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Comment by stego-tech | Hacker News Reader

Been saying it for years: the name of the (IT) game through 2030 and beyond won't be AI, so much as it'll be sovereignty. Everyone played the US' game and got relatively burned to varying degrees, so expect more countries utilize homegrown or FOSS products to retain sovereignty over their digital infrastructure going forward.

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Of course you don't want to wake up one day and you can't access your mails because the US government doesn't like you. . Huawei had to develop an in-house solution after SAP cut them off.

> Huawei had to develop an in-house solution after SAP cut them off.

Every organization should be so lucky.

SAP is a German company that was pressured by the US government (surely with EU blessing - Huawei still has too much control over foreign infrastructure). I guess the lesson is that every country has to replicate software autarchy, and the easiest way for all but the largest countries is through FOSS.

The rest of the world has had forever to do sovereignty, and the blessing of a FOSS ecosystem (that doesn't exist in fully 85% of alternate universes) which would make it absurdly easy. Europe has the same bosses as everybody else, and they pretty much pilot authoritarian overreach there before they try it in the US against a stronger constitution and clear Bill of Rights.

The reason Europe isn't independent is because they like that the US goes through their citizens' data, and are happy for Microsoft (or whoever, I guess Palantir, Crowdstrike, and 18 Israeli military startups) to package it up and send it to them. They love to not spend on tech and talk the future, just like they love to not spend on the military and talk tough.

The reason they talk about US tech domination is to whip up a "nationalism" which is, of course, an EU federalism and a usurpation of the self-determination of the various nations of Europe for the sake of the deep pockets that dogwalk the EU to where they want it to be. It also keeps France and Germany in the center of Europe forever. They don't talk about "tech independence" because they mean anything by it.

They've had 30 years to grab FOSS and run with it, and infinite cash. Instead, you got cookie banners, social media monitoring, and in a minute, chat control.

The only people who are seriously working on digital sovereignty are the Chinese.

edit: I'd like to add that I'm all for Europe going all-in on FOSS, or (less-so) even coming up with a full proprietary ecosystem completely independent of US tech overlords. This would be nothing but a benefit to me. It will just never, ever happen. Any European who would be expected to pay for it is already heavily invested with US tech overlords, because billionaires aren't nationalists, they're narcissists.

Population decline and climate change impact may not provide enough surpluses in capital for specific areas to invest in reinventing various solutions unless AI makes the cost extremely low.

You raise a valid point, the resources we will have to put towards climate mitigation and dealing with extreme events will be a drain on productivity in other areas. However I think that will mostly be the case for “real” technology, I think capacity to produce software will be minimally affected even if there was no AI.

Everyone likes to trot out “bUt ThE cApItAl” as an excuse to justify their current thing they’re really into, but the fact is that every single time a cause becomes important enough to fund, we always find the money somehow.

This time will be no different. If your choices are sovereignty or subjugation, most organizations will fight for sovereignty when pressed beyond a breaking point or the math adds up in their favor. It might mean pulling funds from highly speculative fields or investments (y’know, like AI) in favor of more immediate benefits and gains, and everyone’s calculus is different, but to those for whom sovereignty is more important the capital will inevitably be found.

> every single time a cause becomes important enough to fund, we always find the money somehow

We as in America, the richest country on the planet? Yes. We as in various countries that went bankrupt, collapsed or got invaded over the centuries because they broke their piggy bank over a boondoggle? No.

USA also got a household that barely lives on its debts. Richest nation? Probably china already.

> USA also got a household that barely lives on its debts

So did every empire in history.

> Richest nation? Probably china already

If you’re not guessing, the answer is a clear no. (The best source on this might be the CCP. They don’t claim parity because Beijing isn’t delusional.)

More fundamentally, the question was on budget constraints. Credit and cash buy the same infrastructure, healthcare and open-source software.

I think the big thing will be FOSS solutions. That way the Europeans, Chinese, contrarian Americans, Russian, etc can use the same code and share capital costs without actually having to trust each other.

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