No, Ukraine doesn't produce neon. Russia produces it and sends it to Ukraine for processing and distribution. But, wait, there's more.
Ukranian company Iceblick is the major producer of neon. It has production facilities in Odessa, Ukraine and Moscow, Russia. But wait, there's more.
Iceblick is not a major producer of neon, Chinese companies produce a lot more... which is what is used in global chipmaking.
The claim in the article is that "[Ukraine] supplies more than 90% of U.S. semiconductor-grade neon"... which may not be true in the first place, but the modified title here suggests completely something else... which is blatantly false.
In fact, Reuters just reported that "Taiwan warns Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone"
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-ni...
“On Wednesday (February 23), two Chinese military jets flew into Taiwan's air defence identification zone (ADIZ), marking the 12th intrusion this month.”
https://www.wionews.com/world/two-chinese-fighter-jets-enter...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JADIZ_and_CADIZ_and_...
(ADIZs are also unilateral and not something set up in international law; they're basically a request)
(/s)
So then, the MBA just has to hate the factory. After all, that was where everybody used to get their wage.
Believe it or not, that's often the real reason we shut down, people just blame it on cost savings for pride.
This technology isn't easy. Notice how far China is behind despite massive investments. Sometimes we just don't have the tech. But it's okay, TSMC and friends will bring it here.
> You saved some sprints but invalidated the purpose of the project. Very agile.
You could try to become totally autarkic, but then you have to support a national semiconductor industry along with every industry it relies upon indefinitely, while foreign semiconductor companies won't be encumbered by restrictions to purchase every component for their process from within your country; they, at least, will have the option to go with the cheapest or the best options. And so, if you want your national semiconductor industry's chips to actually be used, you have to provide incentives for that, too, and/or require domestic electronics companies to use their chips. Then, since you're making domestic electronics companies uncompetitive, you have to incent consumers to purchase those electronics, ban or heavily tax foreign electronics...
In a modern, globalised economy, it seems to me the only way to have a semiconductor industry that isn't vulnerable to these sorts of problems is full top-down control of a substantial chunk of the economy.
https://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/how-one-light-source-man...
https://www.gigaphoton.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2017_E...
I expect that neon price spikes this time are going to impact laser users less than they initially did back in 2015 since lasers now require less fresh neon.
But despots don't act for the sake of the people's will, so it's not easy to account for that.
But anyways most markets are emergent, not planned strategically .
The problem is WW1 wasn't one big "let's go to war" like Hitler and WW2, WW1 was the effects of hundreds of little consequences, edge cases, and constraints upon individuals and nations that interacted in a way no one could see. I believe the same thing will happen again, and it will probably come as a result of a Pakistani-Indian conflict or something from Iran. It isn't something anyone can see right now, but its coming, just like no one would've guessed the assassination of an Archduke would lead to 10 million dead across Europe, in the same way it will be something we can't determine right now that will push upon the constraints, agreements and edge cases to push us towards another global war.
There could be 100s of companies selling NEON gas, but only a handful is producing NEON gas purified to the degree required by semiconductor industry.
In this case, it seems only one is supplying semiconductors
100 years of industrialization and worker movements gutted, abandoned, and disassembled with the help of our two-faced neo-liberal[0] government.
And for what? 40 years of profit for the 1%? And then encountering the fact that we have outsourced ourselves into a profound strategic weakness in the international markets.
0: As in: Both sides, globalization. Not as in Dem vs Republican.
And Xi moving on Taiwan at the start of increased activities in Ukraine was the thing feared the most. What a shitshow it would be if China invaded Taiwan. The pandemic shortages would pale in comparison.
Not disagreeing with you, but I think people generally incorrectly assume that a dictator with absolute power thinks and acts rationally.
We should only be worried about an attack if the the effects on commerce and military retaliation becomes negligible. That's when China will strike.
Also violations of the air defense zone, though not meaningless, are not super important. The air defense zone covers a part of mainland China larger than Taiwan, as well as waters that might at least be considered international waters. News articles about that are pretty pointless.
Because the economics literature is quite clear that international trade is beneficial to all involved. It's what we insist that developing countries focus on exports when loaning them money. For many years, Taiwan has been the poster child that we point to when trying to change the ways of Cuba or Venezuela.
Are these principles so weak that we would allow a dictator who doesn't even have the support of his own people to shake them?
If you narrowly focus on economics, yes. But what are other consequences, outside of economics? By outsourcing everything, you lose control. You allow uncontrollable external factors to affect you. You open yourself to be blackmailed.
So in a way yes, those principles are weak because they are incomplete. They do not take into account the full range of possibilities that can happen in the real world.
In practice the principles don't matter too much. The reality is that industry has optimized for cost and converged on a small set of suppliers. The single points of failure introduced as a side-effect of this could certainly be exploited by a bad actor.
But what kind of trade? Not unrestricted - Taiwan itself used protectionism to grow its industries when they were not yet able to compete on the global market:
James K. Galbraith has stated that [..] " ... none of the world's most successful trading regions, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and now mainland China, reached their current status by adopting neoliberal trading rules." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage#Criticis...
Maybe the literature is wrong?
lmao
Operation Iraqi Liberation. OIL.
What fits CHIP?
Pure and simply Russia needs people, its dying.
Low birth rate, high death rate, little immigration to make up the short fall (who wants to move to Russia :)), and to top off a weak economy that will struggle to support a small less active workforce. Interestingly Ukraine has pretty much the same population problem.
This will be increasingly common problem for countries as population growth slows.
it's not clear that a flattening of the growth rate is a bad thing for quality of life or economic security, in spite of how it affects an economy on paper
Russia has few choices to fix this in timeline they'd have to work with. Population demographics take a long time to solve peacefully.
The components necessary to manufacture them? Much more difficult. And remember, any encumbrance you put on Intel provides a competitive advantage for TSMC.
The other issue is if you require 10% of semiconductors to be made in the US, and 10% of their components likewise, that only leaves you with 1% of the semiconductor capacity you need if you really need to become autarkic. And that's only considering first order dependencies; what about the components needed for the components you need?
Now, even ignoring that, consider if Intel has to make 10% of its chips using machines and components made in America. Say ASML makes the best photolithography machines in the world. Some other foreign company makes the best of another machine in the world. And so on. So Intel has to manufacture 10% of its chips using subpar equipment. Who's going to buy those chips? If electronics need better chips, can you replace them with these in a pinch?
You either need to fully commit, or else it's pointless to begin with.
Because if they don't, and the system collapses, then what?
Some supply chain instability is the result of allowing healthy economic activity especially when the modern goods we're talking about are immensely complex and require incredible specialization to reasonably manufacture.
But it is incorrect to say they are happening because the ADIZ extends over Chinese territory. The repeated incursions are out over the ocean, most commonly over the SW corner of the ADIZ which is not over mainland China. China is doing it intentionally, and is both testing and prodding Taiwan.
When we do it, it's a "freedom of navigation" exercise. Yes, it's testing air defenses, but it frustrates me when officials breathlessly act like it's a big deal.
Rings a bell, Russians were doing it on Baltic sea for over a decade, and president of Estonia was called paranoiac
Citation needed.
Again, Taiwan's ADIZ extends over China.
When we fly close to Russia, they send fighters up to escort. We do the same when they fly planes near Alaska.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/26/politics/russian-fighter-jets...
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-fighter-jets-intercept-ru...
> The Russian aircraft were in the ADIZ north of Alaska for about 4 hours, according to North American Aerospace Defense Command, which said the planes came as close as 50 nautical miles to the Alaskan coast but did not enter U.S. or Canadian airspace. The ADIZ extends 200 miles from the U.S. and Canadian coasts, but territorial airspace only extends 12 miles from the coast.
In fact, the US explicitly says "nuh uh!" to other countries' ADIZs... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Defense_Identification_Zon...
> Moreover, the U.S. Navy's Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations states the ADIZ applies only to commercial aircraft intending to enter U.S. sovereign airspace, with a basis in international law of "the right of a nation to establish reasonable conditions of entry into its territory". The manual specifically instructs U.S. military aircraft to ignore the ADIZ of other states when operating in coastal areas...
Here's a US RC-135 surveillance aircraft violating the Chinese ADIZ to get about 20 miles from the mainland. https://twitter.com/SCS_PI/status/1373886128177041410
International law has to be enforced, one way or the other.
The CCP understands (or at least was predicting back with Jiang and Hu) that eventually China will democratize. Taiwan is a democracy right now. Democratic countries almost never re-unite into a single country. I can only name one instance of this happening in the last 70 years, and in some ways East Germany wasn't really a democracy yet.
The CCP knows that Taiwanese reunification will never really happen peacefully. Leaders will talk about it, they'll negotiate a bit, but then it won't happen because the status-quo is always more attractive. They know that their only chance at national reunification is now or in the next 10 years or so.
It's now or never. It has to happen by force or it will never happen. If China swallows Taiwan and then democratizes, that can be managed - a restive province can be placated and bought-off. But if China democratizes before reunification, then Taiwan is separate forever.
I do agree that to China, Taiwan isn't about TSMC. TSMC is the reason why the US cares about Taiwan but not the reason why China cares about it. If it was the main reasoning why doesn't China go after the Dutch? The dutch have ASML, which manufactures the more critical components involved with EUV lithography. But China never made a single move against ASML.
There is deep history between Taiwan and China, and it is this history that is the main reason why China eyes Taiwan. Think of it like if California rebelled and became a separate country from the US 50 years ago. How would the rest of the US think about California?
They're fine burning the rest of the world's supply chain down as long as it leaves them a monopoly.
If I was Taiwan, or in other words a shareholder or OWNER of TSMC, I wouldn't want something I own being destroyed. I would rather fold into the new regime and keep my original ownership.
Also, China's posturing is not just defensive but has an offensive side as well, as seen by the naval bases it has been trying to build across the world, even in Africa.
As of today, Beijing has just one overseas military base in Djibouti – a country which also hosts American, French, Italian and Japanese military bases, some of which also host British, German and Spanish troops. https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/08/31/chinas-overseas-milita...
I agree completely. But if you're in the CCP, and a Chinese patriot, you understand that that makes peaceful Taiwanese reunification even less likely. Also, as long as Taiwan is defacto-independent, there's a terrible risk that they will declare themselves officially-independent. That would be a humiliating loss of face for the CCP and at the very least would probably precipitate a power struggle within the party.
There is deep history between Taiwan and China, and it is this history that is the main reason why China eyes Taiwan. Think of it like if California rebelled and became a separate country from the US 50 years ago. How would the rest of the US think about California?
Again, I completely agree.
Jokes aside, if that were to happen, the rest of the US wouldn't think "they belong with us whether they like it or not." It would take a significant government propaganda campaign to get Americans to be okay with forcibly reuniting a state like that.
Why does being a dictator automatically make you more irrational? Absolute power has no direct causal bearing on human intelligence. It does not make you more irrational or more rational.
There are plenty of examples of good kings, bad kings, good emperors and bad emperors throughout history both for ancient china and plenty of other civilizations. Modern China, despite all the negative press, has done plenty of rational things in order to get toe to toe with the US as both a military and economic rival.
I think the negative connotation associated with the word dictator paints anyone labeled with it in a biased light. Not saying anything bad or good about pooh bear in general. Whatever that man is, him being a dictator is not a causal origin of his current character.
People, including leaders, are influenced by those around them.
A sane leader has advisors, which they trust to provide rational arguments, which sometimes may differ from their own.
A dictator on the other hand is only surrounded by yes-men since anyone else would be thrown to the lions. So, there is no one to provide a counter argument to the dictator's own viewpoints and makes them believe in their supreme power. This is what makes them dangerous and act irrationally.
Pick any dictator/supreme leader and you'll see the trends.
You say this asa if it's axiomatically true. It's not. This can happen. But it can also not happen.
>Pick any dictator/supreme leader and you'll see the trends.
In another thread, I have cited multiple historical and modern examples of where what you described did not happen. See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30459281
a single person does not have the mental nor technological capacity to run everything. they must delegate. the way dictarships work is the dictator's subordinates, friends, whatever, must live in constant fear of each other, so they are incentivized to lie (or at least omit truths) to the dictator. a benevolent dictatorship doesn't exist, because no benevolent person would survive the process of getting dictatorship.
decisions based on falsehoods may look irrational from the outside.
of course, putin may very well be getting plain crazy. certainly no shortage of normal civilian russians admit it off the record.
Singapore is the first one that comes to mind.
See: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Benevolent_dictatorship
Additionally monarchies are essentially old forms of dictatorship with slightly different customs and titles. It's one and the same and plenty of good kingdoms exist. I have PLENTY of examples:
The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt;
The Byzantine Emperors;
The Habsburg Monarchy in its various incarnations;
The Capetian Kings of France;
The Tsars;
The Tang, Ming and Qing - my three favorite Chinese dynasties;
The Incas.
Tibet it also an example. A little iffy this one, it's actually not benevolent but the West has definitely painted them as such to use as propaganda against China. Chinas actions against Tibet were quite horrific and wrong but even still... Tibet was not an example of a benevolent dictatorship... more of an example how a dictatorship can be PERCIEVED as benevolent and how your perceptions can be easily influenced. Tibet and China is an example of evil acting on evil to simplify the situation, but again I want to emphasize that the actual reality is not so black and white.
You may also want to look into the term enlightened absolutism.
Also China is an example of a benevolent dictatorship despite all the bad things they've done (TBH China is more of a mixed bag, and by mixed bag I mean both benevolent and self interested at the same time... but then again so is the US).
You cannot deny that the rise of China has been unprecedented. The amount of people lifted out of poverty at such a velocity has never been seen before in the history of human civilization. That is benevolence. While of course what is happening in Xinjiang is not benevolence; blinding yourself to the good because of the bad is irrational. You must acknowledge both.
Lack of constructive feedback paired with that all your thoughts including irrational ones are amplified through the echo chamber.
It's easy to get caught up with weird ideas (and the more power you have the weirder it might get because you have to solve more complex problems and have much more vast capabilities). If you don't have external feedback you need to be much more resilient to irrationality than under normal circumstances.
In fact there are multitudes of successful "dictatorships" throughout history. I cite many in another reply in this thread:
I'm not offended
I do like to argue. A better way to put it, is I like to talk to people and convince people on a viewpoint I truly believe in while at the same time I'm open to learning as well.
Whether someone agrees with me or not doesn't correlate with whether I'm right. That is the point. And I am right and you are wrong.
You view international politics from the microcosm of US news. The entire population of Asia which outnumbers the US population by a huge number has a more nuanced and complicated view of the situation.
Dismissing China as evil or putin as crazy is an oversimplification.
Think bigger.
Makes sense.
> call him an idiot!
And you were and still are right to do that!
You'll note that in his debates, Biden took some lines almost directly out of Trump's playbook regarding those subjects (made to sound more polite of course), and in fact many of Trump's policies and executive orders, Biden has kept in place. Because they're having a positive effect. We just needed someone with balls like Trump to finally enact them.
Big Tech, China, offshoring, and globalism can shove it. The tides are finally turning. If there's one good thing to come out of Trump's presidency, it's this!
Steel is important but it’s not similar at all to something like Taiwan’s unique situation
One historical fact does come to mind: the St. Petersburg stock exchange reopened in 1917 (after being closed for world war 1), then closed two months later because of the Russian Revolution. It did not reopen and shareholders of Russian stocks lost everything.
I don't see something like that happening today. But what if Russia confiscates the shares of foreign shareholders?
And Ukraine might not exist as a country soon.
> Don't put any money into both stock exchanges right now, especially the russian one.
Then you are asking what money would go into Russia...
I mean if you have the money and confidence by all means, take the gamble, but keep in mind it's a gamble. Don't sell your house, don't spend your reserves, don't bet everything on one horse.
If you want to play on the effects of the conflict, either buying or shorting the ruble is the best way to go.
I think you're wrong, I think you're angry, I think you're arguing in bad faith, and I believe multiple people/instances have been provided and you have yet to prove anything other than insolence when it comes to being "right".
Honestly, I don't even think you know what you're arguing anymore because you're all over the place. I never called China evil or Putin crazy so why are you putting words in my mouth that I never claimed? The original question is what makes dictators more irrational. If you can't understand the many answers you recieved, that is your problem, not mine. I'm going to bid you a farewell, have a wonderful day.
I didn't delete any comment. This is a lie. If you want to engage in conversation with me do it on good faith. Do not LIE.
>The fact that you asked such a silly question about dictators and than refuse to learn from any of the multiple answers shows that you are not open to honest or intellectual debate
Your post was flagged. And died. This happens when multiple people disagree and are offended by your post. I still chose to engage with you even though your post had offensive intent.
Additionally the amount of karma on my original post is 5. So 5+ more people agree with me. I'm assuming everyone who disagrees with me down voted.
If anything you're the one no one is siding with.
>I never called China evil or Putin crazy so why are you putting words in my mouth that I never claimed?
You never made the claim but your attitude made it seem like this was what you think. If I'm wrong then I take it back. Logically speaking though, you believe dictators are irrational. Which is equivalent to crazy. So essentially you think Russia and China are crazy because both countries are basically dictatorships. That is a logical deduction from what you implied.
So my statement still stands. China and Russia are examples of dictatorships that are much more complicated then the singular label of irrational. That's all.
> I'm going to bid you a farewell, have a wonderful day.
Why. You obviously don't like me. What's the purpose of wishing me a wonderful day after such accusations? Also what's the purpose of disengaging in the conversation? You said something with offensive intent, I'm still here. What's making you leave? Are you emotional?
It took Trump yelling about it from the rooftops for over 5 years, and getting over half the population as passionate about it as he was, and then Trump actually doing things about it while in office, for things to actually happen and be set in motion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps can't be bothered to look for atrocities they've committed before 2010...
US has its share of bad stuff, too, but I never said they're benevolent. They're a democracy, which means the winner of a beauty contest is in power instead of somebody who took forcefully or has been gifted it. No good options here, but at least in the contest somebody actually wins.
Lifting an entire population out of poverty and into a 1st world status is benevolence at an unprecedented scale. It cannot be ignored.
Or perhaps you've bought on to the Chinese propaganda to justify Tibet's invasion, subsequent occupation and genocide of Tibetans by China.
And, China benevolent, oh please...
Just copying what I wrote earlier. This is benevolence on a scale huge scale.
You cannot pick and choose to define bullies and human rights' abusers as benevolent just because they benefited their preferred section of society.
You also don't account for the fact that there may have been a negative change in trajectory of that particular metric if not for Trump's policies and executive actions.
But, again, he absolutely did do things about it, these are all well documented. (As is the change in trajectory of public opinion towards offshoring thanks to Trump promoting them heavily.)
- "Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low."
- "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, global crude neon production was approximately 500–600 million l/a (= 500,000–600,000 m3/a). It was dominated by far by large-scale air separation units associated with metallurgical combines in Russia and Ukraine. Simultaneously, demand was estimated at around 300 million l/a (cf. Section 4.2). In the years between 1990 and 2012, therefore, most crude neon was not purified, but released into the atmosphere, because there was no customer base."
https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ... (chapter 5.2)
For context, this would have overlapped with Energia/Buran's launch of the Polyus weapon (which was a megawatt CO2 laser).
Edit: it also appears that the current state of the art chip manufacturing does not use excimer lasers anymore [1], and the prior generations used them, but not with Neon, but rather with Kripton and Argon.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excimer_laser#Photolithography
https://www.gigaphoton.com/en/news/3797
"Gigaphoton to Begin Field Evaluations for Neon Gas Recycling System “hTGM”"
In KrF and ArF excimer lasers, which are used in advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes, neon accounts for over 96% of laser gases used as the buffer gas. However, the cost of neon gas has risen sharply, reaching 5 to 20 times previous prices due to difficulty in obtaining it, a situation brought about by a worldwide neon supply shortage that has continued since 2015. In response to the situation, in July of 2015 Gigaphoton launched the "Neon Gas Rescue Program" in order to provide support to customers in sustaining stable high-volume manufacturing environments.
Of the three program options Gigaphoton previously announced plans of launching in 2016, the company has now completed development of its neon gas recycling system "hTGM," and will begin field evaluations of the system this month. hTGM makes it possible to reuse laser gas by connecting directly to the conduit of lasers in operation at semiconductor plants, collecting the used gas, removing impurities, and then re-injecting it back into the laser. This system is both eco-friendly and provides the greatest possible recycling rate without impacting the operation of laser equipment. hTGM also features an extremely efficient design that allows up to five lasers to be connected to a single unit. At present, the company has decided to begin evaluations for KrF lasers at user facilities from the end of February, after which it plans to progressively apply the system to ArF lasers as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Strategic_reserves_of...
(Especially if you abolish anti price gouging laws.)
edit: Found this C&EN story from 2016 that adds context:
- "Chip makers, which account for more than 90% of global neon consumption, are already experiencing high prices and some shortages stemming from the Russian conflict with Ukraine, Shon-Roy says. The war, which started in 2014, interrupted global supplies of the gas, about 70% of which comes from Iceblick, a firm based in the Ukrainian city of Odessa."
- "Iceblick gathers and purifies neon from large cryogenic air separation units that supply oxygen and nitrogen to steelmakers. Most of the air separation units equipped to capture neon, which makes up only 18.2 ppm of the atmosphere by volume, are in Eastern Europe."
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cen-09410-notw7
This is puzzling to me, because I don't get why air separation should naturally concentrate in exactly one place. It's not tied to a rare and localized geologic formation, like helium sort-of is.
Also there's cryogenic air separation plants all over the planet, why don't they do neon too? (Asking in the spirit of curiosity)
edit #2: I've just found something that offers a possible explanation and it's far more interesting than I expected:
- "Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low."
https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ... (chapter 5.2)
Russia is the biggest exporter of wheat in the world with 18%. Ukraine accounts for 7% of the world's wheat.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/infographic-russia-...
This conflict will affect 1/4 of the world's wheat which will affect food prices.
In 2010 Russia stopped exporting wheat due to wildfires burning their fields (most likely caused by climate change). This caused a hike in food prices which helped trigger the Arab revolutions in 2011.
That's not 1/4 of worldwide wheat production, but 1/4 of exports of wheat. Those are numbers that differ by orders of magnitude.
My main point still stands though.
Edit:
BTW I wish I could edit my previous comment to rectify my mistake but I can't.
My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today.
At the time, we were cursing the semi industry for using up all of the remaining Neon with their billion dollar operating budgets...
[1]https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-4075/49/15/1...
They're not necessarily soldiers, they're just regular people and right now there are missiles flying at their homes, tanks in their streets.
Surely there is a way we can help the people.
(Yes, their top charities don't necessarily have anything to do with whatever cause is currently in the news. They go by 'greatest improvement in human lives per buck' regardless of where those people are.)
Looks like we’re stuck between the hammer and the sickle…
Once we have the extraction capabilities elsewhere - then is is a non-issue. The turn around time on that? I have no idea. It could be days, months or years.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/20/food-price-spikes-and-s...
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/12/bread-prices-ri...
https://www.skuld.com/topics/cargo/solid-bulk/agricultural-c...
Filter the chart to 'All' to have a wider scope. On it and things as a whole:
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/w00
In the olden times some considered it a good measure to secure food production by subsidies. You know, hungry people get restless. If that is your intent or you don't have to face the consequences, it's fine. But for the most part to keep the masses fed is a basic measure.
Of course with time, things get complicated for governments:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/egypt-s-p...
But you always have to consider the angry rabble will string you up at the next streetlight.In the aforementioned parts of the world gladly with an 'Allāhu akbar' on the lips.
Admitted, in many parts of the world they, the masses that is, are quite overfed by now and appropriate measures should be taken. But that can change quite fast.
I’ll let you guys on HN let me know when things are good again :)
Don't get me wrong - I would also like to see decisive action to this attack. But escalating a relatively local dispute into a conflict between world powers would risk a WW. Moving in troops into a non-NATO ally would also be extremely difficult to explain on the world stage.
There probably is decisive action being implemented behind the scenes right now, it's just not visible to the public.
He moved troops to the borders, waited for a response. And this response was what he expected to be: just sanctions. This gave him the "ok" to invade.
Sending troops would be a clear signal. Costly, but you can also see it as a good exercise.
Many, many strongly worded letters will go out.
I’m sure Putin will cry himself to sleep tonight.
I dunno, Putins behavior reminds me of my 3 year old son. When he does something he knows he’s not supposed to do, he checks your reaction, and if you don’t respond he’ll see how far he can push it.
Many other plants could start producing neon pretty easily. They just haven't so far because neon isn't profitable to produce and sell. But with a relatively-large but globally-insignificant price increase it would be.
* Yandex * Lukoil * WinRAR * Kaspersky * Lada * Russian Standard Original Vodka * Stoli Vodka * Baltika * Lukoil * Gazprom * Kamaz * Masha and the Bear * Kalashnikov * Stolichnaya * Ural motorcycles * VK
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/ga...
Less money spent on Russian products = less money going to modern Nazis. It's that simple.
Most people don't really care, but if you do, there are plenty of non-Russian alternatives (which should be quite obvious).
Since you mentioned them -- as hard as it may be to believe -- HeNe lasers are only just beginning to be phased out in the semi industry in the somewhat esoteric use case of precision position measurement using interferometry. The output wavelength of a HeNe lase is extremely stable--with a simple feedback loop on the cavity length (ie, temperature) a HeNe laser is essentially an atomic clock locked to the 473.612248 THz 5s2 → 3p HeNe line. Interferometers built around such systems can accurately measure sub-nanometer displacements and are able to achieve a lifetime absolute stability of better than 10ppb--comparable to a rubidium atomic clock! [2]
[1] https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Las...
- "Excimer laser gas mixtures are a combination of rare gases (argon, krypton, xenon, or neon) and halogen gases (fluorine or chlorine). The mixture of gases determines the wavelength of DUV light produced. Argon+fluorine+neon (193nm) and Krypton+fluorine+neon (248nm) are the two most common mixtures used. In terms of volume; neon makes up approximately 96–97.5% of the mixture."
https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Las...
... why would I believe them about Russia?
Based on an image in a news-livestream yesterday, targets are solely military structures. The reporter did not fail in trying to make russia look bad, showing actually no regard to the information itself.
Personally, I can absolutely understand the desire to remove military equipment next to my doorstep, especially when it's ran by a country which, FOR DECADES, used lies to take over countries and kill millions of people.
Right just like how the US enslaved black people and put the Japanese in internment camps, slaughtered millions of civilians with nuclear bombs in world war 2, displaced entire societies of pacific islanders because of the same testing of nuclear bombs, killed thousands of Chinese Americans building railroad tracks...
The US has it's fair share of atrocities. Many of them on par with China if not Worse. Do these atrocities define a nation? No. No they do not. However they remain a part of the nations identity permanently.
It is the same with China. The atrocities do not define a nation that is far more complex then the black and white characterization you seem so adamant about maintaining. The benevolence of lifting an entire civilization out of poverty into first world status isn't just a "preferred section" of society. China is the most populous country in the world with 18.47% of all humans living in that country. It is a major achievement and more people would be suffering in the world right now if China didn't exist.
What's the preferred section of society in the US? White people? Come on man. You may not want to call China Benevolent but looking at the US and other countries, China is no more and no less benevolent then the other places.
The main point here is that "dictatorship" doesn't necessarily automatically mean a horrible regime of hitler level evil. Just like how it's hard to call the US purely good or purely evil it is the same with China.
Loosely, there's a lot of economic push towards concentration, and not a lot pushing against it. Geopolitics usually operates on a slower scale than market pressures, which means we get weird things like a vested interest in Ukrainian national security due to it being the only country bothering to manufacture neon in the world.
Neon is extracted from the atmosphere. There is no geographic concentration to exploit (well, I guess technically Antarctica is coldest and so has a volumetric advantage). If Ukraine had the bulk of the supply it's simply because someone decided to invest in a bunch of manufacturing infrastructure there.
So CAN the USA separate air? For sure. Maybe it's just cheaper. A lot of these stories about disruptions are disruptions of the CHEAP option.
Monopoly is a misused term. Many monopolies around the world are market capture due to being sunk cost low price leaders. Replace "monopoly" with "cornered the market".
It's not unlike German "hidden champions", companies that figured out a niche safe from industrial espionage, usually something involving very precise know-how regarding something analog, and nobody can do it like they can. German hidden champions are generally family-owned, rather than public companies, and prefer it that way; they stay in Germany typically; and there are 300 of them by some reasonable reckoning. They make the critical thing that goes in the thing that goes in the thing.
Taiwan does something similar--they see their chip industry, which is also very dependent on human know-how and highly analog, high precision--as a patriotic endeavor that protects their sovereignty economically and geopolitically.
So, apparently the reason neon comes from Ukraine is some pretty smart Ukrainians wanted it that way, for the good of Ukraine, and specifically for Ukrainian sovereignty to matter to the rest of the world.
Nope. See the other comments here, that explain that the Soviet Union overinvested in this technology because they wanted to build weapons with it.
It would probably have been better for the people of the Soviet Union (or Ukraine now) to have invested these billions into something else, or even just consumed them.
Probably not, since it appears that this capacity dates back to a Soviet laser-defence project.
It takes time to setup new supply chains for mass production.
Neon distillation does seem much simpler and cleaner, from my layman perspective.
Key iron ore mine locations have been ''annexed'' by recent Russian invasion - Crimea, etc. in a pincer like strategic configuration. Please see map
https://www.mining-technology.com/projects/shymanivske-iron-...
Ninety per cent of neon production is in Russia and Ukraine.[43] As of 2020, the company Iceblick, with plants in Odessa and Moscow, supplies 65 per cent of the world's production of neon, as well as 15% of the krypton and xenon.[44][45]
Neon gas is extracted as a byproduct of iron smelting from neon rich iron ore.
There should be no significant problems to create production capacities in other places, but then the price would become higher and, more importantly, a few months or even years might be needed until the neon production would be increased enough to compensate for a sudden loss of the source from Ukraine.
"Specific grade" - you need very, very, very high purity gasses for lasers.
Noble gasses are very, very, very hard to purify because they are chemically inert.
Welding gas (argon) is dirt cheap, 99.99% pure argon is surprisingly expensive, and semiconductor grade Argon, or Neon at 99.99999%+ purity far more.
Ultrapure neon is a great example of a single source critical input for the semiconductor industry. There are hundreds of similar small companies around the world supplying something completely irreplaceable.
Semiconductor industry is extremely fragile.
Not sure that's true. After all, it doesn't break down all the time, does it?
I am willing to host up to 10 Ukrainians at my farm in the very south west corner of Poland until further decisions can be made. Only 2 takers so far. Please email my username at gmail if this is interesting to your colleague or to anyone else reading this.
Poland has dropped visa requirements. I can provide some initial legal assistance via a generous family member's donation. I was once a refugee as well. We expect nothing in return.
edit: now at 60% occupancy (maybe) Good luck everyone!
Edit: Slight mistake.
There are up to 10 civilian casualties so far, so it would have been easier to die of covid or even pollution than bombs in Ukraine in the past 2 days.
https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2021/grain-marketing-lingo-—-tradi...
Also I found rumors that the developer (Eugene Roshal) moved to Germany or the USA. No info found about his brother who is the WinRAR's copyright holder, which is what matters.
They can just make it cheaper.
People like eating meat, so there will be protests etc, but it's not threatening famine.
> In the olden times some considered it a good measure to secure food production by subsidies. You know, hungry people get restless. If that is your intent or you don't have to face the consequences, it's fine. But for the most part to keep the masses fed is a basic measure.
Which 'olden times' are you talking about? When and where?
Direct subsidies for growing food are probably one of the least efficient ways for that goal.
Just imagine what would happen without the subsidies: the agricultural land in question wouldn't just leave the country. Mostly people just grow different things with and without subsidies.
Sweet, a downvote trap.
Well go ahead.
Cryogenic distillation of air is a solved problem. There are plenty of plants already in operation all over the globe meaning there only needs to be modification to existing plants to further collect and crack the remaining 0.1% of air. I'm sure this is not hard to do with existing cryoplants.
If we already have the capacity then why are we without Neon production is a good question. Neon isn't in high demand like the easily extracted major components of air: nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), and argon (0.9%). Neon is something like 18ppm in air so a lot of energy has to go in to get very little out. So my guess is economics where the existing Ukrainian cryogenic plants have kept their prices low enough to discourage adding this capacity to new/existing plants elsewhere (maybe they get cheap energy, subsidies, etc). Now it might be profitable.
It can take months or years to make additions to existing plants, there is an enormous amount of difference between a solved textbook problem and a real problem being solved.
It's very hard to purify noble gasses, as they are almost completely chemically inert, and chemistry needed to make, say, same argon, to form compounds with anything else is something needing very special equipment, and know how.
Welding grade argon is dirt cheap, 99.999% argon is very expensive, and 99.999999% argon is many times as expensive as welding gas.
It's much worse with neon.
I've worked in a specialty welding shop that did laser and electron beam and never saw or heard of neon used for welding. It is beyond prohibitivly expensive. Even helium is awesome for welding but so expensive that we only used it for specialty jobs that were very low volume and high margin and high risk (e.g. prototypes).
An excellent and accurate elaboration of the modern economic theory that led us, nevertheless, to our current precarious position.
These are all anti-consumer and bad public policy.
Russia has a tiny and impoverished economy.
China is still rather poor. (And only started to grow richer when they reformed in the direction of economic freedom starting in 1978-ish.)
And "direction" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your statement about China. They were, and still are, very protectionist of their internal market, using official and unofficial means.
Not to imply western countries are exempt - they also made (and make) use of protectionism in growing their industries. Only after industries matured, would the market be opened, and economic propaganda launched how unrestricted trade was the only way to prosperity (and, by pure chance, this would give the now globally-competitive industries new export markets). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism#In_the_United_St...:
Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, was of the view, as articulated most famously in his "Report on Manufactures", that developing an industrialized economy was impossible without protectionism because import duties are necessary to shelter domestic "infant industries" until they could achieve economies of scale. The industrial takeoff of the United States occurred under protectionist policies 1816–1848 and under moderate protectionism 1846–1861, and continued under strict protectionist policies 1861–1945.
In other words, protectionism has a proven track record of developing economies, while unrestricted free trade is only theoretically able to accomplish this. Of course economists are immune to empirical proof - from that same wikipedia article:
There is a broad consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare, while free trade and the reduction of trade barriers has a positive effect on economic growth.
On the news a while ago, the news was going on about how the UK is banning dual use goods, so this tells us some Govt dept has audited potentially every business and its goods and compiled a list of devices which can be considered multi use. You see this alot with chemicals, Glycerine, used as a cosmetic can also be used for bombmaking. I only found this out when I purchased a litre and then some internet forum started going on about how it can be used for bomb making.
Its why we dont get taught everything, not even in the news. Anyway oil prices have gone up which will push more people towards electric vehicles, and yet Russia has the largest oil reserves in the world, so no doubt they will benefit, because if another internet forum is to be believed, the Saudia's have all but exhausted their oil reserves which is one of the reasons for them IPO'ing their national oil producer.
Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export licence for an app but also highlights who was behind it!
It's the chief component in dynamite.
>Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export licence for an app but also highlights who was behind it!
When do you need an export license for an app?
Dont have the source code anymore or anything and its not ever going to happen now.
When I say it was uncrackable, it was based loosely on code books which were used in ww2, which is something I subsequently read about later on in the news.
It's also a great optimization criteria to use to position yourself for checkmate.
Monopolies, countries...
Anti-price gouging regulation makes it harder for companies to benefit from disaster preparedness.
What we didn’t do enough is take the geopolitical landscape into this equation (or a potential pandemic, for that matter), which I hope changes after recent developments.
I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely understand the businesses needing to do what’s best for business.
How do you blame government for businesses running around with planning models that miss wars and pandemics, the two most common causes of ruin and disruption for the entire duration of human history?
Businesses/corps come and go ... the Nation of $nation only tends to do so on the next timescale up. When their actually looking out for systemic blindspots no one else is, and not pandering to the elite.
do physicists assume frictionless surfaces and perfectly elastic collisions? yes when they're explaining the basics of Newton's Laws, but they also develop theories and models for friction, etc.
Same with economists, they study economies and do their best to come up with complete models. Are they perfect? no. Do they know more about economies than anybody else? yes.
What makes you think economics makes that assumption? The economics literature is full of papers investigating various kinds of market imperfections. (Mostly because all the papers involving perfect markets have already been written. It's publish or perish in academia after all.)
People have far too simplistic models of how things work, this is the consequence of a lack of understanding and shortsightedness
Rare-earth elements are the same way - they're relatively abundant, but China is enormously over-represented in the market because the west doesn't like mining and China doesn't care.
Also, I can personally offer transport with my personal car (meaning 3 extra adults or 2 adults and 2 kids) from anywhere on the Ukrainian-Romanian border to anywhere else in Romania, if any of the HN-ers in here has someone close/a relative who needs that kind of transport inside Romania then leave a reply to this comment and we'll see about making contact/getting in touch.
I’m about as far away as one could get from this situation, is there anything I could do to help?
(Yes, their top charities don't necessarily have anything to do with whatever cause is currently in the news.)
If push came to shove, they could drop this silly policy, and alleviate supply shortages.
Is that because of some clean energy policy?
Yes, western countries have often shot themselves in the foot with protectionism. They aren't perfect.
Well in the end, those neon producers harmed capitalism as intended.
It’s essentially free for the company to do this since the gov’t already sunk the cost decades ago.
No one has done that for Air liquide, at least not yet.
>> My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today.
> You think a global increase of food prices will not have an effect on human lives?
Not nearly the same kind as the one the GP is referring to.
Regular food, non-WMD bombings = many die, directly
Irregular food, regardless of bombings = many millions might die or be severely impacted in the long-term
That's speculation that depends very much on the precise details. The ancestor comment said:
>>>>> In 2010 Russia stopped exporting wheat due to wildfires burning their fields (most likely caused by climate change). This caused a hike in food prices which helped trigger the Arab revolutions in 2011.
Did "many millions ... die" in 2011?
Also wheat is fungible, and Russia is still growing grain and will still be able to export it, just maybe not to the usual places. So maybe China buys more Russian wheat and less American, and the American wheat goes to Europe or Africa instead of China. There can be disruptions with things continuing to more or less balance out.
Personally I think the solution is for governments to have a contingency plan, and opposed to forcing any individual business to do anything, but if we did want businesses to change their behavior, it's definitely a government issue.
Unless somehow "buy my product , it's more expensive because our business hedges against war and pandemics" works in advertising (eco-friendly seems to get some traction, so maybe?)
Governments often assume (wrongly) that businesses have incentives to handle long-term risks, since they want to exist for a long time and remain profitable. The reality though is most are more focused on their share price and dividend than handling strategic risks.
And see protomyth's comment for more political reasons.
No, you didn't.
> When I say it was uncrackable, it was based loosely on code books which were used in ww2, which is something I subsequently read about later on in the news.
Could you please elaborate? Code books only work when both parties have a copy. Obviously for an app, you need to assume that the attackers have access to the app.
Lets just say it not only resource burned me because this wasnt just a simple string of data encrypted with an encryption algo, but it would have resource burned anyone else who decided to have a go at decrypting it because of some of the methods I employed. I set out to defeat any automated brute force cracking with Amazon cloud/Bluffdale level of resource at their disposal. This could also apply to quantum computing, because in a way there are probably enough computing devices connected to the net to emulate a quantum computer in near realtime.
I turned their weakness into my advantage, but you would have had to have thought out of the box.
I cant go into any more details, its as simple as that, so you can say what you like, but I'm not here to convince you, but I will say current internationally recognised encryption methods are just lazy imo.
Edit. The difference with the resource burn though is I would get paid anyone else would be needing more tax dollars, so over time it could have been possible to see who was spooking on the reports because of their actions.
Alas, frankly, you sound like a crank.
It's exceptionally easy for a person to devise an encryption system they can't crack. It's exceptionally hard to devise an encryption system others can't crack.
That's why generally cryptosystems are only seen as trustworthy when they have been out in the open and been attacked---without success---by many smart people with a track record of breaking cryptosystems.
Eg do you know how differential cryptanalysis works? Or linear cryptanalysis?
Or assuming you know about RSA, would you be able to figure out which classes of keys are deemed weak without looking it up? (Ie can you repeat this attack?)
Do you know which existing cryptographic systems are vulnerable to quantum computers? And which are not? And why?
Robust futures markets are perfectly capable of protecting producers and consumers from price fluctuations (and help stabilize prices as they do so). Similarly for long term contracts between consumers and suppliers.
I don't know the details, but it seems to be some kind of American sporting event, and getting everything right was exceedingly unlikely.
You can buy bespoke insurance for this kind of thing. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_indemnity_insurance
By your logic, Warren Buffett should have been able to buy spend just a dollar or so to buy insurance against someone getting everything right, shouldn't he? After all, the chances were exceedingly small and competition would have driven down the insurance premium?
(Government) control is another issue. Obviously, a government run scheme would be under more government control. Though laws are perfectly capable of controlling private sector entities, too.
To be honest this war does make me doubt my assption that Putin is very rational and predictive. What is the rationale behind such a full-scale invasion? I don't see benefits that outweight the costs. I am happy to hear them, if they are any.
The "NATO Problem" is probably just a ruse to rile up support for his amibitions.
Well, by that logic Russia should give back Königsberg and eastern Poland..
He's psychopath-rational.
A lot points to the fact that Putin has extensively prepared and calculated the benefits and costs of all the possibilities and endgames. Everything, including how we are talking about it here is potentially a component in this strategy.
What is difficult for all of us here in the West to comprehend, is how completely different the elite Russian POV is from our own. I highly recommend looking into the Gerasimov and Primakov doctrines.
At the same time, Putin is pretty old and has been in power for so long that there is a real chance that he has become narcissistic. There is a real chance that he has developed a misperception of his own strength and that this is a turning point. Something similar happened to Napoleon at a certain point.
By looking at a map, this is quite evident.
In the graph of adjacent nations, Ukraine has a high betweenness centrality
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Ranking-of-centrality-va...
The things about NATO is what he says to mislead people -- and maybe that is a rational step in his restore-the-Soviet-Union dreams
With modern logistics, I don't buy the geographic argument.
To be this is just Putin playing cards the rest of the civilized world have decided you can't play.
He accurately perceived weakness.
> I don't see benefits that outweight the costs. I am happy to hear them, if they are any.
His priorities are different than what you think they are/should be: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/lavrov-rus...:
> Their intentions are different from ours too. Putin’s goal is not a flourishing, peaceful, prosperous Russia, but a Russia where he remains in charge. Lavrov’s goal is to maintain his position in the murky world of the Russian elite and, of course, to keep his money. What we mean by “interests” and what they mean by “interests” are not the same. When they listen to our diplomats, they don’t hear anything that really threatens their position, their power, their personal fortunes.
And the West's "punishment" may actually enrich the people who started this war:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/us/politics/russia-biden-...
> And perhaps most notably, Mr. Putin and his closest aides and partners in Moscow might not suffer much themselves from sanctions, analysts say....
> Some of the hard-line nationalist men around Mr. Putin were already on a Treasury Department sanctions list and accept that they and their families will no longer have substantial ties to the United States or Europe for the rest of their lives, said Alexander Gabuev, the chair of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
> “They are the powerful everybodies in today’s Russia,” he said. “There is a lot of posh richness. They’re totally secluded. They’re the kings, and that can be secured in Russia only.”
> Furthermore, because of their roles in state-owned enterprises and their business ties, they are “the very guys who are directly benefiting from the economy becoming more insulated, more detached from the outside world,” he added.
NATO shouldn’t have expanded eastward, or the US should have left NATO. The West has been such utter fools in our negotiations with the world, being too powerful for too long has eroded diplomatic skill and left us ignoring the legitimate grievances of our adversaries and delivering one sided ultimatums.
In a pedantic sense, major US cruise ships don't need to touch a foreign port in their journey. The catch being there is only one major US cruise ship - The Pride of America, which generally does Hawaiian cruises: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_of_America
The other major cruise ships you see operating in the US are actually foreign-flagged so they can avoid US environmental, gambling and employment regulations, etc. These are the ships that must touch a foreign port during their journeys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920
That's why there's basically no ocean shipping from American ports to American ports.
That's not the right question to ask. The right question to ask is 'Who is this bad for?'
The Jones act, for instance, is good for US shipworkers, and for enforcement of US shipping laws, but moderately bad for Hawai'i, and really, really bad for Puerto Rico.
Who do you care more about? Preserving the comfort of the continental American middle class employed in maritime transportation, or a bunch of people in Puerto Rico? The answer to that question determines how you see the Jones act.
Alas, the Jones Act isn't actually good for US shipworkers in general. The Jones Act makes it so that there are nearly no US shipworkers in the first place.
(However, the few US shipworkers that do exist are to a certain extent protected by the Jones act.)
And even if only consumers matter, what you're saying only hold in theory, given a 'perfect market'. In practice, consumers have imperfect (read: atrociously bad) information, and big corporations hold many unfair advantages.
That's very similar to how peaker plants work. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant
I absolutely never said consumers are the only thing that matter. I don't know where you read that between my lines. I said that in a market that is propped up by subsidies, the consumer is the one that gets hurt the most.
As an example: Bangladesh has been on a multi-decade long streak of excellent economic growth. Mostly thanks to the textile industry. Regular people are better off.
> In last decade, poverty dropped by around one third with significant improvement in human development index, literacy, life expectancy and per capita food consumption. With economy growing close to 6% per year, more than 15 million people have moved out of poverty since 1992.[64]
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Bangladesh#Modern_B...
Though it wouldn't call it a wealth transfer. It's wealth creation in both Bangladesh and their customers and investors.
Some argue that industrialization under these conditions is not good for the countries and people being exploited for their labor
Life is better in Bangladesh now than it used to be. By a lot.
At least it does not seem to involve any conventional use of the word business.
So the private sector is perfectly capable of stockpiling, too.
There's plenty of approximately unchecked sectors of the economy. Eg software or computer hardware.
There's plenty of companies in these sectors.
There are many communities whose opinions and perspectives we just seem to ignore and we trust the "western" institutions who make publications on such matters
I'm not talking about how "wealthy" a community is in terms of material gains or technological improvements.
Communities see changes in their fundamental way of life due to industrialization which impacts their relationships with each other and their natural environments which, on average, seem to be worse than what they were doing before.
All of this industrialization comes from people wanting more profit, and we see working conditions and level of pay that would be unacceptable in the US but people write it off as being "okay" because "they're a developing nation" or "its a third world country" when the real reason is greed and a desire to skirt local regulations.
One of the key roles of government is to provide services that are economically inefficient but are a public good.
> Business are still run by people. Nobody was forced to see someone else doing something shitty and then say "well I just need to be a bigger asshole than that guy! Must be okay 'cause it's not illegal"
I think that would be a good start
The blame here lies solely on society and the politicians it elects. There is no other solution where individual business owners can be expected to take on societal problems.