The Future: Made In China, Part 2 - AI

See part 1 - which focuses on energy generation here: The Future: Made In China


Last week, a massive AI breakthrough came out of China that threw the stock market into a large downturn.

A Chinese AI startup, named DeepSeek - released an AI model that has comparable performance and sophistication as the state of the art American models.

What really caught the market and tech companies by surprise is that the amount of money they needed to create this was a fraction of the cost that the American companies needed to make theirs. While this seems hard to believe, it seems reasonable - especially considering the fact that older GPUs are all they have available to them due to export laws and the like.

The less money spent on GPUs and energy, the less revenue those companies earn; which is primarily why we saw the market hit hard. Of course, the stock market is the least important part of the story.

Being that a Chinese company essentially caught up to us with old GPUs - we must take this AI race more seriously. It’s the final battle - the last technology race that will happen. Whoever becomes the first to create scalable Artificial Super Intelligence (and has the energy to run it), will have the ability to control everything and everyone else forever.

I spoke about these points over and over in Part 5 of my Nationalize AI series - Nationalize AI - Part 5 - Superiority. I won’t go into more of the points I cover there, but definitely check it out as I think it is the best part of the series.



This is not the only major news that came out from China, as a Chinese satellite beat Startlink by 10x in terms of space-to-ground communication speed - at 100 Gbps. Incredible. While this substantially beats Starlink - it does not outperform NASA’s TBIRD system which hit 200 Gbps in 2023.

This will have massive benefits for China, they are catching up in many technologies.


It is critical that the USA triple down on these technologies with investment and moonshot initiatives, so we can continue to stay competitive and hopefully increase the speed of innovation.





Movies That Make You Think - Part 3



Just like part 1 & 2 - these are all movies I have watched, that can really make you think - about all kinds of things and how they relate to society and even politics/similar things. I highly recommend each of them.

Prisoners (Max)

Revolves around a former secret agent who offers his investigative services in order to atone for his past sins. Based on the TV series by the same name.



Equalizer (Amazon Prime Video)

Revolves around a former secret agent who offers his investigative services in order to atone for his past sins. Based on the TV series by the same name.



Enemy (Amazon Prime Video)

Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) discovers his exact double and decides to track him down. Their lives become bizarrely and hauntingly intertwined. In the end, only one of them can survive. Go behind the scenes with Jake and Denis as they discuss the making of the film.



Adventureland (Paramount+)

From the director of SUPERBAD comes a coming-of-age comedy of big dreams, hysterical consequences, and young love, set in a run-down amusement park.



Tariffs Part 3: Foreign Relations, Reactions, and Retaliations

This is Part 3 of a multiple part series.



In Part 2, I mentioned that I had a few points left over from Part 1 but I only covered one in Part 2. Here I will address another major set of thoughts with regard to tariffs and especially widespread application thereof.


Retaliation

With the imposition of tariffs against another nation, especially the broad application of them - comes the high probability of retaliation.

This retaliation comes in many forms, but taking Canada as just one example that has been public about the fact that they will retaliate if broad tariffs are imposed.

These are just some of the retaliatory measures Canada has openly discussed, which could significantly harm the U.S. and that is just one country.

When Canada applies retaliatory tariffs on us - that could affect almost half a trillion dollars in exports by US companies (exports from US to Canada were $427.7 billion in 2022 - Source). In total (imports and exports) - the U.S. and Canada do a total of about 1 trillion dollars in trade each year - this represents a large amount of goods that will instantly be more expensive for companies and consumers in both countries.

Trade wars hurt everyone, massively. While implementing broad scale tariffs on a nation or set of nations hurts people in your country — starting a trade war and getting retaliatory tariffs imposed on you makes this many times worse.

It is incredibly hard to estimate just how bad it will be with any concrete numbers - but what is clear is that imposing significant tariffs to multiple of our largest trading partners could cost our economy hundreds of thousands (or potentially 1 million+) jobs. Take a look at what the Tax Foundation thinks about estimating harm (they have numbers that estimate even before retaliation).

Buy what you need now, stock up on things.

Relations

Threatening a country with tariffs is hardly the way to ensure larger successes. You may be able to bully a few small things out of the other country - but the harm it does to trade, relations, and national security - is massive. If our neighbors and treaty partners can’t trust us on a trade agreement, what can they trust us with? Why not expand trade with China (or any of the BRICS countries) instead of the U.S.?

What happens when there is sensitive intelligence that could help the US protect itself? If that intelligence includes implicating a source or a spy operation - will that country be willing to share the details?

Bullying our allies with tariffs weakens the U.S. drastically—before even accounting for the devastating economic fallout of trade wars. These tactics specifically strengthen all of the nations who are competitors of ours in the world, in many ways. They are laughing and excited in Beijing.

A Founding Father Quote a Day - Week 2

This is the second recap of my new mini project, where I post a quote by a Founding Father each day to this Bluesky account. All of these were posted recently - I had a small hiccup and this one is a bit bigger than normal!




Author Image

“Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly, to property.“

- Samuel Adams
Author Image

“A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people...“

- James Madison
Author Image

“Distrust naturally creates distrust, and by nothing is good will and kind conduct more speedily changed."

- John Jay
Author Image

“Give me liberty, or give me death!”

- Patrick Henry
Author Image

“Well done is better than well said.“

- Benjamin Franklin
Author Image

“The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.“

- George Washington
Author Image

“Facts are stubborn things.“

- John Adams
Author Image

"The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty."

- James Madison
Author Image

“Power must never be trusted without a check.“

- John Adams
Author Image

“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.“

- George Washington
Author Image

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty.”

- Patrick Henry