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Arm China Has Gone Rogue

semianalysis.substack.com

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Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#171

Post by colordrops »

908B64B197 wrote: post #159
cletus wrote: post #91

People need to wake up to the fact that China being a potential market of >1B people is an illusion. This is particularly relevant for any tech company. Let me spell it out: Chinese companies are extensions of the state. They are tools of Chinese foreign and trade policy. What cooperation you think US companies provide the US government, it is nothing in comparison. The Chinese government will ensure that no Western…

> Here's where I think this will first come to a head: I believe the US government will at some point soon decide that any person born in mainland China is a security risk as far as working on anything national security related. This will probably extend to key industries of national importance too (eg SpaceX). Even naturalization or birth in America can't erase ties to Chinese entities, through family links for inst…

Things will get really ugly once you codify special classes citizens and other US persons. It won't happen even though conservative congresspeople have been pushing for it for decades.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#172

Post by gamegoblin »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #163
benreesman wrote: post #131

The PRC isn’t fucking around. They’re playing for the whole show and the West is bringing a significantly weaker game than it did against a significantly dumber geopolitical adversary last time. Being England or whatever isn’t the end of the world, there is life after global hegemony, but e.g. the USA should be realistic about the fact that e.g. shit like a legislature whose job is to get nothing done isn’t how you w…

If you're looking for a turning point, it was fall of 2001 with the 9/11 attacks and China's accession to the WTO. The USA became distracted and the 00s were the time when China's economy grew like gangbusters.

One could also make an argument that the fall of the USSR began a period of complacency. Terms like “the end of history” [0] come to mind.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#173

Post by nootropicat »

Diversity happened. Civic nationalism empirically doesn't work [1]. Societies need some level of individual sacrifice for the group to prosper over the long term, and diversity kills the impulse to do that. Favoring the ingroup over the outgroup is a stable state for groups, starting from ants and ending with humans. Trying to eradicate those impulses was perhaps noble, but ended in utter failure. Hapless attempts at civic nationalism collapsed under assault from much stronger ethnic/racial and/or religious forces.

I can see this changing if intelligent aliens turn out to exist, but until then, homogeneous countries (China is >90% Han) are going to continue winning over the West, increasingly mired in racial and religious strife.

In addition to aliens, if necessary technology arrives, the ingroups could conceivably coalesce into basic humans vs transhumans, or perhaps humans vs independent ai beings, but that's pure scifi at this point.

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007...

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#174

Post by jimbob45 »

benreesman wrote: post #131

The PRC isn’t fucking around. They’re playing for the whole show and the West is bringing a significantly weaker game than it did against a significantly dumber geopolitical adversary last time. Being England or whatever isn’t the end of the world, there is life after global hegemony, but e.g. the USA should be realistic about the fact that e.g. shit like a legislature whose job is to get nothing done isn’t how you w…

>Sucked ass if you were a minority

This is just propaganda from minority groups. For the vast majority of non-immigrant minorities, life has been reliably excellent.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#175

Post by klelatti »

jhgb wrote: post #152
dylan522p wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arm does not manufacture chips. They license IP for per chip or blanket fees. The model of many of these licenses is irrevocable. I've seen a couple different Arm licensing contracts and they're all very different so hard to make blanket statements. The Chinese entity has the right to license to all Chinese semiconductor firms who have the right to sell their chips.

I'm aware of how ARM operates. I just find it incredible that ARM would allow some entity to license its designs contrary to ARM's own intentions, or generally do anything that entity wanted to do with them, and ARM would just consent to it in places where law is enforced. I mean, shredding counterfeit imported goods has been a traditional pastime in the west.

These are not counterfeit goods though. Where has the law been broken in a way that gives Arm the power to act? Probably IP licensed under Chinese law and Arm China will probably get its way in Chinese courts.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#176

Post by fnord77 »

cletus wrote: post #91

People need to wake up to the fact that China being a potential market of >1B people is an illusion. This is particularly relevant for any tech company. Let me spell it out: Chinese companies are extensions of the state. They are tools of Chinese foreign and trade policy. What cooperation you think US companies provide the US government, it is nothing in comparison. The Chinese government will ensure that no Western…

I've heard a couple stories in SV of a certain chinese network hardware maker hiring phd researchers away from places like Cisco. Then finding ways to coerce or blackmail (threatening to ruin them) them into coughing up secrets from their previous employer.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#177

Post by Animats »

cletus wrote: post #91

People need to wake up to the fact that China being a potential market of >1B people is an illusion. This is particularly relevant for any tech company. Let me spell it out: Chinese companies are extensions of the state. They are tools of Chinese foreign and trade policy. What cooperation you think US companies provide the US government, it is nothing in comparison. The Chinese government will ensure that no Western…

Chinese companies are extensions of the state.

Some are, some aren't. The current China "antitrust" flap is over ones that got really big without being extensions of the state, such as Tencent and Ant Financial. The classic big ones, such as Baowu (steel), Cosco (shipping), and China Railway Group (obvious), are directly state-owned. There are also large companies owned by provinces, regions, and cities. Most small and medium sized companies, though, are not state-owned. State ownership of almost everything was tried during the Mao era, and it didn't work.

The CCP insists on being the only major center of power in China. They're willing to tolerate capitalism until it generates companies big enough to push back. Those get taken over or converted to state ownership.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#178

Post by benreesman »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #163
benreesman wrote: post #131

The PRC isn’t fucking around. They’re playing for the whole show and the West is bringing a significantly weaker game than it did against a significantly dumber geopolitical adversary last time. Being England or whatever isn’t the end of the world, there is life after global hegemony, but e.g. the USA should be realistic about the fact that e.g. shit like a legislature whose job is to get nothing done isn’t how you w…

If you're looking for a turning point, it was fall of 2001 with the 9/11 attacks and China's accession to the WTO. The USA became distracted and the 00s were the time when China's economy grew like gangbusters.

Speaking for myself I’m happy that many millions of people got lifted out of crushing poverty in Asia. I think it’s a good thing that the economy in the PRC started producing fewer famines and more of a middle class.

The part I’m less happy about is whatever point the Western economies began working less well for most people in them.

Even serious economists have trouble being rigorous about this sort of thing, so I won’t even try. But I don’t think I’m the only one with a queasy feeling that Eastern elites seem to be admitting more people to the middle class while Western elites seem to be pushing people out of it. In spite of there being powerhouse economies in both systems.

People love to nitpick this stuff to pimp whatever dumbass Ayn Rand thing, but people outside the elite in the West seem to be doing worse over time, and that is not how you get an economy that is and feels fair, that’s not how you make sure the talent rises to the top, that’s not how you get a financial system that isn’t a ripoff, that’s not how you get a government that gets shit done, that’s not how you get a military that buys good weapon systems at a compelling price point.

That’s not how you win.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#179

Post by Robotbeat »

nootropicat wrote: post #173

Diversity happened. Civic nationalism empirically doesn't work [1]. Societies need some level of individual sacrifice for the group to prosper over the long term, and diversity kills the impulse to do that. Favoring the ingroup over the outgroup is a stable state for groups, starting from ants and ending with humans. Trying to eradicate those impulses was perhaps noble, but ended in utter failure. Hapless attempts at…

…for Scandanavians, maybe. Europe, generally speaking, doesn’t know how to do immigration. America, for all its faults, does. (UK might as well)

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#180

Post by strogonoff »

archibaldJ wrote: post #95
landryraccoon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Highly centralized (command & control) and mercantilist systems tend to do well in the short term, but struggle and founder in the long term. That sounds like a prayer to me. What evidence is there that China can't win? How are you certain that authoritarian regimes can't both gain and keep dominance over timescale of decades or centuries? Consider that the dominance of democracy is a relatively short term thing on…

> How are you certain that authoritarian regimes can't both gain and keep dominance over timescale of decades or centuries? Authoritarianism always comes with a top-down execution structure, which optimises for cost-to-execute but not cost-to-transform. When the need-to-transform exceeds a certain value, it would either have to re-adjust its internal structure or it will crumble (as the cost skyrockets) [1]. Interest…

Your point about cost-to-adjust resonated with me. What I’ve found is that designing for software successfully existing over time implies giving up control and instead going up to a meta-level, enabling sound methods of development to evolve—as opposed to defining specific processes, architecture and implementation, which in longer term leads to a situation in which whenever lead developer has not enough time (or is replaced) the software stops living. Something about infinite games in Carse’s and building worlds in Ian Cheng’s terminology.

To your footnote, I’ve read that the one-child policy in China was not strictly enforced outside of major cities, and resulted in many children born in the countryside essentially “outside of the system”, not having access to education or healthcare… I wonder how much of it is true.

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