Yeah, I misunderstood how you used the phrase. But the new usage also seems iffy to me.

1. A firm can vertically integrate by buying other firms. This doesn't seem analogous to import substitution.

2. A firm can vertically integrate to make a product that can't be bought from elsewhere. I'd argue that's what Apple and Amazon did. Can you really say they were doing the equivalent of protecting their market from imported cheap steel, like a country doing import substitution industrialization? Could they get software as good as iOS or AWS from elsewhere for cheaper? No they couldn't, that's why they built it. It's not import substitution if there's no "import" to substitute. And when good "import" is available, they're happy to use it: Apple relies on Foxconn for manufacturing, and Amazon relies on lots and lots of sellers.

3. And most importantly, countries do import substitution to become less dependent on the market. But for a firm, the whole point is to sell stuff on the market. Apple and Amazon are successful because they sell lots of stuff. If you want to become successful like them, it seems your first priority should be "export orientation", selling stuff. "Import substitution" should be, like, tenth priority.

Most of Apple's manufacturing is in China and most of its sales are outside the US. I think it's a huge success of globalism, and the same can be said about a lot of the US tech industry.

"Where there's muck, there's brass" comes to mind.

I think messing with scroll is one of these things that even when you think it's a good idea, it isn't.

I don't think there will be an age of abundance :-(

As for unemployment, it feels a bit weird that 1) everyone I know outside FAANG, including me, feels that finding jobs has become much harder 2) the statistics say today's unemployment rate is kinda low and unremarkable.

Economics says export orientation is, to first order, better than import substitution. Ricardian comparative advantage and all that. As for the rationalist community, I've been convinced for years that it took a major loss by doing AI research in isolation (and sometimes even in secrecy) which ended up going nowhere.

Indeed there's a natural dichotomy between import replacement focused groups, like cults or isolationist states, vs. export-focused groups, like firms or exporter states. But I'm not sure import replacement is the right direction. I think the export-oriented strategy works about as well in terms of self-government, brings more money and success, and leads to a kind of healthy openness to the world.

Yeah. I stumbled upon a similar idea a decade ago and it pretty much changed my life. When feeling something, just feel it, lean into it instead of away. A small discussion here.

I think it's a good direction to move in. But I usually don't think of it as "trying to become a wizard" or some kind of self-improvement. When I do something, it's because I'm interested in the thing. Like making a video game because I had an idea for it, or reading an economics textbook because I was curious about economic questions. The challenge is maintaining a steady flow of such projects, I've found that in "steady state" I do about one per year, which isn't a lot. So maybe ambition would actually help? Idk.

Yeah, I had similar thoughts. And it's even funnier, the AI will not just refuse to solve these problems, but also stop us from creating other AIs to solve these problems.