[HN Gopher] Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical fo...
___________________________________________________________________
Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used
in chipmaking
Author : swores
Score : 617 points
Date : 2022-02-24 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| YaBomm wrote:
| angryGhost wrote:
| who else said yesterday they would quit the news?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30430041
| speg wrote:
| I've got my head in the sand. Good thing I stopped checking my
| investments too.
|
| I'll let you guys on HN let me know when things are good again
| :)
| darkhorn wrote:
| Some Russian products that you would like to avoid:
|
| * Yandex * Lukoil * WinRAR * Kaspersky * Lada * Russian Standard
| Original Vodka * Stoli Vodka * Baltika * Lukoil * Gazprom * Kamaz
| * Masha and the Bear * Kalashnikov * Stolichnaya * Ural
| motorcycles * VK
| mrweasel wrote:
| WinRAR/rarlabs is a German company.
| darkhorn wrote:
| The developer and his brother are from Russia. Also WinRAR is
| free in Russia.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Yandex was the only one for me. I blocked it on all the hosts
| files under my control and my pihole network dns
| g45ylkjlk45y wrote:
| perihelions wrote:
| How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90%
| monopoly (in this specific grade)?
|
| edit: Found this C&EN story from 2016 that adds context:
|
| - _" Chip makers, which account for more than 90% of global neon
| consumption, are already experiencing high prices and some
| shortages stemming from the Russian conflict with Ukraine, Shon-
| Roy says. The war, which started in 2014, interrupted global
| supplies of the gas, about 70% of which comes from Iceblick, a
| firm based in the Ukrainian city of Odessa."_
|
| - _" Iceblick gathers and purifies neon from large cryogenic air
| separation units that supply oxygen and nitrogen to steelmakers.
| Most of the air separation units equipped to capture neon, which
| makes up only 18.2 ppm of the atmosphere by volume, are in
| Eastern Europe."_
|
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cen-09410-notw7
|
| This is puzzling to me, because I don't get why _air separation_
| should naturally concentrate in exactly one place. It 's not tied
| to a rare and localized geologic formation, like helium sort-of
| is.
|
| Also there's cryogenic air separation plants all over the planet,
| why don't they do neon too? (Asking in the spirit of curiosity)
|
| edit #2: I've just found something that offers a possible
| explanation and it's _far_ more interesting than I expected:
|
| - _" Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former
| Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the
| intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite
| defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air
| separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but
| also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases,
| purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic
| Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low."_
|
| https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ...
| (chapter 5.2)
| staplers wrote:
| As with chip making, it can be done anywhere but the tools and
| factories setup to mass produce are concentrated in certain
| areas. That's just how industry works sometimes.
|
| It takes time to setup new supply chains for mass production.
| jagger27 wrote:
| We're seeing this with lithium. Canada and the US have
| significant amounts in the ground but the mining and refining
| infra simply isn't there.
|
| Neon distillation does seem much simpler and cleaner, from my
| layman perspective.
| roughly wrote:
| Mining (and refining) especially tends to come with some
| nasty environmental effects that we've been quite happy to
| outsource to other parts of the world with less empowered
| citizenry (and often cheaper labor).
|
| Rare-earth elements are the same way - they're relatively
| abundant, but China is enormously over-represented in the
| market because the west doesn't like mining and China
| doesn't care.
| martyvis wrote:
| Not just lithium. This program aired on the Aussie ABC
| last night on the terrible way Cobalt mining is being
| done in Congo and the total dystopia that has been
| allowed to occur. https://youtu.be/_V3bIzNX4co
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Lithium mining is not that nasty. And Tesla for one wants
| to make it even less toxic. Besides there's just not that
| much life on the salt flat, yeah flamingos great, and the
| brine shrimp they eat, but come on. That's one of the
| meaningful defenses for mining in the Atacama, there's
| very little life to harm. Much better than mining in the
| middle of the Amazon, making four species endemic to the
| orefield extinct, don't you think?
| AlanYx wrote:
| Lithium is a great example. Canada used to be one of the
| major lithium producers in the 1950s and still has huge
| deposits, but output has fallen dramatically over the years
| and actually declined to zero in 2020.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Obviously the monopoly was due to the fact that they were able
| to sell it at the cheapest price for the required purity.
|
| There should be no significant problems to create production
| capacities in other places, but then the price would become
| higher and, more importantly, a few months or even years might
| be needed until the neon production would be increased enough
| to compensate for a sudden loss of the source from Ukraine.
| saba2008 wrote:
| It can be also tied to bespoke equipment, hard-to-transfer
| expertise and experience. If consumption grows relatively slow,
| it makes sense to expand single installation, rather than
| duplicate it with 'copy exactly (which might take too long to
| pay off).
| Supermancho wrote:
| > How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90%
| monopoly
|
| Many "monopolies" around the world are market capture due to
| being sunk cost low price leaders.
| nbernard wrote:
| As I understand it, it could be that air separation occurs
| elsewhere, at different places, and that only purification to
| extract semiconductor-grade neon is done by Iceblick in Odessa.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90%
| monopoly (in this specific grade)?
|
| " _Specific grade_ " - you need very, very, very high purity
| gasses for lasers.
|
| Noble gasses are very, very, very hard to purify because they
| are chemically inert.
|
| Welding gas (argon) is dirt cheap, 99.99% pure argon is
| surprisingly expensive, and semiconductor grade Argon, or Neon
| at 99.99999%+ purity far more.
|
| Ultrapure neon is a great example of a single source critical
| input for the semiconductor industry. There are hundreds of
| similar small companies around the world supplying something
| completely irreplaceable.
|
| Semiconductor industry is extremely fragile.
| roughly wrote:
| Scale and geographic concentration tend to push prices lower,
| even if just fractionally, and relatively low costs of
| transport for basically anything in the world mean there's no
| penalty for buying from far away, so there aren't many factors
| pushing back from geographic concentration. Add to that
| concentration in other industries - a market with fewer larger
| buyers means larger average individual demand than otherwise,
| which pushes towards larger or more concentrated suppliers.
|
| Loosely, there's a lot of economic push towards concentration,
| and not a lot pushing against it. Geopolitics usually operates
| on a slower scale than market pressures, which means we get
| weird things like a vested interest in Ukrainian national
| security due to it being the only country bothering to
| manufacture neon in the world.
| ajross wrote:
| > Scale and geographic concentration tend to push prices
| lower
|
| Neon is extracted from the atmosphere. There is no geographic
| concentration to exploit (well, I guess technically
| Antarctica is coldest and so has a volumetric advantage). If
| Ukraine had the bulk of the supply it's simply because
| someone decided to invest in a bunch of manufacturing
| infrastructure there.
| roughly wrote:
| I didn't mean geographic concentration of the resource
| (although that can be a factor) - geographic concentration
| of firms can often have a knock-on effect on both
| infrastructure and other supporting resources (a dock that
| can support exporting neon, neon-extraction-machine repair
| & service companies nearby, concentrated local expertise,
| etc).
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| It's funny I was talking to precisely a steelmaker about
| imports and exporters some time ago: "The American is no
| patriot, if steel is 30% cheaper in Japan, he will buy it there
| rather than at home." It looks like, in fact, these Ukranians,
| also in the steel industry, might actually be doing something
| patriotic--like people all over the world, America too--and
| keep the surely very tricky and specific technology to
| themselves.
|
| It's not unlike German "hidden champions", companies that
| figured out a niche safe from industrial espionage, usually
| something involving very precise know-how regarding something
| analog, and nobody can do it like they can. German hidden
| champions are generally family-owned, rather than public
| companies, and prefer it that way; they stay in Germany
| typically; and there are 300 of them by some reasonable
| reckoning. They make the critical thing that goes in the thing
| that goes in the thing.
|
| Taiwan does something similar--they see their chip industry,
| which is also very dependent on human know-how and highly
| analog, high precision--as a patriotic endeavor that protects
| their sovereignty economically and geopolitically.
|
| So, apparently the reason neon comes from Ukraine is some
| pretty smart Ukrainians wanted it that way, for the good of
| Ukraine, and specifically for Ukrainian sovereignty to matter
| to the rest of the world.
| [deleted]
| Jiro wrote:
| Neon is not the main reason they are doing it. It's a byproduct
| that gives them a little extra profit once they've distilled
| the air anyway for other reasons. Distilling the air _just_ to
| get neon wouldn 't be profitable.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| No. But if you're Air Liquide or somebody in the US, and
| you're distilling the air _anyway_ , adding the capability to
| extract the neon might make sense.
| lazide wrote:
| Only if the soviets hadn't already spent until billions
| adding the capacity to overproduce it due to a perceived
| national security need that didn't pan out.
|
| It's essentially free for the company to do this since the
| gov't already sunk the cost decades ago.
|
| No one has done that for Air liquide, at least not yet.
| tempnow987 wrote:
| I think it might be tied to steelmaking? Ie, if you are already
| doing work to generate oxy and nitrogen, getting a byproduct
| like neon is easier?
|
| So CAN the USA separate air? For sure. Maybe it's just cheaper.
| A lot of these stories about disruptions are disruptions of the
| CHEAP option.
| belorn wrote:
| It not really a byproduct per say of oxygen and nitrogen, but
| the byproduct of that process has a higher amount of neon
| than air by about 99 times. Still, the gas that we got is
| about 93% argon, and then you got to remove the carbon
| dioxide, but then its mostly neon left I think.
| [deleted]
| phkahler wrote:
| Time to move on to free electron lasers powered by compact
| accelerators.
| blobbers wrote:
| While the trade implications of this war are being consider,
| let's think of the lives of our fellow hackers. These are people
| who along side us develop the software of the world.
|
| They're not necessarily soldiers, they're just regular people and
| right now there are missiles flying at their homes, tanks in
| their streets.
|
| Surely there is a way we can help the people.
| k0k0r0 wrote:
| Yeah, anyone an idea? There is outages of the internet and
| mobile communications in some areas? For example is there
| anything one can do forom here about that?
| pier25 wrote:
| We should be talking about grain, not gas.
|
| Russia is the biggest exporter of wheat in the world with 18%.
| Ukraine accounts for 7% of the world's wheat.
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/infographic-russia-...
|
| This conflict will affect 1/4 of the world's wheat which will
| affect food prices.
|
| In 2010 Russia stopped exporting wheat due to wildfires burning
| their fields (most likely caused by climate change). This caused
| a hike in food prices which helped trigger the Arab revolutions
| in 2011.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires
| baybal2 wrote:
| Worse, you have to add Kazakhstan, which is now under a Russian
| thumb too, and Uzbekistan.
| rplnt wrote:
| > This conflict will affect 1/4 of the world's wheat which will
| affect food prices.
|
| That's not 1/4 of worldwide wheat production, but 1/4 of
| exports of wheat. Those are numbers that differ by orders of
| magnitude.
| pier25 wrote:
| Good point!
|
| My main point still stands though.
| immmmmm wrote:
| We should be talking about human lives.
|
| My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today.
| k0k0r0 wrote:
| I agree completely. I feel shocked, I can't quite yet
| comprehend, what has happened. Unfortunately, that doesn't
| seem to be the same for most of my peers in my country, i.e.
| germany.
|
| Edit: Slight mistake.
| pier25 wrote:
| You think a global increase of food prices will not have an
| effect on human lives?
| steve76 wrote:
| [deleted]
| 34ylkjj45y wrote:
| dcdc123 wrote:
| https://archive.is/OBG4R
| vondur wrote:
| Since it's extracted from the air, it shouldn't be too hard to
| start doing it here. I assume we do this for other gases already,
| so ramping it up for Neon may not be that difficult.
| MisterTea wrote:
| This is exactly why this is a non-issue. It's not like the air
| over the Ukraine is magically richer in neon.
| tekno45 wrote:
| How long does it take to establish that generation and supply
| chain?
| whatshisface wrote:
| It's not a non-issue. You can't extract it from air with
| tweezers, you need to build a lot of equipment. It takes a
| long time to build a chemical plant, and if Intel is sitting
| idle until that plant is built... well, that's an enormous
| problem.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > you need to build a lot of equipment.
|
| Cryogenic distillation of air is a solved problem. There
| are plenty of plants already in operation all over the
| globe meaning there only needs to be modification to
| existing plants to further collect and crack the remaining
| 0.1% of air. I'm sure this is not hard to do with existing
| cryoplants.
|
| If we already have the capacity then why are we without
| Neon production is a good question. Neon isn't in high
| demand like the easily extracted major components of air:
| nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), and argon (0.9%). Neon is
| something like 18ppm in air so a lot of energy has to go in
| to get very little out. So my guess is economics where the
| existing Ukrainian cryogenic plants have kept their prices
| low enough to discourage adding this capacity to
| new/existing plants elsewhere (maybe they get cheap energy,
| subsidies, etc). Now it might be profitable.
| baybal2 wrote:
| People don't understand why semiconductor argon, and neon
| can't be substituted by argon, and neon used in welding.
|
| It's very hard to purify noble gasses, as they are almost
| completely chemically inert, and chemistry needed to
| make, say, same argon, to form compounds with anything
| else is something needing very special equipment, and
| know how.
|
| Welding grade argon is dirt cheap, 99.999% argon is very
| expensive, and 99.999999% argon is many times as
| expensive as welding gas.
|
| It's much worse with neon.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _Cryogenic distillation of air is a solved problem.
| There are plenty of plants already in operation all over
| the globe meaning there only needs to be modification to
| existing plants to further collect and crack the
| remaining 0.1% of air. I 'm sure this is not hard to do
| with existing cryoplants._
|
| It can take months or years to make additions to existing
| plants, there is an enormous amount of difference between
| a solved textbook problem and a real problem being
| solved.
| NeoVeles wrote:
| Although it is still an issue. While the resource is
| everywhere, the technology for extraction is still in a
| specific vulnerable position.
|
| Once we have the extraction capabilities elsewhere - then is
| is a non-issue. The turn around time on that? I have no idea.
| It could be days, months or years.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| And Russia produces 50% of the worlds palladium which is critical
| for manufacturing ceramic capacitors.
|
| Looks like we're stuck between the hammer and the sickle...
| Panoramix wrote:
| The article quotes 35%.
| atlantas wrote:
| 90%! Did we really let ourselves become so reliant on Ukraine and
| Taiwan for computer chips? Taiwan being the next country most
| under threat.
|
| In fact, Reuters just reported that "Taiwan warns Chinese
| aircraft in its air defence zone"
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-ni...
| tiahura wrote:
| cbfrench wrote:
| It's worth noting that Chinese incursions into Taiwan's ADIZ
| are a routine occurrence and don't really represent any
| increase in aggression above the baseline:
|
| "On Wednesday (February 23), two Chinese military jets flew
| into Taiwan's air defence identification zone (ADIZ), marking
| the 12th intrusion this month."
|
| https://www.wionews.com/world/two-chinese-fighter-jets-enter...
| [deleted]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| In part, because Taiwan's ADIZ _extends over mainland China_.
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JADIZ_and_CADIZ_and_.
| ..
|
| (ADIZs are also unilateral and not something set up in
| international law; they're basically a request)
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| I agree these stories should not be overblown, and have
| been a regular occurrence. It isn't a worrisome escalation.
|
| But it is incorrect to say they are happening because the
| ADIZ extends over Chinese territory. The repeated
| incursions are out over the ocean, most commonly over the
| SW corner of the ADIZ which is not over mainland China.
| China is doing it intentionally, and is both testing and
| prodding Taiwan.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| China is testing and prodding the US, and you'd better
| believe they're paying full attention to the (lack of)
| response to the Ukraine situation.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| To be clear, though, under international law China _has
| every right to fly in those areas_. Just like when we fly
| /sail 12 miles off Russia, or send ships past the islands
| China's making in the South China Sea.
|
| When we do it, it's a "freedom of navigation" exercise.
| Yes, it's testing air defenses, but it frustrates me when
| officials breathlessly act like it's a big deal.
| eloff wrote:
| With military aircraft? I don't think that's covered by
| international law, it doesn't sound right. Any country
| would object.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Yes, with military aircraft. ADIZs have no
| (international) legal standing; international law says
| countries control airspace only over their territory,
| which means the same 12 mile limit ships are subject to.
| Other countries have every right to fly or sail up to
| that 12 mile limit.
|
| Again, Taiwan's ADIZ extends _over China_.
|
| When we fly close to Russia, they send fighters up to
| escort. We do the same when they fly planes near Alaska.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/26/politics/russian-fighter-
| jets...
|
| https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-fighter-jets-
| intercept-ru...
|
| > The Russian aircraft were in the ADIZ north of Alaska
| for about 4 hours, according to North American Aerospace
| Defense Command, which said the planes came as close as
| 50 nautical miles to the Alaskan coast but did not enter
| U.S. or Canadian airspace. The ADIZ extends 200 miles
| from the U.S. and Canadian coasts, but territorial
| airspace only extends 12 miles from the coast.
|
| In fact, the US _explicitly_ says "nuh uh!" to other
| countries' ADIZs... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Def
| ense_Identification_Zon...
|
| > Moreover, the U.S. Navy's Commander's Handbook on the
| Law of Naval Operations states the ADIZ applies only to
| commercial aircraft intending to enter U.S. sovereign
| airspace, with a basis in international law of "the right
| of a nation to establish reasonable conditions of entry
| into its territory". The manual specifically instructs
| U.S. military aircraft to ignore the ADIZ of other states
| when operating in coastal areas...
|
| Here's a US RC-135 surveillance aircraft violating the
| Chinese ADIZ to get about 20 miles from the mainland.
| https://twitter.com/SCS_PI/status/1373886128177041410
| toyg wrote:
| Do you think the ships sent in the Straits or near Russia
| are civilian ships...? Obviously not.
|
| International law has to be enforced, one way or the
| other.
| dirtyid wrote:
| International law view Taiwan as province of China.
| Nevermind the ADIZ / clipping median line drama, PRC can
| "legally" fly over Taiwan airspace if it wanted to. And
| vice versa. See ROC Black Cat squadron flying U2s over
| mainland in the 60s. It would be destabilizing, but
| legal. Either side can choose to resume Chinese civil war
| if they wanted to.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Neon is used in excimer lasers that generate ultraviolet light.
| These lasers are used in photolithography and for annealing
| amorphous silicon to polycrystalline silicon in flat panel
| display manufacturing. Laser manufacturers and users already
| faced a Ukrainian neon crisis during the last round of fighting
| and made changes to reduce consumption of fresh neon:
|
| https://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/how-one-light-source-man...
|
| https://www.gigaphoton.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2017_E...
|
| I expect that neon price spikes this time are going to impact
| laser users less than they initially did back in 2015 since
| lasers now require less fresh neon.
| analog31 wrote:
| Perhaps not as important but the humble helium neon laser is
| also still an important practical standard for position
| measurement at submicron accuracy.
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| I'd say its mostly about specialization
|
| There could be 100s of companies selling NEON gas, but only a
| handful is producing NEON gas purified to the degree required
| by semiconductor industry.
|
| In this case, it seems only one is supplying semiconductors
| akmittal wrote:
| I see same case with companies moving to aws
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Do you want a scary thought? Imagine if Taiwan gets invaded and
| China manages to steal all of America's computer chip designs.
| Technology problems solved.
| godelski wrote:
| If you're a small country in a dangerous position isn't this
| probably the best strategy you can do?
| arcticbull wrote:
| This was I believe one of the major goals of TSMC. Even if it
| wasn't (and my memory isn't serving me with a link) it
| certainly has that effect now.
| rootsudo wrote:
| I wonder what great name they'll think up next.
|
| Operation Iraqi Liberation. OIL.
|
| What fits CHIP?
| zucker42 wrote:
| The nature of globalism is that there's many steps in the
| supply change that are dependent on one or two countries.
| Semiconductors are also dependent on the Netherlands (ASML) for
| example.
|
| Also violations of the air defense zone, though not
| meaningless, are not super important. The air defense zone
| covers a part of mainland China larger than Taiwan, as well as
| waters that might at least be considered international waters.
| News articles about that are pretty pointless.
| 34ylkjj45y wrote:
| Maximus9000 wrote:
| Stockpiling is another option if you rely on something critical
| that is difficult to produce at home.
| mvc wrote:
| Are we in favor of economics/capitalism here or are we not?
|
| Because the economics literature is quite clear that
| international trade is beneficial to all involved. It's what we
| insist that developing countries focus on exports when loaning
| them money. For many years, Taiwan has been the poster child
| that we point to when trying to change the ways of Cuba or
| Venezuela.
|
| Are these principles so weak that we would allow a dictator who
| doesn't even have the support of his own people to shake them?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| This entire theory has been disproved by modern China
| essentially becoming a Singapore writ large with a very
| bustling economy not only tied to but pivotal to the
| international trade system, but managing to remain
| authoritarian without liberalizing much.
| blackbear_ wrote:
| > Because the economics literature is quite clear that
| international trade is beneficial to all involved.
|
| If you narrowly focus on economics, yes. But what are other
| consequences, outside of economics? By outsourcing
| everything, you lose control. You allow uncontrollable
| external factors to affect you. You open yourself to be
| blackmailed.
|
| So in a way yes, those principles are weak because they are
| incomplete. They do not take into account the full range of
| possibilities that can happen in the real world.
| munk-a wrote:
| In theory by allowing private entities to run these
| businesses you're also losing control. If you need absolute
| control then what you're asking for is a command economy -
| I lean toward socialism but that's a bridge too far for me.
|
| Some supply chain instability is the result of allowing
| healthy economic activity especially when the modern goods
| we're talking about are immensely complex and require
| incredible specialization to reasonably manufacture.
| lazide wrote:
| Any theory which does not take into account a country
| manipulating a market so it can get a monopoly on a key
| economic element for other countries, then use that to
| subjugate or conquer them is a hopelessly naive theory.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| > economics/capitalism
|
| lmao
| car_analogy wrote:
| > international trade is beneficial to all involved
|
| But what _kind_ of trade? Not unrestricted - Taiwan itself
| used protectionism to grow its industries when they were not
| yet able to compete on the global market:
|
| _James K. Galbraith has stated that [..] " ... none of the
| world's most successful trading regions, including Japan,
| Korea, Taiwan, and now mainland China, reached their current
| status by adopting neoliberal trading rules."_ - https://en.w
| ikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage#Criticis...
| krnlpnc wrote:
| > Are these principles so weak that we would allow a dictator
| who doesn't even have the support of his own people to shake
| them?
|
| In practice the principles don't matter too much. The reality
| is that industry has optimized for cost and converged on a
| small set of suppliers. The single points of failure
| introduced as a side-effect of this could certainly be
| exploited by a bad actor.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > Because the economics literature is quite clear that
| international trade is beneficial to all involved.
|
| Maybe the literature is wrong?
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Economics is clear on nothing. The curve maximizing behaviors
| for international trade have a few assumptions built in, e.g.
| that Taiwan does not get annexed by China and suddenly the
| trade incentives change horribly.
| mvc wrote:
| I think the assumption is that when the system is
| threatened, the leaders of all the countries benefiting
| from said capitalism would grow a pair and do something.
|
| Because if they don't, and the system collapses, then what?
| nicoburns wrote:
| I would say that the economics literature is very clear that
| international trade is frequently not beneficial to all
| involved. Haiti would be a clear example of a case when it
| was not.
| croes wrote:
| Would we care without these dependencies?
| e40 wrote:
| How? Short vs long-term thinking.
|
| And Xi moving on Taiwan at the start of increased activities in
| Ukraine was the thing feared the most. What a shitshow it would
| be if China invaded Taiwan. The pandemic shortages would pale
| in comparison.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Doesn't that happen on more or less a weekly basis?
| agilob wrote:
| Yes, why does it still happen on a weekly basis?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Why would it stop? Not sure how the Chinese military works,
| but presumably their pilots need a certain # of flight
| hours to stay current. It's not like there's really a
| downside for China
| actuator wrote:
| Every time they do this Taiwan has to scramble their own
| jets in the air. So most likely it is to test Taiwan's
| response times and wear out their aircrafts. Each flight of
| those fighter jets adds to a maintenance cost on top of the
| fuel costs, which is disproportionately higher for Taiwan
| considering the size of the economy.
| agilob wrote:
| >So most likely it is to test Taiwan's response times and
| wear out their aircrafts
|
| Rings a bell, Russians were doing it on Baltic sea for
| over a decade, and president of Estonia was called
| paranoiac
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Indeed it apparently costs close to 10% of their military
| budget just to respond to Chinese incursions. That's a
| heck of an incentive.
| newuser94303 wrote:
| That makes sense. Most of China's military policy seems
| to be economic. They make cheap subs for defense. US buys
| really expensive subs so they can attack. They spend some
| money their military and all the countries around them
| spend more money on their military. The other countries
| get poorer since military investment returns nothing so
| they have to borrow from China for critical
| infrastructure.
| actuator wrote:
| Not really, it is well alleged that CCP has a lot of
| military spending off the books. So the % figure of GDP
| we see might be higher.
|
| Also, China's posturing is not just defensive but has an
| offensive side as well, as seen by the naval bases it has
| been trying to build across the world, even in Africa.
| [deleted]
| monkeywork wrote:
| Because their airspace extends over mainland china...
| Pulcinella wrote:
| Taiwan's "Air Defense Identification Zone" extends over
| mainland China. Though it seems it mostly cares about
| incursions in the southwest corner. https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Air_defense_identification_zon...
| honkycat wrote:
| It is so disgusting to me that we allowed our oligarch class to
| de-industrialize our country and ship all of the jobs and
| everything we built overseas.
|
| 100 years of industrialization and worker movements gutted,
| abandoned, and disassembled with the help of our two-faced neo-
| liberal[0] government.
|
| And for what? 40 years of profit for the 1%? And then
| encountering the fact that we have outsourced ourselves into a
| profound strategic weakness in the international markets.
|
| 0: As in: Both sides, globalization. Not as in Dem vs
| Republican.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Neon purification and leading edge chip manufacturing
| concentrating in Ukraine and Taiwan respectively have nothing
| to do with neoliberalism. The former is a historical accident
| rooted in soviet space laser initiatives, and the latter is
| because TSMC executed technology development better than
| western, Japanese, and Korean competitors
| roughly wrote:
| But we saved some money by shuttering all our factories and
| outsourcing everything, so, who's to say what the right answer
| was.
|
| (/s)
| mannerheim wrote:
| How do you identify all the vital components for not just
| what you need to manufacture, but the components of those
| components? How many people here knew Ukraine was a major
| producer of neon prior to this, and its importance to
| semiconductor manufacturing?
|
| You could try to become totally autarkic, but then you have
| to support a national semiconductor industry along with every
| industry it relies upon indefinitely, while foreign
| semiconductor companies won't be encumbered by restrictions
| to purchase every component for their process from within
| your country; they, at least, will have the option to go with
| the cheapest or the best options. And so, if you want your
| national semiconductor industry's chips to actually be used,
| you have to provide incentives for that, too, and/or require
| domestic electronics companies to use their chips. Then,
| since you're making domestic electronics companies
| uncompetitive, you have to incent consumers to purchase those
| electronics, ban or heavily tax foreign electronics...
|
| In a modern, globalised economy, it seems to me the only way
| to have a semiconductor industry that isn't vulnerable to
| these sorts of problems is full top-down control of a
| substantial chunk of the economy.
| fragmede wrote:
| Does it need _full_ top-down control of a substantial chunk
| of the economy to happen? A few regulations saying 10% has
| to be made in-country, along with investigators and fines
| to back it up seems like it would work without going full
| centralized-and-planned economy.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| And when the orange man came and said we should bring it
| back, I laughed at home and call him an idiot!
| voidfunc wrote:
| A broken clock is still right twice a day.
| AvesMerit wrote:
| How much onshoring did orange man actually do? According to
| St. Louis FRED - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP
| - basically nothing
|
| > call him an idiot!
|
| And you were and still are right to do that!
| coolso wrote:
| Love him or hate him, if you don't think Trump caused a
| monumental, almost overnight shift in both public and
| governmental opinion towards going back to promoting
| American manufacturing, bringing jobs back to America,
| and finally fighting back against China for their decades
| of taking advantage of us... you're letting your bias do
| all the talking, and that's sad.
|
| You'll note that in his debates, Biden took some lines
| almost directly out of Trump's playbook regarding those
| subjects (made to sound more polite of course), and in
| fact many of Trump's policies and executive orders, Biden
| has kept in place. Because they're having a positive
| effect. We just needed someone with balls like Trump to
| finally enact them.
|
| Big Tech, China, offshoring, and globalism can shove it.
| The tides are finally turning. If there's one good thing
| to come out of Trump's presidency, it's this!
| heurist wrote:
| Bernie was saying the same things before Trump showed up
| - this is a general trend, not caused by anyone in
| particular.
| Gollapalli wrote:
| Bernie and Trump basically had the same policies on
| immigration as well (for labor politics purposes). Trump
| was basically an old school labor democrat who said some
| edgy things.
| [deleted]
| coolso wrote:
| Politicians of all sorts have been saying lots of things
| for decades. The fact is, nobody as influential or as
| powerful as Trump ever actually did anything about most
| of them. In particular, the anti-China anti-offshoring
| sentiment.
|
| It took Trump yelling about it from the rooftops for over
| 5 years, and getting over half the population as
| passionate about it as he was, and then Trump actually
| doing things about it while in office, for things to
| actually happen and be set in motion.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Trump didn't do anything about it either
| coolso wrote:
| That's... unequivocally false.
| roughly wrote:
| Yeah, there was a definite "Trump said it so it's wrong"
| zeitgeist among the left that led to some uncomfortable
| moments. Tribal politics is a hell of a drug.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| That was not unique to the left.
| roughly wrote:
| Never said it was.
| sophacles wrote:
| Yes of course it was funny that a conman got millions of
| idiots to believe he would do something that might hurt the
| balance sheet of his biggest donors.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Trump's claims were largely about bringing manufacturing
| jobs to America. Not reducing defense dependencies on
| vulnerable nations.
| genericone wrote:
| That was the stated goal for bringing steel production
| back to the USA at least, not sure about the imputed
| goals of other manufacturing jobs, but it should follow a
| similar line of thought, redundancy of critical-supply-
| chain parts.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| No, that was a jobs play. Steel is well diversified, and
| we get our steel from a variety of largely trusted
| producers. The largest import source of steel was Canada.
| We also produce and export a lot of steel.
|
| Steel is important but it's not similar at all to
| something like Taiwan's unique situation
| renewiltord wrote:
| Oh no. We didn't do that. They just beat us. We kept our fabs
| and we kept our fab engineers and we built and we built, but
| they just beat us.
|
| This technology isn't easy. Notice how far China is behind
| despite massive investments. Sometimes we just don't have the
| tech. But it's okay, TSMC and friends will bring it here.
| dogecoinbase wrote:
| I'm constantly thinking about this old HN comment, and how it
| applies not only to Agile but most of the modern JIT wisdom:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18448602
|
| > You saved some sprints but invalidated the purpose of the
| project. Very agile.
| 34ylkjj45y wrote:
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah that's your answer right there. American management, at
| least those who go to business school, like how can I put it
| fairly to the people I know who've studied business...They
| just fucking hate paying wages. It's a huge business school
| teaching to treat wages and taxes as counterproductive. Are
| you really going to propose American management likes paying
| taxes? The fair thing to say is they fucking hate paying
| taxes. Those words carry the real emphasis of the negative
| emotion, I'm not trying to be pejorative, that's just how
| they actually feel about that matter. I've seen businesses
| decline quite profitable opportunities because they'd produce
| too much in taxes in the process, from some double taxation
| effect.
|
| So then, the MBA just has to hate the factory. After all,
| that was where everybody used to get their wage.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Intel's two core issues are engineering failures -- process
| technology and processor architecture. Nothing to do with
| the MBAs
| RC_ITR wrote:
| At least in terms of semi manufacturing, we tried our hardest
| (visit Gilbert and Chandler AZ), we just were worse than
| Taiwan.
|
| Believe it or not, that's often the real reason we shut down,
| people just blame it on cost savings for pride.
| mym1990 wrote:
| "We saved some money" is how economics works in price
| competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing
| what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on
| what the large scale effects are down the road.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| Thats what we get told, but there is always strategic
| reasons with so much stuff which few people get to hear
| about.
|
| On the news a while ago, the news was going on about how
| the UK is banning dual use goods, so this tells us some
| Govt dept has audited potentially every business and its
| goods and compiled a list of devices which can be
| considered multi use. You see this alot with chemicals,
| Glycerine, used as a cosmetic can also be used for
| bombmaking. I only found this out when I purchased a litre
| and then some internet forum started going on about how it
| can be used for bomb making.
|
| Its why we dont get taught everything, not even in the
| news. Anyway oil prices have gone up which will push more
| people towards electric vehicles, and yet Russia has the
| largest oil reserves in the world, so no doubt they will
| benefit, because if another internet forum is to be
| believed, the Saudia's have all but exhausted their oil
| reserves which is one of the reasons for them IPO'ing their
| national oil producer.
|
| Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export licence
| for an app but also highlights who was behind it!
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| >Glycerine, used as a cosmetic can also be used for
| bombmaking. I only found this out when I purchased a
| litre and then some internet forum started going on about
| how it can be used for bomb making.
|
| It's the chief component in dynamite.
|
| >Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export
| licence for an app but also highlights who was behind it!
|
| When do you need an export license for an app?
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| This was like 5-10years ago, I developed a bug reporting
| app and developed a form of encryption which was
| uncrackable. Now I'm not qualified in anything, never
| even went to Uni, but what should have taken 6weeks with
| the UK Dept BIS, took like more than that and then got
| denied so I shut the business down I'd set up for it.
|
| Dont have the source code anymore or anything and its not
| ever going to happen now.
|
| When I say it was uncrackable, it was based loosely on
| code books which were used in ww2, which is something I
| subsequently read about later on in the news.
| car_analogy wrote:
| Until running into an agent that _does_ exhibit
| collaboration on large-scale, long-term effects, that uses
| these economic principles against countries foolish enough
| to hold on to them.
| rob74 wrote:
| Yup... and another result of that is climate change.
| [deleted]
| xvector wrote:
| It's actually a result of the spineless geriatrics in the
| government not being willing or able to keep up with an
| evolving world. We see the same with climate change.
| mym1990 wrote:
| I think the big advantage that companies have is a
| mission statement in which most everyone is progressing
| towards within the company. Much of government operates
| almost the complete opposite, and in a world that is
| changing faster and faster every day, the politicians are
| falling farther and farther behind.
| roughly wrote:
| Autonomous agents responding to their environments can
| create some really wondrous outcomes and also some really,
| really stupid ones.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mill
| echelon wrote:
| > "We saved some money" is how economics works in price
| competitive markets.
|
| It's also a great optimization criteria to use to position
| yourself for checkmate.
|
| Monopolies, countries...
| mym1990 wrote:
| Every company or government will eventually see itself in
| checkmate. It is in the best interest of companies to
| push that as far down the road as possible.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Gee, one might almost reach the conclusion that unregulated
| free markets are bad...
| mym1990 wrote:
| It really depends on the market...we have to weigh the
| risks or worst case scenarios. While economics can be
| pretty cut and dry, the real world is very messy.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| And most importantly, economics assumes that the market is
| perfect, which it most certainly is not in practice.
|
| What we didn't do enough is take the geopolitical landscape
| into this equation (or a potential pandemic, for that
| matter), which I hope changes after recent developments.
|
| I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely
| understand the businesses needing to do what's best for
| business.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Business are still run by people. Nobody was forced to
| see someone else doing something shitty and then say
| "well I just need to be a bigger asshole than that guy!
| Must be okay 'cause it's not illegal"
|
| People have far too simplistic models of how things work,
| this is the consequence of a lack of understanding and
| shortsightedness
| mym1990 wrote:
| Per Einstein: 'A model should be as simple as it can be
| but no simpler'. I think people tend to overcomplicate
| things than oversimplify. A true understanding of
| something can be hinted by being able to explain it in a
| simple way.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| I view the same quote from the opposite perspective. Our
| current model is _far_ too simple, Einstein would have
| said we 're missing a whole bunch of nuance and
| variables.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Businesses also need to have customers. No clothes maker
| was forced to manufacture in poor countries, but the
| alternative was to simply stop existing since
| insufficient customers are willing to pay the price
| premium for purely American made clothes. Hence the only
| solution would have been legislation forcing domestic
| manufacturing.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| That's assuming that our current model is the only/best
| way of doing things, which is a bit shortsighted
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| You will have to elaborate on what life looks like
| without businesses selling to customers, and otherwise
| going out of business if they do not sell to customers.
|
| At least it does not seem to involve any conventional use
| of the word business.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Exactly, and that might be a good thing. I don't have the
| answer to that question but it sure seems to me like our
| current system ruins lives and the environment to enrich
| the few who are willing to step on everyone else. Doesn't
| seem ideal to put it lightly
| roughly wrote:
| > I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely
| understand the businesses needing to do what's best for
| business.
|
| How do you blame government for businesses running around
| with planning models that miss wars and pandemics, the
| two most common causes of ruin and disruption for the
| entire duration of human history?
| salawat wrote:
| ...Because making sure businesses in economies plan for
| that sort of thing is generally something that you have
| to be a non-transient actor to ensure.
|
| Businesses/corps come and go ... the Nation of $nation
| only tends to do so on the next timescale up. When their
| actually looking out for systemic blindspots no one else
| is, and not pandering to the elite.
| version_five wrote:
| Also (or as a corollary), otherwise businesses have no
| incentive to plan for rare, adverse events. They will be
| out-competed by businesses that don't care.
|
| Personally I think the solution is for governments to
| have a contingency plan, and opposed to forcing any
| individual business to do anything, but if we did want
| businesses to change their behavior, it's definitely a
| government issue.
|
| Unless somehow "buy my product , it's more expensive
| because our business hedges against war and pandemics"
| works in advertising (eco-friendly seems to get some
| traction, so maybe?)
| g_p wrote:
| Part of the challenge is that governments tend to come
| and go on 4 or 5 year cycles, so their priorities tend to
| be focused on issues likely to (or certain to) happen
| before the next election or other democratic event.
|
| Governments often assume (wrongly) that businesses have
| incentives to handle long-term risks, since they want to
| exist for a long time and remain profitable. The reality
| though is most are more focused on their share price and
| dividend than handling strategic risks.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _And most importantly, economics assumes that the
| market is perfect, which it most certainly is not in
| practice._
|
| do physicists assume frictionless surfaces and perfectly
| elastic collisions? yes when they're explaining the
| basics of Newton's Laws, but they also develop theories
| and models for friction, etc.
|
| Same with economists, they study economies and do their
| best to come up with complete models. Are they perfect?
| no. Do they know more about economies than anybody else?
| yes.
| TearsInTheRain wrote:
| We optimize for price so you cant align with something that
| price doesnt capture. Taxes and subsidies allows us to take
| those factors into consideration
| baq wrote:
| economists have a certain tendency to disregard tail
| events, which happen much more often than they think, as
| they don't follow the normal distribution. there's been a
| plethora of six sigma market movements in the past few
| years, and six sigma by definition should happen once every
| 3 million observations or so...
| lazide wrote:
| ML models do the same thing - it's over fitting.
| hammock wrote:
| >"We saved some money" is how economics works in price
| competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing
| what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating
| on what the large scale effects are down the road.
|
| An excellent and accurate elaboration of the modern
| economic theory that led us, nevertheless, to our current
| precarious position.
| munk-a wrote:
| Modern economic theory doesn't disallow subsidies - it's
| very possible to exist in a primarily capitalist society
| with either tariffs or domestic business subsidies to
| ensure certain key industries remain on local shores - it
| might be politically infeasible for such laws to be
| passed in the US, but it is a very reasonable response.
| pirate787 wrote:
| The United States has all kinds of tariff and other
| subsidies for key industries. Foreign airlines and
| shipping companies are literally blocked from providing
| domestic US services. (That's also why all major US
| cruise ships touch a foreign port in their journey).
| Steel and autos and much of agriculture are also heavily
| protected.
|
| These are all anti-consumer and bad public policy.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| > That's also why all major US cruise ships touch a
| foreign port in their journey
|
| In a pedantic sense, major US cruise ships don't need to
| touch a foreign port in their journey. The catch being
| there is only one major US cruise ship - The Pride of
| America, which generally does Hawaiian cruises:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_of_America
|
| The other major cruise ships you see operating in the US
| are actually foreign-flagged so they can avoid US
| environmental, gambling and employment regulations, etc.
| These are the ships that must touch a foreign port during
| their journeys.
| vanviegen wrote:
| Good info. But _why_ is this bad policy? Is globalization
| really just better? Because "the consumer" (whom is
| usually also an employee/business owner and a citizen)
| may be able to buy stuff for a bit less?
| mym1990 wrote:
| Generally anything that gets in the way of pure
| competition shifts the incentives that players have to
| make good products or services. When this happens, the
| consumer is usually the one that gets the bad end of the
| stick with faulty goods or services, while the producer
| still gets to keep the proceeds.
| vanviegen wrote:
| Yes, but looking at this only from the perspective of a
| consumer seems rather limited. One additional
| consideration, the one we're talking about here, is the
| importance of being somewhat self-reliant when shit hits
| the fan.
|
| And even if only consumers matter, what you're saying
| only hold in theory, given a 'perfect market'. In
| practice, consumers have imperfect (read: atrociously
| bad) information, and big corporations hold many unfair
| advantages.
| vkou wrote:
| > But why is this bad policy?
|
| That's not the right question to ask. The right question
| to ask is 'Who is this bad for?'
|
| The Jones act, for instance, is good for US shipworkers,
| and for enforcement of US shipping laws, but moderately
| bad for Hawai'i, and really, really bad for Puerto Rico.
|
| Who do you care more about? Preserving the comfort of the
| continental American middle class employed in maritime
| transportation, or a bunch of people in Puerto Rico? The
| answer to that question determines how you see the Jones
| act.
| vanviegen wrote:
| Left unchecked, globalization will likely lead to just a
| single huge shipworking company, or maybe two or three.
| Does that benefit shipworkers in either the US or Puerto
| Rico?
| hammock wrote:
| It doesn't disallow them but it discourages them - the
| ruling class of the Western world has been on the side of
| globalization for many decades now (still is) and that is
| really what is in question.
| Aunche wrote:
| On the other hand without globalization, there is no way the
| relatively tiny island of Taiwan could have become the world
| leader in chip manufacturing, and the US would have less
| incentive to invest in their security.
| livinglist wrote:
| as a Chinese raised in China myself, this happens pretty
| regularly since years ago. I don't think Winnie the Pooh has
| big balls to attack Taiwan in recent future. China has too much
| to lose right now.
| actuator wrote:
| But China is too much coupled with the western economy to
| even sanction effectively. I think CCP must be watching this
| to see the cost and benefits Russia gets for invading
| Ukraine, which would definitely influence their decision even
| more than Afghanistan would have. If the cost for Russia is
| too low, then they wouldn't be risking much.
| egwor wrote:
| Russia's economy is interesting. Russian debt is 14%. It
| isn't like the UK which requires external input. Their
| availability cash and balance sheet is quite vast. This
| limits the immediate impact of sanctions?
| newuser94303 wrote:
| Militarily attacking Taiwan would destroy the chip
| factories. China waiting 100 years to get HK back. They
| will wait for Taiwan. Slow economic warfare and they get it
| all without messy bullets.
| actuator wrote:
| It might but it also gives Xi something that will
| immortalise him like Mao. CCP didn't have the military
| might to fight the British Empire and by the time they
| could think about fighting UK for Hong Kong, the lease
| was about to get over and UK knew it might be difficult
| to get ally support to keep Hong Kong with them.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It's not the matter of sanctions. Any conflict disrupts
| China's very own supply chains, the economic fallout would
| be considerable.
| heurist wrote:
| China does not want to get involved in major conflicts.
| They will be opportunistic if/when they have a chance to
| take power, but they are not as risk tolerant as Putin.
| Only since 2016 or so have they started to come out of
| their shell to take advantage of relative American
| weaknesses.
| yumraj wrote:
| > I don't think Winnie the Pooh has big balls to attack
| Taiwan in recent future.
|
| Not disagreeing with you, but I think people generally
| _incorrectly_ assume that a dictator with absolute power
| thinks and acts rationally.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| Ironically, I think the above statement is irrational.
|
| Why does being a dictator automatically make you more
| irrational? Absolute power has no direct causal bearing on
| human intelligence. It does not make you more irrational or
| more rational.
|
| There are plenty of examples of good kings, bad kings, good
| emperors and bad emperors throughout history both for
| ancient china and plenty of other civilizations. Modern
| China, despite all the negative press, has done plenty of
| rational things in order to get toe to toe with the US as
| both a military and economic rival.
|
| I think the negative connotation associated with the word
| dictator paints anyone labeled with it in a biased light.
| Not saying anything bad or good about pooh bear in general.
| Whatever that man is, him being a dictator is not a causal
| origin of his current character.
| baq wrote:
| dictators are blind.
|
| a single person does not have the mental nor
| technological capacity to run everything. they must
| delegate. the way dictarships work is the dictator's
| subordinates, friends, whatever, must live in constant
| fear of each other, so they are incentivized to lie (or
| at least omit truths) to the dictator. a benevolent
| dictatorship doesn't exist, because no benevolent person
| would survive the process of getting dictatorship.
|
| decisions based on falsehoods may look irrational from
| the outside.
|
| of course, putin may very well be getting plain crazy.
| certainly no shortage of normal civilian russians admit
| it off the record.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| >a benevolent dictatorship doesn't exist, because no
| benevolent person would survive the process of getting
| dictatorship.
|
| Singapore is the first one that comes to mind.
|
| See: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Benevolent_dictatorship
|
| Additionally monarchies are essentially old forms of
| dictatorship with slightly different customs and titles.
| It's one and the same and plenty of good kingdoms exist.
| I have PLENTY of examples: The Pharaohs
| of ancient Egypt; The Byzantine Emperors;
| The Habsburg Monarchy in its various incarnations;
| The Capetian Kings of France; The Tsars;
| The Tang, Ming and Qing - my three favorite Chinese
| dynasties; The Incas.
|
| If you're looking for something more present-day, I'd
| look into Bhutan, Lichtenstein and Monaco.
|
| Tibet it also an example. A little iffy this one, it's
| actually not benevolent but the West has definitely
| painted them as such to use as propaganda against China.
| Chinas actions against Tibet were quite horrific and
| wrong but even still... Tibet was not an example of a
| benevolent dictatorship... more of an example how a
| dictatorship can be PERCIEVED as benevolent and how your
| perceptions can be easily influenced. Tibet and China is
| an example of evil acting on evil to simplify the
| situation, but again I want to emphasize that the actual
| reality is not so black and white.
|
| You may also want to look into the term enlightened
| absolutism.
|
| Also China is an example of a benevolent dictatorship
| despite all the bad things they've done (TBH China is
| more of a mixed bag, and by mixed bag I mean both
| benevolent and self interested at the same time... but
| then again so is the US).
|
| You cannot deny that the rise of China has been
| unprecedented. The amount of people lifted out of poverty
| at such a velocity has never been seen before in the
| history of human civilization. That is benevolence. While
| of course what is happening in Xinjiang is not
| benevolence; blinding yourself to the good because of the
| bad is irrational. You must acknowledge both.
| baq wrote:
| Singapore, maybe. China, please.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps
| can't be bothered to look for atrocities they've
| committed before 2010...
|
| US has its share of bad stuff, too, but I never said
| they're benevolent. They're a democracy, which means the
| winner of a beauty contest is in power instead of
| somebody who took forcefully or has been gifted it. No
| good options here, but at least in the contest somebody
| actually wins.
| yumraj wrote:
| > Tibet it also an example. A little iffy this one, it's
| actually not benevolent but the West has definitely
| painted them as such to use as propaganda against China
|
| Or perhaps you've bought on to the Chinese propaganda to
| justify Tibet's invasion, subsequent occupation and
| genocide of Tibetans by China.
|
| And, China benevolent, oh please...
| bastardoperator wrote:
| History is pretty clear, go check it out. Nobody wants to
| be ruled by a single individual that operates with
| impunity.
| [deleted]
| drdaeman wrote:
| > Why does being a dictator automatically make you more
| irrational?
|
| Lack of constructive feedback paired with that all your
| thoughts including irrational ones are amplified through
| the echo chamber.
|
| It's easy to get caught up with weird ideas (and the more
| power you have the weirder it might get because you have
| to solve more complex problems and have much more vast
| capabilities). If you don't have external feedback you
| need to be much more resilient to irrationality than
| under normal circumstances.
| yumraj wrote:
| > Why does being a dictator automatically make you more
| irrational?
|
| People, including leaders, are influenced by those around
| them.
|
| A sane leader has advisors, which they trust to provide
| rational arguments, which sometimes may differ from their
| own.
|
| A dictator on the other hand is only surrounded by _yes-
| men_ since anyone else would be thrown to the lions. So,
| there is no one to provide a counter argument to the
| dictator 's own viewpoints and makes them believe in
| their supreme power. This is what makes them dangerous
| and act irrationally.
|
| Pick any dictator/supreme leader and you'll see the
| trends.
| CountSessine wrote:
| I think they'll be watching what happens in Ukraine very
| carefully. Then they'll be calibrating their predictions
| about what would happen if they invaded Taiwan with Russia's
| experience in Ukraine.
| chongli wrote:
| I doubt the TSMC fabs would survive a PLA invasion of
| Taiwan. If nothing else, the CIA would probably blow them
| up during the attack.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| That's why China is trying to build out domestic
| chipmaking tech.
|
| They're fine burning the rest of the world's supply chain
| down as long as it leaves them a monopoly.
| CountSessine wrote:
| I doubt they care about TSMC.
|
| The CCP understands (or at least was predicting back with
| Jiang and Hu) that eventually China will democratize.
| Taiwan is a democracy right now. Democratic countries
| almost never re-unite into a single country. I can only
| name one instance of this happening in the last 70 years,
| and in some ways East Germany wasn't really a democracy
| yet.
|
| The CCP knows that Taiwanese reunification will never
| really happen peacefully. Leaders will talk about it,
| they'll negotiate a bit, but then it won't happen because
| the status-quo is always more attractive. They know that
| their only chance at national reunification is now or in
| the next 10 years or so.
|
| It's now or never. It has to happen by force or it will
| never happen. If China swallows Taiwan and then
| democratizes, that can be managed - a restive province
| can be placated and bought-off. But if China democratizes
| before reunification, then Taiwan is separate forever.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| The CCP won't democratize. It was heading in that
| direction under Hu, now under Xi Jinping things are
| consolidating back towards a centralist power.
|
| I do agree that to China, Taiwan isn't about TSMC. TSMC
| is the reason why the US cares about Taiwan but not the
| reason why China cares about it. If it was the main
| reasoning why doesn't China go after the Dutch? The dutch
| have ASML, which manufactures the more critical
| components involved with EUV lithography. But China never
| made a single move against ASML.
|
| There is deep history between Taiwan and China, and it is
| this history that is the main reason why China eyes
| Taiwan. Think of it like if California rebelled and
| became a separate country from the US 50 years ago. How
| would the rest of the US think about California?
| CountSessine wrote:
| _The CCP won 't democratize. It was heading in that
| direction under Hu, now under Xi Jinping things are
| consolidating back towards a centralist power._
|
| I agree completely. But if you're in the CCP, and a
| Chinese patriot, you understand that that makes peaceful
| Taiwanese reunification even less likely. Also, as long
| as Taiwan is defacto-independent, there's a terrible risk
| that they will declare themselves officially-independent.
| That would be a humiliating loss of face for the CCP and
| at the very least would probably precipitate a power
| struggle within the party.
|
| _There is deep history between Taiwan and China, and it
| is this history that is the main reason why China eyes
| Taiwan. Think of it like if California rebelled and
| became a separate country from the US 50 years ago. How
| would the rest of the US think about California?_
|
| Again, I completely agree.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| "Good riddance."
|
| Jokes aside, if that were to happen, the rest of the US
| wouldn't think "they belong with us whether they like it
| or not." It would take a significant government
| propaganda campaign to get Americans to be okay with
| forcibly reuniting a state like that.
| segfaultbuserr wrote:
| It's worth pointing out that even physical destruction
| may be unnecessary. Due to the complexity of the
| semiconductor supply chain, many say that an embargo of
| materials and the removal of experts are enough to
| paralyze the fabs for many years to come...
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| Any Taiwan invasion would be spearheaded by surgical
| strikes against those fabs via some type of special
| forces. Whether those forces would be able to
| successfully secure the fabs before they get blown or not
| is anyone's guess, but China isn't stupid enough to think
| this is something they can just throw their standard
| troops at.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| If I were Taiwan, I'd be stationing troops at the
| facility as a dead man's switch to destroy it if invaded.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| No, that's what'd you'd do if you were the US because
| China is your rival. This is what you want from a foreign
| perspective.
|
| If I was Taiwan, or in other words a shareholder or OWNER
| of TSMC, I wouldn't want something I own being destroyed.
| I would rather fold into the new regime and keep my
| original ownership.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| If China has to eat the cost of the TSMC being destroyed,
| it's probably less likely to invade. China in a large
| part depends on TSMC whether it "owns" Taiwan or not.
| atlantas wrote:
| Wasn't that what people were saying about Russia's aggression
| too? Yet here we are.
| vkou wrote:
| It's not yet clear whether or not this war will end like
| the one with Georgia, or with a worse outcome.
| heurist wrote:
| We've been watching Russia prepare for major war for more
| than a decade. Anyone who said they wouldn't be willing to
| enter this war was deluding themselves. It was a matter of
| when, not if Russia would embark on this path.
| olliej wrote:
| The western world's economy is dependent on china - _any_
| sanction immediately hurts the local economy. That 's why
| every country is happy to fund the Chinese government's
| genocide.
| allisdust wrote:
| Has China ever sent their army into another country post
| their independence ?
| zabzonk wrote:
| Independence from whom?
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| Vietnam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War
|
| Tibet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_
| the_Peo...
|
| North Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
| zabzonk wrote:
| Also, Mongolia.
| sudopluto wrote:
| and India
| Rexxar wrote:
| Depends if you consider Tibet as a country or not.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| if I may, "recent future" implies some time travel to make
| sense, you might instead say immediate or forseeable future
| robbedpeter wrote:
| You wollen haven be a temporal grammar enthusiast, I see.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| You can't assume dictators are rational. Xi Jinping thinks he
| is singularly entitled to run the lives of billions of human
| beings.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| Yeah Chinese people place commerce over patriotism first.
| It's just the general attitude we have... unlikely Pooh bear
| will conduct an attack.
|
| We should only be worried about an attack if the the effects
| on commerce and military retaliation becomes negligible.
| That's when China will strike.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Global trade has been a peacekeeping incentive for decades.
|
| But despots don't act for the sake of the people's will, so
| it's not easy to account for that.
|
| But anyways most markets are emergent, not planned
| strategically .
| buscoquadnary wrote:
| I've heard that repeatedly and I used to believe it to;
| however I have been recently studying WW1 and found out there
| were many people back then who said pretty much the same
| thing. They said that no one would want a war things were too
| profitable and there was too much trade, they were terribly
| terribly wrong.
|
| The problem is WW1 wasn't one big "let's go to war" like
| Hitler and WW2, WW1 was the effects of hundreds of little
| consequences, edge cases, and constraints upon individuals
| and nations that interacted in a way no one could see. I
| believe the same thing will happen again, and it will
| probably come as a result of a Pakistani-Indian conflict or
| something from Iran. It isn't something anyone can see right
| now, but its coming, just like no one would've guessed the
| assassination of an Archduke would lead to 10 million dead
| across Europe, in the same way it will be something we can't
| determine right now that will push upon the constraints,
| agreements and edge cases to push us towards another global
| war.
| e40 wrote:
| My non-expert POV says the problem isn't global trade it's
| unbalanced global trade. Everyone depends on China, so Xi has
| little incentive to fear economical reprisals.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| First Crimea. Then Hong Kong. Then Afghanistan. Now Ukraine. Next
| Taiwan.
| amelius wrote:
| EU and US response to Russia is totally ineffective. They should
| have moved troops in from the beginning.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| And risked an enormous escalation with a nuclear power? That
| would be reckless.
|
| Don't get me wrong - I would also like to see decisive action
| to this attack. But escalating a relatively local dispute into
| a conflict between world powers would risk a WW. Moving in
| troops into a non-NATO ally would also be extremely difficult
| to explain on the world stage.
|
| There probably is decisive action being implemented behind the
| scenes right now, it's just not visible to the public.
| amelius wrote:
| Putin is very rational and predictive. The nuclear option is
| not relevant.
|
| He moved troops to the borders, waited for a response. And
| this response was what he expected to be: just sanctions.
| This gave him the "ok" to invade.
|
| Sending troops would be a clear signal. Costly, but you can
| also see it as a good exercise.
| k0k0r0 wrote:
| > Putin is very rational and predictive.
|
| To be honest this war does make me doubt my assption that
| Putin is very rational and predictive. What is the
| rationale behind such a full-scale invasion? I don't see
| benefits that outweight the costs. I am happy to hear them,
| if they are any.
| fosk wrote:
| If Ukraine becomes a NATO member, Russia won't be able to
| defend it's border from a conventional attack.
|
| By looking at a map, this is quite evident.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| CIA Director Bill Burns predicted exactly this back in
| 2008 when George Bush declared Ukraine would eventually
| join NATO.
| jamesy0ung wrote:
| US and EU are superpowers. Superpowers fighting would have
| caused WW3.
| EastSmith wrote:
| Probably a long and slow game to win economically (as in the
| First Cold War).
| krazerlasers wrote:
| I was personally hit by this back in 2015 as a grad student. We
| called up our process gas supplier and asked for a k-cylinder of
| Neon and were laughed off the phone, so we ended up running our
| experiment on krypton for setup and used a lecture bottle of Neon
| that a partner lab had left over for the few minutes of data
| collection we needed to get our result[1].
|
| At the time, we were cursing the semi industry for using up all
| of the remaining Neon with their billion dollar operating
| budgets...
|
| [1]https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-4075/49/15/1..
| .
| twarge wrote:
| Here in NJ they separate neon from the air. This is not a
| problem.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Neon is a byproduct of producing liquid nitrogen, oxygen and
| other gas products.
|
| Many other plants could start producing neon pretty easily. They
| just haven't so far because neon isn't profitable to produce and
| sell. But with a relatively-large but globally-insignificant
| price increase it would be.
| tgflynn wrote:
| Can someone explain why neon is critical for "lasers used in chip
| manufacturing" ? I don't think they'd be using He-Ne lasers, and
| if they are I would think those could be replaced fairly easily
| with solid-state lasers.
| jbay808 wrote:
| There could very well be HeNe lasers used as an interferometric
| length standard in lithography equipment. There are some solid-
| state lasers that could substitute for that role, such as NPRO
| lasers, but they're much more expensive and not widely
| produced.
| perihelions wrote:
| Deep-ultraviolet excimer lasers, I think (?). Not a domain
| expert!
|
| - _" Excimer laser gas mixtures are a combination of rare gases
| (argon, krypton, xenon, or neon) and halogen gases (fluorine or
| chlorine). The mixture of gases determines the wavelength of
| DUV light produced. Argon+fluorine+neon (193nm) and
| Krypton+fluorine+neon (248nm) are the two most common mixtures
| used. In terms of volume; neon makes up approximately 96-97.5%
| of the mixture."_
|
| https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Las...
| krazerlasers wrote:
| Somewhat counterintuitively, the primary gas species used in
| excimer lasers are noble gasses. A typical gas mix for a 193nm
| excimer laser would be ~97% neon and just a few percent of the
| actual argon/fluorine excimer mix. [1]
|
| Since you mentioned them -- as hard as it may be to believe --
| HeNe lasers are only just beginning to be phased out in the
| semi industry in the somewhat esoteric use case of precision
| position measurement using interferometry. The output
| wavelength of a HeNe lase is extremely stable--with a simple
| feedback loop on the cavity length (ie, temperature) a HeNe
| laser is essentially an atomic clock locked to the 473.612248
| THz 5s2 - 3p HeNe line. Interferometers built around such
| systems can accurately measure sub-nanometer displacements and
| are able to achieve a lifetime absolute stability of better
| than 10ppb--comparable to a rubidium atomic clock! [2]
|
| [1] https://www.linde-
| gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Las...
|
| [2] https://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserhst.htm#hstish3
| [deleted]
| perihelions wrote:
| I've found the reason (I think) 90% of the world's semiconductor-
| grade neon production is concentrated in one country. Per this
| German government whitepaper about the noble gas industry: the
| USSR massively overinvested in neon capacity in the 1980's, in
| order to build space-based excimer laser weapons. Ukraine's
| extant plants date (probably) to the 1980's; they're responsible
| for a global oversupply that's persisted since the Cold War.
|
| - _" Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former
| Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the
| intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite
| defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air
| separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but
| also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases,
| purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic
| Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low."_
|
| - _" Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, global crude
| neon production was approximately 500-600 million l/a (=
| 500,000-600,000 m3/a). It was dominated by far by large-scale air
| separation units associated with metallurgical combines in Russia
| and Ukraine. Simultaneously, demand was estimated at around 300
| million l/a (cf. Section 4.2). In the years between 1990 and
| 2012, therefore, most crude neon was not purified, but released
| into the atmosphere, because there was no customer base."_
|
| https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ...
| (chapter 5.2)
|
| For context, this would have overlapped with Energia/Buran's
| launch of the _Polyus_ weapon (which was a megawatt CO2 laser).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)
| credit_guy wrote:
| Given this piece of information, it's hard to see how
| 500-600,000 m3/a could be used for the lasers used in chip
| manufacture. Even if the whole world production drops by 99.9%,
| there's probably going to be more than enough for those lasers
| to continue working.
| jessriedel wrote:
| Did the US have a similar project? I'm aware of Project
| Excalibur, but I think that was significantly more ambitious
| (nuclear powered x-ray laser) and wasn't developed nearly as
| far.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur
| [deleted]
| Borrible wrote:
| I'm more concerned about the probable loss of wheat supplies to
| the near east, especially Turkey and Egypt. But of course,they
| could just eat Revani or Basbousa instead.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Wheat is pretty easy to ship, and globally is usually
| 'overproduced' due to farm subsidies. People won't be going
| hungry just because one countries production stopped.
| eanc wrote:
| I'm glad to see we have the right reasons at heart for caring
| about human events.
| RspecMAuthortah wrote:
| What would be some good stocks to invest to capitalize this?
| Perhaps some trading in Russian/Ukrainian Stock Exchange? Is
| there any significant US company listed in Nasdaq or NYSE in this
| space?
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30458819.
| snemvalts wrote:
| Don't put any money into both stock exchanges right now,
| especially the russian one.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Why not? Seems like a great time. Buy low
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| But will it go lower? Will it ever go back up higher? Will
| the company you invest in go bankrupt, or its factories get
| destroyed (intentionally or accidentally)?
|
| I mean if you have the money and confidence by all means,
| take the gamble, but keep in mind it's a gamble. Don't sell
| your house, don't spend your reserves, don't bet everything
| on one horse.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| On the Ukrainian side, I think those are real risks. I
| don't think there is chance of Russia loosing the war or
| major Russian companies going under.
| verve_rat wrote:
| Because sanctions might mean you can't get your money back
| from Russia.
|
| And Ukraine might not exist as a country soon.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| What money would go into Russia? Just buy on a US stock
| exchange
| jannyfer wrote:
| You replied to a comment suggesting not putting money
| into Russian or Ukrainian stock exchanges, asking why
| not.
|
| > Don't put any money into both stock exchanges right
| now, especially the russian one.
|
| Then you are asking what money would go into Russia...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Fair, but you can still buy Russian company stock on
| other exchanges, pink sheets, ect.
| coenhyde wrote:
| Ever heard the phrase "don't try to catch a falling knife"?
| We don't know how far this crisis will go. And we've only
| just started on the path of serious sanctions.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Seems like the risk that Russia and Russian based
| companies won't exist 5 years from now is low
| kadoban wrote:
| The risk that it's illegal or impossible to get your
| money out is not as low.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I guess that is the speculative aspect. I think the risk
| is extremely low that there will be sanctions on retail
| stock investment 5 years from now.
| wcoenen wrote:
| The risk of the companies disappearing may indeed be low.
|
| One historical fact does come to mind: the St. Petersburg
| stock exchange reopened in 1917 (after being closed for
| world war 1), then closed two months later because of the
| Russian Revolution. It did not reopen and shareholders of
| Russian stocks lost everything.
|
| I don't see something like that happening today. But what
| if Russia confiscates the shares of foreign shareholders?
| Yuioup wrote:
| Not anymore they're not. Time to find another supplier.
| Guthur wrote:
| This is not the reason.
|
| Pure and simply Russia needs people, its dying.
|
| Low birth rate, high death rate, little immigration to make up
| the short fall (who wants to move to Russia :)), and to top off a
| weak economy that will struggle to support a small less active
| workforce. Interestingly Ukraine has pretty much the same
| population problem.
|
| This will be increasingly common problem for countries as
| population growth slows.
| javajosh wrote:
| Aging population implies a decades spike in demand for elder
| care. How does it imply an invasion?
| Guthur wrote:
| You need a strong services based economy to support an aged
| population, this is not what russia has by a long shot.
|
| Russia has few choices to fix this in timeline they'd have to
| work with. Population demographics take a long time to solve
| peacefully.
| partiallypro wrote:
| The entire Western world is declining birth rates. It's very
| worrying. People complained about over population, but a nose
| dive in birth rates can become near irreversable.
| rodgerd wrote:
| There is no lack of people in the world. This is only an
| issue if you have some sort of deep-set racist need to only
| be around people of a particular skin colour.
| cik2e wrote:
| The issue is what happens when you have a vast population
| of childless retirees and not enough younger working people
| to subsidize their existence.
| replygirl wrote:
| ukraine's population growth and birth rates have been negative
| and below russia's for some time now, so annexation only makes
| that worse per-capita.
|
| it's not clear that a flattening of the growth rate is a bad
| thing for quality of life or economic security, in spite of how
| it affects an economy on paper
| lurker619 wrote:
| In the long term, perhaps climate change would make russia an
| attractive destination for immigration:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY9NjD_5WWo
| umvi wrote:
| Russia's actions make me nervous that China will be emboldened to
| do the same for Taiwan
| seanw444 wrote:
| It's a matter of when.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes this is scary. Chinese defense budget is considerable at
| 1/3 of US budget.
| serf wrote:
| I always think that's a weird comparison when it's made; the
| U.S. has a long history of hiding 'true-black' project
| budgets in non-military (usually scientific) ledgers.
| jthrowsitaway wrote:
| Interesting. I wonder if China has the same amount of waste
| and overspending in their military industrial complex.
| atlantas wrote:
| That's highly relevant! China may spend 1/3, but they are
| more efficient. We probably waste 1/2 or more of our
| spending. So it's possible we are closer to parity than it
| would appear if solely comparing budget.
| dcchambers wrote:
| > they are more efficient.
|
| Citation needed.
| bobberkarl wrote:
| Your F35 price is set by the market. Their FC-31 price is
| set by the CCP.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| They aren't more efficient. However, their costs
| (especially for labor) are much lower than in the USA
| except for stuff they can't source from government owned
| sources.
| nacs wrote:
| I wonder if they'll also call the invasion a "peace keeping
| operation".
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Now you're thinkin! It's strange that this would fool anyone.
| The US has been transparent and accurate with stories, and it
| doesn't seem that USS... er Russia is firewalling off the
| internet just yet. Although I think that is soon to follow so
| that western stories will be limited except to those who
| tunnel through. I had hope Putin was just doing some dick
| swinging before April elections but it looks like I'm 100%
| wrong. it's not like he was going to lose anyway or that he's
| anything other than a dictator.
| jcadam wrote:
| I'm more concerned about Ukraine's wheat exports, personally.
| Likely to become a critical issue much more quickly than neon
| gas.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Agreed. It exports a large amount of wheat.
| baq wrote:
| and corn. ZC=F today was crazy.
| cwkoss wrote:
| What does ZC=F mean?
| nacs wrote:
| Corn is less of an issue -- US has a massive surplus of corn.
| tammer wrote:
| well that explains a lot
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