Sorry, one more point. China now has decent hypersonic missiles that cost in the millions of dollars to produce. A few of those concurrently against an aircraft carrier, which would be the primary target, can overwhelm its defenses. Those ships cost over ten billion and don't even need to be sunk, just disabled. This is one reason i see their concurrent conflict analysis as dated.

Thanks for that. To be clear, I'm don't feel that I disagree with you. A little over a year ago I wrote a lengthy piece about how unlikely it was that China would do anything militarily about Taiwan in the near future.

My point is more that recent actions by the USA do not seem to have reduced the potential for a conflict with China, and may have increased it. You've probably seen the reports that General Caine has some reservations about even a single conflict with Iran, and USA also seems bent on maintaining significant naval presence in at least Caribbean as well. Hegseth may have more authority, but certainly less awareness.

Personally, I see those estimates as a bit conservative and maybe a little dated, especially considering recent actions by the USA demonstrating its basically complete reliance on China for so much. The problem for the USA would not be from short-term conflicts, but prolonged conflicts. Especially with the escalating national debt, it's not clear what percentage of the US population would support such a conflict in what might appear to be the interests of a foreign population and the coroprations supported by the fabs (yes, those are also the interests of the American people, but I'm not sure how many would be conscious of that fact).

While I don't consider myself very well-informed on these issues, I feel that I should state that I used to work for fabless semiconductor vendor Xilinx, I spend most of my time in Asia (and meet "interesting" people while flying through Taiwan), have been to China twice, was married to a PRC woman for 18 years, and have been paying attention to relevant issues for at least 25 years. Internationally, relative to the USA, China is actually a very peaceful country militarily. But China considers Taiwan to be a domestic issue, and the USA has been showing some weakness recently, for example around its currency/debt, supply chains, commitments to foreign nations, and international alliances. And then there's the fact that Trump Always Chickens Out, seems to change his mind randomly, and is also threatening Greenland, Canada, and I believe Mexico as well. I don't care to research specifics but I believe the USA is involved in other armed conflicts currently, some of which may not be public knowledge.

Again, in the near term, I don't think China is going to do anything about Taiwan except posture. China is known for playing the long game, and USA seems to be collapsing its position in their favor anyway. While I understand the strength of the US military, I would be concerned about Chinese production, chokepoint capacity, supply chains, and increasing international relations. I guess my summary point would be that Trump doesn't seem to have much understanding or strategy around anything, just a lot of blowhard overconfidence and hubris.

I don't see how anything this administration has done would reduce the potential for conflict with China. In fact, if I were China, now would look like an opportune time to take Taiwan, especially since the US seems more interested in Israeli interests (Iran) than its own, and probably cannot sustain two simultaneous conflicts for long. But China isn't about to bomb what it considers to be China, especially as the fans could be sabotaged or destroyed, so there was no urgency, and this certainly was not the right way to prepare for such a conflict, nor to rush its occurrence.

I'm not saying it was right, but that green paper system was working pretty well for the USA until the global orange catastrophe. Heck, USA didn't even have to print paper, just change numbers on computers. There could have been a better strategy for addressing the long-term considerations. (Illegal) tariffs are far from that good strategy. Trade deficits went up last year.

I agree. I'm curious how many jobs AI will impact in Laos and Thailand, for example. If anything, it's going to affect jobs that didn't produce much value in the first place.

Because we're bored of peace.

I don't get it. I'm. It not maga or even republican or on the right. Failing to see and address weakness on the left will only reduce the chances of the left to achieve anything. They really need to strategize, not flail.

I've done decades of programming but still wouldn't call myself much of a programmer. For me, AI is a huge help for coding, but there are several caveats. Any of these tools can increase productivity and even quality. Claude is the best I've used, but far from perfect. You really have to know how to get the value out of it or it makes certain problems worse. I would only consider it for small things, not entire projects, and certainly would never consider "vibe coding". LLMs do random unexpected things including deleting and changing things it shouldn't. It trained on StackOverflow, which has simple examples that don't always consider security and various conditions that come up in the real world. So I see a lot of risks, especially for people that rely on it, and more especially for people that think that they can learn to code from it.

I see every line of code as a liability, not an asset. Even without AI, technical debt (old code) is a huge challenge for the programming industry. LLMs generate tons of code, and it's not always very efficient. It's not always great at modularization and re-use.

Additionally, coding isn't the only problem to solve. The hard parts are often in describing requirements and maintaining existing code. Almost nobody wants to maintain code that someone else wrote. Who will maintain all this generated code? I'm under the impression that we cannot trust AI for that.

And does the world really benefit from all of this additional code anyway? It's like everyone thinks they can develop the next killer app and make a fortune. Based on my (honestly, extremely successful) career in computing, I think that such opportunities are extremely limited.

Then there are all of the social challenges to consider. If AI really could replace work done by people instead of improving, augmenting, and automating some of their work, the developed world is in for some serious challenges in the coming decades.

I don't think the world needs any more slop, whether in advertising or in coding. Generative AI can be useful for experienced developers coding, but otherwise does not seem to be worth the financial investments, environmental and social impacts, and other drawbacks.

I think that one of the biggest problems is that some people implicitly trust generative AI output. They certainly should not.

While I don't see their contributions to the current disaster as equal, "the left" certainly bears partial responsibility.

For one thing, "the left" first tried to run Biden against Trump. Then it tried to run Kamala against Trump. Then it couldn't manage a campaign.

And "the left" includes people like Adam Schiff, who are absolutely pieces of worthless shit.

And almost nobody on "the left" – unless that includes Bernie Sanders – standing up for anything anymore.

And "the left" is clearly involved in various forms of insider trading.

And I've got Gavin Newsom, who spends his time trolling Trump for personal ego and to support an eventual presidential run, spamming my phone to buy his book. Clearly just another grifter.

"The right" has clear objectives, strategy, and tactics. Where is the equivalent on "the left"? How can they expect to compete without coordination and planning? They walked us right into this mess.

I think this one might skip IPO. I don't think any reasonable finance person would value them anywhere close to what they want. What, exactly, do they own? A brand? Some IP with questionable value (especially relative to rampant competition)? A bunch of contracts that are basically obligations they cannot fulfill? A lot of resentment from the market? A fickle customer base, only 5% of which pay, generally for less than they cost? Their people and potential future income doesn't count.

Trying to figure out what would be the major value relative to a good phone, why purchase/charge/cary another device. And why such a device should be tied to any single back end. Doesn't seem very revolutionary or innovative.

Will the recovered money go to consumers that eventually and indirectly paid the tariffs? I'm speculating not. Just another corporate grab...

What if I'm socially progressive and financially conservative?

Yep. Your personal wealth (reduced by the declining dollar) is all that matters. To hell with law and human values!

I don't think most republicans an Re anti-American, but I agree with the rest. Their democrats are not much better; none of them represent theoretical American values. Like most humans, they put their personal interests above those of all others. They're not in politics to go broke (Gavin Newsom just sent me a text to buy his book). And who knows what dirt the people now actually running the country have on each of them.