Astronomers have the downside that their field can't as boldly claim to one day cure cancer or provide limitless clean energy.

Or rather to keep the men from running away :p

This is from around 400AD. At that point Christianity was the state religion for the (two) Roman Empire(s).

Building a monastery like this requires lot of expert craftsmen and resources and is not something early Christianity could even hope to afford while it was still being oppressed two centuries earlier.

No, it's an awesome place for bunch of old monks to protect themselves against raiders. Medieval invaders simply lacked the tools to make assaulting a place like this viable.

Nah, it's because you've got a bunch of pretty weak-ass monks hiding in a monastery, often quite loaded with expensive artifacts.

Building a stone fuck-you fortress on a steep fuck-siege-weapons mountainside meant all you needed to keep invaders out was not open the door, no fighting required.

Peter Wennink a typical modest Dutchman :)

Also he said 15 years. But pretty sure he was still low-balling it in that interview. Read up on why ASML succeeded in EUV while Canon for instance did not. Getting the technology is only part of puzzle and some of those other required pieces are quite difficult for China due to cultural differences and the increasing international isolation.

>China is about 8-10 years behind Taiwan in chip technology while having access to ASML tech.

Only their DUV-machines. ASML isn't selling their more advanced EUV-machines to China. Without those, the year gap becomes a lot bigger. I've seen estimates that it would take China 10 years to get into EUV themselves but considering how much EUV isn't just a technological achiement but also one in exceptional management that enabled it, it will take China probably a lot longer to emulate.

And how much of TSMC is going to be left after a military invasion you think? China knows that invading Taiwan is a loss-loss situation.

High-end chipmaking in Taiwan will be gone and since it requires western equipment and technology to rebuild, it will never return under China's control.