标签：innovation

The Cost of Innovation: Another Kind of Lesson from the History of Technology — A Review of The Technology Trap

AI & the Future of Technology2022.01.21
The Cost of Innovation: Another Kind of Lesson from the History of Technology — A Review of The Technology Trap
This article was published in China Science Daily (2022-01-21, page 3, Reading); the title was changed to “A Different Kind of Inspiration: Seeing the Suffering of Ordinary People in the History of Technology.” It was also posted on their WeChat public account, under the title “Let’s Talk This Time About the Suffering Brought to Humanity by Technological Progress!” I’m reposting it here. I teach a general history of technology course at Tsinghua, and over the past few years I have also given quite a few public lectures on special topics in the history of technology. One question such courses or lectures often face is this: what guiding significance does the…
technology book reading history of technology book review
阅读全文

2022年1月21日
Biography of Things (Continued) — Educational Significance, Secondary-School Science and Technology Innovation, and the Bottleneck Problem

AI & the Future of Technology2021.11.04
Biography of Things (Continued) — Educational Significance, Secondary-School Science and Technology Innovation, and the Bottleneck Problem
Yesterday’s comments still weren’t finished. What I wrote yesterday was that research in the history of scientific instruments can be positioned as “artifact biographies,” in which meaning is formed around the artifact itself. But that does not mean that, beyond this intrinsic meaning, research in the history of instruments has no other benefits. We can also make an analogy with biographical research. Unlike general academic research, biographical works as the outcome of research on individuals often lie somewhere between scholarship and popularization. Apart from non-academic biographical literature, research-based biographies also tend to have a popularizing dimension, making them easier for general readers to read. Between intervening in academic issues and…
technology history of science history education
阅读全文

2021年11月4日
Bitcoin: Is There Little Time Left for Poor Students?

Web3 & Cypherpunks2021.01.08
Bitcoin: Is There Little Time Left for Poor Students?
“Bitcoin is just a chain-letter pyramid scheme. The state banned it long ago. This thing has no credit backing, nor is it legal tender, and the central bank strictly forbids financial institutions from participating. I myself bought some before, but luckily I came to my senses long ago and sold it all. Not only did I not make money, I even lost a bit—you tell me if that’s infuriating or not. I advise you not to touch it either. Don’t be a fool and end up as the sucker who takes the bag from the Americans; that stuff was all designed by them to rip off the Chinese.” —The above…
technology Web3 Bitcoin blockchain
阅读全文

2021年1月8日
In what sense is “basic science” the cause of “bottlenecking”?

AI & the Future of Technology2020.10.03
In what sense is “basic science” the cause of “bottlenecking”?
In that earlier interview transcript, what I posted as the “original draft” was in fact not the original draft either; the part about “basic theoretical research” was added only at the reporter’s prompting. As for the proposition that “the reason for the bottleneck is weak basic research,” I myself actually have reservations about it. Of course, I am willing to partly support this view, first because the official wording that “encourages free exploration and full exchange and debate” is indeed rare and valuable. Second, in a certain sense, this formulation is correct. But we have seen many completely wrong tendencies. For example, some people think that in order to break…
technology China history of science commentary
阅读全文

2020年10月3日
Why Is Innovation an Economic Question? — An Analysis of the Concept of Innovation from the Perspective of the History of Science and Technology

AI & the Future of Technology2019.12.17
Why Is Innovation an Economic Question? — An Analysis of the Concept of Innovation from the Perspective of the History of Science and Technology
This piece was commissioned for Tsinghua University’s internal circle; the subtitle was a suggested theme, and the main title was chosen by me. At the time of publication, it was somewhat abridged (mainly with a few examples cut, which did not affect the overall argument), and some sentences were marked with emphasis, which I have restored here. These days we advocate “mass entrepreneurship and mass innovation,” and “innovation” seems to be everywhere; everyone admires innovation and pursues innovation. Whether at the level of the nation or at the level of industries and enterprises, “innovation” is indeed extremely important and certainly deserves everyone’s attention. But precisely for that reason, we need…
technology China innovation Industrial Revolution
阅读全文

2019年12月17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…
technology China culture science
阅读全文

2019年8月25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…
technology China scholarship commentary
阅读全文

2018年8月7日
The “Entrepreneurial Spirit” That Breaks the Balance

Culture & Public Commentary2018.01.29
The “Entrepreneurial Spirit” That Breaks the Balance
This article was published in China Science Daily (January 29, 2018, p. 1, major news). When it was published, a few sentences were deleted, but the key content was all retained. The reason I framed it around the report to the Nineteenth National Congress was that this was required by the commission, but I can accept this kind of accommodation; especially since my final paragraph was not cut, the critical stance remains quite clear. [caption id="attachment_7189" align="alignnone" width="212"] China Science Daily[/caption] The report to the Nineteenth National Congress proposes to “stimulate and protect entrepreneurial spirit, encouraging more social actors to devote themselves to innovation and entrepreneurship.” In this way, “entrepreneurial…
technology China commentary innovation
阅读全文

2018年1月29日
The “Entrepreneurial Spirit” that Breaks the Balance

Culture & Public Commentary2018.01.29
The “Entrepreneurial Spirit” that Breaks the Balance
This article was published in Science and Technology Daily (2018-01-29, p. 1, News) and, at the time of publication, a few sentences were deleted, but the key content was retained. The reason I focused on the report to the Nineteenth National Congress was simply that the commission requested it, but I can accept this kind of accommodation; especially since my final paragraph was not cut, the critical stance remains quite clear. [caption id="attachment_7189" align="alignnone" width="212"] Science and Technology Daily[/caption] The report to the Nineteenth National Congress proposed to “stimulate and protect entrepreneurial spirit, encouraging more social actors to devote themselves to innovation and entrepreneurship,” thereby elevating “entrepreneurial spirit” for the…
technology China commentary innovation
阅读全文

2018年1月29日
An Interview on Science and Technology in the Magazine China Youth

AI & the Future of Technology2018.01.24
An Interview on Science and Technology in the Magazine China Youth
This is a written interview that was published in the first issue of China Youth magazine in 2018. When it was published, it seems several questions were deleted, but the answers that were used were scarcely edited at all (especially the last answer), though a few sentences were added for me in a couple of places. Here I am posting the original version. 1、By the end of June 2017, among the world’s top ten internet companies by market capitalization, five were Chinese, and among the world’s 221 emerging “unicorn” companies, Chinese firms accounted for nearly 30 percent. In contemporary China, technological力量 represented by the “new four great inventions” (high-speed rail,…
technology China history of science philosophy of science
阅读全文

2018年1月24日