111–120 of 475 posts
No fine imposed on the Trump Administration corporation (doing business as the federal government of the US of A)? Does the current legal system allow Anthropic to sue for loss of revenue, reputational damage, etc.?
Even if they are stuck with a fine, who enforces the fine? What's stopping them from just... Not paying it?
Before bashing Trump for not liking Anthropic, people should consider the consequences of having the judiciary decide what software companies the government can and cannot use. You might get a petty win against the current administration, but lose big when next time a judge decides that $random_department must use Oracle for ERP and not SAP for example because Oracle has better lawyers and wants money from the govern…
"The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt the Canadians want their economy flooded with Chinese goods ("dumping" - selling goods at less than cost) - which destroys local industry. This was predicted in The Economist awhile back, that if the US blocked Chinese imports a tsunami of Chinese goods would flood other countries and now it's happening. Those countries will also, in turn, erect trade barriers, or suffer the devastation that massive Chinese d…
Accusations of Chinese dumping are cheap and easy to make, but the evidence is pretty mixed. Most actual cases have been of raw materials (eg steel, yarn) and industrial chemicals. I think this is a long way from the alleged "tsunami of Chinese goods". It's also worth noting that many Chinese manufactured goods would mostly substitute for US manufactured goods (eg cars). That's actually the whole point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similarly the war created unstoppable momentum towards decarbonization.
Will Trump go down as one of the greatest environmentalists... ever ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why free trade is important. We had a decent setup where countries were specializing in their own manufacturing/services specialties, and then we all paid each other for what we needed. Then some greedy fools decided they needed more, and started trying to charge more on the way out or on the way in. Now the ones that specialized in the 'must haves' of today have insane leverage over everyone else. Then the '…
The reality of the world is that when the US sets e.g. environmental or labor standards, we basically end up offshoring the affected industries to other places. Because those standards increase the cost of production which makes it more economical to produce stuff in a country that doesn't have such standards. With completely free trade, everything would be made in whichever country has the lowest standards, which is…
The average hourly rate in the US is $42.50. In Vietnam is is $6.30, in the Philippines it is $5.40[1]
These aren't people living in poverty - they live well.
OTOH environmental legislation costs are harder to come by, but [2] estimates around 10% in a number of case studies. To be specific, that would mean US cost would be $4 less - that's still around 6 times the cost of Vietnam
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-hourly-earnings
[2] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report...
Good for Anthropic for standing up for themselves but think of the masses of companies that decided not to take the risk. The tone was definitely set at Trump's inauguration with all the tech execs front and center on display. They knew that if they didn't play ball Trump would use government power against them. Law firms blackmailed into doing pro bono work for Trump's pet causes, intelligence analysts not able to t…
It's a shame companies like Google immediately folded instead of standing with them. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iKm2FhpWkuuBojm82/why-i-left... In his recent interview Emil Michael (DoW undersecretary, "AI czar") even mentions that the Anthropic case served as motivation for Google folding. It is a shame that Google's leadership is so spineless. On the minuscule off-chance any of those VPs are reading HN - you a…
This is wrong, just like the article you linked. Google has been a proud member of the military industrial complex for many years.
Alex Turner is naive when he thinks big psychopath corporation may have internal regulations to protect us from big psychopath government. He's somewhat deluded when he thinks this is a new problem and he personally has power against this. The only way we workers can enforce some level of ethics is via powerful unions (with strikes/sabotage), not as lonely individual "threatening" to leave the company.
I'm sorry he had to learn this the hard way. There's still plenty of time for you to realize that no or few company will grow a spine, because that's not what companies do, what they are for, or what they're directed to do (except maybe a small mom and pop shop).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And trade. The last 18 months the US has shown itself to be a unreliable trade partner. Lots of companies are looking at diversifying both markets and supply chains. The recent trip of the Canadian PM to China is but the most visible part of this shift. That's at govt level, but I've seen it happen all the way down to individual level. US products are typically more expensive here than Chinese. But at least you were…
I doubt the Canadians want their economy flooded with Chinese goods ("dumping" - selling goods at less than cost) - which destroys local industry. This was predicted in The Economist awhile back, that if the US blocked Chinese imports a tsunami of Chinese goods would flood other countries and now it's happening. Those countries will also, in turn, erect trade barriers, or suffer the devastation that massive Chinese d…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reality of the world is that when the US sets e.g. environmental or labor standards, we basically end up offshoring the affected industries to other places. Because those standards increase the cost of production which makes it more economical to produce stuff in a country that doesn't have such standards. With completely free trade, everything would be made in whichever country has the lowest standards, which is…
Labor costs are orders of magnitude more than costs added by environmental or labor standards. The average hourly rate in the US is $42.50. In Vietnam is is $6.30, in the Philippines it is $5.40[1] These aren't people living in poverty - they live well. OTOH environmental legislation costs are harder to come by, but [2] estimates around 10% in a number of case studies. To be specific, that would mean US cost would be…
Also the US economy is increasingly polarized so averages mislead. The median hourly is a bit under $21. [1] You also need to account for what happened to the economy after we start shipping these affected jobs overseas. That's an entire segment of the economy which is going to influence wages, consumption, and other distributions. I agree wages are always going to be a major factor, but we can also afford a premium because shipping stuff half way around the world isn't free, the broader economic impact of having less control over your supply line is itself also a significant cost, and so on.