标题其实是我对Niall Ferguson的2012年睿思讲座之一，“Civil and Uncivil Society”的翻译。
我从2013年开始听Podcast，第一个对我影响深远的节目就是2012年的睿思讲座，主题是“The Rule of Law and Its Enemies”, 而”Civil and Uncivil Societies”是最后一讲。我从这一讲听起，因为开篇的故事很有意思——这是我第一次听说扶轮社——主体内容很有价值，结尾的问答更是火花四溅，我被深深吸引进去，这才进入了Reith Lectures这个宝藏。其实我很早就翻译了这个系列，但是因为其中多处谈到中国事务，放出来难免惹事，就一直躺在电脑里。现在人工智能大发展，翻译的价值有限，也就没那么多热情了。
I assume you all know what a prisoner’s dilemma is. But the recent video from Veritasium on this topic is still quite a feast – actually, that’s an understatement for me. For me, it is a revelation. Here is what I think: 继续阅读From Prisoner’s Dilemma to the Invisible Hand to the Great Divergence
A friend recently shared an article by the former Australian Ambassador to China.
Australia is muddled on the middle kingdom
Now, I understand the author is close to him, so I aim to be respectful, but there were moments when I felt the piece echoed sentiments that is rather out of touch.
I agree with the author that politicians should be practical and well-versed in their dealings. In viewing of this, a diplomatic trip to Beijing might indeed be productive.
However, certain points in support of this stance struck me as questionable. For instance, the author’s claim that Beijing’s air quality improved mainly due to relocating steel plants seemed oversimplified. A conversation with Hebei locals might offer a more rounded perspective.
No introduction needed.
Bloomberg just made big news.
In its recent issue, it featured a cover story: “The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies“, detailed how Chinese military planted malicious chips into motherboards manufactured by Taiwanese supplier, supplying motherboards to a major server provider whose servers were used by almost 30 US companies, including Amazon and Apple. And by doing this, Chinese military gains potential access to these companies and even US military.
Here’s the malicious chip on the motherboard:
Here’s a illustration of that process directly from their website: 继续阅读Hardware hack and supply chain security
Some of you may have seen this video, since it has been around for several years:
(For those you feel so compelled to up-vote this video, sorry I don’t have such a button on my blog, but you are welcome to go to YouTube and search for “Short Comedy Sketch” and express your sympathy there. :)) 继续阅读Call for smartasses
9月27日更新，果然已经被删掉了。
对这个问题的回答，感觉有可能被删，所以在这里保留一份：
@猛虎细嗅蔷薇 的回答已经切中了要点：
是否有利于经济发展，是否能带来经济发展，是否有实用价值，是一个非常单一的标准。而人类社会的发展是非常多维度的。无数美好的理想，信念，从实用角度一文不值。那是因为只知道从实用角度看，本来就错了。李明确说，党的执政合法性来自于“舍我其谁的执政能力”，但是说出来的执政能力表现完全集中于经济发展。 由此看来，李世默的演讲，其实本来不值得探讨。
另一方面，这个演讲的新鲜之处在于，显然他在为现行体制辩护——如果如楼上某些人所言，他仅仅是在 消解宏大叙事，那就完全不必赞美现行体制了，也不必论证党的执政合法性了——论证的起点却是共产主义宏大叙事的幻灭。此外，他选择直面执政合法性这个敏感 话题。直率的不像体制内！
但是，只要看看李世默的经历https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%8E%E4%B8%96%E9%BB%98你就会明白，李世默所讲的，绝非仅代表他个人。他的观点，很可能代表了princelings的内部共识。这种内部共识的要点包括：
我个人认为，可喜的是，看得出党在走向开放，开始自信地以西方话语为自己论证。可悲的是这种思路明确地把其他价值，比如尊严，自由，平等，开放，民主，法制等排除在外。
BTW，我来回答这个问题，也是因为最近王常委又谈起了合法性。王常委早年也曾是青年导师，如今主导反腐成就斐然，观点自然格外引人注目。如果王常委跟李世默一样观点，其他人只可能更为封闭保守。
As I said before, I don’t think there is a single “Chinese way of teaching”. In addition, the Chinese ways of teaching are also changing. However, there are characters that are commonly agreed to be associated with Chinese ways of teaching: emphasis on discipline and order, rely primarily on repetition and memorization.
In the discussion provoked by the BBC documentary, “Are our kids touch enough: Chinese school”, I’ve seen a lot of people praising these characters. Well, here’s an antidote to the obsession of academic achievement:
Mind you, I don’t see this as a full argument against Chinese way of teaching. I’d love to get more cases like Gillian Lynne from Mr. Ken Robinson. However, this talk at least challenges us, reminds us to look further, wider, beyond academic achievement, in education. I’ll provide a Chinese translation to the transcript in another post.
刚刚阅完兵，朋友圈里又开始流传这样的文章：
文章没说这位华裔教授的诗文是什么时候发表的，给读者的感觉是该诗作是特意为阅兵在西方引起的反应而做。但其实，这篇文章早就流传过。其中，最引人关注的是新华网曾经在2011年发文：
新华网言之凿凿文章作者名为“林良多”，实际上根本未经查证。在这里有完整的故事：
简单总结一下：
2008年4月23日，有人（ID：Vicky. H）在华盛顿邮报的讨论区发表评论，说他收到这么一封邮件，据传邮报已经发表过了，但是没有证据。诗篇结尾签名是Duo-Liang Lin, Ph. D.
第二天，4月24日下午6:11，另外一个ID，Bidwell声称他也收到了别人发的这首诗，但其中并无作者签名。
同一天稍晚一些时候，晚上10:06，一个ID叫做“From_WP”的人直接发表了这么一首诗，没有任何其他说明。
4月25日，一个ID叫做“A Poem Published by the Washington Post. ”的人又重新贴了这一首诗，加上了Duo-Liang Lin的签名。
5月16日，华盛顿邮报注意到了这首诗，在“opinion”栏引用了这首诗，但是注明：
此后国内媒体多声称这首诗是“林良多”教授发表在《华盛顿邮报》上。其实，Duo-Liang Lin的中文名字叫做“林多樑”；他向华盛顿邮报说明过自己并非作者；华盛顿邮报说的很清楚，作者身份无法确认。
至此，可以很清楚的看到，所谓海外华人教授怒斥西方纯粹是编造。
P.S. Times在2008年也有一篇文章提到了这首诗：
OK, I use this title just to bring attention.
After watching all 3 episodes of the BBC documentary, Are our kids tough enough, Chinese School, in my opinion, there is one aspect of British kids that really needs to improve: coping with competition and failure.
When British kids were in the PE class, they were very upset that they might fail. Philippa actually sobbed on not passing one item. And she said:
“I just don’t think comparing yourself to others is a good, healthy life style.”
Philippa is not alone. In the 1st episode, we saw another boy sobbed during PE class.
Well, I have to agree with Philippa that it is not a healthy life style. But competition is part of life. Ranking students all the time with different measures is of course too much, but exposing them to a certain dose of competition is essential to their development. To Philippa, I’d say it’s equally not healthy if young people are so scared of competition that they sob on a failure in just one PE preparation. I don’t want my daughter to be so fragile.
So this is the advantage of Chinese teaching. Put all the drawbacks aside, this is probably one thing Britain should learn from Chinese teaching: To get the kids used to competition.