For the past year and a half, the US administration have plunged the country in a rule of law twilight zone: the rule of law still exists, and there are still independent jurisdictions to enforce it, but the administration decided they didn't care, and they just overcome any court dismissal of their orders with a new illegal order that courts will have to push back a few month later.
Which means that, in practice, the US isn't governed by the rule of law anymore, but by the whim of the Czar's court.
Which president pardoned their law-breaking son? Which administration released 90% of illegal immigrants? Which president left didn't enforce American's immigration laws and consequently enabled human trafficking on a scale we haven't seen in decades, resulting in 300,000+ lost children?
Yup. There is no authority that is going to swoop in and hold them accountable, there is no legal recourse to be had from any court currently in existence. No one is going to save us but ourselves.
The future of the US depends on these people being held accountable by the next administration, and structural reforms to make their abuses harder to do again in the future.
Being held accountable in the next administration is pretty much the opposite of what a democratic society needs. It's a never ending cycle. Let the court system handle this.
>That technology overlaps only partially, at best, with what’s used in quantum processors.
Dunno, how can you say that for sure when we don't actually know how to make a practical quantum processor? The bigger issue is that we are scaling up manufacturing of approaches that have not been made to work.
I remember a meeting where the project manager pointed out that we were due to send some test boards to a customer. I pointed out that we didn't have a design yet. The PM then asked why we couldn't send them some boards anyway. I suggested that since the boards wouldn't work that we could just cut out some green cardboard and add some component shapes with a magic marker thus saving significant time and effort.
It turned out that I was not as funny as I thought I was...
Hahaha, hilarious. I could also tell a story or two like that.
I have to say, though, I have no idea what the management is thinking when they hire such clueless PMs. Even worse, I have seen clueless product owners who had no idea about the domain we were in. I guess a recent example could be Ive designing the Luce.
Maybe I am just envious. Maybe I just wish I could BS my way through life like these characters do.
There's nothing to envy. They're a hired punching bag to put distance between you and the management.
In most cases, even the PM doesn't know this. They were specifically selected to not think too deeply. Anything you say that is brutally correct and they take the wrong way is received as mean and arrogant. Those incidents give management some ammunition if they ever want to get rid of you.
> "could argue that it has been harmed by the diversion of the funds to a different field. But that argument would likely take so long to sort out in court that all the money would have been spent by then."
So if I steal from someone and spend it fast enough, I wouldn't be responsible anymore and can get away with it? That's how that sounded to me.
I suppose it’d be in the details. Like, are they locked into that investment, or is it something with checkpoints and milestones that let them bail out after a year and a few mil? What’s the ownership structure of any new ip? Etc.
It’s easy to drop a story like this, get a win for investing in the future, and then quietly disassemble it as soon as the cameras turn away.
This is a novel for a book. In a race where the rules are broken by some participants, how secure are your own systems when your opponent can access invisible technology long before the others? This should make you think.
They like the payment, and yelling about it while actually not doing anything about it means they get the benefits (as long as their constituents buy it!) while not having to do the actual hard work on take on real risk.
When it blows up, they can even say ‘I told you so!’, often while profiting from it insider trading wise.
I read once that if we really wanted to be secure, we would have a crypto library that was open source, AND all changes needed to be signed off by more than one of NSA, Mossad, FSB, China's agency, etc. This way if there is a bug they find, any agency has to assume other agencies have also found the bug.
Quantum itself is the most scummy, grift-filled industry. Every quantum company is riding the AI/semiconductor hype wave with basically zero revenue prospects or long-term application of the tech. Companies trading at 200x earnings, IONQs CEO claiming to the “next NVIDIA”/“base case is Cisco’s market cap” — just ridiculous.
Is the theme that any direction US tech advances in results in a persistent campaign of negative hit pieces aimed at trying to halt/destroy any achievements? Written by "journalists"/publishers that have never, and will never, say a single negative thing about china? Sure seems like that's the theme.
My understanding for the money to be "illegally allocated", the court system would have to declare it so.
The article do not mention any lawsuits that overturn the allocation, just a couple senators disagreeing with the interpretation of the law. The senate does not interpret the law, but the judicial branch.
> But a member of the US Congress is now arguing that those deals are illegal, as Congress did not allocate the money for this purpose—instead, it was meant to support public research in semiconductors.
That is the theme. Illegal use of public money. It’s called crony capitalism.
That is basically the theme. You've figured out the actual grift. The crazy thing is how these same magazines will promote actual fake industries like crypto, while demonizing industries that produce actual results like AI. The goal seems to be to get Americans to invest assets into currencies likely already controlled by foreign entities while discouraging them from developing their own potentially revolutionary technology.
A suspicious amount of betting here - from the top of the current administration, down to semi-regular people like that US soldier who profited from his special knowledge recently:
disclosure: I have large (to me) investments in quantum.
---
The US needs to keep leading innovations. We have permanently lost the ability to manufacture. For China (and the world) to stay dependent on us, we need to continue pumping out technologies.
Ukraine / Iran / Afghanistan / Vietnam has proved having the biggest baddest military is not that valuable.
For the past year and a half, the US administration have plunged the country in a rule of law twilight zone: the rule of law still exists, and there are still independent jurisdictions to enforce it, but the administration decided they didn't care, and they just overcome any court dismissal of their orders with a new illegal order that courts will have to push back a few month later.
Which means that, in practice, the US isn't governed by the rule of law anymore, but by the whim of the Czar's court.
Which president pardoned their law-breaking son? Which administration released 90% of illegal immigrants? Which president left didn't enforce American's immigration laws and consequently enabled human trafficking on a scale we haven't seen in decades, resulting in 300,000+ lost children?
Yup. There is no authority that is going to swoop in and hold them accountable, there is no legal recourse to be had from any court currently in existence. No one is going to save us but ourselves.
The future of the US depends on these people being held accountable by the next administration, and structural reforms to make their abuses harder to do again in the future.
Being held accountable in the next administration is pretty much the opposite of what a democratic society needs. It's a never ending cycle. Let the court system handle this.
Courts can only handle cases that are brought.
>That technology overlaps only partially, at best, with what’s used in quantum processors.
Dunno, how can you say that for sure when we don't actually know how to make a practical quantum processor? The bigger issue is that we are scaling up manufacturing of approaches that have not been made to work.
I remember a meeting where the project manager pointed out that we were due to send some test boards to a customer. I pointed out that we didn't have a design yet. The PM then asked why we couldn't send them some boards anyway. I suggested that since the boards wouldn't work that we could just cut out some green cardboard and add some component shapes with a magic marker thus saving significant time and effort.
It turned out that I was not as funny as I thought I was...
Hahaha, hilarious. I could also tell a story or two like that.
I have to say, though, I have no idea what the management is thinking when they hire such clueless PMs. Even worse, I have seen clueless product owners who had no idea about the domain we were in. I guess a recent example could be Ive designing the Luce.
Maybe I am just envious. Maybe I just wish I could BS my way through life like these characters do.
There's nothing to envy. They're a hired punching bag to put distance between you and the management.
In most cases, even the PM doesn't know this. They were specifically selected to not think too deeply. Anything you say that is brutally correct and they take the wrong way is received as mean and arrogant. Those incidents give management some ammunition if they ever want to get rid of you.
> "could argue that it has been harmed by the diversion of the funds to a different field. But that argument would likely take so long to sort out in court that all the money would have been spent by then."
So if I steal from someone and spend it fast enough, I wouldn't be responsible anymore and can get away with it? That's how that sounded to me.
Something about it being the banks problem if I owe them a billion
Yes, that is basically how the justice system works. If you have enough money and lawyers you can avoid practically any consequences.
If I understand legal terminology correctly*, this is what a "preliminary injunction" is for.
* eh. I'm not a lawyer.
The principle of ‘Standing’, however, means that you also cannot sue unless you can show actual harm to yourself.
Yes, these contradict each other somewhat.
I don’t know enough about the state of quantum computing but this sounds like IBM dumping dead end research onto taxpayers
Then why are they also investing $1 billion in the same company as the taxpayers?
I suppose it’d be in the details. Like, are they locked into that investment, or is it something with checkpoints and milestones that let them bail out after a year and a few mil? What’s the ownership structure of any new ip? Etc.
It’s easy to drop a story like this, get a win for investing in the future, and then quietly disassemble it as soon as the cameras turn away.
Divestment costs
This is a novel for a book. In a race where the rules are broken by some participants, how secure are your own systems when your opponent can access invisible technology long before the others? This should make you think.
It’s literally classic prisoners dilemma?
Hint: it doesn’t give warm fuzzies.
My first reaction, without RTFA, is: hasn't stopped them before, why would not being legal stop US big tech now?
> At this point, however, it’s not obvious how to stop the deal.
Impeachment, but congress has bent over so much that they can taste their shoes.
They like the payment, and yelling about it while actually not doing anything about it means they get the benefits (as long as their constituents buy it!) while not having to do the actual hard work on take on real risk.
When it blows up, they can even say ‘I told you so!’, often while profiting from it insider trading wise.
my favorite conspiracy theory - the govt has already cracked all the RSA codes but they keep funding QM to show that we're still secure.
I read once that if we really wanted to be secure, we would have a crypto library that was open source, AND all changes needed to be signed off by more than one of NSA, Mossad, FSB, China's agency, etc. This way if there is a bug they find, any agency has to assume other agencies have also found the bug.
Trump Jr. is one of the government money recipients via 1789 capital (which had already profited from the groq insider sale last year):
https://www.startribune.com/donald-trump-quantum-computing-i...
Trump Jr the guy selling drones to the Middle East after his father started a war? What a standup guy!
The Trump family is a fully integrated business. Start a war, sell weapons. Negotiating peace deals and looking for investors at the same time.
Sue the government and be in charge of the agency you sue.
That's Sir Mountain Dew Trump Jr to you.
Quantum itself is the most scummy, grift-filled industry. Every quantum company is riding the AI/semiconductor hype wave with basically zero revenue prospects or long-term application of the tech. Companies trading at 200x earnings, IONQs CEO claiming to the “next NVIDIA”/“base case is Cisco’s market cap” — just ridiculous.
If you have enough money, you can say whatever bullshit and the pilot fish around you will clap.
I think we're all seeing a theme.
Is the theme that any direction US tech advances in results in a persistent campaign of negative hit pieces aimed at trying to halt/destroy any achievements? Written by "journalists"/publishers that have never, and will never, say a single negative thing about china? Sure seems like that's the theme.
What does your tangent about feelings have to do with the fact that the money is illegally allocated? That is the theme OC is pointing out.
My understanding for the money to be "illegally allocated", the court system would have to declare it so.
The article do not mention any lawsuits that overturn the allocation, just a couple senators disagreeing with the interpretation of the law. The senate does not interpret the law, but the judicial branch.
> But a member of the US Congress is now arguing that those deals are illegal, as Congress did not allocate the money for this purpose—instead, it was meant to support public research in semiconductors.
That is the theme. Illegal use of public money. It’s called crony capitalism.
Plenty of that on Ars Technica, even by the same author. Baseless silly whataboutism as usual.
That is basically the theme. You've figured out the actual grift. The crazy thing is how these same magazines will promote actual fake industries like crypto, while demonizing industries that produce actual results like AI. The goal seems to be to get Americans to invest assets into currencies likely already controlled by foreign entities while discouraging them from developing their own potentially revolutionary technology.
Um sorry have you heard about the gutting of the NSF?
Yeah that sucks balls but America's private capital markets are still robust.
Take a deep breath and get your meds updated.
Can you actually make an argument instead of just vague posting?
waves at most executive decisions of this administration
A suspicious amount of betting here - from the top of the current administration, down to semi-regular people like that US soldier who profited from his special knowledge recently:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-soldier-charged-using-clas...
400.000$
So if these are all the Trump-voters then I am no longer surprised. It's an ongoing cash grab on different levels - the big guns play on top.
disclosure: I have large (to me) investments in quantum.
---
The US needs to keep leading innovations. We have permanently lost the ability to manufacture. For China (and the world) to stay dependent on us, we need to continue pumping out technologies.
Ukraine / Iran / Afghanistan / Vietnam has proved having the biggest baddest military is not that valuable.