Now that the GPU shortage is mostly over, friends have been putting together new desktop PCs. They’re not persuaded, apparently, by GPU performance improvements since 2015 (and why not just use motherboard graphics?). Similar to the great Gillette v. Dorco shaving-for-justice inquiry, one question that has arisen is whether a person passionate about social justice should prefer Intel or AMD.
(Apple is, of course, the historical nerd leader in social justice, marketing 2SLGBTQQIA+-themed products in every country where the Rainbow Flag religion is already celebrated (but somehow not in countries where 2SLGBTQQIA+ sexual acts are illegal). Example from 2022:
But suppose that we are Luddites who prefer Windows 11, want to put our filthy SARS-CoV-2-tainted paws on a touch screen, etc. We can’t buy from Apple.)
Intel was celebrating Pride Month 2022:
(Comment from a hater: “But wasn’t pride about non binary?”)
AMD said in 2022 that they want Pride Month to last all year:
The Corporate Equality Index, “the national benchmarking tool on corporate policies, practices and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees,” rated AMD a full 100 in 2022. Intel, however, also rates a full 100 and goes one step beyond by being a “National Corporate Partner, Platinum”.
AMD’s Diversity, Belonging & Inclusion page says that they discriminate against 73 of the 74 gender IDs recognized by Science. The company wants to advance only those people who identify as “women”:
The company sorts employees by skin color:
How about Intel’s comparable page? They too sort employees by race:
(Note the hateful implication that there are only two gender IDs in the United States.)
Intel also is interested in one out of the 74 gender IDs that Science recognizes:
The company has an “Intel® She Will Connect” web page in which they disclose their passion for discriminating against 73 gender IDs:
Intel adopted the Black Lives Matter religion in 2020 (source):
“Black lives matter. Period,” CEO Bob Swan wrote in a memo to employees Monday, embracing the rallying cry of contemporary civil rights activists. … In his memo, Swan pledged $1 million “in support of efforts to address social injustice and anti-racism across various nonprofits and community organizations.”
Why is it legal to give away shareholder money in this fashion? Mx. Swan earned $67 million in 2019. Why couldn’t he/she/ze/they give his/her/zir/their own $1 million to the Black Lives Matter movement that he/she/ze/they says that he/she/ze/they supports. (Intel’s donations later expanded to about $7 million.)
AMD supposedly promised to give away shareholder money to Black Lives Matter, but it is unclear how much (source).
Readers: What do you think? For folks who are passionate about advancing social justice, which company is better, Intel or AMD?
Also, why do motherboards still generally support only 128 GB of RAM? The MSI X99S SLI Plus motherboard that I got for $180 in 2015 supported 128 GB. Moore’s Law suggests that the correct maximum RAM for a $180 motherboard today is therefore 1 TB (3 doublings, one every two years). Are AMD and Intel so busy at their mostly peaceful BLM protests and Pride parades that they can’t get organized to support more RAM?
(Might there be a substantial market of consumers who want to buy computing hardware, but who don’t agree with the social justice causes that Intel and AMD advance? Drone technology leader DJI does not seem to invest any of the money that they receive in social justice. DJI has never tweeted about Pride Month. What if a Chinese company offered a BLM-, social justice-, and Pride-free personal computer that included an Arm CPU fabbed by TSMC (never tweeted about Pride Month or Black Lives Matter)? There would still be some money going to advance social justice through fees to Microsoft (Windows 11 will run on Arm), but that’s insignificant compared to when a consumer buys a $4,000-$10,000 Intel- or AMD-based PC from a U.S. company. Maybe it wouldn’t have commercial value because too many applications are distributed in X86 binary and would run slower via translation.)
They’re all staffed by 100% Indians. Sadly, no-one hires blog commenters who identify as lions. Maybe we should go back to the last computer which wasn’t designed purely by Indians, the commodore 64.
If Intel is going to be supported by Uncle then Intel has to let Uncle pick the restaurant.
Are you going to have a meet up with readers in Los Angeles?
TS: sadly I fly in tonight at 7:40 pm, then try to rush to Din Tai Fung in Torrance before they close at 9 then to the Robinson factory for an 8 am pickup of a new R44 helicopter. Allah willing, we will be in Arizona before Californians can demand our vaccine papers. Lunch in Phoenix maybe? Any good airport restaurants west or south of center Phoenix? We are following I-10 to Tucson and El Paso.
If Lake Havasu (KHII) isn’t too far north of your route the restaurant there is okay. It’s called hangar 24. There is also a closer one at the Redlands airport. Both locations are known for their brewery which you probably won’t be trying to due excess government regulation. If you take the more northern route and end up on the 40. You probably know Sedona has a great restaurant as well as great scenery which should not be missed. Hope you made a reservation to Din Tai Fung. I really like their hot and sour soup which can be shared by the whole group as an appetizer!
I am guessing you are flying N538LL! We will watch out for you on flightaware and track your every move.
When I wrote 2/3rds of her dissertation 20+ years ago, after I did the research and saw all of this in the embryonic phase in a law school, one of my conclusion (which I did not put in the paper, but I said to her) was:
“In order to balance society’s fairs and unfairs, haves and have-nots, a lot of straight, white males are going to have to accept a drastically lower standard of living, a kind of backhanded and constant cycle of abuse and retribution, and a greatly diminished outlook for their futures.”
She completely agreed with me, thought it was Good and Just and Necessary, for women and minorities and gays, but she thought it was too negative to insert into a dissertation because it was anecdotal and not (yet) “evidence-based.” Since I couldn’t support it with research studies and citations, she told me to take out that page. Even though she wholeheartedly supported that, beginning with ME. The dissertation was about Race, Class, Gender and Upward Mobility in America. I did all the library footwork, reading, and most of the writing. She got the Doctorate, I got the shaft, which she thought I deserved because of – no shit – my unearned privilege from having attended what was then a “better school” than the one she went to.
There are some people who think all of this is a Fad that may make people swoon for a little while and then fade away, but I disagree almost completely. If you have a young male child, you’d better be working on saving their asses as they get older. Otherwise they’re doomed, and they’re going to be ANGRY. Over and out on this subject. I don’t care what CPUs anyone buys. Maybe it IS time to buy everything from China and just be done with it. They aren’t woke, and they don’t care, and ain’t nobody gonna change the Great Leader’s mind.
In a capitalist (hahah) society like ours, Social Justice means Economic Revenge. Period. It means taking tons of money from people who have it and dropping it from a helicopter onto people who also have it but want more, to make new administrative and bureaucratic jobs, to fund new programs, to establish nonprofits and alter the way philanthropic foundations do their work. It means a fundamental transformation on every level of society, and the people who hatched it know precisely what they’re doing – they planned it – and they started well over to decades ago. If anything, they are much larger, much more influential and better supported than they ever were, and don’t you forget it.
One more, slightly off topic because light beer isn’t a CPU but:
Anheuser-Busch is now under intense pressure to submit to the DEI proctologists and express their unequivocal and total support for Dylan Mulvaney.
I hope they do it and go completely out of business. I hope they push the Self-Destruct button and get it over with. Light beer is easy to make. You can do it in your kitchen and basement, and I’ve got friends who do. In fact, the Dean’s brother at the law school I used to work for did it, and brought two six-packs of it to her reception party after her conversion to Judaism. I hung the mezuzahs, he bought the home brew. It was good!
Intel has fewer whites than AMD (+1), both celebrate 2SLGBTQQIA+, AMD has a female CEO of color (+2, but -1 for being Asian). It’s a draw!
The ARM instruction set was developed by a trans person, born Roger Wilson (+10). ARM never made a big deal about it though, somehow 2SLGBTQQIA+ wasn’t celebrated every day, people just worked and didn’t care.
> ARM never made a big deal about it though, somehow 2SLGBTQQIA+ wasn’t celebrated every day, people just worked and didn’t care.
And that’s how all major religions work, except for 2SLGBTQQIA+, they want to take their sh*t and rub it on everyone’s face, every day, 365 days a year.
The ARM v1983 instruction set was designed by a cisgender person who later identified as a trans person, 11 years after the instruction set was complete. My friends who work in CPU/GPU design say that the current ARM instruction set is unrelated to ARM 1983.
So the original ARM, which is not related to what you might buy today (“it’s not even RISC” say my friends), was designed and built by a team of cisgender white males.
philg: Thanks for the correction! Another narrative turns out to be wrong.
I agree with your “why only 128 GB of RAM” question! In fact, it’s even worse – my brand new computer bought from a company in the UK only has 64 GB, because apparently the configuration I got is not very stable with 128 GB 🙁
I almost bought a Threadripper because I could request 256 GB of RAM, but I couldn’t justify the price hike to my wife…
Intel has being the leader since the 80s. I documented a TravelMate laptop that had the “fast”133 MHz chip in the early 90s. AMD, the way I understand, was a replacement when Intel couldn’t satisfy the demand. However, both chips are CISC and carry a lot of weight for compatibility with older versions. I prefer ARM a RISC chip, that it is used in Mac Mini and in many smartphones. It is RISC and very fast. I also documented TMS320 DSPs of five generations from TI. These DSPs were used in Nokia phones decades ago. Now ARM reigns supreme. A DSP could do all arithmetic with the MAC instruction (multiply and accumulate). One instruction, one clock cycle. Intel chips take a lot of instructions and many clock cycles to do the same.
I continue to believe that Microsoft compiles their code on Intel chips and therefore, to avoid “Social Unrest” on my part, I would always buy Intel with my computing purchases.