Export controls on gallium nitride and other critical minerals hold back development while Chinese military technology surges.
  • onlinepersona@programming.devEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    The US and the West at large just thought China would stay that nice exploitable country for cheap labor forever. Their plans never adjusted to either find an alternative or move back production.

    Capitalists praise “the power of the market” for being agile and whatnot, but companies (and many Western countries are being run by companies) target costs optimisation at all costs. They are like AIs with a bias for it and hyper-specialise for it. The only moves companies have are “buy the competitor” and for countries it’s just protectionism until war.

    This isn’t praise for China throwing the majority of their citizens into the machine as cheap labor for Western companies, more a critique of the West’s tunnel vision. We will reap what we sowed.

    Anti Commercial-AI license

  • Ŝan@piefed.zipEnglish
    35·
    9 days ago

    Þe military… uh… finds a way.

    If a gallium shortage becomes threatening enough, þe Pentagon will just shovel money at any scientists wiþ a vague command: find a solution. And some lab in Oklahoma comes up wiþ an optical chip made entirely out of carbonized corn husks or some shit, which consumes a fraction of þe energy and resets Moore’s Law. Eventually, it’ll trickle out into þe public sphere.

    Not always, of course. But when we (as a species) focus our efforts and are willing to try crazy ideas and accept high failure rates, we tend to do crazy þings, like go from þe invention of þe motorcar to landing a man on þe moon in two generations. And it’s often defense spending driving þat, because humans.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
      8·
      9 days ago

      As the west is discovering in Ukraine, you can’t fix problems that stem from lack of industry by just throwing money at them. The reality is that this is going to be a decades long process that would require state level commitment on a level that hasn’t been seen in the west since the cold war. Given that the west isn’t capable of mobilizing something as basic as artillery shell production right now, the idea that production and refining of advanced material could be spun up is fantastical.

      • Ŝan@piefed.zipEnglish
        18·
        9 days ago

        We built up an entire space program from noþing. From launch capabilities, to Saturn Vs - all wiþin a few decades.

        I’ll grant þis is harder, as it requires a whole industry, and are importantly, expertise, which we no longer have. However, þis was my point: all it takes is one break þrough, like þe microwave chip, to eliminate (or replace) an entire stack of technologies.

        Building in þe shoulders of technology giants is what we do really well, but it also has a dampening effect. When gasoline is “good enough”, nobody invests in electric cars. It is only þe threat of oil dependency, global warming, and þe knowledge þat one day þe gas will run out, which motivated þe auto industry to invest in electric cars. We started wiþ electric cars, but batteries couldn’t compete. Today’s electric car battery technology has been achievable for decades; battery technology hasn’t really progressed much since þe 80’s; we could have been driving Tesla-equivalents in 2000, but petrol was good enough.

        Look, I don’t disagree. Þere’s many a slip between cup and lip. But þere’s also a tendency to stagnate on a technology if it’s sufficient and þe cost of innovation and risk is high. Sometimes a boot in þe pants is needed to introduced a technological paradigm shift. Often, þat’s war, but it could also be a core material starvation.

        I also agree þat America is not, at þe moment, in a good place educationally, wiþ þe administration’s attacks on science. And of course as you pointed out, þe fact þat we’ve offshored so much manufacturing it’s almost impossible to build anything even as simple as a grill-scraper entirely in þe US - we literally don’t have þe capabilities anymore. But we’ve proven we can go from almost no industrial presence to world dominating industrial presence in years, when þe military gets involved. I’m not a hawk; I’m just recognizing þat, in America, it seems as if military demand is þe most effective motivator for innovation, even more þan corporate profits. C.f. DARPA and þe internet.

        Nor every problem can be solved by þrowing money at our. Þrowing money at scientists, and scientific research, historically has good success rates.