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

Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 485 posts

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#401

Post by MangoToupe »

mrguyorama wrote: post #390
MangoToupe wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not pretend it's ever moral to support the state you live under. You should support yourself and bide whatever state imposes itself on you.

It is usually morally correct to fight off literal tyrannical invasion, what are you on about? Are you seriously suggesting it wasn't moral for the French to fight the Nazis or the people of Afghanistan to fight off the Soviets and Americans? >You should support yourself and bide whatever state imposes itself on you. Pathetic. Might as well go back to feudalism with that attitude. It is not nationalism to want a sove…

Ok, so why do people not violently rise up against the us government? They clearly have never represented our values, and they use the pretense of sovereignty to act as if their behavior reflects our interest.

> It is not nationalism to want a sovereign nation that you have influence over, that's democracy.

So what's our excuse? Do we not have a democracy, or are we simply a contemptible people?

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#402

Post by SllX »

MangoToupe wrote: post #398
SllX wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, they are both sovereign over separate territories.

With respect to Beijing, only one does.

There is no respect due to Beijing or the Chairman Winnie the Pooh regime on this issue.

Taiwan is an independent country.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#403

Post by oblio »

DeathArrow wrote: post #341
oblio wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU can't really do anything. The EU is a loose confederation of countries that delegate responsibilities to this united body. Japan is a single country with a single government that can unilaterally decide what it wants to do.

But single countries in Europe can do something. If they choose to.

Most of them have 0 IT tradition. Even the big ones.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#404

Post by Qiu_Zhanxuan »

mikkupikku wrote: post #207
Qiu_Zhanxuan wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We spent the last 30 years showing deference to good old Uncle Sam, sometimes back-stabbing other member states in the process. How would we ever have the nerves to do something of this scale with all the cooperation, supply chain logistics and engineering complexity that this would involve ?

Let's be real, it's not America's fault that the EU is dysfunctional in these regards. I'm sure that America does little to actually help , but the biggest problem the EU faces comes from their own internal corruption. Nothing gets done in Europe unless it can be restructured by their corrupt bureaucrats to pay all their friends and relatives, and the process of negotiating how to spread the graft around is highly po…

Haven't said otherwise, it's our elites "impotent" mentality that is to blame (excuse my french)

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#405

Post by breve »

MangoToupe wrote: post #299
n4r9 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I sincerely wonder if the people who live there agree ... I wonder if voluntary unification is on the table One of the benefits of a free democratic society is that you can ask; and people vote according to their preferences. A recent study suggests ~13% of the public support unification with China: https://www.tpof.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20250214-TPO... . Taiwan's politics are dominated by the KMT and DPP…

> Perhaps you have an unusual opinion? I live in the US. I think it's pretty obvious the PRC is more competent in every way than our own government is. And from what I've seen of the ROC parliament, it is also an embarrassment to their own people

Cool! Make sure you let China know you're ready to surrender. China loves a quisling.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#406

Post by rockskon »

atwrk wrote: post #252
rockskon wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So according to your logic, it only counts if it's unanimous inside Taiwan to not be taken over by Beijing but it doesn't need to be unanimous for those who want reunification with China?

No. I pointed out that both the "by force" statement for China and the "Taiwan doesn't want" statement are so oversimplified that they became factually incorrect. The "logic" is your inference and neither stated nor implied by me.

How is it not factually correct?

The existance of a faction within Taiwan that wants Taiwan to reunify with Beijing's China isn't materially relevant if they don't have any path forward to accomplish their goal.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#407

Post by jack_tripper »

alephnerd wrote: post #389
jack_tripper wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Actively disrespecting other countries who worked hard on developing such capabilities and assuming European nations should be on the "big boys table" is what is so jarring. Maybe there's a misunderstanding here, as there was no disrespecting anyone there with my comment, and I basically agree with your point. That doesn't change that people here want those cutting edge manufacturing and job opportunities the US has…

> That doesn't change that people here want those cutting edge manufacturing and job opportunities the US has. They don't want to be stuck competition with China in commodity widgets like cars or low margin 16nm-65nm microcontrollers You can't build an ecosystem for bleeding edge work without an even larger pipeline of non-bleeding edge and even legacy workflow. For example, it's 14nm that pays the bills for TSMC - n…

>Yet European Biopharma and chemicals engineering remains competitive despite having similar issues as a similar capex heavy industry with a significant IP component. It's really just an institutional issue.

Pharma is not a commodity nor resembling anything like "free market" competition. It's a crazy patent minefield, massive regulatory moat, massive state subsidies and government protectionism plus sometimes backroom deals between pharma and politicians. Nothing remotely similar to commodities like consumer software and hardware.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#408

Post by ghaff »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #391
ghaff wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could probably be said of many areas of the US (or other countries). Good outdoor recreation opportunities, some good local food options, but not a huge number of (local) employment opportunities or the nearby options that density brings. As you say, if you can work remotely, it may be fine but it's a different situation from working in a hub of whatever your specialty is.

> As you say, if you can work remotely, it may be fine but it's a different situation from working in a hub of whatever your specialty is. The question is: is that actually a problem with Japanese work culture? That would be a large problem in US work culture because there's no loyalty from your employer, so you have to be prepared to find a new job at any moment. But it certainly used to be the case that if you work…

Well, many of those BigCorps simply went out of business over the years. Kodak in Rochester was a pretty good bet until it wasn't. Not so much culture as business realities.

Japan has been more stable in that regard. More stability but probably also fewer real opportunities.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#409

Post by jack_tripper »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #382
jack_tripper wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides which military posts are legal and illegal? Then if it's decided it's illegal, who enforces that decision?

"Why's everyone scaremongering about China?" *reasons given for China being an actual threat* "Ah, but who's to say anything's illegal really, am I right??"

> reasons given for China being an actual threat

I never said they weren't a threat, I said they haven't done anything illegal. But with the reasons you gave, then the US is an even bigger threat to my country.

> "Ah, but who's to say anything's illegal really, am I right??"

You still haven't answered my question and are beating it around the bush with silly jokes.

And you know the answer, you just don't like to say it because it's not politically correct. Here, I'll remove your burden and say the uncomfortable truth for you: In war, whatever you can get away with, is legal. Similar to all the warmongering and meddling the US has done in the Middle East, Asia and LATNM. If nobody can hold you accountable and punish you for it, then it's legal. Same with China's actions. When you're too big and too powerful to be held accountable for your actions, nothing that you do can be illegal because legality is an artificial man made construct where the strong enforce their will on the weak, not an irrefutable fact of nature. This has been the US's MO and soon China's.

You might not like that it's like this, but IT IS like this. And you're not doing yourself nor anyone any favors by pretending it isn't like this.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#410

Post by mrguyorama »

boringg wrote: post #128
voidfunc wrote: post #2

Is Hokkaido defensible? Once China solves the Taiwan problem they're going to turn their sights on Korea and Japan.

What kind of line is "once china solves the taiwan problem"? You assume that they will take Taiwan. Have you not been privy to the utter embarrassment of a continental power trying to take Ukraine right now? China is very aware of the isolated situation Russia is now in. They have desire to be in that situation. Noone is letting China "solve the taiwan problem" like you said. Such inflammatory language.

The Ukraine invasion is the biggest boost to China's Taiwan invasion plan ever.

If the world reacts to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan the way we have reacted to Russia invading Ukraine, China will consider that a great victory, and might be able to take Taiwan.

If the US, Japan, and Korea do not commit fully to naval interdiction and blockading China from attacking Taiwan, Taiwan is likely to fall eventually.

China is not Russia. Xi somehow is not as utterly isolated from reality as Putin is. Putin didn't even know that Ukraine would resist, and was entirely convinced that Ukrainians would welcome them. China can build new equipment, and new modern equipment at that. Russia can barely manage to bring ancient tank hulls up to 2000s level and send them to the front line. They are also running out of old hulls to do that with.

China has a sizeable and meaningful air force, modern battlespace management that was shown effective by Pakistan's use in their recent conflict.

Is the current US admin actually competent enough to protect Taiwan even if they want to?

Post reply on HN