Comment by SideburnsOfDoom
18 days ago
You're just repeating your assumptions - "taxpayer-funded state-developed is bad", but "marketplace competitively" good. I'm not convinced.
You're not engaging with the sovereignty aspect - "compete globally" isn't the main goal at all as I said above, you're just restating you misconception. And so this part comes across as pure projection:
> You seem to be arguing for the sake of argument while avoiding the substance of my point
How does this help sovereignty?
Yes in the most basic sense it does since they build their own tool instead of getting a foreign one. To be a little bit provocative I could say that Warsaw Pact countries used to do the same and built plenty of uncompetitive products themselves...
But beyond that it isn't a plan because it does not scale, it does not help the country develop its own industry and economy, it does not help competitiveness, and it is a huge cost for very little. Again, the sovereignty aspect means all of this must be addressed otherwise it is just a stunt and waste of taxpayers' money.
You've got to have a competitive industry to achieve and maintain 'sovereignty' in a broader and positive sense otherwise you end up like the Warsaw Pact or China before it realised that. You might survive but look more and more like North Korea (poor and obsolete but, yes, sovereign).
So yes, taxpayer-funded and state-developed internally in isolation for the sake of it is pretty much universally bad.
Taxpayer-funded is not bad per se, as already said in my previous comment, but here it is indeed more than that, it's the government building random stuff internally for frankly no good reason. Maybe next the government will manufacture its own 'sovereign' pencils as well?
They could have spent the same amount of money supporting small companies to develop similar products and that would have helped creating a competitive 'sovereign' ecosystem and commercial products to sell to everyone at home and also abroad. Much more bang for their buck and long term virtuous circle.
So, again have you got a point to discuss beyond just wanting to argue against me?
Edit:
An example of why competitiveness is important: Arianespace. It's great, Europe has the 'sovereign' ability to launch satelittes. That's useful for government agencies, a niche use-case. But everyone else in Europe who wants to launch a satelitte uses SpaceX because Arianespace is not competitive and is obsolete at this point.
> But beyond that it isn't a plan because it does not scale, it does not help the country develop its own industry and economy, it does not help competitiveness,
"It's not as plan because it doesn't.." (describes thing that isn't a goal of the plan). This is nonsensical. Not even wrong. This is the entire point.
> Again, the sovereignty aspect means all of this (develop its own industry and economy) must be addressed
No, you simply are not understanding "data sovereignty and security" at all.
> a huge cost for very little.
Citation needed. You assume the costs are "huge" and I am not convinced at all - as others have noted there are existing open-source libraries to underpin this now. Likewise the small size of benefits is your unfounded assumption. Security benefits are not measured in money on a stock market.
Many government functions such as standing armies in peacetime are actual "huge costs". But they have benefits not measured in money on a stock market. It's an incorrect framing in that case too.
You're just repeating misconceptions.
OK, so you are not willing to engage or discuss but you just want to snipe at me, as I thought. I tried. Good day.