Daniel Immerwahr

And so the screw thread angle that the United States agrees on is the 60 degree angle.

That's a huge achievement.

But that means like every other screw thread no longer works like at all.

Huge.

It's exactly the same thing.

But you have to imagine that all of the kind of anarchy that the United States was experiencing locally is actually even worse on a global scale.

You know, the early 20th century is a time of rapid-paced technological development.

And every year that there's just more stuff being made—

it starts to matter more how it's made and whether the objects can speak to each other.

I think language is a really good metaphor here.

What you have to imagine is that the United States is producing a growing world of industrial objects that all speak 60 degrees.

And then when those objects venture out into the world,

They encounter a world of foreign objects that, I mean, it's not even a language that's commensurable.

It's not even a language that's comprehensible.

They're just like, oh, you speak 55 degrees.

We will never talk.

There's nothing for us to talk about.

I don't know what you're saying.

We can never have any relationship with each other.

So there's this famous moment when FDR is trying to explain why, despite the fact that World War II has not yet hit the Americas, the United States should actually be deeply interested in this war and, in fact, might need to participate in it, if not fighting, at least by supplying material.