Lol 118 bannable apps versus Tagore poetry and yoga is... an interesting sort of cultural trade deficit. India basically exports no cultural goods worth canceling to China. The US otoh has Hollywood exports as a pain point.
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China is becoming increasingly vulnerable based on strengths. They import nothing they can’t do without that’s not raw materials, where they’re extra vulnerable. So tit-for-tat trade penalties don’t work.
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Post-Covid reconstruction, if there’s a lot of dematerialization and localization of consumption, so world’s export markets mainly consume industrial intermediates over finished goods, China will be significantly weakened.
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Margins on PLA filament will be much worse than on a million little plastic SKUs.
This is why I have renewed interest in things like 3D printing. Low-energy last-mile decentralized finishing processes are separating from energy-intensive first-mile centralized scaled processes.
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Software platform monopolies unlike industrial base monopolies are much easier to replicate locally once the first instance is done.
Industrial base goods have margins loaded on finished goods end where expensive markets intelligence matters most.
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You're discovering the 3D printing hype, but after everyone in the industry became disillusioned with it. Local 3DP has fundamental cost issues that won't ever replace centralized mass and even short-run production for most things.
My schtick on this:
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Just an example. I’m sure you’re right, but logic applies to many other finishing processes. Also, remember, consumption doesn’t stay unchanged through this. That’s different from first hype cycle. For min-GHG we’re talking long-life repairable items over design for obsolescence
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3D printing role looks very different if you’re using it to keep a thing maintained in good repair for 10 years instead of printing a flimsy version of the whole thing every 6 months.
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You're saying there's better business case for local 3DP for replacement parts? Sometimes this is true, though my core argument is that even this isn't where 3DP shines because most part require performance and other characteristics not possible with 3DP.
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