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Comment by PeachPlum | Hacker News Reader

Ronald Minnich (if you don't know him see [1]) comments :

[1] https://share-ng.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/san...

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"The semiannual TOP500 Supercomputer List was released yesterday. It also shows that China now claims 202 systems within the TOP500, while the United States claims 143 systems."

My fellow Americans:

Did you ever want to directly experience the transition to being a Tier 2 country? This is what it's like. It starts with the cancellation of the collider in Texas in 1994 (see Tyson's comments on that one). It continues as steady decline through the next two decades, under both Republicans and Democrats, and now it is reaching its culmination in the Trump administration with the replacement of scientists by political hacks. It's not fun. It's quite sad to watch, that's for sure.

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While I don't completely disagree with the premise, I'm not sure that having the most supercomputers in the TOP500 is evidence of it.

The PRC is striving to become a global competitor in as many fields as it can, as quickly as possible. But sometimes they go after the status symbols of achievement versus actual productive achievements. Both the ghost cities that stood initially empty and the supercomputer clusters that lay idle are results of this pursuit of the appearance of being a global player. [Apologies for not providing references here]

Most countries these days (post cold war) don't build super computers for bragging rights; they build them for defined tasks that drive their specification. Economics, budgetary concerns, and even power consumption often trump absolute performance when specifying a machine for a task.

The rise of clustered machines with commodity parts also distorts things since a faster computer (by some measures) can be made by adding more nodes rather than applying any fundamentally "better" technology.

That's not to say that the PRCs efforts are in vain. Focusing on competitiveness has produced results, and politics notwithstanding, the existence of these capabilities will create opportunities for their use.

But yeah, I was bummed about the SSC (especially given the decision's geopolitical context). I also agree that given fundamental research's past dividends, we should be funding a whole lot more of it.

Personally I think China is doing a much better job at securing the future prosperity of the country than the US is. The Chinese Government is systematically executing on a long term plan to do that. One example is the way China has cornered the rare earth elements market.

We seem to be flailing in 4 (or 8) year cycles with most of the progress made in previous cycle being wasted or destroyed within the next cycle.

FWIW Ron has been around a looooong time. He used to work on FreeBSD in the early 90s.

Trump is not the problem. It is all the non-elected dark figures behind it all.

From what I can see anti-science, anti-technology attitude is endemic to modern English speaking western culture.

Elected and un-elected officials are just a symptom of the problem. They'd all flip-flop if they thought the political and media climate was shifting.

Sure thing, blame everything on the Illuminati.

But were there not actual people voting for him, a lot?

(but well, the alternative? you americans degraded indeed ...)

I wanted to fully quote Ron because they're his feelings and I think that's the only fair thing to do. He's my friend (this is from Facebook (a public post so I don't feel it is violating any trust))

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