"But you just like… screw stuff together, right? Cut the basic materials to make the parts, put it together, box it up, ship it out, right?"

• Someone I legitimately spoke to once. We were talking about assembling TVs.

I find that people who’ve never assembled anything more complex than Ikea furniture or something more technical than changed a pipe or switch in their home, tend to think production exists in exactly two levels: Low-tech, hand-tools-at-most labor which can be easily spun up because “anyone can do it”, and ultra-high-tech stuff like computer chips which need highly specialized factories, but where a few factories can mostly satisfy nationwide demand.