Why? Seriously, why do we care so much about this?
Do we not have better uses of our money. Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
> Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
Well you've got plenty of countries doing it, including France, Iran, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Brasil, Australia, you name it. Not that it's good, but a criticism for the goose is a criticism for the gander, as a manner of speaking.
As to which, why or why do we care so much about this? Idk, same reason our government funds tens of thousands of initiatives and cares about lots of different things that people find equally important or unimportant.
Historically the US did care a lot, in a way it reminds me of the Crusade for Freedom [1] and Radio Free Europe [2].
So I find this in line with the behavior of many American administration, the weird thing being that this time the target is not the just usual suspects (China, Iran, etc.) but also European allies.
(not saying this is a good thing btw, just trying to put it in perspective)
These things have been going on forever. Since WWII and until right now, there has been radio stations broadcasting into enemy territory, to bypass censorship.
No, the Trump administration is an enormous supporter of propaganda outlets, just not the ones that already existed. They don't care about maintaining the rules based world order. Their propaganda is much more inward-focused.
tl;dr there's currently no overarching plan to help the US catch up to China, and we're going to let "the market" fix that problem. Being that "the market" in the US is about quarterly earnings reports and strategic bonuses for the C-suite, I'm keeping my expectations in check.
fascists are going to fascist. Dang et al will just look away and say. "we don't have any power over what our users do. Email us to let us know." Because apparently the mods don't visit their own website? They'll just keep their heads buried in the sand. Everything is fine as long as that sweet ycombinator check keeps getting cashed.
I'm not telling anyone they can't clutch their pearls and tell other people what to do. All I'm saying is that you will never win the cultural battle that way. Building a culture that does things like getting people fired from their jobs for using magic words, even if there is obviously no intentional malice in those words, is a great way to lose elections.
OP is not looking to get people fired for using particular words. OP doesn't appear to be fighting any sort of political battle. OP is telling people to be nice, and that's as much his right as it is yours to use the wrong words.
And I don't think elections or "the culture" should have anything to do with it. If that's how we made every decision, life would only improve for whoever exists in the overall majority. What if we each chose to have some integrity and do the right thing, even when there's nothing measuring it? It wouldn't kill us, I don't think.
That Supermicro story was never confirmed/verified. All the companies involved denied that it happened (that doesn't mean much however) but no other reporters were able verify the story as far as I'm aware. With Bloomberg saying they had something like 12 anonymous sources, the likelihood that the NYT, Washington Post, Wired, etc. etc. etc. were not able to reach any of the same sources or corroboration says something.
Also, if these things were out there in such a large supply, I would have expected some hacker would have literally found an old board and found the chip and presented it to the world as evidence.
In terms of a coverup, this was during the first Trump term, and he's not exactly a fan of China, so I don't see any real reason the entire US business and intelligence community would keep it a secret (never mind the fact that if they can keep it a secret... and contact their traditional ways of leaking, not Bloomberg.)
I'm not saying it didn't happen, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and there has been effectively zero evidence presented.
And I'm not debating the fact that I'm sure it can happen and will happen. But let's stick with facts, not just some rumors.
I remember in one of the reports seeing a scan of the board with the inconsistent chip. The premise is plausible. It's not rocket science, so the bar for believing it is pretty low.
12 anonymous testimonies and a story is not zero evidence. Most of the history you are taught in school has a similar bar.
I'm not an international trade lawyer/expert by any means, but this seems like an unfair government subsidy. I guess the WTO won't care though.
But since this does seem like a government subsidy, I predict over the longer term this will only hamper US companies, not help them. And when this exemption inevitably disappears, US companies will end up further behind because they did not have to compete to the same level as other international corporations.
America has always bent the international order for it's own ends, but it seems like the real innovation and competitiveness that we did have is slipping away and we're left with nothing but trade barriers and monopolies. It's not going to work out well long term I predict.
Nah. The United States has the biggest lead and it's on the decline, but who's on the ascent? China? It'll be a long long time before any other country comes close to U.S. economic competitiveness.
FWIW the unique economic position of America is pretty much solely due to the fact it prints the world reserve currency (which is because it was geographically isolated from WW1/2) and not much to do with its actual production. When that fails it becomes just another (very big) country that will have to produce as much as it consumes.
I agree with the critique on the "socially constructed" part of this article.
I'd also add that since it was literally The Times newspaper which created the font, and it was considered one of the papers of record for the time (no pun intended), the font was probably designed to have a sense of accuracy, truth and authority. In other words, the institution that created the font is very much part of the socially constructed aspect of this font. In this case giving it that air of authority via it's relationship with a newspaper of record.
Do we not have better uses of our money. Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
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