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Note that a similar effect has now moved into traditionally consumer markets as well. It started showing at the grassroots with hoarding toilet paper and whatno

Note that a similar effect has now moved into traditionally consumer markets as well. It started showing at the grassroots with hoarding toilet paper and whatnot during the first Grump catastrophe, but has now solidified with things like completely fucking up the market for computing hardware. I think I liked it better when the elites mainly conspired while playing mega golf - having that as the social attractor made for a naturally limiting effect on the imaginations of the people poised to do damage. If you would have gone to most coaches of distance-pissing teams (eg Gold Mansacks) in the 90's and asked for trillions of dollars to buy up all the RAM chips, you would have gotten answers on the order of "Kernel who?!". Now they're like "this guy looks like a serious nerd, we better not get left behind!"

pixl97 7mo ago
Eh, I won't say buying up of commodities to manipulate markets is a new things exactly. Hell, look up the "Onion futures act". I think maybe the change here is a more of an institutional collapse of government entities that would attempt to stop this.
- mindslight 7mo ago
  Another new thing is that the disruption is framed in terms of a purportedly productive-investment purpose, getting more people and capital onboard. Also with the coordinated irrationality there is a lot more momentum for priming a pump that will endure long term. Sure we can fantasize that all of these datacenter buildouts will go bust, leading to a glut of RAM and we can party like it's 2001. But does anybody think that will actually happen? I'd say the real upstream problem is the lack of new "thick" business creation. Which is a tough thing to analyze in terms of semiconductor fabs, as they are notoriously centralized-capital-intensive regardless. So I'm not looking to flesh out that argument in this context, but it does fit the anti-competitive less-efficient market pattern I've noticed across the board. The main pressure relief valve on the horizon seems to be China building new fabs, but that kind of demonstrates how our own Western-aligned market has eaten itself.

pixl97 7mo ago

Eh, I won't say buying up of commodities to manipulate markets is a new things exactly. Hell, look up the "Onion futures act". I think maybe the change here is a more of an institutional collapse of government entities that would attempt to stop this.

mindslight 7mo ago
Another new thing is that the disruption is framed in terms of a purportedly productive-investment purpose, getting more people and capital onboard. Also with the coordinated irrationality there is a lot more momentum for priming a pump that will endure long term. Sure we can fantasize that all of these datacenter buildouts will go bust, leading to a glut of RAM and we can party like it's 2001. But does anybody think that will actually happen? I'd say the real upstream problem is the lack of new "thick" business creation. Which is a tough thing to analyze in terms of semiconductor fabs, as they are notoriously centralized-capital-intensive regardless. So I'm not looking to flesh out that argument in this context, but it does fit the anti-competitive less-efficient market pattern I've noticed across the board. The main pressure relief valve on the horizon seems to be China building new fabs, but that kind of demonstrates how our own Western-aligned market has eaten itself.