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Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

reuters.com

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Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#221

Post by voidfunc »

randmeerkat wrote: post #202
WillPostForFood wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk isn’t war between China and the US, but China and Taiwan, which China has 100% chance of winning. That then makes the the US extremely dependent on China for semiconductor supply.

You’re making the assumption that the U.S. would just let China attack Taiwan unchallenged. There’s an enormous risk of war between China and the U.S., if China invaded Taiwan.

10 years ago I would agree without challenge that the US would defend Taiwan if necessary. Less sure about that these days.

Even if we would go to war, its probably a war we would prefer not to have to fight even if the weapons used stay conventional. It's the kind of situation that changes the course of history in a big way for the loser.

Nobody wants to be the Spanish after the defeat of the Armada of the 21st century.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#222

Post by voidfunc »

_-david-_ wrote: post #212
smithza wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From some commentaries I read, China has a near 100% chance of winning in war with Taiwan even if US and allies join. This is mostly to do with mainland China's relative proximity to Taiwan and the few relative number of air bases US has on Japan and how far away Hawaii is.

Wars are not single battles. If China were to attack (and capture) Taiwan the war would not just be over. The West could attack mainland China and attempt to retake Taiwan.

Attacking mainland China seems like a great way to end up in a very bad Nuclear conflict.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#223

Post by threeseed »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #196
Dah00n wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a war scenario with China it doesn't matter since no chips produced under the war will be used.

The risk isn’t war between China and the US, but China and Taiwan, which China has 100% chance of winning. That then makes the the US extremely dependent on China for semiconductor supply.

The idea that China has a 100% chance of winning is laughable and plain wrong.

There are so many dynamics involved e.g. Japan needing to defend the Senkaku Islands, India, UK and EU member states being involved and the fact that you an increasingly united front within APAC.

Also China's military is a lot of smoke and mirrors. They simply can't match the F-22 and F-35 in the air or the Ford class aircraft carriers in the sea. And US is looking to build a missile defence system on Guam to prevent long range attacks.

There are simply too many factors in play to give any percentage of winning.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#224

Post by dang »

lvs wrote: post #218
dang wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Industry critique" fills virtually every HN thread. With suppression like that, who needs amplifiers? Most people who see a moderation decision they dislike leap straight to the idea that the moderators secretly hold $VIEW, ignoring (or not noticing) all the moderation decisions going the opposite way. In reality, we just don't care— I don't have words to describe how profoundly we don't care about commenter opinion…

No doubt a thankless job, but your claims to being unbiased are obviously going to be faced with skepticism when you label industry critique as "predictable" or "mean" and censor it. It's your perception that it fills every thread, but my perception is that the industry cheerleading in this community is wildly untethered. I think you probably wouldn't deny that your goal is to stem generalized negativity, based on th…

It's not possible to be consistent because it's physically not possible to read everything, or even close.

I'm sure you're right that there are tropes of reaction in particular areas that deserve to get moderated by the same principles (of avoiding repetition etc.) and I don't doubt that you see some of them more clearly than I do. If you want to help with that, you could let us know when you see them, particularly when they're sitting at the top of a thread, choking out more interesting discussion. Downweighting those is probably the single biggest thing we can do to help discussion quality.

I wouldn't use the word "negative" - that covers way too many things. We're not trying to exclude negativity. We're trying to prevent certain common forms of it from dominating. I don't think it's so hard to understand why—this place would cease to be interesting if they did dominate. Thoughtful critique is always welcome, and we don't label that "predictable" because it isn't.

Re "industry cheerleading in this community is wildly untethered" - such perceptions are conditioned by the passions of the perceiver. If you had opposite passions, you'd have opposite perceptions. The data set has more than enough data points to satisfy all of these. That is by far the most consistent phenomenon I've observed on HN; nothing else comes close.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#225

Post by threeseed »

smithza wrote: post #204
_-david-_ wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China only has 100% chance of winning in a war with Taiwan if the west and allies do not join.

From some commentaries I read, China has a near 100% chance of winning in war with Taiwan even if US and allies join. This is mostly to do with mainland China's relative proximity to Taiwan and the few relative number of air bases US has on Japan and how far away Hawaii is.

You do know that there is the concept of carrier strike groups which involve you putting a bunch of planes on an aircraft carrier and sailing it to the region. Just like UK's HMS Queen Elizabeth is doing as we speak.

Also there are US air bases in Phillipines, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, Guam etc. This is going to be a regional conflict not just between US and China.

Again. Anyone who says there is a 100% chance of winning is delusional and ignores the history of war on this planet.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#226

Post by varispeed »

Why not look at why companies prefer to build fabs in dictatorships, authoritarian regimes or other unstable places instead of just throwing tax payer money at it? To me it looks like they take high taxes from everyone and use that money to pay companies to stay in the country? Doesn't that sound like neo-communism?

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#227

Post by WillPostForFood »

threeseed wrote: post #223
WillPostForFood wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk isn’t war between China and the US, but China and Taiwan, which China has 100% chance of winning. That then makes the the US extremely dependent on China for semiconductor supply.

The idea that China has a 100% chance of winning is laughable and plain wrong. There are so many dynamics involved e.g. Japan needing to defend the Senkaku Islands, India, UK and EU member states being involved and the fact that you an increasingly united front within APAC. Also China's military is a lot of smoke and mirrors. They simply can't match the F-22 and F-35 in the air or the Ford class aircraft carriers in…

The US hasn't even committed to defending Taiwan. I doubt the US would militarily intervene. The risk of escalation is too high. If China is committed to taking it, they will get it. The response would be economic, and I'm not confident enough of the world cares, or isn't already beholden to China for it to matter.

>Ford class aircraft carriers

Isn't there only one Ford class carrier? And it is still not fully ready, and it is in the Atlantic, so at this point is not ready to play a part in any South China Sea conflict.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#228

Post by threeseed »

voidfunc wrote: post #221
randmeerkat wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re making the assumption that the U.S. would just let China attack Taiwan unchallenged. There’s an enormous risk of war between China and the U.S., if China invaded Taiwan.

10 years ago I would agree without challenge that the US would defend Taiwan if necessary. Less sure about that these days. Even if we would go to war, its probably a war we would prefer not to have to fight even if the weapons used stay conventional. It's the kind of situation that changes the course of history in a big way for the loser. Nobody wants to be the Spanish after the defeat of the Armada of the 21st cent…

US world order centres around its word.

If allies can't depend on US to defend them then it opens up all sorts of possibilities none of which are in the best interests of the US or those that value democracy.

For example closest allies like Australia for example would have no choice but to capitulate and bow down to China's whims. This would include ending the Five Eyes security arrangement and allowing Huawei to operate the 5G backbone infrastructure.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#229

Post by bsder »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #128
elevation wrote: post #102

Even if this consortium constructs a North American fab, a single natural disaster near that fab could wreak the same follow-on effects in the headlines today; the underlying problem isn't only that we've outsourced our critical manufacturing, but also that we keep so little buffer that any disruption could cause today's headlines. The MBAs running US manufacturers need to scrap their JIT strategies, build some wareh…

Isn't one of the problems that JIT was made to solve that there is a tax on inventory? That the government punishes you for maintaining slack in the manufacturing chain by taxing it?

> Isn't one of the problems that JIT was made to solve that there is a tax on inventory?

Then hold that inventory in Canada or Mexico or India or China? This isn't a hard problem.

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