Year: 2013

The Revolutionary History of Media

AI & the Future of Technology2013.09.16
The Revolutionary History of Media
Pre-seminar note: The paper isn’t finished yet, but I’ll say a few things first anyway. I’ve run into some difficulties with this paper, which have stalled its progress. In fact, this section is quite an important part of my doctoral dissertation plan. Here I am trying to establish a connection between the history of technology and the history of science, linking philosophy of technology → history of technology → history of science → philosophy of science into a single chain. But the ambition of the framework is rather large, and so I ended up letting the conclusion come first, while the material has not kept up. Relying mainly on Walter…
technology history of science media phenomenology
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2013年9月16日
Travel Notes on the Lushan Conference

History of Science & Scholarship2013.09.11
Travel Notes on the Lushan Conference
Departing on August 28 and returning to Beijing on September 4, this conference trip, counting from beginning to end, lasted a full week; it was the longest conference I have ever attended, practically a vacation. Ever since I went to Nanning in 2009 to attend the Third Conference on Phenomenology and Philosophy of Technology, I have now attended five consecutive conferences. Aside from Nanning, where I only wrote a little “Miscellaneous Notes,” I went on to write full conference gripe-sessions about Hailar, Yangma Island, and Guangzhou, and I am now in the awkward position of having ridden the tiger and being unable to get off; this time, too, I ought…
Heidegger phenomenology Kuhn Wittgenstein
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2013年9月11日
What Is Wrong with “Eugenics” — A Review of Against Perfection

AI & the Future of Technology2013.08.23
What Is Wrong with “Eugenics” — A Review of Against Perfection
The China Science Daily (2013-08-23, p. 14, Books) Eugenics, which once enjoyed a brief and sweeping vogue in the first half of the twentieth century, was even implemented in many places in the form of law, only to be discredited in the end by the atrocities of the Nazis. The Nazis’ wrongdoing is obvious: they tried to improve the human race through violent means such as forced sterilization and even genocide. But what, exactly, was mistaken? Was it only the violent means, or was there something wrong with eugenics itself? This question seems never to have been adequately reflected upon. Half a century later, with the development of life sciences…
technology book reading book review pursuit
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2013年8月23日
A Natural History of Media—McLuhan’s Method

History of Science & Scholarship2013.08.10
A Natural History of Media—McLuhan’s Method
1. Introduction: Literary Style or Research Method? Marshall McLuhan (1911–1982) was the most influential and at the same time the most controversial media thinker of the twentieth century. As a pioneer or founding figure of the media ecology school, his reputation rose and fell dramatically: he was once elevated to the altar, and then quickly neglected and forgotten. With the dawn of the network age, he came once again to be widely known in academic circles and indeed throughout the cultural world as a “prophet-sage,” yet some still regard him as a mountebank who merely uses gibberish to hoodwink the public. These two images are not really contradictory. So-called prophets…
media Heidegger paper McLuhan
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2013年8月10日
Bitcoin: Musings on Mining and Altcoins

Web3 & Bitcoin2013.07.29
Bitcoin: Musings on Mining and Altcoins
It has been exactly three months since I started buying bitcoin. From my first purchase, I bought 0.06 coin at 1,160 yuan per coin; at the lowest point I bought 0.5 coin at 372 yuan. All told, my cost basis is roughly 650 yuan. Then I spent 5 coins buying mining machines, made 5 coins from stock trading, and between assorted low buys, high sells, and gambling, my overall balance of income and expenditure is about even. During this period I wrote a series of bitcoin-related articles, and also started a column on Babbitt, which has circulated fairly well in the Chinese bitcoin community. At the same time, I also…
media Web3 Bitcoin internet
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2013年7月29日
Bitcoin: Common Sense and Dogma

Web3 & Bitcoin2013.06.20
Bitcoin: Common Sense and Dogma
Recently I’ve been following some Weibo accounts and websites related to Bitcoin, watching from the sidelines and even taking part in some of the related debates—for instance, the arguments surrounding this Weibo post were very lively: http://weibo.com/1646744100/zBFt7q7D1 I must admit that paying attention to Bitcoin while I’m anxiously preparing my doctoral dissertation does make me seem a bit off task, but I’d still like to offer myself a defense: after all, this is not completely beside the point. First of all, of course, one buys Bitcoin hoping to make money, or at least hoping to hedge risk. Right now the international and domestic financial and economic environment is facing a…
China media Web3 Bitcoin
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2013年6月20日
Bitcoin: The Age of Exploration

Web3 & Cypherpunks2013.06.09
Bitcoin: The Age of Exploration
Recently Bitcoin has been plunging in succession into a bear market, and its current price has already fallen below my own average purchase price (while I was writing this piece it dropped 10%!). But I figure it still has another stretch of decline ahead of it, so lately probably isn’t a good time for newcomers to enter. Of course, Bitcoin’s rhythm is the rhythm of the Internet age; a so-called bear market can’t possibly last for years the way it did after the bursting of the Nasdaq or Chinese A-share bubbles. At worst it may take ten days or half a month, at most a year or so, and it…
China freedom Web3 Bitcoin
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2013年6月9日
The Economic History of Media—From Marx to Innis

AI & the Future of Technology2013.06.03
The Economic History of Media—From Marx to Innis
Innis (Harold Adams Innis, 1894–1952), together with McLuhan, is recognized as one of the founders of the media ecology school. McLuhan highly praised Innis’s contributions, wrote prefaces to his two major works in communication studies, and even regarded his own breakthrough book *The Gutenberg Galaxy* as “a footnote to Innis’s viewpoint”[1]. But later, as McLuhan rose to fame, Innis instead became a footnote in McLuhan studies, a preliminary step in explaining the origins of McLuhan’s thought. In the academic context of media ecology, Innis is usually presented as McLuhan’s background or foil. Of course, some scholars have noticed Innis’s distinctive value, especially James Carey, who placed Innis above McLuhan. Entering…
technology McLuhan civilization Marx
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2013年6月3日
An Explanation Regarding Going to Teach a Public Class at 706 and the Strike

Life & Notes2013.05.28
An Explanation Regarding Going to Teach a Public Class at 706 and the Strike
A few weeks ago I went to 706 Youth Space to give three public lectures. The course was originally planned to have five sessions, but I decided not to continue with the last two. Any students who participated and would like to continue the exchange are welcome to stay in touch with me through the blog, Weibo, email, and so on. As for the background and aftermath of starting the course and the strike, let me explain here. I had not previously known much about 706 Youth Space. I went to give the lectures because I received an invitation from Zhou Ruixuan. I checked the organization’s positioning online—spontaneous pursuit of…
everyday life blog intellectuals ranting
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2013年5月28日
Miscellaneous Musings on Gambling

Web3 & Cypherpunks2013.05.24
Miscellaneous Musings on Gambling
After buying Bitcoin, I tried doing some short-term trading, but the results were not good. So recently I switched to small-scale gambling. On the one hand, it takes much less mental energy; on the other hand, the income is also more obvious. As of today, I have basically made back the losses from my failed investments in other coins (LTC, PPC, FRC, etc., which have all plunged recently), as well as the losses caused by short-term trading and other flipping about. The things I take part in are, of course, things I approve of, so let me talk a bit about my view of gambling. Of course, I do not…
China Web3 Bitcoin mathematics
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2013年5月24日