I could be wrong but I’d assume what the OP is trying to say is that the leadership of these companies does not want these fabs to actually open and work. That something transpired maybe between them and govt.
I think as part of my 2026 goals I’ve got to learn how to shitpost half as good as some of the people that make the HN front page. These blog posts have a solid self-fellating energy to them replete with quotes from brand names that’s just too good to pass up on. A complete lack of experience talking about talent with nothing to show for it? Shit sign me up I’m all about that. I’ll have to put a twist on it. Maybe I’ll find something from Grothendieck and maybe mix it in with Moebius to form that perfect slurry of articulated diarrhea. Hmm, I just have to choose the right serif font that gives my each word an air of Oxford superiority. Maybe I can prompt ChatGPT for tips.
If there's a one word takeaway of the article it's attitude, and I'm curious if someone with as foul a one as yours can compete as well. Let me know if you write something!
There was something squalidly satisfying in your imagery; well done. Somehow the writing style vaguely stirred a memory of the essay "On Bullshit" by Harry Frankfurt.
Yeah and using people who write as inspiration is really weird to me. I’d rather look up to people who are slightly too busy to write 2k words a day because they’re actually doing things.
Why is that weird? The author is obviously impressed by writers, given they have an interesting in writing themselves, so it makes sense to use writers as an example.
And why is writing a less valuable profession than another job? Writing is also "doing a thing" - it just so happens to be a profession for some, a great one for those who are skilled and gifted at it.
I personally find it amusing that a semi-motivational piece about hard work and finding your niche, replete with personable anecdotes, comes from a person who works for a company based in name and function on an evil orb that corrupts everyone who touches it.
Palantir is one of the few IT companies out there that out-evil Oracle. Overpriced snake oil for surveillance and assassination, paid with taxpayer money!
Writing your own LINQ provider is a very niche activity done by people who want to translate or “transpile” C# expression trees into something else.
It is fundamentally a difficult endeavor because you’re trying to construct a mapping between two languages AND you’re trying to do it in a way that produces efficient target code/query AND you’re trying to do that in a way that has reasonable runtime efficiency.
Granted, on top of that, I’m sure LINQ provider SDKs probably add their own complexity, but this isn’t an activity that C# developers typically encourage.
Not a horror story. I like how marten worked with postgres and wanted something similar for sqlite, so I made a library that stores data as json, and translates linq to sql using json query functions. It wasn't very fast, but it was fun experience. For next attempt (once I have more time) I will probably include source generators to precompile queries and skip if not all, then most translation at runtime.
Core R&D, training, public education at all levels, health care, small businesses of all kinds, arts and entertainment, and many more.
Basically IP generation at all levels, and high-touch face-to-face service businesses.
The US already had the foundations for a post-industrial economy, but the cancer of extractive financialisation ate it alive. Instead of expanding into diversity it contracted into a startup culture that's always been a thin front for Wall St.
So the result is that it's very hard to start a mid-rank IP or service business. You have small-scale cottage-level producers like authors, musicians, video creators, and indie app developers relying on huge monopolies like Amazon, Spotify, Google, and Apple, and you have bigger projects playing the startup game and scrambling for funding rounds, where anyone who doesn't become a unicorn is a loser.
There's plenty of space for businesses between those extremes, but the economy isn't set up to support them. The space isn't dead yet, but it could be much, much bigger.
Universities and corporate R&D have similar issues. Metrics support conformist publishing and resume-development, not risky original talent and exploration.
Tariffs and brain drains are absolutely toxic and are going to nuke all of these spaces.
You can’t have any of this, literally, without manufacturing at home. You can’t do R&D of any sort if you don’t have the capability to produce things, to send an email or walk over to the company making it, speak with someone and have a consultation around what it is you hope to achieve because it’s the people who machine, who fabricate, who apply chemical treatments and layers of paint, who bend who etch and understand tool clearance requirements and so on that know this stuff. Manufacturing is a broad term.
I’m reminded of recent-grad architects whose proposed ideas are bereft of consideration of material properties and pitfalls.
I’m also reminded of Air Force aircraft engineers needed to be told their parts have to be adjusted because they can’t be machined. And the person who knows what needs to be done is Bob whose hands are covered in grease and oil because there’s not enough orange Zep on this planet to clean that guy.
To use China as an example: their entire pipeline from conception of idea to the end-customer is in China. They don’t even need to sell it externally (and frequently they don’t).
The West is fucked because they think pushing things around is being productive. GDP is a reflection of this failure because it’s a flawed, abused metric that’s devoid of where money actually ends up (most often it’s Chinese firms doing the work), so your GDP is looking great meanwhile you are incredibly unproductive over all. It’s a meme tool used for nonsensical political posturing.
Simply put: you can’t start R&D in the middle and not take into consideration a pipeline. It doesn’t work that way. People don’t have the experience or knowledge.
I looked at the Jeep awhile back but their safety ratings were absolutely terrible. I’ve been in car accidents aplenty so that was a deal breaker for me. Just about the only real electronic thing in my Lexus is an ECU which rarely goes and can be replaced relatively easily . Forget updating the maps and other nonsense. Just drive the damn thing and do mechanical maintenance and a little grease.
