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Food tends to be a lot easier to produce, and many countries do often subsidize their food production, as well as have mercantilistic policies to ensure food pr

Food tends to be a lot easier to produce, and many countries do often subsidize their food production, as well as have mercantilistic policies to ensure food production is kept locally. Vaccines is a more interesting one, and would be something that might indeed be of interest to a nation. On the other hand I don't think many governments are that concerned about another pandemic, sometimes the discourse regarding it very much sounds like "what are the odds it'll happen again"

0x3f 2mo ago
I don't really care for farm subsidies either, but even ignoring that: it's quite a different level of intervention than compulsory purchase. Same with the vaccines. We didn't respond to that crisis by nationalizing AstraZeneca. My rhetorical point is just that steel gets special treatment probably because it's politically expedient. There are large, politically-relevant parts of the country that are still emotionally tied to the idea that we're an industrial nation. People under the age of 30 still go on about Thatcher and the miners. There's no real shortage of steel around the world that I know of. We could just stockpile it instead, for example. And in the hypothetical tail-risk scenario this is all supposed to insure against... how do we even get the raw materials for making steel anyway?
- ben_w 2mo ago
  > There's no real shortage of steel around the world that I know of. We could just stockpile it instead, for example. And in the hypothetical tail-risk scenario this is all supposed to insure against... how do we even get the raw materials for making steel anyway? The more I learn about steel, the more I realise it's not one single thing but a whole collection of different families of things, each with different tradeoffs. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-strength_low-alloy_steel#Classifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-strength_low-alloy_steel#...
- vablings 2mo ago
  One big thing about steel is actually traceability, certain industries require very specific steels. One example that always comes to mind is Sheffield Forgemaster's who are one of the few places in the world that can make absolutely gargantuan sized castings for nuclear reactors and marine equipment
XorNot 2mo ago
Vaccines aren't something you need urgently in a crisis. A wartime effort has to keep supplies moving daily, or the front collapses. Whereas the need for vaccines is heavily deferred - your population is already vaccinated in peacetime, and you are unlikely to need to make a novel vaccine over the course of a war, nor vaccinate new population during one either: that large vaccinated population providing herd immunity gives you a lot of runway for children with less access.
- pjc50 2mo ago
  > Vaccines aren't something you need urgently in a crisis .. what were you doing in 2020? > you are unlikely to need to make a novel vaccine over the course of a war The lab leak people are probably wrong, but in the present era we're a lot closer to "hook AI up to a CRISPR machine and generate a biological weapon" than we have ever been. Everyone seems to assume that we might get in a war that we recognize and can fight with the tools of WW2, ships and tanks, rather than a war we don't recognize fought with weapons we don't understand and have no counter for. Or, more likely, simply get bought out at the top. Why fire a missile when you can buy a political party for a mere £5m?
  - XorNot 2mo ago
    > .. what were you doing in 2020? Waiting several years for widespread vaccine availability, and practicing good hygiene and social distancing. Viruses aren't so good at seizing and holding territory.
    - ben_w 2mo ago
      As I recall, the economic damage of the pandemic was ~ "it's worth spending ten billion dollars to make the vaccinations arrive one day sooner": https://www.newsweek.com/operation-warp-speed-what-deal-opinion-1520816 https://www.newsweek.com/operation-warp-speed-what-deal-opin... (And that was just the cost to the USA, not the world as a whole).
      - XorNot 2mo ago
ben_w 2mo ago
> On the other hand I don't think many governments are that concerned about another pandemic, sometimes the discourse regarding it very much sounds like "what are the odds it'll happen again" Gambler's fallacy will keep striking until we do better, won't it.

0x3f 2mo ago

I don't really care for farm subsidies either, but even ignoring that: it's quite a different level of intervention than compulsory purchase. Same with the vaccines. We didn't respond to that crisis by nationalizing AstraZeneca. My rhetorical point is just that steel gets special treatment probably because it's politically expedient. There are large, politically-relevant parts of the country that are still emotionally tied to the idea that we're an industrial nation. People under the age of 30 still go on about Thatcher and the miners. There's no real shortage of steel around the world that I know of. We could just stockpile it instead, for example. And in the hypothetical tail-risk scenario this is all supposed to insure against... how do we even get the raw materials for making steel anyway?

ben_w 2mo ago
> There's no real shortage of steel around the world that I know of. We could just stockpile it instead, for example. And in the hypothetical tail-risk scenario this is all supposed to insure against... how do we even get the raw materials for making steel anyway? The more I learn about steel, the more I realise it's not one single thing but a whole collection of different families of things, each with different tradeoffs. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-strength_low-alloy_steel#Classifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-strength_low-alloy_steel#...
vablings 2mo ago
One big thing about steel is actually traceability, certain industries require very specific steels. One example that always comes to mind is Sheffield Forgemaster's who are one of the few places in the world that can make absolutely gargantuan sized castings for nuclear reactors and marine equipment

XorNot 2mo ago

Vaccines aren't something you need urgently in a crisis. A wartime effort has to keep supplies moving daily, or the front collapses. Whereas the need for vaccines is heavily deferred - your population is already vaccinated in peacetime, and you are unlikely to need to make a novel vaccine over the course of a war, nor vaccinate new population during one either: that large vaccinated population providing herd immunity gives you a lot of runway for children with less access.

pjc50 2mo ago
> Vaccines aren't something you need urgently in a crisis .. what were you doing in 2020? > you are unlikely to need to make a novel vaccine over the course of a war The lab leak people are probably wrong, but in the present era we're a lot closer to "hook AI up to a CRISPR machine and generate a biological weapon" than we have ever been. Everyone seems to assume that we might get in a war that we recognize and can fight with the tools of WW2, ships and tanks, rather than a war we don't recognize fought with weapons we don't understand and have no counter for. Or, more likely, simply get bought out at the top. Why fire a missile when you can buy a political party for a mere £5m?
- XorNot 2mo ago
  > .. what were you doing in 2020? Waiting several years for widespread vaccine availability, and practicing good hygiene and social distancing. Viruses aren't so good at seizing and holding territory.
  - ben_w 2mo ago
    As I recall, the economic damage of the pandemic was ~ "it's worth spending ten billion dollars to make the vaccinations arrive one day sooner": https://www.newsweek.com/operation-warp-speed-what-deal-opinion-1520816 https://www.newsweek.com/operation-warp-speed-what-deal-opin... (And that was just the cost to the USA, not the world as a whole).
    - XorNot 2mo ago

ben_w 2mo ago

> On the other hand I don't think many governments are that concerned about another pandemic, sometimes the discourse regarding it very much sounds like "what are the odds it'll happen again" Gambler's fallacy will keep striking until we do better, won't it.