a single room anymore.
> In the comments, please leave what you think we’ve done that has done the most good for humanity overall outside of military.
Congrats on a quarterly “interesting idea” Dr. G. Asking ourselves why we celebrate this day by collectively shooting off 100 gigatons of fireworks (and causing PTSD in our dogs, cats, and turtles) is a fun topic.
Marketing. Damn, how would we know what to ask our doctor about if not for ads? How would we know what car is appropriate for our socioeconomic status? Marketing powers the free (as in beer) Internet (and free TV and free radio before that). How would we know that all modern marriages are interracial or gay or both? How would I find a link to find Chinese Viagra? I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m a valued demographic! Even the jingos have added to our musical heritage:
“My bologna has a first name, it’s O S CA R. My bologna has a second name, it’s M A Y E R. Oh, I love to eat it every day…and if you ask me ‘why?’ I’ll say: ‘Cuz Oscar Mayer has a way with B O L O G N A’.” — memorized from a childhood of 6 hours a day watching TV.
> how would we know what to ask our doctor about if not for ads?
For that matter, how would our doctors know about great new patented drugs made by adding a chemical group or two to generics? Drug reps, that’s how. And what are drug reps? (Used to be hot blondes now it’s probably hot Palestinians). Marketers!
Happy 250th USA, maybe rich trans-human oligarchs will make it to see the 500th.
“Coke is IT.”
I love ads, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising#History says the Egyptians (before they were conquered and replaced by Arabs) and the Chinese had ads. It also looks as though pre-Islamic England and pre-Islamic France were at least as early as the U.S.
National ads didn’t make a lot of sense until the railroads were built. Before railroads, there were no nationwide markets. The pre-Islamic British were the pioneers in railroad networks so it seems likely that they were also the pioneers in nationwide ad campaigns.
Well the British arguably invented the idea of the modern corporation, but again ‘Murca is known for creating companies the right way. I can’t even think of a British company. BP? Lloyds of London? Big whoop. It does look like America did some pioneering work using sex in advertising:
> The earliest known use of sex in advertising is by the Pearl Tobacco brand in 1871, which featured a naked maiden on the package cover.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_in_advertising#History
Maybe ChatGPT was correct about “assimilation”. Maybe America is adept at taking a good idea (possibly from some foreigner/immigrant) and making it great–owning the damn thing instead of letting it go to waste. We took a bunch of aimless Somalian refugees and made them world class grifters. We are doing something right.
Good morning. Have you used Pears’ soap?
— Lame British ad selling a useful product (what’s the point?)
Hot dogs, Armour Hot Dogs
What kinds of kids eat Armour Hot Dogs?
Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks
Tough kids, sissy kids, even kids with chicken pox
Love hot dogs, Armour Hot Dogs
The dogs kids love to bite!
When man bites dog, that’s news, they say
But when kids bite dogs, they yell “Hoorray!” For hot dogs, Armour Hot Dogs
The dogs — kids — love — to — BITE!
— Catchy American advertisement selling industrial byproducts as food
My Dear Friend Phil,
May I suggest you do a bit more thinking? As great as ICs are, they are one of many things that were made possible by the one greatest achievement in the history of the U.S., and more broadly, the world: The U.S. Constitution.
Nothing else comes close.
Everything else (including ICs) can be directly traced back to the foundational elements that were put in place by the U.S. Constitution.
With semiconductors, most of the modern development that our economy depends on took place in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, the Netherlands (ASML) and Belgium (IMEC) so it doesn’t feel like the US can claim much of it.
> In the comments, please leave what you think we’ve done that has done the most good for humanity overall outside of military.
The spirit of America.
No other nation or empire in history has inspired so many people from every corner of the world to dream of becoming an American. The promise of freedom, opportunity, and self-determination is America’s greatest contribution to humanity.
America invented email, social media (with pictures), streaming media, bittorrent and arguably the adult movie.
Happy birthday, America!
And the emoticon: 🙂 Here’s to uninteresting times for the next 250.