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Comment by tcgv | Hacker News Reader

While I strongly agree with the blog post and letter, I believe the letter would be more effective if it spent more time explaining how the proposed restrictions will most likely backfire, i.e., put the US in a less advantageous position to defend its dominance in CPU technology with regard to China.

No politician or regulator would like to be labelled as someone who favored a foreign competitor country.

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"Any barrier for US persons’ participation will only slow American progress in developing and adopting this technology. It will have an effect opposite of that intended by lawmakers."

Sounds like the letter/blog post already does make this point?

It does. However, if this point were more central to the letter, it would have a greater impact on the reader. For instance, explicitly demonstrating the numerous ways in which American progress could be impeded, explaining how China and Chinese business owners could get ahead in RISC-V technology, and maybe drawing an analogy with the restrictions imposed on federal funding for stem cell research that affected the US in the global landscape [1], among other examples.

Frequently, politicians prioritize their personal agendas and interests, so it's essential to thoroughly address those aspects.

PS: I'm not a US national, so I'm only analyzing the topic rather than engaging in it.

[1] https://hsci.harvard.edu/impact-federal-policy-global-compet...

Sadly, the letter would be more effective if it included a large "donation" check, for an amount greater than those Intel is writing.

Isn't this practice called corruption in other countries? How is this legal?

It's called lobbying, and the courts consider it "free speech". Speech that says "I just spent a million dollars to inconvenience my competitors."

> It's called lobbying, and the courts consider it "free speech"

No, it's called bribery. If you give a politician money it's bribery. The closest we have to this is the revolving door.

Lobbying involves paying someone to give your letter to an elected. When you call your representative, you are lobbying. When the EFF engages the Congress, they are lobbying. There is campaign contributions, which go to a campaign, not the individual, and PACs, which involve buying messaging. But conflating bribery and lobbying is simply incorrect.

There is also conflicts of interests, some of those Members of the Senate failed to disclose they own stocks in Intel.

It's not legal, although SCOTUS has eviscerated the ability of prosecutors to prove corruption (requiring an explicit quid pro quo).

Or protectionism, which is something that to some degree accepted in pretty much every country.

Is Intel really supporting this? It seems like ARM is the one with the most to lose here. Intel could actually benefit from an RISC-V play with their own cores and extensions.

> What is the Administration’s plan to prevent the PRC from achieving dominance in the RISC-V technology and leveraging that dominance at the expense of U.S. national and economic security?

Sounds to me like a call for more investment in RISC-V, not less.

Not if any significant investment in RISC-V would also benefit China to some extent. If the Chinese figure out how to manufacture high-end chips on their own (which is a bigger hurdle) and RISC-V is widespread and well supported by software providers etc. the market will inevitable be flooded with Chinese chips. With ARM/x86 you don't have that "problem".

I thought Intel was looking to do some RISC-V development?

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