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Comment by ElProlactin | Hacker News Reader

> The semiconductor industry has always had this quality: the difference between a pioneer and a founder is often just access to materials, capital, and time.

This applies not just to the semiconductor industry but almost every industry, especially the ones that don't exist yet.

And to this list I would add: a social and economic system that provides a fertile ground for research, experimentation, immigration and entrepreneurship.

While the US has built up such advantages over the years that they can't all be lost in a manic overnight tweet storm, it's sad and a bit scary to see the current environment, which is much more hostile to all of these things.

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Who provides such an economic system?

The US, although much less so recently.

China, with heavy state subsidies, has also proven to be pretty effective. Interestingly, it hasn't had to embrace immigration because it has over a billion people.

Counterpoint on China - they will import special talent and help them immigrate. And of course, there are people who'll value the lifestyle of Shenzhen over San Francisco, or Shanghai over New York. One example that comes to mind is Dr. Erdal Arikan.

They will never be Chinese or considered Chinese. Has China become more welcoming to foreigners lately?

Most foreigners don't really want citizenship and are content being expats. The ones who do want citizenship are often from countries with weak passports, which often means weak infrastructure, poor HDIs and usually not that much of a skillset that they can bring to the table.

Do Chinas state subsidies encourage innovation?

This story is a great example of the system taking a brilliant person, and stomping their opportunity down because they were from the wrong class. But replace class with whatever you like.

They do actually. There’s a fair bit of critique you can level at the system from a country-wide economic perspective and especially from a world-trade perspective, but they did manage to get a system in place where a central government can influence both the area and speed of innovation.

The main thing they do is stack the market to be very favourable for a given industry and then have extreme competition between the companies.

Extreme subsidy between the competitors.

They not only encourage innovation but also cross-pollination too. So say you discovered some minor technology, they'll even help you connect with other folks who work in the space, potentially combine the innovations together to create a new final product that can actually be licensed to OEMs.

Where I find China lacking is in creativity and imagination. Yes, there are some changes in that front happening, but you'll never find OpenAI, Helion Energy or SpaceX being founded in China. Those projects won't even get the greenlight from the CCP to get started off the ground because of their high capital and startup costs.

Dictatorships are always more efficient in the short run.

Some of them. Turkmenistan isn't doing that great.

The only thing the state needs to do is

Infrastructure Education Political stability

Individuals will do the rest.

As we know the CCP-for all it's faults- has provided all of the above.

It provided the above to a select few that thought the way they were supposed to. It also did NOT provide to a few million that didn’t think the correct way.

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