Globalization is dead and no one is listening(interconnected.blog)
interconnected.blog
Globalization is dead and no one is listening
https://interconnected.blog/globalization-is-dead-and-no-one-is-listening/
251 comments
There are a lot of grumpy people who see a headline like this and say "good". From their perspective globalization is just a way for companies to export jobs to countries with looser labor standards that allow the corporations to treat them like slave labor and avoid environmental and ethical regulations in the host country while also killing off a whole job segment of honest union factory jobs that support a robust middle class.
I don't think undoing globalization is going to mean going back to the old ways. Personally, i think those well paying middle class jobs are gone, the status quo is too enshrined in the minds of business leaders, political thought (not just politicians, the populace) and the economy.
The end of globalization will be more of the status quo, but different, not how it was once was in the golden years after WW2. If i had to guess, same global companies, some of the workforce still making 10-100x the average salary but now many of the low-paying jobs simply onshored, maybe even furthering the socio-economic divide because you won't be able to buy an American-made 60" TV for $800 anymore.
The end of globalization will be more of the status quo, but different, not how it was once was in the golden years after WW2. If i had to guess, same global companies, some of the workforce still making 10-100x the average salary but now many of the low-paying jobs simply onshored, maybe even furthering the socio-economic divide because you won't be able to buy an American-made 60" TV for $800 anymore.
the "good old days" were a time when capitalism itself was made to capitulate to the post-war reality of an America that very much distrusted the idea of the free market itself. Major companies like GE and Dow Chemical bankrolled themed rides and attractions at Disney not because they had the marketing budget, but because most Americans emerging from the great depression and the new deal had found themselves accustomed to the concessions they had made during their time in the bread lines.
Americans had to be bought, in a way. Excellent pay, generous time off, and pension retirement was all on the table as industry bent the knee to capital that threatened slipping back into a pseudo-agrarian role after the war and in doing so rob the barons themselves of the capital they sought to exploit. By the seventies things had turned around. capital was eager to return to its former position of exploit, anyone from the WW2 era had been sufficiently promoted to leadership and their kids placated with the same, and Reagan-era liberalization could return the globe to various states of servile production and slave-classery oncemore.
The death of globalization is stymied by major hangovers of the cyclical crashes of global capitalism itself. in the eighties stagnant wages meant everyone got a credit card, and in 2008 amidst the credit crash it meant everyone got free money in the form of low and no interest. the red flag of the death of globalism should have been when equifax and other houses of the guild of credit made the shift to stop factoring medical bankruptcy at all as part of the credit report. another factor hindering globalizations death is the collective disinterest in considering real unemployment in favour of fanciful mathematic aerobics designed to appeal to policymakers and the very market such a KPI could inform. US unemployment judged at the U6 rate is more than six percent and compounded by other factors such as medical debt, undischargeable student debt, and once again stagnant wages and this doesnt even begin to cover things like COVID rent freeze debt and the chronic effects of the methamphetamine and opoid addiction crisis in the US still ongoing today. 2023 also sees the expiration of covid rental protections in numerous major states, which will likely drive up homelessness and unemployment oncemore.
Finally theres the rampant inflation that not even a return to Clinton era interest rates seems capable of stopping. So if anything we'll probably "bail out" globalism before we advance past it.
Americans had to be bought, in a way. Excellent pay, generous time off, and pension retirement was all on the table as industry bent the knee to capital that threatened slipping back into a pseudo-agrarian role after the war and in doing so rob the barons themselves of the capital they sought to exploit. By the seventies things had turned around. capital was eager to return to its former position of exploit, anyone from the WW2 era had been sufficiently promoted to leadership and their kids placated with the same, and Reagan-era liberalization could return the globe to various states of servile production and slave-classery oncemore.
The death of globalization is stymied by major hangovers of the cyclical crashes of global capitalism itself. in the eighties stagnant wages meant everyone got a credit card, and in 2008 amidst the credit crash it meant everyone got free money in the form of low and no interest. the red flag of the death of globalism should have been when equifax and other houses of the guild of credit made the shift to stop factoring medical bankruptcy at all as part of the credit report. another factor hindering globalizations death is the collective disinterest in considering real unemployment in favour of fanciful mathematic aerobics designed to appeal to policymakers and the very market such a KPI could inform. US unemployment judged at the U6 rate is more than six percent and compounded by other factors such as medical debt, undischargeable student debt, and once again stagnant wages and this doesnt even begin to cover things like COVID rent freeze debt and the chronic effects of the methamphetamine and opoid addiction crisis in the US still ongoing today. 2023 also sees the expiration of covid rental protections in numerous major states, which will likely drive up homelessness and unemployment oncemore.
Finally theres the rampant inflation that not even a return to Clinton era interest rates seems capable of stopping. So if anything we'll probably "bail out" globalism before we advance past it.
The "good old days" were a time when every factory in the world other than America's had just been destroyed in a massive world wide war. That's not happening again. We are never returning to "blue collar american workers create most industrial products the world consumes" and so we are never returning to massive demand for unskilled American workers. Even if the US completely bans imports low skill workers still wouldn't have the advantage they did in the post war era because every other country will continue to import cheap goods from china instead of expensive american ones.
Sure, that's probably true. But can we get back to "blue collar American workers create must industrial products a nation of 350 million people consumes?" Maybe we will have fewer TVs and fewer cars, and raspberries will cost $5 a quart because we'll be paying American-born workers to make everything and harvest everything. But if that gives everyone something to do and flattens the social hierarchy, that would be better.
> But if that gives everyone something to do and flattens the social hierarchy, that would be better.
It won't. It will just make 90% of people poorer.
It won't. It will just make 90% of people poorer.
You're getting downvoted by people who don't understand the difference between relatively poorer (which they won't be) and materially poorer (which they will be without cheap junk from overseas).
So sorta like the Soviet Bloc countries during the Cold War?
You're really optimistic. I do see a low but non-zero chance that some tensions between china/india/russia/middleeast with each other or someone else escalate into a wiping out of lots of factories, one way or the other.
Funny you should say that. I've seen an opinion in the wild that the USA saw German industry as a threat and thus blowing the pipelines was hitting multiple birds with one stone. The consequent energy policy between USA and Germany further penalises German industry.
> That's not happening again. We are never returning to "blue collar american workers create most industrial products the world consumes" and so we are never returning to massive demand for unskilled American workers
Not with that attitude.
Not with that attitude.
This makes for a great low effort narrative but I'm unconvinced the luxurious economic circumstances of those decades weren't just a result of the competition literally going up in flames.
There was NO chance any industrialized nation was staying stagnant or moving backwards after WW2 created all sorts of potential for further industrial progress. That's just a non-starter in so many ways.
There was NO chance any industrialized nation was staying stagnant or moving backwards after WW2 created all sorts of potential for further industrial progress. That's just a non-starter in so many ways.
I see what you are saying, but I think you're incorrect.
What's more likely to happen in my mind is that there will be fewer people running factories. Recall, right now slave labor makes up a large amount of what you use. To adjust for that, you'll have to maximize worker productivity.
That means more factories (potentially smaller and / or more generalized) and automation building various parts / equipment. Assembly often occurred in the host country anyway, so I don't see that changing too much. It'll be the tool and part making that'll have to return to places like the United States.
I do think cost of goods will be high if we don't loosen some of the regulations, we need to keep people safe, but I think there's a balance.
The reason people think it'll be an improvement has to do with competition. If there's a market for a set of goods here, it'll be filled. It may start off expensive, but as automation improves the process you need less workers and more machines. That's fine and eventually the product will be cheap to produce, but the people producing the good will be highly skilled (i.e. be well paid).
Where I'm living there's a lot of factories. Salaries range from 65-110k in the factory work, all of which would be considered good wages in an area where the average home price is $300k (with low taxes).
What's more likely to happen in my mind is that there will be fewer people running factories. Recall, right now slave labor makes up a large amount of what you use. To adjust for that, you'll have to maximize worker productivity.
That means more factories (potentially smaller and / or more generalized) and automation building various parts / equipment. Assembly often occurred in the host country anyway, so I don't see that changing too much. It'll be the tool and part making that'll have to return to places like the United States.
I do think cost of goods will be high if we don't loosen some of the regulations, we need to keep people safe, but I think there's a balance.
The reason people think it'll be an improvement has to do with competition. If there's a market for a set of goods here, it'll be filled. It may start off expensive, but as automation improves the process you need less workers and more machines. That's fine and eventually the product will be cheap to produce, but the people producing the good will be highly skilled (i.e. be well paid).
Where I'm living there's a lot of factories. Salaries range from 65-110k in the factory work, all of which would be considered good wages in an area where the average home price is $300k (with low taxes).
I think de-globalization is a long-term boon for automation (at least in the U.S), but it's not going to operate at the speed needed to replace 3 billion workers dropping out of the labor force. Automation usually requires a lot of painful experimentation and tuning by highly-skilled people before you get it working right, and the pace of progress is typically uneven and unpredictable. Long-term, it'll be great for the salaries of software engineers, robotics engineers, material scientists, process engineers, etc. Short-term, expect higher prices and shortages. Until we find ways to build things with fewer people, we will just have fewer things.
I'm also not optimistic about the American populace's ability to deal with shortages without rioting.
I'm also not optimistic about the American populace's ability to deal with shortages without rioting.
> Automation usually requires a lot of painful experimentation and tuning by highly-skilled people before you get it working right
A year ago I spoke to an Apple engineer who works on their manufacturing processes, who corroborated that. He said the reason they aren't fully automated is because human workers are still better at repurposing to new assembly lines making new devices than robots are.
A year ago I spoke to an Apple engineer who works on their manufacturing processes, who corroborated that. He said the reason they aren't fully automated is because human workers are still better at repurposing to new assembly lines making new devices than robots are.
They are still better, but no doubt teams of people are working on improving automation to the point where they are not better.
I believe, on a long enough timeframe, every product that can be produced and every service that can be performed will be done by automation/AI/robotics. It's the inevitable destination of the tracks we are currently rolling on. 1. An advancement in automation is made where something can now be done automatically that previously required humans. 2. Those humans no longer have a job. 3. Some of those humans re-train for a job not yet automate-able. 4. Goto 1. This cycle will repeat for generations and generations, probably for centuries. The jobs at the bottom of the skill pyramid will slowly be taken over by automation, and new high-skill, high-complexity jobs will be created towards the top of the pyramid. Humans will constantly be scrambling to get footholds higher and higher up the pyramid, before automation gobbles those jobs up too. The end destination: self-creating automation that can make and do anything. At which point, there is nothing left for humans to do.
If, by that point, we still have not gotten past our primitive economic system based on money-for-labor and private ownership of the means of production, then humanity will simply no longer function.
I believe, on a long enough timeframe, every product that can be produced and every service that can be performed will be done by automation/AI/robotics. It's the inevitable destination of the tracks we are currently rolling on. 1. An advancement in automation is made where something can now be done automatically that previously required humans. 2. Those humans no longer have a job. 3. Some of those humans re-train for a job not yet automate-able. 4. Goto 1. This cycle will repeat for generations and generations, probably for centuries. The jobs at the bottom of the skill pyramid will slowly be taken over by automation, and new high-skill, high-complexity jobs will be created towards the top of the pyramid. Humans will constantly be scrambling to get footholds higher and higher up the pyramid, before automation gobbles those jobs up too. The end destination: self-creating automation that can make and do anything. At which point, there is nothing left for humans to do.
If, by that point, we still have not gotten past our primitive economic system based on money-for-labor and private ownership of the means of production, then humanity will simply no longer function.
There is a lot of work where a human body + mind is cheaper and easier than automation and likely will be for the foreseeable future. We will need lots of human labor until you have embodied robots similarly adaptable to a human at <= $20/hr.
Automation puts downward pressure on wages/working conditions. But we must also consider globalization pushback and aging population pyramids that put upward pressure on wages.
Conclusion? Varies.
Automation puts downward pressure on wages/working conditions. But we must also consider globalization pushback and aging population pyramids that put upward pressure on wages.
Conclusion? Varies.
> Recall, right now slave labor makes up a large amount of what you use.
Citation needed
Citation needed
You've identified that slave labor happens in the US prison system and elsewhere, I think that most people would agree with this. I don't see any evidence that slave labor comprises "a large amount of what you use."
Well, no, most people don’t realize US is using slave labor. Most people believe China does, though, despite no proofs. Sadly, people are still quite disconnected from verifiable reality.
China does use slave labor, mostly in its prison system. Just like in the US. It's a marginal part of the overall economy. Just like in the US.
Yet people talk about China like it's an entirely gulag based economy.
Yet people talk about China like it's an entirely gulag based economy.
Perhaps because of the suicide nets? I get the Foxconn is not technically slave labour, but you must admit that suicide nets may give to the observer the impression that the gap is not that large between whatever it is and slave labour?
I lose workers to foxxcon all the time. They are one of the best companies in SZ to work for, with high wages and good benefits.. I dont think many people in CN would agree with your definition of what slave labor is
To note, I don't actually have an opinion on if foxconn is slavery or not, my point was that they can easily appear that way to outside disinterested observers purely based on "they have suicide nets around the buildings" because of the obvious implications thereof, and also the spattering of news stories that play up those implications.
> Well, no, most people don’t realize US is using slave labor
And they shouldn't, since the example you cited is 0.00048 of the US GDP.
And they shouldn't, since the example you cited is 0.00048 of the US GDP.
$11 billion of goods is a drop in the bucket. Not even close to a large amount of what anyone uses.
Just compare the wages of the people that work on the goods you consume with your local wages? And look at the lack of regulation in the areas where they work and the resulting pollution etc. It's obviously not fair that someone from another country has less rights than you. It's a kind of slavery.
Different countries having different standards of living isn't "a kind of slavery." Slavery is when people are forced to work and are not paid for their labor.
You're correct that it's not fair that people have fewer rights in some countries compared to others. For example, as an American, I have fewer labor rights than most Europeans. Am I a slave laborer?
You're correct that it's not fair that people have fewer rights in some countries compared to others. For example, as an American, I have fewer labor rights than most Europeans. Am I a slave laborer?
In what universe is that slavery?
Why are they necessary grumpy. Its kind of true.
Lets look at Apple for example. They tout and market ideas of privacy, green energy, recycling, progressive social values etc... In reality they use slave labor in India and China that adhere to very little environmental standards. They also are not unionized.
As long as the concept of a corporation is based on a legal obligation to maximize profit.. then "globalizing" this structure will not necessary "improve" the world on a social or environmental level.
Lets look at Apple for example. They tout and market ideas of privacy, green energy, recycling, progressive social values etc... In reality they use slave labor in India and China that adhere to very little environmental standards. They also are not unionized.
As long as the concept of a corporation is based on a legal obligation to maximize profit.. then "globalizing" this structure will not necessary "improve" the world on a social or environmental level.
Apple does include their supply chain in their labor & environmental reports: for example when they catch underage workers they get sent to school at the supplier's expense.
Many companies outsource their externalities but Apple isn't a good example of it.
Many companies outsource their externalities but Apple isn't a good example of it.
>Many companies outsource their externalities but Apple isn't a good example of it.
Agreed. In general, "flagships of their economic niche" companies in fat margin industries are generally on the straight and narrow. They can afford the luxury of ethics.
You wanna see bad behavior, look at bottom of the barrel companies in razor thin margin industries.
Agreed. In general, "flagships of their economic niche" companies in fat margin industries are generally on the straight and narrow. They can afford the luxury of ethics.
You wanna see bad behavior, look at bottom of the barrel companies in razor thin margin industries.
> Lets look at Apple for example
Would be great - just once - to read a discussion on HN that didn’t drag in an attack on Apple.
Guess that’s too much to hope for.
Would be great - just once - to read a discussion on HN that didn’t drag in an attack on Apple.
Guess that’s too much to hope for.
My friend works at Apple. He doesn't tell anyone, if he can help it. He says "in tech" and "I'd rather not say". I didn't believe why until I witnessed him mentioning where he worked at a social gathering. All interesting conversation, within ear-shot, came to a halt, with most proceeding to apologetically shit on Apple for the next 15 minutes. When we would move to a new group of people, someone from the previous group would end up bringing it up.
Seems like a great place to work, and do good engineering, besides the downside that you, apparently, can't tell anyone.
Seems like a great place to work, and do good engineering, besides the downside that you, apparently, can't tell anyone.
What kind of weird social gathering was this? A group of die-hard Linux fanatics? (And I say that as one myself) In most circles, especially "progressive" Americans, Apple is the tech darling. They *all* have iPhones and refuse to even look at Android phones because they don't want to have the wrong color circle in their SMS chats (SMS... how quaint).
> They all have iPhones and refuse to even look at Android phones because they don't want to have the wrong color circle in their SMS chats (SMS... how quaint).
This is a great example of the negativity he attempts to avoid.
This is a great example of the negativity he attempts to avoid.
They are the most valuable company in the world. Like it or not, it's entirely reasonable to use them as the go-to example when examining and/or illustrating the effects of capitalism.
> As long as the concept of a corporation is based on a legal obligation to maximize profit..
That's not actually true, and never has been. Corporate law is more nuanced and flexible than that.
If we're talking about how to improve the world using corporate structures, there are also more options, such as corporations with obligations to non-shareholder stakeholders representing the environment and employees human rights, for example.
http://in-houseblog.practicallaw.com/fallacy-of-the-duty-to-...
https://www.thesustainableinvestor.net/blog/2016/02/23/fact-...
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...
https://www.legislate.tech/post/does-the-law-require-public-...
That's not actually true, and never has been. Corporate law is more nuanced and flexible than that.
If we're talking about how to improve the world using corporate structures, there are also more options, such as corporations with obligations to non-shareholder stakeholders representing the environment and employees human rights, for example.
http://in-houseblog.practicallaw.com/fallacy-of-the-duty-to-...
https://www.thesustainableinvestor.net/blog/2016/02/23/fact-...
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...
https://www.legislate.tech/post/does-the-law-require-public-...
>> In reality they use slave labor in India and China that adhere to very little environmental standards.
I would also add a lot of US companies export their toxic waste to China and India as well - then tout how much better we're getting as a country tackling climate change.
I would also add a lot of US companies export their toxic waste to China and India as well - then tout how much better we're getting as a country tackling climate change.
Recycling as well. Most stuff like plastic can’t be easily recycled so they just ship it to China. It’s just cheaper to ship it offshore to be someone else’s problem.
This is a piece [1] 60 minutes Australia did, but all Western countries are doing the same thing.
[1]https://youtu.be/lqrlEsPoyJk
This is a piece [1] 60 minutes Australia did, but all Western countries are doing the same thing.
[1]https://youtu.be/lqrlEsPoyJk
That doesn't really happen anymore. China stopped accepting plastic waste because there was no economic way to recycle it, even using Chinese labor. The plastic industry talks a lot about recycling and even includes those helpful triangles on their products, but in reality the vast majority of plastics go straight to the dump, even when you wash them and separate them out into the blue bins.
There really should be a law against this kind of deceitful marketing.
But who is being deceitful? The company who marks their plastics for recycling as required by law? Or the governments who require people to spend time and effort separating their trash for recycling, and then just dump it all in the landfill instead of recycling it?
Ask people to explain how vehicles tires are made (from raw resource to manufacture and distro) and suddenly globalization makes sense - it's the only way toward the future. Subtext is required to discern what is good and bad about it.
We need to teach students of all ages some lessons about logistics and supply chain - not only will they better understand how the world functions but that there are career and business opportunities at every node.
We need to teach students of all ages some lessons about logistics and supply chain - not only will they better understand how the world functions but that there are career and business opportunities at every node.
> it's the only way toward the future
The primary matter is not globalization or no globalization, it's about what balance and for which countries and industries. These things will constantly shift back and forth, the pendulum will over-swing as it does.
Just because N amount of globalization makes sense, that doesn't mean the extent we have at present, and its composition, makes the most sense. And obviously that (what makes sense) will vary significantly by the national interest of a given country based on its culture and stage of development. The world is filled to the brim with competing interests and that will never change, some benefit more or less from more or less globalization.
The primary matter is not globalization or no globalization, it's about what balance and for which countries and industries. These things will constantly shift back and forth, the pendulum will over-swing as it does.
Just because N amount of globalization makes sense, that doesn't mean the extent we have at present, and its composition, makes the most sense. And obviously that (what makes sense) will vary significantly by the national interest of a given country based on its culture and stage of development. The world is filled to the brim with competing interests and that will never change, some benefit more or less from more or less globalization.
There's globalization-the-way-things-are-made-now, and there's globalization-the-neoliberal-trade-policy-that's-dominated-US-politics-since-the-80s.
The former's a fact, the latter's... less so, and has been pretty unpopular among voters on both "sides of the aisle" more often than not for the entire time it's been the driving force behind US trade policy (the donor and think-tank sets love it, though, is why it's persisted regardless).
Trump's the only big-two-party Presidential candidate I can recall in that whole time span who ran on strongly anti-neoliberalism (so, anti-globalization, in the pop-culture, colloquial sense of globalization) messaging, which worked pretty well for him since most R voters (and a good chunk of true-swing, and actually a lot on the left though they mostly wouldn't have voted for him for other reasons) more-or-less hate neoliberalism—regardless of the movement's merits, it's unpopular.
The former's a fact, the latter's... less so, and has been pretty unpopular among voters on both "sides of the aisle" more often than not for the entire time it's been the driving force behind US trade policy (the donor and think-tank sets love it, though, is why it's persisted regardless).
Trump's the only big-two-party Presidential candidate I can recall in that whole time span who ran on strongly anti-neoliberalism (so, anti-globalization, in the pop-culture, colloquial sense of globalization) messaging, which worked pretty well for him since most R voters (and a good chunk of true-swing, and actually a lot on the left though they mostly wouldn't have voted for him for other reasons) more-or-less hate neoliberalism—regardless of the movement's merits, it's unpopular.
And those people are in for an unpleasant surprise when this onshoring actually gets underway:
> In Morris Chang’s own estimation, the chips produced from TSMC Arizona may cost “at least 50% more” than the chips from TSMC Taiwan. Will TSMC pass on that cost to Apple or let it eat into its margins? Will Apple pass on that cost to consumers or let it eat into its margins? No one knows right now, but as TSMC Arizona starts churning out wafers, we will know soon enough.
Jobs back in America is great in the abstract, until you have to pay for it. If everything in your life costs 50% more, then your effective income has fallen by a third. Are people actually going to be ok with that? We'll see.
> In Morris Chang’s own estimation, the chips produced from TSMC Arizona may cost “at least 50% more” than the chips from TSMC Taiwan. Will TSMC pass on that cost to Apple or let it eat into its margins? Will Apple pass on that cost to consumers or let it eat into its margins? No one knows right now, but as TSMC Arizona starts churning out wafers, we will know soon enough.
Jobs back in America is great in the abstract, until you have to pay for it. If everything in your life costs 50% more, then your effective income has fallen by a third. Are people actually going to be ok with that? We'll see.
Onshoring is really directed at goods that some other country might use an economic weapon by restricting supply. 99% of stuff doesn't fall into this category. No one cares if coffee mugs and pens are made in China. So you wont see rises there. It's not really the end of globalization for the vast majority of stuff. Of the stuff that remains, you have to consider what fraction of the value chain is actually going to a "problem" country. Often it's the final assembly. On a mobile phone that might be $10 of the store price. So manufactured in a more expensive low wage country at $15, you probably won't notice. Some of the chips in a phone are not made by TSMC but are made in South Korea, so probably no change there. Apple's A16 chip is particularly expensive and maybe costs $100 to make. So based on that TSMC quote, that's an extra $50, but they sell the phone at more than $1000. That article also seems to imply that some of that added cost is insufficient worker availability causing expensive training costs. That may change if there's a steady supply of jobs available. It is possible to make low cost electronics in high wage countries. The Raspberry Pi is made in Wales.
> If everything in your life costs 50% more, then your effective income has fallen by a third. Are people actually going to be ok with that? We'll see.
This already happens with the non-outsourceable stuff that's more expensive (housing, medical, education, etc). So who TF cares if flat panel TVs or Phones cost more? Not me TBH.
This already happens with the non-outsourceable stuff that's more expensive (housing, medical, education, etc). So who TF cares if flat panel TVs or Phones cost more? Not me TBH.
Electronic garbage and (some kinds of) entertainment are basically the only things for which "globalization will bring down prices" has really delivered, at least in the US. Turns out it doesn't help with most of the stuff that actually matters, and might even hurt.
So a fry cook can save a little and put together an entertainment center that would have been the envy of the neighborhood—almost unimaginably good—in 1992. So what? They're facing a hopeless financial situation on every other front. I guess it's nice the 65" 4K TV, Switch, and budget surround sound system can provide a distraction from everything else being ruinously expensive and getting worse every year, with seemingly no end in sight.
So a fry cook can save a little and put together an entertainment center that would have been the envy of the neighborhood—almost unimaginably good—in 1992. So what? They're facing a hopeless financial situation on every other front. I guess it's nice the 65" 4K TV, Switch, and budget surround sound system can provide a distraction from everything else being ruinously expensive and getting worse every year, with seemingly no end in sight.
Its also a red herring. The reason costs went down is that this industry jumped on the same bandwagon as moore's law. Reducing the part count of items (compared to their 1950/60s counterparts) and handling a lot of tasks in a single piece of silicon that itself has been going down to 0 in cost is what really enabled the price of all this electronic stuff to become so cheap.
Lets compare a 1960s TV to a 2022 TV for example. In the 1950s you had the power electronics, the control circuitry for the tube, the tube, the audio circuitry, tuning, and possibly some control stuff (primitive OSD whether visible or not).
Now in 2022 you have the LCD panel which follows moore's law to an extent, a simple switch mode power supply to drive the TV(single chip solution also follows moore's law to an extent) and a single chip solution to handle audio, tuning, OSD and any special value add such as apps(also follows moore's law).
We should really exclude this category from the cost baskets as it is only serving to mislead.
Lets compare a 1960s TV to a 2022 TV for example. In the 1950s you had the power electronics, the control circuitry for the tube, the tube, the audio circuitry, tuning, and possibly some control stuff (primitive OSD whether visible or not).
Now in 2022 you have the LCD panel which follows moore's law to an extent, a simple switch mode power supply to drive the TV(single chip solution also follows moore's law to an extent) and a single chip solution to handle audio, tuning, OSD and any special value add such as apps(also follows moore's law).
We should really exclude this category from the cost baskets as it is only serving to mislead.
Right, I didn't bring it up in my post but obviously the March of Technology is (we are told) supposed to bring prices on that kind of thing down independently of the effects of offshoring.
I actually wasn't entirely fair—cotton and synthetic casual clothes are so cheap they're basically free, anything that can be made of absolutely terrible steel and stamped is cheap (really bad knives, terrible dining utensils that bend under ordinary use, that kind of thing), and so's any plastic shit without expensive IP/branding attached. I think that's all some mix of efficiency improvements (especially for the plastic shit—we put a lot less material in most plastic goods now, than we did in, say, the 1980s) and, maybe, some actually-beneficially effect of offshoring. Oh, and kitchen appliances guaranteed to break within two years because some nylon gear wears out and it can't be repaired for less than the cost of a new one. Those are cheap. Meanwhile, actually-good stuff is about as expensive as it ever was. Be rad if we could apply this alleged cost-savings effect of offshoring to, like, nice things that function well and last, but mysteriously it only seems to materialize in things that are also a level of quality so low that we didn't used to even have such a category. Or rapidly developing technology (consumer electronics). It's as if consumers aren't seeing the bulk of these supposed benefits from offshoring, and instead what price decreases/stability we do see are mostly from tech improvements and obvious quality decline....
I'd add that I think cost increases of onshoring are overblown. US-made goods in e.g. clothing often command a large premium, but that's because if you're going to use US labor instead of Vietnamese or wherever, you may as well also use better processes [EDIT: and better materials] to produce a higher-quality item, since you can't compete with poorly-made goods on price anyway (though, sure, some places try to cheat and turn out crap at US-premium prices while implying it's better than it is). For extremely price-sensitive goods like bottom-of-the-barrel T-shirts that wholesale at like $1, even a 10% increase in costs would mean you fold even if the absolute increase in costs of the article is pennies, so of course those aren't made in the US when there are other options.
I actually wasn't entirely fair—cotton and synthetic casual clothes are so cheap they're basically free, anything that can be made of absolutely terrible steel and stamped is cheap (really bad knives, terrible dining utensils that bend under ordinary use, that kind of thing), and so's any plastic shit without expensive IP/branding attached. I think that's all some mix of efficiency improvements (especially for the plastic shit—we put a lot less material in most plastic goods now, than we did in, say, the 1980s) and, maybe, some actually-beneficially effect of offshoring. Oh, and kitchen appliances guaranteed to break within two years because some nylon gear wears out and it can't be repaired for less than the cost of a new one. Those are cheap. Meanwhile, actually-good stuff is about as expensive as it ever was. Be rad if we could apply this alleged cost-savings effect of offshoring to, like, nice things that function well and last, but mysteriously it only seems to materialize in things that are also a level of quality so low that we didn't used to even have such a category. Or rapidly developing technology (consumer electronics). It's as if consumers aren't seeing the bulk of these supposed benefits from offshoring, and instead what price decreases/stability we do see are mostly from tech improvements and obvious quality decline....
I'd add that I think cost increases of onshoring are overblown. US-made goods in e.g. clothing often command a large premium, but that's because if you're going to use US labor instead of Vietnamese or wherever, you may as well also use better processes [EDIT: and better materials] to produce a higher-quality item, since you can't compete with poorly-made goods on price anyway (though, sure, some places try to cheat and turn out crap at US-premium prices while implying it's better than it is). For extremely price-sensitive goods like bottom-of-the-barrel T-shirts that wholesale at like $1, even a 10% increase in costs would mean you fold even if the absolute increase in costs of the article is pennies, so of course those aren't made in the US when there are other options.
The things that are "ruinously expensive" are also the things we can't outsource - housing, medical, education.
Onshoring doesn't seem to me like it will improve the domestic policies that make each of those unaffordable.
Onshoring doesn't seem to me like it will improve the domestic policies that make each of those unaffordable.
everything is a tradeoff, look at what happened during the Pandemic when we couldn't get ANY chips because of the supply chain issues.
For economics the tradeoff is between efficiency and resiliency. Global supply chains taking advantage of comparative advantage are efficient but can collapse from a single link in the chain failing. In this case the US is sacrificing cost efficiency for reliability.
Following your strategy is how you end up with Europe relying on Russia for energy, huge long term Black Swan potential in return for marginal savings in the short term
For economics the tradeoff is between efficiency and resiliency. Global supply chains taking advantage of comparative advantage are efficient but can collapse from a single link in the chain failing. In this case the US is sacrificing cost efficiency for reliability.
Following your strategy is how you end up with Europe relying on Russia for energy, huge long term Black Swan potential in return for marginal savings in the short term
> Jobs back in America is great in the abstract, until you have to pay for it. If everything in your life costs 50% more, then your effective income has fallen by a third. Are people actually going to be ok with that? We'll see.
This is a short-sighted, narrow view of what's possible for a superpower.
HN isn't going to like this answer, but this is how the world actually functions and always will.
First, everything isn't going to cost 50% more. Most things can reasonably remain unchanged in terms of globalization, imports/exports.
How about the US strategically breaks most of the world's supply chains re chips after we build up our own production domestically? It provides a new, enormous point of leverage to wantonly undermine other powers that don't have that positioning. What if Taiwan's factories get turned to rubble by an assault from China, while the US factories keep running and then export, at greater cost, to the rest of the world (as with US natural gas recently)?
It's the oil / natural gas / energy scenario now that the US doesn't need the Middle East's energy. There will likely come a time in the near future where it's beneficial to destroy the House of Saud in the style of Syria, to damage China and others (look the other way while a very violent civil war breaks out to topple the kingdom, wiping out the majority of their oil production). The US can afford a global energy shock in a way that most of the rest of the world can't, which has recently been demonstrated in the gap between the prices in the US and the prices in Europe due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
If the US can meet its own chip demand, new options open up strategically on the table for a superpower to damage its enemies. The US can better afford a conflict in and around Asia, the less it depends on Asia for eg chips.
Energy, chips, USD, weapons. Moats for a superpower.
This is a short-sighted, narrow view of what's possible for a superpower.
HN isn't going to like this answer, but this is how the world actually functions and always will.
First, everything isn't going to cost 50% more. Most things can reasonably remain unchanged in terms of globalization, imports/exports.
How about the US strategically breaks most of the world's supply chains re chips after we build up our own production domestically? It provides a new, enormous point of leverage to wantonly undermine other powers that don't have that positioning. What if Taiwan's factories get turned to rubble by an assault from China, while the US factories keep running and then export, at greater cost, to the rest of the world (as with US natural gas recently)?
It's the oil / natural gas / energy scenario now that the US doesn't need the Middle East's energy. There will likely come a time in the near future where it's beneficial to destroy the House of Saud in the style of Syria, to damage China and others (look the other way while a very violent civil war breaks out to topple the kingdom, wiping out the majority of their oil production). The US can afford a global energy shock in a way that most of the rest of the world can't, which has recently been demonstrated in the gap between the prices in the US and the prices in Europe due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
If the US can meet its own chip demand, new options open up strategically on the table for a superpower to damage its enemies. The US can better afford a conflict in and around Asia, the less it depends on Asia for eg chips.
Energy, chips, USD, weapons. Moats for a superpower.
It appears that this is exactly what has been set into motion. It also means that Europeans will at some point have to decide whether to regard the US as an adversary or not. I'm afraid the realisation will come too late, just as with Russia.
I think it'll mean that corporations will need to go back to making electronics, appliances, equipment, tools, etc. that actually last more than 3-5 years.
"Can't go and buy another TV off the shelf since they cost so much, guess I'll have to take my TV to a repair place and have it repaired because I worked so hard to get this one, and it's cheaper than getting a new one."
You'll see consumers want to get more lifespan out of their current devices/appliances/etc. and will be willing to pick brands that allow repairability, locally sourced parts, etc. etc.
"Can't go and buy another TV off the shelf since they cost so much, guess I'll have to take my TV to a repair place and have it repaired because I worked so hard to get this one, and it's cheaper than getting a new one."
You'll see consumers want to get more lifespan out of their current devices/appliances/etc. and will be willing to pick brands that allow repairability, locally sourced parts, etc. etc.
Estimates are an M1 processor costs about $50.
The original Intel processor (Core duo?) was somewhere in the $150-200 range, apparently, in 2006 dollars (but let's assume inflation doesn't exist).
So the CPU is already 1/3 the price, a 50% increase doesn't even get it close to what it had been in the past.
The original Intel processor (Core duo?) was somewhere in the $150-200 range, apparently, in 2006 dollars (but let's assume inflation doesn't exist).
So the CPU is already 1/3 the price, a 50% increase doesn't even get it close to what it had been in the past.
The price of things is so weirdly distorted at the moment because somethings can't be outsourced to cheap slave labor.
I can buy a new laptop for the same price as getting a plumber come and clear the roots from my drain.
It's cheaper to throw things out and buy new ones than repair them.
I can buy a new laptop for the same price as getting a plumber come and clear the roots from my drain.
It's cheaper to throw things out and buy new ones than repair them.
they may be grumpy, but, in fairness, they have a point
maybe that's why they are grumpy
maybe that's why they are grumpy
Let us unchain ourselves from the politics of globalization and then we can proceed forward. Trade shouldn’t be a weapon.
There’s also people in the right who say good. These people seem to be focused on geopolitical stability ie defense.
Something tells me GP meant to indicate tongue-in-cheek that the "grumpy" people are the people in the right ;)
These people also complain when stuff that was cheap isn't cheap anymore, and also when their own people don't want to work the crappy domestic jobs--one or two steps above slave labor--that imported labor did.
I'm not grumpy but companies do export jobs to countries with "looser labor standards" and perhaps treat employees like slave labor (or actual slaves!) but more importantly lower salaries. Other [competing] companies who didn't export their jobs will still have to compete in the same market. If the product involves enough labor we cant pay very good salaries. The other company must now do the same. It is like multinationals are not sneakily trying to avoid taxes, if it is possible and everyone else is doing it they must also do it.
The "robust middle class" is a misconception. Jobs just vanish which renders people without any income and it pushes salaries down where products are not very labor intense. It would be preferable to scale down all salaries to match those paid in other countries. At least people would have work! (which isn't actually all that important) The political wiggle room is not sufficient to lower the salaries to you know 1 dollar-ish per day or anything in that direction.
The real issue is that people in all those other countries get to elect or otherwise install their own law makers or dictators. We have been unable to manufacture good law makers, dictators and other rules. They are of unbearably low quality, their price can be in the hundreds of millions of lives. You would think at prices that high you would get a decent product but nothing could be further from the truth.
You could have their country men make your pants, your shoes, your computer, your food, your bed, your car, your... your... everything and they will do it really cheap, big profit margins for the companies.
And then, one day, it all ends or it might not end but they may make any demand, however insane the implications you would have to suck it up or at least consider sucking it up with the alternative being no pants, no shoes, no computer, no food, no bed and no car - all simultaneously!
We are currently trying the no gas thing here in the EU. It seems an obvious problem but then prices are going all the way up even in countries that produce their own gas!?
Not having pants or shoes might be the least of your problems.
I'm not grumpy, I'm confused people trust Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin that much. They logically have no reason to.
What you want is a world where each country can take care of it self and, if a crisis or natural disaster strikes we can be there for them.
If any one crazy ruler can take the whole world down the abys you would have to wonder why we build it like that?
The "robust middle class" is a misconception. Jobs just vanish which renders people without any income and it pushes salaries down where products are not very labor intense. It would be preferable to scale down all salaries to match those paid in other countries. At least people would have work! (which isn't actually all that important) The political wiggle room is not sufficient to lower the salaries to you know 1 dollar-ish per day or anything in that direction.
The real issue is that people in all those other countries get to elect or otherwise install their own law makers or dictators. We have been unable to manufacture good law makers, dictators and other rules. They are of unbearably low quality, their price can be in the hundreds of millions of lives. You would think at prices that high you would get a decent product but nothing could be further from the truth.
You could have their country men make your pants, your shoes, your computer, your food, your bed, your car, your... your... everything and they will do it really cheap, big profit margins for the companies.
And then, one day, it all ends or it might not end but they may make any demand, however insane the implications you would have to suck it up or at least consider sucking it up with the alternative being no pants, no shoes, no computer, no food, no bed and no car - all simultaneously!
We are currently trying the no gas thing here in the EU. It seems an obvious problem but then prices are going all the way up even in countries that produce their own gas!?
Not having pants or shoes might be the least of your problems.
I'm not grumpy, I'm confused people trust Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin that much. They logically have no reason to.
What you want is a world where each country can take care of it self and, if a crisis or natural disaster strikes we can be there for them.
If any one crazy ruler can take the whole world down the abys you would have to wonder why we build it like that?
> No American, or any Western media outlet for that matter, bothered to cover this speech. Only Nikkei and a handful of Taiwanese outlets wrote about it.
There were highlights of the speech, including "Globalization is almost dead" and "Free trade is almost dead" quotes, reported in the New York Times, which is where I first read about it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/technology/tsmc-chips-fac...
There were highlights of the speech, including "Globalization is almost dead" and "Free trade is almost dead" quotes, reported in the New York Times, which is where I first read about it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/technology/tsmc-chips-fac...
Globalization and free trade are dead because most of the promised benefits for the west failed to materialize. Yes, we got significantly cheaper goods, but one of the major promises was that free trade would liberalize the world. Instead, China has taken all the benefits and used our money to build a system of oppression that would make George Orwell blush.
Globalization will live on, but only for countries who align themselves with the west.
Globalization will live on, but only for countries who align themselves with the west.
The promise of globalization was primarily about improving economic efficiencies, not liberalization. Has it succeeded in that regard?
Given the extremely myopic system under which our largest corporations (in America) operate, they've engaged in globalization in a way that largely maximized short-term benefit (to them) without regard for the long-term externalities. It's a shame that globalization had to be given a bad name by being executed poorly.
Given the extremely myopic system under which our largest corporations (in America) operate, they've engaged in globalization in a way that largely maximized short-term benefit (to them) without regard for the long-term externalities. It's a shame that globalization had to be given a bad name by being executed poorly.
> The promise of globalization was primarily about improving economic efficiencies, not liberalization. Has it succeeded in that regard?
Another goal in which it succeeded was in preventing major wars between the superpowers. US and China are so co-dependent in their economies that they can't declare war against each other. Russia less so, but, still, they can only engage through proxy wars.
Where it failed is that these long supply chains are incredibly brittle and chaotic - a major shock puts the system in cascading collapse and it takes years to recover it to a workable state. This TSMC investment is a response to those collapsed long chains.
Another failure was the promise to deliver better living standards to everyone. What happened is that industrial jobs in the developed countries were shipped to developing ones, favoring places where labor is so unregulated that it looks like indentured servitude.
Another goal in which it succeeded was in preventing major wars between the superpowers. US and China are so co-dependent in their economies that they can't declare war against each other. Russia less so, but, still, they can only engage through proxy wars.
Where it failed is that these long supply chains are incredibly brittle and chaotic - a major shock puts the system in cascading collapse and it takes years to recover it to a workable state. This TSMC investment is a response to those collapsed long chains.
Another failure was the promise to deliver better living standards to everyone. What happened is that industrial jobs in the developed countries were shipped to developing ones, favoring places where labor is so unregulated that it looks like indentured servitude.
I agree with you up until the last sentence, which reads exactly like American communists decrying Stalinist purges only insofar as it has given "true Communism" a bad name. The theoretical promises of some -ism are really only as good as their execution.
Eh, there is some truth to that too... Communism is great if you don't have bad actors, that's also why small scale attempts are often loved by participants. It just breaks apart if you're trying to apply it to large nations.
It's also good to remember that the person that's often credited for socialism, Carl Marx, didn't actually have a hand in it's creation as far as I know. He only wrote about what capitalism will cause, and his predictions were pretty much spot on.
From acknowledging these issues, socialism was created... But the person that created it wanted to be in power, so it created way bigger issues then the ones they addressed.
It's also good to remember that the person that's often credited for socialism, Carl Marx, didn't actually have a hand in it's creation as far as I know. He only wrote about what capitalism will cause, and his predictions were pretty much spot on.
From acknowledging these issues, socialism was created... But the person that created it wanted to be in power, so it created way bigger issues then the ones they addressed.
> "true Communism"
A typical true Scotsman fallacy. Pretty much the only good thing about communism was that the fear of it generally pushed the capitalism in the direction of a better, more socially-aware, self.
A typical true Scotsman fallacy. Pretty much the only good thing about communism was that the fear of it generally pushed the capitalism in the direction of a better, more socially-aware, self.
Well, how does futurism fit into this statement? After all, it is about the future so eternally theoretical.
The difference is that Communism promised to distribute power to the proletariat, but that has been a complete failure with every iteration. Globalization has improved economic efficiencies and dramatically increased the standard of living in Asia.
Communism didn't even happen where Marx predicted it. He thought rich countries would spearhead it.
Contrary to popular belief, the US is socialist. Many people live on income received from the government.
Socialism is when the workers own the means of production. What you’re describing is a welfare state, which is a feature of every capitalist society that I’m aware of.
Is there a meaningful difference between receiving the benefits of the means of production through a vote and owning them outright?
Yes, incredibly significant. That is why the systems are different.
Describe how it differs for an ignoramus like me
> The promise of globalization was primarily about improving economic efficiencies, not liberalization.
At the time, it was presented to the public as both. Inseparable. Liberalism was development. Development was liberalism. Besides the Communist Bloc, whose actual degree of development was rather questionable, no significant counter-examples existed at the time, and most recent political liberalizations had been followed by drastic and rapid economic growth as the country integrated into global capitalism. So it was a logical enough hypothesis. It was also the guarantor of global peace, supposedly.
This is a quote from Stephen Harper, former Prime Minister of Canada from a speech he gave at the United Nations in 2014 extolling the virtues of free trade:
> [...] We also believe that they are the necessary foundation for a better world for more people, necessary for prosperity, and with prosperity comes hope, and with hope, the greater inclination of free peoples everywhere to find peaceful solutions to the things that divide them.
> Indeed, we believe that freedom, prosperity and peace form a virtuous circle.
Similarly, Bill Clinton, former US President, on why China should join the WTO in 2000:
> The change this agreement can bring from outside is quite extraordinary. But I think you could make an argument that it will be nothing compared to the changes that this agreement will spark from the inside out in China. By joining the W.T.O., China is not simply agreeing to import more of our products. It is agreeing to import one of democracy’s most cherished values, economic freedom. The more China liberalizes its economy, the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people — their initiative, their imagination, their remarkable spirit of enterprise. And when individuals have the power, not just to dream, but to realize their dreams, they will demand a greater say….
> State-run workplaces also operated the schools where they sent their children, the clinics where they received health care, the stores where they bought food. That system was a big source of the Communist Party’s power. Now people are leaving those firms, and when China joins the W.T.O., they will leave them faster. The Chinese government no longer will be everyone’s employer, landlord, shopkeeper and nanny all rolled into one. It will have fewer instruments, therefore, with which to control people’s lives. And that may lead to very profound change. The genie of freedom will not go back into the bottle. As Justice Earl Warren once said, liberty is the most contagious force in the world.
There it is stated openly as the justification for free trade. Trade will destroy authoritarian state control from within, expose people to freedom, which they will then demand, and that is why free trade with China is in the USA's best interests.
Liberals (by which I mean essentially all mainstream politics in the West today) have, historically, believed this. The economic pattern and means of production define the social and political environment. Opening up to trade meant opening up to new ideas which would necessarily bring liberalism. I used to devoutly believe this myself! Our politicians, I think, actually believed it, possibly wishful thinking.
At the time, it was presented to the public as both. Inseparable. Liberalism was development. Development was liberalism. Besides the Communist Bloc, whose actual degree of development was rather questionable, no significant counter-examples existed at the time, and most recent political liberalizations had been followed by drastic and rapid economic growth as the country integrated into global capitalism. So it was a logical enough hypothesis. It was also the guarantor of global peace, supposedly.
This is a quote from Stephen Harper, former Prime Minister of Canada from a speech he gave at the United Nations in 2014 extolling the virtues of free trade:
> [...] We also believe that they are the necessary foundation for a better world for more people, necessary for prosperity, and with prosperity comes hope, and with hope, the greater inclination of free peoples everywhere to find peaceful solutions to the things that divide them.
> Indeed, we believe that freedom, prosperity and peace form a virtuous circle.
Similarly, Bill Clinton, former US President, on why China should join the WTO in 2000:
> The change this agreement can bring from outside is quite extraordinary. But I think you could make an argument that it will be nothing compared to the changes that this agreement will spark from the inside out in China. By joining the W.T.O., China is not simply agreeing to import more of our products. It is agreeing to import one of democracy’s most cherished values, economic freedom. The more China liberalizes its economy, the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people — their initiative, their imagination, their remarkable spirit of enterprise. And when individuals have the power, not just to dream, but to realize their dreams, they will demand a greater say….
> State-run workplaces also operated the schools where they sent their children, the clinics where they received health care, the stores where they bought food. That system was a big source of the Communist Party’s power. Now people are leaving those firms, and when China joins the W.T.O., they will leave them faster. The Chinese government no longer will be everyone’s employer, landlord, shopkeeper and nanny all rolled into one. It will have fewer instruments, therefore, with which to control people’s lives. And that may lead to very profound change. The genie of freedom will not go back into the bottle. As Justice Earl Warren once said, liberty is the most contagious force in the world.
There it is stated openly as the justification for free trade. Trade will destroy authoritarian state control from within, expose people to freedom, which they will then demand, and that is why free trade with China is in the USA's best interests.
Liberals (by which I mean essentially all mainstream politics in the West today) have, historically, believed this. The economic pattern and means of production define the social and political environment. Opening up to trade meant opening up to new ideas which would necessarily bring liberalism. I used to devoutly believe this myself! Our politicians, I think, actually believed it, possibly wishful thinking.
We got much more out of it than China at first; basically thanks to a modern version of slave labor. We were just short sighted to think that would work forever and for some reason that doesn't really seem to be changing as we just dig in deeper into our old ideas.
I suspect the answer to this question depends on if you are the upper middle class 'knowledge worker' that benefited greatly and achieved the American dream in the 21st century or a middle/lower middle class factory worker that now has a destroyed family legacy(due to drugs/suicide), a destroyed community, and an uncertain if any future.
Don't worry, corporatism will come for the knowledge workers. Upper management is already asking how we can incorporate ChatGPT into our workflow.
ChatGPT is still not a meaningful threat because knowledge workers are paid to do things with the knowledge, not merely know things.
As well, there has been zero progress towards eliminating the need for a knowledgeable human participant to converse with the bot. A chat bot will, by definition, always need a human to push the conversation forward and that's the heavy lifting of the whole thing really. I have never seen an example of a chat bot questioning whether the human's query even makes sense let alone dispense constructive advice.
ChatGPT replaces use cases where Google was always a bad fit, not knowledge workers.
As well, there has been zero progress towards eliminating the need for a knowledgeable human participant to converse with the bot. A chat bot will, by definition, always need a human to push the conversation forward and that's the heavy lifting of the whole thing really. I have never seen an example of a chat bot questioning whether the human's query even makes sense let alone dispense constructive advice.
ChatGPT replaces use cases where Google was always a bad fit, not knowledge workers.
Every time industrialization, automation, robotics, and now AI, makes a great leap in capability, from being able to do Task A to being able to do both Task A and Task B, someone is always there to point out "Well it can't yet do Task C or Task D, so it's not a meaningful threat!"
That is certainly the 10,000 ft view, but my experience has been that knowledge work is mostly about achieving consistency and agreement. Implementation is absolutely not independent from defining/discovering the requirements with this type of work. They're basically the same thing.
We shall see :)
We shall see :)
ChatGPT isn't stable tech. It has been improving dramatically and qualitatively in its short life.
Its interfaces are currently quite primitive too, so its current value may be underrated.
I would love to be able to edit an outline, while watching a filled out essay update side-by-side. The ability to tweak the outline, add hints, and tweak wording or completely take responsibility for particular sentences or paragraphs in the produced essay, would be a massive time saver, and productivity multiplier.
Note that demand for documentation tends to be a secondary, not primary, concern of the products they serve. So demand for documentation is not likely to grow dramatically just because documentation got vastly cheaper to write.
In other words, a productivity bump like this could eliminate a lot of jobs in just one category of knowledge work.
Add in the ability to use sibling tech to generate lively images, diagrams, figures ...
And translate ...
Note that the outline prompts, and other prompts, used to generate a document this way would be orders of magnitude easier to refactor to reflect future changes, than a manually written document ...
Its interfaces are currently quite primitive too, so its current value may be underrated.
I would love to be able to edit an outline, while watching a filled out essay update side-by-side. The ability to tweak the outline, add hints, and tweak wording or completely take responsibility for particular sentences or paragraphs in the produced essay, would be a massive time saver, and productivity multiplier.
Note that demand for documentation tends to be a secondary, not primary, concern of the products they serve. So demand for documentation is not likely to grow dramatically just because documentation got vastly cheaper to write.
In other words, a productivity bump like this could eliminate a lot of jobs in just one category of knowledge work.
Add in the ability to use sibling tech to generate lively images, diagrams, figures ...
And translate ...
Note that the outline prompts, and other prompts, used to generate a document this way would be orders of magnitude easier to refactor to reflect future changes, than a manually written document ...
Oh I don't deny that at all. I believe this whole Twitter saga is a test to see if vultures can start buying up tech companies, slash them to the bone, extract all the value and then let the zombie company loose into the world to die off. So far it looks like its working (but way too early to tell).
Twitter should have auctioned off its work force instead of layoffs.
Don’t they have a gross imbalance of H1B? Isn’t there a ratio they are supposed to stay above?
Don’t they have a gross imbalance of H1B? Isn’t there a ratio they are supposed to stay above?
I believe upper management should be more afraid of ChatGPT than any knowledge worker ever will lmao
It already did, H1-B is how it started. Now it's offshore contractors.
> Expected liberalisation. Instead China has built a sotalitarian state
> version of slave labor. We... thought that would work forever
We expected forever slavery and freedom simultaneously.. Sounds like our typical hypocracy. This checks out
> version of slave labor. We... thought that would work forever
We expected forever slavery and freedom simultaneously.. Sounds like our typical hypocracy. This checks out
> hypocracy
An excellent word, you just invented!
An excellent word, you just invented!
I think we're about to find out just what globalization did for us. Globalization is what held down consumer prices as unprecedented amounts of money were injected into the global financial system over the last 13 years. Globalization solved our garbage problem - many municipalities are no longer offering recycling now that we can't ship it to China to dump in their fields. Globalization made the Internet much more useful - how many of you are fans of Factorio, Telegram, or World of Warships (all developed in former eastern bloc countries), or Alibaba or TikTok (both Chinese)? Globalization has led to unprecedented global peace over the last 30 years.
I suspect that once de-globalization really starts rolling along, we're going to see economic dislocations that are civilization-destroying. We won't get nation-states, we'll get civil unrest, regional secession efforts, anarchy, and war. Then some new form of political organization will arise, but I doubt it'll be either nation-states or globalization.
I suspect that once de-globalization really starts rolling along, we're going to see economic dislocations that are civilization-destroying. We won't get nation-states, we'll get civil unrest, regional secession efforts, anarchy, and war. Then some new form of political organization will arise, but I doubt it'll be either nation-states or globalization.
> Globalization has led to unprecedented global peace over the last 30 years
Millions of people worked towards peace, peacekeepers, activists, anti-war protesters, diplomats, lawyers, soldiers, etc. Many have laid down their lives.
It's offensive. and disrespectfull for purely commercial interests to claim all the credit. There is not even a rational argument provided beyong a correlation.
Maybe it's the other way round global peace has allowed globalisation. And it hasn't stopped Russia.
> unprecedented amounts of money were injected into the global financial system over the last 13 years
Every time I see a person that complains about government printing money, they can never answer how is money supply supposed to grow along with economy to enable economic expansion? The only mechanism is government printing money or banks creating loans
Also do you know that many governments owe like 30% of their debt to themselves?
'HM Treasury owes £2.1trn to holders of British government securities, of which approximately £745bn is owed to the Bank of England'
Millions of people worked towards peace, peacekeepers, activists, anti-war protesters, diplomats, lawyers, soldiers, etc. Many have laid down their lives.
It's offensive. and disrespectfull for purely commercial interests to claim all the credit. There is not even a rational argument provided beyong a correlation.
Maybe it's the other way round global peace has allowed globalisation. And it hasn't stopped Russia.
> unprecedented amounts of money were injected into the global financial system over the last 13 years
Every time I see a person that complains about government printing money, they can never answer how is money supply supposed to grow along with economy to enable economic expansion? The only mechanism is government printing money or banks creating loans
Also do you know that many governments owe like 30% of their debt to themselves?
'HM Treasury owes £2.1trn to holders of British government securities, of which approximately £745bn is owed to the Bank of England'
> how is money supply supposed to grow along with economy to enable economic expansion?
Money supply doesn't have to grow to enable economic expansion. Things can just get cheaper.
When governments print money, what happens is not that economic expansion occurs that otherwise wouldn't. What happens is that things don't get cheaper--instead, a portion of the economic gains from increased productivity go to governments and their cronies, instead of to all of us. In other words, printing money is hidden taxation. It's much easier politically than overt taxation precisely because it's hidden; people don't directly see economic value being taken away from them, even though it is.
Money supply doesn't have to grow to enable economic expansion. Things can just get cheaper.
When governments print money, what happens is not that economic expansion occurs that otherwise wouldn't. What happens is that things don't get cheaper--instead, a portion of the economic gains from increased productivity go to governments and their cronies, instead of to all of us. In other words, printing money is hidden taxation. It's much easier politically than overt taxation precisely because it's hidden; people don't directly see economic value being taken away from them, even though it is.
> Every time I see a person that complains about government printing money, they can never answer how is money supply suppose to grow along with economy to enable economic expansion? The only mechanism is gpvernment printint money or banks creating loans
Only really fringe people complain that the government prints money at all. The more normal complaint is that the government is printing way more money than it should, for the amount of economic expansion that's actually happening.
Only really fringe people complain that the government prints money at all. The more normal complaint is that the government is printing way more money than it should, for the amount of economic expansion that's actually happening.
Why can't we increase individual people's holdings of USD proportionally like a stock split? Instead for legacy reasons the government creates money in a way the dilutes the currency holder's position. People perceive this as unfair because they don't like their shares (of purchasing power) being diluted.
People don't object to the money supply increasing. They object to their holdings being diluted in unaccountable ways.
People don't object to the money supply increasing. They object to their holdings being diluted in unaccountable ways.
> Why can't we increase individual people's holdings of USD proportionally like a stock split?
Because that would not serve the real purpose of printing money, which is hidden (and therefore politically much easier) taxation, to enrich the government and its cronies at the expense of everybody else.
Because that would not serve the real purpose of printing money, which is hidden (and therefore politically much easier) taxation, to enrich the government and its cronies at the expense of everybody else.
> Millions of people worked towards peace, peacekeepers, activists, anti-war protesters, diplomats, lawyers, soldiers, etc. Many have laid down their lives.
This is idealism. It just so happens that resources are much more efficiently acquired through more peaceful means in this age.
If the incentives were in the opposite direction, those lives would have all been wasted. People don’t seem to realize how unprecedented this era of global peace is.
Most of the population is fed news from the extremely wealthy who benefit from these peace oriented policies. It really doesn’t take that much to take a population from benevolence to militarist nationalism.
This is idealism. It just so happens that resources are much more efficiently acquired through more peaceful means in this age.
If the incentives were in the opposite direction, those lives would have all been wasted. People don’t seem to realize how unprecedented this era of global peace is.
Most of the population is fed news from the extremely wealthy who benefit from these peace oriented policies. It really doesn’t take that much to take a population from benevolence to militarist nationalism.
> This is idealism. It just so happens that resources are much more efficiently acquired through more peaceful means in this age.
Ah right, this is why slave owners have voluntarily freed all the slaves in the US? The french revolution was about aristocracy voluntarily giving up their privilidges? In Britain Parliament asserted it's dominance over the monarch through peacefull means?
In each case, idealistic people rose up against tyrany and cut some heads off
Ah right, this is why slave owners have voluntarily freed all the slaves in the US? The french revolution was about aristocracy voluntarily giving up their privilidges? In Britain Parliament asserted it's dominance over the monarch through peacefull means?
In each case, idealistic people rose up against tyrany and cut some heads off
This is just more idealism.
Slavery was a heavily economically motivated endeavor, obviously, otherwise it would never have occurred in the first place or wouldn't have taken so long to abolish.
The other two examples are just a changing of the hands holding power from one aristocracy to another. Peasants still lost out in both of those instances and life was worse after.
Slavery was a heavily economically motivated endeavor, obviously, otherwise it would never have occurred in the first place or wouldn't have taken so long to abolish.
The other two examples are just a changing of the hands holding power from one aristocracy to another. Peasants still lost out in both of those instances and life was worse after.
> Millions of people worked towards peace, peacekeepers, activists, anti-war protesters, diplomats, lawyers, soldiers, etc. Many have laid down their lives.
millions sounds too much.
I protested against USA war in Iraq 1 & 2, against USA bombing Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, against USA bombing Kosovo, against USA invading Afghanistan and against the too many times that the USA have bombed some place in the World, killing millions of innocent civilians.
But I don't feel like I worked for peace, I simply voiced my opinion, which was simply correctly pointing out that the USA have become a problem for global peace.
millions sounds too much.
I protested against USA war in Iraq 1 & 2, against USA bombing Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, against USA bombing Kosovo, against USA invading Afghanistan and against the too many times that the USA have bombed some place in the World, killing millions of innocent civilians.
But I don't feel like I worked for peace, I simply voiced my opinion, which was simply correctly pointing out that the USA have become a problem for global peace.
>I simply voiced my opinion, which was simply correctly pointing out that the USA have become a problem for global peace.
>I protested against USA war in Iraq 1
So you were OK with Saddam's troops invading Kuwait and raping the women there?
>against USA bombing Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia
So you were OK with Serbian genocide under Milosevic?
>But I don't feel like I worked for peace
Basically, you're in favor of Russian-style or Nazi-style "peace": "if we invade you and murder you all, don't resist, because that's warlike!"
>I protested against USA war in Iraq 1
So you were OK with Saddam's troops invading Kuwait and raping the women there?
>against USA bombing Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia
So you were OK with Serbian genocide under Milosevic?
>But I don't feel like I worked for peace
Basically, you're in favor of Russian-style or Nazi-style "peace": "if we invade you and murder you all, don't resist, because that's warlike!"
classic American fear mongering.
Just one question: in USA okay with Iran repression or Putin invasion? they are not bombing there.
Do they like Talibans given they gave them back Afghanistan leaving behind vehicles and weapons, including fighter jets?
Do they agree with Saudi Princes killing journalists? because Bin Salman is still on the throne and USA still sell him billions in weapons every year.
> Basically, you're in favor of Russian-style or Nazi-style "peace"
Classic American , see a problem, take out the gun.
Now tell me again the story of Bush administration fabricated evidence to bomb Iraq.
I love it.
p.s. I live nearby former Yugoslavia, I have many friends there, nobody supported Milosevic here in Europe, many of us have witnessed the horrors of the war and the consequences of the American bombs, but he was such a threat that when they arrested him (because it wasn't so hard to find him) they couldn't charge him with anything substantial and he "died" of "natural causes" in prison.
That's justice according to US: first thing bomb civilians, then we'll think of something.
"The Trial Chamber of the Karadzic case found, at paragraph 3460, page 1303, of the Trial Judgement, that 'there was no sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Milosevic agreed with the common plan' [to create territories ethnically cleansed of non-Serbs]. The Trial Chamber found earlier in the same paragraph that 'Milosevic provided assistance in the form of personnel, provisions and arms to Bosnian Serbs during the conflict'."
Milosevic did it, but USA was unable to prove it, they already had what they wanted, a fruitful war, the trial, the real justice, don't sparkle their attention.
The America of Robert H. Jackson has long gone.
So, please, keep you bed stories for people who don't know better, spare me the propaganda. I'm too old for that sht.
Who's the real Nazi?
Because I think I saw actual Nazis walking around with swastika flags on American soil and nobody stopped or arrested them. They said it's freedom of expression. Then they assaulted Capital Hill, fomented by the POTUS, but it's OK, it's democracy at work I guess.
I also remember very well that only one country after world war 2 gave a medal to a Nazi, that place is the United States of A, the Nazi was called Wehrner von Braun.
I also remember very well operation Condor, Allende forced to commit suicide and Pinochet (a Franchist who loved Mussolini and praised Hitler) getting to power thanks to the US support.
Who armed the talibans in the 80s, to "use" them against USSR?
A spin off of that operation took the name Bin Laden, armed and trained in CIA camps in Pakistan.
Who armed Saddam in the 80s, to "use" him against Iran?
Because wars by proxy are much better, right?
If you create a new enemy every now and then, you can keep selling weapons and keep financing your military industry with hundreds of billions of dollars, the highest expenditure in the World, more than the rest of the World combined.
https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/d6a/dc7/4a5001b7beea096457f4...
And do you know why they like bombing so much?
Because they don't want to risk their soldiers lives, it isn't important enough for them, soldiers lives that they lost anyway, there is no American veteran that went back home and had a good life after deployment. Not a single one.
During the Afghan campaign sadly more than 22 veterans a day die from suicide and two serving military service members per day die by their own hands. [...] combat fatalities are less than 8,000, while more than 30,000 veterans and service members have taken their own lives.*
Cannon fodder. I'll ask again, who's the real nazi?
So now they use drones, that already killed thousands of civilians and hundreds of children (conservative estimates), because you know, if you are in the US you don't see them coming to your country mutilated. And if they do, they call them terrorists or keep them for decades in Guantanamo, with no charge whatsoever, deprived of every human right.
USA is a problem, not the solution.
Just one question: in USA okay with Iran repression or Putin invasion? they are not bombing there.
Do they like Talibans given they gave them back Afghanistan leaving behind vehicles and weapons, including fighter jets?
Do they agree with Saudi Princes killing journalists? because Bin Salman is still on the throne and USA still sell him billions in weapons every year.
> Basically, you're in favor of Russian-style or Nazi-style "peace"
Classic American , see a problem, take out the gun.
Now tell me again the story of Bush administration fabricated evidence to bomb Iraq.
I love it.
p.s. I live nearby former Yugoslavia, I have many friends there, nobody supported Milosevic here in Europe, many of us have witnessed the horrors of the war and the consequences of the American bombs, but he was such a threat that when they arrested him (because it wasn't so hard to find him) they couldn't charge him with anything substantial and he "died" of "natural causes" in prison.
That's justice according to US: first thing bomb civilians, then we'll think of something.
"The Trial Chamber of the Karadzic case found, at paragraph 3460, page 1303, of the Trial Judgement, that 'there was no sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Milosevic agreed with the common plan' [to create territories ethnically cleansed of non-Serbs]. The Trial Chamber found earlier in the same paragraph that 'Milosevic provided assistance in the form of personnel, provisions and arms to Bosnian Serbs during the conflict'."
Milosevic did it, but USA was unable to prove it, they already had what they wanted, a fruitful war, the trial, the real justice, don't sparkle their attention.
The America of Robert H. Jackson has long gone.
So, please, keep you bed stories for people who don't know better, spare me the propaganda. I'm too old for that sht.
Who's the real Nazi?
Because I think I saw actual Nazis walking around with swastika flags on American soil and nobody stopped or arrested them. They said it's freedom of expression. Then they assaulted Capital Hill, fomented by the POTUS, but it's OK, it's democracy at work I guess.
I also remember very well that only one country after world war 2 gave a medal to a Nazi, that place is the United States of A, the Nazi was called Wehrner von Braun.
I also remember very well operation Condor, Allende forced to commit suicide and Pinochet (a Franchist who loved Mussolini and praised Hitler) getting to power thanks to the US support.
Who armed the talibans in the 80s, to "use" them against USSR?
A spin off of that operation took the name Bin Laden, armed and trained in CIA camps in Pakistan.
Who armed Saddam in the 80s, to "use" him against Iran?
Because wars by proxy are much better, right?
If you create a new enemy every now and then, you can keep selling weapons and keep financing your military industry with hundreds of billions of dollars, the highest expenditure in the World, more than the rest of the World combined.
https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/d6a/dc7/4a5001b7beea096457f4...
And do you know why they like bombing so much?
Because they don't want to risk their soldiers lives, it isn't important enough for them, soldiers lives that they lost anyway, there is no American veteran that went back home and had a good life after deployment. Not a single one.
During the Afghan campaign sadly more than 22 veterans a day die from suicide and two serving military service members per day die by their own hands. [...] combat fatalities are less than 8,000, while more than 30,000 veterans and service members have taken their own lives.*
Cannon fodder. I'll ask again, who's the real nazi?
So now they use drones, that already killed thousands of civilians and hundreds of children (conservative estimates), because you know, if you are in the US you don't see them coming to your country mutilated. And if they do, they call them terrorists or keep them for decades in Guantanamo, with no charge whatsoever, deprived of every human right.
USA is a problem, not the solution.
Classic whataboutism and pure idiocy.
>in USA okay with Iran repression or Putin invasion? they are not bombing there.
They aren't bombing Russia because that could start a nuclear war. Are you seriously that stupid to not understand this? This one really beggars belief.
They aren't bombing Iran because it's just too difficult a target; trying to subdue and set up better governments in Afghanistan and Iraq was bad enough, and in Afghanistan it was a failure. Iran is a much more powerful country; the losses aren't worth it.
>Do they like Talibans given they gave them back Afghanistan leaving there all their weapons, including fighter jets?
Wow, more utter stupidity. No working fighter jets were left behind. Even if they did, the Taliban wouldn't know how to fly them. They don't like the Taliban; they simply gave up because resisting them was costing too much and the Afghan people and government weren't taking care of the problem themselves.
>p.s. I live nearby former Yugoslavia, I have many friends there, nobody supported Milosevic here in Europe
More stupidity. Who do you think committed all those atrocities? Obviously, a lot of Serbians supported Milosevic.
>USA is a problem, not the solution.
So what exactly is your solution, genius? Let warlords do what they want?
>in USA okay with Iran repression or Putin invasion? they are not bombing there.
They aren't bombing Russia because that could start a nuclear war. Are you seriously that stupid to not understand this? This one really beggars belief.
They aren't bombing Iran because it's just too difficult a target; trying to subdue and set up better governments in Afghanistan and Iraq was bad enough, and in Afghanistan it was a failure. Iran is a much more powerful country; the losses aren't worth it.
>Do they like Talibans given they gave them back Afghanistan leaving there all their weapons, including fighter jets?
Wow, more utter stupidity. No working fighter jets were left behind. Even if they did, the Taliban wouldn't know how to fly them. They don't like the Taliban; they simply gave up because resisting them was costing too much and the Afghan people and government weren't taking care of the problem themselves.
>p.s. I live nearby former Yugoslavia, I have many friends there, nobody supported Milosevic here in Europe
More stupidity. Who do you think committed all those atrocities? Obviously, a lot of Serbians supported Milosevic.
>USA is a problem, not the solution.
So what exactly is your solution, genius? Let warlords do what they want?
You’re not going to convince someone of your point of view by being so incredibly rude and calling them stupid.
> Classic whataboutism and pure idiocy.
Or maybe I come from a Country where these kinds of things happened.
Not all of us here are 20-something, some of us are old enough to remember what really happened.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/mar/26/terrorism
> They aren't bombing Russia because that could start a nuclear war
Remind me which Country is the only one to have dropped two atomic bombs on innocent civilians...
> No working fighter jets were left behind > Even if they did, the Taliban wouldn't know how to fly them
Aircraft worth $923.3 million remained in Afghanistan. The US left 78 aircraft procured for the government of Afghanistan at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul before the end of the withdrawal. These aircraft were demilitarized and rendered inoperable before the US military left, the report states
They are still valuable assets.
But is that really all?
Apparently not
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-l...
https://www.voanews.com/a/pentagon-downplays-7-billion-in-us...
I wonder what a terrorist organization can do with billions worth of weapons, even if half working...
Thanks God the US fought "the war on terror"... (it would be hilarious, if it wasn't tragic)
Give 'em a few years and they will find a way to use them, like they did last time when you armed them against USSR and then they used those same weapons to take control of the country and even kick the American asses out of Afghanistan.
Americans literally ran away leaving afghan people to die
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecMrNMUuPMM
Afghans are paying for the idiocy of Americans that went to look for Bin Laden where he was not, knowing he wasn't there, only because Dick Cheney is a dick.
The Afghan opposition to talibans is now left alone and against a powerful enemy, with lots of weapons and money, left behind by the invaders.
Thanks 'mmmmurica
> So what exactly is your solution, genius?
The solution is unfolding on its own.
America is retreating, their culture has become toxic, their companies are considered dangerous for the economy and for the rights of workers, they cannot even give free healthcare to all their citizens, despite being the richest country in the World.
Culturally they have become irrelevant, they can only produce shitty superhero movies, socially the nation is on the brink of a civil war.
The golden age is long gone.
USA are already dead, they just don't know it yet.
Nobody even fears them anymore, not Putin that nowadays controls a poor Country that isn't even probably able to launch a real war against anybody, they don't have the money, the means and the skills. USA have been beaten even by talibans, a tribe of shepherds of sheep with no training in combat. In Iran they are laughing at USA announced sanctions, they can't harm them more than they already did.
Recently Turkey Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu rejected the condolences the U.S. offered following a deadly attack in Istanbul and accused Washington of complicity saying that "it like the murderer arriving as one of the first at the scene of the crime."
Bin Salman, crown prince of Saudi Arabia, ordered the execution of the journalist Jamal Kashoggi who "was ambushed and strangled by a 15-member squad of Saudi assassins. His body was dismembered and disposed of."
USA have declared not more than a few days ago that Bin Salman cannot be prosecuted, because he's the king.
Do you think that the fact that he buys every year billions in weapons from USA influenced the decision?
https://i.insider.com/5ab1652118d8521c008b45d9?width=1000&fo...
Nobody respects the US authority anymore, because they showed over and over that their high moral ground was only a facade.
Because we don't forget https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Ab...
Why should we listen to what they have to say?
If the CCP decide to cut the supply of components, they don't have the strength to react.
They know very well they have to, that's why they are on retreat.
They are in the same situation the western Roman Empire was between 410 and 476 AD.
Or maybe I come from a Country where these kinds of things happened.
Not all of us here are 20-something, some of us are old enough to remember what really happened.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/mar/26/terrorism
> They aren't bombing Russia because that could start a nuclear war
Remind me which Country is the only one to have dropped two atomic bombs on innocent civilians...
> No working fighter jets were left behind > Even if they did, the Taliban wouldn't know how to fly them
Aircraft worth $923.3 million remained in Afghanistan. The US left 78 aircraft procured for the government of Afghanistan at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul before the end of the withdrawal. These aircraft were demilitarized and rendered inoperable before the US military left, the report states
They are still valuable assets.
But is that really all?
Apparently not
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-l...
https://www.voanews.com/a/pentagon-downplays-7-billion-in-us...
I wonder what a terrorist organization can do with billions worth of weapons, even if half working...
Thanks God the US fought "the war on terror"... (it would be hilarious, if it wasn't tragic)
Give 'em a few years and they will find a way to use them, like they did last time when you armed them against USSR and then they used those same weapons to take control of the country and even kick the American asses out of Afghanistan.
Americans literally ran away leaving afghan people to die
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecMrNMUuPMM
Afghans are paying for the idiocy of Americans that went to look for Bin Laden where he was not, knowing he wasn't there, only because Dick Cheney is a dick.
The Afghan opposition to talibans is now left alone and against a powerful enemy, with lots of weapons and money, left behind by the invaders.
Thanks 'mmmmurica
> So what exactly is your solution, genius?
The solution is unfolding on its own.
America is retreating, their culture has become toxic, their companies are considered dangerous for the economy and for the rights of workers, they cannot even give free healthcare to all their citizens, despite being the richest country in the World.
Culturally they have become irrelevant, they can only produce shitty superhero movies, socially the nation is on the brink of a civil war.
The golden age is long gone.
USA are already dead, they just don't know it yet.
Nobody even fears them anymore, not Putin that nowadays controls a poor Country that isn't even probably able to launch a real war against anybody, they don't have the money, the means and the skills. USA have been beaten even by talibans, a tribe of shepherds of sheep with no training in combat. In Iran they are laughing at USA announced sanctions, they can't harm them more than they already did.
Recently Turkey Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu rejected the condolences the U.S. offered following a deadly attack in Istanbul and accused Washington of complicity saying that "it like the murderer arriving as one of the first at the scene of the crime."
Bin Salman, crown prince of Saudi Arabia, ordered the execution of the journalist Jamal Kashoggi who "was ambushed and strangled by a 15-member squad of Saudi assassins. His body was dismembered and disposed of."
USA have declared not more than a few days ago that Bin Salman cannot be prosecuted, because he's the king.
Do you think that the fact that he buys every year billions in weapons from USA influenced the decision?
https://i.insider.com/5ab1652118d8521c008b45d9?width=1000&fo...
Nobody respects the US authority anymore, because they showed over and over that their high moral ground was only a facade.
Because we don't forget https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Ab...
Why should we listen to what they have to say?
If the CCP decide to cut the supply of components, they don't have the strength to react.
They know very well they have to, that's why they are on retreat.
They are in the same situation the western Roman Empire was between 410 and 476 AD.
It's not hard to convince a peace activist to support peace. They're already inclined to it, and weren't seriously considering waging war to achieve their aims anyway.
It is incredibly difficult to convince a greedy bastard to support peace. The natural order, for millennia, has been that when a greedy bastard meets a peace-loving activist, the greedy bastard takes the peacenik's stuff and then kills them. That is why we continue to have greedy bastards after millennia, and many of the original peaceful hunter-gatherer tribes have been killed off.
Capitalism's greatest success is as a sociopath-containment vessel. Historically, people who desire world domination achieve it by killing everybody else. Capitalism has managed to convince them that the path to world domination is making stuff and providing services for everybody else. This is a huge change in incentives.
It is incredibly difficult to convince a greedy bastard to support peace. The natural order, for millennia, has been that when a greedy bastard meets a peace-loving activist, the greedy bastard takes the peacenik's stuff and then kills them. That is why we continue to have greedy bastards after millennia, and many of the original peaceful hunter-gatherer tribes have been killed off.
Capitalism's greatest success is as a sociopath-containment vessel. Historically, people who desire world domination achieve it by killing everybody else. Capitalism has managed to convince them that the path to world domination is making stuff and providing services for everybody else. This is a huge change in incentives.
> Capitalism's greatest success is as a sociopath-containment vessel.
> Capitalism has managed to convince them that the path to world domination is making stuff and providing services for everybody else.
You always will since they're strongly favored in short term outcomes. Think of it as a harm reduction strategy, of the viable options it's generally the least disfavorable.
It's probably genetic - the heritability of psychopathy is about as big as intelligence or height [1]. And it's propagated because somebody who kills all the menfolk, takes all the spoils, and rapes all the women manages to pass on their genes to an awful lot of offspring.
Whether you end up with sociopaths in charge depends on whether you view profits as controlling the CEO or CEOs as controlling the profits. IMHO the former view is more accurate: you can reliably predict a psychopathic CEOs actions as that which will increase profits, while if they were actually in charge, their actions should be unpredictable.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-019-0488-z
Whether you end up with sociopaths in charge depends on whether you view profits as controlling the CEO or CEOs as controlling the profits. IMHO the former view is more accurate: you can reliably predict a psychopathic CEOs actions as that which will increase profits, while if they were actually in charge, their actions should be unpredictable.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-019-0488-z
Capitalism certainly deserves credit for those rose-colored glasses so many people like to wear.
Rather than point at a bunch of historical counterpoints, let me ask you this: are arms manufacturers and dealers engaged in capitalism? Weapons and munitions are certainly 'stuff' that is manufactured and sold in highly competitive markets.
Rather than point at a bunch of historical counterpoints, let me ask you this: are arms manufacturers and dealers engaged in capitalism? Weapons and munitions are certainly 'stuff' that is manufactured and sold in highly competitive markets.
[deleted]
> The natural order, for millennia, has been that when a greedy bastard meets a peace-loving activist, the greedy bastard takes the peacenik's stuff and then kills them
> Capitalism's greatest success is as a sociopath-containment vessel.
So the capitalist plantation owners were convinced to give up slaves peacefully and the civil war was for nothing?
> Capitalism's greatest success is as a sociopath-containment vessel.
So the capitalist plantation owners were convinced to give up slaves peacefully and the civil war was for nothing?
> I suspect that once de-globalization really starts rolling along, we're going to see economic dislocations that are civilization-destroying. We won't get nation-states, we'll get civil unrest, regional secession efforts, anarchy, and war. Then some new form of political organization will arise, but I doubt it'll be either nation-states or globalization.
Why the leap from the end of unipolarity to the end of nation-states in general? (I assume you mean "countries" here, ex: the U.S. is not a nation-state) To me a Cold War II scenario and a bipolar world order seems more likely. I don't think there will be widespread civil uprising; I think you're underestimating how much control that governments (including democracies) have over their people.
It will take some radical technological change to overturn this power dynamic and displace national governments with anarchy and unrest as you mentioned. One example of tech in this vein is DAOs, which seem like an attempt in this direction but the problem is they lack enforcement via force and coercive violence. Until you can disrupt that (killer AGI drones?), central governments will remain the efficient and viable solution to consolidating power and enforcing order, and therefore they will be the dominant form of organization in the world. The disruption of U.S. influence and the end of globalization will not be the end of countries, at least until a radical technological change happens.
Why the leap from the end of unipolarity to the end of nation-states in general? (I assume you mean "countries" here, ex: the U.S. is not a nation-state) To me a Cold War II scenario and a bipolar world order seems more likely. I don't think there will be widespread civil uprising; I think you're underestimating how much control that governments (including democracies) have over their people.
It will take some radical technological change to overturn this power dynamic and displace national governments with anarchy and unrest as you mentioned. One example of tech in this vein is DAOs, which seem like an attempt in this direction but the problem is they lack enforcement via force and coercive violence. Until you can disrupt that (killer AGI drones?), central governments will remain the efficient and viable solution to consolidating power and enforcing order, and therefore they will be the dominant form of organization in the world. The disruption of U.S. influence and the end of globalization will not be the end of countries, at least until a radical technological change happens.
Because the military conditions that led to the rise of countries don't exist anymore.
The modern nation-state grew out of a confluence of technology trends that accelerated throughout the 1800s. Mass-production made for cheap, accurate, long-ranged rifles. These made large armies of relatively untrained soldiers effective, right in time for conscription to fill the manpower void. Steelmaking made mechanized armor impervious to bullets, which also required internal combustion engines to power them, which required oil to fuel them. All of this required supply chains, which meant that political organizations large enough to build complex industrial supply chains and man them could steamroll earlier feudal empires that were still relying on cavalry charges, swords, and muskets. This happened in WW1.
Since roughly 2000 consumer electronics and inexpensive shaped-charge explosives have dramatically driven down the cost of fielding an effective fighting force. A ~6" diameter HEAT round can penetrate any reasonable level of armor, particularly if you can deliver it accurately enough to hit the same spot (defeating composite & reactive armor). Guide it with a microchip and you will hit that spot, and without a whole lot of training. MANPADS can take out far more expensive helicopters & close-support aircraft. Add drones and your $100M fighter jet is no longer assured air superiority, plus you can strike infantry formations from the air.
We've seen this already in those countries that have erupted into war. Afghanistan (repulsed first the Soviet Union then the U.S. using U.S-made weapons), Iraq (insurgency using IEDs), Syria (collapsed into anarchy, multi-sided urban war), Azerbaijan (very effective use of drones against Armenia), and now Ukraine (kicking Russia's ass with Javelins and Bayraktar). IMHO the reason we haven't seen it in developed nations is that it is far more profitable to take people's money than take people's lives. The folks with the capability to field smart weapons & drones are busy getting people to click on ads and fleecing them out of their retirement savings rather than waging war.
The modern nation-state grew out of a confluence of technology trends that accelerated throughout the 1800s. Mass-production made for cheap, accurate, long-ranged rifles. These made large armies of relatively untrained soldiers effective, right in time for conscription to fill the manpower void. Steelmaking made mechanized armor impervious to bullets, which also required internal combustion engines to power them, which required oil to fuel them. All of this required supply chains, which meant that political organizations large enough to build complex industrial supply chains and man them could steamroll earlier feudal empires that were still relying on cavalry charges, swords, and muskets. This happened in WW1.
Since roughly 2000 consumer electronics and inexpensive shaped-charge explosives have dramatically driven down the cost of fielding an effective fighting force. A ~6" diameter HEAT round can penetrate any reasonable level of armor, particularly if you can deliver it accurately enough to hit the same spot (defeating composite & reactive armor). Guide it with a microchip and you will hit that spot, and without a whole lot of training. MANPADS can take out far more expensive helicopters & close-support aircraft. Add drones and your $100M fighter jet is no longer assured air superiority, plus you can strike infantry formations from the air.
We've seen this already in those countries that have erupted into war. Afghanistan (repulsed first the Soviet Union then the U.S. using U.S-made weapons), Iraq (insurgency using IEDs), Syria (collapsed into anarchy, multi-sided urban war), Azerbaijan (very effective use of drones against Armenia), and now Ukraine (kicking Russia's ass with Javelins and Bayraktar). IMHO the reason we haven't seen it in developed nations is that it is far more profitable to take people's money than take people's lives. The folks with the capability to field smart weapons & drones are busy getting people to click on ads and fleecing them out of their retirement savings rather than waging war.
Sure, insurgencies don't need fancy jets or million-strong armies when they're fighting against countries that aren't investing much in this specific war. This concept of asymmetric war is literally as old as America itself; it's how it won the revolution: Britain just gave up when it got too expensive.
But it's absurd to think that, under modern military conditions, the strength of an insurgency rivals the military strength of the U.S.. For example, in all these conflicts you mentioned (-Azerbaijan), the U.S. isn't even sending troops (-Iraq, Afghanistan) and our side is still winning with its superior technology and supply chains.
The military conditions today absolutely still favor organized countries. In a future war against such enemy, if the U.S. has much to gain and doesn't care too much about the body count, you'll see Desert Storm levels of dominance. The reason we have all those real big "obsolete" planes is to drop real big fucking bombs like we did in WWII and Vietnam.
(Edit: maybe your insurgency has impenetrable air defenses consisting of thousands of drones with said "microchips". But at some point your insurgency will run out of supply and the U.S., with its "outdated" mass production capabilities and supply lines, will eventually outcompete you and then the bombers will be sent in.)
My point is that the military successes of insurgencies that you're describing are not enabled by a change in the balance of military strength. They're enabled by the fact that there was a significant decrease in the amount of effort that major military powers spent on war, e.g., when the U.S. decided not to irradiate the Korean Peninsula with cobalt. But just because countries don't go all-out anymore doesn't mean they can't or won't. These capabilities still exist and they implicitly influence every international interaction and transaction made with the U.S..
So no, anarchy will not erupt domestically when the U.S. loses some of its global hegemony to China. And the country with its centralized government and military is not yet an obsolete form of organization. Any domestic revolution would be put down easily, assuming there were people stupid enough to try. People will just adapt to whatever change happens and submit to their governments like always.
But it's absurd to think that, under modern military conditions, the strength of an insurgency rivals the military strength of the U.S.. For example, in all these conflicts you mentioned (-Azerbaijan), the U.S. isn't even sending troops (-Iraq, Afghanistan) and our side is still winning with its superior technology and supply chains.
The military conditions today absolutely still favor organized countries. In a future war against such enemy, if the U.S. has much to gain and doesn't care too much about the body count, you'll see Desert Storm levels of dominance. The reason we have all those real big "obsolete" planes is to drop real big fucking bombs like we did in WWII and Vietnam.
(Edit: maybe your insurgency has impenetrable air defenses consisting of thousands of drones with said "microchips". But at some point your insurgency will run out of supply and the U.S., with its "outdated" mass production capabilities and supply lines, will eventually outcompete you and then the bombers will be sent in.)
My point is that the military successes of insurgencies that you're describing are not enabled by a change in the balance of military strength. They're enabled by the fact that there was a significant decrease in the amount of effort that major military powers spent on war, e.g., when the U.S. decided not to irradiate the Korean Peninsula with cobalt. But just because countries don't go all-out anymore doesn't mean they can't or won't. These capabilities still exist and they implicitly influence every international interaction and transaction made with the U.S..
So no, anarchy will not erupt domestically when the U.S. loses some of its global hegemony to China. And the country with its centralized government and military is not yet an obsolete form of organization. Any domestic revolution would be put down easily, assuming there were people stupid enough to try. People will just adapt to whatever change happens and submit to their governments like always.
Everyone printed money like crazy, not just the Western governments, nations at all levels of development are paying the inflation price. I don't think that alone will change the balance of power meaningfully.
It's fair to say that less trade with a totalitarian rival power means less deterrent to war. Yes that's bad but the alternative of financing their military buildup and their oppression of their own people is not really a good one.
It's fair to say that less trade with a totalitarian rival power means less deterrent to war. Yes that's bad but the alternative of financing their military buildup and their oppression of their own people is not really a good one.
I'm not sure "financing" their military buildup is the right way to analyze what's happening in China. Do they really have a dependence on U.S./western goods? It seems like almost all their production is domestic besides imports of chips and software (Microsoft, Apple, etc.). I doubt they'll have much trouble replacing those U.S. imports either. And, at least from western reporting, it seems that China has significant coercive control over their people even in their daily lives. If all this is true, then it makes no sense to quantify China's efforts in dollars and to think that somehow the West is financing it. It makes more sense to look at China as a self sufficient economy with a potential labor force of 1.4B and compare it to the U.S., EU, India, etc. which have a similar position and are for now buddies in competition against it.
This is an overly pessimistic extrapolation of current events and trends, your argument is pure speculation basically.
> Globalization solved our garbage problem - many municipalities are no longer offering recycling now that we can't ship it to China to dump in their fields.
Garbage was never a problem to begin with. US is a huge place. We'd be fine landfilling garbage for the next few centuries at the very least.
Garbage was never a problem to begin with. US is a huge place. We'd be fine landfilling garbage for the next few centuries at the very least.
Not a fan of any authoritarianism, but USA could also be described the same way. We have massive data warehouses that just collect everything, phone calls, texts, internet packets. We just have different owners, but its the same game.
If you haven't read up on the unclassified docs that have been released about the secret agencies of this country, you should. We've done everything and worse to our own citizens. Including firebombing entire cities, sending the military to kill people striking, dosing unaware Americans with LSD... the list is long.
If you haven't read up on the unclassified docs that have been released about the secret agencies of this country, you should. We've done everything and worse to our own citizens. Including firebombing entire cities, sending the military to kill people striking, dosing unaware Americans with LSD... the list is long.
> Not a fan of any authoritarianism, but USA could also be described the same way. We have massive data warehouses that just collect everything, phone calls, texts, internet packets. We just have different owners, but its the same game
This is hardly a reasonable comparison. Most of the crazy shit you're talking about like breaking protests with the military and the LSD trails are from 60 years ago. Firebombing cities happened during WWII and was the accepted (though terrible and it turns out strategically wrong) air doctrine of all sides.
Yes, US bulk data collection is wrong, but we know it isn't being used to round up people en masse for wrong think. We don't run massive reeducation/forced labor camps for ethnic minorities. The Xinjiang internment camps have housed basically the equivalent of the whole US prison population and where there is institutionalized forced sterilization, mass rape, water boarding, torture involving electrical shock, and beatings. Even the worst US prison is basically day camp by comparison, and the people of Xinjiang are being rounded up largely for their ethnic identity.
You false equivalence is frankly, fucking bullshit.
This is hardly a reasonable comparison. Most of the crazy shit you're talking about like breaking protests with the military and the LSD trails are from 60 years ago. Firebombing cities happened during WWII and was the accepted (though terrible and it turns out strategically wrong) air doctrine of all sides.
Yes, US bulk data collection is wrong, but we know it isn't being used to round up people en masse for wrong think. We don't run massive reeducation/forced labor camps for ethnic minorities. The Xinjiang internment camps have housed basically the equivalent of the whole US prison population and where there is institutionalized forced sterilization, mass rape, water boarding, torture involving electrical shock, and beatings. Even the worst US prison is basically day camp by comparison, and the people of Xinjiang are being rounded up largely for their ethnic identity.
You false equivalence is frankly, fucking bullshit.
Your ego is getting in the way of seeing the facts friend. Just because it happened before your lifetime doesn’t make it somehow less of an atrocity. US was founded on slavery and genocide. Now we outsource genocide for oil, and do slave labor in our prisons in accordance with the 13th amendment.
No it isn’t ego, it’s a command of basic facts.
With respect to the injustices of the FBI and CIA, there was a congressional commission that investigated abuses, held people to account, and enacted some laws to change the situation. Such a process is impossible in China today which has no separation of powers. Hell you can’t even talk about the Tiananmen massacre without being locked up and it’s scrubbed from the internet but we can openly discuss domestic police abuses all day long without fear of reprisal.
As for WWII it isn’t even relevant to the discussion of domestic policy, notwithstanding the fact that it was near total war.
The US was not founded on slavery and genocide, this is bullshit history. Half if the original colonies barely ever had slavery and had banned it before the revolution. The founders, if you’ve read any of their writings hoped to see the young republic end the institution within a generation, and expected to fade away due to epidemic pressures from the more productive north.
War for oil is a stupid conspiracy theory. The Iraq invasion never took oil resources and immediately handed them over to the Iraqi state which sold them on the global market just like before. There was no US genocide there or anywhere for oil. This is just nonsense.
Yes we do still technically have forced labor in prison, though it’s actually usually voluntary these days. This is totally different in kind and character from what is happening in Xianxjang, again where people are actual victims of a real modern genocide.
You’re engaging in giahgallop and whataboutism here.
With respect to the injustices of the FBI and CIA, there was a congressional commission that investigated abuses, held people to account, and enacted some laws to change the situation. Such a process is impossible in China today which has no separation of powers. Hell you can’t even talk about the Tiananmen massacre without being locked up and it’s scrubbed from the internet but we can openly discuss domestic police abuses all day long without fear of reprisal.
As for WWII it isn’t even relevant to the discussion of domestic policy, notwithstanding the fact that it was near total war.
The US was not founded on slavery and genocide, this is bullshit history. Half if the original colonies barely ever had slavery and had banned it before the revolution. The founders, if you’ve read any of their writings hoped to see the young republic end the institution within a generation, and expected to fade away due to epidemic pressures from the more productive north.
War for oil is a stupid conspiracy theory. The Iraq invasion never took oil resources and immediately handed them over to the Iraqi state which sold them on the global market just like before. There was no US genocide there or anywhere for oil. This is just nonsense.
Yes we do still technically have forced labor in prison, though it’s actually usually voluntary these days. This is totally different in kind and character from what is happening in Xianxjang, again where people are actual victims of a real modern genocide.
You’re engaging in giahgallop and whataboutism here.
>The US was not founded on slavery and genocide, this is bullshit history. Half of the original colonies barely ever had slavery and had banned it before the revolution.
>Half of the original colonies barely ever had slavery and had banned it before the revolution.
>Half of the original colonies
So.... you're saying that half of them had full on slavery, and the other half had reduced to no slavery....to me it seems "founded" on slavery is absolutely accurate, especially considering that is literally enshrined in our highest governing document via the 3/5ths compromise, and went on to be the heart of the southern economy, becoming near and dear to enough people's hearts that half the country went to war to preserve it. And what would you call what we did to Native Americans if not genocide?
>Half of the original colonies barely ever had slavery and had banned it before the revolution.
>Half of the original colonies
So.... you're saying that half of them had full on slavery, and the other half had reduced to no slavery....to me it seems "founded" on slavery is absolutely accurate, especially considering that is literally enshrined in our highest governing document via the 3/5ths compromise, and went on to be the heart of the southern economy, becoming near and dear to enough people's hearts that half the country went to war to preserve it. And what would you call what we did to Native Americans if not genocide?
You're very much ignoring the actual historical context and the writing of the founders. That even half of the new nation outlawed slavery was pretty unique in the world of 1776 where slavery was globally ubiquitous. Article 1 section 9 of the constitution set a sort of cooling off period after which congress could end the Atlantic slave trade, which it did. The writing of the framers from the time makes it clear that their intention was to end importation in 1808 under the theory that it would cause slavery to end. They were trying to do so without fracturing their unstable union, it was a compromise just like the 3/5 compromise. But again, this was an unusually emancipatory direction for any new nation in the 18th century when every other nation had slavery, serfdom, or both.
I didn't address native peoples or genocide in my previous comment. But, if I were to do so I would probably argue that it was mostly carried out in the 19th century and was not a feature of the founding but its not an area of history I feel well enough versed in to make a super strong argument off the top of my head.
But that's not even the point, I'm arguing that the OP is acting in bad faith by arguing that CHina's current crimes are excused by the bad behavior of the US 250 years ago. Modern day slavery and genocide on the scale that exists in Xinjang are inexcusable and unparalleled since WWII. The US has made moral progress and the CCP is committing crimes against humanity.
I didn't address native peoples or genocide in my previous comment. But, if I were to do so I would probably argue that it was mostly carried out in the 19th century and was not a feature of the founding but its not an area of history I feel well enough versed in to make a super strong argument off the top of my head.
But that's not even the point, I'm arguing that the OP is acting in bad faith by arguing that CHina's current crimes are excused by the bad behavior of the US 250 years ago. Modern day slavery and genocide on the scale that exists in Xinjang are inexcusable and unparalleled since WWII. The US has made moral progress and the CCP is committing crimes against humanity.
I'm not a fan of any authoritarianism either.... and if you're describing the US the same way you describe China, then you're missing the forest for the trees.
Two things can be and often are _true_ at the same time, but often the difference between them is that, for a given conversation, one of them is a proportionate contribution, and the other is a troll.
Two things can be and often are _true_ at the same time, but often the difference between them is that, for a given conversation, one of them is a proportionate contribution, and the other is a troll.
Wartime != Peacetime.
Also, what do you mean firebombing our own cities. U.S. "strategic" bombing during Vietnam and WWII was on our enemies, not U.S. citizens as you claim. MKUltra was, sure, but it wasn't millions of people. And who cares about wiretapping; that's not even in the same ballpark. For most people in the U.S., we can live a free, safe, and open life, and so did our parents and grandparents.
One example of how the U.S. is not currently authoritarian is that we're all able to have this exact discussion strongly criticizing the U.S., on a U.S. website, over the U.S. internet, and still no one from the government is going to have us whacked.
Also, what do you mean firebombing our own cities. U.S. "strategic" bombing during Vietnam and WWII was on our enemies, not U.S. citizens as you claim. MKUltra was, sure, but it wasn't millions of people. And who cares about wiretapping; that's not even in the same ballpark. For most people in the U.S., we can live a free, safe, and open life, and so did our parents and grandparents.
One example of how the U.S. is not currently authoritarian is that we're all able to have this exact discussion strongly criticizing the U.S., on a U.S. website, over the U.S. internet, and still no one from the government is going to have us whacked.
the firebombing i am discussing is this one: https://exhibits.stanford.edu/saytheirnames/feature/black-wa... and the battle of blair mountain
> one of the major promises was that free trade would liberalize the world
This was wish a mix between wish-fulfillment and propaganda used to reverse the effect of Cold War propaganda. The main goals of globalization were economic and diplomatic, and those have been wildly successful. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty, and nuclear war is completely unthinkable.
> Instead, China has taken all the benefits and used our money to build a system of oppression that would make George Orwell blush.
You don't need technology to build an oppressive regime. China were still closed off to international markets, they would be a lot closer to North Korea than it is right now.
This was wish a mix between wish-fulfillment and propaganda used to reverse the effect of Cold War propaganda. The main goals of globalization were economic and diplomatic, and those have been wildly successful. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty, and nuclear war is completely unthinkable.
> Instead, China has taken all the benefits and used our money to build a system of oppression that would make George Orwell blush.
You don't need technology to build an oppressive regime. China were still closed off to international markets, they would be a lot closer to North Korea than it is right now.
All countries should align with the west. Mankind really needs to unify in some common framework, and west's is the best we have come up with so far.
Every other path will lead to doom. I mean, the framework could be something better than west's. But we first need such a thing, because it certainly has not been discovered yet.
Every other path will lead to doom. I mean, the framework could be something better than west's. But we first need such a thing, because it certainly has not been discovered yet.
The west's framework is the best, but it needs to be a more equal alliance between western-aligned nations, rather than being so dominated by the US. The US, Canada, EU, UK, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Aus/NZ, etc. should all be a part.
> Globalization will live on, but only for countries who align themselves with the west.
That's just a return to status quo, isn't it? A patchwork of defense alliances and trade agreements?
It's more interesting to me, to point out the relative decline in the relative power and influence of the West. Whereas U.S. was 25-30% of global GDP post WWII, we are down to 15% and declining. The so-called "global south" nations, interestingly a lot of these nations are rising in relative economic power and influence and yet many of them straddle the line between aligning with East or West (see India's oil / energy agreements with Russia, or south America's reluctance to join along with Russian sanctions).
In this sense, it's more apt to point out that globalization will live on, but only for countries that neither strongly align themselves with the west nor the east.
That's just a return to status quo, isn't it? A patchwork of defense alliances and trade agreements?
It's more interesting to me, to point out the relative decline in the relative power and influence of the West. Whereas U.S. was 25-30% of global GDP post WWII, we are down to 15% and declining. The so-called "global south" nations, interestingly a lot of these nations are rising in relative economic power and influence and yet many of them straddle the line between aligning with East or West (see India's oil / energy agreements with Russia, or south America's reluctance to join along with Russian sanctions).
In this sense, it's more apt to point out that globalization will live on, but only for countries that neither strongly align themselves with the west nor the east.
Post WWII almost everywhere but the USA had all their production bombed and destroyed. What a strange statement you make. 'When most production in the world was destroyed, the USA, one of the few countries not bombed, accounted for most of the worlds production. Once other countries rebuilt, the USA's percentage went down'. Again, what a silly statement to make.
No, it's a factual statement, not a silly one. And for the record, the U.S. was bombed, just not on the mainland continent. The percentage was even higher than 30% in the wake of WWII (40+%), but it remained elevated until the year 2000 (32%).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2016/02/29/u-s-role-...
The world quickly rebuilt after WWII, but it did so along two axes: the U.S. aligned western European countries, British commonwealth nations, plus Japan; and the U.S.S.R. east of the iron curtain, which included more communist aligned nations including China. The difference in economic productivity between the rival systems was stark: Western-aligned economies performed far better.
And it's the reason why the U.S. has had so much unilateral leverage over global trade and foreign relations since WWII, in addition to the Bretton Woods agreement, which made USD the global reserve.
But as the article points out above, the global GDP % of U.S. dropped from the year 2000 at 32% to around 15% today, now 22 years later.
The world quickly rebuilt after WWII, but it did so along two axes: the U.S. aligned western European countries, British commonwealth nations, plus Japan; and the U.S.S.R. east of the iron curtain, which included more communist aligned nations including China. The difference in economic productivity between the rival systems was stark: Western-aligned economies performed far better.
And it's the reason why the U.S. has had so much unilateral leverage over global trade and foreign relations since WWII, in addition to the Bretton Woods agreement, which made USD the global reserve.
But as the article points out above, the global GDP % of U.S. dropped from the year 2000 at 32% to around 15% today, now 22 years later.
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It was never about "liberalizing the world". That was just the argument used to persuade those who valued liberalization. Like the British Empire got religious Britains on board by focusing on the sending of missionaries that would Christianize the world. But the expansion of the Empire was not done to send missionaries.
The idea of liberalizing -- e.g. converting to Western values -- was the more modern version of this missionary argument, but it's basically the same argument, and really the same target audience, just shifted in time.
Shockingly, most of the world has kept their previous religion, although there are liberal inroads/enclaves scattered all over, particularly in coastal trading cities.
The idea of liberalizing -- e.g. converting to Western values -- was the more modern version of this missionary argument, but it's basically the same argument, and really the same target audience, just shifted in time.
Shockingly, most of the world has kept their previous religion, although there are liberal inroads/enclaves scattered all over, particularly in coastal trading cities.
> Globalization will live on, but only for countries who align themselves with the West.
I think your treating 'globalization' as equivalent to 'American-style liberal democracy' in your last sentence there.
If only a hemisphere of the globe is 'globalized' than clearly the term has become disconnected from any literal meaning at that point. Both democracies and autocracies are increasingly de-globalized at the moment, its a statement about the network and not the nodes on it.
Although not yet directly comparable to the surveillance state that the CCP has created, there are have been highly successful forces within our own government to generate and implement systems of oppression within the United States. There is a definite inclination among regime elites to favor more centralized control of the public.
Just recall efforts to nationalize voting, policing, housing, and the internet. To say nothing of the covert surveillance or the plans to phase out non-digital transactions in order to curtail 'money laundering', or the gentle reminders of the IRS that they will pursue ever smaller transaction amounts. Or even the sword of 'regulation' that hangs over the head of social media companies should they not heed the _"""advice"""_ of executive agency functionaries.
It may be less formalized than China, but there can be no mistaking the current of this undertow.
I think your treating 'globalization' as equivalent to 'American-style liberal democracy' in your last sentence there.
If only a hemisphere of the globe is 'globalized' than clearly the term has become disconnected from any literal meaning at that point. Both democracies and autocracies are increasingly de-globalized at the moment, its a statement about the network and not the nodes on it.
Although not yet directly comparable to the surveillance state that the CCP has created, there are have been highly successful forces within our own government to generate and implement systems of oppression within the United States. There is a definite inclination among regime elites to favor more centralized control of the public.
Just recall efforts to nationalize voting, policing, housing, and the internet. To say nothing of the covert surveillance or the plans to phase out non-digital transactions in order to curtail 'money laundering', or the gentle reminders of the IRS that they will pursue ever smaller transaction amounts. Or even the sword of 'regulation' that hangs over the head of social media companies should they not heed the _"""advice"""_ of executive agency functionaries.
It may be less formalized than China, but there can be no mistaking the current of this undertow.
"Liberalisation" is a marginal benefit at best. Does it really matter to me what political regime is in place in another country across the world? Not really.
A much bigger benefit is that globalisation promotes peace through increased inter-dependence. This is the same idea that was used at the very beginning of what is now the EU.
Of course the West also benefited tremendously from cheaper imports and larger markets for exports.
A much bigger benefit is that globalisation promotes peace through increased inter-dependence. This is the same idea that was used at the very beginning of what is now the EU.
Of course the West also benefited tremendously from cheaper imports and larger markets for exports.
Globalization promotes inter-dependence. That's all.
In a way, it's like chaining yourself to your trading partner. Now, you have to be very careful who you chain yourself to. Is it a stable democracy that shares your values, or is it some authoritarian hellhole with a tyrant and maniac in charge?
In a way, it's like chaining yourself to your trading partner. Now, you have to be very careful who you chain yourself to. Is it a stable democracy that shares your values, or is it some authoritarian hellhole with a tyrant and maniac in charge?
Except the war in Ukraine has also shown that this is false.
No, it hasn't. Picking a war to demonstrate that the world is not more peaceful is not a convincing argument.
The world has actually become much more peaceful.
The world has actually become much more peaceful.
>Globalization and free trade are dead because most of the promised benefits for the west failed to materialize.
Your statement about the promised benefits failing to materialize is spot on, but this not the reason globalization is dead. Globalization is dead because the United States has stopped patrolling shipping routes with US warships and has, in general, lacked a foreign policy and interest in developing one.
The two might be linked, but just barely —- I suspect that one too many generations of mothers and fathers saw their children killed, maimed, or traumatized by senseless military misadventures, thus the appetite for these excursions remains low. Coupled with the fact that the US is aging —- fast —- and has fewer children to spare, the great unwinding is indeed before us. But I doubt, sincerely, that politically or spirituality the voting electorate had any realization of the sort you called out. That is, no contingency of American voters woke up to say, “Yes I can get a flat screen TV for $120, but what’s the real cost?”
Your statement about the promised benefits failing to materialize is spot on, but this not the reason globalization is dead. Globalization is dead because the United States has stopped patrolling shipping routes with US warships and has, in general, lacked a foreign policy and interest in developing one.
The two might be linked, but just barely —- I suspect that one too many generations of mothers and fathers saw their children killed, maimed, or traumatized by senseless military misadventures, thus the appetite for these excursions remains low. Coupled with the fact that the US is aging —- fast —- and has fewer children to spare, the great unwinding is indeed before us. But I doubt, sincerely, that politically or spirituality the voting electorate had any realization of the sort you called out. That is, no contingency of American voters woke up to say, “Yes I can get a flat screen TV for $120, but what’s the real cost?”
> Globalization and free trade are dead because most of the promised benefits for the west failed to materialize
Not sure about that. [1] [2] [3] [4]*
Global increase in purchase power have completely changed many markets, even in the West. Except, probably, the USA.
My speculation: when people say "globalization did not work" they mean "for my western Country, that got rich exploiting developing Countries"
But globalization is simply "the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide" and achieved most of what it promised.
EDIT: talking a bit about the article, what's happening to TSMC is not due the fact that globalisation is dead, but because Taiwan is technically still part of China and the USA don't wanna go to war against China for Taiwan. Despite the fact that they support a free Taiwan, they never voted for its independence at UN.
"We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; *we do not support Taiwan independence;* and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means" (https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-taiwan/)
---
[1] https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/263770/gross-domestic-pro...
[2] https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/263771/gross-domestic-pro...
[3] https://i.insider.com/4d3dca0accd1d578410b0000?width=607&for...
[4] https://ourworldindata.org/exports/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2... * warning: logarithmic scale!
Not sure about that. [1] [2] [3] [4]*
Global increase in purchase power have completely changed many markets, even in the West. Except, probably, the USA.
My speculation: when people say "globalization did not work" they mean "for my western Country, that got rich exploiting developing Countries"
But globalization is simply "the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide" and achieved most of what it promised.
EDIT: talking a bit about the article, what's happening to TSMC is not due the fact that globalisation is dead, but because Taiwan is technically still part of China and the USA don't wanna go to war against China for Taiwan. Despite the fact that they support a free Taiwan, they never voted for its independence at UN.
"We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; *we do not support Taiwan independence;* and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means" (https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-taiwan/)
---
[1] https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/263770/gross-domestic-pro...
[2] https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/263771/gross-domestic-pro...
[3] https://i.insider.com/4d3dca0accd1d578410b0000?width=607&for...
[4] https://ourworldindata.org/exports/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2... * warning: logarithmic scale!
Meanwhile in the US we’re not allowed to care anyone else exists by putting more research and economic agency into better healthcare.
We tacitly decided no one is worth keeping alive unless they coincidentally happen to be rich under a system intentionally funneling money to the top like all the rest.
Why care what anyone else has to say if their existence is not something I have an obligation maintain?
We tacitly decided no one is worth keeping alive unless they coincidentally happen to be rich under a system intentionally funneling money to the top like all the rest.
Why care what anyone else has to say if their existence is not something I have an obligation maintain?
Def true at a national security and foreign policy level. And at a macro economic level, the US is now at a place where we prefer jobs (with attendant security) over cheap prices. I just got back from Brasil. Gotta like it that a lot of stuff Brasil uses is made there.
It is still possible that it will deliver, just not today or tomorrow. E.g. China has a large population that eventually will not be satisfied with just material comfort. They may start demanding more rights to themselves.
China indeed has an oppressive government, but it's not much like the impression you appear to be getting. Many Chinese are very happy with the system, especially given how poor they were not long ago. China has lifted many millions out of poverty, in a very capitalist way.
They don't have many freedoms you take for granted, like voting, but it turns out to be less fundamental than you imagine. If the regime does not oppress them they don't feel the need to change it.
Obviously there are horror stories, magnified by their control over media. But we Americans have our own horror stories, and worse, many ignore them despite the fact that they are quite well known.
China isn't the hell scape as it's often presented. Which actually makes them more dangerous to Western ideals and values.
They don't have many freedoms you take for granted, like voting, but it turns out to be less fundamental than you imagine. If the regime does not oppress them they don't feel the need to change it.
Obviously there are horror stories, magnified by their control over media. But we Americans have our own horror stories, and worse, many ignore them despite the fact that they are quite well known.
China isn't the hell scape as it's often presented. Which actually makes them more dangerous to Western ideals and values.
They are being oppressed in a variety off ways each day that they are and are not aware of. Are people on China happier today because of additional wealth (but also additional pollution / increased loneliness)?
Surveying them would be like asking citizens in cold war era Russia if they are happier than before and if they are lacking what the west has. They might reject it but they don't fully understand what they are missing.
Surveying them would be like asking citizens in cold war era Russia if they are happier than before and if they are lacking what the west has. They might reject it but they don't fully understand what they are missing.
The reason China was able to develop so quickly after Deng Xiaoping was because they didn't do it earlier. The same rapid development happened in Taiwan, HK, and SK decades earlier because they didn't have to deal with Mao and his sycophants who kept throwing wrenches in the gears.
Xi is more in the Mao class of leaders than his predecessors (both are uneducated populists who are not interested in developing strong institutions). I wouldn't count on China continuing to do well until they find a way to smoothly and consistently replace non-totalitarian leaders, which I think is related to free press/speech, as leaders want to set precedents so they aren't persecuted by the next guy.
Xi is more in the Mao class of leaders than his predecessors (both are uneducated populists who are not interested in developing strong institutions). I wouldn't count on China continuing to do well until they find a way to smoothly and consistently replace non-totalitarian leaders, which I think is related to free press/speech, as leaders want to set precedents so they aren't persecuted by the next guy.
I agree, but the fly in the ointment here is the behavior of CCP wrt to covid lockdowns. That is making the lives of people there much worse. The good news, it seems the government is finally easing the policies, but it is early days on that.
There were good and bad. We may soon find out whether it was a good deal or not as globalization gets reversed. I think the timing of it was really bad, as we are choosing to end globalization as the baby boomers are retiring. We are going to find we don't have enough workers to produce the goods and services we want to buy. With all the hate on automation, right now automation is the only thing that can save us.
As far as evil China, I don't disagree with that, but the US wasn't much better in a lot of regards. The US weaponized trade. We were like that drug dealer that gives you drugs for free to get you addicted, and then threaten to cut you off if you don't pay high prices. "you don't agree with our culture? we will cut you off!" It wasn't just trade, but the monetary system as well.
Needless to say, I am not optimistic about our future.
As far as evil China, I don't disagree with that, but the US wasn't much better in a lot of regards. The US weaponized trade. We were like that drug dealer that gives you drugs for free to get you addicted, and then threaten to cut you off if you don't pay high prices. "you don't agree with our culture? we will cut you off!" It wasn't just trade, but the monetary system as well.
Needless to say, I am not optimistic about our future.
Even in the West you have complications, like the Schrems II decision which ruled that the US does not offer an acceptable data protection level.
trasz2(6)
> China has taken all the benefits
I thought Trumpism is not welcome here?
> Globalization will live on, but only for countries who align themselves with the west.
So globalization is just westernization?
I thought Trumpism is not welcome here?
> Globalization will live on, but only for countries who align themselves with the west.
So globalization is just westernization?
> So globalization is just westernization?
Yes, except “the west” these days includes Japan and South Korea.
Yes, except “the west” these days includes Japan and South Korea.
Plus Taiwan. Taiwan's economy is critically important to the west (or "the west") these days.
> I thought Trumpism is not welcome here?
China having an export surplus precedes Trump's presidency by a few decades.
> globalization is just westernization?
I think the idea is that countries need similar regulations to complete fairly in a shared market. I.E. The US can really only trade with other western countries if they want to avoid a lot of the present pitfalls with global trade.
China having an export surplus precedes Trump's presidency by a few decades.
> globalization is just westernization?
I think the idea is that countries need similar regulations to complete fairly in a shared market. I.E. The US can really only trade with other western countries if they want to avoid a lot of the present pitfalls with global trade.
reddit is down the hall and to the left
I've been reading Peter Zeihan's book , "the end of the world is just the beginning" the death of free trade being the central theme a near future where the US has abandoned policing the seas and formerly interconnected economies localize in response. Began reading it slightly sceptical of the premise but anecdotes like this above are adding up to a near term 30-50 year that might resemble a global contraction amongst trading relationships.
I highly recommend going back and reading The Accidental Superpower as well. Considering it was written a decade ago (pub. 2014) it’s amazing how correct he’s been in forecasting things.
To be clear, there is a certain fuzziness in timeframes, and he mentions that, but in general, the timing he mentions is scarily accurate.
One thing that I saw earlier this year was Sri Lanka. Many others will follow in various levels of degradation over the coming years.
To be clear, there is a certain fuzziness in timeframes, and he mentions that, but in general, the timing he mentions is scarily accurate.
One thing that I saw earlier this year was Sri Lanka. Many others will follow in various levels of degradation over the coming years.
Reading the book too.
It is a very interesting read, I highly recommend. The guy knows a lot and it has lots of interesting information.
But I am not convinced. I think his approach is just too American, in particular, when it comes to China. I am not American and, sometimes, his jingoism is just too much.
It is a very interesting read, I highly recommend. The guy knows a lot and it has lots of interesting information.
But I am not convinced. I think his approach is just too American, in particular, when it comes to China. I am not American and, sometimes, his jingoism is just too much.
A lot of what is happening makes sense from a national security perspective. If the global supply chains get broken how much can a country continue to function.
Like Germany cannot produce enough ammo because it depends on cotton from China.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Germany-struggl...
US onshoring cotton production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUdIz21P7zE
Like Germany cannot produce enough ammo because it depends on cotton from China.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Germany-struggl...
US onshoring cotton production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUdIz21P7zE
Exaggerated headline. Lots of production of various goods still going to places like Mexico, India, Vietnam, etc. Semiconductors moving back to the US is mostly a reaction to China's growing power. Most trends point towards increasing globalization outside of specialized industries like semiconductors just because capital and goods are so much easier to move than people, and the developed world requires cheap labor to support its living standards.
> No American, or any Western media outlet for that matter, bothered to cover this speech. Only Nikkei and a handful of Taiwanese outlets wrote about it. Not even C-Span carried footage of the speech. (And C-Span carries everything!)
I find this news to be extremely surprising: everyone talked about the success of having the TSMC fab open, but nobody cared to listen to what the founder and former CEO of the company had to say. The fab might as well not be owned by TSMC.
update:
1 . former CEO. Thank you `astroalex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Chang .
I find this news to be extremely surprising: everyone talked about the success of having the TSMC fab open, but nobody cared to listen to what the founder and former CEO of the company had to say. The fab might as well not be owned by TSMC.
update:
1 . former CEO. Thank you `astroalex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Chang .
> The fab might as well not be owned by TSMC.
Something similar happened with FoxConn in Wisconsin around 2018. Lots of talk about on-shoring factories, but that one was built and sits idle (last I heard it was partially converted to office space).
TSMC didn’t build US You fabs before. They are doing it now because the US government is throwing some money at a few current generation fabs to mitigate the geopolitical risk of Taiwan. The fact that TSMC owns it is almost incident for them.
But this is a mistake. We should be fixing the upstream reasons why TSMC didn’t want to build these fabs in the US prior to recent large government subsidies. Making sure local governments and NIMBYs have only a small amount of veto power, making sure there is a safe disposal system for the byproducts (the original reason chip fabs left the SF Bay Area), and making sure we are training the specialties required to build and run the current and next generation fabs. And in the case of the Arizona TSMC and Intel fabs, making sure there is sufficient fresh water for the region, which is needed to supply the fans and the local economy.
Something similar happened with FoxConn in Wisconsin around 2018. Lots of talk about on-shoring factories, but that one was built and sits idle (last I heard it was partially converted to office space).
TSMC didn’t build US You fabs before. They are doing it now because the US government is throwing some money at a few current generation fabs to mitigate the geopolitical risk of Taiwan. The fact that TSMC owns it is almost incident for them.
But this is a mistake. We should be fixing the upstream reasons why TSMC didn’t want to build these fabs in the US prior to recent large government subsidies. Making sure local governments and NIMBYs have only a small amount of veto power, making sure there is a safe disposal system for the byproducts (the original reason chip fabs left the SF Bay Area), and making sure we are training the specialties required to build and run the current and next generation fabs. And in the case of the Arizona TSMC and Intel fabs, making sure there is sufficient fresh water for the region, which is needed to supply the fans and the local economy.
No factory was built at all for foxconn in Racine county. A weird globe building was built that contains some kind of data center, although nobody knows for sure what goes on there. The whole thing was a complete boondoggle, although I don't know if anyone gained anything, it didn't even get Scott Walker re-elected.
https://www.theverge.com/23030465/foxconn-lcd-factory-wiscon...
Hopefully this TSMC thing is real and not just a game around tax credits. Kind of bonkers to me to build it in the desert as the colorado river is drying up if water is so important, though.
https://www.theverge.com/23030465/foxconn-lcd-factory-wiscon...
Hopefully this TSMC thing is real and not just a game around tax credits. Kind of bonkers to me to build it in the desert as the colorado river is drying up if water is so important, though.
>We should be fixing the upstream reasons why TSMC didn’t want to build these fabs in the US
Good luck with that.
>Making sure local governments and NIMBYs have only a small amount of veto power
This isn't really possible politically in the US. The US is all about corrupt little local governments having lots of power; it's the whole way the country is structured. Americans have historically hated centralized government. It's also a big part of why the police in America are so awful: there's almost no centralization or standardization, so no power of the national government to fix the problems.
Good luck with that.
>Making sure local governments and NIMBYs have only a small amount of veto power
This isn't really possible politically in the US. The US is all about corrupt little local governments having lots of power; it's the whole way the country is structured. Americans have historically hated centralized government. It's also a big part of why the police in America are so awful: there's almost no centralization or standardization, so no power of the national government to fix the problems.
He is no longer the CEO.
Perhaps the American/Western version of globalization has failed, but the Chinese version seems to just be getting started. In fact, the decoupling that the US is forcing upon China will be a boon to them in the long run, as they become even less dependent on the US and care less about sanctions on severely underserved markets with huge growth potential.
I see some instability with China as it has grown a stronger domestic market, which is positive, but they are going to have to more directly deal with their inefficiencies. They are and will continue to struggle to export themselves out of their economic problems. This also relates to their internal inflation. Belt and road is good for importing materials and exporting cheap goods, but it isn't enough. Not sure if the Chinese middle class are going to be able to pick up the slack. The current leadership doesn't seem to care at the moment and expect everyone to sacrifice for the party.
I've seen this decoupling argument used in Canada a lot. It doesn't work very well there. The country is still completely dependent on the US market. They've tried Europe, Asia Pacific, and China, with a minimal budge in its current dependency. The disruption and economic pain are too high to force it in to existence and would be political suicide. Maybe the an authoritarian and central planning model can get over that in China? If the current internal investment inefficiencies are any clue, I would say no.
I've seen this decoupling argument used in Canada a lot. It doesn't work very well there. The country is still completely dependent on the US market. They've tried Europe, Asia Pacific, and China, with a minimal budge in its current dependency. The disruption and economic pain are too high to force it in to existence and would be political suicide. Maybe the an authoritarian and central planning model can get over that in China? If the current internal investment inefficiencies are any clue, I would say no.
I can’t figure out why China hasn’t priced themselves out of exports yet. Normally countries move up the value chain as their domestic standard of living improves and their currency strengthens. Then other countries find their exports unaffordable.
I know China has pegged their currency to the USD and only rarely begrudgingly let it float slightly. It seems to me that “the ledger” isn’t balanced and that something is being kept off the books.
I know China has pegged their currency to the USD and only rarely begrudgingly let it float slightly. It seems to me that “the ledger” isn’t balanced and that something is being kept off the books.
There are lots of people from the countryside, where, as far as I can tell, one's options are basically subsistence farming. Until the supply of people from the countryside dries up (and it has, to some extant), there won't be a lot of wage pressure upwards.
I don't think the RMB is pegged to the dollar. Certainly not like Hong Kong, which is an actual peg. The RMB has fluctuated between 6.2 and 7.3 the past few years. China does limit its daily level of change, though.
I don't think the RMB is pegged to the dollar. Certainly not like Hong Kong, which is an actual peg. The RMB has fluctuated between 6.2 and 7.3 the past few years. China does limit its daily level of change, though.
China ironically follows a purer form of capitalism where they pretty much keep it strictly business. They don't try to push cultural change on countries they are trading with, it's just economics and things that benefit China the most
China will demand, for example, that only Chinese companies can work on a certain infrastructure project, and then that company will migrate workers from China to Africa, which has no shortage of cheap labor, to do the work instead of allowing its companies to hire people locally. There's nothing "capitalistic" about that.
Is that why every technology product has to be modified for the Chinese market and every single movie has to be edited for the Chinese market or edited before being made to be palatable for the Chinese market even globally? China's behavior is the exact opposite of what you state.
Lol, no. Every technology product has to be modified to comply with FCC, not with whatever Chinese equivalent is. Completely reworking TV shows for American viewers is commonplace (Top Gear, The Office). And there is a long history of absolutely wild censorship, eg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist.
Ah, I see, so y'all are part of the 50 Cent Army to play up the whataboutism. Nobody here said the US, as the world's largest economy and hegemon, does not influence things. The claim was that China doesn't. This claim is false, period.
The absolute claim may be false, but the degree to which China interferes with its trading partners’ projects and especially internal affairs is orders of magnitude lower than that of the US. That’s not whataboutism, it’s pointing out an important difference that actually has a major influence on how countries perceive the two powers.
"They don't try to push cultural change on countries they are trading with, it's just economics"
Umm, what?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-univer...
among other things...
Umm, what?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-univer...
among other things...
Is that what their censors keep telling Hollywood?
"Guys, we want to keep this strictly business, that's why you have to change your movie the way Chinese state insists - puuuuuuure business."
"Guys, we want to keep this strictly business, that's why you have to change your movie the way Chinese state insists - puuuuuuure business."
Can you give an example where a Western player explicitly pushed a culture change and its Chinese counterpart didn't?
Apple tried but just gave in to the government surveillance.
Go read the USAID and NED websites— their entire premise is around realignment of target countries’ cultures in exchange for “aid”.
China is more accurately described as mercantilist. But in any case Xi Jinping has achieved absolute power, surrounded himself with yes-men and is busy dismantling China's economic success with his draconian zero-Covid policies that have done what no amount of US government pressure could: force Apple to move production to India and Vietnam instead because unreliable supply-chains is one thing it cannot abide, unlike human-rights abuses.
It’s naive to think that the US demands for cultural change are anything other than another tool to dominate. The US only does so when it serves its interests— favoring one political faction over another. It is happy to partner with plenty of the most oppressive regimes in the world, like the Gulf States.
The majority of progressive liberals when faced with mainstream Han Chinese ethno-nationalism would go into epileptic seizures. It's not as prevalent in the Tier 1 cities metros and the Tier 2 city cores, but wander outside of those areas (roughly 50% of the population), and the ethno-centrism is...not what the average HN reader is used to.
To be fair, much of the rest of the world is fairly similar, only differing in detail and degree. What makes it notable in China is the CCP's surveillance infrastructure makes it impossible for the CCP to not know about this, and their tacit condoning of the sentiments reveals the cultural dominance narrative they subscribe to.
You don't need to "push" cultural change when you are the 800-pound gorilla at the negotiating table. You only need to assume your world view is right, proper, due by merit and a birthright conveyed by thousands of years of "unbroken" culture, and the rest "falls into place".
CCP coercion does not look like US coercion does not look like EU coercion, etc., but it exists and is powerful all the same.
To be fair, much of the rest of the world is fairly similar, only differing in detail and degree. What makes it notable in China is the CCP's surveillance infrastructure makes it impossible for the CCP to not know about this, and their tacit condoning of the sentiments reveals the cultural dominance narrative they subscribe to.
You don't need to "push" cultural change when you are the 800-pound gorilla at the negotiating table. You only need to assume your world view is right, proper, due by merit and a birthright conveyed by thousands of years of "unbroken" culture, and the rest "falls into place".
CCP coercion does not look like US coercion does not look like EU coercion, etc., but it exists and is powerful all the same.
With all respect, Chang has this exactly backward. TMSC manufacturing 100% of the world's most advanced chips in Taiwan is not "globalization." If anything, it's the opposite. Globalization is about leveling the playing field, so companies can source products & services from countries across the globe. A fab in Arizona is literally advancing globalization.
The theory of international trade is based on the principle of comparative advantages. So theoretically if Taiwan can produces chips the cheapest, including transport and other costs, they shall do just that.
The decline of globalisation is due to, IMO, risk aversion of having too much of your supply chain, especially for essential and/or not easily replaceable merchandise, tied to an antagonistic or potentially antagonistic partner.
In other words, some of these "other" costs have become too high to just buy certain things somewhere else and call it day.
The decline of globalisation is due to, IMO, risk aversion of having too much of your supply chain, especially for essential and/or not easily replaceable merchandise, tied to an antagonistic or potentially antagonistic partner.
In other words, some of these "other" costs have become too high to just buy certain things somewhere else and call it day.
> the hard-earned lessons from TSMC’s first time building a fab in America 25 years ago
IIRC, one of the hard lessons was that it was expensive to operate a factory in the US. It's not even the cost of paying workers, but that the workers needed a lot of training. Or my interpretation: the American workers are simply not as efficient as the Asian counterparts. This also reminds me the story in the Obama's documentary "American Factory", in which the hourly productivity of American workers was about 1/3 (or 2/3) of the Chinese workers.
So, I have a pretty pessimistic question: can American workers still be competitive even if we move manufacturing back to the US? I really really hope that Americans are as competitive as they are decades ago: they earn more than people in other countries, yet the unit cost of products were lower than those of other countries because Americans simply led in productivity.
IIRC, one of the hard lessons was that it was expensive to operate a factory in the US. It's not even the cost of paying workers, but that the workers needed a lot of training. Or my interpretation: the American workers are simply not as efficient as the Asian counterparts. This also reminds me the story in the Obama's documentary "American Factory", in which the hourly productivity of American workers was about 1/3 (or 2/3) of the Chinese workers.
So, I have a pretty pessimistic question: can American workers still be competitive even if we move manufacturing back to the US? I really really hope that Americans are as competitive as they are decades ago: they earn more than people in other countries, yet the unit cost of products were lower than those of other countries because Americans simply led in productivity.
Aside from the soap opera part --- US v. Taiwanese culture and whether a TSMC wafer in Arizona is more Taiwanese than American --- here's what all managers and engineers should want to know: will these American plants continuously improve? If the plants can be profitable and products from it can be profitable there will be a good positive feedback to attract, retain talent, and to grow the market for same.
The US has let globalism probably overshoot 30% ... so yah we suck right now compared to TSMC at manufacturing 'cause we spent our time doing supply chains ordering from Taiwan. If we still suck after 10 years, then let the criticism fly.
Globalism is not dead; c'mon. But it does need some straightening out. The US is finally at a place where we prefer jobs (with attendant security) over cheap prices.
The US has let globalism probably overshoot 30% ... so yah we suck right now compared to TSMC at manufacturing 'cause we spent our time doing supply chains ordering from Taiwan. If we still suck after 10 years, then let the criticism fly.
Globalism is not dead; c'mon. But it does need some straightening out. The US is finally at a place where we prefer jobs (with attendant security) over cheap prices.
Yeah. If the US manufacturing can't become competitive in a global market, then whether globalism is dead will not matter: there was no globalism 100 years ago, yet the US economy arose while Britain's declined, simply because the US could build better, cheaper, and faster. Allyn Young didn't believe that the finance center would move from Britain to the US because Britain was appeared so powerful 100 years ago, well, the rest was history.
I think we ought to take a longer term perspective of things and acknowledge the cyclical nature of things. It is interesting and somehow I think there must be a science behind all this.
Systems theory ? Cybernetics ? Cliodynamics ??
The one scary effect that is not mentioned here is that globalisation and trade are pushing towards peace. Without it I am afraid we might go back to much darker times
The late 1800s was also a time of increasing globalization. It was exactly that interconnectedness that turned a local conflict into WWI.
Interconnectivity by trade before WW2 was very brittle, because everyone involved had to fend for their own trading routes. The pillar of today's globalisation is that big and middle powers don't have to roll their own security policy just to keep their own commerce running. The global naval hegemon has been doing that for them for decades now. The moment this goes away, we will suddenly see a whole lot of regional disputes popping up. "Safety" inspections for container ships of the competition or more blatant interference using drones. Once a precedent has been set of the US not stepping in, it can turn wild pretty fast.
That depends on how you define peace. Many non-Western nations are not at all at peace with the idea of their cultures being displaced and destroyed through the cultural imperialism of the US. And our dominant economic role and continued push for globalization is widely seen as the largest factor in that.
Many people in the West don't make that connection because our consumption of media is very insular. But it's been bubbling under the surface for awhile and now it's starting to boil over.
Many people in the West don't make that connection because our consumption of media is very insular. But it's been bubbling under the surface for awhile and now it's starting to boil over.
I think too many have ignored a classic logic: do your best to avoid SPOF.
Globalization is the extreme evolution of works specialization, instead of being "different States in the World" anyone as autonomous / self-sufficient as possible we have reached a point of being a "single system all other the world" where States blend a bit their role and no one is anymore self-sufficient. Such model works beautifully well until it breaks. Like any hyper-centralized systems.
Doing the best to being self-sufficient is expensive, slow, complex etc. BUT pay off when things goes wrong. That's the very same principles of having lifeboats&c on ships: 99% of the time they are just costly useless tools. We can spare more space and reduce costs cutting them. That's works very well until something goes wrong.
That's is and that's also why the WEF corporatocracy model is equally crazy. They want the power of course, but they forget the fact that companies are not different: they tend to be all on the same line of thought. Witch means they inevitably copy one another, they are a single entity so a SPOF. WE NEED VARIETY to maximize evolution and chances to survive as a spices. That's the real missing point.
That's why is terrible to see a Chinese leader with an English dress. We need to be different, very different, see each others and share, but anyone with a path.
Globalization is the extreme evolution of works specialization, instead of being "different States in the World" anyone as autonomous / self-sufficient as possible we have reached a point of being a "single system all other the world" where States blend a bit their role and no one is anymore self-sufficient. Such model works beautifully well until it breaks. Like any hyper-centralized systems.
Doing the best to being self-sufficient is expensive, slow, complex etc. BUT pay off when things goes wrong. That's the very same principles of having lifeboats&c on ships: 99% of the time they are just costly useless tools. We can spare more space and reduce costs cutting them. That's works very well until something goes wrong.
That's is and that's also why the WEF corporatocracy model is equally crazy. They want the power of course, but they forget the fact that companies are not different: they tend to be all on the same line of thought. Witch means they inevitably copy one another, they are a single entity so a SPOF. WE NEED VARIETY to maximize evolution and chances to survive as a spices. That's the real missing point.
That's why is terrible to see a Chinese leader with an English dress. We need to be different, very different, see each others and share, but anyone with a path.
I'm listening. I've heard this three times in the last week. But I haven't been ELI5'd what this really means for the rest of my adulthood. I only know a "Globalized World". I was in elementary school when Bill Clinton was elected and globalization (economically) started, right?
So is this a reversion? Is it socially bad but economically good? Does the $1 slice become the $2 slice in a couple years?
Or are we trying to say something worse?
So is this a reversion? Is it socially bad but economically good? Does the $1 slice become the $2 slice in a couple years?
Or are we trying to say something worse?
I don't think anyone knows to what extent this will play out over the next decade. Yes, we are more reluctant to trust outsourcing production to China, and tensions over Ukraine & Taiwan highlight this rift between NATO nations and the East. But by no means has this stopped the inflow of goods arriving from China. I think that within industries that are deemed critical to national defense, especially semiconductors, these are going to be forcibly on-shored. Whether that spills over into "less critical" imports remains to be seen.
When it comes to on-shore vs off-shore production, not sure it can neatly be described as "good or bad". There are trade-offs. When we outsourced more production and manufacturing to China, our economy became more service oriented. We lost some valuable manufacturing skills in the labor force in the process and it takes time to ramp that back up. We are also saddled with far more regulatory and legal issues in the U.S. and that adds a significant burden to costs.
I think as article points out, on-shoring will contribute to CPI increases. Off-shoring offset some of the inflationary fiscal (spending from govt) and monetary policies (QE) of the past few decades. Ultimately goods will cost more. At the same time, it's likely that automation technologies get boosted investment. On-shoring may induce a robotics boom to counter act some of those higher costs (since the ROI will have increased). So maybe goods will be more expensive in short to medium term, but longer term, we may end up in a better place.
The more open questions are how the world grapples with a "multi-polar" world and whether that leads to kinetic war or active trade wars between U.S. & China.
When it comes to on-shore vs off-shore production, not sure it can neatly be described as "good or bad". There are trade-offs. When we outsourced more production and manufacturing to China, our economy became more service oriented. We lost some valuable manufacturing skills in the labor force in the process and it takes time to ramp that back up. We are also saddled with far more regulatory and legal issues in the U.S. and that adds a significant burden to costs.
I think as article points out, on-shoring will contribute to CPI increases. Off-shoring offset some of the inflationary fiscal (spending from govt) and monetary policies (QE) of the past few decades. Ultimately goods will cost more. At the same time, it's likely that automation technologies get boosted investment. On-shoring may induce a robotics boom to counter act some of those higher costs (since the ROI will have increased). So maybe goods will be more expensive in short to medium term, but longer term, we may end up in a better place.
The more open questions are how the world grapples with a "multi-polar" world and whether that leads to kinetic war or active trade wars between U.S. & China.
Here goes:
First, let's define what is meant by "Globalization", as this word is used to mean many things. First, it does not mean trade. You will still be eating Chilean oranges. You will still have Vietnamese coworkers in your company. The history of the world is filled with trade - that's not what makes our current era of "Globalization" unique.
What it means is trade imbalances. The world as it exists now has one group of nations running persistent trade deficits and another group running persistent trade surpluses.
To run a trade surplus means you take the money you get by selling goods to the world, and invest it overseas. China invests $2 Trillion overseas. Saudi Arabia $1 Trillion. Russia $750 Billion. Qatar $250 Billion dollars. This creates a web of dependencies, it increases trade massively, and it also reduces the sovereignty that each nation has, as those who invest large amounts overseas are dependent on others that their assets are not seized, and those who are the recipients of such foreign investment become dependent on it to maintain their consumption levels and high asset prices (low interest rates). So in many ways, the world becomes smaller and each nation has less freedom to act independently. This is why we call it "Globalization". It refers to the globalization of investment.
If the exporting nations did not invest this money overseas, what would happen is that their currencies would appreciate up to the point where their trade is balanced -- as many exports as imports. Now, what would the world look like if each nation's trade was roughly balanced. So that Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Qatar, and the US all exported about as much as they imported?
It would be a very different world than the one we have now.
Now how did we get to this world of persistent trade imbalances - it didn't happen by accident, it was a long term project requiring:
1) A vast international web of investor rights, so that when Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, or China park their money overseas, they can be assured it is not confiscated and that the value of their investments is maintained.
2) Global trust
What we are seeing now is this system is unravelling. That is, foreign investment is being confiscated, global trust is eroding, and the international frameworks are not able to maintain sufficient global trust to justify parking huge sums overseas. The canary in the coal mine was the US seizure of Afghanistan's sovereign reserves, but really the increasing way that the US has been using the dollar system as a proxy for foreign policy, which undermines the usefulness of the dollar as a reserve currency for those nations that matter -- e.g. the exporting nations. The seizure of Russia's sovereign reserves was the fatal blow to this system. Now, it is clear that all these investor rights agreements are no longer being honored.
And so all the exporting nations are scrambling for alternate places to park their money, many are preparing to begin a round of asset seizures and counter seizures, and are building trade systems based on specie flows, various hostage mechanisms, and limited bilateral treaties in which trade is roughly balanced.
These are massive changes, and they don't get a lot of US media attention, but they are taking place in international conferences and high level diplomatic agreements all over the world right now:
Saudi Arabia just signed a $40 Billion trade deal with China, it's largest deal ever, in which it will sell oil to China in exchange for Huawei coming in and building out a new telecom infrastructure in Saudi Arabia as well as constructing factories there. Note that this trade is roughly balanced, and it is occurring between net exporting nations. This is the future of trade -- something tangible for something tangible, so that nothing is exposed to being seized by a foreign government.
Russia and Iran signed a $40 Billion trade deal along similar lines.
At the same time, China has been structuring its capital controls so that it's impossible for Western companies to pull money out. For example, Apple has huge earnings in China, but it's stuck in China. China is preparing for the US to seize their assets and they will counterseize the Tesla factories, Apple earnings, etc.
In terms of prices, what it will mean is higher prices and higher interest rates in those nations that have traditionally run trade deficits, and lower prices and lower interest rates (stocks will be worth less and cost of living will go up) in those nations that have traditionally run trade surpluses.
But you will still be able to buy your Chilean orange -- there will still be trade, but it will be much more balanced, so that orange will cost more -- and your mortgage payment will be higher.
A second casualty will be the anti-carbon movement, as it was depending on international investor agreements to be both the carrot and stick for mandating change. At the same time, the deficit nations will find it much harder to import the minerals and finished goods such as batteries and solar panels necessary to transition even their own energy grid.
First, let's define what is meant by "Globalization", as this word is used to mean many things. First, it does not mean trade. You will still be eating Chilean oranges. You will still have Vietnamese coworkers in your company. The history of the world is filled with trade - that's not what makes our current era of "Globalization" unique.
What it means is trade imbalances. The world as it exists now has one group of nations running persistent trade deficits and another group running persistent trade surpluses.
To run a trade surplus means you take the money you get by selling goods to the world, and invest it overseas. China invests $2 Trillion overseas. Saudi Arabia $1 Trillion. Russia $750 Billion. Qatar $250 Billion dollars. This creates a web of dependencies, it increases trade massively, and it also reduces the sovereignty that each nation has, as those who invest large amounts overseas are dependent on others that their assets are not seized, and those who are the recipients of such foreign investment become dependent on it to maintain their consumption levels and high asset prices (low interest rates). So in many ways, the world becomes smaller and each nation has less freedom to act independently. This is why we call it "Globalization". It refers to the globalization of investment.
If the exporting nations did not invest this money overseas, what would happen is that their currencies would appreciate up to the point where their trade is balanced -- as many exports as imports. Now, what would the world look like if each nation's trade was roughly balanced. So that Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Qatar, and the US all exported about as much as they imported?
It would be a very different world than the one we have now.
Now how did we get to this world of persistent trade imbalances - it didn't happen by accident, it was a long term project requiring:
1) A vast international web of investor rights, so that when Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, or China park their money overseas, they can be assured it is not confiscated and that the value of their investments is maintained.
2) Global trust
What we are seeing now is this system is unravelling. That is, foreign investment is being confiscated, global trust is eroding, and the international frameworks are not able to maintain sufficient global trust to justify parking huge sums overseas. The canary in the coal mine was the US seizure of Afghanistan's sovereign reserves, but really the increasing way that the US has been using the dollar system as a proxy for foreign policy, which undermines the usefulness of the dollar as a reserve currency for those nations that matter -- e.g. the exporting nations. The seizure of Russia's sovereign reserves was the fatal blow to this system. Now, it is clear that all these investor rights agreements are no longer being honored.
And so all the exporting nations are scrambling for alternate places to park their money, many are preparing to begin a round of asset seizures and counter seizures, and are building trade systems based on specie flows, various hostage mechanisms, and limited bilateral treaties in which trade is roughly balanced.
These are massive changes, and they don't get a lot of US media attention, but they are taking place in international conferences and high level diplomatic agreements all over the world right now:
Saudi Arabia just signed a $40 Billion trade deal with China, it's largest deal ever, in which it will sell oil to China in exchange for Huawei coming in and building out a new telecom infrastructure in Saudi Arabia as well as constructing factories there. Note that this trade is roughly balanced, and it is occurring between net exporting nations. This is the future of trade -- something tangible for something tangible, so that nothing is exposed to being seized by a foreign government.
Russia and Iran signed a $40 Billion trade deal along similar lines.
At the same time, China has been structuring its capital controls so that it's impossible for Western companies to pull money out. For example, Apple has huge earnings in China, but it's stuck in China. China is preparing for the US to seize their assets and they will counterseize the Tesla factories, Apple earnings, etc.
In terms of prices, what it will mean is higher prices and higher interest rates in those nations that have traditionally run trade deficits, and lower prices and lower interest rates (stocks will be worth less and cost of living will go up) in those nations that have traditionally run trade surpluses.
But you will still be able to buy your Chilean orange -- there will still be trade, but it will be much more balanced, so that orange will cost more -- and your mortgage payment will be higher.
A second casualty will be the anti-carbon movement, as it was depending on international investor agreements to be both the carrot and stick for mandating change. At the same time, the deficit nations will find it much harder to import the minerals and finished goods such as batteries and solar panels necessary to transition even their own energy grid.
Like many folks, I suppose, I thought I had a reasonable layman's grasp of globalization. Turns out it was mostly superficial. I'm currently reading "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" by Peter Zeihan [1] and it is enlightening. Highly recommended in helping to add (especially historical) perspective to understanding the death throes of globalization. Paired with "normalcy bias" [2], which I was vaguely aware of, and beliefs and behaviours begin to become somewhat more understandable and an opportunity to shift my worldview in an appropriate and preparatory manner begins to reveal itself.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_World_is_just_t... [2] https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/p/its-not-cool-to-overr...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_World_is_just_t... [2] https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/p/its-not-cool-to-overr...
> We’re well into the social shaming stage of the pandemic. It doesn’t seem to matter how much evidence we have. People won’t adopt the simplest measures to protect themselves or anyone else.
That one made me double take. Is it a commonly held view that COVID is "still happening"? In my area of the world (and in other Western areas, from talking to friends), it's seen as over basically since we got our two jabs. Based on this quote and other articles by the author (complaining about children coughing on each other or adults not wearing masks), I assumed this article was 1-2 years old.
Regardles,
> A disturbingly large portion of the public seems totally unmoved by stories of children dying in hospitals.
If we look at the world around us, we see preventable awfulness daily. Everyone's aware that aggressive driving and speeding increase the chances of car accidents resulting in injury or death, yet most people seem to do at least one daily. Most people are aware that their clothes, watch, computer, iPhone, kettle, etc are made overseas often in awful conditions, yet they continue to shop.
Most people are aware after 30 years of marketing that you can feed a child in Africa for a very small amount of money per month (yes, you can afford it), yet they elect not to.
What the author calls normalcy bias, I wonder if this is simply an in-built protection to stop us breaking down on a daily basis. Either way, I'm unsure why the author is at all surprised.
That one made me double take. Is it a commonly held view that COVID is "still happening"? In my area of the world (and in other Western areas, from talking to friends), it's seen as over basically since we got our two jabs. Based on this quote and other articles by the author (complaining about children coughing on each other or adults not wearing masks), I assumed this article was 1-2 years old.
Regardles,
> A disturbingly large portion of the public seems totally unmoved by stories of children dying in hospitals.
If we look at the world around us, we see preventable awfulness daily. Everyone's aware that aggressive driving and speeding increase the chances of car accidents resulting in injury or death, yet most people seem to do at least one daily. Most people are aware that their clothes, watch, computer, iPhone, kettle, etc are made overseas often in awful conditions, yet they continue to shop.
Most people are aware after 30 years of marketing that you can feed a child in Africa for a very small amount of money per month (yes, you can afford it), yet they elect not to.
What the author calls normalcy bias, I wonder if this is simply an in-built protection to stop us breaking down on a daily basis. Either way, I'm unsure why the author is at all surprised.
Ridiculous. This has the energy of "No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded!"
Global trade is at record highs. Perhaps globalization will decline from here, even permanently (although I'm very skeptical) and I'm certain it'll continue to change like it always has, but declaring it "dead" makes exactly zero sense.
Global trade is at record highs. Perhaps globalization will decline from here, even permanently (although I'm very skeptical) and I'm certain it'll continue to change like it always has, but declaring it "dead" makes exactly zero sense.
Absolutely this. That TSMC fab in Arizona? The lithography machines come from ASML, a company in the Netherlands. The EDA tools? Those are from Siemens, a German company. And on and on.
And that's on top of our new remote-first world for information workers. You used to offshore departments or teams; now teams are as likely to be made up of people living in different countries as they are to be made up of people living in the same metro area.
Some aspects of globalization are changing. That's normal. But declaring it dead is like declaring the Internet dead because it just got absorbed into all of the products we use.
And that's on top of our new remote-first world for information workers. You used to offshore departments or teams; now teams are as likely to be made up of people living in different countries as they are to be made up of people living in the same metro area.
Some aspects of globalization are changing. That's normal. But declaring it dead is like declaring the Internet dead because it just got absorbed into all of the products we use.
> In Morris Chang’s own estimation, the chips produced from TSMC Arizona may cost “at least 50% more” than the chips from TSMC Taiwan.
I'd like to know why its 50% more. Labor costs? Regulations? Taxes? We aren't told and I cant read the linked WSJ article.
I'd like to know why its 50% more. Labor costs? Regulations? Taxes? We aren't told and I cant read the linked WSJ article.
There's no such thing as de-globalization or "globalization is dead".
Even in this very best case example of a factory in the US, a country large enough that it can self-sustain in some ways, it is 100% globalized.
The 5 million little parts that go into the factory are sourced from all across the world. As the article suggests, education comes from Taiwan. Rare earth minerals come from Africa and China. The machine comes from ASML, which in turn sources parts from all across the world.
But yes, do go ahead and slap a "Made in the USA" on it if that makes you feel better.
Even in this very best case example of a factory in the US, a country large enough that it can self-sustain in some ways, it is 100% globalized.
The 5 million little parts that go into the factory are sourced from all across the world. As the article suggests, education comes from Taiwan. Rare earth minerals come from Africa and China. The machine comes from ASML, which in turn sources parts from all across the world.
But yes, do go ahead and slap a "Made in the USA" on it if that makes you feel better.
[deleted]
Many people are conflating "unipolar USD dominance" with "economic globalization", when the former is very much a subset of the latter. The former is definitely dying (see last week in KSA).
If economic globalization is genuinely suffering, it is a direct result of Washington's unilateral sanctions and trade wars.
Global logistics aren't suddenly collapsing. However, there is increasingly more red tape created mainly by Washington, and this causes strain on the system.
If economic globalization is genuinely suffering, it is a direct result of Washington's unilateral sanctions and trade wars.
Global logistics aren't suddenly collapsing. However, there is increasingly more red tape created mainly by Washington, and this causes strain on the system.
The problem is that there is nothing to replace the US dollar/Euro -- e.g. the western capital markets, because other nations (excluding Japan) do not want to open their capital markets to foreign investment. So if this was just a matter of switching from one reserve currency to another, then globalization would be fine. But this is a situation in which the world is realizing that the dollar/euro system is no longer fit for use, and there is nothing to replace it, which is why nations are realizing that they can no longer run these massive trade surpluses full stop. That's how you get to the end of globalization.
> see last week in KSA
Yes, let's look at this deal, because the KSA deal is a perfect example of the end of globalization. It's basically barter -- Saudi will send China oil and China will send Saudi Huawei gear and build factories there. People are focusing on the fact that the oil will be denominated in CNY and assume this means a massive increase in Saudi CNY holdings -- but China doesn't want other nations to start buying up CNY assets, and it has capital controls in place to prevent that. So the CNY is not replacing the dollar as a reserve currency -- that would be China's worst nightmare.
Instead, we are switching to bilateral, managed, balanced trade in which each side gets something tangible under their own control and there is no residual large cross border financial flow to finance the deal.
Now let's assume this is how trade will be done in the future. You want to import natural gas from me? Fine, build me a chip fab. Or a port. This is a very different world than saying "You want to import natural gas from me? Fine, I'll buy lots of your bonds and keep my money in your financial system. Do you see the difference?
> see last week in KSA
Yes, let's look at this deal, because the KSA deal is a perfect example of the end of globalization. It's basically barter -- Saudi will send China oil and China will send Saudi Huawei gear and build factories there. People are focusing on the fact that the oil will be denominated in CNY and assume this means a massive increase in Saudi CNY holdings -- but China doesn't want other nations to start buying up CNY assets, and it has capital controls in place to prevent that. So the CNY is not replacing the dollar as a reserve currency -- that would be China's worst nightmare.
Instead, we are switching to bilateral, managed, balanced trade in which each side gets something tangible under their own control and there is no residual large cross border financial flow to finance the deal.
Now let's assume this is how trade will be done in the future. You want to import natural gas from me? Fine, build me a chip fab. Or a port. This is a very different world than saying "You want to import natural gas from me? Fine, I'll buy lots of your bonds and keep my money in your financial system. Do you see the difference?
Yes, I see your point. There are simply different definitions of "globalization" going on here. I believe there is a meaningful distinction between "USD-d(en)ominated global finance" and economic globalization. The latter isn't going anywhere.
The reason why "globalization" is associated to these cross-cutting financial investments is that it creates dependencies. A sells lots of oil to B, and in exchange it gets an account in B's financial system with lots of B-currency bonds.
In that case, A depends on B to not seize the bonds. This dependency reduces the sovereignty of each nation - power flows from the nation-state to the global consensus - to the world's largest importer, whose currency is the world's largest reserve currency. Moreover international investors -- international capital, so to speak, have enormous power over individual nation states. This is globalization - the reduction of the autonomy of the individual nation state, subordinate to the rules laid down by the world's largest importer, and it's associated international investment community.
On the other hand, if A just sells oil to B, and B builds a port for A, then B cannot seize A's port. The transaction is finished. There is no room for any international investment banker to make a lot of money on this. There is no possibility for B to threaten to seize A's holdings if they don't do what A wants. There is still some dependence just from the trade, but not nearly as much interdependence as having much of your bank reserves under the control of another nation.
In that environment, nations become stronger and the world's largest importer becomes weaker -- much weaker. It goes from being the banker to the world to being the most dependent nation, which is a huge fall in terms of power.
In that case, A depends on B to not seize the bonds. This dependency reduces the sovereignty of each nation - power flows from the nation-state to the global consensus - to the world's largest importer, whose currency is the world's largest reserve currency. Moreover international investors -- international capital, so to speak, have enormous power over individual nation states. This is globalization - the reduction of the autonomy of the individual nation state, subordinate to the rules laid down by the world's largest importer, and it's associated international investment community.
On the other hand, if A just sells oil to B, and B builds a port for A, then B cannot seize A's port. The transaction is finished. There is no room for any international investment banker to make a lot of money on this. There is no possibility for B to threaten to seize A's holdings if they don't do what A wants. There is still some dependence just from the trade, but not nearly as much interdependence as having much of your bank reserves under the control of another nation.
In that environment, nations become stronger and the world's largest importer becomes weaker -- much weaker. It goes from being the banker to the world to being the most dependent nation, which is a huge fall in terms of power.
What it means to be a global society will be redefined.
Big brains who think their relative understanding is forever realizing they’re in their 50s and generational churn will mean the people who have enabled them won’t be here much longer are really melting down these days.
I look forward to Gen Z and later showing as little obligation to traditions of the last 100 as the last 100 years showed to 200 years ago.
Rotary phone makers, horse and buggy businesses are starting a protest they can all sign onto.
Big brains who think their relative understanding is forever realizing they’re in their 50s and generational churn will mean the people who have enabled them won’t be here much longer are really melting down these days.
I look forward to Gen Z and later showing as little obligation to traditions of the last 100 as the last 100 years showed to 200 years ago.
Rotary phone makers, horse and buggy businesses are starting a protest they can all sign onto.
Globalization as in trade and interaction bringing people together has been going on a long time, maybe a couple of thousand years with the original silk road and boats trading around the med. There's a bit of a blip at the moment especially with regard to Russia and China going a bit warlike on us but I think the long term trend is intact.
Yeah - if you take it to the limit, and every small organization can produce/consume everything they could ever need in a local area; then of course globalization will approach an asymptotic “death”.
This is like the “limit” of technology. If ever we got an atomic assembler going, what use would there be for that interaction from a supply/demand standpoint?
This is like the “limit” of technology. If ever we got an atomic assembler going, what use would there be for that interaction from a supply/demand standpoint?
We can now expect Tom Friedman, Joseph Stieglitz, and Paul Krugman to write new books explaining it all for their readers. Of course they will tell us how they knew it all along.
The truth is that geopolitics has not gone away. The world is not "flat" but bumpy and separated by big oceans.
The truth is that geopolitics has not gone away. The world is not "flat" but bumpy and separated by big oceans.
Between breakfast and lunch I've worked with three people from India and one each from Germany, Canada, China and a half dozen around the US. That's just a normal workday in a normal dev job. Globalization is looking hale and hearty from my chair.
globalization is dead long live globalization.
Previous discussion on the referenced speech: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33902422
I would recommend reading Peter Zeihan’s books, or watching some of his interviews on You Tube, to get a fuller geopolitical view. It’s fascinating stuff.
Peter Thiel has talked extensively about globalization and was ahead of the trend it seems[1]. Despite what feels like the majority of people on HN being pro-globalization, Covid and the War in Ukraine hopefully taught countries a good lesson in the power of domestic first and domestic focused production.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/03/08/thiel-globalization-is-o...
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/03/08/thiel-globalization-is-o...
Globalization will never be dead.
Globalization, more than anything else, means a set of rules that apply to all countries (trade, human rights, or otherwise).
Globalization is a philosophical consequence of belief in the rule of law and human rights.
Here is the most thought provoking piece of literature I've ever read on American philosophy (giving it the benefit of the doubt or at least painting it in the best light): https://www.amacad.org/publication/what-does-it-mean-be-amer...
In short, societies fall on a spectrum of one end being built on a set of values (are you an American because you love guns and freedom?) and the other being based on an ethnicity (are you American because your parents are American/you have a shared history with other Americans).
This is the key divide between conservatives (ethnicity based) and liberals (value based).
So we see the great philosophical fights of our time:
Anti globalization pragmatically follows the idea that authority flows from those with power. Globalization idealistically follows the idea that there are rules that must supersede power itself.
Globalization, more than anything else, means a set of rules that apply to all countries (trade, human rights, or otherwise).
Globalization is a philosophical consequence of belief in the rule of law and human rights.
Here is the most thought provoking piece of literature I've ever read on American philosophy (giving it the benefit of the doubt or at least painting it in the best light): https://www.amacad.org/publication/what-does-it-mean-be-amer...
In short, societies fall on a spectrum of one end being built on a set of values (are you an American because you love guns and freedom?) and the other being based on an ethnicity (are you American because your parents are American/you have a shared history with other Americans).
This is the key divide between conservatives (ethnicity based) and liberals (value based).
So we see the great philosophical fights of our time:
isolationist/nationalist vs globalist
ethnicity vs civility
might makes right vs rule of law
loyalty to people vs loyalty to ideas
Anti globalization pragmatically follows the idea that authority flows from those with power. Globalization idealistically follows the idea that there are rules that must supersede power itself.
"X is dead" content needs a neologism if it doesn't have one already.
[deleted]
Globalization that included trade with authoritarian regimes is dead, because Putin showed that these regimes don‘t behave rational.
Globalization between democratic countries is thriving. E.g. CETA between Canada and the EU will soon be active.
Globalization between democratic countries is thriving. E.g. CETA between Canada and the EU will soon be active.
Thanks, USA. Globalization was only good as long as they thought they could come out on top and make everyone else dependent and obedient.
We should have continued to strive for globalization, and left the USA behind to implode into its own collapsed mess. Now we're just turning our backs to China and Russia, pretend we're the "good guys" and that everything's amazing.
We should have continued to strive for globalization, and left the USA behind to implode into its own collapsed mess. Now we're just turning our backs to China and Russia, pretend we're the "good guys" and that everything's amazing.
The average working American sacrificed a lot in the name of striving for your 'globalization'. Your generic demonizing of these people is gross and dishonest.
We often speak broadly like this, just like you speak about how Russia and China (everyone living there, apparently) are bad. It doesn't mean we're saying that every single person in that country is to blame.
I say that the USA is to blame for the end of globalization, you don't, and so we have to agree to disagree.
I say that the USA is to blame for the end of globalization, you don't, and so we have to agree to disagree.