64 ms·

There is nothing rare about rare earth minerals. The only thing is that it's expensive to extract them by American workers vs Chinese workers which is why all t

There is nothing rare about rare earth minerals. The only thing is that it's expensive to extract them by American workers vs Chinese workers which is why all the business went to China. The prices will have to go up in order for it to be "worth it" but now that it's a national security issue, maybe more effort will be put into this.

dingnuts 1y ago
it's always been a national security issue and I don't understand why it took the election of this chucklefuck to change things it's the same shit with high fructose corn syrup! everyone hates that shit, why did it take the Great Orange Menace (not to be confused with this website, the other Great Orange Menace) to get companies to realize that? I know that bringing up HFCS here is a big digression; there are probably better examples. It's just another "broken clock is right twice a day" issue from the current admin that is so obviously popular that I don't understand why it was never an issue before.
- isk517 1y ago
  Most likely because America has been in a political dead lock for the last 2 decades. Everything supported by one party is rejected by the other, everything that would benefit one state is a detriment to another, everything that would benefit the masses are extremely rejected by very load minorities. There is a strong man in charge pushing every button to see what happens, in the course of things it will turn out that at least one or two of them were far overdue to be pushed.
  - reenorap 1y ago
    It wasn't that they were fighting each other, they were working in concert with each other, like a dance. If the Dems say one thing, the Republicans say the opposite and vice versa, because they knew it would keep both of them in power. Now we have a true Agent of Chaos in charge that doesn't heed any of the previous rules and us peons will have to deal with the fallout from that. The biggest negative repercussions is that both the Republicans and the Democrats will be completely emboldened to do whatever they want now and we are going to suffer because neither party gives a fuck about us, they only care about maintaining their own power.
    - jm4 1y ago
      100%. The damage that has been done in just the past several months is unthinkable. It’s not going back to the old ways any time soon, if ever. The democratic republic experiment might even be over at this point. I’m beginning to believe the best path forward is a new constitution, which is absolutely crazy because I used to believe we had an extraordinary system designed with incredible foresight. It turns out it was full of holes and we mostly got by on the honor system. Sure, there have been lousy and corrupt politicians, but we never had a truly bad actor determined to sidestep every rule until now.
      - throw10920 1y ago
        The problem is not the Constitution. No democratic-adjacent political system can survive the majority of its constituents being apathetic and disengaged (as is currently the primary problem. Our current Constitution was designed to assume some measure of engagement from the citizens because that's a hard constraint that bounds all democratic systems. The problem is the citizens, which are chronically disengaged (a fact which has ample evidence behind it), not the legal framework. If you disagree, then feel free to point to a functioning democratic system at the same scale as the US that can survive 99% of its voters not caring enough to do anything more than spend 15 minutes voting once every two years, which is where we're at now. The only way to keep a democratic government is to keep Huxley at bay.
        SJC_Hacker 1y ago
        > hen feel free to point to a functioning democratic system at the same scale as the US that can survive 99% of its voters not caring enough to do anything more than spend 15 minutes voting once every two years, which is where we're at now What do really expect them to do ?
        vharuck 1y ago
        >The problem is the citizens, which are chronically disengaged (a fact which has ample evidence behind it), not the legal framework. That sounds like a problem with the legal framework, if it relies on millions of individuals changing their personalities and priorities. That's not realistic.
  - scotty79 1y ago
    Deadlock wouldn't be so bad to have is US wasn't in terrible shape before. Now this bad state is frozen.
- dwd 1y ago
  From 2004... https://inthesetimes.com/article/magnet-consolidation-threatens-both-us-jobs-and-security https://inthesetimes.com/article/magnet-consolidation-threat...
- phil21 1y ago
  These two topics are not remotely the same or even in the same league. In fact you could very easily argue that the reliance on HFCS which is native grown and keeps a huge amount of tillable land in production is a national security asset. It keeps farmers (and thus the institutional knowledge that can easily be switched to other crops in dire emergency) in business vs. importing a product from overseas to replace it. If the argument was removing sugar from most products - sure! But it's not like "banning" HFCS is going to change anything when you simply switch it out for beet or cane sugar instead. It's the sugar, not the slight difference in molecules, that cause the health problems. The only real health argument against HFCS is that it's so cheap it ends up in everything. But that likely has more to do with the war on fats from past eras than much else. I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole on this topic, but in the context of national security HFCS vs. Cane Sugar is a clear win.
  - kingkawn 1y ago
    No, fructose bypasses the insulin control pathways and is converted almost immediately to ldl fats that deposit and cause arterial occlusion leading to an enormous amount of health problems across the country.
    - jandrewrogers 1y ago
      With one exception, HFCS is lower in fructose than common natural alternatives. Cane sugar is 50% fructose. HFCS used in food is typically 42% fructose. Fruit juice is extremely high in fructose, whence “fructose” got its name. The HFCS used in sweetened beverages is 55% fructose, which is only marginally higher than cane sugar. The only way to avoid fructose is to avoid natural sugars. HFCS is created by taking a low-fructose sugar and modifying it to have fructose levels more similar to natural sugars.
    - parineum 1y ago
      Compared to what and by how much is HFCS higher in fructose?
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1y ago
  > obviously popular that I don't understand why it was never an issue before. Maybe previous administrations have been economically incentivized to not fix those problems. Perhaps those previous administrations didn't have our best interests in mind.
- Tangurena2 1y ago
  America's over-production of corn/maize is a direct result of Nixon. His administration knew how to deal with protesting hippies, but when farmers & housewives started protesting, the response was to heavily subsidize corn/maize production. With vast quantities of the stuff, companies looked to find uses for the stuff. Two books that describe the situation are Omnivore's Dilemma and Altered Harvest. The subsidies for growing maize/corn make it cheap, add in the tariffs on sugar imports and that explains why HFCS is ubiquitous. 0 - https://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/0143038583 https://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Mea... 1 - https://www.amazon.com/Altered-Harvest-Jack-Doyle/dp/067011524X/ https://www.amazon.com/Altered-Harvest-Jack-Doyle/dp/0670115... This book also explains why tea is the British beverage (and not coffee), or how the Irish potato famine happened. And it explains the source of the corn blight that caused rioting farmers & housewives - texas male-sterile cytoplasm was used by all the hybrid seed companies, so a blight that affected one plant affected 80% of the US corn/maize crop.
maxglute 1y ago
>There is nothing rare about rare earth minerals Many heavy rare earth, i.e. the strategic stuff, is actually rare in terms of economic extractable sources we know of, mostly ionic clays found in China and parts of south east Asia I think also Brazil. It's the same reason PRC is the largest oil importer even though on paper PRC has the largest shale reserve in the world (more than the US), their deposits are just very deep in the desert, technically extractable but not remotely economically to the point where it doesn't even make strategically (not for lack of trying). This without even mentioning behind behind in extraction tech.
- fpoling 1y ago
  China has started in recent years to increase production of liquid fuels from coal (essentially what Germans did in WWII but much improved). That competes with oil when prices are above 80. With that it makes no sense for them to even try shale as those will be more expensive.
wakawaka28 1y ago
Just about everything is a national security issue if you think about it. The military should be forced to buy things from domestic suppliers, at least some percentage of the time, to make sure that there are people and resources available to deal with a war. As a compromise, set a maximum rate of profit allowable to these companies after they recover their investments, to discourage monopolies and price gouging.
- fch42 1y ago
  A mandate for government orgs including the military to exclusively use "all domestic" suppliers is laudable but also subject to graft and corruption - companies need to compete to get into the "in" club and admittance will be "gated" by favouritism, political alliance, and whatever grease needed to get you into that club. And once in, you're always tempted to collude ... partition the pie amongst the "competition" while petitioning the government to grow the pie ... Yes, you _can_ try to regulate your way out of that. It'll result in a giant thicket of rulebooks, laws, procedures and processes. Exactly what a "slim" state would not want to see ... (I am not sure there is a perfect way out; "extremely strong" gating criteria though tend to always favour the incumbents, and a prescription of "100% domestic all the way through" is a strong gating criterion if I've ever seen one)
  - wakawaka28 1y ago
    >Yes, you _can_ try to regulate your way out of that. It'll result in a giant thicket of rulebooks, laws, procedures and processes. Exactly what a "slim" state would not want to see ... They already operate in a thicket of laws, rules, and procedures. These all need to adapt to the behavior of domestic and foreign businesses to achieve national security. I think my proposal acknowledged and presented an initial set of propositions to deal with graft. It's better to try than to let national security fall by the wayside due to idealism about free markets. I am very idealistic about them myself, but we see our foreign counterparts use this idealism against us strategically. They are not constrained by idealism.
    - necovek 1y ago
turkishdelight 1y ago
Plus the shit is dirty to extract. On the one a hand I'd rather export our environmental disaster, on the other hand I think we really need to eat our dog food -- but I'm not confident that any amount of dog folding will lead to much change.
- paganel 1y ago
  > On the one a hand I'd rather export our environmental disaster, That's what Europe has done when it comes to most of its industry, and that is a big reason why now we (I'm from Europe myself) have to buy stuff like weapons from the Americans.
  - scotty79 1y ago
    It still better to push out all industry then bring some back as needed than let it run rampant and deal with health issues in whole generations of people.
    - paganel 1y ago
      > some back as needed This doesn't seem to happen, at least not at scale.
Tangurena2 1y ago
The slag left over from the refining process is toxic and radioactive. In the US, we call those places "Superfund sites".

dingnuts 1y ago

it's always been a national security issue and I don't understand why it took the election of this chucklefuck to change things it's the same shit with high fructose corn syrup! everyone hates that shit, why did it take the Great Orange Menace (not to be confused with this website, the other Great Orange Menace) to get companies to realize that? I know that bringing up HFCS here is a big digression; there are probably better examples. It's just another "broken clock is right twice a day" issue from the current admin that is so obviously popular that I don't understand why it was never an issue before.

isk517 1y ago
Most likely because America has been in a political dead lock for the last 2 decades. Everything supported by one party is rejected by the other, everything that would benefit one state is a detriment to another, everything that would benefit the masses are extremely rejected by very load minorities. There is a strong man in charge pushing every button to see what happens, in the course of things it will turn out that at least one or two of them were far overdue to be pushed.
- reenorap 1y ago
  It wasn't that they were fighting each other, they were working in concert with each other, like a dance. If the Dems say one thing, the Republicans say the opposite and vice versa, because they knew it would keep both of them in power. Now we have a true Agent of Chaos in charge that doesn't heed any of the previous rules and us peons will have to deal with the fallout from that. The biggest negative repercussions is that both the Republicans and the Democrats will be completely emboldened to do whatever they want now and we are going to suffer because neither party gives a fuck about us, they only care about maintaining their own power.
  - jm4 1y ago
    100%. The damage that has been done in just the past several months is unthinkable. It’s not going back to the old ways any time soon, if ever. The democratic republic experiment might even be over at this point. I’m beginning to believe the best path forward is a new constitution, which is absolutely crazy because I used to believe we had an extraordinary system designed with incredible foresight. It turns out it was full of holes and we mostly got by on the honor system. Sure, there have been lousy and corrupt politicians, but we never had a truly bad actor determined to sidestep every rule until now.
    - throw10920 1y ago
      The problem is not the Constitution. No democratic-adjacent political system can survive the majority of its constituents being apathetic and disengaged (as is currently the primary problem. Our current Constitution was designed to assume some measure of engagement from the citizens because that's a hard constraint that bounds all democratic systems. The problem is the citizens, which are chronically disengaged (a fact which has ample evidence behind it), not the legal framework. If you disagree, then feel free to point to a functioning democratic system at the same scale as the US that can survive 99% of its voters not caring enough to do anything more than spend 15 minutes voting once every two years, which is where we're at now. The only way to keep a democratic government is to keep Huxley at bay.
      - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
        > hen feel free to point to a functioning democratic system at the same scale as the US that can survive 99% of its voters not caring enough to do anything more than spend 15 minutes voting once every two years, which is where we're at now What do really expect them to do ?
      - vharuck 1y ago
        >The problem is the citizens, which are chronically disengaged (a fact which has ample evidence behind it), not the legal framework. That sounds like a problem with the legal framework, if it relies on millions of individuals changing their personalities and priorities. That's not realistic.
- scotty79 1y ago
  Deadlock wouldn't be so bad to have is US wasn't in terrible shape before. Now this bad state is frozen.
dwd 1y ago
From 2004... https://inthesetimes.com/article/magnet-consolidation-threatens-both-us-jobs-and-security https://inthesetimes.com/article/magnet-consolidation-threat...
phil21 1y ago
These two topics are not remotely the same or even in the same league. In fact you could very easily argue that the reliance on HFCS which is native grown and keeps a huge amount of tillable land in production is a national security asset. It keeps farmers (and thus the institutional knowledge that can easily be switched to other crops in dire emergency) in business vs. importing a product from overseas to replace it. If the argument was removing sugar from most products - sure! But it's not like "banning" HFCS is going to change anything when you simply switch it out for beet or cane sugar instead. It's the sugar, not the slight difference in molecules, that cause the health problems. The only real health argument against HFCS is that it's so cheap it ends up in everything. But that likely has more to do with the war on fats from past eras than much else. I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole on this topic, but in the context of national security HFCS vs. Cane Sugar is a clear win.
- kingkawn 1y ago
  No, fructose bypasses the insulin control pathways and is converted almost immediately to ldl fats that deposit and cause arterial occlusion leading to an enormous amount of health problems across the country.
  - jandrewrogers 1y ago
    With one exception, HFCS is lower in fructose than common natural alternatives. Cane sugar is 50% fructose. HFCS used in food is typically 42% fructose. Fruit juice is extremely high in fructose, whence “fructose” got its name. The HFCS used in sweetened beverages is 55% fructose, which is only marginally higher than cane sugar. The only way to avoid fructose is to avoid natural sugars. HFCS is created by taking a low-fructose sugar and modifying it to have fructose levels more similar to natural sugars.
  - parineum 1y ago
    Compared to what and by how much is HFCS higher in fructose?
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1y ago
> obviously popular that I don't understand why it was never an issue before. Maybe previous administrations have been economically incentivized to not fix those problems. Perhaps those previous administrations didn't have our best interests in mind.
Tangurena2 1y ago
America's over-production of corn/maize is a direct result of Nixon. His administration knew how to deal with protesting hippies, but when farmers & housewives started protesting, the response was to heavily subsidize corn/maize production. With vast quantities of the stuff, companies looked to find uses for the stuff. Two books that describe the situation are Omnivore's Dilemma and Altered Harvest. The subsidies for growing maize/corn make it cheap, add in the tariffs on sugar imports and that explains why HFCS is ubiquitous. 0 - https://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/0143038583 https://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Mea... 1 - https://www.amazon.com/Altered-Harvest-Jack-Doyle/dp/067011524X/ https://www.amazon.com/Altered-Harvest-Jack-Doyle/dp/0670115... This book also explains why tea is the British beverage (and not coffee), or how the Irish potato famine happened. And it explains the source of the corn blight that caused rioting farmers & housewives - texas male-sterile cytoplasm was used by all the hybrid seed companies, so a blight that affected one plant affected 80% of the US corn/maize crop.

maxglute 1y ago

>There is nothing rare about rare earth minerals Many heavy rare earth, i.e. the strategic stuff, is actually rare in terms of economic extractable sources we know of, mostly ionic clays found in China and parts of south east Asia I think also Brazil. It's the same reason PRC is the largest oil importer even though on paper PRC has the largest shale reserve in the world (more than the US), their deposits are just very deep in the desert, technically extractable but not remotely economically to the point where it doesn't even make strategically (not for lack of trying). This without even mentioning behind behind in extraction tech.

fpoling 1y ago
China has started in recent years to increase production of liquid fuels from coal (essentially what Germans did in WWII but much improved). That competes with oil when prices are above 80. With that it makes no sense for them to even try shale as those will be more expensive.

wakawaka28 1y ago

Just about everything is a national security issue if you think about it. The military should be forced to buy things from domestic suppliers, at least some percentage of the time, to make sure that there are people and resources available to deal with a war. As a compromise, set a maximum rate of profit allowable to these companies after they recover their investments, to discourage monopolies and price gouging.

fch42 1y ago
A mandate for government orgs including the military to exclusively use "all domestic" suppliers is laudable but also subject to graft and corruption - companies need to compete to get into the "in" club and admittance will be "gated" by favouritism, political alliance, and whatever grease needed to get you into that club. And once in, you're always tempted to collude ... partition the pie amongst the "competition" while petitioning the government to grow the pie ... Yes, you _can_ try to regulate your way out of that. It'll result in a giant thicket of rulebooks, laws, procedures and processes. Exactly what a "slim" state would not want to see ... (I am not sure there is a perfect way out; "extremely strong" gating criteria though tend to always favour the incumbents, and a prescription of "100% domestic all the way through" is a strong gating criterion if I've ever seen one)
- wakawaka28 1y ago
  >Yes, you _can_ try to regulate your way out of that. It'll result in a giant thicket of rulebooks, laws, procedures and processes. Exactly what a "slim" state would not want to see ... They already operate in a thicket of laws, rules, and procedures. These all need to adapt to the behavior of domestic and foreign businesses to achieve national security. I think my proposal acknowledged and presented an initial set of propositions to deal with graft. It's better to try than to let national security fall by the wayside due to idealism about free markets. I am very idealistic about them myself, but we see our foreign counterparts use this idealism against us strategically. They are not constrained by idealism.
  - necovek 1y ago

turkishdelight 1y ago

Plus the shit is dirty to extract. On the one a hand I'd rather export our environmental disaster, on the other hand I think we really need to eat our dog food -- but I'm not confident that any amount of dog folding will lead to much change.

paganel 1y ago
> On the one a hand I'd rather export our environmental disaster, That's what Europe has done when it comes to most of its industry, and that is a big reason why now we (I'm from Europe myself) have to buy stuff like weapons from the Americans.
- scotty79 1y ago
  It still better to push out all industry then bring some back as needed than let it run rampant and deal with health issues in whole generations of people.
  - paganel 1y ago
    > some back as needed This doesn't seem to happen, at least not at scale.

Tangurena2 1y ago

The slag left over from the refining process is toxic and radioactive. In the US, we call those places "Superfund sites".