[ExI] Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
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>>... Ja that one I kinda get.  Everyone can see we are preparing for a war with China.  They have been making aggressive moves toward Taiwan.  Sooner or later they are going to take it.

>...It is not that clear.  There is no question that, at a vast cost, China could take Taiwan.  But it is not clear whether China would gain enough to make it worthwhile.  The semiconductor factories would be destroyed, and more importantly, the workers would decamp to the US...

Keith I do hope you are right on that one.  Worst case scenario: China somehow arranges to capture the fabs intact, along with preventing the top-level workers from fleeing.





> >...  This means the advantages of mass production runs are decreased relative to smaller production runs.

>...With nanotech you should be able to build anything one-off...

Of course, but I am imagining the non-nanotech scenario and the non-singularity scenario for the near term.


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>>... The trade wars are pressuring the USA and other nations to have their own production capability and resource refinement capacity.  Some consumer items go up in price, but we get stability and security in return.  So in that sense, trade wars can be a good thing. spike

>...I doubt it.  Opening a new RE mine is a 5-10 year project and as far as I know, nobody is working on it.  Can't blame them, there is acopper mine in AZ that has been held up fo 20 years   A few months from now I expect defense projects like the F35 to shut down for lack of parts that contain rare earth elements.

If anything super important is being held up, we can mine the permanent magnets in wind turbines.  A lot of those were planted in places where they don't really pay.  Anyone who takes a flight across the USA on a clear day will see wind farms where two or three turbines are spinning wildly (demonstrating there is wind that day) while hundreds sit still and quiet.  This tells me there is insufficient demand for the power that day and insufficient (or completely utilized) energy storage.  Given that observation, one can speculate that the rare earth elements (if they really are necessary) can be mined from retired wind turbines.

However... I don't think we are incapable of designing around a shortage of that stuff.  I think we can design around it, or find it in existing infrastructure, without too much difficulty.  If the market is there, the Invisible Hand will find a way.  Invisible Hands are really good at finding ways.  It may cost a lot.  But Invisible Hands like to be paid, so they can stuff visible money into their invisible pockets.

spike