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Historical Significance or Practical Significance? — “Science: The Endless Frontier”

History of Science & Scholarship2022.01.26
Historical Significance or Practical Significance? — “Science: The Endless Frontier”
This article was first published in the January 2022 issue of Book Town https://read.douban.com/ebook/337719818/?&dcs=provider-63699269-%E3%80%8A%E4%B9%A6%E5%9F%8E%E3%80%8B%E6%9D%82%E5%BF%97 with slight revisions; the original manuscript is posted here. Is the Bush Report Outdated? Vannevar Bush’s Science: The Endless Frontier was originally a report Bush submitted to Roosevelt in 1945. That report laid the tone for U.S. science and technology policy after World War II and had a far-reaching influence. In 2021, CITIC Press published yet another new edition, with the cover and contents adorned with many commendations and comments, including a joint recommendation from more than twenty scholars and entrepreneurs at home and abroad, led by Ren Zhengfei and Shi Yigong. In its online promotion,…
book reading China technology science
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2022年1月26日
On VR (IV): If Houses Are Square, What’s So Strange About People Who See Squares? — On the Sensory Style of the Metaverse

AI & the Future of Technology2022.01.25
On VR (IV): If Houses Are Square, What’s So Strange About People Who See Squares? — On the Sensory Style of the Metaverse
In the earlier articles about the metaverse, I already said that the metaverse is not “virtual reality”—one path runs above reality, the other below it; these are two opposite roads. But just how different these two roads are, I still haven’t made sufficiently clear. Some people divide the development of the metaverse into two relatively independent dimensions: on the sensory dimension, simulation, realism, immersion; on the social dimension, openness, co-creation, decentralization. I basically agree with this division. Of course, first of all, I think the development of the metaverse places more emphasis on the social side, especially power relations and economic relations. But the path opposite to “virtual reality” that…
technology Aristotle Web3 environment
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2022年1月25日
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…
book reading technology book review history of technology
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2022年1月21日
Commentary on the Autumn 2021 Final Exam for A General History of Technology and Showcase of Outstanding Answer Papers

Teaching & Courses2022.01.18
Commentary on the Autumn 2021 Final Exam for A General History of Technology and Showcase of Outstanding Answer Papers
As usual, every course needs a closing summary. This time, the summary of A General History of Technology will be in two parts: for now I’m posting the commentary on the final exam, and in the next post I’ll summarize the student questionnaire and think through possible plans for improving the course in the future. Note: This was an online open-book exam, two hours long, with books and computers allowed, and with internet access for searching materials. The exam consisted of 7 open-ended essay questions. Each examinee chose any 3 to answer, with 100 points for each question, and the final exam score was the average of the three questions….
philosophy technology course Aristotle
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2022年1月18日
A Guide to Understanding Media: Means Are the Measure

AI & the Future of Technology2022.01.17
A Guide to Understanding Media: Means Are the Measure
This was a lecture program I recorded at Super Star half a year ago; a cut version can be found here https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1W34y1z7QD?from=search&seid=5300241720853418317&spm_id_from=333.337.0.0. The full version is probably on Super Star. The transcript of this lecture was handed to Li Shi for revision and enrichment, and was rewritten into a book review published in issue 10 of Chinese Media Technology in 2021, titled “Embracing McLuhan in Fragments—A New Perspective on Reading Understanding Media.” Here I’m posting the original spoken version of the script. McLuhan is an oddity in the history of scholarship: it is hard to categorize what sort of “-ist” he actually was. Naturally, when that happens, we generally just…
philosophy book reading technology media
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2022年1月17日
The Metaverse Is Hyperreality, Not Virtual Reality: From the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution to the Information Revolution

AI & the Future of Technology2022.01.05
The Metaverse Is Hyperreality, Not Virtual Reality: From the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution to the Information Revolution
“Metaverse” was last year’s big buzzword. I also discussed it a great deal on Weibo, in class, and in conversation, but unfortunately no media outlet ever invited me to write about it, so I never got around to writing anything systematic. Perhaps I could consider turning it into an academic paper, but then I’m always lazy. In any case, since I have a bit of inclination these past couple of days, let me first write an essay on it. (I will still turn this article into an NFT through Opensea, but in this era when the copyright consensus around NFTs is still far from mature, I nonetheless welcome reprints by…
culture technology Web3 tradition
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2022年1月5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
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2021年11月4日
The Biography of Objects: Methods and Significance in the History of Scientific Instruments

AI & the Future of Technology2021.11.03
The Biography of Objects: Methods and Significance in the History of Scientific Instruments
At today’s regular meeting we discussed the question of paradigms in the history of scientific instruments, and I offered some views. Here I’ll spell them out a bit more fully. At present, the history of scientific instruments does not seem to have formed a relatively unified and distinctive research paradigm. On this point, Teacher Wu seems inclined to think that studies of individual instruments belong to the “initial stage” of scholarship in the history of science and technology: instruments, like manuscripts, artifacts, and other primary historical sources, are the foundation of historical research. But through further study, the results we obtain from these basic materials still ultimately have to crystallize…
technology history of science scholarship history
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2021年11月3日
“People Are Ends, Not Means” — A Critical Review of China on the Cloud

AI & the Future of Technology2021.08.18
“People Are Ends, Not Means” — A Critical Review of China on the Cloud
This is also a commissioned book review, but because I took an explicitly critical stance, the piece apparently was not used (if it does get used, I will revise and repost it here). I am criticizing Alibaba, but not only Alibaba. In fact, many so-called internet companies that have achieved success do not necessarily really represent new thinking or new paradigms; they are nothing more than old capital and industrial logic dressed up in internet clothes. Some other so-called “successes” are nothing more than using the power of capital to carve up territory and seize the initiative, using rapid expansion driven by capital investment to squeeze out competitors prematurely and…
book reading technology book review human nature
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2021年8月18日
On VR (3): Some VR Game Experiences and the “Auditory-Tactile Space”

AI & the Future of Technology2021.08.16
On VR (3): Some VR Game Experiences and the “Auditory-Tactile Space”
A few days ago, while having a meal with students and talking about papers, we got onto VR-related questions again. I suddenly remembered that essays in a similar “series” usually stop at part one or two, and I felt rather ashamed of myself, so here I am continuing the previous post. I previously wrote Talking VR (II). After that there were actually three more pieces related to VR: On the Backboard — The Phenomenology of Beat Saber, AR Glasses and the “Brain in a Vat”, and Can VR Save Us from Our Smartphone Addiction? But the first two are mainly about philosophical questions, while the last one is a rewriting…
technology media McLuhan game
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2021年8月16日