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Comment by buildbot | Hacker News Reader

I mean it’s not like intel and their fans are utterly worthless, they may not be on par with TSMC 5nm yet, but in the end given a strong strategic need, I don’t think we’d be without advanced chips for very long if TSMC is overtaken by China.

There’s also the fact that a war between China and Taiwan is almost certainly going to go hot with the USA too, possibly leading to nuclear exchanges…

It’s much more likely that China eventually starts producing their own state of the art silicon before going to war with Taiwan.

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Also worth noting that TSMC is about to build an 5nm fab in America.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timbajarin/2021/02/16/why-tsmcs...

By the time it’s finished, 3nm will be what we really want for the high end

Perhaps, but I am sure a lot of the equipment is transferable between processes.

I wonder how many countries today are not in war simply because of fear of retaliation from the USA.

Say what you (or Kubrick) will about mutually assured destruction, it sure does seem to have prevented a lot of violence, despite also seeming totally insane.

I never got that logic—the US has been in armed conflict in various forms since the end of WWII, whether directly or through the CIA. It seems more like nukes enable violence from my perspective.

The world was a much more violent place before pax americana.

> The world was a much more violent place before pax americana.

Europe, for sure is a lot less violent, as for the rest of the world? I won't believe that on face value; south America specifically got more violent, and I suspect everywhere else is a wash (or is not attributable to American force projection). I attribute the peace in Europe to the EU rather than pax Americana.

The EU was founded in 1993.

A company named "Apple, Inc." didn't exist prior to 2007 either - that's just splitting hairs, IMO, a rose by any other name &tc, &tc. I assumed anyone who has passing familiarity with Europe's history and WWII knew exactly what I meant by "EU" - you may read it as "the European project", if that dunks your crumpet.

Being involved in conflicts where hundreds or thousands die is mostly preferable to being involved in wars where tens or hundreds of thousands die.

Overall violent death is down on planet Earth drastically over time.

Food for thought: The Wars in the Congo are a counter example. 2nd Congo War is thought to have caused 5.4 million deaths and officially ended in 2003, just 18 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War

Arguably that's the exception that proves the rule. Note how none of the great powers were really that involved (outside of the US providing "advisors").

It’s like the big brother who says, “nobody can tease my sister except me.” There’s less teasing— he’s the only one doing it.

But I’m with you, on balance wmds are terrible things. One use of them could outweigh all the violence they prevented.

It seems relatively peaceful: https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace

I mean, America being the world police is a meme, but also has some truth to it...

> but also has some truth to it...

That is one heck of an understatement.[0] The global economic benefit of the stability brought by the US military being top-dog is vast, and appears to benefit many countries including China. There are plenty of valid criticisms of Pax Americana, but the global economic benefit, not so much imho.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana

The existence of the US hegemony is no secret. The only debate surrounds its longevity. The accepted tipping point is when its massive salaries start to even out with the rest of the world, with COVID-19 acting as a catalyst.

Why would US salaries start to even out with the rest of the world? On a per capita basis, our GDP is still massively higher than every other large country.

> Why would US salaries start to even out with the rest of the world? On a per capita basis, our GDP is still massively higher than every other large country.

The hypothesis is that if most high compensation workers are remote, it opens up those labor markets to more competition from lower cost regions.

IOW, as Covid-19 forces organizations to become remote-first, they perforce also become more outsourcing-friendly, or at least outsourcing-capable.

I don't believe it. People predicted the same thing would happen due to technology enabling outsourcing in the 90s. The only success was at the lower-end of the information economy.

Also, while COVID is going to accelerate the shift to remote work in the US, the vast majority will be <100% truly async remote. It's the 1-20% of edge case requirements that are really hard to mitigate. The ability to answer a phone call at 2pm Eastern Time and hop on a plane to Chicago is way different for someone from Manila than it is for someone from Cleveland, even if they only do it occasionally.

> People predicted the same thing would happen due to technology enabling outsourcing in the 90s. The only success was at the lower-end of the information economy.

I agree, for a variety of reasons, but there is a joker in the deck: will the distribution of required skill change over time? IOW, should we expect demand to grow faster at the low end of the information economy, in the middle, or at the top? I don't think it is too reasonable to expect the distribution to remain fixed over time.

Right now, we've been seeing a lot of growth in demand at the top end, but that was true for the 'service economy' at the start too. The irony of the scenario where increasing automation depresses the wages of the lowest skill jobs because they can most easily be filled with fungible human labor while expanding the demand for workers to fill them due to Jevon's Paradox should not be lost on us.

It is entirely possible that entry-level software work will become as much of a dead-end job as being a customer service representative.

Maybe China could go for a double tap - limited flagged strikes with the calculation that the USA would refrain from involvement or 1-1 retaliate (which China could eat). Wait 18 mths for the chip shortage to erode capability and then really go for it.

> There’s also the fact that a war between China and Taiwan is almost certainly going to go hot with the USA too, possibly leading to nuclear exchanges…

There was an article in The Economist a couple of weeks ago saying that that may no longer be the case, I mean the US automatically siding with Taiwan in case of China's aggression. Take that as you will, I looked at it as an establishment mouthpiece airing valid concerns that some members of said establishment have regarding US's "seriousness" in the region.

This, I guess:

https://www.economist.com/china/2021/02/20/china-faces-fatef...

Seems to me it's concerned about "America’s ability to deter an invasion over Taiwan", not about it "showing resolve when talking about China and Taiwan".

Not being able means not being willing at this level, meaning geopolitics and given the US’s existing financial means.

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