“An invasion of Taiwan is uncomfortably likely, potentially catastrophic, and we can help avoid it.” by JoelMcGuire

“An invasion of Taiwan is uncomfortably likely, potentially catastrophic, and we can help avoid it.” by JoelMcGuire

Formosa: Fulcrum of the Future?

An invasion of Taiwan is uncomfortably likely and potentially catastrophic. We should research better ways to avoid it.

TLDR: I forecast that an invasion of Taiwan increases all the anthropogenic risks by ~1.5% (percentage points) of a catastrophe killing 10% or more of the population by 2100 (nuclear risk by 0.9%, AI + Biorisk by 0.6%). This would imply it constitutes a sizable share of the total catastrophic risk burden expected over the rest of this century by skilled and knowledgeable forecasters (8% of the total risk of 20% according to domain experts and 17% of the total risk of 9% according to superforecasters).

I think this means that we should research ways to cost-effectively decrease the likelihood that China invades Taiwan. This could mean exploring the prospect of advocating that Taiwan increase its deterrence by investing in cheap but lethal weapons platforms [...]

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Outline:

(00:13) Formosa: Fulcrum of the Future?

(02:04) Part 0: Background

(03:44) Part 1: Invasion -- uncomfortably possible.

(08:33) Part 2: Why an invasion would be bad

(10:27) 2.1 War and nuclear war

(19:20) 2.2. The end of cooperation: AI and Bio-risk

(22:44) 2.3 Appeasement or capitulation and the end of the liberal-led order: Value risk

(26:04) Part 3: How to prevent a war

(29:39) 3.1. Diplomacy: speaking softly

(31:21) 3.2. Deterrence: carrying a big stick

(34:16) Toy model of deterrence

(37:58) Toy cost-effectiveness of deterrence

(41:13) How to cost-effectively increase deterrence

(43:30) Risks of a deterrence strategy

(44:12) 3.3. What can be done?

(44:42) How tractable is it to increase deterrence?

(45:43) A theory of change for philanthropy increasing Taiwan's military deterrence

(45:56) en-US-AvaMultilingualNeural__ Flow chart showing policy influence between think tanks and Taiwan security outcomes.

(48:55) 4. Conclusion and further work

(50:53) With more time

(52:00) Bonus thoughts

(52:09) 1. Reminder: a catastrophe killing 10% or more of humanity is pretty unprecedented

(53:06) 2. Where's the Effective Altruist think tank for preventing global conflict?

(54:11) 3. Does forecasting risks based on scenarios change our view on the likelihood of catastrophe?

The original text contained 16 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
June 15th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qvzcmzPcR5mDEhqkz/an-invasion-of-taiwan-is-uncomfortably-likely-potentially

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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