标签：China

From “Information Blocks” to “Blockchains”: Blockchain as a Completion of the Internet

Web3 & Bitcoin2019.10.27
From “Information Blocks” to “Blockchains”: Blockchain as a Completion of the Internet
A commissioned piece riding a hot topic for JieMian. I’m currently in Hefei attending the annual conference on Chinese history of science, and I wrote this last night on my bed after a full day of meetings, so it’s a bit rushed. Still, this counts as my first article that departs from Bitcoin and talks specifically about blockchain. In my view, the core application of blockchain is undoubtedly still currency; blockchain technology divorced from currency, or from currency in the broader sense (securities, etc.), is basically just a gimmick. But that does not stop us from indeed being able to seek a place for blockchain technology in the history of…
China Web3 Bitcoin history of technology
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2019年10月27日
Was There Confucianism in the Ancient West?

Culture & Public Commentary2019.08.25
Was There Confucianism in the Ancient West?
The recent atmosphere has me a little like a startled bird, so I’m continuing to use encrypted mode. This article really isn’t worth encrypting; in a couple of days I may quietly decrypt it. A teacher has recently been disciplined over remarks about the Four Great Inventions, and that is truly shocking. I don’t want to reopen here the warning against a culture of informing on others; I only want to talk about the academic question. What makes this incident even more frightening than before is that the remarks that led to the punishment were not a political issue, but an academic one. Even the official media could not stomach…
culture China technology science
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2019年8月25日
Technology and Garbage in a Race

AI & the Future of Technology2019.07.06
Technology and Garbage in a Race
Published in Jiemian Commentary, with the title changed to “A Prehistory of Garbage Sorting: Flush Toilets and the Disaster of Feces”; here I’ll still use the original title. Recently, Shanghai’s push for garbage sorting has attracted the attention of the whole country. Add to that China’s earlier saying no to foreign garbage, and it shows that the national government has finally resolved to tackle the garbage problem with real determination. In response to garbage sorting, some people feel there is no need to spend so much mental energy when throwing out trash: shouldn’t we just let the garbage collectors use their judgment carefully? We know that the trade of collecting…
China technology history commentary
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2019年7月6日
Should We ‘Bid’ to Snatch Up Talent?

Culture & Public Commentary2019.06.17
Should We ‘Bid’ to Snatch Up Talent?
Published in Chinese Science News (2019-06-17, p. 1, Top News); some edits were made at the time of publication. The original draft is posted here. This article is a kind of forcibly optimistic reading. In fact, I am quite worried: even if it really is a demand made of the government, in the end the government will probably not change much, and it will still be carried out as a matter of disciplining intellectuals. But, how should I put it? If everyone interprets things in a more positive direction, the world will become a little better too. Recently, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office…
China freedom commentary intellectuals
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2019年6月17日
Salute to the Strivers! — Striving for the Capitalist or Striving for All Humanity? (Comments on 996)

Culture & Public Commentary2019.04.15
Salute to the Strivers! — Striving for the Capitalist or Striving for All Humanity? (Comments on 996)
Recently I’ve posted someremarks on Weibo about the 996 issue, and there’s already quite a bit of text; I’ve excerpted it here and will also fill it out further What I was first responding to was Jack Ma’s representative statement: Last night I had a conversation with my colleagues at Alibaba about the hot-button issue of 996 at work. Today many young people are facing this problem. I think that if you choose to win your own happiness and success through struggle and effort, you may want to seriously reflect on what I’m about to say; but if you want your future to be happier and more joyful than ordinary…
China freedom commentary sociology
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2019年4月15日
From Melamine to Thesis Plagiarism Checks: A Completely Meaningless Detection-and-Evasion Battle

Culture & Public Commentary2019.02.15
From Melamine to Thesis Plagiarism Checks: A Completely Meaningless Detection-and-Evasion Battle
An impromptu submission to Jiemian; I finished writing it at noon and it went up in the afternoon~ The recent Zhai Tianlin incident made “CNKI” and its plagiarism-checking technology quite the sensation. Netizens spontaneously helped run plagiarism checks on Zhai Tianlin’s paper and found the rate of duplication to be as high as 40%, causing his image as a top student to collapse. I’m not particularly interested in Zhai Tianlin’s image crisis; I’m more inclined to hitch a ride on the hot topic and talk about my own views on plagiarism-checking technology for theses. Plagiarism checking has been popular for many years now. I have always taken a critical and…
China technology scholarship commentary
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2019年2月15日
Is Chinese Studies Anti-Science?

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2019.01.25
Is Chinese Studies Anti-Science?
At the request of China Science Daily, this was published in the January 28, 2019, issue of China Science Daily, page 1. Recently, two things within the education system have stirred up heated discussion: one is the “mind-boggling exam paper” from Beihai College of Art in Guangxi, and the other is Sun Nan and his wife sending their child to attend a “Guoxue class.” These incidents are by no means accidental isolated cases. Some commentators have already linked them to “Quan Jian,” seeing in them all the spread of a certain “anti-intellectualism,” or, to put it another way, a lack of public scientific literacy. The college that produced the mind-boggling…
China freedom commentary education
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2019年1月25日
“Passing the Buck” Is the Greatest Danger Exposed by the He Jiankui Incident

Culture & Public Commentary2018.12.04
“Passing the Buck” Is the Greatest Danger Exposed by the He Jiankui Incident
The Chinese Science News commissioned this piece, which was published on December 4, 2018, on page 1, “Top News”. At the time of publication, the title was changed to “Who Should Bear Responsibility for the He Jiankui Incident,” and the content was also somewhat polished. I am posting the original draft here. Recently, the birth of two gene-edited babies has shocked the world and brought the issue of science-and-technology ethics into the public eye. In recent years, China’s scientific and technological development has been rapid, and in many fields it has already caught up with the international standard, even reaching world-class levels. But as the He Jiankui incident has exposed,…
China technology commentary tech ethics
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2018年12月4日
Balancing Fairness and Efficiency—Can Smart Cities Solve Beijing’s “Hard Stations”?

Culture & Public Commentary2018.08.14
Balancing Fairness and Efficiency—Can Smart Cities Solve Beijing’s “Hard Stations”?
This article was a commissioned piece, published in the 7th edition of China Science Daily on August 13, 2018, with the title changed to Where Does Governing Beijing’s “Hard-to-Get-to” Stations Become Difficult?, with slight revisions. The original draft is reproduced below: Recently, both CCTV and People’s Daily reported that Beijing South Railway Station had become “Beijing’s hard-to-get-to station,” focusing on issues such as the prevalence of illegal taxis and the difficulty of hailing a cab, which sparked heated discussion. Those who took the high-speed rail had already arrived in Tianjin, while those dropping people off were still standing in line waiting for taxis. Such poor service conditions obviously do not…
China technology commentary public sphere
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2018年8月14日
On Shanzhai: On the Advantages of Being a Latecomer

AI & the Future of Technology2018.08.07
On Shanzhai: On the Advantages of Being a Latecomer
Recently, Pinduoduo, which bills itself as a platform for “consumption downgrading,” went public and stirred up plenty of controversy; I also said a few things on Weibo. It is not the case that anything with market demand is worth doing. For example, what is equally hard for city people to understand is that in China there are widespread customs such as abandoning baby girls and trafficking in people. Should there then be an app for human trafficking to serve them? If this app were hugely popular, should we then educate those city people who are thunderstruck that you just don’t understand China? Nonsense! Everyone knows that the lower strata of…
China technology scholarship commentary
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2018年8月7日