4 ms·

> In any case, they wouldn't exist if not for superior models they were distilled from. Doesn't matter: if they're good enough and cheaper, they'll sink the US

by palmotea 10mo ago

> In any case, they wouldn't exist if not for superior models they were distilled from. Doesn't matter: if they're good enough and cheaper, they'll sink the US model-makers eventually. The free market demands it. The US invented solar panels, and led in solar panel tech for a long time. Who leads in solar panel tech now? China has a playbook for de-industrializing its capitalist rivals. If we leave MBAs and free-marketers in power, China will "come to dominate all technologies, including A.I., and ... America [will] export little more than soybeans and corn" (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/opinion/trump-ai-chips-nvidia-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/opinion/trump-ai-chips-nv...).

jacquesm 10mo ago
The rate at which the deconstruction of the United States is progressing is very scary. It seems as if they want to make the former USSR look great, and every individual and institution that could do something about it is standing by with their hands in the air saying 'it wasn't me'. Tech dominance will be the least of the problem, that assumes a large variety of good outcomes where bad outcomes are now a real possibility.
- palmotea 10mo ago
  > The rate at which the deconstruction of the United States is progressing is very scary. It seems as if they want to make the former USSR look great, and every individual and institution that could do something about it is standing by with their hands in the air saying 'it wasn't me'. This kinda sounds like you're talking about Trump, but I think the problem predates him and is far deeper. If anything, Trump is a spastic reaction to the deeper problem. He won because his rhetoric gestured in the direction of fixing the problem, but he's too incompetent to pull it off (and the bulk of the competent people don't want to fix the problem for ideological reasons).
  - jacquesm 10mo ago
    Definitely not just talking about Trump. The failure is institutional, the whole thing is just incredible watching from the outside in, you've never had a more 'clear and present danger' to the USA and to the world order and all of the institutions that are supposed to protect against that are failing one after the other. This is how you go from stability to world wars. A couple of rich guys got together and decided they were going to redraw all of the maps and toss the rulebook overboard, and it is for the most part going their way. People are being executed and the useful idiots are falling over each other to defend it. If you had told me in 1999 that this would happen by 2026 I would have happily declared you mad, but here we are.
    - palmotea 10mo ago
      > A couple of rich guys got together and decided they were going to redraw all of the maps and toss the rulebook overboard, and it is for the most part going their way. People are being executed and the useful idiots are falling over each other to defend it. It's way deeper than that, though. It's stuff like US businessmen choosing to literally move the US's rare-earth magnet production capacity to China, teaching China how make them in the process (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/business/china-rare-earths-history.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/business/china-rare-earth...). It's the US knowing about it's rare-earth vulnerability for a decade or more but being completely unable to do anything about it. It's the US losing other strategic capabilities like large-scale electronics manufacturing capacity, and people being totally fine with that because "cheaper iPhones, more margins, good deal!"
      - jacquesm 10mo ago
        This short term thinking over long term thinking goes back a long time and is happening in other places as well. But the singular focus on destruction of what is a cornerstone of the stability of the Western hemisphere is absolutely unprecedented. And to see so many people falling for it, hook line and sinker. They are so blasted with crazy things that they no longer see anything strange at all about each and every day's happenings and they even jump to defend the absolutely indefensible, something that probably would have been - rightly - horrified by less than a decade ago is now perfectly normal.
SoftTalker 10mo ago
Once China's economy reaches a certain point, will not the same thing happen to them? I'm not sure who will be the next source of cheap/slave labor and lack of concern about negative externalities, maybe Africa?
- palmotea 10mo ago
  > Once China's economy reaches a certain point, will not the same thing happen to them? No, because it's not a problem of economic development, but political ideology. China's political priority is technological dominance and capability, and it views free markets as a tool subordinate to those goals. The US's political priority is financial wealth, and an extreme ideological attachment to free markets that overrides most other priorities. The US has an ideological vulnerability that China is well-positioned to exploit. This problem goes well beyond Trump, and has roots that are very deep.
  - SoftTalker 10mo ago
    Political priorities can change. As more and more Chinese become middle class or wealthy, they might view things differently from when they just hoped they had enough food for the week.
    - palmotea 10mo ago
      > Political priorities can change. As more and more Chinese become middle class or wealthy, they might view things differently from when they just hoped they had enough food for the week. Lest you forget: China is controlled by the CCP and is not a democracy. It will not affect political priorities if "more Chinese become middle class or wealthy" and "view things differently." The Chinese political system does not answer to them, and will only throw them a bone if there's a major threat to stability. You're echoing the 90s-era hope that free markets would bring political liberalization to China, but history has debunked that idea.
      - SoftTalker 10mo ago

jacquesm 10mo ago

The rate at which the deconstruction of the United States is progressing is very scary. It seems as if they want to make the former USSR look great, and every individual and institution that could do something about it is standing by with their hands in the air saying 'it wasn't me'. Tech dominance will be the least of the problem, that assumes a large variety of good outcomes where bad outcomes are now a real possibility.

palmotea 10mo ago
> The rate at which the deconstruction of the United States is progressing is very scary. It seems as if they want to make the former USSR look great, and every individual and institution that could do something about it is standing by with their hands in the air saying 'it wasn't me'. This kinda sounds like you're talking about Trump, but I think the problem predates him and is far deeper. If anything, Trump is a spastic reaction to the deeper problem. He won because his rhetoric gestured in the direction of fixing the problem, but he's too incompetent to pull it off (and the bulk of the competent people don't want to fix the problem for ideological reasons).
- jacquesm 10mo ago
  Definitely not just talking about Trump. The failure is institutional, the whole thing is just incredible watching from the outside in, you've never had a more 'clear and present danger' to the USA and to the world order and all of the institutions that are supposed to protect against that are failing one after the other. This is how you go from stability to world wars. A couple of rich guys got together and decided they were going to redraw all of the maps and toss the rulebook overboard, and it is for the most part going their way. People are being executed and the useful idiots are falling over each other to defend it. If you had told me in 1999 that this would happen by 2026 I would have happily declared you mad, but here we are.
  - palmotea 10mo ago
    > A couple of rich guys got together and decided they were going to redraw all of the maps and toss the rulebook overboard, and it is for the most part going their way. People are being executed and the useful idiots are falling over each other to defend it. It's way deeper than that, though. It's stuff like US businessmen choosing to literally move the US's rare-earth magnet production capacity to China, teaching China how make them in the process (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/business/china-rare-earths-history.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/business/china-rare-earth...). It's the US knowing about it's rare-earth vulnerability for a decade or more but being completely unable to do anything about it. It's the US losing other strategic capabilities like large-scale electronics manufacturing capacity, and people being totally fine with that because "cheaper iPhones, more margins, good deal!"
    - jacquesm 10mo ago
      This short term thinking over long term thinking goes back a long time and is happening in other places as well. But the singular focus on destruction of what is a cornerstone of the stability of the Western hemisphere is absolutely unprecedented. And to see so many people falling for it, hook line and sinker. They are so blasted with crazy things that they no longer see anything strange at all about each and every day's happenings and they even jump to defend the absolutely indefensible, something that probably would have been - rightly - horrified by less than a decade ago is now perfectly normal.

SoftTalker 10mo ago

Once China's economy reaches a certain point, will not the same thing happen to them? I'm not sure who will be the next source of cheap/slave labor and lack of concern about negative externalities, maybe Africa?

palmotea 10mo ago
> Once China's economy reaches a certain point, will not the same thing happen to them? No, because it's not a problem of economic development, but political ideology. China's political priority is technological dominance and capability, and it views free markets as a tool subordinate to those goals. The US's political priority is financial wealth, and an extreme ideological attachment to free markets that overrides most other priorities. The US has an ideological vulnerability that China is well-positioned to exploit. This problem goes well beyond Trump, and has roots that are very deep.
- SoftTalker 10mo ago
  Political priorities can change. As more and more Chinese become middle class or wealthy, they might view things differently from when they just hoped they had enough food for the week.
  - palmotea 10mo ago
    > Political priorities can change. As more and more Chinese become middle class or wealthy, they might view things differently from when they just hoped they had enough food for the week. Lest you forget: China is controlled by the CCP and is not a democracy. It will not affect political priorities if "more Chinese become middle class or wealthy" and "view things differently." The Chinese political system does not answer to them, and will only throw them a bone if there's a major threat to stability. You're echoing the 90s-era hope that free markets would bring political liberalization to China, but history has debunked that idea.
    - SoftTalker 10mo ago