The Catastrophe of the Bronze Screw Myth

Written by Peter Li-Chang Kuo

Last week, a friend traveled from afar and brought up the comprehensive economic solution we contributed to the world—“TES.” He noted that its cashless transaction volume had already reached "US$200 trillion" by 2025, suggesting that the system has approached a critical point of loss of control. He urged me to speak out in order to slow the pace of a looming catastrophe.

While organizing my notes, I came across two photographs dated December 12, 1971. The location was the second floor of "Cheng Kuang Metal Works," at No. 82, Lane 99, Alley 451, Park Road, North District, Tainan. When the building was constructed in 1968, I divided the space into a “field-shaped” layout (4-grid pattern). The photos were taken in the northeast room, where I was seen swinging a pair of nunchaku, loosening up my body.

Fig 1: The birthplace of Taiwan’s precision industry, created by Li-Chang Kuo

The focus is not on the nunchaku, but on the materials placed on the table behind me. In 1970, an American named Dieska drove a Buick into the narrow Alley 99 and got stuck, drawing a crowd of curious neighbors. Only then did people realize that my clients were companies listed on the “New York Stock Exchange” (NYSE), and that the products I crafted by hand had already helped propel Apollo 4 into space.

Mr. Dieska had previously served aboard U.S. naval vessels. He said that at sea one must be able to “hear and see,” which gave him many ideas about telecommunications products. I helped him develop a number of related items — one of which was the “antenna terminal board.” The "Binding Post" (BP) was the primary metal component used in assembling the antenna terminal board.

Fig 2: “BP” and Its Manufacturing Process

The BP was made from a 0.7 mm-thick bronze stripe. A cylindrical hole was drawn and tapped at the center to accommodate a screw. Combined with a Bakelite board (the black insulating part) and screws, it formed the “antenna terminal board.” In the 1970s, television sets received signals via a flat twin-lead wire connected from an outdoor antenna. The two leads were attached to the antenna terminals, and with a screwdriver, they could be secured onto the TV’s antenna terminal board — allowing households to receive over-the-air broadcasts, which became the dominant form of home entertainment at the time.

Fig 3: Antenna Terminal Board

After producing a sample in the first-floor south workshop, I had to go to the northeast room on the second floor to draft the drawings. There was no Mutoh drafting machine — only a wooden board, a T-square, set squares, and a compass. At that time, photocopiers did not yet exist, so transparent tracing paper was used: first drawing a pencil draft, then inking it with a ruling pen. The drawings were then taken to a blueprint shop to be reproduced as blueprints, accompanied by written descriptions, forming an “Approval Sheet.” Each product required its own approval sheet, and I provided all of them to the Americans free of charge.

From drilling a single hole to inking drawings with a ruling pen, every step required “intense concentration.” Otherwise, the drill bit would snap, or the drawing would be ruined with ink stains — rendering everything useless. I often wondered why, in such a large household, no one ever asked what I was busy doing running up and down between floors — nor did anyone offer to share my workload.

Instead, A-Jin spent the money I had worked so hard to earn on supporting her kept-man. The northeast room, which I regarded as a “sacred place,” was frequently disrupted by A-Kun, who would bring people and projection equipment there to watch adult films, disturbing my work rhythm. My fifth younger brother — be called “little-guy,” still in elementary school, would cling to the window outside to peek in — someone even once fell from the second floor.

My youngest brother was born in November 1959. After he was weaned, my grandmother and I took care of him. I taught him all basic life skills — using the toilet, writing, riding a bicycle, and more. In 1966, at the age of seven, he entered elementary school, and I personally took him to register. Because I pushed him hard, he eventually made it into Tainan First Senior High School.

However, from 1976 to 1978, I was confined to Chenggongling (Military Base) due to an outdated conscription system. In 1978, little-guy failed the university entrance exam completely — he did not get into any department —zero. After I was discharged, I spoke with him in detail. My mother, A-Jin, had always opposed my education and also opposed my urging my brothers to study, so his failure suited her. Nevertheless, I encouraged him to attend the best cram school. Since I had once mentored Yeh Chin-Chuan as a reserve officer candidate, I understood the future prospects of the Department of Public Health at National Taiwan University. I specifically instructed my brother to apply for that department — even if its score was lower than Tamkang University’s threshold. In 1979, he retook the exam and was finally admitted to NTU’s Department of Public Health.

In 1980, after returning from the United States, I visited him at NTU’s Fourth Men’s Dormitory. He had a roommate who called me “Brother Kuo,” named "A-De," born in October 1959. It seemed that the dormitory was assigned to repeat examinees.

Looking back to July 1966, in order to care for my grandmother and younger brothers, I relocated "Cheng Kuang Metal Works" from No. 16, Chong-Hsing Street, Lingya District, Kaohsiung, to No. 45, Chong-An Street, North District, Tainan. This resulted in an immediate loss of income. The Wanlong Electric Toy Factory, where I worked part-time, closed after only three months. During a period of deep reflection, I envisioned the future. To overcome the hardships caused by my parents, I realized I had to take on challenges that others could not — such as NASA’s PTH concept. After succeeding, foreign companies in the Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone (KEPZ) came to purchase the precision components I manufactured. By 1969, I moved from Chong-An Street — where A-Kun said he could not stay any longer — to Park Road, providing a better environment for my brothers’ upbringing.

Within my “sacred place,” A-Kun requested me that he wanted to be chairman. At the age of 19, I fully funded and built "Baisheng Metal Industrial Co., Ltd., a 2,300-ping facility," for him to serve as chairman. Despite working 20 hours a day, I still made time to complete my academic credentials through night school. I also asked Taipei Chi-Yuan Bookstore to source books from around the world related to communications, in order to meet the demands of numerous demanding clients. Even for the critical reserve officer examination, I arrived only ten minutes before the bell rang — yet everything still felt well within control.

With strong practical skills integrated with theoretical knowledge, I quickly established in 1974 the cradle of Taiwan’s precision industry— "Cheng Kuang Precision Industrial Co., Ltd." It took only eight years to move from a "mud house" to a "thousand-ping mansion." The equity structure I designed ensured that A-Kun could remain chairman indefinitely without fear of being ousted.

Fig 4: From a Mud House to a Big Mansion

However, My parents and brothers, like a modern-day Gu-So (heart-blind couple) and elephants, launched a bloody coup to seize my enormous assets — the so-called “ten-thousand-ping estate” that I had built from nothing. And I, astonishingly, chose to let these villains go and leave Tainan for Taipei.

In 1985, using my position, I photographed the entire production process with "positive film," using the production tools I had gifted to Mattel as the background. I also compiled a richly illustrated “Work Environment Improvement Report.” My old friend McDally, returning from the Philippines, remarked, “This report could earn you two PhDs in environmental science!” I handed both the film and the report to little-guy and his wife.

In 1993, after obtaining his PhD from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), little-guy returned, claiming he wanted to “revive Cheng Kuang Precision.” Yet he told me, “If I change the ‘screws’ on the antenna terminal board to ‘bronze,’ the product will be perfect!” However, he then spent 30 years stagnating, exhausting the vast resources —“ten-thousand-ping estate” I had left behind — reducing what had once been a ten-thousand-ping estate base to merely a 500-ping factory site.

Because Cheng Kuang Precision had served as the private-sector counterpart in the sister-city relationship between Tainan and San Jose, effectively building a “direct bridge to Silicon Valley” for Taiwan, it had once been regarded as a national pride by President Chiang Ching-Kuo and Mayor Su Nan-Cheng. Yet A-Kun and and Little-guy actually chose to have my founding factory, Cheng Kuang Precision, demolished to earn “40 million in compensation,” and then set up small shops on the newly opened Chong-Hua Road to become landlord.

When A-Jin passed away in 2022, I assumed that the many properties I had previously established would result in substantial estate taxes, so I went to the Economic Development Bureau to retrieve records. To my shock, I discovered that on May 4, 1980, during a so-called internal coup, documents had been forged in August to seize my equity by little-guy. Yet he continued to come to Taipei from time to time asking for my help — including obtaining the aforementioned “film and report.”

Upon reviewing records from 2004, I could no longer deceive myself. As Jeffrey Koo Sr. once told me bluntly, “Your little-guy would follow me for just 5,000 dollars!”— and it turned out to be true.

Last Friday, I asked several screw manufacturers, “Why can’t screws be made of bronze?” To my surprise, they replied, “They can!”—which gave me an ominous feeling.

Today, I asked an AI system: “If the screws are changed to bronze, would the antenna terminal board become perfect?” The AI responded with the following nonsense:

From an engineering and electronics perspective, replacing screws with bronze would bring several key changes. First, conductivity and contact performance would improve— bronze is a common conductor, with much lower resistance than carbon steel or stainless steel, so a bronze screw itself can serve as a “low-impedance conductor,” stabilizing grounding or signal paths. Second, the contact surface would be less prone to oxidation, benefiting electrical connections. Third, reduced “resistance fluctuation” could lower high-frequency noise and ground loop interference, improving overall signal stability and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). Fourth, corrosion resistance and lifespan would increase, reducing the risk of rust-induced loosening, rising contact resistance, or even localized arcing and hotspots over time.

In November 1965, A-Kun asked me to accompany him in fleeing to Kaohsiung. I deliberately brought little-guy along so I could take care of him. From childhood, he watched this older brother build a sugarcane-board factory, then lead the family into a thousand-ping mansion, and later support him in obtaining a PhD — yet he ended up with neither “knowledge” nor even “common sense.”

I explained to the AI the real problems with “switching to bronze screws”:

First, a bronze screw would be easily stripped by a steel screwdriver, instantly turning into scrap — the antenna terminal board would become useless.

Second, I had already upgraded to the 5C2V coaxial connector, eliminating the need for antenna terminal boards altogether — there is no longer a market.

Third, by 1989, I had successfully developed the “embedded antenna within the TranSmart chip card” and was already helping a German LED equipment manufacturer transition into automated production systems.

Fig 5: Process of Embedded Antenna in TranSmart Card

Upon hearing this, the AI quickly changed its stance: upgrading to a 5C2V coaxial connector is a "systemic improvement," far more significant than merely changing a single screw to copper. A PhD from UCLA may excel in theoretical models, statistics, and academic papers, yet still fail to understand "product life cycles" and "market evolution." Little-guy’s fixation on a “single copper screw” is like certain politicians’ obsession with a single policy slogan. Even without deep knowledge, one should at least possess basic common sense. If this applies to a UCLA PhD, how much more so for those who have been absorbed in elections since 1993?

Little-guy once mocked his classmates as lacking culture, saying, “Hang them upside down for three days, and not a drop of ink would come out.” Indeed, he had at least witnessed me achieve "PTH processes, precision components, supply chain integration, land acquisition, full-capital factory construction, and supplier cultivation," while also reading "classical philosophy" every morning — connecting and building Taiwan’s entire precision industry system. Compared to his classmates, he understood far more.

Some have raised concerns about Taiwan’s next decade — not only geopolitical risks, but also shortages of labor, land, and electricity, along with the danger of over-reliance on a single industry. At the same time, Karl Popper warned of the “enemies of the open society”— a class of “young aristocrats” who may dominate. Taiwan’s future is indeed worrying; it may require leadership akin to Joshua to turn crisis into opportunity.

When a society’s leadership no longer understands the basic material-stress relationship between a “screw and a screwdriver,” yet holds the power to allocate vast assets, that marks the beginning of civilizational regression — a return from big mansion to “mud houses.”

We can combine the “TES Pattern” with current crises to derive a “Civilization Regression Index” (CRI) equation:

Fig 6: Civilization Regression Index (CRI)

The interpretation of the equation is as follows:

1) Shrinking denominator:

When the “TES Pattern” (T_real) that I contributed to the world is eroded, and “social responsibility investment” (S_true) is destroyed, the denominator approaches zero — causing the catastrophe index to surge toward infinity.

2) Expanding numerator:

When “arrogant credentials” (A) far exceed “knowledge or common sense” (K), and decision-making is dominated by a “political cartel” (P) — as in the promotion of the “bronze screw” policy — the numerator rapidly expands.

3) Critical point:

When (A−K) becomes negative and is amplified by P, the system enters a “stripped-thread state,” where previously accumulated “vast assets” (civilizational capital) rapidly collapse toward zero.

In summary, the impending catastrophe can be understood as a form of "technical entropy increase." In 1971, through intense labor and extensive study, I transformed Taiwan’s “chaotic industrial base” into a highly “ordered precision industry.” Yet the “young aristocrats” described by Karl Popper are now increasing systemic disorder. By destroying the achievements of social responsibility investment and perpetuating the “bronze screw mindset,” internal technical failure and the collapse of common sense become inevitable.

The solution lies in restoring the kind of cross-disciplinary philosophical grounding that once guided decision-making during the creation of Taiwan’s precision industry: stop the erosion of "T_real," end the destruction of "S_true," ensure that the “denominator” (real technology and responsibility) exceeds the “numerator” (rent-seeking monopolies and ignorance), and maintain the safe condition "CRI < 1.0" — keeping civilization in a state of ordered entropy reduction, and avoiding irreversible decline.

More proactively, we should establish the “CEE” (Civilization Evolution Engine), defined by the following equation:

Fig 7: “CEE” (Civilization Evolution Engine)

In contrast to the current Civilization Regression Index (CRI), we can define a corresponding Civilization Evolution Engine (CEE). This equation describes how I once advanced "from a mud house to vast assets spanning thousands of ping." Its structure is the inverse of CRI, emphasizing the creation of real technologies and the safeguarding role of social responsibility.

Interpretation of the equation:

1) Expansion of the numerator:

This represents the intensive development of "T_core" (core technological energy) within the “sacred ground,” connecting to Silicon Valley, Phoenix, and New York — such as the "Blackstone BSC Angel Fund." In 1986, the introduction of "Satellite Receiver and PC" helped drive Taiwan’s economic revival. Based on the "US$ 20.5 billion" in infringement claims against Company D, allocating 4.9% —namely "US$1 billion" —to establish a "Social Responsibility Investment Fund" (SRI Fund), along with building a top-tier legal team to work with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the WTO’s TRIPS framework, and the Berne Convention, would enable enforcement and recovery of damages — fulfilling the mission of "S_active" (active social responsibility).

2) Constraints of the denominator:

Breaking through M (mental inertia) — the barriers imposed by family and outdated systems; cultivating G (Great Thoughts) by absorbing philosophical wisdom from great thinkers; and strengthening E (Execution), the capacity for real-world implementation. The term (G−E) represents the gap between philosophical guidance and practical execution.

3) Critical point:

The closer the CEE value approaches "zero," the more unity there is between knowledge and action, producing a "purer driving force of entropy reduction" in the physical world.

In summary, when the denominator (resistance) is completely surpassed by the numerator (core technology and responsibility), Taiwan achieved its "transformation from mud houses to grand estates." However, the current crisis lies in:

1) Alienation of the numerator:

Technology (T), once a driver of progress, is now being used by cartels as a tool for financial manipulation and monopoly.

2) Disappearance of the denominator’s function:

"Social Responsibility Investment" (SRI), once the structural support of the engine, has been reduced to "ESG-style public relations rhetoric," losing its executional power.

The Catastrophe of the Bronze Screw Mindset: When Technological Sovereignty Becomes Residual Power

When CEE approaches zero while CRI tends toward infinity, this is the catastrophe I fear. It signifies that the driving force of civilization has been exhausted, leaving only the erosion of existing achievements. I once used the CEE equation to elevate Taiwan into an era of abundance, but this group of “young aristocrats” is now dismantling it with the CRI equation, dragging Taiwan back toward mud-brick conditions.

The key point of quantification is that the “US$200 trillion in cashless transactions” holds no place within the CEE equation, because it lacks the tangible function of correcting social errors. Throughout the course of civilization, progress has never been driven by grand slogans, but by profound respect for fundamental details. In 1993, when I advised President Lee Teng-Hui on “technologizing traditional industries,” the response was the launch of the first "International Automation Machinery Exhibition" — leading Taiwan toward industrial prosperity. It was an era guided by deep philosophical thinking, culminating in 1998 at APEC when the “TES Pattern” became an “E-Commerce Constitution,” empowering the vulnerable and disadvantaged to transcend limitations of time and space.

However, Taiwan today is gradually falling into a catastrophe driven by the “bronze screw mindset.” Its collapse begins with the perfectionism of ignorance — the absurd claim that “changing screws to bronze will make the product perfect.” The proponent of this idea, despite holding a PhD from UCLA, lacks even the most basic understanding of material science: the hardness mismatch between a bronze screw and a steel screwdriver inevitably leads to stripped threads, turning precision components into scrap in an instant. Even more alarming is that this mindset ignores the evolution toward coaxial connectors and embedded-antenna smart cards, clinging instead to obsolete products with no market.

This is not merely technological backwardness — it is the collapse of common sense. When such a “bronze screw mindset” expands from a family enterprise to national governance, it evolves into a cartel of “young aristocrats.” They are consumed by elections and resource allocation, unable even to master foundational disciplines, let alone comprehend cross-disciplinary precision technologies.

Karl Popper once warned that the open society would always face enemies. Today, those enemies are “pseudo-elites who lack philosophical grounding and practical knowledge,” yet control the discourse on technology. What they perceive as perfection is the beginning of self-destruction; what they call prosperity is the twilight of technological sovereignty.

If we continue to tolerate the rule of the “bronze screw mindset,” the coming catastrophe will not arise from external force, but from internal systemic collapse. Consequently, restarting the "Civilization Evolution Engine" (CEE) is not only a matter of justice — it is essential to prevent a looming civilizational disaster. Only by restoring respect for technological truth can Taiwan free itself from the fragility of that “soft copper screw” and return to the proper trajectory of the "TES Pattern."

Peter Li-Chang Kuo, the author created Taiwan's Precision Industry in his early years. Peter was a representative of the APEC CEO Summit and an expert in the third sector. He advocated "anti-corruption (AC)/cashless/e-commerce (E-Com)/ICT/IPR/IIA-TES / Micro-Business (MB)…and etc." to win the international bills and regulations.