Why the U.S. Never Aimed to Own the Full Semiconductor Ecosystem
It’s not just that it didn’t try. It couldn’t. Let’s break it down. (1/11)
Johnny and Mary Can’t Read
Literally. America’s public education system collapsed so long ago that most kids can’t do algebra, let alone quantum mechanics. STEM PhD? Be serious. (2/11)
The U.S. Outsourced Its Brainpower
Why build local talent when you can import it? The U.S. tech elite ran on Chinese, Indian, and Iranian PhDs. Johnny and Mary were too busy vlogging or vaping. (3/11)
Walmart Nation Doesn’t Build Cleanrooms
Manufacturing was offshored to Taiwan and Korea. Real work was for foreigners. Americans built apps, not fabs. The only silicon they touched was in a Valley VC's yacht kitchen. (4/11)
The U.S. Industrial Base Was Replaced by Raytheon
The Pentagon gets trillions. Intel gets ghost fabs. Semiconductor policy? That’s what you squeeze in between forever wars. (5/11)
China Builds Infrastructure. The U.S. Builds Narratives
China treats semiconductors like civilization. The U.S. treats them like venture bets. One has five-year plans. The other has quarterly earnings reports. (6/11)
America Has No Institutional Backbone
China has CAS, CETC, and a deep national bench. The U.S. has DARPA grants and think tanks who confuse PowerPoints for production. (7/11)
America Turned on Its Talent Pipeline
Just when it needed more engineers, the U.S. chased them away with FBI witch hunts, visa bans, and racial paranoia. Self-harm as foreign policy. (8/11)
No Tools, No Patience, No Sovereignty
The U.S. never tried to build ASML or Tokyo Electron. It was cheaper to import—and now it’s too late. Silicon sovereignty isn’t bought. It’s built. (9/11)
The Empire Polices Supply Chains. It Doesn’t Build Them
China builds fabs, materials, and tools. The U.S. files lawsuits, patents, and sanctions. One builds ecosystems. The other enforces monopolies. (10/11)
Taiwan Was the Colony. Now It’s the Crisis
The U.S. never planned for self-reliance. Taiwan would always fab the chips. Now, with war on the table, they're realizing Johnny and Mary still can't operate an EUV scanner. (11/11)
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Trump just handed Nvidia a lifeline in China. Problem is, there’s nothing left to save. China’s AI firms moved on. They’re not coming back.
(1/12)
The U.S. still thinks it can starve China of chips and force it to crawl back. But sanctions exposed American tech as leaky, insecure, and weaponized.
(2/12)
China didn’t ban Bitcoin because it feared freedom. It banned it because it saw the scam. The U.S. kept it alive to distract you while the real economy rots.
No one wants to say it, but here it is. China banned Bitcoin because it saw the truth. It’s not revolutionary tech. It’s a glorified Ponzi. Dressed up in math. Backed by nothing. (1/14)
Bitcoin produces nothing. It yields nothing. It exists only to be sold to a bigger sucker. That’s not sound money. That’s financial nihilism with a blockchain wrapper. (2/14)
The smear that HarmonyOS is just a rebranded Android is dead. But like most Western tech narratives, it keeps getting propped up to protect fragile egos. Time to bury it properly. 🧵
Huawei reused Android early on. Why? Because the U.S. government tried to suffocate it overnight. Using AOSP to maintain developer continuity wasn’t cowardice. It was tactical triage. (1/10)
China is building fusion reactors like it's stacking Legos. Meanwhile, the U.S. hands billion-dollar science to startups chasing hype. Here's how we lost the plot.
China’s mega-laser hits new record — Fusion breakthrough could flip the energy game share.google/vzEHUWz2myAc56…
Once upon a time, America had national labs. Manhattan Project. NASA. DARPA. Big Science run by serious men. Now we have VC-funded fusion startups begging for Series C. (1/8)
We traded Oppenheimer for Andreessen. Traded Oak Ridge for Y Combinator. The cathedral of American science was gutted by neoliberalism. What’s left are pitch decks with no power plants. (2/8)
ASML’s High-NA EUV is the most advanced machine in the history of chipmaking. $370 million per unit. Less than 10 exist. Intel got the first two. Both sit unused in a cleanroom in Oregon. (1/10)
Intel has no working node beyond 18A. No production-grade resists. No pellicles. No EUV-aware product roadmap. Two world-shaping machines. Zero wafers. (2/10)
🚨 Rod D. Martin says China is the biggest threat to world order since WWII. He’s counting on you forgetting who actually was.
Rod D. Martin says China is the biggest threat to world order since WWII.
Not Russia. Not imperial Japan. Not the country that raped and butchered its way through Asia.
Let’s talk about historical amnesia. A thread. 🧵
(1/15)
Imperial Japan invaded China in 1937. Over 20 million Chinese died in that war. Civilians bayoneted. Cities firebombed. Women raped en masse. Infants hacked to death.
(2/15)