Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillen

Would You Like Chips with That?

Much of the news chatter these days focuses on chips and how America doesn’t produce nearly enough of them. With a memory that goes back to the 1960s, I have to wonder how chips got so important and why we use so many … is some of the growth just a lot of hooey? A cynical way to get more of our dollars?

Well, yeah. Sort of. It’s like asking which is better—a Mr. Coffee or an Espresso machine? It depends. And that’s a good example of consumers being able to make a choice. Coffee for all or a cup of Espresso for the committed?

Google says, “A microchip (also called a chip, a computer chip, an integrated circuit or IC) is a set of electronic circuits on a small flat piece of silicon. On the chip, transistors act as miniature electrical switches that can turn a current on or off.” The tiny-ness of the chip makes it valuable, and it’s surprisingly hard to figure out how many of them we depend on, partly because the definition is wobbly. Are we talking about memory chips, microprocessors, standard chips, or systems-on-a-chip (SoCs)? Digital, analog, or mixed? A Google search reveals that Iphones may contain as many as 14 billion chips, or at least 6.9 billion, but the same unreliable sources say electric cars get by with a couple thousand.

As rickety as those numbers are, I know that my 2001 Ford truck has fewer than my 2012 Honda CRV, and the Ford has some that have burned out. The odometer light comes and goes, and the emergency brake light is always on, but both the odometer and the brake work fine. My TracFone is capable of many more tricks than I allow it, thanks to its bundles of chips. If I could get a cell phone that does nothing but answer calls and save texts, I’d choose it.

And, how long do chips last? That’s another unanswered question, although experts are looking for chips older than 1979, so if you have a dusty old calculator in your attic, that still works, you might donate it to science.

The real question, says me, is how many chips can we do without? What if consumers had a choice between products with chips and not?

I know you’re thinking we’d be back in the dark ages. Everything would be analog. No computers. No cell phones. No wide-screen TVs. But I’m not saying we need to get rid of all chips for all uses. I’m just saying I’d like a choice.

In one case, consumers are already making the choice. In 2021, according to the Recording Industry Association for America, “the resurgence in vinyl records continued for the 15th consecutive year, as revenues grew 61% to $1.0 billion in 2021. The last time vinyl records exceeded $1 billion was 1986. Vinyl accounted for 63% of revenues from physical formats.” The term “physical formats” means music that is not downloaded or streamed.

What if we could choose other products with fewer chips?

I know a lot of farmers that would choose fewer chips. They like to spend their winters working on equipment. Now that farm machinery is so full of chips, they can’t. And farmers suspect the reason is that the manufacturers (like John Deere, International Harvester and others) have purposely made it so that farmers have to rely on dealers for repairs and maintenance. For someone living out in the Boonies, that means a long trip with a heavy load to a repair place. And, with wonky weather, it means lost time in a business that depends on the right conditions for success.

Last winter, Senator Jon Tester, D-Montana, filed a bill dubbed, “Right to Repair” that asked equipment manufacturers to provide parts, tools, software, and documentation that owners need to diagnose problems, and maintain their own equipment. When a manufacturer no longer produces the parts, with Tester’s bill, copyrights and patents will be placed in the public domain. The bill has been stalled, probably due to the mid-term elections, but let’s hope it starts to move this year.

What else can be improved with the addition of fewer chips? My husband votes for a car we can fix ourselves. His pick is the VW Super Beetle, the late ’70s version. It was a little slow, but we have a friend who can tweak it for more power. I say yes, as long as I can get it with crank windows.

As it is now, we look at the plug-in hybrids and we salivate over the potential for the planet of electric inputs rather than gasoline. But do we need key fob proximity starters? Sirius music? Touchscreen display audio? Electronic-assisted parking brake? Rear occupant alert?

We do not. It looks, from where we sit, like chips are sometimes useful but often just another way for corporate takeover.

Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2022

Populist.com