[ExI] it won't work, but i have a better idea

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] it won't work, but i have a better idea

On Sun, Oct 12, 2025 at 10:15 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>... OK.  Now I REALLY sense a market here.  Time and money, put em together and they produce MORE money.  It is what capitalism is all about.

>...Yes, and China sensed this market decades ago.  That's why they went on to establish the near-monopoly they have today.  Without starting with a lot of money, any solution you produce, they can simply undersell you, leaving your solution with not enough income to sustain operations...

Well there ya go.  If they do, then we get the dysprosium.  Alls we need to do is create a factory and the Chinese will turn loose of it.  So here's the deal: sell short on dysprosium metal, start your factory, you win either way.  

I am still having a hard time figuring out why it would take decades to extract a particular element on an industrial scale, even knowing there are several of them which similar chemical properties, or failing that, figure out how to make chips good enough to meet spec without the stuff.  I don't recall hearing anything about rare earths in chips until recently.  As for the magnets, as I recall we had electric motors back in the days before Tesla (the company, not the guy.)


>>... Complicated factories, those are words that cause engineers to get turned on...


>...Finding ladies who like e.g. Minecraft is a bit of a challenge, yes.

>...My wife is playing Minecraft in the other room as I type this email.
I love her...

Adrian, does she have any sisters at home?  My son is single.

>>... Whoever has the best chip fab outside of China and Taiwan will really clean up if China takes Taiwan.

>...For all the talk and hype, notice that investment money is still going into TSMC...

Ja, well we know the hazards of single-sourcing anything.

Alternative: design around it.

So where are the world's second best chip fabs?  How advanced are those?  

Or really Adrian... how damn hard can it be to extract an element from ore?  We know how to do that.  Scaling it up shouldn't be that hard if we really need the stuff, and perhaps we don't really.  Chips take so little material, almost nothing, and motors: well, the market for those things expanded waaaaay more slowly than anticipated.  I see signs of it everywhere right here in the neighborhood.  Lotta lotta people bought Tesla stock at 10 around here, so now they are stinking rich and you can almost tell by looking at them: that smirky smug look, the third state after happy and sad, that look which just seems to say to the whole world: I bought Tesla at 10.  

I refuse to accept the notion that the Chinese are the only ones who can do this, or even that no rare earth facilities can ever compete.  The brilliance of capitalism is that it has that whole: to each according to his capital, from each according to his capital.

spike