Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Jacob]

So talk to me about the requirements for making your own cloud services. I'm assuming it's going to be somewhat costly due to economies of scale, but what would it actually take on a national level? Or could it potentially be done as a supra-national effort, in collaboration with the EU or some such?

[Sheilbh]

Agreed. I think Macron agrees as well, with the recent announcement about spending money on French AI dev.

Mistral is very interesting.

But there is a bit of Euro-problem on this stuff. Europe is absolutely at the cutting edge of the manufactured stuff of modernity - the chips etc that drive the modern age, but generally does struggle with the services.

I think Macron absolutely agrees and gets it  - it's part of why I think he is still the most interesting European leader. If, I think, a failure.

Personally I'd love a European alternative to Whatsapp.

Sadly we just have Telegram

Also, relatedly but different topic, in some of the Canadian social discourse about "WTF, is the US going to annex us... what would an invasion look like." Someone made the point that tariffs are one thing - something we can whether with whatever economic downturn. But if AWS got turned off, we'd be proper fucked.

... hopefully it won't come to that.

Yeah that would be pretty catastrophic - add in Microsoft too and we're really fucked.

[Jacob]

Our strategic planners should look into that at the earliest opportunity.

[Sheilbh]

So talk to me about the requirements for making your own cloud services. I'm assuming it's going to be somewhat costly due to economies of scale, but what would it actually take on a national level? Or could it potentially be done as a supra-national effort, in collaboration with the EU or some such?

Well, apropos of nothing:
https://european-alternatives.eu/alternatives-to

Not sure how many are realistic alternatives particularly at scale.

And obviously it is reinforcing the trend to nationalism/deglobalisation.

[DGuller]

These kinds of discussions are one reason why I think protectionism is not as bad as it is portrayed, in the long term.  I'm not denying the obvious economic efficiencies of free trade, but I think free traders are ignoring the strategic costs of making yourself economically vulnerable, because they are unquantifiable.  Unfortunately, too many people, even smart ones, treat unquantifiable as zero.

[mongers]

These kinds of discussions are one reason why I think protectionism is not as bad as it is portrayed, in the long term.  I'm not denying the obvious economic efficiencies of free trade, but I think free traders are ignoring the strategic costs of making yourself economically vulnerable, because they are unquantifiable.  Unfortunately, too many people, even smart ones, treat unquantifiable as zero.

Well the premise was America wouldn't elect an utter moron, turns out Trump 1.0's behaviour was a grey swan, Trump 2.0 is a lake of these:

[DGuller]

The point of national security is to not be critically dependent on other countries, unless you want to be a colony without voting rights.

[Sheilbh]

These kinds of discussions are one reason why I think protectionism is not as bad as it is portrayed, in the long term.  I'm not denying the obvious economic efficiencies of free trade, but I think free traders are ignoring the strategic costs of making yourself economically vulnerable, because they are unquantifiable.  Unfortunately, too many people, even smart ones, treat unquantifiable as zero.

I've always been a little pro-protectionism especially for developing economies - but that's largely because I think all of the big success stories in East Asia especially tend to have built their industries with strong levels of protection (and often fairly corrupt connections between state contracts and preferred big national champions). It's not what the WTO or IMF would advocate but I can't help but think it might be what works for many economies

But I agree I think there's a case for protection/national champion in strategic industries - which definitely includes cloud infrastructure now (I'd add that 50% of global steel production is in China and the US is now less than 5% - the top three are China, India and Russia).

But I think back to covid a lot and the supply chains for PPE all being in China and everyone trying to buy at once. The inquiry's revealed the very top of the British state being genuinely panicked that Trump might just seize shipments of PPE destined for (and paid for by) the UK. I remember there being something like the Czechs seizing French PPE shipment (or vice versa) which is what prompted the Commission to get involved on procuring that to stop it becoming a huge divisive issue. It feels like a lot of that has been slightly forgotten but there were a few really quite alarming incidents like that - it certainly doesn't feel like something that's been learned from. Although that might just be British and watching the Treasury shut down plans for a national vaccine research centre and accidentally collapsing a proposed vaccine manufacturing hub (over a subsidy of less than £100 million)

Well the premise was America wouldn't elect an utter moron, turns out Trump 1.0's behaviour was a grey swan, Trump 2.0 is a lake of these:

I don't really agree. I think Trump has been predictable and predicted for most of the last 4 years. Not necessarily inevitable but not exactly surprising either.

Biden was more targeted but also a shift from a generically free trade policy (see the blocking of Nippon Steel's takeover of US Steel, for example or the IRA or the CHIPS Act). I think there are structural shifts going on - particularly a China shock for the US - that is driving a lot of this.

[crazy canuck]

The point of national security is to not be critically dependent on other countries, unless you want to be a colony without voting rights.

Those are not the only alternatives.  The USA painstaking built strong ties with allies who were also trading partners so that the USA would not be vulnerable.

 

[Grey Fox]

So talk to me about the requirements for making your own cloud services. I'm assuming it's going to be somewhat costly due to economies of scale, but what would it actually take on a national level? Or could it potentially be done as a supra-national effort, in collaboration with the EU or some such?

Canada doesn't have that kind of money for, well, anything. We can't even get actual English language TV shows produced without US money, especially those from Private networks. Most nationalization that happened in Canada were made with NY money.

If the USA is really serious, not just Trump, in making us a state, we will be a state. And that's the upside. They could just make us a representation less territory like Guam.

[Valmy]

Well making entertainment and making things with national security implications surely are different.

[crazy canuck]

Might want to create your own secure cloud services.

You just have to prepare for the United States to come after you. The American Oligarchy wants to rule the entire world apparently.

We already do.  All the provinces and the federal government made it mandatory that no public information be shared on cloud services based in the United States.  That was done after the United States passed legislation that entitled it's homeland security apparatus to access the data on US servers.

We've had this capacity for a number of years, and really any Canadian that is still on a US cloud service provider really shouldn't be.

[Tamas]

These kinds of discussions are one reason why I think protectionism is not as bad as it is portrayed, in the long term.  I'm not denying the obvious economic efficiencies of free trade, but I think free traders are ignoring the strategic costs of making yourself economically vulnerable, because they are unquantifiable.  Unfortunately, too many people, even smart ones, treat unquantifiable as zero.

There are also arguments to be made that dependencies created by free trade discourage inter-state conflict.

[Grey Fox]

Well making entertainment and making things with national security implications surely are different.

Hopefully but Canada is a resource colony for the metropolis. France then England then the US.