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Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

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Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#511

Post by jimmydorry »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #507
danielheath wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way the US electoral system chooses representatives is terrible. Other countries have better methods, but change is very, very hard.

I assume you are talking about a parliamentary system? Yes, I also prefer it. It is even better if there is a good mix of parties in power -- Germany, Netherlands, etc. It seems like 5-10 parties in parliament forces a good amount of compromise, which results in the most progress possible. I prefer what is loosely termed as a "weak prime minister" where the coalition is multi-party, over a "strong prime minister" whe…

GP is probably referring to the electoral system itself: "first past the post" [1]. Essentially a winner take all style of voting which enforces a two-party system.

E.g. In such a system, if a state has 50 seats and a party manages to win 24 of them (while the second place only wins 23 seats), that first party gets all 50 seats of representation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#512

Post by ido »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #507
danielheath wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way the US electoral system chooses representatives is terrible. Other countries have better methods, but change is very, very hard.

I assume you are talking about a parliamentary system? Yes, I also prefer it. It is even better if there is a good mix of parties in power -- Germany, Netherlands, etc. It seems like 5-10 parties in parliament forces a good amount of compromise, which results in the most progress possible. I prefer what is loosely termed as a "weak prime minister" where the coalition is multi-party, over a "strong prime minister" whe…

There’s also weirdness like the electoral college and presidents getting elected despite getting fewer votes than their competitors (see Bush Jr. and Trump).

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#513

Post by stackbutterflow »

madrox wrote: post #336
FooBarWidget wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human rights is more than just political rights or speech. Hundreds of millions of Chinese lifted out of poverty is a huge win for human rights. When you're poor, you're not free. Having grown up with dirty streets and beggars, you can't possibly imagine how big a deal it is for me to see my hometown transforming into a modern metropolis, and how my grandparents-in-law (in a different city, in a rural area) finaly ha…

> It's because Chinese define democracy by whether they believe their government works for their interest and whether they yield good results, not by how their government is elected. I'm going to be thinking about this sentence for the rest of my life

Except they have no recourse when the party doesn't work for their best interest.

It has been repeated a lot in the past decade because overall things improved but recently the population of Shanghai was put under a terrible lockdown, the government didn't have their best interest at heart and what happened? Nothing, because they can't change anything and because the party doesn't care about their best interest. The party only cares about itself.

Making the populace happy is a lever amongst many they use to stay in power but when their interest and the people's interest doesn't align they have other, brutal means to enforce their policy.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#514

Post by FooBarWidget »

sk0g wrote: post #510
FooBarWidget wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Sinovac work as well as Pfizer when it comes to preventing hospitilization and death, but requires sufficient boosters. This is shown by this research paper: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.22.22272769v... The "Chinese vaccine don't work" talking point is a bad faith myth created by western mainstream media, which misrepresented this study by comparing single- or two-dose Sinovac with 3-dose…

> This sort of misrepresentation is unfortunately common practice in mainstream western media. Unlike mainstream Chinese media, which always represents facts objectively and doesn't use a headline generator to deflect attention whenever there's some trouble in the country. I always see this amusing sentiment of "evil Western xyz doing things and stuff", meanwhile it's just something that happens all around the world,…

Nowhere did I say anything about how Chinese media behaves. This is whataboutism. Even if Chinese media behaves badly that doesn't excuse mainstream western media from behaving badly. This is especially so because western outlets and commentators like to present themselves as morally superior because they have "democracy", "freedom of speech" etc. Well, then practice freedom of speech responsibly by representing things fairly!

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#515

Post by weregiraffe »

wtetzner wrote: post #205
baybal2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have just asked why we can't "just move manufacturing out of China:" There are no individual chemical plants, there are huge chemical complexes owned by many companies with own well guarded know hows. There may be 2-4 suppliers in a row producing some intermediary product used in making of only 1 output. Just to make the semiconductor grade hyperpure propanol you need ultrapure catalysts, ultrapure sulphuric acid…

> You need decades just to replicate this. Now you need to move 100+ of such material chains. Better get started right away then. "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today."

>"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today."

"The best time to stop quoting stale platitudes is 20 years ago. The next best time is today."

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#516

Post by sk0g »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #514
sk0g wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This sort of misrepresentation is unfortunately common practice in mainstream western media. Unlike mainstream Chinese media, which always represents facts objectively and doesn't use a headline generator to deflect attention whenever there's some trouble in the country. I always see this amusing sentiment of "evil Western xyz doing things and stuff", meanwhile it's just something that happens all around the world,…

Nowhere did I say anything about how Chinese media behaves. This is whataboutism. Even if Chinese media behaves badly that doesn't excuse mainstream western media from behaving badly. This is especially so because western outlets and commentators like to present themselves as morally superior because they have "democracy", "freedom of speech" etc. Well, then practice freedom of speech responsibly by representing thin…

Freedom of speech has absolutely nothing to do with representing things fairly. It's about being able to express ideas and thoughts without fears of censorship or retaliation. In fact, being able to misrepresent things is in itself a test of freedom of speech. People have been wailing about the moon landings being faked for decades without disappearing mysteriously. Don't think people in North Korea can afford to spread conspiracy theories about Kim Jong-Un, however.

The cry over whataboutism is funny when you're sharing a paper funded by the Chinese CDC, and taking that as gospel. I'm not excusing Western media anywhere, I'm simply saying "Western" is a pointless qualifier when the problems you are describing apply to media driven by profits and/or vested interests, which is almost every news source.

You are throwing "Western media" under the bus, but in contrast to what? Not Chinese media, which the discussion was about, so I'm curious what your reference point for good media is in this case, that happens to be better than "Western media". Keep in mind that quality levels differ, and if you only follow Murdoch rags, obviously you're not getting quality reporting of any sort.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#517

Post by astrange »

mrslave wrote: post #502
MrLeap wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sentence stuck out to me too. It makes me wonder if the nature of America's representative democracy lowers the threshold by which our elected officials actually have to do a good job / serve the will of the people. They constantly fall short, even of the narrow interests of whatever their particular constituency is. But there's kind of a floor where we just throw up our hands and say "WELL THEY WERE VOTED IN" D…

Study: Congress literally doesn’t care what you think[0] Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all. [0] https://act.represent.us/sign/problem…

That study is false.

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-...

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#518

Post by astrange »

baja_blast wrote: post #252
bakuninsbart wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no contradiction in interconnected economies being both better for global stability and more volatile to global instability. On a populist level, these kinds of questions are always presented as either-or, when in reality it is a pretty delicate balancing act. No, we shouldn't be completely reliant on potentially adversarial states for our basic well-being, but intertwined economies change the cost-benefit-an…

The USSR and United States had zero trade and never went to war. And since the fall of the USSR the number of conflicts has not gone down. Ukraine and Russia were very interconnected, but that did not prevent the invasion.

The USSR built their industry by hiring Americans to design more or less all of it.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#519

Post by astrange »

waterlaw wrote: post #43

Intel spent tens of billions on stock buybacks and now they're getting subsidies to build fabs. Why does the middle class taxpayer have to bail everyone out, with lower living standards due to taxation and inflation.

Stock buybacks are not "spending" and don't cause Intel to lose money.

Germany's negative interest rates indicate they haven't been spending nearly enough, though.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#520

Post by astrange »

Shadonototra wrote: post #443
rat87 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it doesn't revolve around America vs Russia You have to consider the EU vs Russia. It's not in EU's or Germany's intrest to keep trading with Russia

It is in EU's interest to keep trading with Russia It is not in US's interest to let EU keep trading with Russia USA wants the EU to be their giant marketplace where they can sell their culture and products USA also wants to weaken Russia so they can finally contain China North, East, West and South Seems like you were sleeping the past century, blurry days ahead!

> It is in EU's interest to keep trading with Russia

Russia's been blatantly assassinating people across Europe for years and would invade Poland in a second for personal pleasure even if it caused an economic loss for them again.

They haven't evolved past Mongol horde methods of living with their neighbors and are relying on everyone else always taking the "rational" result of appeasing them rather than fighting back. The correct response in this iterated game is to punish them and let their more productive people immigrate to you.

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