"Copyright" covers a lot of areas, from films to books to software etc. So blanket statements about it are not helpful.
From the mention of LLMs I guess he means software copyright. But then refers to takedowns, which I don't see much of in the copyright space.
And possibly he's confusing copyright with patents?
For software, copyright I the only thing that protects Free Software. Without it GPL would not exist, and all GPL software could be used wherever without releasing sources.
Copyright most certainly protects small business against big business. It is the model on which most small software businesses are built.
Patents are bad, and if you replace the term "cooyright" with patent in the original article it makes more sense. But to be fair it's hard to put much credibility into a post that doesn't even understand that difference.
Copyleft licenses like the GPL are doing the best they can in the current world. Abolishing copyright would not harm the free software movement.
I wouldn't bother to treat music and art separately from software either. It's a shame when a game is free software but not free culture and a distro has to package it in a non-working state and ask you to separately provide some files from elsewhere.
Re-releases of proprietary games often run into issues with music licensing as well and end up removing some of the old iconic music and upsetting the players.
You're advocating for the end of software licensing? Ie the removal of GPL or Open Source licenses? A landscape where any source code (or binary) can be snapped up by say Amazon or Microsoft and run via a paid subscription?
You're advocating for a business model which removes your access to local code and only allows access via a terminal or browser?
Because removal of copyright doesn't mean corporations go away. Rather it incentivizes business models that protect their products in other ways.
In the 80's and 90's, pre-internet, binary programs were distributed on media. An arms race of copiers and copy protection ensued. The copiers won, and since copyright enforcement has always been weak, business changed to favoring remote access (with subscription) over running locally via purchase.
At the same time Open Source and Free Software have thrived. Copyright protects that software being used outside the terms of the license. Indeed there's even outrage when it's used within the terms of the license (by AWS etc.)
Of course OSS still thrives under a copyrightless environment. (Free Software less so). But equally it means AI can simply be trained on it (probably no great loss since it's likely most of OSS will be AI generated anyway.)
Business however will adapt. And the easiest way to prevent coping now is simply remote execution. With a suitable Terms Of Use declaration.
Outside of software it would destroy music, movies, books etc. Basically it becomes a race to the bottom in terms of production costs (think user-generated You-Tube as the high-water mark.) But I assume you meant in the context of software.
Yes, I agree, that in much less than 1000 years copyright is dead. Because by then so much is in the public domain it doesn't matter anyway. Also because by then the last human programmer is long dead. AI will write anything you want, only you won't even ask because computer interfaces and abilities will be long past where we are now. You would have no need to create software any more than you need to build a plane or car today.
And those industries have taken less than 150 years to invent, explode, consolidate and commoditize. Indeed most of the complexity disappears when we go EV.
In 1000 years copyright is gone. But today it serves a lot of people.
Look, I prefer nuclear over fossil fuel every day of the week. It's the great hope of the non-carbon electricity sources.
In practice it is expensive to build, expensive to run, and really expensive to clean up. And that's before we add the risk of meltdowns.
Economically it makes no sense, not at the returns level, not at the timescale level, and certainly not at the political level. (If a US president can shutter an offshore wind farm unilaterally, imagine the risk to a nuclear plant that is 50% complete, and not yet fueled.)
There's a reason they're mostly run by govts. Govts are the only providers who don't have a money motive.
Personally I think research into storage, coupled with "wider" grids geographically, make solar and wind far more financially attractive.
Private capital has no appetite for nuclear, and few govts are left with both financial ability, and political will, for 30 year projects.
And if you think fission is expensive, wait till you find out what fusion-on-earth costs...
If we all agree that we prefer nuclear over fossil fuel, then the solutions is extremely simple. Ban construction of new combustion based energy production in the national grid. Let the economy and market forces compete to find the cheapest alternative when there is no fallback to burning fuels for electricity.
Take Sweden, since that is the country where I live in and which has an ongoing election right now. We are not building any new nuclear. We are building a bit more wind and solar, but both is close to 100% capacity and interest for overcapacity is low. New production is located in areas which has yet to reach 100% capacity. Hydro capacity is already at maximum capacity and need to be decrease in order to follow environmental rulings from EU and prevent extinctions of multiple species.
Thermal power plants however is seeing an increase with new plants being planned to burn fuel for electricity and heat. Private capital has great appetite for thermal power plants since those has great financial ability to extract rent from the government as part of the reserve grid and providing readiness to stabilizing the gird, and when they produce energy they can extract the highest price since periods of low wind and low solar create the absolute highest market price. The energy crisis a few years ago demonstrated that a single month can create market prices that exceed that of a whole year if the weather produce non-optimal conditions during the winter.
So the solution is really that simple. Do not build power plants that burn fuels. The economics will push the next cheapest solution to the top.
>> So the solution is really that simple. Do not build power plants that burn fuels. The economics will push the next cheapest solution to the top.
That's not strictly accurate. It'll push the next most profitable solution to the top. If there's no solution that offers the desired rate of return, at acceptable risk levels, then private capital simple doesn't bother to arrive at all.
Govts don't need a reasonable rate of return, so they can fill that gap, assuming that it doesn't cost too much political capital. Yes we need base load, but that message gets lost when the opposition are complaining about high govt spending etc.
Storage is the holy grail here. That allows for more provision of wind and solar.
Governments have always intervened into energy markets to implement policy goals.
German Coal penny
The coal levy was a surcharge on electricity prices levied by energy suppliers in the Federal Republic of Germany to finance hard coal mining . Consumers in the former West Germany paid the coal levy from 1974 to 1995, and it was abolished after the Federal Constitutional Court ruled it an unconstitutional special levy (electricity generation levy).
The Federal Constitutional Court argued that the coal levy was unjustifiable because it burdened the general public of electricity customers who had no particular financial responsibility for hard coal from Germany. The coal levy was therefore abolished at the end of 1995. Since then, hard coal mining has been subsidized from the state budget. Between 1975 and 2002, the total amount of subsidies was approximately 80 to 100 billion euros (in 2003 prices).
"The Renewable Energy Sources Act or EEG (German: Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz) is a series of German laws that originally provided a feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme to encourage the generation of renewable electricity."
Storage could be a solution, but it is not what politicians are right now putting their weight behind (remember, election here is ongoing and will finish in a few weeks. They are very open about their politics). For example, the platform of the green party writes that thermal power plants are a critical part of the Swedish energy grid in order to enable wind and solar. In debates they said that the oil power plant is a natural part of the energy grid and essential for keeping prices low and the grid stable.
That is the left side of the debate. The other side pushes for nuclear, but there is no actually ongoing construction for that. What is actually being constructed and supported by both side is more thermal power plants.
When you need multiple months worth of capacity to cover the winter, rather than hours to cover a day-night cycle, storage is a very expensive strategy. There are experimental tests, like the one in Finland that will heat a small number of buildings in a small town, but there is no political party that is going to the election on a platform with storage as the solution. The closest you will get is the far future plans in the green party platform that current oil and other plants could (in theory) be switched to burning green hydrogen, but the political capital in that area has been significant decreased in the last decade when cost of infrastructure and production has shown to be prohibitively expensive. The biggest project, intended to produce green steel, has been significantly delayed and costs increased, and is continuously demanding more and more subsidizes. To burn green hydrogen for electricity is about as close to becoming economical as fusion is.
You are indeed right that if we were to ban the construction of new thermal power plants, the result will likely be that private capital will simple not bother to do anything unless significant government capital is put on the table. Everything is simply too expensive and if you allow the market price to spike without limit, citizens will go and vote for government to step in. When electricity market spikes by 100x for a single month, the outcome is not that the market steps in and invest in more expensive power plants. Citizen instead goes to the government and elect one that will provide a stable energy market. That was the outcome of the 2020 energy crisis. That is how the economics of nuclear could become viable, or storage, but it is also why thermal power plants is the thing being built right now.
And that's with still quite a lot of coal and ever more gas in the grid, both for the plenty of times the intermittent don't deliver and for grid stability (see also: Spainout), which means we have the 3rd worst specific emissions in the EU (down from 4th worst last year), and the highest total CO₂ emissions in the EU.
After about €1 trillion spent on our "Energiewende", our "green" energy transition.
> Ban construction (...) and let the economy and market forces compete to find the cheapest alternative
This sounds nice and unbiased on paper, but often this means that rather than expanding alternatives, the poor are simply made to go without and then they will scream at politicians for relief until they get it and you are right back at square one.
As a fellow Swede you will know how the price of gasoline has become a hot topic and how politicians campaigned on bringing the price down again by reversing climate policies.
Personally I think the solution is to make a commie-style 5 year plan and then work backwards to what kind of incentives would be needed for that plan, probably involving industry leaders in that discussion. Then you can make sure that the incentives are technology neutral. This ensures that if nothing better comes along the "free" market will execute 5 year plan but they do have the option of gambling on alternatives if they so choose or if some wonder technology emerges out of a secret lab.
A commie-style 5 year plan or even 10 year plan would be kind of great. Electricity is one of those products that we know what we want long term and should be willing to budget for it in a reasonable way. We need to double the production while eliminating emissions, while at the same time restore rivers and prepare for more extreme weather. We also need a stable energy market without shortages, as week/month long shortages makes citizens and businesses go to the government for solutions. As the last energy crisis illustrated, people can't just stop going to work because the market price for electricity is too high. People need to eat and pay rent, and those needs is why they go and scream at politicians to fix it.
The price of gasoline is a actually a good example of an fairly open debate over what the costs should be on a national level for a global product. We are currently paying one of the highest electricity prices in EU, not because the energy is expensive to produce at the wind farms, but because construction of new transmission from the place of production to the place of consumption is carried by the consumer. There is very little political discussion on what a fair price is for electricity, and how the cost of the grid should be fairly paid.
I mean, not building yet, but a lot of new nuclear is in the pipeline.
"The Swedish government has presented a roadmap for new nuclear, stipulating that, by 2035, nuclear reactors with the capacity to produce 2500 MW should have been built, with further increases to 10 000 MW by the year 2045."
Legislation, permits and offers of loans/state aid can result in new plants if the private actors starts to invest, but there is a large difference between that and actually building new plants. With the election going on, it is also very questionable if anything will happen if the flips from right to left, as the new government can easily just withdraw those offers of state aid and change the legislation to make it unprofitable to invest into new nuclear power plants.
The proof is as always in what get actually get constructed, and right now what we do know is that new thermal power plants is currently being constructed in the south that is expected to finish and starting to burn fuel in 2028.
> can result in new plants if the private actors starts to invest
It is the private investors seeking approvals. Why would they do this if they didn't want to build? After all, these types of approvals and application processes also cost money. Are they doing this just for fun?
> but there is a large difference between that and actually building new plants.
Well yes: what is happening now are the required prerequisites to actually building. Can't really start building without having done these things first.
Not sure what you're trying to say here? They can only be taken seriously if they skip the necessary first steps?
> the new government can easily just withdraw those offers of state aid and change the legislation to make it unprofitable to invest into new nuclear power plants.
That was one of the changes: there is now an insurance mechanism that compensates investors if the state pulls the plug on them.
Which goes back to the point of the state being the biggest risk factor for nuclear projects.
> The proof is as always in what get actually get constructed
The proof for construction. The proof for intent and investor interests is now.
Next step happened just today:
Studsvik, GE Vernova Hitachi and Samsung C&T commit to advancing 1.2 GW nuclear power project in Sweden
Nationalize all power utilities and use their capital to build new plants. That costs the government nothing, and power will get cheaper even if the nuclear plans fail because their profit margins would be limited by law. It's also the best way to enforce a transition away from fossil fuels.
The costs are actually substantial, but measured in things other than money. Countries have nationalised things in the past, including energy, (think Cuba, Venezuela, Iran etc). The real cost tends to be in lost investor confidence at the bottom end, up to massive sanctions at the top end.
>> because their profit margins would be limited by law
yes, and no. I've lived in a place where selling price was below cost price for electrcity (with a Govt run electricity production.) Ultimately the price is paid out of the budget, which in turn is not infinite. Pressure on the budget in turn leads to redicing costs - like proper maintainence. There's some serious long term pain that is at the end of this path.
In most Western countries, you cannot just confiscate someone else's property without adequate compensation.
"That costs the government nothing"
It does - it costs you your international reputation, willingness of other countries to trade with you and invest in your economy, lost arbitrations in courts. Once you mount this particular tiger of just taking things you want by force, you are riding it all the way towards the "let us build glorious autarky!" club, whose members are famous for their blackouts.
Once upon a time, if you started nationalizing industries, you could at least rely on the Soviet Bloc to support you. That was their ideology, after all. Now the Soviet Bloc is gone, Russia is an economic dwarf and China is not interested in supporting precedents like that - they have too many investments abroad to encourage others to fleece foreigners.
> In practice it is expensive to build, expensive to run, and really expensive to clean up.
That turns out not to be the case.
Nuclear power plants are expensive, but that's because they are big. For the amount of electricity they generate, they are cheap.
They are also quite cheap to run. As far as I know, there is no cheaper source of electricity than a nuclear power plant that has paid off its construction costs.
And they run for a long time, if you don't do stupid shit like ban nuclear power. The US has so far extended the operating license of every nuclear plant that has applied to 80 years, and they now thin 100 years is a realistic option.
> There's a reason they're mostly run by govts.
Most nuclear power plants in the US are privately run, last I checked. So were the nuclear power plants in Germany. In Germany, the Greens tried to force nuclear power to become uneconomical by ever stricter regulations. They failed. Nuclear power had to be outlawed.
Also, the hyperscalars, for example, have all invested in nuclear. The biggest risk to nuclear is governments, which is why private investors want assurances or the government on board.
> wait till you find out what fusion-on-earth costs...
> Nuclear power plants are expensive, but that's because they are big. For the amount of electricity they generate, they are cheap.
Not according to the standard statistic for electricity generation cost - LCOE which amortizes capital costs.
> They are also quite cheap to run. As far as I know, there is no cheaper source of electricity than a nuclear power plant that has paid off its construction costs.
The are not cheap to run. Indian Point closed ahead of end-of-life because it couldn't support its operational costs - about $31 per MWh - about $500m per annum. Average wholesale prices at the time were around $28/MWh.
> Not according to the standard statistic for electricity generation cost - LCOE
According to the IEA it is. If you think nuclear LCOE is high, then you probably looked at the Lazard data. But Lazard themselves say that their figures for nuclear are not representative and that they did not try to make them representative.
“We do not, in this study, try to cost out new nuclear” (2:35)
“We think nuclear will be a big part of the future” (2:47)
“the costs of nuclear should go down “ (12:54)
“next five to 10 years the nuclear bar the one that's most likely to change the most in in terms of cost reduction” (14:06)
If you look at other sources than Lazard, for example the IEA, you will find that even nuclear LCOE is low.
However, LCOE is actually not the correct metric, as it only covers the cost of producing electricity from that source. It doesn't capture the cost of intermittent sources, which have very high system costs due to their intermittency.
Levelized Full System of Electricity (LFSCOE) is what you need to look at that, and there nuclear does well and intermittent are generally horrible, and they get worse the more of them you have. So you need to balance intermittent with stable providers like nuclear. And no, batteries are not sufficient, except maybe in the Sahara.
Here is the Finnish environment minister:
""If we consider the [consumption] growth figures, the question isn't whether it's wind or nuclear power. We need both," Mykkänen said at a press conference on Tuesday morning.
He added that Finland's newest nuclear reactor, Olkiluoto 3, enabled the expansion of the country's wind power infrastructure. Nuclear power, he said, is needed to counterbalance output fluctuations of wind turbines."
The $12 billion Snowy 2.0 scheme will cop further cost and timeline blowouts, auditors say, but the project has been beset with management failures and the government-owned corporation delivering the project cannot yet say how much more it will cost and how much longer it will take.[1]
My proposed solution: invite any of the 31 nuclear power reactor operating countries over to Australia to build them for us, and teach us how to do it.
CSIRO releases final 2024-25 GenCost report following consultation
* The report found renewables remain the lowest-cost new-build electricity generation technology, while nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs) are the most costly.
* Electricity systems rely on a mix of technologies, because no single option can deliver all the capabilities required for a reliable, secure and flexible supply.
Nuclear power, in Australia, relies upon high upfront costs with an uncertain delivery timeline; there are no sizeable existing nuclear power skillsets in the country, no living experience of construction, and a history of global clusterfucks when it comes to third party power station construction / delivery.
For the same money that maybe gets Australia some turnkey nuclear power by 2040 (ish) there can be nearly immediate delivery of solar power, battery farms, geological hydrogen storage, mini hydro, etc.
Right now, in Australia, nuclear isn't a pragmatic economically feasible choice.
Uranium based nuclear is ... a headache to say the very least, if not for the realisation that any waste sites will require much more security than they do presently, not ideal for the issue of decommissioning large uranium nuclear plants when they reach end of life. [1] [2] Perhaps the smaller reactor plants might not quite the same level of trouble decommissioning them.
Almost always what echoes in the quiet gap between the reality there is if not multiple billions of dollars of expenditure to implement going nuclear with Uranium, is the repetitive assertion just having all that Uranium is why we should go ahead with it. Well actually we have plenty of Thorium too, and the by product waste is not as great an issue.
"A 2009 poll conducted by the Uranium Information Centre found that Australians in the 40 to 55 years age group are the "most trenchantly opposed to nuclear power". This generation was raised during the Cold War, experienced the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s, witnessed the 1979 partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in the US, and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. It was the generation which was also subject to cultural influences including feature films such as the "nuclear industry conspiracies" The China Syndrome and Silkwood and the apocalyptic Dr Strangelove. Younger people are "less resistant" to the idea of nuclear power in Australia. Analysis of opinion polls from 2012 shows a "significant decrease in favourable views of nuclear power" following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster."
Decarbonisation is very much discussed in Australia, but not much progress has been done, because coal and natural gas is cheap in Australia. Australia also one of the largest coal exporters in the world.
Australian electricity in 2026 is about 45% renewable. And rising fast. 40% of Australian homes have rooftop solar. How is this “not much progress”? Yes more could be done but that is massive progress
Also, I’m not sure what point you’re making about public opinions. They’ve soured because it’s an economicly uncompetitive option, plus some safety fears. Seems rational to me.
I think the political-risk point is underrated. Even if you somehow get the engineering and construction costs under control, you're still asking investors to commit capital for decades while permitting rules, subsidies, electricity markets, and governments can all change underneath them
Unfortunately that doesn't really help. It has the effect of eroding the asset value such that it quickly means the owner can't sell.
In other words, if selling removes much of your capital, you then don't gave capital to spend on the next place.
Conversely investors become even more motivated not to ever sell. They can defer the LVT forever, and just use the property as collateral for loans (ie getting liquidity without selling.)
And LVT just becomes an expense built into the cost of rent. The investor never pays it anyway, the tenant ultimately pays it.
I guess that it can be rented or built upon. It's easy to imagine renting a field to a farmer but money is money, so why not letting somebody else build flats over one's land?
I understand where you are coming from here. And there are multiple levers in play here.
The cost of a mortgage underpins the rental value. If there are multiple units for rent then there will be a "going rate" and that's certainly a part of the equation. In that sense some landlords get more cream than others, but that's capitalism in action.
There are however other costs that go into rental calculations. Perhaps the building has a supervisor, or rental agent. Perhaps utilities are included. There are typically property rates and taxes. There may be sectional title levies. That's before we talk about insurance, maintainence and so on. For a group of similar dwellings these costs will tend to be similar, and so the floor is set not just by the mortgage, but by including these costs as well.
If a extra cost comes along, which affects all the properties together, then that will just become part of the rental-floor equation. And yes, it's possible for that to be higher than people will pay, but that tends not to be the driving factor. People have to live somewhere and ultimately will pay whatever keeps them off the streets.
Of course people who own their own home will simply have an extra cost burden every year. There's no upside at all, and will result in more people not purchasing, but rather staying on the rental ladder. Indeed making purchase less attractive allows rents to get higher.
This is the problem with all economics. There are butterfly effects all over the place so "simple solutions" tend to have lots of unwelcome consequences. Trying to solve problems with taxes seldom ends well.
Solar power on the roof of an EV car seems like an obvious play. And yes some energy can be derived this way. But it's important to understand the limitations of physics.
When the sun is directly overhead we get about 1kw per square metre. Very good panel effeciency is about 25%. ) I'm rounding a bit to make math easier.) The average car footprint is maybe 6 square meters. Obviously a lot of that is curved away from the sun, or is glass. 4 square meters here is perhaps a reasonable starting point.
Which means if we plaster the car with solar cells, we might get 1kw of output in pretty optimal conditions. Perhaps 12 hours of generation depending on latitude, time of year, and so on.
Most EV cars have 30 to 80 kw batteries (some more). So 12kw of charge per day is not nothing, but also not enough. Given pesky things like shade (from tall builings or trees), undercover parking, clouds and so on, daily average is much lower.
Solar film in general is great. But current pricing makes it cheaper to just install regular solar panels in most places. Less portable maybe, but more (financially) efficient to generate/store/charge as we currently do.
On the other hand the aesthetic of a solar panel car roof is very cool, and maybe covers the aircon power requirements on a hot day.
A solar panel would obviously not cover the usagebof a consumer car while it is being driven.
Consumer cars spend most of their time not being driven. If someone commutes 10 miles to work each day, they would nearly never need to charge the car.
That is, if your car has frequent access to sunlight. Mine spends most of its time underneath a cover, some others spend most of their time in garages.
Right, but for a fan, it would work. Cars heat up mostly in direct sunlight. The solar panel could be wired directly to a fan. This would also prevent heat death of dogs and forgotten children.
This. Plus I'll add that coding is the lowest point on the IT development ladder.
Just like crawling wasn't the end goal, neither is programming. I know learning how to do it felt great (so did crawling) but there's still a long way to go.
More than 50% of voters voted for Trump. Even today >30% (of everyone) think he's doing a good job. (Ie about equal to the voters in absolute number terms). Lots of people believe eat he is doing is legal simply because he is doing it.
And trade. The last 18 months the US has shown itself to be a unreliable trade partner. Lots of companies are looking at diversifying both markets and supply chains.
The recent trip of the Canadian PM to China is but the most visible part of this shift. That's at govt level, but I've seen it happen all the way down to individual level.
US products are typically more expensive here than Chinese. But at least you were buying from a friendly supplier. That distinction is eroding quickly. In my experience it's forced people to try Chinese, and generally been surprised (in a good way) over quality and features.
And yes, the price of oil has focused people much more at the EV market. (Not least because people with an EV already aren't shy about gloating). Pretty much everyone I talk to, who would buy a car "new" tells me their next one will be electric. The tipping point is coming much faster than most people think.
Its Apple'esque. The edge are still rough, and I don't trust their sketchy antics. People buy Apple because they earned that trust among their customer base. Is the device better than competitors, in my opinion yes but they are more along the lines of Samsung and not Apple.
Caveat: (Yes I know geeks here will say apple users are just dumb and want a status symbol....they'll never get it)
My comment was not say Prusa is inferior, but just to mention that "Made in China" today is really not like the "Made in China" of the 1970s.
BTW I know nothing about 3D printers, but the Bambulab was recommended to me by a German friend who lives in Germany and is all about open-source ... He had printers since a long time and knows the ecosystem very well.
He told me the BambuLab printer was better for me because less tinkering, and much cheaper, at similar quality... which is what i was looking for.
We both are embedded systems engineers who work with Linux daily, so I trusted him. The results I get from the printer do not disappoint.
However I totally get the Prusa vibe. Just not for my specific use case.
>Pretty much everyone I talk to, who would buy a car "new" tells me their next one will be electric. The tipping point is coming much faster than most people think.
People say a lot of things. If the infrastructure isn't there, it will end up like the US. I'm not sure Canadian EV infrastructure is up to snuff compared to China or even Europe. In the US a lot of people tried electric and now I am finding again and again, for many of these people, the next car after their EV is a gas car. Because poor implementation of the charging experience has put a bad first experience in many peoples minds. In the US K shaped economy, there are enough people that can stomach higher gas prices, and the lower portion of the K shaped economy has an even worse EV infrastructure or otherwise cannot afford most EVs(used or new) anyway.
For a lot of people the infrastructure is an outlet in our garage. Going to the gas station is a novelty and just for snacks. Road trips are a few times a year and not a dealio at all. A PHEV is a nice sweet spot.
It's 2026 and we are still debating this? There are a range of use cases for the population. We have semis, F350s towing landscape trailers, motorcycles, bikes, evs, NEVs, etc.
Pick what you think will work best for your use case and iterate. Global political posturing doesn't move you anywhere.
You can debate all you want. If I have learned anything this past decade, its the internet has little bearing on how real life turns out. Just look at the sales numbers. In the US they are now slightly declining after years of steady growth. I watch auto industry shows that talk about how executives who bet their reputations on the EV transition at places like Ford and GM now stand with destroyed careers because the demand was just not there and billions of wasted capital that had to be written down.
A car company has to sell a product that the masses will buy. It turns out for the US (and I suspect Canda as well) that product is currently hybrids. It gets the fuel cost down for people while allowing them to not give up on what they come to expect.
The market in the US may be growing less strongly than elsewhere, but there are somewhat unique circumstances involved in that.
One is political - Energy in the US is highly political, and the oil and coal lobbies are both influential and regressive. This leads to EVs becoming a political statement rather than an active choice.
Second is size. Americans tend to drive further so range does matter. More range means more cost. And even Americans who don't ever go further than 20 miles entertain at least the idea of a cross-country road trip.
So I get where you are coming from. But I'd also say that the US is different to the world in general. In Europe I saw charging infrastructure everywhere. (Streetlight poles contained chargers, all the way down the street.) Electric busses were the norm. Electric cars everywhere.
Like I said earlier, a tipping point is coming. Naturally it'll happen sooner in some places than others. The US will likely be towards the back.
The problem for US automakers is that by the time they see a local market, they'll be well behind the curve in development. I don't think a GM will be able to compete in product (never mind price) to a BYD et al.
We are talking about the US and Canada here, thats why I referenced American car companies and their executives. Im not denying at all that other countries are in different scenarios and this will have different adoption trajectories.
>The problem for US automakers is that by the time they see a local market, they'll be well behind the curve in development. I don't think a GM will be able to compete in product (never mind price) to a BYD et al.
It's possible that GM and Ford are dead companies already. Although at the same time, I'd expected Tesla to decline a lot faster than they really did post MAGA Musk. They've had massive duds and a lot of money spent. Yet in terms of the U.S. they are still ahead of the pack in technology development and sales are not abysmal which is insane given there have not been any new platforms introduced. In fact they have discontinued models.
Whether BYD overtakes the American market remains to be seen, and maybe even in Europe we might see eventual pushback as things get really dire with the local manufacturers. It's really too early to tell.
China has an oversupply of EVs. They have over 100 car companies right now competing to the very death, and only a small handful will survive. Those companies will be very strong. But due to the oversupply and the 25% youth unemployment rate, China has to find a way to offload these vehicles overseas or else they'll suffer significantly as well. So it's going to be interesting times, and I'm not too sure how things are going to play out long term.
Move and more people are realizing the reliance on fossil fuels is determinant to national security. EV and renewable sources of energy improve national security. I applaud those that have become enlightened.
My next vehicle will be fully EV, not Tesla, once my current one dies.
> I'm not sure Canadian EV infrastructure is up to snuff
Canada needs a whole lot less EV infrastructure than the US since so much of the population lives along a narrow band. Once you cover the trans-Canada highway, you've covered ~90% of long distance trips.
Perhaps, and I am open to being wrong about this. What about range anxiety in extremly low temperatures? We have all heard the stories of so many Teslas operating above the artic circle and other Tesla propaganda but day to day, do EVs stack up to Canadian environmental demands? Model 3 owenrs (including one of Telsa's largest former cheerleaders) had numerous problems withs its California based design in cold winters (ex. frozen door handles).
Maybe the eventual chinese sodium batteries will solve some of these issues.
Canadian environmental demands are strict but not that much of a problem. ~90% of the population is withing ~100 miles of the border and has pretty similar climate to the northern US/most of europe, and anyone much further north than that already plugs their car in at night in the winter to keep the engine from freezing. Recessed door handles could be a problem, but that's not a mandatory part of an EV.
I doubt the Canadians want their economy flooded with Chinese goods ("dumping" - selling goods at less than cost) - which destroys local industry.
This was predicted in The Economist awhile back, that if the US blocked Chinese imports a tsunami of Chinese goods would flood other countries and now it's happening. Those countries will also, in turn, erect trade barriers, or suffer the devastation that massive Chinese dumping causes.
So it's a nice protest gesture, but it's a cutting off your nose to spite your face gesture.
Accusations of Chinese dumping are cheap and easy to make, but the evidence is pretty mixed.
Most actual cases have been of raw materials (eg steel, yarn) and industrial chemicals.
I think this is a long way from the alleged "tsunami of Chinese goods".
It's also worth noting that many Chinese manufactured goods would mostly substitute for US manufactured goods (eg cars). That's actually the whole point.
The thing people tend to handwave about China's manufacturing prowess is that they have spent the last 25-ish years getting really good at 'making things to a spec' at a cost in-line with their labor market, being bolstered by their government's approach at Economy planning (i.e. subsidizing certain industries, required partnership agreements when foreign companies want to use that labor market to build things).
The quality of the product you get, like always, is about what people are willing to pay. The big difference is that the current cost of labor/material inputs there, is low enough that you can get the same or often better quality for less.
I wouldn't call that dumping. And to be clear, yeah they've done dumping in some cases.
But when we look at what's happened in the last 8 months or so around various AI SaaS-ish offerings, one could argue that plenty of US companies have done 'dumping with extra steps'. (And that's not even the first time necessarily, e.x. the DoorDash Pizza Arbitrage thought experiment...)
> It's also worth noting that many Chinese manufactured goods would mostly substitute for US manufactured goods (eg cars).
Heck, GM was (although they are moving it due to the Tariffs AFAIR) building the Buick Envision (Compact CUV) in China and shipping it to the US for sale. GM Announced in January that they'd move production to the US by 2028.
Similar for The Lincoln Nautilus (Midsize CUV), The current Gen is built in China and they only in the last month announced that they would move production back to the US... by 2030.
It's not "so bad in this case". The domestic version is called "predatory pricing" and is illegal. In practice, it's easier to raise anti-dumping complaints than predatory pricing cases, both because the producers don't vote in your country and because the complaint doesn't have to be proven in a court of law.
TBH I agree with you, even mentioned it in my other reply.
Modern China is not like the Soviet Union; it is much closer to a capitalistic society, but instead of private equity there is a (heavier than even the most 'socialist' of EU nations) government planning push.
In some ways, one could argue they're just taking lessons learned from all of the current systems and applying them aggressively in their centralized planning.
As someone who has lived in/around the heart of the 'Arsenal of Democracy' for my whole life, gotta say they are taking better lessons learned than the US has.
I'm sorry our educational system has not made the differences between bad faith companies and dictatorship clearer.
Let me put it this way: American companies sell you a bad car and lay you off to give a CEO a bonus.
Chinese dictatorships put you into reeducation camps if you're a Muslim dissident or unapproved member of a religion. China tells the Catholic Church who to appoint as bishops and the Pope spends his time criticizing...anyone but China.
China pumps metrics tons of drug precursors onto the black market which accidentally find their way into Mexican drug labs and...are imported into Detroit.
China backs our national enemies because they are friends to anyone who opposes us. China funds Russia. China buys Iranian oil.
You just described it yourself. American companies will build a Cybertruck, blame their customers, cancel a $25,000 EV, and then lay off employees for Elon's ketamine/AIPAC shill fund.
China has their own Abu Ghraib moments swept under the carpet, but their workers accept it for the same reason America ignored Seymour Hersh. Their middle class is growing, the Chinese economy has vast surpluses and market leverage that only America has ever enjoyed. Their asymmetric warfare stealing IP, from Texas Instruments to ARM to Lockheed Martin went unpunished. The Chinese intelligence agency, through Salt Typhoon, probably has more blackmail on American politicians than the Mossad does. From a Chinese perspective, the war is won. They're supporting the winning side in Ukraine since both US administrations rebuffed full NATO intervention. They're supporting the winning side in Iran after the IRGC proved they can disable planes, drones and ships with Chinese hardware.
When the United States calls Canada a "51st state" or renames border territories to manufacture leverage, it's not helping China lose. They're undermining the trade agreements that all of North America relies on, and strengthening China's case as a reliable alternative to America's fickle export restrictions. In that sense, humanitarian outrage is almost an advantage; why would Pakistan, Iran or Russia worry about ethical reprisal from China if they're equally amoral?
Garlic dumping. Those little socks of 4 or 5 bulbs sold for a dollar-something are from China (notice the tops are chopped off so they cant sprout.) I buy domestic garlic because it's fucking stupid to import something that's so easy to grow.
I'm Canadian, the auto industry here died the moment trump started all of this tarrif talk in February, it just hasn't gotten cold yet.
Because of the tarrif and trade war our local industries will struggle and collapse, there's nothing we can do about that - they were dependent on US trade partners and markets, the Canadian market is much smaller. We have massive productivity issues, there's little chance we'll successfully build our own auto industry.
In the interim buying more from China doesn't really hurt us, and sends a strong signal to the remaining people who care about foreign policy in Washington that there are penalties to treating allies like enemies.
I used to really strongly oppose Chinese expansion and the rise of cheap products getting dumped everywhere - I still do, but I oppose the US admin more; and at least they're stable and clear about what they want
Seems pretty straightforward to me: Hey, China - start local plants and we’ll be happy to have as many EVs as we can build. After all, we’ll have plenty of idle auto workers.
If Chinese industry is willing to operate at a loss in order to poke the US in the eye, sure - markets too small and labor too expensive otherwise imo.
It would be cool to have a native Canadian car company to defend and the only argument you can make for Chinese car dumping is that you dont want the only car companies remaining in the world to be Chinese. Thats a possibility yes since China has 100+ car companies, the population is overall declining in most western countries and there are already too many car companies for a shrinking pie of customers. But from Canada's point of view: they have already been threatened enough that im sure those remaining ford,gm and stellantis jobs might be gone eventually...so whats left? Maybe Canada can demand BYD open a car factory in Canada.
I'll be rude/bold enough to say that Canada's ability to argue around 'in-country' made goods has been eroded for decades;
I will admit I'm going to point to a specific example; Canadian Bike makers have been able for at least a decade to get an unpainted frame from Taiwan/China/Etc, components from wherever, but so long as they painted the frame in canada and did final assembly in Canada... 'Made in Canada' alongside all of the tariff exemptions that came with that.
> But from Canada's point of view: they have already been threatened enough that im sure those remaining ford,gm and stellantis jobs might be gone eventually...
Guess you didn't hear about Brampton in the news, the Stellantis plant there might be on the chopping block...
Yeah Canada has natural limitations bigger countries like the US does not have but still, I wonder if good negoiation and maybe a changing situation in regards to the US's declining prospects might allow Canada to swing a bit higher in the future and demand something like this. There is a skilled workforce in place as well so maybe that changes the calculus.
Hence the concept of trade partnerships. No country makes everything, and yes, there's lots of competition.
Tarifs have existed since forever. Countries use them to protect local industries. But they've always been stable, and industry focused.
Food production for example is worth protecting and Canada has tarifs on imported Dairy. Partnerships exist to protect local industries, promote exports, and give citizens access to cheap goods. It's a complex balance set up over time with lots of nuance and negotiating.
Yes, sometimes tarifs kill a local industry as well. Lack of international competition let's local industry stagnate until it is dead. US ship building is a good example of this, and US Auto makers are trending in this direction. (Banning Chinese EVs is not bolstering the US EV production, it is causing the US manufacturers to ignore that market, and I don't think that ends well.)
Tarifs are a powerful tool when wielded well. Alas right now the US in unstable. Local industries can't rely on tarifs existing next week, never mind 5 years from now. I'm not investing in a local hockey stick factory because the tarif could disappear at any time.
In my country we get cheap solar panels from China. Frankly, let them sell below-cost if they like. (Hint, they're not below cost). We don't make them here, so cheap energy is good for all.
The US negativity to Chinese goods seems to be around dumping (which happens, but not much), around quality (frankly much of it is very good) or around human rights. (Cause, you know, we bombed Iran to promote human rights...)
I don't think Americans will suddenly love China. But the rest of the world is getting very cosy very quickly.
But China wants to make everything, that is the problem. It might also be the case that we misunderstand the state of the Chinese economy quite a bit. I heard an argument by an economist that the situation is mainly explained by the real estate crash. That was a ginormous event but the government basically just denied any big consequences. That did kill the credit market for a long time. Now Chinese consumer have little money to spend and China is forced to export their products, no matter the price to keep things going.
As long as a typical Chinese person is happy with a standard of living that is far below what an American expects, China will be way cheaper on labor.
For most products, labor is a significant cost.
For a lot of consumers, price is more important then where it's made. Maybe not what they say they think is important but when they actually decide. As a result, China will make almost everything, along with the rest of south east Asia.
Basically, the lower price for products comes at the cost of exporting your own jobs. One is easy to reason about when making a purchase decision, the other is indirect and abstract. Which is why the former wins
Well so far I believe they've been buying us government bonds for example?
Also, haven't they been buying all kinds of stuff in Africa etcetera? Money doesn't have to flow from A to B and back to A. It might very well pass many more hops to complete the circle
Doesn't have to be state-owned but it probably helps if the state forces such a venture with their domestic companies. It's already occuring in many countries now that China is the dominant producer, such as Ford with Geely and Volkswagen with XPeng.
Selling below price to capture a market is now somehow BAD? Isn’t this the bread & butter of cutthroat capitalism? Isn’t it something we do endlessly? But when the Chinese do it its “dumping”?
Oh no! Cheap goods and services! Maybe some other governments will be smart enough to not let a massive influx of nearly free stuff make everyone materially worse off. In fact it seems like only a completely idiotic system would make people worse off for having more free stuff.
protectionism is what kills your economy because it cannot raise aggregate output. You can't "save jobs" in total, only a minority at the expense of the majority. When you raise tariffs on Chinese imports every consumer takes an economic hit, which otherwise would have gone to.. job creation and consumption. You'll have on net fewer jobs because you've made your country poorer.
Not to mention, Canada being largely a service and resource extraction economy doesn't even really compete much with China.
It worked for Australia (which has a fairly similar economy to Canada).
It has led to a "Dutch disease" reliance on the resources sector in Australia, but that isn't radically different to the Australian economy before (mostly proportionally more coal & iron ore exports, less wool and grain)
That is a policy choice. Why do we need jobs if we're getting unlimited free stuff? The laws of physics aren't requiring us to - we are requiring us to.
The point is total economic dependence on _no one_, because we had basically had total economic dependence on the US and they fucked us into learning our lesson.
But other people are giving you everything you want for free. Why do you need to afford it? What does it even mean to question whether you can afford something you already get unlimited amounts of for free?
You said "everything you need". I need shelter, I need food and water, but I want powerful computing, fast internet, a phone with cell service, treats and snacks and etc. I want games to play with my friends, I want gifts to buy for my friends. I don't need those things, but they greatly contribute to my quality of life.
Also:
> What does it even mean to question whether you can afford something you already get unlimited amounts of for free?
If I had unlimited money, my limiting resources would quickly become time and energy instead. So affording something would mean fitting it into my day/week/month/etc, and finding the energy for it. I have severe ADHD and executive dysfunction, so I don't always have the capacity for things I should be able to do.
It is genuinely impossible to compete in a market where alternatives are cheaper enough, just look at how Amazon Basics squeezes competitors out of business.
This is why free trade is important. We had a decent setup where countries were specializing in their own manufacturing/services specialties, and then we all paid each other for what we needed.
Then some greedy fools decided they needed more, and started trying to charge more on the way out or on the way in. Now the ones that specialized in the 'must haves' of today have insane leverage over everyone else. Then the 'easy' answer is to prevent those goods from coming into your country.
It's all so incredibly shortsighted, it deflates me.
The reality of the world is that when the US sets e.g. environmental or labor standards, we basically end up offshoring the affected industries to other places. Because those standards increase the cost of production which makes it more economical to produce stuff in a country that doesn't have such standards. With completely free trade, everything would be made in whichever country has the lowest standards, which is rather contrary to the implied values when passing environmental and labor standards in the first place.
You could then try to make laws that countries we import from must abide certain standards, but just gets gamed endlessly. For instance cacao/chocolate makes extensive use of child slavery [1]. There have been numerous lawsuits over this until the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that you could no longer sue Nestle/Cargill/Hershey/etc over child slavery in their supply lines. They were being sued because their oversight came down to asking, 'Hey you're not using child labor right?' 'Nah.' 'Cheers then, carry on.'
When a company's goal is to not see something, they do a very good job of becoming blind.
Labor costs are orders of magnitude more than costs added by environmental or labor standards.
The average hourly rate in the US is $42.50. In Vietnam is is $6.30, in the Philippines it is $5.40[1]
These aren't people living in poverty - they live well.
OTOH environmental legislation costs are harder to come by, but [2] estimates around 10% in a number of case studies. To be specific, that would mean US cost would be $4 less - that's still around 6 times the cost of Vietnam
That paper discusses only the effect of increasing energy costs, and seems highly dubious as well. Their conclusion is that increases in energy prices would have a small effect that could even be positive. We got to see what happens after increasing energy prices since 2022. The effects have been neither modest nor positive. They studied only modest changes from the past, but they were speaking of energy costs shifts on a scale aiming to shift Earth's climate, which is not modest. The cost is going to be much more than 10%.
Also the US economy is increasingly polarized so averages mislead. The median hourly is a bit under $21. [1] You also need to account for what happened to the economy after we start shipping these affected jobs overseas. That's an entire segment of the economy which is going to influence wages, consumption, and other distributions. I agree wages are always going to be a major factor, but we can also afford a premium because shipping stuff half way around the world isn't free, the broader economic impact of having less control over your supply line is itself also a significant cost, and so on.
What are you saying? If people all choose a shitty version from China, there will be no market for a good local version and businesses will stop trying. The investment required to match China's manufacturing capability in any area is simply impossible unless you say it is an AI data center.
Real life isn't just "the shitty version from China", especially in 2026. Some of their products are better, some are worse. Nearly _all_ of our clothing comes from Asia, from low to high-end brands.
I'm saying there's value in specializing, not every country needs to be able to make everything. The real issue is people weaponizing their specializations, in this case specifically the USA with its stupid trade moves.
What is "quality"? What is the objective test of it?
I have made my definition clear: if people are choosing a product consistently, it must be of some value to them. What is your definition?
Web development is the lowest form of programming, it is the easiest to learn, is very transient, and has a lot of competition for low wages.
Doctor though is hard to learn, is highly skilled, the peak of their professional space, and so on.
I fell you've picked two alternatives that are poles apart. Surely there are choices between those 2? Have you considered moving up the programming food chain? Or perhaps a medical role that's not a doctor?
I'll be honest, once you said you won't respond to protect "well being" I don't think you'd like being a Dr. Sounds like you're looking for a low-stress environment (and medicine is not that). How are you going to cope with patients dying?
I think it would be helpful for you to see a psychologist to really understand your current feelings and motivations before you make large life choices. Jumping randomly out of the frying pan doesn't always end well.
While your experience is valuable, it may not be universal.
The US operates a for-profit health system. That has an impact on all the players. The OP is European (although doesn't say which country) ; most of Europe has a for-health health system. As such there is less incentive to churn through patients as fast as possible.
Personally I have experienced public health, and while clearly every interaction, hospital, country etc is different, I have not experienced time pressures. Sometimes the doc visit takes 5 minutes. One time over 2 hours. Of course the balance is a wait in the queue, which can be substantial, but I'm in the fortunate position that I can take a day off when necessary.
While neither system is perfect, overall I prefer the one which prioritzes good health outcomes.
I have a non profit insurance and most of the hospitals in my area are non-profit as well. Some of the parts of the system are for profit (maybe the imaging centers?, pharma companies), but most of it isn't... that doesn't seem to be the main issue.
From the mention of LLMs I guess he means software copyright. But then refers to takedowns, which I don't see much of in the copyright space.
And possibly he's confusing copyright with patents?
For software, copyright I the only thing that protects Free Software. Without it GPL would not exist, and all GPL software could be used wherever without releasing sources.
Copyright most certainly protects small business against big business. It is the model on which most small software businesses are built.
Patents are bad, and if you replace the term "cooyright" with patent in the original article it makes more sense. But to be fair it's hard to put much credibility into a post that doesn't even understand that difference.
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