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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • Yes, although having the ship is only part of it. What the diagram can’t really show is that the US also has a global logistics system which supplies the carriers and their accompanying battle groups when they deploy to other side of the planet. That system has been decades in the making, it’s not something you can just buy, it requires a crazy amount of planning and organization.

    I doubt the US could deploy every carrier effectively, but it can certainly put multiple battle groups at sea simultaneously and keep them there for a long time.




  • The problem being that Taiwan is a critical part of the entire global economy. TSMC fabricates ~50% of all semiconductor products in the world, but critically >90% of all fabrication at 5nm or lower (basically everything with a fabrication process less than a decade old). They are the leading edge. If you want to make a modern CPU, TSMC is your foundry.

    By threatening Taiwan, China is holding a gun to the head of the entire world. Loss of TSMC’s fabrication would basically shut down the global computer industry.


  • Yes, well, at the end of WWII all of the major economic powers in the world were more interested in negotiating than fighting. Nobody wanted to go to war again, at least not for awhile.

    Eight decades later, and all those lessons have been forgotten. Self-interested and shortsighted leaders have risen to the tops of many nations, and nationalistic rhetoric is gaining popularity again.

    The problem isn’t really with the the UN as an organization, but with the participants who are no longer acting in good faith, and no longer see large-scale war as something to be avoided at any cost.

    I wasn’t trying to say that the UN had the power to prevent WWIII, only that it was created with the intent to do so. The UN as an organization never really had any teeth of its own. It’s a forum for discussion between nations - not going to war can really only happen if the nations involved make that the priority above their own interests.

    With North Korea now committing troops to the conflict in Ukraine, the current situation seems very familiar, a prelude that will eventually lead to larger economic powers being drawn into the conflict directly. It feels like we’re all on a well-trod historical path, and I don’t know how we get through it without learning those lessons the hard way, again.

    I fucking hope I’m wrong.