标签：value

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…
technology culture Web3 Bitcoin
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2022年1月5日
Don’t Universities for the Elderly Teach You How to Play Games?

AI & the Future of Technology2019.02.16
Don’t Universities for the Elderly Teach You How to Play Games?
This Spring Festival, my wife and I, as usual, went home to keep our parents company. This year was a bit special: on the one hand, we finally finished our wedding ceremony last year (we had already been legally married long ago, but the ritual was only just completed), which put our parents’ minds at ease; on the other hand, they were also, one after another, just entering retirement. My parents had been retired in name for a long time, but in practice they had been running their own storefront all along. Last year they finally rented the shop out and let go of it to enjoy life for themselves….
technology education value game
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2019年2月16日
How Can Ethics in the Technological Age Welcome the Future? [Fourth Commentary]

Culture & Public Commentary2018.12.09
How Can Ethics in the Technological Age Welcome the Future? [Fourth Commentary]
This one was also published on Jiemian (for reprints, please contact Jiemian), but it was not a commissioned piece. I wrote it casually and sent it to them. The feedback was that the quality was worse than the previous two, which may have had something to do with the rather rambling way I wrote this one, or perhaps with the fact that the issues this article faced were more tangled and its viewpoint correspondingly more moderate. Still, they did publish it, but with very extensive changes: the title was altered (Can Technological Progress Really Tailor Human Value Preferences?), and the He Jiankui theme was also removed (don’t ask why; just…
technology commentary tradition value
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2018年12月9日
The Ontological Basis of ‘Scarcity Makes Things Valuable’—With a Discussion of Why Bitcoin Is Valuable

Philosophy & Thought2018.01.22
The Ontological Basis of ‘Scarcity Makes Things Valuable’—With a Discussion of Why Bitcoin Is Valuable
This was originally meant to be a short piece about Bitcoin. On a whim I gave it a flashy title, but as I wrote it, it turned into a philosophical essay. In fact, the title is not all that outrageous. From the very beginning, what drew my attention to Bitcoin was that I saw it as an application of my own philosophical ideas. Over the following years, I have continued to use my philosophy of technology or media philosophy to interpret the significance of Bitcoin. By setting a fixed cap of 21 million, Bitcoin guarantees scarcity. As the saying goes, “what is rare is precious”; Bitcoin is so scarce, so…
philosophy Web3 Bitcoin value
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2018年1月22日
Bitcoin: A Layperson’s Introduction

Web3 & Bitcoin2017.07.27
Bitcoin: A Layperson’s Introduction
After hyping Bitcoin for so many years, I’ve written quite a few articles, but on careful reflection, I still haven’t written a popular explanation of Bitcoin’s basic principles. Although you can find a ton of them with a casual search online, I haven’t found one that really suits my taste. During a spell of battling Shanghai’s heat, I had a sudden urge to write one myself and see how it goes. (This article is obviously not very timely; what’s hot lately is the Bitcoin fork crisis. I posted two Weibo updates about this issue recently, and they’re appended at the end.) I hope to explain Bitcoin’s basic principles in as…
technology Web3 Bitcoin value
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2017年7月27日
On Political Correctness (I): Political Correctness and the God’s-Eye View

Culture & Public Commentary2017.02.10
On Political Correctness (I): Political Correctness and the God’s-Eye View
Trump, from the campaign to the inauguration, has been a hot topic in Chinese cultural circles, sparking countless polemics and splits. From the standpoint of enjoying a good spectacle, I actually quite welcome Trump taking office; after all, he has set off several fires just a few days into his term, and it’s been lively enough. Of course, I only want to watch the show; I do not want to take sides. If I had to say so, then from a personal standpoint I certainly look down on Trump as a person. The key issue is not so much his opposition to political correctness as his anti-intellectual tendency. But as…
culture freedom commentary politics
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2017年2月10日
Is It Worth Building a Super-Large Particle Collider?

Culture & Public Commentary2016.09.07
Is It Worth Building a Super-Large Particle Collider?
Recently, Mr. Yang Zhenning published an article opposing China’s construction of a super-large collider, turning the matter into a hot topic. The director of the Institute of High Energy Physics, Wang Yifang, has already rebutted Mr. Yang’s arguments point by point, so I’ll just make a few offhand comments on what the two of them have said. Mr. Yang Zhenning is a clear-headed man, and has always tended to think from the standpoint of ordinary people at the bottom. I remember that when he gave a lecture at Peking University and spoke about the comparison between Chinese education and American education, he thought that the usual saying that American education…
China science commentary value
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2016年9月7日
Is It Worth Building a Super-Large Collider?

Culture & Public Commentary2016.09.07
Is It Worth Building a Super-Large Collider?
Recently, Mr. Yang Zhenning published an article opposing China’s construction of an ultra-large collider, turning the matter into a hot topic. The director of the High Energy Physics Institute, Wang Yifang, has already refuted Mr. Yang’s arguments point by point, so I’ll just offer a few casual comments on what the two of them have said. Mr. Yang Zhenning is a clear-headed man, and he has always tended to think about problems from the standpoint of ordinary people at the bottom. I remember that when he gave a lecture at Peking University and spoke about the comparison between Chinese education and American education, he said that what people commonly call…
China science commentary value
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2016年9月7日
On Garbage (1): From Discarded Things to Useless Things

AI & the Future of Technology2016.01.02
On Garbage (1): From Discarded Things to Useless Things
My postdoctoral research project at the time was to work on a history of garbage. I am ashamed to say that, although I have been collaborating with Professor Tian for more than a year, there has been little real progress under this topic, and whether I will ultimately be able to turn it into my exit report is somewhat worrying. One compromise would be to write the exit report on the history of technology or the philosophy of technology, while inserting discussions of garbage at appropriate points. My intention to study garbage was not a whim, nor did I think of this topic merely because I happened to collaborate with…
technology Heidegger Scientific Revolution value
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2016年1月2日
Bitcoin’s Value Depends on Holding It

Web3 & Cypherpunks2014.10.11
Bitcoin’s Value Depends on Holding It
http://zl.yibite.com/point/2014/1011/23952.shtml After several months of doldrums, Bitcoin’s price has recently sunk to a new low, and it is frankly appalling. At a time like this, talking about prices again is perhaps fitting. Of course, I have no intention of predicting Bitcoin’s short-term trend. Although I did not expect it to fall this badly beforehand, it is really not a big deal either; it was always a long-term investment, something to be left there like a pension policy. Besides, over the past year, almost every indicator and performance metric in the Bitcoin world, apart from price, has been developing steadily, so there is nothing to worry about. The reason I am…
Web3 Bitcoin value money
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2014年10月11日