Just like you don’t want to wait many months to tool up to make food if there is conflict…

You don’t want to wait many years to tool up to make chips that go in weapons, either.

Else, you risk being structurally defeated very early, and this leads to others concluding that they can take you on. It undermines other preparations.

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melenaboija 3 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, we understand that, but it’s not a good comparison.

Producing chips and agricultural goods are fundamentally different, starting with limits like climate, seasonality, and land. At most, you could compare it to mining minerals for chip production

	▲	knifie_spoonie 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't think they're referring at all to any similarities in how they're produced. It's more to do with similarities in the consequences of not have any local supply in times of emergency.
	▲	mlyle 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The only things that matters for this consideration are: A. How bad is the consequence of not having them? B. How long does it take to tool up domestic production if there's a supply disruption? C. How long can you tolerate the shortage of them? D. How easy is it for a disruption or disaster to disrupt international supply? The answers to A and D are fairly different, but both are "bad enough" to trigger this kind of thinking. The ratio of B to C are probably similar between food and critical integrated circuits.