[uyzstvqs]

> thanks to China

We just have to be careful there. My fellow Europeans here will remember what resulted out of depending on an adversary for energy, in our case Russian NG. We don't want another energy crisis as the result of geopolitical tensions.

We shouldn't import foreign DRM, our critical infrastructure should not utilize foreign-hosted or proprietary IoT, and we should invest in local manufacturing utilizing automation.

[energy123]

Stock vs flow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_and_flow

Solar panels and batteries are a stock. Oil is a flow. This leads to a very different dependency situation.

If you're concerned about energy sovereignty, just buy more solar panels now. If you're still concerned, buy even more. Keep buying them until you're not concerned anymore.

[apexalpha]

Thanks for that link, this says what I've had to explain so many times.

[thelastgallon]

Yes, scare mongering for panels and batteries which last 25 - 50 years or forever with zero input fuel needed after the install. Yay to fossil fuels which are needed continuously, billions of tons per year.

Nobody can prevent your country/region from developing own solar or battery supply chains. Alternatively, buy from other countries that are not China for a little bit more.

[leonidasrup]

https://www.auxsol.com/blog/how-long-do-solar-inverters-last...

" String Inverters: The most common residential choice, lasting 10–15 years on average and boasting impressive cost-performance.

Microinverters: Mounted directly on individual solar panels, these often reach 25 years—nearly matching the lifespan of solar panels themselves. Industry data highlights lower failure rates for microinverters, though they come with a higher upfront cost.

Central Inverters: Typically used for larger residential or commercial and industrial systems, central inverters last 10–15 years. "

Without an solar invertor a solar panel is just a black panel.

https://digitalpower.huawei.com/en/blogs/how-long-will-a-lit...

"Generally, lithium-ion batteries used in ordinary consumer electronics have a cycle life of about 300 to 500 times. After reaching this number of cycles, the battery capacity will drop to about 80% of its initial capacity. For example, if the lithium-ion battery of a smartphone undergoes a full charge-discharge cycle every day, its performance will significantly decline after approximately 1 to 1.5 years.

In contrast, lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, due to advancements in technology and craftsmanship, can achieve 1,000 to 2,000 charge-discharge cycles, with a correspondingly longer service life of 5 to 8 years or even more. Lithium-ion batteries for data centers have an even longer cycle life of approximately 5,000 cycles and a service life of up to 10 years, meaning there’s no need to replace batteries during the UPS’s full lifecycle. However, these are only theoretical estimates, and the actual service life is affected by various factors."

[revolvingthrow]

Damn, those li-ion sure seem like a bad long-term solution. Very convenient that you use lifepo4 for at-home battery storage, and either lifepo4 or possibly sodium for grid scale.

Inverters aren’t a problem. China produces roughly half of them worldwide iirc. They’re dominant but you can source from elsewhere without an issue.

LiFePO4 is almost purely China, but those will last you 20 years, which is roughly 365 times as long as if you’re cut off from oil.

[defrost]

There are many battery chemistries, LiFePO4 is but one .. the lithium batteries tend to be lighter in weight and more optimal for cars and mobility.

Grid storage has yet to find the cheapest storage per acre regardless of weight (which doesn't matter if they're not going to move) and solar -> thermal (underground) -> electricity (months later) is still being trialled (sort of, there's been decades of such usage at one site (IIRC)).

[thelastgallon]

Perhaps its time to rethink about every component in the new energy ecosystem. Perhaps use a charge controller and directly charge a battery instead of converting DC/AC back and forth. A battery is readily available in the form of a EV, which sometimes can also be used for driving!

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Even 1 year is still a lot longer than "immediately getting burned". Fuel gets consumed immediately when it's used, it doesn't keep being re-used for a year or more.

[belorn]

Sweden is currently going through an election year and its very clear how different the energy discussion is compared to HN. At one side you got parties advocating nuclear, and on the green/far left side the advocacy is wind and thermal power plants fueled by fossil fuels.

We used to have a battery developer, but they went instant bankrupt when the almost exclusive funding through government subsidizes stopped. They even rejected an offered loan from the government as not being what they wanted.

There is zero party platforms advocating for wind and batteries for weeks/months long storage. No party advocating a overprovisioning of solar either, possible because output during worst winter month generally reaching single digit percent.

The only political platforms that exist currently are either wind and thermal power plants to burn fuel during non-optimal weather conditions, or to expand the nuclear fleet, and it seems fairly similar when you look at other nearby European countries. Batteries are used as a grid balancer when switching between different form of production, but not as a replacement for the natural gas which is the primary form of fuel being burned in the thermal power plants. Election prediction is that voters are going to demand that construction of something is getting started as the Iran war is likely to trigger new spikes in fossil fuel prices, and thus this will be one of the major issues for the election. Other European countries will likely see similar election debates.

The consumption numbers for the worst month is a bit over 16 000 GW/h of electricity, with a steady growth each year (despite the transport sector being quite slow to electrify), and for a seasonal battery storage you would likely need capacity a few times of that. I would welcome it if a political party would adopt such strategy however, if nothing else because then we would have an alternative to the current two strategies being debated. They could calculations on what it would cost, either by buying it from china or building the production domestically.

[leonidasrup]

Have you looked into CAPEX and OPEX costs of seasonal battery storage? If it's more expensive than nuclear, then it's not an alternative.

[belorn]

Thats seems to be the logical conclusion and explanation why battery and solar are not an option for central/northen part of Europe, despite how panels and batteries are dropping in price. The reason why the only two debated options are nuclear or a combination of wind and natural gas, is that any other alternative is prohibitively expensive. With natural gas becoming a geopolitical and environmental impossibility, that then leaves only one option left for grid growth and expansion, but politically that is a hard pill to take so the debate rages on despite there being no other realistic option.

[leonidasrup]

It's politically a hard pill and debates rage because for multiple decades many German politicians said that the nuclear phaseout will not be coupled with large costs and the increased consumption of natural gas will be just temporary. It's very hard for an politician to say I made a grave error and you all will carry the consequences.

Germany has directly funded anti-nuclear groups in other European countries.

https://www.ege.fr/sites/ege.fr/files/media_files/German_Int...

[yostalex]

Let's evaluate some basic constants.

Replacing fossil fuels with renewables is a shift in the vulnerability vector. The issue isn't even that China controls the production of solar panels and batteries. Production can be launched domestically. China controls 70-90% of refining - the processing chains of critical minerals (rare earth metals, polysilicon, lithium).

Renewables work perfectly for low-density consumers (residential sector, regular commerce). For heavy infrastructure, this won't work.

For example, let's look at AI data centers. AI data centers consume gigawatts of dense energy. Renewables are low-density energy. The problem comes down to spatial energy density (Watts per square meter — W/m²). A server rack for AI training consumes up to 40-100 kW. Solar and wind energy are diffuse (scattered) sources. Their density is about 5-20 W/m². A hyperscaler data center is a concentration of colossal energy in a minimal area (hundreds of megawatts per building).

Training LLM models cannot be interrupted when the sun goes down or the wind dies down. AI requires 24/7 baseload (base generation). The capacity factor of solar is 15-25%, wind — 30-45%. Batteries can smooth out peaks for 2-4 hours, but cannot provide seasonal or multi-day baseload.

Where do we plan to build solar and wind parks? - In deserts and offshore zones. This will require a radical expansion of the grids. We will run into a copper deficit (and things aren't smooth with aluminum either).

Long-term structural capital will go into nuclear energy, gas generation (as a backup), and copper/uranium mining.

[frm88]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/iaea-says-drone-targete...

May 3 (Reuters) - The Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Sunday that a drone had targeted its external radiation control laboratory.

This is not the first event targeting nuclear plants/laboratory. Given the current geopolitical situation, nuclear plants are in danger of being targeted on purpose and the damage would be considerable.

[yostalex]

If we look at the situation through the lens of news headlines and tail risks in an active war zone — I completely agree. Drones over the Zaporizhzhia NPP do indeed create a powerful media picture.

But let's look at how Big Tech assesses the risks. Hyperscalers employ top-tier analysts; they perfectly see the difference between media noise and actual damage.

Attacking an NPP is fundamentally unprofitable. It’s an asset worth tens of billions of dollars, and any rational capital (just like a state) will protect it. What we’re seeing right now — and I’d like to point out this isn't the first time — are strikes on non-critical external nodes. It’s a tool for informational pressure, not an attempt to trigger a second Chernobyl.

In reality, a direct strike on the reactor's containment is a taboo. In military doctrine, it’s equated to the use of radiological weapons, which instantly triggers protocols for uncontrolled escalation. None of the key actors want that.

Has Big Tech already poured money into nuclear? Fact? Fact. Not because they’re blind to geopolitics, but because the math of deterrence works: the risk of deliberately destroying an NPP equals the risk of starting World War III, at which point nobody is going to care about the fate of AI investments anyway.

Let's also take this fact into account: the risk of an attack on an NPP in an active war zone (Ukraine) is simply not comparable to the risk for an NPP in Pennsylvania or Texas.

Personally, I have nothing against green energy, but economics and physics are harsh realities.

[frm88]

In reality, a direct strike on the reactor's containment is a taboo. In military doctrine, it’s equated to the use of radiological weapons, which instantly triggers protocols for uncontrolled escalation. None of the key actors want that.

I'd love to trust this, I really do, but there are political leaders publicly threatening to erase civilisations. I live in Europe. It is still forbidden here to harvest wild mushrooms. Dead animals are burned, not eaten. To us, this is a possible reality

[dalyons]

> Long-term structural capital will go into nuclear energy

nearly zero capital will go into nuclear energy, unless it can be made a lot more affordable. It is structurally completely uncompetitive, and uninvestable without massive state backing.

[photochemsyn]

This is just foolishness in the modern world. A realistic trade policy would accept China getting AMSL nano-scale chip production machines in exchange for American manufacturers getting Chinese monocrystalline-ingot production machines.

Given the hysteria involved in Great Power warmongering circles, much of it designed to increase military-industrial outlays, this is highly unlikely at present, especially in the USA where fossil fuel demand destruction is something the investors in the fracking boom and the oilfield and refinery operators don’t want to see, just look at Exxon and Chevron profits over the past month. I doubt the affiliated investor-owned utilities would be thrilled about an explosion in US rooftop solar installations either, as that cuts directly into their revenue stream.

Now, if you want to build monocrystalline Si PV at scale from scratch to catch up to China, that’s going to take a lot of investment over a decade, and given the historical and present reluctance of the US government to fund such R & D at scale (tiny DOE budgets), it’s all going to be private, and private rentier-finance capital is not going to fund a major competitor to fossil fuels in the USA - margins are tighter, you replace a commodity stream with a one-time purchase of equipment with a minimum 20-yr lifespan, and unless you tightly control the equipment and the electrical generation, there go your rents, I mean profits.

[edot]

Yes, it’s amazing the things you can see fitting into this same mold once you realize that many of our issues in this country are due to old men (and old companies) holding onto power when they should really let the next generation take control.

[cybercatgurrl]

TLDR ; FYIGM

[dzonga]

> resulted out of depending on an adversary

being from a 3rd world country and having lived in Europe & the US.

you quickly learn there's nothing called an adversary when adopting technology.

you adopt what works - ruminating about where something comes from, is a luxury.

then after you can either work towards self-sufficiency or keep being vulnerable.

Europe has been kept in this loop of talking about problems while not solving them.

the US - knowin' about the problems, but actively ignoring them due to politics.

[FooBarWidget]

Heck China has been in this exact predicament for decades. They imported all the foreign technology they can, while simultaneously learning all they can to make things themselves and stop being dependent. After 50 years it's finally paying off. They could not be where they are now had they blocked all foreign imports from the start.

[leonidasrup]

Technology and know-how transfer was exactly the price paid by western companies for outsourcing to China. The companies got increased profits for few years and at the same time trained their future competition.

For example:

"Apple is considered the "Great Teacher" of China for playing a pivotal role in upgrading the nation's industrial, manufacturing, and technological skills over the past 25 year"

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/books/review/apple-in-chi...

[FooBarWidget]

This can be said of any human in any context. The juniors that work in your company can become your future competitors. Yet nobody concludes "never hire juniors".

[Weryj]

Not quite the same, a solar panel installed doesn’t disappear if China changes their stance.

[JumpCrisscross]

> solar panel installed doesn’t disappear if China changes their stance

Most countries have days to, at most, months of imports of oil in reserve. In contrast, a panel embargo wouldn’t have disastrous effects for years. But reliance it is the same. If you’re dependent on Chinese panels, China can cap your energy growth at whim. The degradation will be slow thereafter, but present nevertheless.

Using foreign panels for anything other than bootstrapping domestic or allied production would be the EU repeating its follies first with Russia and then with American LNG.

[dv_dt]

Stopping new panels in some hypothetical scenario is very different than stopping fossil fuel delivery when ch can stop ongoing energy production - it not even in the same timescale of problem

[torpfactory]

What are the alternatives for Europe? Continue to import oil and gas? Have some of your most important economic inputs price and supply controlled by the dumbest egomaniacs alive?

Nuclear? Good luck building it on time and on budget. Also where exactly are you getting that Uranium from? I’m not necessarily against nuclear I just don’t think there’s much you can do in five or ten years to move the needle with Nuclear.

Wind? Actually a good option as it has a strong domestic supply chain.

Solar? Buy China’s cheap panels as long as they are selling. If they stop selling figure out how to do it yourself. It’s not some big mystery how panels get made, China just had the foresight to invest in the scale required to drive prices down.

Coal? I mean at least it’s local. But solar + batteries are either beating it now or will be in the next few years if the same trends that have held for the last 30 years continue for the next 2-5. So you’d be investing in a more expensive, dirtier technology for what end?

There is no world where you get to not make a decision and the risk just disappears. I think renewables have the clear advantage here and have very manageable risks.

[pyrale]

> Also where exactly are you getting that Uranium from?

Uranium can be stockpiled relatively easily (france had 4-5 years of uranium stockpiled). Since it is about 1% of the energy cost, that’s pretty inexpensive.

Also, uranium comes from suppliers on 4 different continents, there is little chance that it becomes unavailable overnight.

[jurgenburgen]

> Uranium can be stockpiled relatively easily (france had 4-5 years of uranium stockpiled).

What’s stopping us from stockpiling solar panels?

[pyrale]

You could do that, too, if you want. The relevant questions would be how much of the electricity cost is buying solar panels, how are they stored, and how they age when not used.

Stockpiling uranium addresses a specific risk related to sourcing in an inexpensive way, I'm not sure what problem you address by stockpiling unused solar panels, and for what cost.

[Paradigm2020]

Where do you get the uranium processed so you can use it your reactors...

[throw0101a]

> Where do you get the uranium processed so you can use it your reactors...

As someone who lives in Canada, we have reactors (CANDU) that can run on unprocessed / unenriched uranium.

Or you can use slightly enriched if you want:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANFLEX#Fuel_composition_and_v...

If you have a bunch of pesky plutonium that you want to get rid of, it can also be mixed into a MOX bundle and be 'burned away' as well.

[pyrale]

In the specific case of France, that happens in France. So the stockpile can be used without external dependencies.

[cycomanic]

Importantly, it used to be Germany which had all the expertise, until the CDU government destroyed much of the German solar industry over night. It's funny how everyone always talks about Germany stopping Nuclear energy but nobody ever talks about the fact that subsequent German governments destroyed the renewables industry twice (and they are talking about it again), largely due to lobbying from the coal, Nuclear and car industries. Definitely an interesting what if

[leonidasrup]

Could you please send which lobbies worked on destroying renewables industry twice? (You probably mean destroying solar industry, wind industry is up and running).

I could only find that EU manufacturers of solar panels wanted tariffs on imported Chinese solar panels and EU builders and operators of solar power plants didn't want tariffs on imported Chinese solar panels.

https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-solar-industry-at-wa...

[froggy]

There are solar panel manufacturers outside of China that have no dependence on Chinese inputs such as polysilicon, wafers, and ingots. Two that come to mind are First Solar (US) and Toyo Solar (Japan). I’m sure there are others. Europe can buy from them while scaling local manufacturing.

[api]

The EU has the talent to ramp local production of panels and batteries in years, which as the parent said is how long a panel or battery embargo would take to really cause a crisis.

I mean the EU has ASML, the Large Hadron Collider, and ITER, among other things. There is no engineering talent problem.

If they couldn’t do it it’s a political problem.

[dgellow]

I’m more concerned that we do not have the supply chain. Like, sure, we have people who can build solar panels, but are the components local? I wouldn’t expect so, we would very likely import from china. Developing effective supply chains takes decades, it’s not really something you can do right away with the level of precision required by modern technology

[api]

Look at how fast various nations ramped up advanced (for the time) military production before and during WWII, or the Manhattan Project, or the Apollo program, or China's rapid rise.

Engineers who know how to build factories, batteries, and solar panels could sit down and create a "war plan" to build out and scale infrastructure quickly if you asked them to do it and then got out of the way.

The EU has plenty of talent with the know-how to do this. If it couldn't be done even in a crisis situation, that's a political problem.

[cybercatgurrl]

it’s my understanding that inefficient bureaucracy is the biggest stumbling block for rapid infrastructure or technological growth. engineers can get it done but the bottle neck will likely be to do with how fast government bodies can move

[cybercatgurrl]

it’s my understanding that inefficient bureaucracy has always been significant stumbling block for infrastructure

[convolvatron]

panels themselves are highly simplified chip-like production. silicon crystals and some dopants. anyone can make extruded aluminum. anyone can build power electronics, make copper or aluminum wire.

the only interesting parts here from a supply chain perspective are power transistors. europeans have been known to design these, but idk how easy it would be to start producing them locally. they have macroscopic feature sizes though.

it would take several years of iteration to get a functioning pipeline that ran at volume, but none of this is hugely complicated. certainly not decades.

the real problem is financialization. you have to float that plant with the understanding that its not going to be competitive.

[gostsamo]

It can stop working properly if the chinese panel is encryption locked to a chinese cloud which is the case with many residential installations.

[XorNot]

My Chinese built inverter functions just fine without Internet, but I'd have to take over doing what Amber Energy are doing if I lost access to the cloud.

But that's residential scale: at grid scale these things wouldn't be online in the same way anyway.

[gostsamo]

and what if they can use your inverter to destabilize not only your netwrok, but the local grit as well? and how far it can go if sychrnoized with malicious intend?

[bluGill]

Panels can be opened and are simple enough for a tech to bypass the encryption.

[cybercatgurrl]

encryption isn’t gonna do shit to stop you from directly connecting to the anode and cathode on a panel. it would be incredibly trivial to bypass

[riskd]

Source?

[fragmede]

Not the panel itself, but the firmware of the solar panel charge controller and inverter that's connected to the Internet because there's an app to monitor the system. I wouldn't bet that there aren't remote kill switches deep inside that firmware.

[firebot]

They've found some of those in the wild. They weren't that deep.

[JumpCrisscross]

Source?

[leonidasrup]

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/ghost-...

"However, rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters by U.S experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues, the two people said. Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers, one of them said."

It would not suprise me if not only Chinese manufacurers did this. Cellular modems are cheap and and the capability to cause blackout is very usefull.

[interstice]

The panels and controllers are mostly interchangeable are they not?

[cybercatgurrl]

this is where the real risk is. nobody can stop you from directly tapping the panel’s power but an inverter can potentially be bricked if it has internet. this is more an issue with residential than industrial. i would hope that all industrial panels are air-gapped specifically to pre-empt this scenario

[mcbishop]

But there is some valid concern around internet-connected PV / battery power electronics getting bricked remotely.

[adrian_b]

Power electronics shall never be connected to the "Internet".

Any such installations of solar panels, batteries and the like must be interconnected only in a private network without Internet access.

For remote monitoring and control a proxy mini-PC must be used, to which one should use an authenticated and encrypted connection.

For any competent person, this is trivial to do today, to ensure that even if some electronic device includes a backdoor for its vendor that backdoor cannot be accessed.

If there exists any kind of wireless connection provided by the vendor for a device, it must be disabled, e.g. by removing any internal or external antennas. Unlike wired connections that can be filtered externally, wireless connections cannot be secured.

[FooBarWidget]

How about you focus on increasing your own cheap production first instead of focusing on whether depency is problematic?

Dependency is only problematic if you lack an alternative, and nobody is developing alternatives.

My gawd, lots of people in Netherlands want to contribute to the green ecosystem but govt can't even get permitting straight and everything is gridlocked. The electric grid is full and new houses and companies can't be connected to the grid, wnd if you want to install a heat pump or an AC then there are thousands of rules and anybody else in the neighborhood can block you for the slightest thing.

Less talking and more doing. The Chinese at least are all do and almost no talk.

[exabrial]

In a snap of a finger, Big C will absolutely cut your fingers off and the technology you love off in order to fuel its imperialistic whims. Anything bordering the South China Sea is in their mind, already theirs, you know because of ancient empires or something.

I'm happy the OP was able to take advantage of the current prices, cheap technology, and the amicable perfidious relationship. I would avoid anything internet-connected for good reason, and of course, burying anything in our infrastructure.

[deaux]

> We shouldn't import foreign DRM, our critical infrastructure should not utilize foreign-hosted or proprietary IoT, and we should invest in local manufacturing utilizing automation.

How have you still not learned? By god Europe's in an awful place if you still don't get it.

You first import them en masse. You reverse engineer, learn how to do everything. Then you slowly invest in local manufacturing. China has shown you the way.

[cabnm]

Germany was a pioneer in manufacturing solar panels ans has let China take over. Their Maglev train is also only running in China.

German industry does not want to pay anyone, imports cheap foreigners for tasks that have to be done in Germany and outsources the rest.

[cybercatgurrl]

that’s really disappointing to hear. german engineering has had a very good reputation for a long time

[api]

China copied the US. Now the US should copy China. At least with some things, like industrial policy.

[leonidasrup]

The US had copied lot of British technology in late 18th and 19th centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution_in_the_U...

Chinese industrial policy: dominate world of manufacturing (consumer goods, light industry, heavy industry, hardware, software , everything), aquire technology and know-how by any means necessary (buy technology, companies, joint-ventures, espionage, send students abroad and return them), move supply chains as much as possible to China (buy raw minerals, mines, mining rights, ship ores back to China for refining and processing), become independent of other countries as much as possible (prefer domestic coal, gas, oil, domestic synthetic fuels, in the long term minimalize all imports).

[metalman]

sodium, unlike oil, is availible everywhere, along with silicone/sand which ,thanks to China for showing the way!,can be bootstrapped into a fully fosil fuelless grid. lets be clear, this is not like setting up a city on mars, this is in the determined hobbiest in there garage level tech so buy from China TODAY, heck, they will even sell you a turn key factory to build your own stuff!, also, TODAY!

[surgical_fire]

What exactly can China do after you buy their solar panels and batteries? Tell you that you should stop using them to turn sun into electricity and batteries to store them?

By all means, it would be great if EU countries ramp up their own production of batteries and solar panels. But this is worlds apart of depending on fuel from Russia.

[vintermann]

This really seems like straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.

Sure, it's great to be independent when you can, but of all the groups you depend on, and all the ways you depend on them, this doesn't rank high!

[apexalpha]

This is _completely_ different.

If Russia stops gas deliveries you are immediately without energy.

If China stops exporting your PV and battery while just continue to work for 20 years.

[dv_dt]

it would be pretty straightforward to match up panels from any source to controllers free m local national sources

[jmyeet]

The fearmongering around China is truly wild.

If you buy a solar panel, it produces power for the next 20-50 years. It doesn't require constant flow from China. If China suddenly decides to stop buying solar panels (why would they?) then what? Nothing. Your solar panels still produce power.

It's particularly bizarre when the alternative is supply lines to countries like Russia and the GCC countries. Russia tried to use Europe's natural gas dependency to invade Ukraine. That's still ongoing.

And what has China done that warrants a similar kind of fear? Absolutely nothing other than the US has declared China an enemy for some reason.

[WarmWash]

All Europe has to do is let young people become billionaires with limited liability and an unencumbered team selection.

I know it sounds like satire, but there is a good reason tech exploded in the US 30 years ago while Europe is still making cars like it's the 1960's.

[deaux]

And how incredibly beneficial that has been to society at large, oh boy. Definitely something we need more of!

[WarmWash]

Ironically HN itself is a marketing campaign for VC billionaires.

So boycott HN?

[Planktonne]

Tech exploding in the US brought us lots of activity, but arguably not that much progress.

[WarmWash]

I mean, it's the backbone of the American economy and the reason most people here live comfortable lives. If we wanna virtue signal for upvotes sure, but if we pull the numbers pretty much everyone here is pressing buttons indoors all day and getting ~$200k for it.

Except our European counterparts, they still get ~$75k for it. But I guess "progress" because if they lose their job and bake bread instead not much in their life will change...

[Planktonne]

That's a different point to the on you originally made. Yes, the tech industry provides a lot of activity (and profit, and therefore livelihoods), but it hasn't actually produced much innovation.progress with all of that activity.

[nathan_compton]

I'd much rather live in europe, having experienced both cultures. I don't have any problem with people earning wealth from selling goods and services, but I could do without people who want to be billionaires simply to be a billionaire.