The logic of technology tax

After Lin Yuan was sued by Tesla this time, his image on the internet suddenly became glorious again.

Previously, because he led Tesla Takeout to dominate the domestic mid-to-high-end takeout market, he was lambasted online as a new-era compradore, practically someone everyone wanted to execute.

But now, his reputation has suddenly reversed, and he has become a representative figure in the fight against dark evil.

Lin Yuan was even given the image of Nezha. Because of the movie released during the recent Spring Festival, which was filled with elements like: White Palace, Green Eagle Brand, US Dollar symbols, etc., it was almost openly implying The Other Shore.

With these two factors aligning, Lin Yuan was given the title of a resistor. Although he was passive throughout the entire process.

Lin Yuan did not have grand ambitions; in his view, his act of open-sourcing Tesla Takeout was merely doing something he believed was right.

If he knew the current consequences and was given another choice, he definitely wouldn't do it again; he wouldn't even think about getting involved in the takeout field.

Lin Yuan did not see himself as a peerless hero; although he had his own ambitions, he never thought of sacrificing himself.

However, inadvertently, he stepped onto the world's grand stage.

The wonder of life lies in this: when you step onto the stage with some excitement and apprehension, you might one day discover that you decided to go on stage, but getting off is no longer up to you.

Lin Yuan's current life has been greatly affected; he can no longer travel freely, let alone go shopping or have barbecue skewers. His schedule needs to be reported to the security team in advance, and his diet has been replaced with special provisions.

Furthermore, Lin Yuan's security level was upgraded because his open-sourcing of Tesla Takeout led to the stagnation of the Eagle Country's stock market.

After Tesla Takeout was open-sourced, Tesla's stock on the Eagle Country's stock market immediately fell, which was the first impact.

Originally, Musk wanted to boost the stock price by constructing future profit expectations. Because the intellectual property of the Tesla Takeout algorithm nominally belongs to OpenAI, as long as they focused on future prospects, even if current profit expectations were weakened, the stock price would eventually recover. This is because the core support for stock prices is about future narratives.

At the same time, Musk also wanted to use this to get OpenAI back on track.

After Microsoft's aggressive involvement, OpenAI has been under short-term profit pressure. Musk does not believe that AI can be developed with such a short-sighted strategy; he is truly fed up with Microsoft's old-money thinking, which only knows path dependence, like the Windows operating system, making money by selling software licenses, but the profit model for AI clearly cannot be like that.

An open system should generate profit by forming an ecosystem through openness. Making money by selling software licenses? Come on! Those old-money types are living in the last century.

It was precisely because of this that Musk secretly supported Lin Yuan's open-source initiative.

However, the chaotic situation in the Eagle Country disrupted everything; things did not develop as Musk expected.

The intense internal strife in the Eagle Country has affected all areas of the country, even the stock market.

OpenAI has already had 20 billion dollars poured into it, and the old money in the Eagle Country only saw huge investment and an extremely low return on investment. They did not reflect on why their current scientific research return on investment is so low; they only saw that after investing 20 billion, there was still no possibility of short-term profit.

So the old money's thinking was simple: quickly push up OpenAI's stock price. Whether OpenAI itself can make a profit doesn't matter for now; first, absorb global hot money through the stock market and then achieve profitability.

This operation cannot be said to be entirely wrong, as the Eagle Country's information technology sector has been operating this way for years.

But they didn't play it this excessively before.

Just as discussing toxicity without considering dosage is hooliganism, one cannot ignore the weight when looking at things.

In the past, the Eagle Country would find a balance between pragmatism and storytelling. Many of the leading technology companies today, such as Microsoft, Oracle, FB, etc., rose in this way.

In the past, the Eagle Country knew that even harvesting leeks needed rules. Although harvesting too little would result in a loss, harvesting too much would damage credibility. And credibility is the guarantee for long-term profit.

However, the de-industrialization of the Eagle Country began to show its terrifying effects at this moment. At first, everyone thought that only outdated production capacity was removed. Later, everyone thought that a few fewer ordinary engineers would be fine. But ultimately, everyone had to admit a fact: 21st-century competition is systemic competition.

No matter how brilliant the 0 to 1 pioneering work is, without the 1 to 100 expansion, it cannot achieve commercial value.

In the past, the Polar Bear was strong and robust, but ultimately failed due to its weak and backward civilian industry, which could not support the lives of its citizens. Daily life is what people feel most deeply and is an important basis for judging happiness.

The Eagle Country once defeated the Polar Bear with secularism, and now the Eagle Country itself is defeated by secularism. Because it cannot cheaply achieve the 1 to 100 process, the de-industrialization of the Eagle Country has put it at a disadvantage in the process of technological realization.

This disadvantage, when expanded to all industries, means that its people have to bear higher living costs. This is very similar to the Polar Bear's predicament back then—strong military power, but the people's lives were not happy.

It's just that the source of this situation is different. The Polar Bear's was due to a deformed industrial structure, while the Eagle Country's was due to the inevitable de-industrialization after embracing financialization.

To some extent, they both reached the same destination by different paths.

Precisely because it has no advantage in the 1 to 100 process, and is completely at a disadvantage, in the face of the Dragon Country's complete, powerful, and efficient industrial chain, the Eagle Country searched the world but could not find a way to contend.

So the Eagle Country was left with only one option—to stifle the 0 to 1 front-end process.

How to stifle it? If it were the Golden Age of the Eagle Country, the Eagle Country, the city on the hill where Musks walked everywhere, their strategy would definitely be to play hardball—standing on the moral high ground of humanity, using overt schemes to crush competitors.

Specifically, it means openness. Crushing competitors through openness and its own competitive advantages.

For example.

You want to develop a chip? Fine, if your newly released chip sells for 100, I'll sell mine for 99.

No matter how you price it, I will always be one unit lower than you.

Newly released chips lack an ecosystem, and their stability and compatibility are far inferior to mature products on the market. Under such an overt price war, any latecomer will be worn down.

Then, through continuous R&D investment, continuously improve its own competitive advantage. If competitors want to catch up, they have to follow suit with investment. But the pioneer can obtain R&D funds through the monetization of mature products, while the latecomer? They can only rely on administrative appropriations.

Anyone with a bit of common sense knows that projects relying on appropriations cannot last long. If profits cannot be obtained from the market by creating value, then the business model cannot work. Failure is only a matter of time.

This was originally an unsolvable overt scheme.

Take chips, for example. This is a field that consumes R&D investment, but the production process is highly automated. To exaggerate, once the initial R&D is complete, all that's left is to start the machines and make money by selling sand. (The main component of sand is silicon dioxide)

The same is true for other industries. The copy carrier for the Windows operating system could even be a few-dollar disc. Selling a few-dollar disc for hundreds or thousands of dollars would make even drug dealers weep.

However, the desire for capital appreciation will not stop. Gradually, even this terrifying profit margin could no longer satisfy them. Unexplained costs became higher and higher; no one knew where those profits went, they just disappeared.

So the prices of chips and software products rose accordingly. Anyway, the companies that could sell these things worldwide were controlled by the old money of the Eagle Country. It could even be said that the entire information technology industry chain was in their hands.

They became intoxicated with pricing power and could not extricate themselves. So their logic became: collect overt taxes through seigniorage, and collect invisible taxes through technological pricing power. Then, invest a portion of the collected taxes into military equipment to maintain their prestige.

If the desire for capital appreciation could be restrained, then this set of plays would not be imperfect, but it ultimately collapsed.

How to challenge the authority of this set of plays? The inferior strategy is to compete head-on with military strength; as long as the military prestige in this set of plays is broken, this chain can be shattered.

For simple-minded creatures like the Polar Bear, it can only understand this way of playing.

The middle strategy is to join this set of plays, then lie low, develop, and eventually take over. Many of the younger brothers in that system indeed harbored such thoughts.

What about the superior strategy?

The superior strategy is to defeat the opponent's overt scheme with an even more righteous overt scheme.

Seigniorage is very difficult to challenge, but fortunately, seigniorage is an effect, not a cause. Even military prestige is an effect, not a cause. So, one only needs to strike hard at the cause.

Where is the "cause"? In the technology tax.

The technology tax is an overt scheme within an overt scheme.

When a technology is only available in your country and not elsewhere, this tax will make those being taxed pay willingly. Haven't you seen how Tesla, which is like a bare-bones house and not technologically leading, can still so brazenly sell emotional value?

If Tesla were still technologically far ahead, if no other car company in the electric vehicle sector could technologically catch up, then you can imagine how much Tesla would dare to sell for.

And in that situation, people who bought Tesla wouldn't feel exploited, because no one was forcing them to buy it, right?

Paying taxes with a sense of superiority—this is the ultimate overt scheme.

If you stand up and criticize this rogue tax logic, you will quickly be drowned by the spittle of the righteous world.

So, how should we resist?

Compete on technology.

The simplest way to break the technology tax is to create better technological products than the opponent using cheaper methods. Then you don't need to say anything; the market will show its power, because not everyone is born with soft knees.

At that time, someone will always stand up and question: Why is that thing so expensive? I tore it down completely and still couldn't figure out why it's so expensive.

When everyone completely dismantles technological products, they will eventually discover that this is, in fact, a technology tax.

Tesla's price trend over the past few years is the best proof, from a luxury car to an affordable national car for the middle class, precisely demonstrating this point.

When this way of playing extends to other technological products, the Eagle Country will find itself gradually losing ground.

This phenomenon in the field of civilian consumer goods is still slow, because emotional value can be mixed into civilian consumer goods, and some consumers' brains are destined to pay the technology tax.

However, the industrial product sector is different; those who set prices in the industrial product sector are a group of professionals.

Do you dare to insist on using a product at a high price just because of a certain brand? Occasionally it might happen, but it will definitely not be a widespread phenomenon. Because in the industrial product sector, from bosses to employees, almost everyone is a rational social being; everyone does whatever makes money.

If the cost-performance of domestic alternatives far exceeds imported goods, then why should we use imported ones?

This is the logic behind the rise of Chrysanthemum Factory.

Especially after being imbued with national self-confidence, the long-suppressed belligerence was completely ignited. Damn it, my ancestors were already a million times better than you, and now I can make even more awesome things than you; you're just a nobody.

Thus, in the industrial product sector, where the public was slow to realize, a vigorous substitution had already begun.

Those newly emerging technology companies were like steel knives plunged into the heart of the Eagle Country.

No matter how foolish the people of the world are, they won't all be so foolish as to enjoy paying high prices, nor will everyone be trapped by the technology tax.

Thus, in the industrial product sector, the Eagle Country became increasingly weak.

If the 1 to 100 process is in the hands of its younger brothers, then the old money of the Eagle Country can collect taxes through various means at any time. This means that even though they don't participate in the 1 to 100 process, because they have troops stationed in other countries, they can still forcibly collect taxes through various means, even without participating in the process. When necessary, they can even forcibly turn the companies of their younger brothers into their own.

But the Eagle Country dares not act wildly on the Dragon Country's side, mainly because it cannot win.

It's not that they haven't fought a long time ago; they genuinely couldn't win. The people on the Dragon Country's side, when they fight, they really don't care about their lives. And the Eagle Country is a business entity; business entities consider cost in everything they do.

When it realized that the gains from fighting were not good, it dared not fight anymore.

It couldn't win the fight, and it couldn't compete in the 1 to 100 production process, even with a bunch of younger brothers. Moreover, the younger brothers also had their own ulterior motives.

So, what to do?

Neither the civil nor the military approaches worked. Waiting for death was clearly not an option.

If it were up to Musk, he would definitely reform immediately and regain technological advantage. Through the Eagle Country's openness and its low human rights burden, it would attract and gather global talent to rapidly develop technology.

By cultivating a group of new tech elites, sweeping the old money into the dustbin of history. Replicating a Silicon Valley miracle, clearing away the weeds and stubborn stones that are obstructing the imperial wheels.

As long as it races ahead in the 0 to 1 point with an open stance, it can firmly control the direction of human technological development.

As long as the guiding light of civilization is in hand, all evils will be debated by great scholars.

But the old money of the Eagle Country is deeply entrenched; trying to deprive them of their power to distribute money? No way!

These old imperial money types don't even consider Earth their home; for them, the whole world is just a place to make money. What if it all goes wrong? At worst, they can just return to conservatism.

"Conservatism" is their trump card.

The ancestors of these old imperial money types established this territory; it's easier said than done to uproot them from it.

These old money types concocted the so-called "openness" for development, and it was precisely because of this that people like Musk rose. These old money types are not the indigenous people of this land; they won't be easily cleared out. They firmly occupy farms and mines. Strictly speaking, these new elites like Musk are merely temporary residents here; there isn't an inch of land here that truly belongs to these new elites.

So, Musk's plan fell through.

For the old money of the empire, the globalists' vision was too distant, and even if successful, they wouldn't get much. So they cared more about immediate profits.

It's fine if the game of seigniorage and technology tax collapses; at worst, they can just return to America and live their own small lives behind closed doors. They'll make as much as they can now.

But Lin Yuan suddenly made them lose hundreds of billions, so the old money naturally wanted to kill Lin Yuan.

A bigger impact was the rumor circulating that the Tesla Takeout algorithm was not actually developed by OpenAI, but by the Dragon Country. This triggered a second plunge in the Eagle Country's tech stocks.

That's why Lin Yuan's security was upgraded.