标签：culture

Stock Market Musings: Freedom and Stability

Culture & Public Commentary2015.07.26
Stock Market Musings: Freedom and Stability
Recently China’s stock market has been wildly up and down. After an unprecedented “stock-market crash,” the central authorities have again stepped in with unprecedented force to maintain stability. The reason I thought of writing this article is not to play the prophet and predict market movements. On the one hand, I want to gather together some of my previous statements and thoughts; on the other hand, the stock market also has relations to political philosophy and natural philosophy. Besides, I believe this stock-market crash will have very far-reaching historical significance; in any case, it will become a landmark event. Although I have all along been promoting Bitcoin, and have always…
culture China freedom commentary
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2015年7月26日
Lectures on the General History of Science 3: The Classical Greek Period [Classroom Changed Starting Next Week]

History of Science & Technology2015.03.18
Lectures on the General History of Science 3: The Classical Greek Period [Classroom Changed Starting Next Week]
下 week starting next week, the “History of Science” class will move to Jiao Ba 306 In the last class, we went from primitive humans to the four great ancient civilizations. We mentioned that human history is, in a sense, the history of technology; no human culture is cut off from technology. Where there is technology, there is also “knowledge,” and every culture passes on its own knowledge. By the time we get to the ancient civilizations of Babylonia and Egypt, people’s knowledge and skills had already reached a very high level. But I still regard ancient Greece as the origin of “science.” That is to say, the “science”…
culture scholarship freedom history
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2015年3月18日
On Civil Servants

Culture & Public Commentary2014.11.30
On Civil Servants
I’d promised two current-affairs commentaries plus two book reviews every week, but my habitual procrastination put me off for a whole week. Starting today, I’m officially kicking into gear. The commentaries and reviews may be very short in length; their main purpose is to keep me in writing shape. The long-parked conference travelogue will also be produced sometime in the next few days. Today is the day of the national civil service exam. I hear that this year’s number of applicants has fallen to the lowest level in five years. Perhaps that is because civil service pay has declined; perhaps it is because young people nowadays are increasingly opinionated; or…
culture China freedom education
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2014年11月30日
An Outline of the General History of Technology

History of Science & Scholarship2014.11.21
An Outline of the General History of Technology
Outline of a General History of Technology Hu Yilin I. A Survey of Western Studies in the History of Technology In the English-speaking world, the history of technology as an established academic discipline roughly began in the 1950s. Its landmark was the publication of the monumental Oxford History of Technology (volumes 1 through 5 were published from 1954 to 1958, the final two volumes in 1978, and the general index for volume 8 was completed in 1984). Another milestone was the founding of the American Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) in 1958 and the launch of its journal Technology and Culture in 1959. From roughly the late 1950s…
culture technology media phenomenology
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2014年11月21日
An Introduction to the Historiography of the General History of Technology

AI & the Future of Technology2014.08.01
An Introduction to the Historiography of the General History of Technology
Introduction to the Historiography of the General History of Technology //Note: this article has not yet been completed. I am only giving Wu laoshi an account in advance during the discussion… Next I will flesh out the concept of “the history of technological thought” a bit more. 1. A Survey of Western Research on the History of Technology In the English-speaking world, the history of technology as an academically institutionalized discipline roughly began in the 1950s. Its markers were the publication of the monumental Oxford edition of A History of Technology (Volumes 1 through 5 were published in 1954–1958, the last two volumes in 1978, and the general index of…
culture technology media history
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2014年8月1日
Exploring the Dark Interstices — A Review of Speculation and Media

AI & the Future of Technology2014.07.25
Exploring the Dark Interstices — A Review of Speculation and Media
(This book review was written as an invited assignment; in fact, I did not manage to read this book through, and I basically never got through the second half, “Speculative Economics.” That may have something to do with its postmodern writing style and with the Chinese translation, of course I also never found my footing, so the review below is actually not quite to the point; if I tricked you into reading it, don’t blame me for leading you astray… Of course, if you do manage to read it with a feel for it, you’re welcome to enlighten me~) Speculation and Media Amazon price: ￥20.10 http://news.sciencenet.cn/sbhtmlnews/2014/7/289950.shtm Born in…
philosophy book reading culture media
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2014年7月25日
Post-80s: The First Generation of Young People in an Age of Twilight

Culture & Public Commentary2013.05.18
Post-80s: The First Generation of Young People in an Age of Twilight
People’s Daily published an article, “Do Not Let Youth Be Stained by a Mannered Decline,” saying that the post-80s generation had aged overnight and become listless and dispirited. Of course, the internet quickly produced many rebuttals, but many of those rebuttals were in fact still echoing People’s Daily: yes, the post-80s are dispirited, but that is because the environment has forced them into it. Those rebuttals simply blamed the environment a bit more fiercely, that’s all. Those rebuttals missed the point entirely. The key question is: are the post-80s really dispirited? Are the ones who are truly dispirited really the post-80s? The pressure of the environment—this much even People’s Daily…
culture China commentary self
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2013年5月18日
The Paradox of Fairness—On Halting Ticket-Grabber Plugins

Culture & Public Commentary2013.01.19
The Paradox of Fairness—On Halting Ticket-Grabber Plugins
I had just seen in the afternoon that the Ministry of Railways said they would not, and in fact had no authority to, prohibit browser ticket-grabbing plugins, and I felt somewhat relieved. I never expected them to go find the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to ban them instead. I can only sigh. The reason for banning ticket-grabbing plugins sounds very high-minded: the plugins are indeed effective, but they are unfair to other passengers. Is that so? Indeed it is. A ticket is released and within a few dozen seconds it has been snatched up by ticket-grabbing software—what are the other passengers supposed to do? But the key issue…
culture China freedom commentary
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2013年1月19日
Contempt and Locality

Culture & Public Commentary2013.01.05
Contempt and Locality
This article had actually been ready to write half a year ago, or even earlier. It was during the Olympics, and I wrote a few articles in the form of “…and …”, including two bad-stub pieces; I only wrote down the title “Contempt and Locality” and never went on. Now, although I’d like to change it to a more provocative title—say, “Why Do We Contempt Migrant Workers?”—after thinking it over, I still decided not to go in for clickbait. At first I wanted to start from international contempt in the Olympics (for example, how Chinese people look at Koreans and Japanese). Recently, when I thought of rewriting it, I tried…
culture China value sociology
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2013年1月5日
Equality or Freedom: On the Question of Attending School Outside One’s Hometown

Culture & Public Commentary2012.12.17
Equality or Freedom: On the Question of Attending School Outside One’s Hometown
Recently, the case of the non-Shanghai girl Zhan Haiter has drawn a lot of attention, especially because it happened in Shanghai, so I can’t help but offer a few comments as well. Of course, I support Zhan Haiter’s struggle, and I support every citizen’s open expression of his or her demands; but as for the content of those demands, I do not support it. This matter involves too many questions, all tangled together, making an already complicated issue even more complicated. So first we need to break down the questions involved. There are two big issues: one is education, the other is regionality. It should be noted that the problem…
culture China freedom commentary
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2012年12月17日