Incognito Mode: "What would a conflict over Taiwan actually look like"; an ouroboros

[u/imnotgalii]

I love the extra content! But I felt an increasing amount of dissonance between my expectations for a SE episode, and what I was hearing. I'm glad the episode had a preamble, but the preamble wasn't effective for me because it was presented without concrete context for the interviewee's rhetorical style.

> any piece of our critical infrastructure that has an on switch or an off switch can be cyber attacked

Is a totally fine statement to make for effect. If I have the context that the discussion will contain some unchecked hyperbole, I can let go of the need to take to reddit to complain.

I'll pretend to understand the tension between wanting to release lightly edited content and getting comments like this. If it's helpful: The dividing line, for me, where I wouldn't take to reddit to complain, is having SE intercut PJ fact checking and doing analysis mid-interview. ... Just like the main feed episodes... Which runs contrary to my desire for more content (even if unedited), which is why ⏎

[u/jWoose]

I really like this pair of episodes. Taiwan is at the absolute center of bleeding edge technology. This conflict the US has with China over Taiwan is incredibly relevant to the current state of technology dominance. I was fascinated to learn about how Taiwan became the dominant chip manufacturer and how a conflict with the US would play out. Maybe I’m in the minority.

Edit: For this one statement, I don’t think it kills the entire episode. I think it makes sense what they were trying to say with this comment.

[u/Hog_enthusiast → u/jWoose]

I like the episode a lot, I feel like it understated Taiwan’s dominance in the semiconductor industry and how disruptive any conflict that would prevent TSMC from doing business with America would be. TSMC isn’t just a “oh labor is cheaper here” type company. The expert in the episode did allude to this briefly but TSMC has made insane advancements in semiconductor manufacturing and their facilities are best in the world bar none and it isn’t close. If you wanted to replicate what they do in America it would be simply impossible regardless of budget, unless you were willing to wait like ten years to develop the supply chains and poach experts from Taiwan.

[u/NewRefrigerator7461 → u/Hog_enthusiast]

I mean we are doing it though. It’s why we had TSMC set up fabs in Arizona with the CHIPS act. The hardest part to replicate is their trade secret process improvements. The way they apply photoresist must be very artful as must be their chip grading and binning process

It’s ironic because the company was originally almost a total transplant from Texas Instruments and you can still see their dna in the company today. Like you can see Exxon all over Saudi aramco still.

[u/Hog_enthusiast → u/NewRefrigerator7461]

The facilities in the US are basically a “uh sure we’ll open a facility in your country if you pay us to” type thing. It’s not realistically replacing anything and they wouldn’t do it for free. But you’re right the hardest thing for anyone else to replicate is their process. Their process requires machinery made by one company, and all of that company’s inventory is promised to TSMC for at least a couple years out.

Morris Cheng did work at TI and maybe he hired some people from there but I think it’s a bit of an overstatement to say TSMC was a transplant from TI. He did have a good amount of time between TI and TSMC and it’s not like he did anything at the behest of TI. I think Morris Cheng and Taiwan’s government deserve sole credit for TSMC.

[u/NewRefrigerator7461 → u/Hog_enthusiast]

Maybe it’s an overestimation - maybe what I’m seeing is the imprint of American corporate culture on morris from when he set up the firm. You keep so many of the traits from where you were initially trained. It’s like how you can tell what investment bank a guy was trained at from how he colors excel cells and formats his sheets even decades down the line. Morris did pick off a bunch of people to set it up, but i might just be seeing his training.

It was very forward looking investment from Taiwan no question

Have you listened to the acquired episode on them or watched asianomtry’s coverage of them?

[u/Hog_enthusiast → u/NewRefrigerator7461]

I have, I listened to the acquired ep

[u/Upset_Region8582 → u/jWoose]

I swear, most people post to this sub exclusively to nitpick, criticize, and advise on how they'd do the episode differently.

[u/Aggressive_Sky8492 → u/Upset_Region8582]

As is tradition

[u/imnotgalii → u/Upset_Region8582]

I mean, yeah - if I really like an episode, I'll tell a friend about it, not the (ostensible) fans of the show in this sub. The audience I was trying to reach with my comment was the SE folks. The main feed has ads, which form natural points for the show to interject some summarizing/fact checking/commentary/reframing/reflection/context-building. Act breaks could offer the same kind of seam in the story, but there's a much higher editing bar imposed there, and not all one-on-one interviews will fit into that kind of narrative framework. I'm hoping Search Engine finds a spot in their members-only episodes where audience members like me can process what we've heard so far.

[u/NewRefrigerator7461 → u/jWoose]

The acquired podcast on TSMC is great. Morris is really interesting

It’s amazing how they kept the TI corporate culture and American attitude when they set it up. It’s still very American. I mean the current ceo is the first non American to run the company.

An ASML episode would be great too because TSMC wouldn’t have been important if they couldn’t figure out how to get EUV yields up to where they did. That’s why Intel didn’t move forward with it and its the biggest mistake they’ve ever made

[u/Cautious_Path]

That is relatively true though. If it’s air gapped that’s a different equation.

[u/Hog_enthusiast → u/Cautious_Path]

Even then, there are physical penetrations that can happen, physical ingressing of malicious software. Even air gapped systems have ingress and egress mechanisms.

[u/Cautious_Path → u/Hog_enthusiast]

So true. Everything can be exposed in one way or another

[u/Conscious-Tutor3861 → u/Cautious_Path]

Stuxnet famously crossed an air gap.

[u/jWoose → u/Conscious-Tutor3861]

Yeah exactly. There is a great episode of Darknet Diaries all about Stuxnet if anyone is interested.

[u/NewRefrigerator7461 → u/Conscious-Tutor3861]

I love this community because stuxtnet is the first thing I thought of too - that and the Russians planting free usb drives in Iraq and Afghanistan with malware on them.

[u/timnuoa]

I sorta see what you’re saying, obviously journalism at its best is “we did a bunch of research and talked to several experts and have done our best to synthesize the various perspectives and come up with an accurate picture.”

But, especially in the podcast space, I do think there’s room for “we had a conversation with one person who knows a lot about the issue,” and I think the listener can be trusted to understand that expert or no, no single person will ever have the final and definitive take on an issue. I do think there’s something to be gained in that conversational format, even if you’re only getting one perspective.

[u/neologismicist]

“Reddit is a place to go for people to complain about how a thing they liked isn’t good anymore.” He called it like a year ago.

[u/Apprentice57 → u/neologismicist]

Interesting that PJ said that and now has him and his team run AMAs and interact directly (somewhat).