I don't think we get to be stagnant and fend off Chinese industrial hegemony. It's not a symmetric bet.

BYD keeps performing well in the rest of the world. If we hold US consumers hostage to prop up companies like Tesla, we risk allowing them to stagnate.

You can see the political groundwork being laid here.

https://homeland.house.gov/2025/05/21/homeland-republicans-p...

If these concerns are so pressing, why do we allow any electronics at all from China?

It smells like air cover for a de-facto ban on BYD. To force US consumers to buy from politically blessed car makers instead of letting us choose the highest quality car available (at a given price point).

It's depressing that we can't buy BYD in the USA. It's feeling more and more like being stuck with a Lada in the 1980s.

In extremis, were the people working for Pol Pot just good patriots with no moral culpability?

We could surely at least agree that there are cases where working for the military of your home country doesn't fully excuse you from your actions.

In fact, I think international tribunals have existed which operated on just those principles.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47661223

Points: 1

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1. An increase in comments that aim to gather social approval as opposed to advancing a conversation or sharing knowledge -- often including meta commentary on threads e.g., "reddit moment".

2. Topics start to become more general and lose the tech/startup scene focus of the site.

These are legitimate. Reddit threads are stereotypically full of noise and HN should avoid that.

However there's a third form of the critique that I think should be avoided.

3. Too many comments seem to reflect values and worldviews rooted in [socially] liberal ideals.

Because of this, it's probably useful to give some context for what in particular constitutes "redditifcation". That way dang and any other mods can try to address it with particular policy decisions.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019397

Points: 2

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After all, if the evil "elites" -- as if populists don't comprise their own elite class -- ever gain power again they could undo all of our "progress".

You can see this tendency in how some red states, like Texas, have tried to furiously redraw their maps to maintain control of the US house. They are doing this because they fear that "the people" will not choose to give them a majority again. They even admit to it openly. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/15/trump-five-seat-pic...

California had a state wide vote to do the same thing. But they were acting in kind. Tit-for-tat is a reasonable strategy what Texas did. Though it remains a shame that it came to it.

Cumulatively, these actions represent a breakdown of the machinery in our system that allows us to course correct. It's not healthy for anyone.

Planned markets lead to bad economic outcomes, why? Because when you fix prices you lose the ability to react appropriately to changing conditions. Managed democracies lead to bad social outcomes for the same reason. You need reasonably fair elections in order to sense the condition of the population and react to it.

Yet, populist rhetoric ups the emotional ante to the point where it starts to convince people that it's a good idea to subvert this. The old "Flight 93 Election" essay from 2016 is the perfect case study in this sort of absurd rhetorical escalation. Where they literally said, if Trump doesn't win America is doomed forever. We have to "charge the cockpit" before the plane crashes, so to speak.

Yet, when he lost in 2020, America didn't end forever. It's all been a farce and a grab for power.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45877728

Points: 1

# Comments: 1