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Comment by newfeatureok | Hacker News Reader

are you really comparing COVID to a hypothetical nuclear war?

COVID barely disrupted the supply chain because people who actually work those mission critical jobs had to continue working on site. This wouldn’t be the case if nukes were dropping

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In my mind, the most likely candidate for a nuclear war right now comes in a chaotic escalation of the conflict between Pakistan and India. I think this scenario would be horrible, but its damage to the rest of the world's supply chains? Probably less than COVID?

The other conflict that worries me is a major provocation by China towards Taiwan. This is the foreign policy scenario that frightens me most, and feels like the most likely potential 'Franz Ferdinand execution'-type event that could lead to a global world war. But in such a war, would we be likely to see a total nuclear back-and-forth between factions? I think this is less likely than in current day India v. Pakistan. But I could be totally wrong. As Francis Fukuyama illustrates, it's hard to predict future foreign policy scenarios with any accuracy.

Of note, India and China also have a simmering conflict with each other. My understanding of it is meager, but it seems to me while unlikely to boil over on its own, conditions could change if a conflict you mentioned happens.

you talk about localized conflicts far off US mainland, and what most here talk about is more on scale of global all out nuclear war

Nuclear Winter was the scenario most widely used to justify a hypothetical total worldwide collapse, but we now know that this particular scenario is unlikely, even in the case of the most violent possible global exchange.

> I think this scenario would be horrible, but its damage to the rest of the world's supply chains? Probably less than COVID?

Punjab is one of world largest food production regions.

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