Comment by chrsw
20 hours ago
If (or when) China invades Taiwan we will be better off than Taiwan but I wouldn't call us "OK" at that point. That will be a major disruption.
It will take decades for the US to get where Taiwan is now in semiconductor manufacturing, if ever. It's not just about building the most advanced chip factory. It's about re-aligning the entire nation's value system and culture to allow such development to happen in the first place.
We complain about the money we spend already. And now we're supposed to subsidize an entire industry to the point where we can build the most complex machines known to civilization at scale in a time-frame that matters to a global conflict that's potentially approaching soon? I don't see it.
> It's about re-aligning the entire nation's value system and culture to allow such development to happen in the first place.
It's taken about 8 years to realign the US from a democracy to a fascist regime, something that was nearly unthinkable. This isn't a hard problem with the right propaganda and manipulation.