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No. But I do want to limit the amount we reward NVIDIA for calling the shots correctly to maximize the benefit to society. For instance by reducing the duration

by gpm 2y ago

No. But I do want to limit the amount we reward NVIDIA for calling the shots correctly to maximize the benefit to society. For instance by reducing the duration of the government granted monopolies on chip technology that is obsolete well before the default duration of 20 years is over. That said, it strikes me that the actual limiting factor is fab capacity not nvidia's designs and we probably need to lift the monopolies preventing competition there if we want to reduce prices.

whimsicalism 2y ago
there is no such thing as a lump-sum transfer, this will shift expectations and incentives going forward and make future large capital projects an increasingly uphill battle
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> reducing the duration of the government granted monopolies on chip technology that is obsolete well before the default duration of 20 years is over Why do you think these private entities are willing to invest the massive capital it takes to keep the frontier advancing at that rate? > I do want to limit the amount we reward NVIDIA for calling the shots correctly to maximize the benefit to society Why wouldn't NVIDIA be a solid steward of that capital given their track record?
- gpm 2y ago
  > Why do you think these private entities are willing to invest the massive capital it takes to keep the frontier advancing at that rate? Because whether they make 100x or 200x they make a shitload of money. > Why wouldn't NVIDIA be a solid steward of that capital given their track record? The problem isn't who is the steward of the capital. The problem is that economically efficient thing to do for a single company is (given sufficient fab capacity, and a monopoly) to raise prices to extract a greater share of the pie at the expense of shrinking the size of the pie. I'm not worried about who takes the profit, I'm worried about the size of the pie.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    > Because whether they make 100x or 200x they make a shitload of money. It's not a certainty that they 'make a shitload of money'. Reducing the right tail payoffs absolutely reduces the capital allocated to solve problems - many of which are risky bets. Your solution absolutely decreases capital investment at the margin, this is indisputable and basic economics. Even worse when the taking is not due to some pre-existing law, so companies have to deal with the additional uncertainty of whether & when future people will decide in retrospect that they got too large a payoff and arbitrarily decide to take it from them.
    - gpm 2y ago
      You can't just look at the costs to an action, you also have to look at the benefits. Of course I agree I'm going to stop marginal investments from occurring into research into patent-able technologies by reducing the expect profit. But I'm going to do so very slightly because I'm not shifting the expected value by very much. Meanwhile I'm going to greatly increase the investment into the existing technology we already have, and allow many more people to try to improve upon it, and I'm going to argue the benefits greatly outweigh the costs. Whether I'm right or wrong about the net benefit, the basic economics here is that there are both costs and benefits to my proposed action. And yes I'm going to marginally reduce future investments because the same might happen in the future and that reduces expected value. In fact if I was in charge the same would happen in the future. And the trade-off I get for this is that society gets the benefit of the same actually happening in the future and us not being hamstrung by unbreachable monopolies.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > I'm going to do so very slightly because I'm not shifting the expected value by very much You're massively increasing uncertainty. > the same would happen in the future. And the trade-off I get for this is that society gets the benefit Why would you expect it would ever happen again? What you want is an unrealized capital gains tax. Not to nuke our semiconductor industry.
      - 2y ago
- salawat 2y ago
  >Why wouldn't NVIDIA be a solid steward of that capital given their track record? Past performance is not indicative of future results.
hluska 2y ago
So, if a private company is successful, you will nationalize its IP under some guise of maximizing the benefit to society? That form of government was tried once. It failed miserably. Under your idea, we’ll try a badly broken economic philosophy again. And while we’re at it, we will completely stifle investment in innovation.
tick_tock_tick 2y ago
> That said, it strikes me that the actual limiting factor is fab capacity not nvidia's designs and we probably need to lift the monopolies preventing competition there if we want to reduce prices. Lol it's not "monopolies" limiting fab capacity. Existing fab companies can barely manage to stand-up a new fab in different cities. Fabs are impossibly complex and beyond risky to fund. It's the kind of thing you'd put government money to making but it's so risky government really don't want to spend billions and fail so they give existing companies billions so if they fail it's not the governments fault.

by gpm 2y ago

whimsicalism 2y ago

there is no such thing as a lump-sum transfer, this will shift expectations and incentives going forward and make future large capital projects an increasingly uphill battle

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> reducing the duration of the government granted monopolies on chip technology that is obsolete well before the default duration of 20 years is over Why do you think these private entities are willing to invest the massive capital it takes to keep the frontier advancing at that rate? > I do want to limit the amount we reward NVIDIA for calling the shots correctly to maximize the benefit to society Why wouldn't NVIDIA be a solid steward of that capital given their track record?

gpm 2y ago
> Why do you think these private entities are willing to invest the massive capital it takes to keep the frontier advancing at that rate? Because whether they make 100x or 200x they make a shitload of money. > Why wouldn't NVIDIA be a solid steward of that capital given their track record? The problem isn't who is the steward of the capital. The problem is that economically efficient thing to do for a single company is (given sufficient fab capacity, and a monopoly) to raise prices to extract a greater share of the pie at the expense of shrinking the size of the pie. I'm not worried about who takes the profit, I'm worried about the size of the pie.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  > Because whether they make 100x or 200x they make a shitload of money. It's not a certainty that they 'make a shitload of money'. Reducing the right tail payoffs absolutely reduces the capital allocated to solve problems - many of which are risky bets. Your solution absolutely decreases capital investment at the margin, this is indisputable and basic economics. Even worse when the taking is not due to some pre-existing law, so companies have to deal with the additional uncertainty of whether & when future people will decide in retrospect that they got too large a payoff and arbitrarily decide to take it from them.
  - gpm 2y ago
    You can't just look at the costs to an action, you also have to look at the benefits. Of course I agree I'm going to stop marginal investments from occurring into research into patent-able technologies by reducing the expect profit. But I'm going to do so very slightly because I'm not shifting the expected value by very much. Meanwhile I'm going to greatly increase the investment into the existing technology we already have, and allow many more people to try to improve upon it, and I'm going to argue the benefits greatly outweigh the costs. Whether I'm right or wrong about the net benefit, the basic economics here is that there are both costs and benefits to my proposed action. And yes I'm going to marginally reduce future investments because the same might happen in the future and that reduces expected value. In fact if I was in charge the same would happen in the future. And the trade-off I get for this is that society gets the benefit of the same actually happening in the future and us not being hamstrung by unbreachable monopolies.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > I'm going to do so very slightly because I'm not shifting the expected value by very much You're massively increasing uncertainty. > the same would happen in the future. And the trade-off I get for this is that society gets the benefit Why would you expect it would ever happen again? What you want is an unrealized capital gains tax. Not to nuke our semiconductor industry.
    - 2y ago
salawat 2y ago
>Why wouldn't NVIDIA be a solid steward of that capital given their track record? Past performance is not indicative of future results.

hluska 2y ago

So, if a private company is successful, you will nationalize its IP under some guise of maximizing the benefit to society? That form of government was tried once. It failed miserably. Under your idea, we’ll try a badly broken economic philosophy again. And while we’re at it, we will completely stifle investment in innovation.

tick_tock_tick 2y ago

> That said, it strikes me that the actual limiting factor is fab capacity not nvidia's designs and we probably need to lift the monopolies preventing competition there if we want to reduce prices. Lol it's not "monopolies" limiting fab capacity. Existing fab companies can barely manage to stand-up a new fab in different cities. Fabs are impossibly complex and beyond risky to fund. It's the kind of thing you'd put government money to making but it's so risky government really don't want to spend billions and fail so they give existing companies billions so if they fail it's not the governments fault.