Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 734 posts

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#231

Post by dumpsterlid »

iancmceachern wrote: post #221

It's the people, the talent, the knowledge that drives any industry like this. The US government, US, we, gave Intel and some other companies a huge sum of money to stay awesome. Then they announce huge layoffs to get rid of a lot of thr talent, people, heart of their business. So, wouldn't we have been better off as a society of we had just offered thT CHIPs money as a startup find and asked a bunch or people from I…

Yah great point, the US culturally seems to really struggle with the idea that the business is just an arbitrary conception, what is important is the workers. We really have a disturbing sense that arbitraries collections of capital and legalese are more important than humans with passions and skills and it honestly scares me.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#232

Post by hardware2win »

iancmceachern wrote: post #221

It's the people, the talent, the knowledge that drives any industry like this. The US government, US, we, gave Intel and some other companies a huge sum of money to stay awesome. Then they announce huge layoffs to get rid of a lot of thr talent, people, heart of their business. So, wouldn't we have been better off as a society of we had just offered thT CHIPs money as a startup find and asked a bunch or people from I…

>How did we dedicate money and resources to this thing of national importance and end up with fewer experts working on it?

How do you even know whos going to be fired?

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#233

Post by rzwitserloot »

toyg wrote: post #165
rzwitserloot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can't be caught off guard by China as EU was caught off guard by Russia. There's always a bigger fish. The last time nations were obsessed with autarky, we got WW1, and soon after, WW2. Most countries (i.e. every country not suffering from a drastic case of the resource curse) have the nature that if they trade a lot with another country, either country would lose economic value if they invade the other, _even if_…

> Russia had to do something or their economy would fall apart Ukraine would solve nothing in the Russian economy. Ukraine would simply secure two things: Crimea (which is essential to Russia and was strategically exposed), and complete control on all main gas infrastructure towards Europe. It's not a coincidence that the invasion was launched when it became clear that the new gasduct to the North was dead in the wat…

If I created the impression that this invasion was a smart thing, I didn't intend to do that. It's more: Russia is up the creek without a paddle and wanted to do something, on the bizarre but common logic of 'well, doing _something_ is better than _nothing_". Or similarly atrociously reasoned bullpuckey such as 'we have to have a bufferstate because otherwise NATO will attack us. Us, being a state with ICBMs".

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#234

Post by _trackno5 »

chatterhead wrote: post #222

1) We need chip manufacturing to be nationalized in the USA - if it's that important to national security we don't need to leave it in the hands of private industry. 2) Taiwan is not China. We are going to break the rest of China up because Xi decided to consolidate power instead of steward the distributed power he inherited. 3) The USA isn't in trouble at all; we will expand our industries, inflate our currency and…

> 1) We need chip manufacturing to be nationalized in the USA - if it's that important to national security we don't need to leave it in the hands of private industry

I generally agree with you that countries should have control over strategic industries (e.g., oil), but I'm not sure if nationalisation is the way to go.

I feel like that serves more to scare off investors than anything else. The way the US is going about it feels more correct to me: give fiscal and financial incentives for these strategic resources to be built and managed inside the country, while also removing incentives for too many exports

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#235

Post by rzwitserloot »

phlipski wrote: post #139
rzwitserloot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can't be caught off guard by China as EU was caught off guard by Russia. There's always a bigger fish. The last time nations were obsessed with autarky, we got WW1, and soon after, WW2. Most countries (i.e. every country not suffering from a drastic case of the resource curse) have the nature that if they trade a lot with another country, either country would lose economic value if they invade the other, _even if_…

"That last one is the economic argument: Russia had to do something or their economy would fall apart if europe delivers on their plans to rapidly reduce their dependence on (russian-supplied) gas." Putin didn't have to invade! If he was truly worried about Russia's economy he could have (and should have) gone about instituting reforms/policies to encourage economic diversification and growth. I fail to see how even…

> Putin didn't have to invade! If he was truly worried about Russia's economy he could have (and should have) gone about instituting reforms/policies to encourage economic diversification and growth.

Yes, absolutely. Russia, 60m people (or how much is it? More even) notwithstanding, is essentially a petrostate. It was too hard to try to get the population-driven productive elements to compete against the easy resource money.

I mean, Norway is right fucking there. This war is on them, entirely, for failing to prepare for the inevitable day when the natural resources are no longer enough to bankroll the entire state.

But, doing it _now_ is not possible without major political upset, so the major political players, not wanting to be 'upset' out of a window (hey, you live by the sword, you die by the sword, I'm sure the political elite is aware of the usual way to deal with higher ups that need to be lesser higher up: By taking that literally) - start a war.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#236

Post by nonrandomstring »

We've reached or are approaching "peak tech".

The other day we were discussing Pablo Azar, "Computer Saturation and the Productivity Slowdown" (Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics, October 6, 2022) [1]

Simply reinventing systems and deliberately obsoleting stuff to create fake demand is over. The metaverse isn't hoing to happen. People are fatigued with tech.

We're entering a different era in which we need to make better, more humane and effective technology, not just more and more and more of it.

[1] https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2022/10/comput...

EDIT: less trashy link

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#237

Post by chatterhead »

_trackno5 wrote: post #234
chatterhead wrote: post #222

1) We need chip manufacturing to be nationalized in the USA - if it's that important to national security we don't need to leave it in the hands of private industry. 2) Taiwan is not China. We are going to break the rest of China up because Xi decided to consolidate power instead of steward the distributed power he inherited. 3) The USA isn't in trouble at all; we will expand our industries, inflate our currency and…

> 1) We need chip manufacturing to be nationalized in the USA - if it's that important to national security we don't need to leave it in the hands of private industry I generally agree with you that countries should have control over strategic industries (e.g., oil), but I'm not sure if nationalisation is the way to go. I feel like that serves more to scare off investors than anything else. The way the US is going ab…

If you believe oil should be then so should all energy; including the entirely government created "alternative energy" industry.

Investors will be scared of the US nationalizing specific strategic industries but not the changing political winds of foreign nations? I don't think so.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#239

Post by jcranmer »

gdy wrote: post #93
Isinlor wrote: post #22

China already declared that it will use force in Taiwan if "possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted". From Chinese Anti-Secession Law: Article 8: In the event that the "Taiwan independence" secessionist forces should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan's secession from China, or that major incidents entailing Taiwan's secession from China should occur, or t…

"EU was caught off guard by Russia" You've got to be kidding me. Putin had been warning West since the Munich speech in 2007. [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Munich_speech_of_Vladim...

Yes, the warning signs were there, but the EU was merrily speeding past them, finding reasons to argue against all of the warning signs. NS2 is one of the most emblematic signs of this: it was clearly going to tie Germany's energy needs closer to an already-proven-unreliable partner (Russia), increase the ability of Russia to use gas transit as politics, countries like Poland and the US were screaming at the top of their lungs "THIS IS A BAD IDEA" and until February 2022, Germany was responding "it'll be fine, nothing bad will come of this."

So I think it's fair to say that the EU was caught off guard by Russia, even if because of the EU's willful ignorance of affairs rather than Russian duplicity.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#240

Post by colinmhayes »

chatterhead wrote: post #222

1) We need chip manufacturing to be nationalized in the USA - if it's that important to national security we don't need to leave it in the hands of private industry. 2) Taiwan is not China. We are going to break the rest of China up because Xi decided to consolidate power instead of steward the distributed power he inherited. 3) The USA isn't in trouble at all; we will expand our industries, inflate our currency and…

Nationalization is the innovation killer. Works in mature industries, but not something like semis which require big risks.
Post reply on HN