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The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It

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Re: The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It

#11
post #5
post #4

It’s been like this for a while. Take a technology, call it a weapon and control it. Same playbook.

[flagged]

Software would be equated to nukes if companies and people put more time and energy into the security aspects. They cut costs for a long time by not spending on certain aspects. The does not make AI a nuclear bomb equivalent in my mind. Banning the best models makes that harder to rectify. State level hackers will have access to this technology regardless.

Unlike nukes, AI is being used in the cyber warfare realm daily, as both an offensive and defensive tool.

Re: The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It

#12
post #9

Umm not when the adversary is using heavy government subsidies to undercut prices and essentially take over the industry. Look at what’s happening to the European car industry, with more job losses planned by VW just this week

This is a tired argument. When China does it it’s subsidies, when other countries do it it’s called industrial policy.

Re: The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It

#13

>Americans watch the rest of the world getting better, cheaper, ... If we wanted cheap cars, there needs to be demand to justify building giga factories of EVs. There just wasnt sufficient consumer demand to justify the giga factory investments China CAN generate demand for EVs because they have the political ability to 1) force gas restricted cars to only drive on certain days of the week 2) create a brutal lottery…

*after further research it seems option 1 is really limited to tier 1 and tier 2 cities(1/3) of the population

Re: The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It

#14

To play devil's advocate, there is some logic to banning Chinese cars, which is that their firmware risks sending telemetry to China, also disabling/malfunctioning the car if China were to have a military engagement with the US. I suggest a middle road which is that the entire telemetry surface and firmware updates must be domestically managed, with no room for a closed-source foreign entity to manipulate it. An EV r…

Then make a regulation that every firmware that runs on car needs to be open sourced.

Banning isn't a good solution, we should create healthy competition.

Re: The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It

#15

>Americans watch the rest of the world getting better, cheaper, ... If we wanted cheap cars, there needs to be demand to justify building giga factories of EVs. There just wasnt sufficient consumer demand to justify the giga factory investments China CAN generate demand for EVs because they have the political ability to 1) force gas restricted cars to only drive on certain days of the week 2) create a brutal lottery…

New car sales in Europe in 2026 are approaching 50% EV with essentially none of the above. Europe has had generous EV subsidies in the past, but in 2026 those are mostly (but not completely) gone.

Re: The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It

#16
post #9

Umm not when the adversary is using heavy government subsidies to undercut prices and essentially take over the industry. Look at what’s happening to the European car industry, with more job losses planned by VW just this week

This argument doesn't stand up to much scrutiny.

- The Polestar vehicles most recently banned are made in Charleston SC

- Fossil fuel industries in the US receive huge subsidies

- Non-Chinese brands (Hyundai/ Kia) produce models with similar pricing

Re: The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It

#17
post #12
post #9

Umm not when the adversary is using heavy government subsidies to undercut prices and essentially take over the industry. Look at what’s happening to the European car industry, with more job losses planned by VW just this week

This is a tired argument. When China does it it’s subsidies, when other countries do it it’s called industrial policy.

The irony is that China is actually good at effectively using this and getting more out of reach unit of money put in. Perhaps that is why we feel the need to label them differently, though I would also venture it is more a cultural thing. Americans tend to view subsidies as handouts and industrial policy in the Puritan values lens.

Re: The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It

#19

>Americans watch the rest of the world getting better, cheaper, ... If we wanted cheap cars, there needs to be demand to justify building giga factories of EVs. There just wasnt sufficient consumer demand to justify the giga factory investments China CAN generate demand for EVs because they have the political ability to 1) force gas restricted cars to only drive on certain days of the week 2) create a brutal lottery…

4) People in China want to save money on gas, while America prefers to bitch about gas prices, while doing nothing to switch away from gas-guzzling ICE land yachts.

Re: The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It

#20
I've been thinking for a while that some part of the ebullience towards AI among the American decision-maker class is that it is a good way to stick our heads in the sand and pretend like super-intelligent AI will make up for not being able to build competitive cars and drones. It has the feeling of an easy-to-digest explanation but I'm worried that it's probably wrong.
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