[HN Gopher] Chip Cities Rise in Japan's Fields of Dreams
___________________________________________________________________
Chip Cities Rise in Japan's Fields of Dreams
Author : rbanffy
Score : 122 points
Date : 2024-12-15 18:31 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| wenc wrote:
| Chitose (pop. 98k), though remote, is about 45 minutes by train
| -- with frequent service -- from Sapporo (pop. 2 mil), which is a
| fairly big city.
|
| This is similar to the commute from Chicago (pop. 2.7 mil) to
| Downers Grove (pop. 49k), which was my commute. I didn't care to
| live in the Chicago suburbs, but I didn't mind working out there
| while living in downtown Chicago.
|
| I can see a young family living close to Sapporo, but parents
| working at TSMC.
|
| The other TSMC facility in Kumamoto (pop. 738k) on the other hand
| is 2 hours from the nearest big city, Fukuoka (2.5 mil). Kumamoto
| is actually a less tenable location for talent. Yet things seem
| to be working out (the current workers there are mostly Taiwanese
| expats though).
| majormajor wrote:
| 2mil isn't a small town but it's not that big a city,
| especially if it makes up most of the metro area around it.
|
| According to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_...
| the Sapporo metro area is 2.7M. Is that correct? Looking at the
| map the area between those two places looks a lot sparser, so
| it seems like definitely more of a small town by a small-to-
| mid-size-city vibe.
|
| The Chicago metro area is 9.6M per
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_metropolitan_area so that
| comparison feels pretty off.
|
| I think a lot of people would take living directly in a 738k
| city over living 45minutes from a 2mil population city in a
| <100k city.
|
| <100k cities are SMALL.
| jmillikin wrote:
| Sapporo is denser than an American city would be with the
| same population, for cultural and geographic reasons. And in
| Japan it's common to have a train commute of 30-60 minutes,
| though living in Sapporo and commuting to a suburb might be
| considered more of a "reverse commute" (other direction is
| more common here IME).
|
| Not to mention that Chitose is where Sapporo's international
| airport is located, so someone who travels often might find
| it more convenient than living in Sapporo proper.
| pezezin wrote:
| Sapporo might be denser that the average American city, but
| it is still endless urban sprawl. It is nothing like Tokyo
| or Osaka.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| Sapporo/Hokkaido is traditionally where many people in Japan
| flee from various of life's foibles and circumstances, so
| it's a wonderful city with many colorful characters and great
| food.
| klausa wrote:
| I imagine if I was from Taiwan; Kumamoto would be much more
| attractive based on climate alone.
|
| Sapporo gets cold.
| pezezin wrote:
| I mentioned it in another comment: I am working in Aomori and
| my company struggles to find qualified engineers because few
| people want to live here. The climate is a MAJOR issue.
|
| Kyushu looks like a much more attractive option.
| wenc wrote:
| Aomori pop 270k is different -- it is somewhat less
| desirable to someone like me than somewhere close to
| Sapporo. I don't think it's the weather. It's the
| isolation.
|
| Most Asian people love living around others. We crave the
| human energy, the hustle and bustle of economic activity,
| the opportunities, the food, etc.
|
| Climate is something one lives with. Given the choice
| between Bakersfield CA and Chicago, I'd choose Chicago any
| day, only because the opportunities are greater in Chicago.
| I absolutely loved living in Chicago. Even Seattle where I
| live now is too small for me.
| maeil wrote:
| > Most Asian people love living around others. We crave
| the human energy, the hustle and bustle of economic
| activity, the opportunities, the food, etc.
|
| Any statement starting with "Most Asian people" that
| doesn't end with something like "have two arms and two
| legs" can be discarded. 4.6 billion people, many of whom
| are culturally as close to each other as they are to
| someone from Sweden.
|
| Even here in Seoul, one of the more populous cities, so
| many people would move in a heartbeat if they could keep
| the same job and e.g. education for their children. They
| certainly don't _love_ it.
| wenc wrote:
| > Even here in Seoul, one of the more populous cities, so
| many people would move in a heartbeat if they could keep
| the same job and e.g. education for their children. They
| certainly don't love it.
|
| That's interesting -- because Seoul is one of the most
| overwhelming examples of city preference (perhaps not
| internal desire, but opportunity seeking behavior) in the
| world. Korea has a problem in that the population is in
| fact too concentrated in Seoul, which creates distortions
| in the economy, and the government has been trying to get
| people to spread out more (Sejong City is an attempt).
| People are frustrated with things about Seoul but they
| still stay for the opportunity.
|
| Let's flip the question this way: if apartment ownership
| was affordable, opportunities were good, air was clean,
| most things in life like healthcare, education, etc. were
| affordable, would people naturally seek to move to a big
| city?
|
| Tokyo is such a city and the answer for many people has
| been yes. It may not be the preference of most people you
| meet online, but empirically the numbers reveal
| preference.
| numpad0 wrote:
| This is nicely worded but I'm not sure what to make of
| it. No offense, but doesn't make a lot of sense.
|
| Younger populations tend to get attracted to cities,
| tolerating worse living standards in exchange for better
| wages and shorter commutes. But higher commodity prices
| negate benefits, and also lower standards of life
| suppress offspring, which is politically highly
| problematic. Isn't that the fundamental defect in concept
| of a city since the industrial revolution?
|
| A typical luxury condo in Tokyo costs $1m, offer
| 100m^2(1k sqft) of single floor dwelling, with 300
| individual properties on average spanning couple dozen
| floors. That might be a 0.1% lifestyle, relatively
| speaking, but objectively and especially in comparison
| with historical descriptions of opulent life, I can't
| exactly see how it compares.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Cities did not use to suppress offspring. When countries
| were developing, and even in developing countries today,
| cities had high-fertility slums. Look at pictures of New
| York in the 1900s with multigenerational families sharing
| a room.
|
| If anything higher standards of living (and higher
| expectations of what children should get) suppress
| offspring. Easier access to medical care and family
| planning in cities also plays a factor.
| pezezin wrote:
| 1) Asian where? Asia spans from Japan to Turkey.
|
| 2) The weather is definitely a big factor. The cold, some
| of the highest amount of snow fall in the world, strong
| winds, and houses without insulation make for a poor
| combination. It is so nasty that even the colleagues from
| Northern Europe were complaining. But it doesn't matter
| if you like or not; what matters is if the average
| Japanese person likes it, and they don't. When I travel
| around Japan and tell people where I live, they are
| always shocked and ask me what am I doing in such a cold
| place.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Climate is something one lives with. Given the choice
| between Bakersfield CA and Chicago, I'd choose Chicago
| any day, only because the opportunities are greater in
| Chicago. I absolutely loved living in Chicago. Even
| Seattle where I live now is too small for me.
|
| The data on population changes in the USA indicates the
| people want to avoid freezing temperatures over hot
| temperatures.
| ghaff wrote:
| >The data on population changes in the USA indicates the
| people want to avoid freezing temperatures over hot
| temperatures.
|
| That data is probably at least somewhat biased by
| retirees who turn the air conditioner on and don't want
| to deal with some of the inevitable physical demands and
| transportation difficulties associated with snow.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I mean, working people don't want to get out and shovel
| their driveway at 4am if they can avoid it either.
| ghaff wrote:
| But they do if that's the reality of where they need to
| live for where they work. It's long been the case that
| some number of people in the US migrate south when they
| retire.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| there's not really proof behind that it's entirely or
| even majority retirees moving. there's plenty of work in
| or moving to the Sun Belt.
|
| The Sun Belt is getting younger:
| https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/large-young-and-fast-
| growi...
| ghaff wrote:
| Probably depends where. There's certainly been jobs
| growth in some on the big cities in particular.
| wenc wrote:
| Eh. Sapporo goes down to -10C (14F). That's nothing for
| anyone who's ever lived in Canada or the northern US (apart
| from Seattle).
|
| Source: personal experience.
|
| Taiwanese people will move to where the opportunities are.
| You'll find many of them in the northern US states, which
| are, if not snowier, are definitely colder than Sapporo.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's probably something of a California (or at least
| West Coast) bias on this board. But much of the US is less
| moderate in overall climate, towards both cold/snow and
| heat at various times of the year.
|
| A large portion of the US has real winters. (And some of
| those areas get pretty hot and humid in the summer--like,
| umm, Tokyo.)
| wenc wrote:
| Yes. Most northern US cities are snowy and cold in the
| winter and hot and humid in the summer.
|
| Even NYC, the largest city in the US has real winters
| (though moderated by being on the coast, it can dip down
| to 14F easily). And humid summers of course.
| ghaff wrote:
| I spent a summer in NYC once as an intern. And, not
| having a Hamptons option, I was definitely reaching out
| to Princeton and Greenwich friends on August weekends to
| visit.
|
| And Northeast cities, even into mid-Atlantic, are nothing
| especially delightful in the winter if snow isn't your
| thing.
|
| That's what I've lived with most of my life and I've been
| mostly fine with it. But if you're with some version of a
| Bay Area climate or bust, you may not consider it
| acceptable. (And even a "Mediterranean climate" gets
| pretty hot in a lot of places in the summer many places.)
|
| There's a reason that people who can afford to and want
| to put the energy into migrate locales from summer to
| winter.
| rjsw wrote:
| Some people like the cold. Being able to go skiing after work
| would be an attraction to me.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| I personally would love to live in Hokkaido. The snow is
| perhaps the best and most reliable in the world. And the
| summers in the rest of Japan are miserably hot and
| miserable, while they're just pleasantly warm in Hokkaido.
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| > The other TSMC facility in Kumamoto (pop. 738k) on the other
| hand is 2 hours from the nearest big city, Fukuoka (2.5 mil).
| Kumamoto is actually a less tenable location for talent.
|
| To be blunt, this is a ridiculous comparison. Kumamoto is a
| large city in its own right, with a very high quality of life.
| It may not be as close to Fukuoka, but it offers plenty for
| residents itself.
|
| On the other hand, Chitose, while close to Sapporo, is much
| smaller and doesn't offer the same level of living quality.
| Sapporo itself, though big, is pretty isolated compared to
| other parts of Japan, too.
|
| Also most people would probably prefer the milder, more
| temperate weather of Kyushu over Hokkaido's harsh winters.
| impendia wrote:
| Having lived in Japan, there is something of an attitude
| there that anywhere other than Tokyo -- or maaaaaybe Osaka if
| you're feeling generous -- is the sticks.
|
| Having been to Sapporo and Kumamoto -- and many other medium-
| size Japanese cities -- this attitude can seem awful silly
| when you're walking around their downtowns. But it can be a
| self-fulfilling prophecy: if people in charge of
| "opportunities" leave for the biggest cities, then _that 's_
| what matters.
|
| Indeed, on my trip to Kumamoto I was visiting a fellow
| academic, and when I got there he told me he was trying to
| move so he could be closer to his family in Tokyo. He has
| since moved to Nagoya, and apparently is happier there.
| smallnamespace wrote:
| People go to Tokyo and Osaka because that's where it's
| easier to find good-paying jobs.
| xigency wrote:
| > I didn't care to live in the Chicago suburbs, but I didn't
| mind working out there while living in downtown Chicago.
|
| I hear this a lot, but I'm quite the opposite. The suburbs are
| nice and quiet and I can go to the city for anything I need if
| ever.
|
| Similarly, I will say that the smaller towns in Japan are quite
| nice and idyllic, and well within reach of the megalopolises by
| train.
| EricE wrote:
| Yes - if Cities were so inherently attractive why did so many
| willingly flee them during the pandemic and not return?
| ghaff wrote:
| Different strokes for different folks. There's an
| attraction to having more space/less noise/etc. and being
| able to travel into a big city for activities without too
| much hassle/time. There's also an attraction to having a
| probably smaller place and just walk/cab/transit to those
| activities.
|
| I ended up mostly gravitating to the former but I
| understand the attraction of the latter and, who knows, I
| may change my preference some day.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Probably because the things that make cities attractive
| were literally outlawed during COVID?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Framed differently, I think that for most people, jobs are
| the primary driver for urbanization.
| mmooss wrote:
| The pandemic was not a normal situation. There are
| centuries of evidence about cities, pre- and now post-
| pandemic.
|
| Some clear empirical data is housing prices: People are
| willing to pay far more to live in many cities than
| anywhere else, often for much smaller residences.
| akg_67 wrote:
| > Chitose (pop. 98k), though remote, is about 45 minutes by
| train -- with frequent service -- from Sapporo (pop. 2 mil),
| which is a fairly big city.
|
| > I can see a young family living close to Sapporo, but parents
| working at TSMC.
|
| The Chitose factory is not being built by TSMC, it is a Rapidus
| venture (IIRC Toshiba/Kioxia is one of the partners). They just
| received delivery of first EUV from ASML this week.
|
| No one with young family will live in Sapporo, too far
| specially during 5 months of winter when train
| disruptions/cancellations are frequent due to excessive
| snow/blizzards. For example, just this week, every day JR
| trains were cancelled and/or fewer trains were in operation, it
| snowed every day and temperature below zero.
|
| Most permanent workers will likely live between Kita Hiroshima
| (Ohtani's Japanese Pro baseball team new stadium located there)
| in the north and Tomakomai in the south.
|
| Sapporo population is less than 2 millions and declining
| (1,969,058 in March 2024 declined from 1,972,381 in April
| 2022). All municipalities within Hokkaido prefecture have
| declining population, only exception recently was Eniwa (near
| Chitose) where population increased by couple of dozen people,
| increase attributed to enrollment of international students in
| the area after lifting of COVID restrictions.
|
| > The other TSMC facility in Kumamoto (pop. 738k) on the other
| hand is 2 hours from the nearest big city, Fukuoka (2.5 mil).
| Kumamoto is actually a less tenable location for talent. Yet
| things seem to be working out (the current workers there are
| mostly Taiwanese expats though).
|
| Kumamoto is actually better/preferred location for Taiwanese
| expats, from proximity to Taiwan and warmer weather
| perspective, only little over an hour away from Fukuoka by
| Shinkansen. In comparison, Hokkaido is too cold and isolated,
| no high speed rail link to Chitose/Sapporo area or to mainland
| (Honshu).
|
| Source: Live in Sapporo, also have lived in Ottawa, Toronto,
| and Seattle; was approached earlier this year by someone on HN
| for onsite role with a Rapidus US supplier.
| nikanj wrote:
| Kumamoto is in the same ballpark as many European capitals,
| such as Athens, Helsinki. Most people don't consider those
| cities "too small to attract talent"
| teractiveodular wrote:
| https://archive.is/2024.12.18-025438/https://www.bloomberg.c...
| teractiveodular wrote:
| Japan has a long and storied tradition of pumping immense amounts
| of government cash into failures. Off the top of my head, there's
| hydrogen fueled vehicles, fast breeder reactors, and more or less
| every Japanese attempt ever at exporting its own computing
| standards.
| leoc wrote:
| The Fifth Generation
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Generation_Computer_Syst...
| was another notable failure. OTOH MITI did also organise the
| Japanese VLSI project https://www.asianometry.com/p/the-rise-
| and-peak-of-japanese-...
| https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/47985/fromimi...
| , which was apparently a smashing success. (I am not an expert
| on anything.) On the third hand, according to Johnstone
| https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/bob-johnstone/we-were-burn...
| the success of Japanese consumer electronics had very little to
| do with MITI and government industrial policy, as MITI despised
| the consumer-electronics firms and doted on the "real" computer
| companies.
|
| Right at the moment I assume that the Japanese government is
| probably still kicking itself for not spending whatever it took
| to keep Nikon's EUV-machine development going: apparently Nikon
| wasn't that far behind ASML.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_OOta7Y6Ik Likely it's
| determined not to make that mistake again; and it's not as if
| the US is in any position to complain about Japan having an
| activist industrial policy in semiconductors at the moment.
| nnm wrote:
| The projects might fail, but knowledge accumulated and
| scientists / engineers created from them can bring success to
| other areas
| roenxi wrote:
| If you define failure as a form of victory then success is
| inevitable. However, in the spirit of some vague sense of
| accountability, it seems like an unreasonable position.
| Epa095 wrote:
| > If you define failure as a form of victory then success
| is inevitable.
|
| No, you can also do just enough to slumber away in
| mediocracy forever.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| If failure is defined and victory and one succeeds do they
| actually fail
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >knowledge accumulated and scientists / engineers created
| from them can bring success to other areas
|
| Japanese companies and institutions _hate_ sharing knowledge
| (read: trade secrets) with each other.
| Hilift wrote:
| I wouldn't classify hydrogen as "failed" yet. Much of today's
| industry runs on natural gas. However after many large
| companies converted to using natural gas in the 1990's, it was
| almost a disaster due to the price of gas rose dramatically,
| peaking around 2005 several times today's price. That's ancient
| history now, but at the time it looked like natural gas was
| doomed. Then fracking blew the economics away. If the price of
| gasoline or diesel did what happened to natural gas, there
| would have been riots.
| https://www.macrotrends.net/2478/natural-gas-prices-historic...
| Tade0 wrote:
| Hydrogen is already the cheapest it will ever be, as it's
| made primarily from natural gas.
|
| There's of course so-called white hydrogen:
|
| https://hydrogeneurope.eu/excitement-grows-about-
| natural-h2-...
|
| But known reserves are really small compared to those of
| natural gas.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Hydrogen is just greenwashing for natural gas. No CO2 at the
| point of use .. but it's dumped into the atmosphere somewhere
| else when the hydrogen is made from natural gas.
|
| You _can_ make it from electrolysis, but it 's much more
| expensive to do so, so that won't happen.
| defrost wrote:
| Already happening and underway with plans to scale up to
| current non-green hydrogen global production levels and
| then beyond.
|
| * Central Queensland Hydrogen Project (CQ-H2)
| A large-scale project that aims to produce 200 tonnes of
| green hydrogen per day by 2029 and 800 tonnes per day by
| 2031. The project will supply hydrogen to an ammonia
| production facility in Gladstone and may eventually export
| it to Japan
|
| * Project Yuri A commercial-scale
| hydrogen electrolyser project at Yara's Pilbara fertilizer
| plant that is currently under construction.
|
| * Arrowsmith Hydrogen Project-HP1
|
| * ATCO-Hydrogen-Blending-Project
|
| * Australian Renewable Energy Hub
|
| * Boolathana Project.
|
| See: https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/hydrogen
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| > but it's much more expensive to do so, so that won't
| happen.
|
| It's the exact same story for any other subsidized
| technology at the beginning. If it were _already_ cost
| competitive then the switch would likely already have
| happened. One of the common arguments against electric cars
| used to be that you were still burning coal or natural gas
| at the end of the day.
|
| The technology hasn't remained static either. I barely
| follow hydrogen stuff but I recall there were several
| notable advancements in catalysis from various precursors
| over the past several years.
|
| It's exactly the sort of medium to long term gamble that it
| makes sense for a government to invest in but likely
| doesn't for a corporation on its own.
| ben_w wrote:
| > You can make it from electrolysis, but it's much more
| expensive to do so, so that won't happen.
|
| I'm not convinced by that. The cheaper electricity gets,
| say the way PV is absurdly cheap these days, the less the
| inefficiency of electrolysis matters.
|
| What _doesn 't_ change with cheaper PV etc. is that
| hydrogen is so hard to work with or store, both as a gas
| and as a liquid.
|
| I can't rely on my gut feelings or comparisons to e.g. the
| space shuttle external fuel tank to say if these problems
| can be "solved" well-enough at an acceptable cost, as I've
| only got a GCSE in chemistry from the turn of the
| millennium.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| And to think, all America has is the banks.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The US's most valuable bank is only #12 by market cap, and
| worth an order of magnitude less than the top companies.
|
| The second most valuable is #25 by market cap.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| At least they're trying?
| m463 wrote:
| lol. Reminds me of the story of the couple that went to vegas.
| The husband gets mad when he finds out his wife spent $200 on
| the slot machines. She points out that he lost $3000 last
| year's trip, but he retorts "Yeah, but I know how to gamble!"
|
| So... they have working bullet trains.
| starspangled wrote:
| Japan has a much lower government expenditure as a proportion
| of GDP than many European countries like Germany, France,
| Italy, Sweden, Spain, Austria, etc., and has much better public
| infrastructure and services like transport and healthcare than
| USA.
|
| Governments by nature are wasteful, corrupt, and incompetent,
| sure, but is Japan really particularly bad? You could point to
| spectacular high speed rail failures in USA or a healthcare
| system which costs double per-capita as other developed
| countries for much worse outcomes in most objective measures of
| public health, incredibly expensive violent and ultimately
| failed attempts to "export democracy" to places like
| Afghanistan, and on and on.
|
| So... yes maybe it does, but it seems misleading to make a
| comment like that unless you can say how it's particularly
| worse than any other government's waste and failure.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Governments by nature are wasteful, corrupt, and
| incompetent, sure, but is Japan really particularly bad?
|
| It's not that their _government_ is particularly bad, it 's
| their _culture_ that is particularly bad.
|
| To give you some idea: Japan _still_ thinks metaverse is the
| bleeding edge of tech and wants to become its leader. Also
| more fundamentally, Japan thinks they can become _the leader_
| in the "AI" industry despite literally only being a consumer
| and not a producer.
|
| Japanese _persons_ are some of the most clever, skilled,
| innovative bunch of gentlemen that humanity has ever known,
| but Japanese _people_ are some of the most closed-minded,
| incompetent, bass ackwards bunch of misfits that humanity has
| ever known.
|
| Note: I'm Japanese(-American), I will take every justifiable
| opportunity to shit on my fellow people because they deserve
| it.
| starspangled wrote:
| > It's not that their government is particularly bad, it's
| their culture that is particularly bad.
|
| Well we were talking about the government being bad, so are
| you agreeing with me here or disagreeing?
|
| > To give you some idea: Japan still thinks metaverse is
| the bleeding edge of tech and wants to become its leader.
| Also more fundamentally, Japan thinks they can become the
| leader in the "AI" industry despite literally only being a
| consumer and not a producer.
|
| When you say "Japan thinks", do you mean government,
| bureaucrats, and some dinosaur corporations? Because I
| assure you western governments and non-US corporations all
| over the world think they can become leaders in "AI". It
| was only a few years ago that incompetent bureaucrats in
| major western cities finally gave up talking about using
| blockchain technology to make their cities run better.
|
| > Note: I'm Japanese(-American), I will take every
| justifiable opportunity to shit on my fellow people because
| they deserve it.
|
| You're looking specifically at the computer technology
| field where USA is an outlier that does well, so I'm not
| sure you have the necessary perspective. Though even USA
| has big failures there, the loss of semiconductor
| manufacturing leadership and attempts by government to prop
| it up, for a topical example.
|
| > Japanese persons are some of the most clever, skilled,
| innovative bunch of gentlemen that humanity has ever known,
| but Japanese people are some of the most closed-minded,
| incompetent, bass ackwards bunch of misfits that humanity
| has ever known.
|
| I assure you this is what many westerners (including or
| probably I should say _particularly_ Americans) think about
| their government and people at large.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Well we were talking about the government being bad, so
| are you agreeing with me here or disagreeing?
|
| Government is merely an expression of the underlying
| society and culture.
|
| >When you say "Japan thinks", do you mean government,
| bureaucrats, and some dinosaur corporations?
|
| Yes and also all the others.
|
| >You're looking specifically at the computer technology
| field where USA is an outlier that does well,
|
| Japan has gained the throne of countless industries and
| then squandered them time and time again. I'm not merely
| speaking of IT or industrial electronics, which they also
| gained the thrones of and then squandered.
|
| Among other things: Consumer electronics (eg: mobile
| phones, TVs, etc.), household appliances, cars,
| aviation/aeronautics, medicine, pop culture (eg: anime,
| video games, music, etc.), and more.
|
| Consider that Japan literally owns the CPU architecture
| found in practically every mobile device (Softbank owns
| ARM) _and they can 't figure out how to fucking succeed_.
| Japan's proud tradition of clutching failure from the
| jaws of success are rooted in problems with their very
| culture itself.
| starspangled wrote:
| > Government is merely an expression of the underlying
| society and culture.
|
| That didn't answer the question though, it didn't address
| the discussion of the thread you replied to.
|
| > Yes and also all the others.
|
| Okay, well that's no different from other countries then.
|
| > Japan has gained the throne of countless industries and
| then squandered them time and time again. I'm not merely
| speaking of IT or industrial electronics, which they also
| gained the thrones of and then squandered.
|
| Same old story everywhere else then. Britain was once the
| textile manufacturing powerhouse of the world. USA once
| made the best automobiles.
|
| > Among other things: Consumer electronics (eg: mobile
| phones, TVs, etc.), household appliances, cars,
| aviation/aeronautics, medicine, pop culture (eg: anime,
| video games, music, etc.), and more.
|
| Many examples of such things in countries everywhere.
|
| > Consider that Japan literally owns the CPU architecture
| found in practically every mobile device (Softbank owns
| ARM) and they can't figure out how to fucking succeed.
|
| ARM is doing pretty well. It's the object of desire of
| Nvidia, Apple, China, Qualcomm, and more. Between x86 and
| riscv and its warring customers it does find itself in a
| competitive and difficult environment to be sure. Not
| sure what you mean there.
|
| > Japan's proud tradition of clutching failure from the
| jaws of success are rooted in problems with their very
| culture itself.
|
| I'm still not seeing what's special about Japan here.
| Things rise and fall. Phones? Finland had Nokia and
| messed that up so badly it's laughable. Canada had
| BlackBerry and did the same. Chinese companies haven't
| been able to beat out Apple and Samsung...
|
| Japan makes some good stuff. Cars, motorbikes, engines,
| electronics, video games, sensors, lenses, cameras,
| machinery and tools.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| I'm not talking about healthcare etc or claiming Japan as a
| whole is bad/worse, I'm simply stating that the Japanese
| government's industrial policy of trying to pick winners has
| a long track record of subsidizing losers instead. Any
| (recent-ish) counterexamples you'd like to point out?
| wezdog1 wrote:
| Broken clocks
| starspangled wrote:
| > I'm not talking about healthcare etc
|
| Healthcare is an immense government expenditure though,
| vastly, _vastly_ bigger than your examples, and I would say
| US government pumping in a trillion dollars every year for
| a substandard result fits the your description pretty well.
|
| > or claiming Japan as a whole is bad/worse,
|
| Oh. Well then as I said your comment seemed a bit strange
| to me if it isn't notably worse than other countries, I
| thought it implied that Japan is notably bad, but if not
| then carry on.
|
| > I'm simply stating that the Japanese government's
| industrial policy of trying to pick winners has a long
| track record of subsidizing losers instead. Any (recent-
| ish) counterexamples you'd like to point out?
|
| Counterexamples for what? I didn't say Japan's government
| isn't incompetent and/or doesn't take risks on investing in
| long shots, like other governments, so I'm not claiming
| there is no such long history. What I was asking is what
| makes Japan particularly bad, but you say it's not so I
| don't really have more to say.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah, Kioxia (ex. Toshiba Memory). Pretty much the top
| source of large enterprise high-performance flash memory
| alongside Samsung. The Kioxia fabs received a (relatively-
| tiny) billion dollar subsidy to expand.
|
| Their past policy in favour of Canon/Nikon would look like
| a different story if the US government had decided that one
| of C/N could have EUV tech instead of giving it to
| ASML/SVG.
|
| Your point is generally pretty decent, though. It's a pity
| you're having so many responses that are so low-brow.
| Industrial policy isn't healthcare etc. and the
| performative outrage on this site is getting quite
| tiresome.
| gkanai wrote:
| In this case, semiconductors are a segment which Japan was
| leading back in the 80s. And Japanese inputs have been
| continuously critical for even today's leading edge semis from
| TSMC as well as for others like from Samsung or AMD.
|
| So if the Japanese govt. is going to 'bet' on anything, then
| betting on a segment where Japanese inputs are critical, and
| where Japanese companies had led the world previously, is a
| safer bet than a segment where there is no history or inputs.
| numpad0 wrote:
| This reads like a lossy compression of METI and _Sangyo Saisei
| Kiko_ ("Industry rejuvination body") project criticism. The
| METI(ministry of economy, trade, and industry) had attempted to
| intervene to revitalize multiple major Japanese corporations
| over the past few decades, very few of which saw successes.
|
| Bureucratic and indecisive nature of managing government
| employees are often brought up as a contributing factor, which
| applies to every government decisions ever, so this assertion
| do need citations to be a valid point in a discussion.
| Animats wrote:
| This is encouraging. Hopefully it will be a success.
|
| It's good that the fabs are so far apart. No one disaster or
| attack is likely to hit both. Have to think about that now.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| The south one should be closer to Miyazaki or Hyuga and it would
| be an amazing place to expat/live
| kazinator wrote:
| Ji Shi noXie Zhen haSu Qing rashii. Liu Shi Ri Ben Ren
| nokiyameramana.
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