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If you're a Luddite; I see no other way to object to designing iPhones. Day trading is volunteering to be a cog in the machine which discovers prices, which is useful (most people who try end up as lubricant instead of cog, which is why you probably shouldn't do it). DEI compliance is net negative of course, but there are easier ways to get rid of them which Trump has already started doing.
Dubai has only the day traders. Singapore has only the day traders and the DEI compliance officers (a bit different than the US version). The US, a great power, has all three. So does China (at least including Hong Kong), another great power candidate at least. So does South Korea. So does Finland.
With respect to smartphones: yes, I'm a Luddite. Zvi's made the case at length regarding the depression epidemic. Also, since I know you don't like SJ, and it's pretty obvious that smartphones helped it nucleate by bringing normies and, well, women onto the Internet, the only hole I can currently see through which you can maybe wriggle out of damning them for that would be to claim that (smartphones helped the alt-right more than they helped SJ ∩ the rise in culture war temperature from amplifying both sides is outweighed by the differential).
The literal iPhone i.e. Apple smartphone also has a business model heavily based around fashion cycles. Fashion cycles are waste, pure relative-at-expense-of-absolute.
I'm generally of the view that this beach can tolerate wooden shacks but that building multi-storey brick buildings on it is asking for trouble.
To be clear, "building a society on those" =/= "having those in existence". The USA, USSR and PRC all built their power on manufacturing, which is real positive-sum activity.
Unless it's iPhones being manufactured, presumably?
I'd split hairs to some degree regarding manufacturing vs. marketing, but I'll admit to a flub there.
(I'm not at 100%; I've been doing a circadian rhythm loop-de-loop the past, uh, two? three? days. I think I've been up for nearly 24 hours, though I'm barely even sure of that at this point. Might try and sort this out after some sleep; I don't think attempting it now would be productive.)
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There's nothing in particular positive-sum about manufacturing compared to other things. Manufacturing things people don't want, or at least less than they'd want the raw materials, is negative sum
As for the USSR... have you noticed it isn't around any more?
And the USSR did exactly that- it turned perfectly good raw materials into products no one wanted and paid for it with the money from exporting oil.
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