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Comment by nebula8804 | Hacker News Reader

The US has shown that it can't handle any level of discomfort. The reason Trump is back in the white house is because grocery prices went up a little bit. Can you imagine the failure of the tech companies that are propping up the entire economy? That would happen under a Taiwan invasion scenario. China has a much high pain tolerance than US citizens at least. I'd argue they would outlast the US. Would they outlast the US military? I don't know. But it may not matter as given enough pain the US population will make itself heard.

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I think you're conflating different contexts and scenarios. People aren't used to war being brought to the US itself. Look at Pearl Harbor and 9/11, both rallying the country pretty well. Attacking the US mainland is a losing strategy.

If people generally understand that we're intervening in a China/Taiwan conflict for the right reasons, and China attacks us at home it would only accelerate the west. If you look at Vietnam, the logic around that war fell apart and it no longer made sense to continue it. The people were right to push back. Iraq and Afghanistan went on for a long time without much fuss.

Some kind of conflict in South East Asia would likely largely be a naval and resource war, with many casualties being naval rather than mainland. Most losses on both sides will probably be drones, AI or not.

If it came down to attrition, it would maybe be AI machine attrition or drone/missile attrition which is in a way a resource war which the US could win even without TSMC, but from where we're standing today it would take more ramping up which is a process that has already started.

If OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc were attacked by China in a more critical way, it would have to be for some major short term advantage that is capitalized on immediately, because long-term it would be a losing strategy by itself. China has systems to disrupt as well, so if they let loose on cyber then the US has options too.

Either way, don't conflate general economic preference around an election for whether people would tolerate being unable to access Gmail or order from Amazon like they would all rush to riot in the streets. I think that misreads the situation.

Off topic, but the reason Vietnam played out the way it did was because of China's implicit guarantee that they'd intervene in force if American troops came anywhere close to their borders like during the Korean War.

Fresh off WW2, with a titanic arsenal and industrial base, America and all of its allies couldn't end the war on their terms after China intervened.

That's why the US only did search-and-destroy missions, targeting Vietcong cells in the south and bombing supply lines in Laos. Which didn't matter much.

Once the Americans left, the North marched down a proper army and wrapped it up.

Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are not great examples as they happened in the context a wildly different America. 9/11 was almost a quarter century ago. In both cases the country was more unified and had less income inequality then it does now. Enough people were disgusted by Biden not moving the needle for them personally they ignored the first four years of Trump and voted in him again just so they could benefit themselves.

>If it came down to attrition, it would maybe be AI machine attrition or drone/missile attrition which is in a way a resource war which the US could win even without TSMC, but from where we're standing today it would take more ramping up which is a process that has already started.

I'd argue China adding 1/3 of the entire US electricity capacity in a single year and increasing along with their extreme battery overcapacity makes AI and drone production something that China will win. Like I said it remains to be seen how will the US military will hold up because they do have the Arizona TSMC facility running and that could be a buffer to help the US hold on but people will still feel the pain in massive inflation in all areas and thats where peoples selfishness will rear its ugly head. Why care about Taiwan when the population could just elect someone that will negotiate a short term win for the US (at the expense of a long term loss).

>If OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc were attacked by China in a more critical way, it would have to be for some major short term advantage that is capitalized on immediately, because long-term it would be a losing strategy by itself. China has systems to disrupt as well, so if they let loose on cyber then the US has options too.

So I have been in meetings for things like Franklin Project (https://defconfranklin.com/) which are among many great initiatives the people are doing to help the US prepare for an initial attack where China disrupts all the little mom and pop orgs scattered across the US in a first strike to disorient the homeland. Is it enough? I dont know, we will have to wait and see. I dont know what China is doing to prepare for a response. It seems like their AI initiatives are a pragmatic move (use low cost Ai implemented at various layers across the stack) I do worry that in the last few years its been revealed how little so many Americans take education and critical thinking seriously and that will directly translate into sloppy IT infrastructure around the country.

>Either way, don't conflate general economic preference around an election for whether people would tolerate being unable to access Gmail or order from Amazon like they would all rush to riot in the streets. I think that misreads the situation.

I think you misread my point: Americans would make themselves heard by electing someone who will deliver a quick relief for them at the cost of long term loss.

I assume that in the failing of the tech industry brings discomfort like you mentioned will have an impact on society such as strikes, riots, protests. The US will surely hope this gets mirrored to the Chinese society, although i would like the mention that there is a difference between self sabotage and external sabotage, Chinese people are pretty understanding and patient not all are against their government. Most respect and are grateful for what their government has done for the country in the last 30 years,, i would say roughly 80% of them feel this way. This sentiment is beneficial, because it only speeds up recovery from economical disruptions such as this example, housing market is another story.

Another note most of the world understands US's strategy for this type of disruptions used as a weapon, if they can cause civil unrest, the US can use this against the government and it will into the advantage of the US. I would like to note this is not a country of easy convincing, The majority of the seating members of the CCP are deeply interested in their society's interests, then globally second. You have 1.4b people this is not an easy management to handle.

In my eyes best to not compete and work together. There are hard obstacles ahead that are going to need all of our efforts collectively, in Hines-sight this is childish and a waste of time, literally. We made it this far, all of the great achievements and innovations that with out a doubt all have collectively contributed as humans. Climate changes, Populations management, Biological threats, viral threats, pandemic management, genome advancements etc...

Some of the moves that leaders make are simply moving us back in time and when one does something unfavorable to the other it sets the tone for how future engagements and decisions are made, whether silly or not. Indeed no leader is innocent in their decisions, but my point still stands.

The battle against communism has been going on for a long time and it was an important factor in most of the major wars of the 1900s when it openly stated it needed to establish global dominance. In the grand scheme of things, this is more of that, but now China is the center of gravity for communism rather than Russia. The Arctic opening up and taking Taiwan are both elements that increase potential for power projection, which is a serious threat given that CCP leadership has shown to be very bullish on Marxism-Leninism.

If they could not be insane and trade, that would be great. Unfortunately that's not the world we live in and the US has to push back against it or the world can fall into ruin. So we're cleaning up Venezuela. Maybe Cuba and Iran.

>China has a much high pain tolerance than US citizens at least

Can you give some examples of why you think this? I really can't imagine how this would be true.

Best examples would be in last 25 years when they've had mass affluence.

China was able to sustain some pretty strict zero-COVID policies much longer - all the way to late 2022.

Pain tolerance might be the wrong term. Pain tolerance implies speaks to something intrinsic about a population, while really what we're looking at is how much discomfort a population can endure before it really agitates for policy/political change, and so it's much about how a population feels, as the tools available to the government to control, manage, deflect and address the pain/discomfort.

Yeah, I agree there is some manipulation of the narrative in the use of pain tolerance to describe China's citizenry. It is in the CCP's interest to convince their population that pain tolerance is a virtue, rather than allow an alternative narrative that China's citizens must suffer the decisions of the autocrats because they have no ability to influence change.

Thanks for the response, agreed on the definition of "pain tolerance."

I do think that the US population is able to bear incredible levels of pain if it's packaged a certain way. Examples:

-20 year Global War on Terror which cost $6T+

-Healthcare costs which far outstrip other western nations, mostly paid for out of pocket, and which increase every year

-Opioid Crisis which killed more people than all our 20th century wars combined

-Lack of workplace protections, time off, etc which our peer nations enjoy

The Chinese have not dealt with any of these things, so yeah, they have more available capacity to manage new social disruptions. That said, Americans love war, so we could probably add another war without disrupting things too badly.

Chinese employees get less time off and many of them got less workplace protection.

The availability to good healthcare for many conditions in China is quite subpar compared to the US. They don't have many physicians. Their healthcare outcomes in most things are worse than those for Americans. Good example is their lung cancer morality rates.

Of course both these things are expected for a much poorer country.

> Lack of workplace protections, time off, etc which our peer nations enjoy

Do you really think the Chinese have not dealt with bad workplace conditions? The US population may be jealous of some of their neighbors but they have significantly better working conditions than most Chinese.

From 996 from Alibaba to the swaths of cheap, manual labor used for outsourcing by, among others, the US.

"20 year Global War on Terror which cost $6T+"

This was enabled by the US population not even feeling any of the effects of the war: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/were-at-war-americas-at-the-mal...

"Healthcare costs which far outstrip other western nations, mostly paid for out of pocket, and which increase every year"

This is a reason Trump was elected. I already mentioned this in costs. Imagine what will happen if China takes Taiwan, inflation WILL creep into this with increased medicine costs (many pmade in China) and throughout the stack.

"Opioid Crisis which killed more people than all our 20th century wars combined"

Regional pain does not equal national pain. Ask West/East coasters and they dont know this problem as deeply as the deindustrialized Trump voting rustbelt.

"Lack of workplace protections, time off, etc which our peer nations enjoy"

Why do you think AI is being pushed so hard. This is a coming pain that I hope will finally push the US into a true leftist position.

"The Chinese have not dealt with any of these things, so yeah, they have more available capacity to manage new social disruptions. That said, Americans love war, so we could probably add another war without disrupting things too badly."

Do you have any evidence to support this assertion? Do you live in the US?

No need for historical stuff, look at China today like right now.

The high population with oversupply of STEP means everything is more cutthroat there. They have 25% youth unemployment. 996 produces lots of problems but also higher pain threshold. When a new idea comes along they move at lightning speed.

Oversupply of companies in every industry. For example: China mandated companies start producing EVs. Next thing you know there are 100+ car companies in China. All creating jobs that local areas depends on. Now the EV incentives are gone and it has led to extreme price war and everyone fighting for survival in the jungle. What do you think those surviving companies will be like once the weak have been killed off? Imagine them coming after American companies who are fat and bloated and may not know whats coming for them (the employees certainly don't).

This ability to push harder than anyone else is already paying dividends. In 2024, China added 429 GW of new power capacity, more than one-third of the entire US grid. Thats many more factories producing weapons, data centers crunching AI, and lower energy costs enabling more new opportunities.

Now take these people and put them on a war footing? They will out manufacture, out speed and with the amount of STEM they have possibly out wit the US.

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