Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "RealLifeLore"
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I've a few opinions on this that some people might not want to hear, but here goes.
First, to note, the reason why China imports so much chip from TSMC has more to do with their production for exports rather than internal consumption. That's to say, that big number you see there that overcomes even fuel for power imports, is because China produces everything for the world. The vast majority of production goes towards export. In fact, even the fuel imports has to do with China being the industry of the world... a whole ton of it goes towards industries that makes insane tons of things for export.
So, in an invasion, blockade or war scenario, of course China itself would be screwed up if chip imports stop, but more to the point, the entire world gets screwed, specially the countries that consumes the most, which is the US itself.
And if you live in the US you should know this, because this is in part what happened when the pandemic hit China factories hard. You know how a cascade of different brands started delaying or cancelling sales of their products because they couldn't get chips or enough production? That's because Chinese industries were closed down due to the pandemic.
But of course it's also important to say that even if that blockade happened, it would only have a real effect if this became a prolonged war. Reason is simple, ever since the trade war with China started, electronics manufacturers and other players in the chip business have been stockpiling chips for the scenario. It is also the case that electronics sales have been going down recently after the pandemic, because demand is dropping, economic factors, etc.
Another point, and this is a personal opinion, Biden's plan to bring chip production back to the US is only slightly more realistic than Trump's plan to bring jerbs back from China, with his notable Foxconn panel assembly plant in Wisconsin... sorry.
This is basically because neither Trump nor Biden actually understands the complexity of what they are proposing, what it actually demands, and how dominant TSMC really is not only in production, but in knowledge base, specialized workforce, infrastructure, logistics, and a bunch of other stuff. You can't throw money at the problem and hope it goes away, not even if it's billions.
Adding that to the late stage capitalism economy of the US, makes it almost impossible for chip production to happen anytime soon in the US. It's not only about building a plant, and the government subsidizing the difference with money. This could work for very basic manufacturing, but like so many other industries that China and Taiwan dominates, this is not basic manufacturing anymore.
Americans, and quite frankly most of the rest of the world, needs to pull their heads out of their asses and really understand the level of dependency here. TSMC, along with many of Chinese and Taiwanese industries, don't only take designs and "instructions" from their US and EU based bosses and do the thing anymore, no matter what your racist and nationalist uncle said.
A whole ton of tech development, of applied knowledge, of dependencies on other processes, of industrial machinery, of research and development, actually happens there nowadays. This is why bringing jerbs back don't work, not for extremely complex products like high end chip production, but didn't work even for an extremely basic monitor panel assembly that Trump proposed. That Foxconn plant that Trump touted as bringing jerbs back was super basic... it was just an assembly plant that many other countries have, usually developing or poor nations. It imports everything and assembly the parts locally. My country has a bunch of them. Not even that worked out. Because of course, with US wages, welfare and regulations, even if the government constantly subsidizes part of the losses, it still doesn't make much economical sense for the US to have something like that.
Thing is, this isn't your basic blue collar job that, if you are old enough, you saw on that Gung Ho movie from the 80s feat. Michael Keaton. Funny enough, it was about Japanese car manufacturing in the US, and simply put, it failed hard but good vibes and whatnot, wasn't closed despite the car dismantling in front of the boss... you know, it kinda had a point there, but these days failures like those just aren't an option.
People working in these plants need to know how to operate computers and modern machinery specific for the job. They need contact with a whole ton of key players in several different industries to work efficiently. They need higher education specific for their jobs to do the work. They need very specific work culture. And all of this needs to be inserted in the right environment to work. As I always recommend, look for a documentary on Shenzhen... or perhaps there's already something out there about Hsinchu Science Park, where TSMC is located. You quickly realize that part of the reason why these advanced tech industries work have all to do with their geographical location. You can't just build a plant in the middle of nowhere and expect it to work the same, they don't work in total isolation, those are not self contained systems.
But anyways, back to the main topic, I think the complexity of this global interdependence here is such that, any president or leader that is smart enough, should understand that peace and cooperation, the diplomatic route, will always be better. Because damages of an invasion, war, with blockades happening, have a very real potential of making such long lasting damages to the economies of countries involved, that it would surpass even lifelong totalitarian dictatorships... and it would put the entire society against them at the same time.
China, even being controlled by the CCP as it is, still couldn't avoid protests that happened during the extremely strict pandemic lockdowns. A war with Taiwan could be even worse. Xi Jinping won't be thinking only about trade war, sanctions, war consequences and whatnot, he'd also be thinking about local revolt, internal conflicts and then having to somehow, if he even emerges victorious, both keep control in Taiwan, and keep it's economy functioning somehow to recover losses.
So, in the end, the threat in all of this is so huge that my guess is that for leaders like Xi Jinping, you just rather play the long game. It's just more feasible to wait for a change in China's favor to happen than to act drastically. For instance, a Taiwan leadership that is more favorable to reunification. A change in US presidency that is less hawkish on the issue. Other wars to suck up so much attention that Taiwan drops off the priority list.
It's kinda almost there already, isn't it?
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Heh, I'm glad this still haven't gone to violence and I hope it never will, but everything in this charade is just stupid and wrong. And the reason why all dictators must fall, in the worst most horrible way possible.
First of all the idiotic idea that a referendum, corrupt as it is but even if it wasn't, can somehow have the power to surpass International law and accords. It doesn't work this way, and never will.
As if I could just pass a referendum in my country to overtake the territory of another and justify things on that alone. Hey, let's put up a referendum if my foreign nation can steal away the fortunes of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and whatnot to redistribute it to the entire population.
Guess what - everyone will vote yes. Does that mean it gives a justification for government to pursue it? Obviously not. A referendum for government to commit crimes shouldn't even be a thing in the first place.
Venezuela really is a failed state. Super rich in oil, with people starving on the streets. And everytime it seems things will go better with deals and whatnot, their incredibly stupid dictator needs to act like an ass to make a display of his own ignorance worldwide.
They should make a real referendum asking Venezuelans if they don't want to raid Maduro's palaces, take all his money, and redistribute it to the people, according to socialist precepts. Let's hear how that one goes.
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The vending machine vs shark thing is a bit lopsided.... sure, more people are injuried and even killed by vending machine accidents, but think about how many people interact with a vending machine on a daily basis versus how many interact with a shark. I guarantee you if we interacted with as many sharks as vending machines everyday, those numbers would be veeeery different.
Same thing for the cars vs planes, among other comparisons. I understand the purpose of putting things like that, because yes, planes are safer than most people think, and sharks are mostly afraid of people and just want you to leave them alone, not deserving the stigma it carries in any way, shape or form due to Hollywood sensationalization.
Just... it's still ok to respect them. Same thing for most wildlife, specially in national parks. Keep your distance and hold the selfie no one will care about for your non wildlife pets and friends.
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Spending 100 billion dollars to build a bridge between two isolated parts of no so friendly countries.... nope. But it's interesting though, that let's say if both airplanes and boats became an impossible means of transportation for some reason... that'd probably be the best way to connect the Americas to Asia, Middle East and Europe.
The other way around, no way. Through the south pole, also no way.
Island nations like Japan, New Zealand, Cuba, Madagascar and several others... plus states like Hawaii would have to live in isolation. Well, depending on how non navigable and non flyable skies and oceans were. Then again, if waters were too hostile, building bridges also wouldn't be very viable.
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Curious to know if every country has something like Macau or Las Vegas.
Gambling is an addiction and a problem, but it seems no countries are able to fully get rid of some form of it.
I know, for instance, that while in Japan gambling is illegal, the actual reality of it is that pachinkos are everywhere and that you will see lines forming an hour or so before them opening. Saw it myself. They get prizes instead of money, but crossing the street you'll always find a place that buys back those prizes. It's a way of evading gambling laws and it's been working that way for a while in the country. Horse racing still exists there too. There's also a very interesting history on it regarding yakuza.
Here in Brazil (HUEHUE) gambling is also illegal. But it doesn't matter because there are plenty of places to do it, from poker games to bingo and other types like "jogo do bicho". All in all, for people who have a gambling addiction there are plenty of places to go for, and if someone really wants to go for traditional Las Vegas style gambling you just have to cross the border to Argentina and do it there. I used to live close to the border, and I've seen the places. I also have a cousin that is pretty much addicted to high stakes competitive poker... even though it's illegal, he's always talking about private competitions he was in, full blown conventions, and stuff like that.
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Seasons are opposite here (something sometimes people don't realize), so we have a hot and humid xmas, yuck, there's almost no snow in the entirety of Brazil (exception for the southernmost tip, but even then it's at most and rarely few inches), Brazil also has almost no inland earthquakes because we're smack in the middle of a tectonic plate, but we have tons of flooding events due to poor city planning and infrastructure.
Also, something that people might not know due to recent string of bad press, bad government, and just lack of information - yes, the Amazon is burning, we have tons and tons of fire events in the country, and despite the government not contributing much to solve it, this has majorly NOT to do with Bolsonaro, our current president, but a lot to do with both climate change, and the bad practice of burning forests and grasslands to turn those into pasture, both because the practice is ancient here, but also because it's cheaper than any other alternative.
Climate change is increasingly creating a phenomena in Brazil where low pressure hot zones park on top of the country and don't get out, effectively creating a barrier for colder fronts to come in and turn into rainclouds.
Several cities in Brazil, particularly in states where lots of fires happened and are happening right now, are experiencing desert like weather conditions never seen before.
Water reservoirs, lakes and rivers dried up in a way we haven't seen in decades, or ever, year after year in the past half decade or so.
This tied to the practice of burning forests and grasslands is what the current inferno here is really about.
And like RLL explained, this is a huge, enormous, insanely big country, which also happens to be majorly poor.
Therein lies the problem of thinking political pressure and balking would somehow magically solve the issue.
Not even if the next president was a self proclaimed eco-terrorist. You know why? Because we'd need a regulation and law enforcement team dedicated to this task and this task alone multiple times bigger than our own military.
It's hundreds of thousands of farmland and pasture spread all over national territory, plus national parks, and other protected hard to reach areas that would need to be presentially monitored 24/7/365, because like I already said, we have almost no real winter here, and the rainy season is also disappearing.
And no, Biden giving us a bunch of money and threatening to sanction us if we don't change things won't have a major effect. Nor Macron and the EU with their offensive rhetoric.
Another problem is that Brazil economy majorly relies on primary resources exports, as at least a few people will know, we majorly export meat, plus a bunch of other stuff like sugarcane, soy, wheat, oranges and others. US is a big costumer, but more and more, China is becoming a huge costumer too, as you know, they have lots of mouths to feed. So the real global economic incentive here is actually to ramp up production, not slow it down. Market demand dictates it, and it's currently at the hands not of US, not of EU, but developing countries with large populations like China, Russia, India and whatnot.
Shouldn't need to say this, but no, I am not a Bolsonaro supporter. I hate the guy, and I warned people things would go this way if he was elected. But I'm just tired of oversimplifications and misinformation being spread out by international media coverage.
And also, get this. Brazil, despite the current bad fame, actually has a power grid that consists of 40+% renewables.
Do people know about this? The US, France and other developed countries, some of which are balking at us, are bellow the 20% threshold, despite thinking of themselves as being super eco friendly.
And the Paris Agreement? That whole thing started here, in the Earth Summit of 1992, aka ECO92, aka Rio Summit. It then went through Kyoto Protocol, Rio+20, and only then Paris Agreement.
Aside from the Paris Agreement when the US had a very short stint of adhering to it (thanks Obama), the US has always been against the whole thing, from start. Bush didn't show up, Clinton didn't want to make a commitment... Obama was an exception.
So yeah, it pisses me off when I have to hear people saying the US is on the forefront of this. It couldn't be further from the truth, Trump or no Trump, vocal democrats or not, US was never kn the forefront of the climate change fight, and it still isn't, not on a country wide, diplomatic level.
So yeah, there you go... my rant for the day. I hope you guys elect Biden... he's not great, but at least he isn't the absolute worst, there I said it. We unfortunately still have at least 2 more years with Bolsonaro, wish us luck.
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