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Comment Re: Attempting to prevent China... (Score 2) 50

History is full of examples of governments trying and failing to restrict technology. The Venetian Republic attempted to guard glassmaking secrets. European states tried to restrict textile machinery exports during the Industrial Revolution. The Soviet Union acquired Western technology despite extensive Cold War controls. Barriers sometimes slowed diffusion, but they cannot stop it. The advancement of knowledge depends on openness, criticism, and exchange. Scientific progress is cumulative. Every generation builds on discoveries made by others, often across political and cultural boundaries. Patents and copyright were designed to encourage innovation by TEMPORARILY rewarding the innovator, not by becoming a moat. They certainly weren't designed to protect massive global corporations from competition.

China has hundreds of thousands of engineers, world-class universities, substantial domestic semiconductor investment, and access to global scientific literature. America can lock down its own tech and lose in the long run or each side can learn from the other. Either way the American tech hegemony only lives in the imaginations of overindulged national chauvinists.

tldr: Information wants to be free. Screw your IP laws.

Comment Re:Thinking Too Small (Score 1) 188

Corporations basically don't pay taxes, even if they look like they are.

The CBO produced a report "THE INCIDENCE OF THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX" in which it states "A corporation may write its check to the Internal Revenue Service for payment of the corporate income tax, but that money must come from somewhere: from reduced returns to investors in the company, lower wages to its workers, or higher prices that consumers pay for the products the company produces."

And it goes on to say

"Although economists are far from a consensus about exactly who bears how much of the burden of the corporate income tax, the existing studies highlight the significant types of economic mechanisms as well as the empirical estimates necessary for further quantifying the burdens. CBO's review of the studies yields the following conclusions:

o The short-term burden of the corporate tax probably falls on stockholders or investors in general, but may fall on some more than on others, because not all investments are taxed at the same rate.

o The long-term burden of corporate or dividend taxation is unlikely to rest fully on corporate equity, because it will remain there only if marginal investment is not affected by those taxes. Most economists believe that the corporate tax system has some effect on investment decisions.

o Most evidence from closed-economy, general-equilibrium models suggests that given reasonable parameters, the long-term incidence of the corporate tax falls on capital in general.

o In the context of international capital mobility, the burden of the corporate tax may be shifted onto immobile factors (such as labor or land), but only to the degree that the capital and outputs of different countries can be substituted.

o In the very long term, the burden is likely to be shifted in part to labor, if the corporate tax dampens capital accumulation.

Comment Re:A step in the right direction (Score 1) 124

It's absolute insanity that folks throw away $1k+ phones because we can't easily swap out a $25 battery.

Indeed, because even if it's not user-repleaceable, any phone repair shop can do it. (It's also crazy to buy a $1k+ phone in the first place, goddamn, there are fine options for much much less.)

It's absolute insanity they removed the headphone jack to force us to buy / replace battery powered headphones or an adapter.

It's annoying, but adapters are cheap. I'm not going to lose sleep over $5.

It's absolute insanity I have different chargers and cables for at least five generations of this crap laying about. Pick a damn standard already.

They did, the whole industry uses USB-C now.

Comment Re:AI generates a LOT of words that need to be rea (Score 1) 67

Go ask ChatGPT or Claude a question no one has ever written down. How many hamsters would it take to chew through Africa like a locust swarm? If London Bridge were built out of paper, where would it first structurally fail? The LLM will probably be able to either answer correctly or take a damn good shot at it. This is evidence that LLMs can at least approach engineering problems. Same for asking them for a circuit layout for basic arbitrary tasks, as long as the answer is within context window.

Comment Re: burner phone elsewhere will always exist ... (Score 1) 166

You didn't seem to understand that you are making my point. The claim from the FCC is a variation of "won't somebody think of the children" to wit "won't somebody think of the scam victims", but of course, as we both agree, this isn't about that at all. That is the whole point. Do they to keep up.

Comment birth rates (Score 1, Interesting) 155

Teach girls marriage is slavery. Teach boys approaching girls is harassment. Subsidize divorce. Take away mens support networks. Tell women if they're not working something is wrong with them. Tilt college entrance and careers heavily toward the graphic that only wants to date up. Give all the wealth to the upper, upper class. Make housing expensive. Make health care prohibitive.

Why are birth rates collapsing? Must be smart phones.

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