Suixuan

Author: 胡翌霖

  • Why Not Revive Confucianism?

    Culture & Public Commentary

    Why Not Revive Confucianism?

    For some reason I suddenly thought of this—could Confucianism be revived? Of course, rather than “revived,” it might be better to say “created.” Master Xianglong has the idea of establishing a “Confucian Cultural Preservation Zone”; he says:   Would Confucian culture today not last long without protection? Of course not. Although Daoism and Buddhism are also being squeezed out by modernizing culture today, they still have their “ark” and “paradise” for escaping the flood, namely their ecclesiastical communities and temples. In other words, they have their own “preservation zones.” Within that tiny bit of land around the temples, it is the abbot and the Daoist master who call the shots….

    cultureChinatraditionreligion
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  • On Heidegger’s Thought on Technology

    AI & the Future of Technology

    On Heidegger’s Thought on Technology

    The previous article was another piece written by hastily asking for reinforcements. On the one hand, that was indeed because I have not been diligent enough lately; on the other hand, I was also busy planning the proposal for my doctoral dissertation, eager to design the overall line of thought, and as a result I could not settle down to concentrate first on some specific issue. The earlier “experience report” was like this too, and so is this set of reading notes on Heidegger’s later thought. Although they are all written rather superficially and in a somewhat scattered way, they really do have to do with a certain strategy for…

    technologymediaHeideggerenvironment
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  • Heidegger’s Thought on Technology

    AI & the Future of Technology

    Heidegger’s Thought on Technology

    As everyone knows, “technology” is a core concept in Heidegger’s later thought. Heidegger’s meditation on technology exerted a major influence on both the critique of modernity and the unfolding of postmodern currents, and it pointed the way for the “philosophy of technology” that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century; Heidegger has even been retrospectively canonized as a model “philosopher of technology.” Yet this emblematic image of Heidegger is often painted as that of a reactionary resister, pessimistic or romantic: it is said that he denied “the exaltation of human subjectivity”[1], ignored the “promoting role”[2] of modern technology, and was a “romantic” afflicted with “nostalgia”[3]. These judgments are…

    philosophytechnologymediaAristotle
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  • [Announcement] Starting to Try Weibo

    Site Matters

    [Announcement] Starting to Try Weibo

    Some of you may already have noticed that recently I added a new column, “Bloggers,” under my links, listing my haunts on the major microblogging and SNS sites. Among them, Renren (Xiaonei) was of course there from the beginning, while Follow5 and Digu were opened in December 2010. The latter is mainly used to display my “Digu” status in the blog sidebar, while the former is mainly used to synchronize status updates to Digu, Renren, and Twitter and Facebook. Although Follow5 and Digu are both considered among the earliest microblogging services in China, they have been used more for posting status updates, and cannot really count as having been properly…

    everyday lifeblogwebsitesocial media
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  • Some Thoughts on the People’s Congress System

    Culture & Public Commentary

    Some Thoughts on the People’s Congress System

    Recently I’ve started paying attention again to the matter of deputies to the People’s Congress, and the immediate trigger was reading a news interview with a “person in charge of the Legal Work Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress” on “independent candidates” having no legal basis. Although I had previously heard that so-and-so was going to run for deputy to the People’s Congress, I hadn’t paid much attention. But when I saw this authoritative explanation from the person in charge of “legal” work, I was startled, and so I looked into the matter. The explanation given by this person in charge is astonishing. I am not…

    cultureChinapoliticsdemocracy
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  • A Little Commemoration of English Class

    Life & Notes

    A Little Commemoration of English Class

    Today (yesterday) I finished my last English class — though I skipped billiards and lunch — and this was the last class of the graduate English course this semester, and perhaps also the last English class of my entire student life. I have no choice but to write a piece in commemoration. This semester’s English class took up a great deal of my energy. Every week there were one or two writing assignments and one or two oral presentation scripts to prepare, as well as getting up early two or three times a week, occupying most of my study time. Although the total amount of work could hardly be said…

    everyday lifefaithChinesewriting
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  • Why Is the Three Gorges Dam Said to Be the Culprit Behind the Drought?

    Why Is the Three Gorges Dam Said to Be the Culprit Behind the Drought?
    Culture & Public Commentary

    Why Is the Three Gorges Dam Said to Be the Culprit Behind the Drought?

    (Note: the image comes from Jandan’s Boring Pictures/original link, for amusement only~) The recent drought has once again made the much-controversial Three Gorges Dam the target of everyone’s criticism: some say the Three Gorges is the culprit behind the drought, earthquakes, and even all sorts of anomalies, while the pundits say that without the Three Gorges the drought would be even worse. So which is it? Obviously, the most “scientific” answer is: we don’t know! This is not like a hypothesis in physics, where we can design an experiment with controlled variables—holding all the other variables constant and looking separately at how things develop with and without the Three Gorges….

    cultureChinatechnologyenvironment
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  • I Don’t Object to the “Jeanswest Building”

    Culture & Public Commentary

    I Don’t Object to the “Jeanswest Building”

    Recently the “Zhenvis Building” next door has been the talk of the town, and there has been quite a lot of opposition and ridicule, but I basically don’t have much of a negative reaction. Peking University’s No. 3 Teaching Building was long ago renamed “Liu Qing Building,” but we still call it “Third Teaching Building,” and the university’s course schedules and notices still call it Third Teaching Building as well; at most, there’s just one more nameplate hanging on the wall. Tsinghua’s Zhenvis Building can also just continue to be called the Fourth Teaching Building, and it won’t interfere with everyday teaching and life. The only issue is that some…

    Chinascholarshipcommentaryeconomy
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  • Utensils and Ritual Vessels

    AI & the Future of Technology

    Utensils and Ritual Vessels

    A few days ago I attended a lecture by Li Meng. To be honest, the lecture was rather like scratching an itch through one’s boot, or rather, he merely pointed out where the itch was, and then it was entirely up to us to do the scratching ourselves. The lecture’s inspiration is wholly concentrated in its title; for those of us doing phenomenology of technology, there’s no need to attend the lecture at all—just recite this title a few times over. “Utensils and Ritual Vessels—A Chinese Appraisal of Metaphysics” First of all, we know that Western philosophers of technology, with Heidegger as their leader, carried out a kind of “appraisal”…

    ChinatechnologymediaAristotle
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  • On Smartphones and Tablets: The Advanced Nature of Technology

    AI & the Future of Technology

    On Smartphones and Tablets: The Advanced Nature of Technology

    During last winter break I got a new smartphone, HTC Desire（A8180/G7）. After buying it, I meant to jot something down, and somehow kept thinking I already had…… Today it occurred to me again, so I’ll just toss off a few casual remarks while I’m at it. I hadn’t actually planned to change phones. It started because my mother wanted a new one, and I helped her choose. At first I wanted to pick something like the classic Nokia 5230, but after seeing my parents buy themselves a brand-new 64-bit laptop, I changed my mind. I asked them why they had bought a 64-bit machine, and they said they had been…

    technologyWeb3internetinnovation
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