Hacker News Reader

Comment by tmnvix | Hacker News Reader

> For context, the law that allows this all to happen was passed in 1952 and has never before been used.

Interesting parallel here with China recently invoking - for the first time - their own legislation from the 50's to ban rare earth exports for military uses.

View on HN

Probably not an awesome sign if multiple actors are invoking never-used laws that were created while WWII was still fresh on everyone's mind.

Let’s hope this one is still cold.

s/while WWII was still fresh/the cold war was

I always wondered how the large unified world of Roman Empire with running water and sewer fell apart (and backwards) into multitude of small feudal pieces with no technology to speak of for the 1000 years after Roman Empire. I think our modern civilization is probably at the beginning of similar process.

Why stop there why not Indus Valley Civilization

our knowledge (at least my knowledge of it) is much much smaller that that of Roman Empire, and in particular i don't know whether the fall of that civilization demonstrated the effect of splitting into multitude technologically inferior pieces stagnating for such a long time after that.

I think we are fine in term of infra -- I don't work as a civil engineer, but considering companies in my city repair the roads every year /s they probably retain the knowledge.

Exactly. Building roads and aqueducts were empire-level knowledge skills in Ancient Rome, performed by the army legions. Thankfully they're highly localized skills today.

How easy is the machinery and tools needed to keep all the infrastructure running? Earth movers are pretty maintainable and barely depreciate. Survey tools though? They have gotten famcy right? Water management has gone quite high tech in some ways. I could see them falling apart kind of like when some hospitals had to revert to paper tape logs. It didn't scale anymore.

> Earth movers are pretty maintainable and barely depreciate

Beware hardware DRM locking up the repairs. That would make everything more fragile.

The infra today is internet and semiconductors which run it, as well as global shipping without each we end up without even necessities.

Aren't you exaggerating it?

I lived in USSR, and know first hand that it means to be separated from common technological space. USSR wasn't that small, especially if one adds Eastern Block, yet it was falling behind the world becoming fully incapable to produce their own comparable computers, cars, etc.. If world get to split into such islands, the speed of technological progress will fall dramatically while social progress may go fully backwards. If you look at some ideologies rising around the world - they are straight medieval, and in many cases only connectedness to outside world has been preventing them from taking over their "islands".

As in -- "no technology to speak of" is a gross misrepresentation of the reality of the middle ages. The fact of the matter is, they were strictly more technologically advanced than the classical Romans, with inventions like the heavy plow and three-field rotation improving agricultural productivity significantly beyond what Romans had achieved.

> The fact of the matter is, they were strictly more technologically advanced than the classical Romans

No, they were more advanced in certain ways, but the original contention is correct that they were less advanced in others. Notably they were unable to build domes. They were also less productive, so less advanced in an overall sense.

What do you mean when you say they were unable to build domes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medieval_Arabic_and...

Only the Western Roman Empire fell and even that part was fairly on track to recovery once Charlemagne came into the scene.

The fall of the Roman Empire is a pop history trope at this point.

Charlemagne empire wasn't an interconnected fabric of roads, trade, centralized administration and so forth, ie. it wasn't all that that Roman Empire was, and all that having gone is the fall of Roman Empire. Charlemagne empire was just an aggregation of conquered lands under his personal rule which thus he easily divided between his sons.

Yes, but my point was that a large state was created and managed centrally for quite a long time, and even the successor states were large.

More than that, technology continued to evolve. The Romans had nothing like Medieval plate armor, for example. There are many examples of better tech from the supposed "Dark Ages".

Sorry, I probably should have quoted to which part I was referring. It's:

> with no technology to speak of for the 1000 years after Roman Empire

While it's true that some technology declined in the West, it wasn't as dramatic as you've suggested. Popular media also often exaggerates it.

https://www.britannica.com/technology/history-of-technology/...

Adding USSR into the discussion greatly increases complexity of the discussion. From analysis I've read, central planning is supposedly fine when country doesn't have much industry, because to start things up, it can provide essential investments and starts organizing production. But when country is somewhat developed, efficiency starts to matter and top-down approach to decision making of central planning vs bottom-up decision making mechanisms of markets produce different results. Politics and other things are important factors too, but I think that would be too much for this discussion.

As I understand it, the Roman Empire was fuelled by expansion (stealing other people stuff), enabled by their exceptional military machine. Once they could not profitably expand any further, they were in trouble.

It lasted for many centuries after they ran out of stuff to conquer, so no.

The Roman Empire reached its maximum extent under Trajan around 117CE.

The decline began around 180CE to 235CE, depending on where you draw the line. That isn't 'many centuries' in my book.

_Washington Post_ just had an article about why (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/10/12/america-r...).

"In 1984, a German historian compiled 210 explanations historians had suggested for Rome’s fall, from lead poisoning and barbarian invasions to Christianity, moral decline and gout.

After studying dynamic civilizations such as Athens, Rome, Abbasid Baghdad, Song China, Renaissance Italy and the Dutch Republic, I can attest that there is no single explanation. Each golden age had its own character and its own downfall."

And i have my own ideas why it fell :) My point though ins't about pure why. It is about why it went into such feudal fractal mode.

I always figured it was a combination of the volcanic winter of 536[1] and the Justinianic plague[2] (which happened right as the eastern roman empire was reconquering the western empire to reunify).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536 and https://www.science.org/content/article/why-536-was-worst-ye...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian

Netherlands imported more CeO2 (a rare earth) from China than any other country, with 517 metric tons during the first half of 2025.

with Dutch stats like this it’s always important to note what’s for Dutch use or transporting through the Port of Rotterdam.

It's likely for Dutch. China exported 2414 metric tons of CeO2 in that period. The top 4 destinations are Netherlands (517 tons), Italy (438 tons), Japan (353 tons), USA (284 tons). So others can import it themselves just fine.

How can you say what the minerals were actually used for though is the question I always have in these types of situations. There are multiple uses of the minerals. Since I've now gotten a literal boat load of the minerals from you, I can use those minerals on other things which now frees up my personal source of minerals on the things you didn't want them used in. In the spirit of the agreement, I'm in full compliance all while achieving the thing you didn't want me to achieve. It's nothing but Pilate washing his hands

Are you tracking that harvesting REM is a nasty business with a lot of “don’t look” environmental impacts? As such, most countries don’t do it, or have an infrastructure for it.

https://rareearthexchanges.com/best-rare-earth-mining-compan...

Plenty of US companies ready and willing. They've finally gotten an administration that is of like mind on screw the environment and dig dig dig.

So, you agree?

Agree with what? What is it that you think is a gotcha here?

Most countries don’t do it, including the US.

“Ready and willing” is quite the turn of phrase.

I've seen US numbers along 70-80% is imported. That leaves 20-30% domestic. Some of the REEs are 100% imported, so that's a different issue. But you seem to be implying that the US is 100% importing all REEs with no domestic production at all. That's not true. Yes, some production is slowed due to environmental issues. Some of it is a different nature along the lines of "why mine yours when you can buy someone else's". You keep yours in the ground until you have to get it. You have some small production just to keep the know-how, but you keep the stove down to a simmer from a boil.

> Some of it is a different nature along the lines of "why mine yours when you can buy someone else's". You keep yours in the ground until you have to get it.

My understanding is that a large part of the issue is processing capacity/ability - not mining of the ore. In fact, a significant amount of ore mined in the US is sent to China for processing. I don't think it's a simple case of the US standing up some processing plants in 1-2 years. If that were the case, wouldn't you think it would've happened by now? Is US leadership that bad that they failed to address this risk? Or - more likely - is it because solving the issue will take a lot more than some quick investment?

This is a huge issue for the US MIC. Plans (e.g. with regard to Iran) are going back to the drawing board for sure.

> Is US leadership that bad that they failed to address this risk?

I mean, quite obviously? Borne by the simple fact of... here we are discussing it?

It doesn't matter how easy, quick, or hard it is right now. What matters is leadership is so bad it was allowed to reach this point to begin with, and even a decade ago it was immediately obvious that it was a giant vulnerability that has not even started on beyond corrected in any meaningful way.

US also needs all those factories and machinery to process the stuff.

USA does not have the refining capacity which will take another 8 years to build out.

Wrong. We don’t need to build refining capacity. We just need to remind China that who’s the big dog, which we seem to be doing.

They’ll fall in line quickly enough.

Aye yea, the war will be over by Christmas!

I've heard this one before.

Operation Warp Speed 2.0

  Remember, Mommy,
  I'm off to get a Commie,
  So send me a salami,
  And try to smile somehow.
  I'll look for you when the war is over ---
  An hour and a half from now

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Songs_and_Lyrics_(Lehrer)/So_...

I really cannot tell if this is sarcasm (seems not?) or trolling (sounds like it).

How are we reminding China that the US is a big dog? By imposing tariffs? By demonstrating our ability to do work domestically that they believe us unwilling or incapable of doing?

What does this even mean, to be a big dog in the modern world? It seems more like a large ship listing to one side … if it collapses there will be a lot of small ships damaged in the wake.

> We just need to remind China that who’s the big dog, which we seem to be doing.

Time to short the US dollar and load up on Bitcoin.

Who cares what their legislation says. Xi and ccp can change that at will at anytime.

So can Trump and USA.

If the west want's the other 7 billion to care, you're going to have to find some principles and live by them. Without exception.

Same dude!

This is it.

That whole REE thing is more of a scare tactic than anything. REEs are really not all that rare, and the current imports of REEs into the US are worth around $200-250M annually. That is millions, not billions. It's actually a laughably small amount.

The main reason that it's mostly China producing them may simply be due to the fact that the volumes are so small that building your own industry is not really worth it.

Dollar value is not the point. For the US MIC this matters a lot. There are not really any ready replacements for some vital weapons components at a time when US weapons stockpiles have been heavily depleted.

So, we’ll pay more and still get them. You think China is the only one that can game the system?

Who’s got the money?

The usual solutions - money and violence - are not applicable here. China doesn't need the money and can't be bullied. Sources other than China are not going to cut it in the short and mid term. This is a geopolitical nightmare for the US and deserves more media attention.

There is a new facility coming online from MP Materials (see https://fortworthreport.org/mp-materials-awarded-58-5-millio...) later this year that serves dual purpose customers (GM and the US gov)

If we really needed them they'd cut through the red tape and mine them here, clean water act, screeching idiots, NIMBYs, everything else be damned.

> The main reason that it's mostly China producing them may simply be due to the fact that the volumes are so small that building your own industry is not really worth it.

There's also an element of their production generating pollution and us preferring to think of ourselves as cleaner than that. We only use the rare earths.

Compare how desalinization is very cheap, but California prefers constant screaming about drought.

Strategic REEs, i.e. heavyREE (Dysprosium, Terbium) are infact exceptionally rare, as in GEOLOGICALLY RARE. They are produced in China, because China (and Myanmar deposits controlled by China) are where ionic clays containing strategic HREEs can be economically extracted at scale. It's not just building altenrate HREE (empahsis on H) is not worth it, the technology simply doesn't exist to do so in other geologic deposits, i.e. all the har rock REE US+co has access to. The fact is PRC controls 90% of deposits and 99% percent of processing for elements that enable high temperature magnets, high power sensors, EW aka all the good shit that enables modern military capabilities... which was designed BECAUSE PRC commericialized process on specific geologic deposits that enabled commoditizing those materials. US built their miltary overmatch on material science and dirt that PRC controls and is nearly exclusively geopgraphically bound to PRC, with no short/medium term alternatives. PRC as monopoly supplier has much more complete ability to enforce export controls. This is just MIC specific, there's also stuff like dysprosium for highend capacitators where PRC has functionally 100% control, i.e. less performant alternative materials would effective regress performance by 10-25%, comparable to losing node size.

I really wonder how much rare earth element deposits are not found for want of looking. Not much reason to source them yourselves if the country (China) uses them for products that you're going to buy.

According to this map, China has vastly more. But is there something special about China/Myanmar geologically? I guess being downstream of the Himalayas is something.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rare-eart...

The clays are all over the world, the processing to extract the REE's of interest is still intensive regardless.

"According to this map" is essentially meaningless w/out a map specific definition of "reserve".

The terms "reserve", "resource" and their variations are misused outside of technical literature that cites whether they are defined via a JORC or other classification.

The bias toward China in that map likely comes from two notes:

* "proven" reserves - as in tested and estimated to some higher standard, as opposed to "we know there's a lot 'over here' but we haven't spent $X million on a drill assay program yet.

* "controlled or owned" by China - Chinese companies are majority shareholders in joint ventures that source raw materials across the globe (they source concentrates from Australia, from Peru, from elsewhere, in addition to their home soil deposits). This means a number of maps might show all REE deposits owned by Chinese companies as on the books for China (as that is where much of the processing of concentrates occurs).

For interest:

North Stanmore in Western Australia has emerged as one of the world's most extraordinary heavy rare earth element (HREE) deposits, particularly for dysprosium and terbium in North Stanmore. (Sept, 2025)

https://discoveryalert.com.au/news/north-stanmore-heavy-rare...

https://www.australianmining.com.au/victory-unearths-world-c...

There's some in Brazil so I assume it can be found in appropriate conditions globally. I'm pretty sure AU will have some, because AU always seen have some. The issue still is going to be process/seperation, where main point is clay leeched HREE at scale didn't exist before PRC commercialization, so it's not just let's dust off old mineral textbooks, need to rediscover the entire tacit knownledge process for high purity extraction.

E: brushed up a little bit from a few month ago and AU just found some clay, because of course they did.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com