Howdy Huw, 

I think that Xi has shown himself less sensitive to economic pressure than previous premiers or the leaders of more liberal countries (see zero Covid). I'm concerned that he sees himself in some manner similar to Putin -- in that they both have historical missions to fulfill. The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in Xi's case. A lot of his action's and PRC industrial policy (squeezing certain seemingly decadent sectors like gaming and propping up manufacturing) is probably bad for growth in the long run. But they are consistent with a China that bases its economy on something more material and connected to power (and the ability to win a protracted war). 

This is all to say, I don't see trade as a major detterent even if it was a possible threat. But I think when it comes to trade, I'm concerned that stable authoritarian regimes just have more leverage due to their willingness to replace consumption with patriotism in a way that seems to have no equivalent in modern democracies. 

There's still potentially something here, I just haven't given it too must time or thought. One of the many good questions I wish we had better answers to. 

The timeline would depend on the magnitude of the scale. I think a good analogy is to see how long it's taking Poland's military to absorb it's sizable surge in investment spending. In short I'd guess anything substantial would take years. 

And definitely it's a risk. I think a key assumption is that the PLA isn't yet ready to invade. If we were already in that window, then I'd be more concerned by the risks of that strategy. 

I'm sure there's some good empirical analysis that is either possible (or more likely) already been done that could inform this question -- but it's just far enough outside my wheelhouse that I haven't found it. 

Are there any EA organisations that fund creation of popular media in order to deliver impact? If not, why not?

The closest thing I've seen is https://www.shouldwestudio.com . The founder was on 80k and Clearer Thinking recently. 

This is a good answer and gives a lot of important context, thanks Joseph. 

Regarding the conscription, I tried but failed to get a sense if it got more serious since they went from 4 months to a full year of service. 

I think this post in Part 2.3 does not persuasively argue the risks stemming from a loss of Taiwan are anywhere near worth the existential risks of a US-China conflict outlined thereafter, even though the obliteration of Taiwanese democracy would be unquestionably tragic. 

I think I'm sympathetic to this, but a part of me wishes I wasn't. 

As far as the costs of doing nothing go, they are definitely real, but I think you overstate them, especially in light of the damage the US is currently doing to global liberal democracy under Trump II, which seems to render a lot of costs of nonintervention moot (e.g., Russian being emboldened to shatter NATO rings rather hollow when there is a solid chance that the US precipitates NATO's functional destruction).

Good point. I wrote much of this in January and February before it became apparent how much of an incredible own-goal we were going to make by undermining our alliances. Much of the goodness of a future guided by a grand alliance of democracies might have already been lost. As such it'd be consistent for me to say that we should thus consider more seriously the merit of US isolationism with regards to Taiwan. A thought I can see the logic in, but one that leaves me feeling quite sad.

I still think Taiwan is worth defending, but I think part of this may be because I have lower assessments of risk of nuclear war, etc.—perhaps, admittedly, a coping mechanism to avoid concluding a place I love very dearly is not worth the existential risk. (I used to live in Taipei, which is where I learned Chinese, and still have friends there.)

Something I didn't get into in the piece, is that if we're 100% rational utiliarians nuclear blackmail is extremely effective at cowing us. It's literally pascal's mugging on a geopolitical scale. I'm not sure whether we should bite the bullet and get mugged or if the result of effective nuclear blackmail is so bad (end of independent democracies) maybe there's some game theory that suggests we roll a d20 for "damn the torpedoes". 

Hi Joseph, 

I appreciate the comment, and think there's a lot of good stuff here! I agree with quite a bit of what you've said, but I'll focus on the disagreements. 

EA is already seen as somewhat biased towards western liberalism, and taking such a provocative move could hurt the few EA orgs and people that exist in China, not to mention make it harder for us to dialogue and cooperate with Chinese orgs that are sympathetic to things like AI safety and governance.

I think there's a risk here, in the same way there's analogous risks with EA's getting involved with many divisive political questions. But I think this means we should act carefully, not avoid all contentious issues entirely. If advocating a stronger deterrence strategy seemed worthwhile, I think it'd be best not done under an explicitly EA auspice. That said, as always, I'd encourage we just concede to the cost-benefit calculus and I'm not sure how that'd pan out here. 

I think, cooperation and coordination with China on various other existential risks, particularly trying to coordinate to avoid AI arms race dynamics, is very, very important. I don't know how you'd weigh that against the risks associated with Taiwan though.

I agree. I assume the end of cooperation on these issues contributes to 40% of the catastrophic risk stemming from an invasion (section 2.2). 

For them, waiting longer increases their odds of success, so they are incentivized to wait and bide their time. If Taiwan/US power suddenly surged and showed signs of outpacing China, this would create alarm and possibly push the timetable for an invasion forward. A military buildup in Taiwan could, instead of ensuring deterrence, lead to an arms race.

I think arms race fears would feel more concerning to me if A. China wasn't already investing massively in the assets necessary to invade Taiwan and B. I didn't already believe that there's already a disturbingly high chance the decision has already been made and the question is "when" not "if". But Taiwan could potentially avoid this by focusing on the composition rather than size of their defense forces. It seems like there should be some way to thread the needle by maximizing lethality (according to PLA planners) while minimizing alarmingness to party cadres.  

For Xi Jinping, the calculus is that a successful takeover of Taiwan needs to have a minimum of casualities. The One China Policy means many families have only one son, and many of them dying in battle could be quite destabilizing for Xi's government. The military has not been tested in a very long time. A failed invasion would be another historical humiliation, so they have an incentive to be cautious and only act in the best possible circumstances for them.

This is just an argument that deterrence is possible. If you make the outcome of war scary enough, China will try peace harder before resorting to force. 

While there's a tendency in the west to view the CCP as this monolithic power seeking entity, my observation from afar is that there seems to be a mixture of ideological and pragmatic reasoning within the party, and many people still see themselves as part of the socialist "good guys" against western imperialism. It doesn't fit their narrative to attack first. China has a no nuclear first use policy. Even the U.S. doesn't have that. If I had to predict the most likely action by China, it would be to start with a cautious blockade of Taiwan, designed carefully such that the Americans would have to "strike first" by attempting to break the blockade, giving China a casus belli of sorts.

It'd be strange if most people didn't see themselves as the good guys. But that doesn't seem incompatible at all with first launching a first strike -- surely the long list of surprise attacks weren't coordinated by people thinking "Oh yes, we're the baddies". I accept that narrative can be surprisingly important here, but the benefit of pretending the high moral ground is abstract, and the cost of leaving US carriers and bases unmolested on the eve of an invasion is, as you said, a historical humiliation. 

I didn't get into a blockade scenario here, and my thinking on that is embryonic but my basic model of the PRC leadership is they want a fait accompli, a done deal. A quick decapitation and occupation would just mean the world has to accept it. But a blockade could mean months or even years (c.f. Cuba) of eroding global goodwill towards China, and potentially hardening resolve in Taiwan against a PRC occupation / unification. It also leaves their navy potentially overstretched. A lot of reasons here I think it's not the first option, but something to explore more and I'd invite more forecasting here! 

In our chapter for the World Happiness Report we think we provided the most direct evidence answering this question. But the sample of charities isn't necessarily representative, but more of a convenience sample. More work needs to be done estimating the effect of the "typical charity" which is tough since a large amount of total expenditure is done by large, practically unevaluatable charities. The differences are still massive though. Especially when we compare them to expectations. 

This implies adding 7.2 min (= 5/1000*24*60) of the worst conceivable experience to everyday of your life would make it neutral. Would you really be indifferent between living or not living a life like yours plus 7.2 min of e.g. being burden alive every single day?

Sounds about right. 10 minutes means bad life. 5 minutes means still life worth living. 

In any case, the annual disability of farmed animals is much larger than that of humans even for much less variation in the various types of pain.

Good to know. It mostly makes a difference for humans and cows coming from ~0 to ~5% of disability in your model it seems?

And I appreciate you continuing to bang the drum for animal welfare stuff. It's made me think about it more. 

• Excruciating pain is 1 k times as bad as disabling pain^[3].
• Disabling pain is 100 times as bad as hurtful pain.
• Hurtful pain is 10 times as bad as annoying pain.

Call me a linearity-pilled likert-maxer, but this seems a bit wild. I’ve previously read the articles you linked to, and think it’s plausible that intense suffering can be way worse than we we’d be inclined to imagine, but don’t think it’s obvious by any means or that this necessarily implies the profound possibilities of suffering indicated here. 

After some introspection, which seems near state of the art on this question, I’d guess a range of hedonic experience of -1000 to 100 where:

• 100 is peak experience. 
• 5 is my average experience. 
• 2 would be average day with annoying pain. 
• -20 is depression.
• -600 is probably worst experience. 
• -1000 seems worst conceivable.

If I take your scale seriously (linearized below) and normalize hurtful pain to -5 (which would be more compatible with your assumptions), then I have to accept that my worst experienced suffering (which certainly felt like I was maxing out my psychological capacity for distress), was 0.12% of what’s possible. That strikes me as a bit odd. But hey, intuitions differ. 

Keep up the good struggle my dear fish loving friends.