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Comment by wiz21c | Hacker News Reader

Next time the communication department says "less is more", I'll explode. Do we really need to produce more IC's ? Can't we just limit the demand a bit ?

Can't we make washing machines, cars, bikes, fridges, dish washers, coffee machines,... without IC's ? My Core2 Duo is 12 years old and I still use it 8 hours a day, do I really need a new generation CPU ?

I understand that global economy (and thus employment and other important stuff) rely on the trade of IC's but do we really need so much more ?

(kiddo's have been waiting their PS5 for 9 months now, but is that a insurmountable problem?)

Not to say that IC's are bad (I'm CS :-)) but just asking if the current IC shortage may be a good time to think about the sustainability of our appetite, or if it's the good time to think about living in a world with actual limits...

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How exactly do you expect to build an EV without ICs? We’ve already tried cars without ICs, they’re noisy polluters. You talk about sustainability like we weren’t pumping carbon into the atmosphere before computers.

Also maybe your job is such that you can get by with and old power hungry cpu like the core 2 duo, most people can’t.

> old power hungry cpu

note that global CO2 has risen since the birth of my CPU. So I doubt the next gen leads us to make less CO2... I know, the current CPU's consume less energy, but globally, because of the fall in price, I'm pretty confident that the energy saved on the CPU is completely offset by the number of CPU sold.

Plus the total consumption of a CPU doesn't actually go down, they just do more with it. They look at thermal limits more than power consumption, like, how much work can we make it do within these temperature ranges.

Mobile chips are a bit different, but to a point it's the same story there. If you put the chips of today in the smartphones of a decade ago they would probably last a week on a battery charge.

Power hungry is not a term I'd use to describe a Core 2 Duo.

Or do CPUs need more power to run as they get older? That would be news to me.

It surely needs a lot more power to do the same work as a modern CPU. Like if you were encoding a video on it where against a modern CPU that may use the same power but finish many times sooner.

The new CPU has another carbon footprint added, plus the RAM and motherboard, etc. to overcome before it is comparable. I doubt a new CPU is effective enough to offset that anytime soon on an average use PC.

Most newer CPU power is geared towards AI and telemetry (IoT, web advertising), which essentially feed the surveillance economy. Desktop CPUs have been powerful enough for non-ad driven web browsing and office applications for at least a decade.

Without ICs, these devices have to rely on mechanical controllers, which are much larger, more expensive, less reliable, less efficient, louder, and really worse in ever metric.

I think your sentiment is not to produce wifi-powered, ad-driven refrigerators, and yeah, I can agree with that point. But the core ICs in these devices have been there for decades and do provide substantial, tangible benefits.

I can't speak for every device, but I've replaced the circuit board on a few appliances over the years and they are mostly generic boards with really cheap, ancient chips produced by brands most people have never heard of and sell in bulk for a quarter each. These are definitely not cutting the cutting edge designs that Intel will be building here. So let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

> Do we really need to produce more IC's ?

In this case, it's not so much about more ICs (although we do need more right now), but it's who's making the ICs. The US is trying to ramp up their internal production capability, rather than depending on Taiwan as heavily.

And then when (if*) we become independent, and China finally gets the balls to scoop up Taiwan, our administration will be nowhere to be found.

As romantic as the US gallantly defending Taiwan from the Chinese invaders sounds, let's be honest. The US could do little more than buy the Taiwanese some time to escape.

If the CCP ever decides it's time to take control of Taiwan by force, they could. It's the economic backlash from the rest of the world they are currently worried about, not military resistance. Although I'm not sure just how much they even have to be worried about economically considering how the world has handled recent CCP atrocities.

Crossing a wide span of water (wider than the English Channel) against a determined defender is really hard. Taiwan is bristling with anti ship missiles and are very much against being taken over by the PRC.

That doesn't change that fact that Taiwan doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell. At most it adds a few days from start to end. It is extremely unrealistic to have Taiwan not become part of PRC if war breaks out. The US only have one way to win and that's all-out invasion after nuking mainland China - but then no-one wins.

In the worst case I can see a Taiwan getting nukes. Nukes are pretty old tech, if North Korea can get them I’m sure Taiwan who is vastly more wealthy can too.

A lack of Taiwan dependency may well avoid a world war.

I'd rather have another world war than for China to slowly but "peacefully" conquer the world.

That's how I know you imagine yourself to be on the winning side of this world war. Good luck with that. Not really, though

I do think we would win in the end, but even if we didn't, I'd rather go down fighting than graciously accept our new CCP overlords.

I might have thought so some years ago.

In an era when 1/2 of the Western world hates Western civilization, I'm not sure that it matters anymore.

Of course, in the long run, it's all just fodder for a history book. The further out you go, the less the details matter.

The US is looking more and more like ancient Rome. In 10-15 years it likely neither can win a war against China but it will also likely not have many allies on its side if it tries.

China doesn’t have many allies either. They have managed to piss of just about everyone. There are few countries in Asia that wouldn’t be happy to see China taken down a peg or a dozen - and probably wouldn’t mind discreetly giving the US a hand.

How is raising the information processing capabilities of humanity anything but a net good thing?

If it is to scan milk inside a refrigerator? Most can do without "smart" functionality.

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