All I'm saying is that the first government to start funding grants for working on the fun parts of software instead of betting on machine learning as the be-all end-all is gonna have an incredible leg up on prestige and talent acquisition when it comes to shaping the digital world over the next half century. The USA's place as the center of software gravity isn't just eroding, it's being purposefully gutted by short-sighted fools who think they can save labor costs by farming out a medium that requires both creativity and precision to machines that are fundamentally capable of neither. Jobs are scarce and prestigious, fun jobs are scarcer. A huge orchard of talent is ripe for the picking.

And I don't just mean funding grants for open-source libraries or public-service web infrastructure or things like that (although they should do that too). I mean fully arts grants, blank checks to create experimental digital media, video games, demoscene demos, wacky hardware, video game mods. Fund the stuff that engineers do in their spare time as long as they do it on your soil and make it available in your language. Build goodwill, build local networks of skill and renown, and you'll have a lock on the whole culture as America continues to collapse.