> made it less likely the working class would rise up against the capitalist ruling class It would make it less likely for the country to shoot itself in the foot and radically lower the standards of living of its citizens, like happened and, unfortunately, still happens, in every country that adopted communist ideas in their government.
You mean countries that started off much poorer than the US, yet the standard of living drastically improved during the socialist period? Then drastically dropped after 89, when the imperialists won the Cold War? Just because poor countries become socialist doesn't mean socialism makes them poor. Consider that they were kept poor and socialism is the way out.
Socialism makes countries poor. In countries with corrupt governments, poverty is reached markedly faster. If socialist countries don’t become totally destitute, it’s because they manage not to mess up capitalism completely.
> The estimated loss was estimated to be $1 billion. I always give side eye to the accounting that considers lost sales opportunities to be losses. Not saying Hynix did nothing wrong, only that that number assumes a lot of factors that are in no way guaranteed (stability of the market, no third player independently developing innovations that would create an attractive alternative for customers, the ability of the st…
The time to bring technology to market is also worth lots of money. Do you not think Intel is at a loss financially due to how they fell behind TSMC in fabrication technology? If Intel instead had had the better process, how much more revenue would they have, what market cap would they have? It has material impact. If someone unscrupulous could steal TSMCs tech, do you not think TSMC would suffer? Or how much better…
Preventing incremental material losses suffered by a U.S. mega-corporation isn't very high on my priority list and shouldn't be very high on yours, either, if you are a citizen of this planet. Many parts of the U.S. have third world conditions and the UN recently sent inspectors to parts of West Virginia because things have become so bad there. Millions are without healthcare, children are hungry, etc. Why waste even a breath on protecting proprietary semiconductor technology? The major semiconductor companies have significantly more motivation to protect their proprietary technology than the modicum of care we derive from our saber rattling and trying to maintain geopolitical dominance, and at the end of the day it is up to them to protect their own tech (their real enemy is AMD and ARM anyway). Imbuing certain technologies with vague and in practice largely imaginary export control laws does very little to prevent this kind of behavior, and it is in my mind a misappropriation of resources and mental energy to go out of our way to try to enforce them on a national scale. Shouldn't we, as a society, instead reserve this level of moral and legal outrage for CEOs who price-fix, bribe, and make 100x more than their average employee while people are starving in rural backwaters and dying in the streets and in hospital hallways thanks to COVID?
Incorrect. It is a MORAL issue. Technology stolen from the US companies is advancing the national security agendas of countries with no regard for human rights and the rule of law. It is immoral to turn a blind eye to this very real threat.
I'm pretty sure US companies aren't thinking about the morality of it at all. Only $$$ lost and shareholders' emotions.
We know US companies aren't thinking about the morality, nor are US universities, which is why the government is stepping in.
If this was happening during the cold war, CEOs and University Presidents would be being indicted for treason.
To at least attempt to think about this critically, and to try to ignore the amount of frankly shocking things people are saying here, can I ask, maybe from people in the field, is this level of industrial/scientific espionage even a critical factor in our current world? We live in a global world where scientists in various institutions are constantly trading papers, findings. Why are we so worried that the U.S. migh…
The only critical approach is to begin with the beginning and the trigger event, refusal to provide the passwords requested to his devices. In the UK it's a crime to refuse law enforcement request for your passwords. If the similar is true in the USA, or there's critical details involved - which frankly only CCTV footage could possibly reveal - about this incident, then there's your cause and effect from whence forwa…
As you are of course aware, but perhaps some people reading this are not, the government did consistently advance the theory that publication of speech about cryptography was "a technology export" subject to export control --- specifically, cryptographic source code --- until Bernstein v. United States , which required a several-years-long court battle. You were a country that values free speech. Now you are a countr…
This is exactly my point: the government advanced exactly this theory and the crucial point is they lost in court. They were forced to weaken the laws as a result. The new laws remain constitutionally untested and the government seems very eager to keep them that way.
Agreed. But public opinion has shifted; people in the US think "free speech" is a "right-wing issue" now, and as you can see every time China is mentioned on HN there are ten thousand xenophobic comments by assholes from the US who don't even know the difference between the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. In theory public opinion shouldn't affect the outcome of a court case unless it results in statutory or constitutional changes, but of course it does. Given the current trend toward authoritarianism, the longer the government can delay the court battle, the better their chances.
The time to bring technology to market is also worth lots of money. Do you not think Intel is at a loss financially due to how they fell behind TSMC in fabrication technology? If Intel instead had had the better process, how much more revenue would they have, what market cap would they have? It has material impact. If someone unscrupulous could steal TSMCs tech, do you not think TSMC would suffer? Or how much better…
Preventing incremental material losses suffered by a U.S. mega-corporation isn't very high on my priority list and shouldn't be very high on yours, either, if you are a citizen of this planet. Many parts of the U.S. have third world conditions and the UN recently sent inspectors to parts of West Virginia because things have become so bad there. Millions are without healthcare, children are hungry, etc. Why waste even…
Oh I agree companies should have greater interest in the well being of their communities and we should effect change that makes them beholden to the communities that allowed them to prosper and not sell the communities out to the lowest bidder overseas.
But… tell China this same argument. That they should not protect their self interest and see how well it goes over.
I agree with all of your points except the last - I’m guessing you dont read “RWM”? https://www.wsj.com/articles/mit-professor-gang-chen-says-mi...
You are right. I apologize for injecting a subject that has no relevance to the conversation, sometimes I forget that doing so is not within HN guidelines. (And by right I obviously mean correct, although it is an interesting double entendre!)
The WSJ article is objectively better than the NYT article, too. It gives much more info about what he was actually accused of, and how the case fell apart. So instead of just apologizing for bringing it up, maybe you should work to recalibrate your views.
> Are you all really here in 2022, being like "we can't risk a Chinese national from even seeing our American semiconductor research, they will steal it and use it against us?" There are a number of issues at play here and I can speak to several of them, having either helped the federal government directly or having knowledge of industrial espionage in my industry at the time (semiconductors). Some technology is expo…
I am a professor in the field of cryptography and there are export restrictions here as well. Under no circumstances would I allow the US government to block publication of my papers or talks based on the theory that my speech is “a technology export.” It’s not even clear that this would be allowed under the First Amendment. The government could obviously try to advance that theory, but I strongly suspect they would…
I don't understand how you think your point relates to it's parent. Are you just piggybacking off the point that the US does control export of semiconductor technology to make this separate point? Or are you suggesting the US shouldn't control export of semi-conductor technology in the same way they shouldn't restrict your publications on cryptography?
This is exactly my point: the government advanced exactly this theory and the crucial point is they lost in court. They were forced to weaken the laws as a result. The new laws remain constitutionally untested and the government seems very eager to keep them that way.
Agreed. But public opinion has shifted; people in the US think "free speech" is a "right-wing issue" now, and as you can see every time China is mentioned on HN there are ten thousand xenophobic comments by assholes from the US who don't even know the difference between the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. In theory public opinion shouldn't affect the outcome of a court case unless it results in statut…
With due respect, the right wing is perfectly happy to use the power of government to suppress speech they don’t like. See eg the new bills banning discussion of sexual identity in Florida schools. I usually regret responding to OT partisan comments, but statements of belief like “ is the party of free speech” is exactly how you end up voting in a government that brutally suppresses free speech.