gwern comments on Slowing Moore's Law: Why You Might Want To and How You Would Do It - Less Wrong

22 Post author: gwern 10 March 2012 04:22AM

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Comment author: gwern 10 March 2012 08:52:28PM 5 points [-]

It does seem implausible that any non-state actor could setup an underground chip fab; but someone is going to suggest just that, despite the idiocy of the suggestion when you look at what cutting-edge chip fabs entail, so I have to argue against it. With that argument knocked out of the way, the next issue is whether a state actor could set up a cutting edge chip fab hardened or underground somehow, which is not quite so moronic and also needs to be argued against.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 11 March 2012 05:47:22AM 1 point [-]

Ok, but then why not point out what I just did, which is that anyone but a state building such a thing is quite implausible? Pointing out that it takes a lot of hardening to protect against nukes just seems like a mis-step.

I think perhaps you need to make clearer who you envision as wanting to stop Moore's Law. Are we talking about private actors, ie basically terrorists with the resulting budget limitations; or states with actual armies?