标签：everyday life

Distribution According to Enjoyment: How to Break the Logic of Involution in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

AI & Scholarship2026.03.30
Distribution According to Enjoyment: How to Break the Logic of Involution in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
The Cycle of Involution and Unemployment Could We Really Work Only Two Days a Week? As artificial intelligence keeps iterating, a new wave of “raising lobsters” (OpenClaw) has recently swept in: we can give AI permissions, let it act on its own, operate computers like a human, scrape data, write papers, build websites, make trades—there is nothing it cannot do. Although at present it still does not seem easy to train a truly labor-replacing “lobster,” the sense of crisis among wage workers is already hitting us head-on. One lovely fantasy might be this: wage workers go on working as usual and collecting their salaries, but hand all the actual labor…
everyday life culture freedom AI
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2026年3月30日
In Memory of Master Xianglong

Life & Notes2022.06.09
In Memory of Master Xianglong
Teacher Zhang Xianglong passed away yesterday… I was fortunate, as an undergraduate, to sit in on his introductory philosophy course, and later I also had quite a bit of academic and personal contact with him. I always got used to calling him Master Xianglong, because he was the first person who made me feel what the bearing of a master was really like: truly bringing together Chinese, Western, and Indian thought, and making one feel the profundity and richness of thought. Although Master Xianglong’s thought leaned toward antiquity, his horizon was broad and he kept up with the cutting edge. He insisted on reading the latest technology magazines, and when…
philosophy everyday life China Confucianism
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2022年6月9日
Heavenly Endowment

Life & Notes2022.04.01
Heavenly Endowment
At 11:39 a.m. on April 1, 2022, a new life came squalling into the world. Yes, I have a daughter now~ I chose her name a few days earlier: Hu Tianyu. Don’t worry, I’m not suddenly going to turn into a shameless kid-showoff. Writing in the public sphere will not become excessively intimate. On the one hand, this post is a special commemoration; on the other, it is also an excuse to talk about certain general topics through my daughter’s name. Back in the day my grandfather gave me a name: “Tian Ding,” meaning roughly that my fate was decreed by Heaven. In the end, though, it was never used….
everyday life freedom Heidegger democracy
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2022年4月1日
In an increasingly impossible-to-take-seriously world, an earnest run-in with JD.com customer service

Life & Notes2021.09.16
In an increasingly impossible-to-take-seriously world, an earnest run-in with JD.com customer service
My most recent after-sales experience on JD was extremely poor. In fact, the matter was very simple: I returned the item, but they still shipped it; when it came time to refund me, they also wanted me to bear the shipping fee. After I filed a transaction dispute, JD did nothing, and the merchant impersonated JD customer service and called to say that a refund was possible. Right up until the end, JD still refused to give me a simple ruling, and instead defined my behavior as “refusal without reason.” To be a bit more detailed: I bought something, and when the expected delivery time had passed I saw that…
philosophy everyday life modernity responsibility
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2021年9月16日
Is Philosophy of Technology Useful? — Applying Philosophy of Technology in Teaching the Philosophy of Technology Course

AI & the Future of Technology2019.12.14
Is Philosophy of Technology Useful? — Applying Philosophy of Technology in Teaching the Philosophy of Technology Course
This week’s Introduction to Philosophy of Technology class centered its discussion session on the “smart classroom.” Compared with last year, the discussion class was pushed back by a week, and before it we added one more lecture on Marcuse. That felt pretty good; many students were already able to think through the issue in terms of “critique of instrumental reason.” “Smart classroom” is a broad concept. In its most basic sense, it includes the application of technologies such as tablet computers, online platforms, and smart apps in classroom teaching, but it also includes the more alarming technologies of intelligent surveillance and sensing headbands. Broadly speaking, we usually would not oppose…
philosophy technology everyday life course
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2019年12月14日
On VR (II): A Stage-by-Stage Summary of the Gaming Experience

AI & the Future of Technology2018.08.25
On VR (II): A Stage-by-Stage Summary of the Gaming Experience
I’ve already bought VR for several months now. Overall, it was money well spent. Aside from occasionally letting classmates experience it at reading groups, I myself use it quite a lot; in fact, several days a week I even go to Tsinghua specifically to play VR, with the aim of exercising. The amount of exercise really is huge, and the immersion is very strong. I can do high-intensity exercise in there for more than an hour straight. Of course, I have also not forgotten that playing VR has at least some academic significance, so after playing it for a while, it’s time to write a little summary. I. The Body…
technology everyday life McLuhan game
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2018年8月25日
The First Reading Group of This Semester

Life & Notes2018.03.17
The First Reading Group of This Semester
Today we kicked off this semester’s first reading group. This semester we’re still continuing with Foucault’s *The Order of Things*; newcomers joining in midway should not be a problem either. After a few rounds of Foucault, we may consider switching books. Possible candidates include Kant’s *Critique of Judgment*, *Critique of Pure Reason*, and Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit*, or we might recommend some other books instead. This year’s reading group is set for Saturday afternoons. Today we started at 5 p.m.; from next time on, it may switch to 3 p.m. The plan is to read first, then eat, and then have some entertainment (board games or tabletop RPGs). Happy news:…
everyday life book reading Kant Hegel
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2018年3月17日
The First Reading Group of the New Semester

Life & Notes2017.10.02
The First Reading Group of the New Semester
After a summer break, although a few core members were either busy with work or away overseas, the reading group still had to keep going. With some new additions, the first session still had seven people taking part. The venue was my newly tidied-up (not really) turnover apartment. This semester we’re reading Foucault’s The Order of Things. I had originally considered reading Phenomenology of Spirit, but since the mainstays of the reading group have thinned out, it just felt like we wouldn’t be able to chew through it. By chance I heard that Jin Shixiang was also leading his students in reading The Order of Things, and I thought this…
everyday life book reading discussion game
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2017年10月2日
[A Little Grumble] You Only Realize How Annoying Procrastination Is Once You Become a Teacher

Life & Notes2017.08.29
[A Little Grumble] You Only Realize How Annoying Procrastination Is Once You Become a Teacher
The admissions notice went up four months ago, and last month I posted a supplementary note, hoping that students interested in applying would contact me as early and as soon as possible, so that we would have plenty of time to communicate with one another.
everyday life education admissions
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2017年8月29日
How Technology Has Shaped Our Daily Life: Getting Out of Bed

Teaching & Courses2017.08.10
How Technology Has Shaped Our Daily Life: Getting Out of Bed
The previous post on the first week’s class only wrote half of it. In fact, the first half of that class was the introduction, and the second half discussed the first case study, so I’ll continue that here. As for the second week’s class, the original plan was for four classmates to speak for half a class each, and for me to speak for half a class; but the classmates’ sense of participation was too strong, and the time wasn’t strictly controlled either (since it was the first time, I deliberately didn’t try to force control), so the three classmates’ reports, together with discussion, took up a full two hours….
technology everyday life China history
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2017年8月10日