分类：Culture & Public Commentary

The Triple Greatness of the Crypto Renaissance

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2023.12.29
The Triple Greatness of the Crypto Renaissance
Prelude 0.1. The Triple Transformation of Faith, Thought, and Power During the Renaissance, a new current of thought arose in Europe. Many thinkers and activists who opposed the decayed and rigid dogmas of the Middle Ages gathered together, seeking to revive ancient, Eastern wisdom. The new idol they invoked was called “Hermes Trismegistus” (“the thrice-great Hermes”). Copernicus said that the sun should sit at the center of the universe, just as “the thrice-great Hermes called the sun the ‘visible god’”; Bruno was burned at the stake for spreading Hermetic heresy; Boyle and Newton followed Hermes’s Emerald Tablet and devoted themselves to alchemy; the legendary Rosicrucians advocated the selfless sharing of…
freedom Bitcoin internet blockchain
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2023年12月29日
Accelerationism vs. Alignmentism, Socialism(?)

AI & Scholarship2023.11.22
Accelerationism vs. Alignmentism, Socialism(?)
The big internal-drama spectacle at OpenAI has once again brought into sharp relief the debate about artificial intelligence, “effective accelerationism vs. super ‘alignment’.” I also posted two comments on Weibo, which I record here: I support neither side. Accelerationism believes that whenever new technology disrupts society, the result is always good. But the problem is that in history, good outcomes are also the result of positive social change; if society merely passively accepts the push of new technology, there may not necessarily be good results. The problem with alignmentism is that it is fanciful: human values have never been aligned, so how could machines be? I support checks and balances…
technology culture freedom Web3
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2023年11月22日
AI Is Sick; Web3 Is the Cure

AI & Scholarship2023.10.27
AI Is Sick; Web3 Is the Cure
Published on Wai Bo San Guan; the original text is posted here. Earlier, I gave the keynote address at the main session of the Ninth Global Blockchain Summit, entitled “Web3 Has the Cure—AI, Dao, and Games.” Because time was limited, I could not really go into it in depth; this article (and the next one) may be taken as an expansion of that talk. Many people believe that AI technology is leading the next industrial revolution, and that we are facing an era-defining transformation that comes once in several centuries, so entrepreneurs will encounter many opportunities and challenges. I fully agree with this judgment, but unlike many optimists, I think…
internet Scientific Revolution blockchain AI
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2023年10月27日
Notes on the “Network City-State”

Culture & Public Commentary2023.10.26
Notes on the “Network City-State”
During the summer break I was deeply involved in drafting the SEEDAO white paper, including several consecutive days of offline salons, as well as some online written exchanges. The concept of “digital polity” or “network polity” is SEEDAO’s signature idea, and I had many discussions about it as well. Below I have excerpted part of my written Q&A on the network polity and compiled it into this article. When I have time later, I will also write a separate piece to explore it. (By the way, I do indeed appreciate some of SEEDAO’s characteristics and ideas, but that does not mean I support all of the practices it has actually…
internet blockchain decentralization Huawendao
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2023年10月26日
Full-Sensory Games vs. Fully On-Chain Games—Two Directions for the Metaverse Revolution

Culture & Public Commentary2023.08.08
Full-Sensory Games vs. Fully On-Chain Games—Two Directions for the Metaverse Revolution
This article was originally the topic of a talk I gave when I took part in a PTADAO sharing session as a friend. After the talk, I organized the text myself, and it was almost as if I reworked the whole line of thought from scratch, forming a more complete article. After it was published on “Yuaibo Sanguan,” it was retitled On Fully On-Chain Games: Reality Is Not Unreal, Virtuality Is Not False, Greatness Does Not Rely on Planning. This article can be counted as a “small synthesis” of my recent thinking. I’m posting the original here. 1 The game of innovation: the only way to achieve great innovation is…
culture freedom media history of technology
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2023年8月8日
Why PoS Ethereum Cannot Become a Base Currency

Culture & Public Commentary2023.06.10
Why PoS Ethereum Cannot Become a Base Currency
On the struggle between PoW and PoS in cryptocurrency, I often state my views, but it seems I have never set them out fully on the blog. Yesterday, just as a netizen wrote in asking about this, I wrote a few paragraphs, and I’m posting them here as well. Asked whether Ethereum might replace Bitcoin as the value-preserving currency of future society, my view is as follows: Of course Ethereum can preserve value, but I oppose POS currencies as the standard value-preserving currency, and this is for political reasons. POS provides a mechanism for risk-free interest-bearing accumulation, so value preservers can keep earning interest continuously. Even fiat currency does not…
Bitcoin politics blockchain Huawendao
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2023年6月10日
Review of Radical Markets: Also on Why the Crypto Movement Should Be Radical

Culture & Public Commentary2023.06.10
Review of Radical Markets: Also on Why the Crypto Movement Should Be Radical
This piece, along with the earlier The Liberation of People in the Digital Age, was written as copy for PTADAO. The final text was excerpted to form A One-Page Clear White; if you’re interested, you can go take a look there. Here I’m posting the original version of the book review. Lately I’ve joined some Web3 chat groups and occasionally put out a few views. For example, a few days ago I was discussing the significance of stablecoins with someone, and I said that cryptocurrency was from the very beginning meant to upend the old system of central banks and fiat money. If the entire blockchain market turns around and…
book reading freedom Web3 Bitcoin
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2023年6月10日
Immortality: The Intrinsic Connection Between Transhumanism and Web3

Culture & Public Commentary2023.06.08
Immortality: The Intrinsic Connection Between Transhumanism and Web3
This piece was submitted to the article by the new media outlet “歪脖三观,” founded and hosted by Jiang Gungun, and I was honored that it became the inaugural founding text of that media platform. When it was published, it was shortened and polished, and the title was changed to “The Ambition of Blockchain: Anti-Keynesianism, Public Life, and Transhumanism.” Everyone is welcome to repost and follow it. I am posting here the unedited original draft: EDCON2023 in Montenegro has come to a close. In addition to the usual topics of the crypto community, this year’s grand gathering also had a substantial block of topics related to transhumanism/longevity. The earlier “A Conversation…
technology Bitcoin blockchain modernity
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2023年6月8日
On the “Pattern” of the Digital City-State

Culture & Public Commentary2023.05.12
On the “Pattern” of the Digital City-State
Today I chatted again for a while with baiyu from SeeDAO, and in the process I laid out my thoughts on building digital city-states. What I chiefly want to promote is Arendt's thought, and to rebuild the “public sphere” in the digital age. SeeDAO’s ideal is to become a “digital city-state for 1 million Web3 nomads.” My quip is: this number, one million, is too big to be big, yet too small to be small. Too big in the sense that if Web3 is truly the general trend, then in the future there cannot possibly be only 1 million “Web3 nomads”; just the Chinese-speaking population alone would have to be…
Web3 politics blockchain public sphere
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2023年5月12日
On Transhumanism, the Logic of Blockchain, and Huawendao: A Dialogue at SeeDAO

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2023.05.08
On Transhumanism, the Logic of Blockchain, and Huawendao: A Dialogue at SeeDAO
Many thanks to the SeeDAO friends for organizing this conversation, which helped me revisit the core ideas of Huawen DAO (Huawendao) in a new context. I hope it can generate even greater influence. Guest Introduction 丨Speaker: Hu Yilin Hu Yilin is an associate professor in the Department of History of Science at Tsinghua University. He received his PhD in philosophy from Peking University. His research focuses on the history of technology, philosophy of technology, and media ecology. He is the author of A Strong Program for Media History, What Is Technology, Introduction to the Philosophy of Technology, and others. 丨Host: baiyu Prelude When Nietzsche cried out “God is dead, the…
China culture Peking University tradition
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2023年5月8日