标签：sociology

From the China Zun Incident to AI Governance: Hu Yilin on New Technologies, Safety, and Social Mobility

AI & Scholarship2026.06.29
From the China Zun Incident to AI Governance: Hu Yilin on New Technologies, Safety, and Social Mobility
IntroductionAfter the Beijing CITIC Tower, “China Zun,” was struck by a small aircraft, low-altitude flight safety once again became a public issue. But in the view of technology philosophy researcher Hu Yilin, this accident should not be understood only as a low-altitude economy risk; it should be discussed within a much larger problem: whenever a new technology moves into mass use, society always tightens control in the name of safety, but whether that control is effective, who bears its costs, and who enjoys its benefits are often far more worth asking than the question of “whether we need safety” itself. After the China Zun accident, low-altitude safety was pushed into…
technology freedom Introduction to Philosophy of Technology sociology
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2026年6月29日
The Street Is Not a Tourist Attraction—Afterword to I, My Singapore, My Street, My Walks

Life & Notes2025.11.19
The Street Is Not a Tourist Attraction—Afterword to I, My Singapore, My Street, My Walks
Thanks to the introduction by Unfinished Bookstore and the invitation from Teacher Ye Xiaozhong, I wrote a postscript for this reissued local Singapore book. 《My Singapore, My Street, My Walk》 Chen Zhirui, Ye Xiaozhong, Zhou Decheng / 𨑨迌 Publishing, ISBN: 9789819444915 This book brought together many literati and writers living in Singapore, inviting them to depict, from their personal perspectives, various streets or places in Singapore. The styles are diverse: essays, poems, as well as textual research and arguments. Like the city of Singapore itself, this anthology is multiple and mixed, each beauty prized in its own way. Although there are many differences in form and style, these pieces still…
book reading culture book review sociology
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2025年11月19日
Huawendao Offline AMA, First Session: White Paper Presentation

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2022.11.13
Huawendao Offline AMA, First Session: White Paper Presentation
The first offline presentation event of “Huawendao” was held on September 23, 2022, at Meta Space in Wudaokou. What follows is a written transcript. First Half: Reading and Discussing the White Paper “Hua”: I’m one of the three initiators of Huawendao, I’m “Hua,” and today I’ll be reading through and explaining our white paper section by section. If anyone has any questions in the middle, please feel free to raise them at any time. What I’m talking about today is already the second version of our white paper. The first version was actually longer, with more than ten thousand characters, but after many people read it, they all said it…
China technology freedom Web3
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2022年11月13日
From the Altar to the Forum: The Practical Significance of the History of Science (A Review of Modern History of Science)

Culture & Public Commentary2022.01.27
From the Altar to the Forum: The Practical Significance of the History of Science (A Review of Modern History of Science)
This article was published in the April 2021 issue of Book City Magazine. It was a review from last year, but I forgot to repost it then. Since the magazine allows me to republish my own articles on my blog, I might as well put it here too. Making Science—An Over-the-Syllabus Title When Chinese publishers introduce foreign academic works, they often have the habit of changing the title. For example, A Short History of Modern Science: From the Steam Engine to Grebe Courtship, published by the Electronics Industry Press in 2018, had the original title “The Making of Modern Science: The Making of Modern Science: Science, Technology, Medicine and Modernity:…
book reading science history of science philosophy of science
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2022年1月27日
Who Is the Worst in “The Emperor’s New Clothes”?

Culture & Public Commentary2020.11.26
Who Is the Worst in “The Emperor’s New Clothes”?
This piece is just for fun, and is published only in encrypted form on Suixuan. Please do not repost. When I was little, I actually didn’t have much of an impression of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”; only when I grew up and thought back on it each time did I begin to feel that it held some meaning. Who is the worst person in this story? Clearly the tailors are bad: they deceived the emperor and his ministers. The ministers, who lied one after another about seeing the clothes in order to save face, are also bad. But the emperor, who deceives himself and others, is probably the worst of…
culture freedom faith sociology
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2020年11月26日
Using Unequal Technology to Promote Equality

AI & the Future of Technology2020.03.03
Using Unequal Technology to Promote Equality
Under the shadow of the pandemic, online education has made a great leap forward, and overnight primary, secondary, and higher schools across the country all switched on cloud-based classes. In the Internet age, online education may well be the inevitable trend, but a sudden leap made in haste will naturally bring many problems with it, especially since the ability to adapt to online education varies greatly from one region and one family to another. For example, on February 29, a ninth-grade girl in Henan, because her family was impoverished and she had to fight with her siblings for the family’s phone in order to listen to online classes, may have…
philosophy technology history of technology sociology
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2020年3月3日
The “Two Cultures” Debate Is Long Outdated

Culture & Public Commentary2019.07.02
The “Two Cultures” Debate Is Long Outdated
Published in China Science Daily (2019-06-28, p. 5, Culture) In 1959, the British writer C. P. Snow proposed the thesis of the “two cultures” in a lecture, sparking intense debate. Even sixty years later, the topic is still with us, and seems not to have gone out of date. But I want to put forward a seemingly out-of-place claim: the two-cultures debate is already passé, and there is not much point in still fretting over the issue Snow raised. First, let us return to the context of the time and see just what split between what two cultures Snow was actually talking about. Nowadays, when many people talk about…
culture science sociology intellectuals
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2019年7月2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
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
Course Summary for “A General History of Technology” (Student Comments and Summaries of Each Lecture)

AI & the Future of Technology2018.07.09
Course Summary for “A General History of Technology” (Student Comments and Summaries of Each Lecture)
The grades for the course have come out, and the first round of this course is now more or less a complete success. As for grading, I gave about half the students an A- or above, far exceeding the university’s recommended standard of 20%; I added an extra note and hope the university will approve it. At the same time, the number of students who failed because of plagiarism reached five, also beyond the recommended limit. But all of this was according to my own standards: giving high grades was not to curry favor with students, and failing students was not to make things difficult for them. My course also…
philosophy technology history of science scholarship
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2018年7月9日