Well please do derive it then, because to me it seems you just focused on one aspect and then concluded that that aspect definitely is the correct answer. 

If the goal was to reward the best and the brightest, then why does china make some of them disappear from time to time? Why reeducate the odd billionaire who misbehaves? The idea was to get him in power because he knows better and generates riches, no?

On giving away stuff for 'free': what would be good examples in your opinion? Steel? Silicon or finished solar cells? Electric cars and batteries? Masks useful during pandemics?

Seriously?

I agree with you on the network effects and winner takes all mechanics. But to me that is not related at all to exports and their subsidies. Just making good stuff at a reasonable price is enough. If desired, production can be subsidized, sure, but that has positive effects in your country as well. Chinese people own lots of real estate, top of the line electronics and electric cars, more so than we do. 

They cash in politically. 

Imagine some middle eastern oil and money rich country going abroad to help develop a subsaharan economy to help them extract their resources. Imagine china doing the same. Who will have more success?

I disagree with Eliezer when he says that countries with surpluses never cash them in, which is kind of part of the core of his argument.

(Equity) Billionaires live lavish lifestyles, even though they never sell their equity. Doing so would give up their power. Instead they borrow for cheap (c.f. " buy, borrow, die"). I wonder which countries typically can borrow money very cheap. Maybe Japan, or Germany...? 

He just looks at a single number, and then utters "these numbers don't make sense". Well of course.

Look at the whole picture instead. 

There are many ways of cashing in, without running a compensating deficit, even when only looking at money, and not at other things like political, social etc. power.

Google is skilled at marketing. The only other new information is that they were able to prove that error correction capability scales faster than errors when adding 'physical' qubits. They use about hundred 'physical'qubits to emulate a single (error corrected) 'logical' qubit.

So once they are able to scale up from N=1 to something like 256, they will be able to do what you say.

Importantly, before that happens, let's say for N=100, they will be able to simulate the behavior of chemical systems composed of 100 atoms. This is a huge thing, and your will hear about it long before they reach bigger numbers.

Scaling this number is not trivial. You should read about for example dilution regrigerators, and how to transmit a room temperature signal to ultra low temperature circuits. And then do that for tens of thousands of signal lines, (all currently done by hand).

but I see no reason to think they'll just utterly fail at scaling production at those factories

Oh they'll scale just fine.

It's just that nobody will buy all those cars. They are already not selling them all, and we are about to enter the biggest recession of many of our lifetimes

Well, for one did you ever notice how people act differently in different situations? (for example among family, friends, work, acquaintances at the gym, or online) If you limit yourself to a single situation, there is not any person on earth that you could 'reconstruct' sufficiently well.

The 50% annual revenue growth that they've averaged over the last 9 years shows no signs of stopping

What makes you think that?

I am of the completely opposite opinion, and would be amazed if they are able to repeat that even for a single year longer.

All the "creative" bookkeeping only work for so long, and right now seems to be the moment to pop bubbles, no?

Why?

Because of perverse, counterproductive and wrong monetary incentives.

There are a few complexities:

There is only really one, and that is not accounted for.

You want to generate electricity that you actually use.

I'm no expert on your part of the world, but in Central Europe electricity prices sometimes turn negative, because eletricity is generated that nobody needs. So large producers have to pay money, to get rid of it. Taking a pickaxe to your solar panel would be net positive in that situation.

Why? because everybody maximizes electricity produced and not electricity that can actually be used.

Typically the theoretical solution is simple: turn your solar panel somewhat towards the setting sun. Generate less solar energy at noon, when no one needs it, and generate more during the evening, when everybody is at home, cooking and watching TV, and consumption is spiking.

Sadly, no one does this, because of the wrong incentives.