Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

>But does anyone have a plan for rectifying the situation with authoritarianism in that part of the world that does not involve hundreds of millions of people trying to kill each other?

Cordon off that part of the world and leave them to their devices.

The old saying goes: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

View on HN

That's not currently possible because all of the best devices come out of the border between that part and the rest (Taiwan).

So we can't leave the devices. We need them.

I think this ties into the $7 trillion Altman quest a bit.

Maybe if you build enough reactors and chip fabs then the world becomes safer?

We take those $50bn aid packages requests, and invest it into a state side semiconductor supply chain instead and then we can ignore the idea of China invading China forever. Literally 180+ countries operating with that specific level of empathy right this moment, let’s meet parity with them.

Given the clamoring for semiconductors right now, a more expensive state side will sell like hotcakes.

I guarantee you this won’t be seen as controversial in the world that exists after we did that. We’re going to look back at this time and think “lol what”

Swear off defending Taiwan, let millions of people die when China sees weakness and invades, but it's cool because we got chips bro.

Meet parity with 180+ countries level of empathy until our internal infrastructure meets parity with other developed nation’s 21st century level of advances.

Calling any US airport a "third-world" airport is an insult to the third world.

Uniquely, we have the resources for that not to be the case. We could have the best infrastructure of any nation, across the entire continent and far flung extremities

Just held up by a lack of leadership, lack of consensus, and paranoia

this but unironically

Yup. Because having no allies, no one to back us up in the international stage, no access to resources, no trading partners, just a world united against us is totally a logical way to live. That won't have any negative consequences for a country that depends on both imports and exports.

When did the Trump possy arrive at HN?

You can find idiots and assholes in every sector; they've always been there, just are more vocal now.

interesting conclusion that this is a Trump supposition, when you’re entire worldview is that “they’re against us” unless we pay for our friends

the defense industry isn't partisan and you’re totally subscribed to their faulty logic for your money

I suppose you are correct that China commands far more geopolitical power than anyone else including the US today. China knows how to play this game far better than anyone; the Hugos being held in China was just one example of many of that.

This state of matters won't change whether it's the Republicans or Democrats in the State Department, though.

You don't need to depend on imports and exports if you just win an imperial conquest campaign that allows you to control everything. If you win the world war, imports and exports and resource problems turn into domestic affairs that you can regulate according to your whims. ;)

Good news: we’re spending more than five times that on domestic semiconductor manufacturing, already, starting two years ago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act

I remember that act, thanks

Then I’m not sure why you’re arguing that $50 billion would make the problem go away. Care to explain the good faith reason if you have one?

I didn't remember that act before you posted it, did you think my "thanks" was snark?

in any case, although I like the government's distributed approach to merely incentivizing competition in the semiconductor supply chain in the CHIPS Act, I think a parallel more direct approach is still useful with direct construction and direct ownership of the entire supply chain - a public option if you will - in parallel to the private sector efforts. the way the US government works would still enable all sorts of private sector competition from contracting bids, as opposed to a really nationalized industry, which we tend to avoid in the US.

with that view, all of the world police funding, while our infrastructure is decrepit, is untenable. especially when our world police efforts are stated specifically to deter other actions from occurring, amongst other reasons, while all reasons are selective outrage.

> Cordon off that part of the world and leave them to their devices.

Who would cordon them off?

The US probably couldn't due to their extreme manufacturing dependency on China.

China's friends and allies clearly wouldn't cordon them off, and some of them share land borders with China.

China also has a substantial coastline, which adds even more complication.

> Cordon off that part of the world and leave them to their devices.

Lol. If the US couldn't even boycott little old Cuba into regime change, what chance do they have with China?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com