flâneur

Tianyu Fang

11 followers · 12 following · 1017 views

on the atlas — 28

highlights — 43

  • 在1980年代的中国社会科学的恢复重建中，最引人注目的有两个彼此交叉的圈子，一是以《走向未来》丛书和《20世纪文库》为代表的学者圈，二是以原经济体制改革研究所和原中共中央书记处农村政策研究室为中心的“智囊圈”。
    项飙：中国社会科学“知青时代”的终结_思想市场_澎湃新闻-The Paper
  • 第一种主张的最优先目标是国家主权，第二种主张是民主生活方式，第三种主张则是身家生命。
    阙志克观点：只完成了一半的台湾备战计划-风传媒
  • For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.
    Monthly Review | Why Socialism?
  • 要推进高水平对外开放，更大力度吸引和利用外资。要有效防范化解重大经济金融风险，守住不发生系统性风险的底线。
    中共中央政治局召开会议 习近平主持会议_滚动新闻_中国政府网
  • I mentioned that I didn’t think this type of labor resistance carried much explicit political intention but workers’ reactions in itself against exploitation and abuse have always been an important foundation for potential labor struggles for itself in Chinese labor history. I believe my observation still hold true. I want to further elaborate on this a bit: As we have seen, most workers who participated in the uprising agreed to leave Foxconn once they received the payment. So, on the one hand, what the workers demanded and what the students and urban citizens demanded are not the same. The l…
    The Foxconn uprising in Zhengzhou - Tempest
  • There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a biopolitical commitment to maintaining life in a pandemic (this is precisely the position we advocate without resorting to authoritarian biopolitics); the problem is that the CCP’s overwhelming priority is its own legitimacy, with viral suppression becoming the locus of legitimising narratives during the pandemic. In this sense, the biosecurity embodied in China’s response to Covid-19 was less about ‘the securing of collective life against risk’ (Lincoln 2021: 46), and more about securing the life of the Party.
    Biopolitical Binaries (or How Not to Read the Chinese Protests)
  • This normalisation of death due to Covid—framing it as an inevitable part of life itself—represents a post hoc justification for the disastrous pandemic outcomes in much of the West, particularly the refusal to attempt to eliminate the virus in early 2020. It also sets up a false binary understanding of pandemic possibilities: either nihilistic necropolitics (the ‘business as usual’ model) or an endless spiral of intensifying authoritarian surveillance.
    Biopolitical Binaries (or How Not to Read the Chinese Protests)
  • Part of the problem here seems to originate from the very Leninst model these activists attempted to adapt. In this model, a conceptual and organisational distinction is made between the revolutionary vanguard party and the broader working class—the former is to lead and set the political agenda, whereas the latter is supposed to follow the former’s leadership in a rather passive manner. The emphasis was not so much on building the necessary organisational capacity for workers to take massive action as on making sure workers’ struggle unfolds in the correct political direction, under the guida…
    Leninists in a Chinese Factory: Reflections on the Jasic Labour Organising Strategy
  • Part of the problem here seems to originate from the very Leninst model these activists attempted to adapt. In this model, a conceptual and organisational distinction is made between the revolutionary vanguard party and the broader working class—the former is to lead and set the political agenda, whereas the latter is supposed to follow the former’s leadership in a rather passive manner. The emphasis was not so much on building the necessary organisational capacity for workers to take massive action as on making sure workers’ struggle unfolds in the correct political direction, under the guida…
    Leninists in a Chinese Factory: Reflections on the Jasic Labour Organising Strategy
  • Consequently, the participation of intellectuals and students in political discussion helped reinforce their elitist self-identity. The Chinese documentary River Elegy, extremely influential and widely viewed in the late 1980s, exemplified such elitist liberalism.
    The Forgotten Socialists of Tiananmen Square
  • According to Walder’s calculation, the overwhelming majority of causalities during the Cultural Revolution were committed by the CCP and the military repressing rebel workers after 1968. This remains to this day the bloodiest and most massive state repression in the history of the People’s Republic of China. In some cities, rebel workers’ organizations fought civil wars with the military and were brutally repressed. In the meantime, Mao and the party leadership launched attacks on the workers’ articulation of their socialist democratic vision, accusing it of being anarchist and Trotskyist.
    The Forgotten Socialists of Tiananmen Square
  • In sum, the mass movement initiated by Mao himself evolved independently into a socialist democratic movement, which threatened Mao and was subsequently repressed by him. In Wu Yiching’s words, the Cultural Revolution devoured its own children. The repression between 1968 and 1971 had a profound impact. On the one hand, the segments of rebel workers who were most militant, radical, and organized were physically decimated. On the other hand, Mao’s complete about-face left many workers and students disillusioned; they felt betrayed by Mao and believed that other Cultural Revolution leaders such …
    The Forgotten Socialists of Tiananmen Square
  • However, for workers, the students’ strategy didn’t make any sense. They saw Zhao Ziyang as a perfect example of a dictatorial bureaucrat who used his power to make millions for his family during the marketization reforms. They saw no difference between the moderate and hardliner factions.
    The Forgotten Socialists of Tiananmen Square
  • At the same time, workers and students also disagreed about strategy. From the very beginning, students assumed a posture of petitioning the party, seeking to convince the party leaders to make concessions. To win the party’s trust, students even held banners with slogans like, “We Support the CCP” during marches. In contrast, workers were much more hostile to the party and argued for an insurrectionary strategy. The WAF’s leaflets always called on people to rise up and overthrow oppressors.
    The Forgotten Socialists of Tiananmen Square
  • Here lies the irony of the movement. Student leaders repeatedly said that they intended to use their actions to “awaken” the masses. But in fact, a significant part of the masses was already “awake” and actively participating in the movement, yet the students showed little interest in talking to them.
    The Forgotten Socialists of Tiananmen Square
  • For workers, democracy and marketization were diametrically opposed. Marketization emboldened the same bureaucrats who already monopolized political power. Since bureaucracy and marketization were mutually constitutive, they had to be overthrown together. But for students, it was democracy and marketization that were mutually constitutive. Corruption and official hoarding during the marketization reforms reflected, not the flaws, but the incompleteness of marketization, as well as the fact that democratization was lagging behind economic reform. Therefore, students argued that democratization …
    The Forgotten Socialists of Tiananmen Square
  • However, the students’ hunger strike marked the beginning of workers’ participation en masse. Workers’ enthusiasm was seen not only in numbers, but in the fact that they started to organize their own rallies and marches and display their own banners and slogans. Workers became a major force in the movement from that point on.
    The Forgotten Socialists of Tiananmen Square
  • 也不像韭菜那样，割了一次还可以长起来，割错了，想改正错误也没有办法。
    论十大关系（一九五六年四月二十五日）
  • 第一点，应当肯定，一九五一年和一九五二年那一次镇压反革命是必须的。有这么一种意见，认为那一次镇压反革命也可以不搞。这种意见是错误的。
    论十大关系（一九五六年四月二十五日）
  • 共产党和民主党派都是历史上发生的。凡是历史上发生的东西，都要在历史上消灭。因此，共产党总有一天要消灭，民主党派也总有一天要消灭。消灭就是那么不舒服？我看很舒服。共产党，无产阶级专政，哪一天不要了，我看实在好。我们的任务就是要促使它们消灭得早一点。这个道理，过去我们已经说过多次了。 但是，无产阶级政党和无产阶级专政，现在非有不可，而且非继续加强不可。否则，不能镇压反革命，不能抵抗帝国主义，不能建设社会主义，建设起来也不能巩固。列宁关于无产阶级政党和无产阶级专政的理论，决没有像有些人说的那样“已经过时”。无产阶级专政不能没有很大的强制性。但是，必须反对官僚主义，反对机构庞大。在一不死人二不废事的条件下，我建议党政机构进行大精简，砍掉它三分之二。
    论十大关系（一九五六年四月二十五日）
  • Thus, DeLong establishes a sort of rhythm for modern history. Hayekian free markets create growth, but people want more — they want their Polanyian social protections. So they create systems like communism, fascism, or liberal democracy, designed to temper the market’s natural inequality and bring about a better society. Sometimes these systems work out; often, they end in catastrophe and tears. At the end of the story, in 2010, liberal democracy more or less prevails, and people are fabulously rich by the standards of any previous age. But they’re still not satisfied; all this wealth and free…
    Book review: "Slouching Toward Utopia" - by Noah Smith
  • Royals, to the ruling class, are worth the expense. They are effective tools of subjugation. British postal and rail workers canceled planned strikes over pay and working conditions after the queen’s death. The Trade Union Congress (TUC) postponed its congress. Labour Party members poured out heartfelt tributes. Even Extinction Rebellion, which should know better, indefinitely canceled its planned “Festival of Resistance.” The BBC’s Clive Myrie dismissed Britain’s energy crisis — caused by the war in Ukraine — that has thrown millions of people into severe financial distress as “insignificant”…
    Monarchs Belong in the Dustbin of History
  • For The Rehearsal, that basic idea is extended to six hours' worth of different permutations of role playing at varying degrees of recursiveness. The self-evidently absurd premise that Fielder wants to help people rehearse key moments in their lives serves mainly to clarify that everything is already a LARP when you choose to approach it that way. The rehearsals don't prepare participants for reality; they just demonstrate that reality consists of an endless string of interlocking performances in which anyone can be replaced by an impersonator or an imposter: It's Capgras syndrome played as co…
    Scene partners - by Rob Horning - Internal exile
  • Despite how they are sometimes touted, god games teach us little about "the realities of urban planning, or the gradations of cultural and technological histories, or communication between actual humans," Mandel argues. They show us "not how life works but how decision-making itself becomes escapism." The ability to make choices in the abstract simulates autonomy but also reveals it as empty in itself, a retreat from the world rather than a way to engage with it.
    Scene partners - by Rob Horning - Internal exile
  • NYT vs CCP. This is the obvious one, the Thucydides trap, the Great Power conflict between the US and China that many have predicted. But there’s a subtlety here. Many regular Chinese people don’t want such a conflict, and many Americans don’t either, but those who are invested in imperial ambitions on both sides — the paper subscribers and the party members — are into it. Networks are driving the states to war.
    Conflicts and Alliances | The Network State
  • The BTC pole is the opposite of both of these. It demands you must be sovereign. That means rather than bending to the CCP, or slitting your wrists as NYT demands, you hold your head up high. You hold your private keys locally, you don’t trust centralized corporations or governments, you’re self-sufficient and autarkic, you’re living off the grid. This pole is strong on the global internet, though it’s facing pushback from both CCP and NYT.
    Submission, Sympathy, Sovereignty | The Network State
  • It’s almost the same for the American Establishment, except the paper leads on everything. America’s CCP are its NPCs.
    Moral Power, Martial Power, Money Power | The Network State
  • What people would choose to constantly post new essays regurgitating the latest in regime propaganda, and indoctrinating their coworkers and family members? But it all fits if you think of them as China’s New York Times subscribers.
    Moral Power, Martial Power, Money Power | The Network State
  • And if you are finally cleared by the Party to join, you have a lifelong commitment to uphold, as Mo Chen writes:124 When the CCP hold a top tier meeting, you will be in your local party branch conference room to watch it live, and write essay on thoughts after view. Natural disasters happen, donate, mandatory. Oh you don’t know where to find the donation box? Don’t worry, it is deducted already from your salary… Everytime the Chairman of China releases important article address the issues of current affairs and overarching strategy for the next five years, you write that article 10 times, han…
    Moral Power, Martial Power, Money Power | The Network State
  • Most of us go through life like mini-masochists, constantly worried that our achievements must not be achievements if we managed to achieve them. We are like Grouch Marx, who didn’t want to belong to any club that would have him as a member.
    What People Are Really Doing When They Play Hard to Get
  • Gain diplomatic recognition. A startup society with sufficient scale should eventually be able to negotiate for diplomatic recognition from at least one pre-existing government, and from there gradually increased sovereignty, slowly becoming a true network state.
    The Network State in One Thousand Words | The Network State
  • When we think of a nation state, we immediately think of the lands, but when we think of a network state, we should instantly think of the minds.
    The Network State in One Sentence | The Network State
  • Before the tech giants of today, I combed through newsgroups, blogs, massive FAQs, and countless other resources built by people who felt, in part, a jolt of dopamine from the recognition that comes from contributing to the world at large. At Amazon, someone coined a term for this type of motivational currency: egoboo (short for, you guessed it, egoboost). Something like Wikipedia, built in large part on egoboo, is a damned miracle. I don’t want to lose that. I don’t think we have to lose that.
    Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
  • Structured properly, social capital incentive structures can serve as an invaluable incentive. For example, curation of good content across the internet remains an never-ending problem in this age of infinite content, so offering rewards for surfacing interesting things remains one of the oldest and most reliable marketplaces of the internet.
    Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
  • Agencies have sprung up in China to develop and manage influencers, almost like farm systems in baseball with player development and coaches. The speed at which social capital can be converted into your own branded product lines is accelerating by leaps and bounds, and nowhere more so than in China. Meanwhile, on Twitter, if one of your tweets somehow goes massively viral, you still have to attach a follow-up tweet with a link to your GoFundMe page, a vulgar monetization hack in comparison. It’s China, not the U.S., that is the bleeding edge of influencer industrialization.
    Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
  • Streaks, of course, have the wonderful quality of being unbounded. You can maintain as many streaks as you like. If you don't think social capital has value, you've never seen, as I have, a young person sobbing over having to go on vacation without their phone, or to somewhere without cell or wifi access, only to see all their streaks broken. Some kids have resorted, when forced to go abroad on a vacation, to leaving their phone with a friend who helps to keep all the streaks alive, like some sort of social capital babysitter or surrogate.
    Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
  • Was such a move inevitable? Not necessarily, but it was always likely. That’s because there is one scarce resource which is a natural limit on every social network and media company today, and that is user attention. That a social network shares some of that attention with its partners will always be secondary to accumulating and retaining that attention in the first place. Facebook, for example, must always guard against the tragedy of the commons when it comes to News Feed. Saving media institutions is a secondary consideration, if that.
    Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
  • Foursquare was this for me. In the beginning, I checked in to try to win mayorships at random places. These days, Foursquare is trying to become more of a utility, with information on places around you, rather than just a quirky distributed social capital game. Heavier users may have thoughts on how successful that has been, but in just compiling a database of locations that other apps can build off of, they have built up a store of utility.
    Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
  • Twenty-somethings craft one identity among coworkers during the day, then another among their friends outside of work. Often those spheres have differing status games, and there is some penalty to merging those identities. Anyone who has ever sent a text meant for their schoolmates to their parents, or emailed a boss or coworker something meant for their happy hour crew knows the treacherous nature of context collapse.
    Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
  • Young people are generally social capital poor unless they've lucked into a fat inheritance. They have no job title, they may not have finished college, they own few assets like homes and cars, and often if they've finished college they're saddled with substantial school debt. For them, the fastest and most efficient path to gaining social capital, while they wait to level up enough to win at more grown-up games like office politics, is to ply their trade on social media (or video games, but that’s a topic for another day).
    Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
  • Thus Stories is inherently about lowering the publishing hurdle for users and about a new method of storytelling, and any multi-sided network seeing declining growth will try grafting it on their own network at some point just to see if it solves supply-side social modesty.
    Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
  • This development is interesting for another reason: graph-based social capital allocation mechanisms can suffer from runaway winner-take-all effects. In essence, some networks reward those who gain a lot of followers early on with so much added exposure that they continue to gain more followers than other users, regardless of whether they've earned it through the quality of their posts. One hypothesis on why social networks tend to lose heat at scale is that this type of old money can't be cleared out, and new money loses the incentive to play the game.
    Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
  • Starting [at a young age] he’s read everything that he could find about business. The subject that interests him, he’s read newspapers, biographies, trade press. He went over to his grandfather who was a grocer and he read the progressive grocer magazine, and he read articles on how to stock a meat department... What he’s really done is he’s created this immense vertical filing cabinet in his brain of layers and layers and layers of files of information that he can draw back on now for more than 70 years worth of data. placeholder
    Curius / Onboarding