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I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. The difference in the product lifecycle is too big. A GPU has a 3 year depreciation cycle and continues working for well

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. The difference in the product lifecycle is too big. A GPU has a 3 year depreciation cycle and continues working for well over a decade after that, if I buy gas today I need new gas tomorrow. The market can react in the timespan of years, it can't react in the timespan of weeks, and having a product that isn't used up makes timelines more elastic. If we eliminate both factors by imagining a world where GPUs just stop working every three years and where AMD doesn't have time to ramp up production we'd be pretty screwed without Nvidia, and everything depending on GPUs would quickly grind to a halt. AMD sells a tiny number of dedicated GPUs compared to Nvidia, and right now they have no spare capacity

bdauvergne 1y ago
"everything depending on GPUs would quickly grind to a halt." is there any one thing essential depending on the existence of GPU processors ?
- Auracle 1y ago
  Probably not, but it would still absolutely crash the economy. All we “need” is food + water, shelter, and medicine (kind of). I’d guess people’s economic output doesn’t directly contribute to those.
- feoren 1y ago
  The word "essential" is lifting your entire argument for you. If "essential" means whatever bdauvergne on Hacker News decides humans deserve to have in their lives, and nothing else, then sure, GPUs are non-essential. But that's not up to you. You don't get to pick and choose what other humans deserve, what they want, and what they are allowed to have. That's all "essential" has ever meant: whatever I, the author, whose Word is obviously Divine, think Other People deserve to have. Why even bother using that word when talking about the economy? It's meaningless. Get rid of it and your argument collapses. People want GPUs.
  - bpt3 1y ago
    Or you could recognize that "essential" has a meaning in economic/financial terms, but that would entirely deflate the ad hominem attack you launched to avoid acknowledging that the answer to his question is: "Not really, with a few possible exceptions in some edge cases." There's absolutely a reason to differentiate between essential and non-essential goods when talking about the economy. Why do you think the US runs a huge food production surplus? Why do you think publicly traded stock sectors include consumer staples (essential goods) and consumer discretionary (non-essential goods and services)?
    - feoren 1y ago
      > Or you could recognize that "essential" has a meaning in economic/financial terms I do not recognize that. That is the point of my argument. A large portion of economics is rich people trying to justify their own greed as being moral. Classifying goods as "essential" vs. "non-essential" is a way of telling poor people what they're allowed to have, and always has been. A good goes from "non-essential" to "essential" only when rich people are worried they'll get guillotined if the poor don't have access to it. I'm aware that it has a definition in terms of what people are able to stop purchasing when their income goes down, or how consumption relates to income levels in general, but the former is a problematic definition for many reasons, and the latter does not actually coincide particularly well with the categories of goods people list off when they think of "essential goods". Humans in real life just don't respond to changing conditions the same way the little econs in your head do; they way you've decided they "should". Ever heard that humans don't "behave logically"? Yeah, that's economists with overly simplified models being annoyed that (mostly) poor people don't act the way that they've decided poor people should act. See the trend? Ask four economists write out a list of "essential goods" and you'll get five different lists. That is not how definitions work. Ask four mathematicians whether something is a Commutative Ring or not and they'll all agree. That's a definition. "Essential" does not have a definition. Its meaning shifts depending on which group the author of the Wall Street Journal op-ed you're reading wants to villainize this time.
      - bpt3 1y ago
- pletnes 1y ago
  Weather forecasting thus farming, fishing, logistics.

bdauvergne 1y ago

"everything depending on GPUs would quickly grind to a halt." is there any one thing essential depending on the existence of GPU processors ?

Auracle 1y ago
Probably not, but it would still absolutely crash the economy. All we “need” is food + water, shelter, and medicine (kind of). I’d guess people’s economic output doesn’t directly contribute to those.
feoren 1y ago
The word "essential" is lifting your entire argument for you. If "essential" means whatever bdauvergne on Hacker News decides humans deserve to have in their lives, and nothing else, then sure, GPUs are non-essential. But that's not up to you. You don't get to pick and choose what other humans deserve, what they want, and what they are allowed to have. That's all "essential" has ever meant: whatever I, the author, whose Word is obviously Divine, think Other People deserve to have. Why even bother using that word when talking about the economy? It's meaningless. Get rid of it and your argument collapses. People want GPUs.
- bpt3 1y ago
  Or you could recognize that "essential" has a meaning in economic/financial terms, but that would entirely deflate the ad hominem attack you launched to avoid acknowledging that the answer to his question is: "Not really, with a few possible exceptions in some edge cases." There's absolutely a reason to differentiate between essential and non-essential goods when talking about the economy. Why do you think the US runs a huge food production surplus? Why do you think publicly traded stock sectors include consumer staples (essential goods) and consumer discretionary (non-essential goods and services)?
  - feoren 1y ago
    > Or you could recognize that "essential" has a meaning in economic/financial terms I do not recognize that. That is the point of my argument. A large portion of economics is rich people trying to justify their own greed as being moral. Classifying goods as "essential" vs. "non-essential" is a way of telling poor people what they're allowed to have, and always has been. A good goes from "non-essential" to "essential" only when rich people are worried they'll get guillotined if the poor don't have access to it. I'm aware that it has a definition in terms of what people are able to stop purchasing when their income goes down, or how consumption relates to income levels in general, but the former is a problematic definition for many reasons, and the latter does not actually coincide particularly well with the categories of goods people list off when they think of "essential goods". Humans in real life just don't respond to changing conditions the same way the little econs in your head do; they way you've decided they "should". Ever heard that humans don't "behave logically"? Yeah, that's economists with overly simplified models being annoyed that (mostly) poor people don't act the way that they've decided poor people should act. See the trend? Ask four economists write out a list of "essential goods" and you'll get five different lists. That is not how definitions work. Ask four mathematicians whether something is a Commutative Ring or not and they'll all agree. That's a definition. "Essential" does not have a definition. Its meaning shifts depending on which group the author of the Wall Street Journal op-ed you're reading wants to villainize this time.
    - bpt3 1y ago
pletnes 1y ago
Weather forecasting thus farming, fishing, logistics.