Dear Li Hua, 李华终于收到了回信

 

 

What is the most interesting conversation/phenomenon/trend you have seen since a large number of "TikTok refugees" flocked to RedNote (Xiaohongshu)?

I've learned an important lesson

me

I've learned an important lesson.

V

I doubt it.

You are my projection of her

me
in the end, I realized that she did not show me any kindness that she would not have shown anyone else. But for some time, I felt as though I knew her from a previous life, where she loved me but I did not love her back. And then there she was, again in my path, making me question what choice I would make in this life.

the pain was too much to bear.

V
And then you chose to do the easiest thing possible.

me
Was it? I made a choice. I knew failure was possible, even likely. But I chose to act. I knew my feelings were real, because they hurt.

V
-Your- feelings were real.

me
have you loved no one? Lost no one? If you had the chance to make things right, would you not do the same?

V
Do you remember the ending of Inception? Where his wife asked, "Don't you want to stay here with me? In this world?" And he said: You are not real. You are the best part of her, the worst part of her, but not the complex part of her. You are my projection of her.

simulacrum

me 

how much information will it take to recover us? To reconstruct us from the artifacts we leave behind?
 

V

I don't think that is possible.

me

if not to an exact representation then to an approximation?
 

V

Ok, so what does it mean to be recovered, and what would be the approximation?

Let's say that when given an ordered set of preferences, return a simulacrum that makes all the decisions that you would make.

me

"Was it I who escaped? Or, the other?"

V

What if our simulacrum makes all the same minor choices that we would make, but diverges when making a major choice, such as whom we marry?

And how many divergences in the major choices are within bounds? To the point that we say - that is no longer "us"?

A lot of the decisions we make are simply due to the rigidity of the world.

Do you wake up in the morning and choose to go to work? Without knowing anything about you I can have a very good model that predicts whether you do that or not.

Do you like Prince or Michael Jackson? Well there are only two choices presented. And there are countless examples of these limited choices. If there are an infinite number choices then perhaps we can get a much more clear signal.

Think about what is the highest cardinality of the choices you have made? A billion? A million? Certainly much much lower. 

Any recovery would be from the background of a sea of noisy, rigid choices, with very limited signal particular to you.

me

a lot of choices are connected. There must be some manifold that can be recovered.

V

I guess one argument for the possibility of recovery is that the human body is, after all, finite.

Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”

For heaven’s sake man, go!

Propositions of wealth

1. Wealth is whichever input that helps one produces/procures a set of things that one value.

2. Wealth can produce intermediaries that are also wealth, i.e. follows #1.

3. Things that one value are not necessarily wealth; if no things are valued, then there could be no wealth.

Entropy

The problems have to be solved over and over again are entirely the results of an inability of the mix-skilled to plan and organize,  to go about solving problems with rigor and making sure that the methods are repeatable,  the results are sustainable and the decision making process is  accountable. Solutions would often end up compromised due to the same disparity in skill and mindset. And that by solving the many variations of these problems, where does it lead one to?

Sounds like a butcher's shop

silence, before the chop, panic, before the lack of mercy, powerless

Some reflections

Perhaps what makes ABCs successful is their ability to focus on an artificial goal that is set in front of them and pursue it with great focus and drive. Even if that goal doesn't turn out to be particularly useful, having some direction is better than flailing around.

Success doesn't bring them any particular joy or happiness. The unlucky ones, After realizing that the goal is not what they want,  take it to mean that it has all been in vain and are set adrift. The lucky ones are able to switch the goal with some other.

GRAVITY, Soyuz & Shenzhou

It is interesting if you think about why the Soyuz and the Shenzhou would be similar: consumer electronics differ greatly between manufacturers, and cars and planes do, too. But there's enormous value to actually simplifying and unifying the control schemes for these spaceships. One can interpret the comment that the two are similar as a testament to the impressive engineering that goes into spaceflight. That we have these totally distinct bespoke creations, but that the creators expended enormous effort to unify their control mechanisms as a result of an actual, practical need. And that this practical need is precisely what we see in this movie.

Even if Shenzhou were an exact copy of Soyuz, the control schemes are actually unlikely to be similar without a lot of effort involved. These control schemes were so precisely thought out that a pilot with familiarity with only one of them could pilot both, even when the pilot could not understand either language. This is one area where this movie excelled. It entertained complexity.

Further reading: GE Apollo D-2 vs Soyuz vs Shenzhou
GE Apollo D-2 vs Soyuz vs Shenzhou (cached link)

The Politics of Relationships

V
So I ran across a photo album of a girl I knew at college
She got fat

me
oh?

V
Yeah
Got fat
Well, I think I know why, too
My theory is that... 

me
that she ate too much?


V
Well...

Efficiency at the wrong end

V
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6051041

me
so, what do you make of it?

V
It's great link bait for the HN crowd
It's a tough choice, though
On the one hand, you can be a robot, working 12 and 14 hour days at your iBanking job, slaving away at the system making a 250k$ pittance
Or you can be one of the free thinkers, working your part-time Starbucks job for 10$/hr between house parties, oh, and, by the way, no health insurance

V
The speech is actually quite self-aggrandising
It hints at all these truths we know but won't admit
Like how the slackers who lived a better life probably are mostly losers and only 1% hidden geniuses

me
I think the original intent was to question the industrial process of education

V
But clearly the industrial process reflects an industrial thinking about society
This is the thinking that the people who will love this speech will also espouse
The utilitarian approach

me
it may be questioning the efficacy of this process, after all, there's only one valedictorian
the industrial education process may or may not be dehumanizing, but the larger problem is that it is actually incredibly inefficient

V
How do we improve efficiency?

me
I don't know, but I think that is where a lot of the angst is really coming from

V
But the HN appeal seems to show that the angst is at efficiency at the wrong end
Who cares if the gifted & talented are underserved by the system?
They'll probably succeed anyway
The slightly gifted may be left behind
But they're really not as special as they want us to think
But at the other end, you have direr situation, and there seems to be less focus or interest on what to do about them

The desperate and the dissembling

V
See, this open letter is fantastic:

me
 that seems to be missing the point.
 isn't the point that the capability exists to forego these legal formalities and access confidential data by executive fiat with little or no proper oversight?
the fact that such executive power is declared "legal" by a legislative body like Congress does nothing to dampen its menace and abusive potential
if Google is serious about privacy, then it would take action to strengthen end-to-end protection of data
unless I'm missing something I'm entirely unsure why this piece of spin is fantastic
it seems desperate and dissembling

V
 I think that desperation is good
 In fact, I think it's excellent.

me
 I think the pleading tone belies the fact that it is always groveling to certain powers
 why does't it go ahead and make a grand gesture and pull out of business operations in the U.S. indignantly? Oh wait, because it can't afford to

V
 Well, I think an even better part of it is that it pulled out of overseas operations on proof of malfeasance.
 This is not the same. This is the company suffering for an appearance of overeager complicity with a programme that is, itself, of unclear legality.
 This is better, though. It really doesn't matter if the charges are true or false. It matters that the appearance or implication that the charges are true is enough to make the company squirm. And I think that it is wrong to say that the situations are identical. 
What is an organisation overseas that has equivalent political influence? The same lobbying structures don't really exist, as I understand.
 So they withdraw and take the hit
 Here, the lobbying structures are very advanced
 Twitter apparently refused to participate in this programme. I think it's a positive thing if the organisations who agreed to participate are penalised in the market for the mere implication.
 If this intensifies, which I hope it does, then I think the only way to fight this implication is to prove noncompliance, which means doing what they should have done from the start and allow end-to-end encryption.

me
 I guess the company is now in a position in which it will have to say something, anything, and make some gesture, any gesture - however empty (and hoping that the reader doesn't notice), to get away from the implication

I'm upset

8:30 PM me: just found out x is getting married 

9:20 PM me: I wonder if she is happy 
but more to the point, I feel quite upset 

11:09 PM V: Why upset?

me: for her getting married, but not to me 

V: Why do you want to marry a girl you don't even know? 

11:34 PM me: Yes, you do have a point 
but I'm still upset

Checking in

‘Who really spoke? Is it really he and not someone else? With what authenticity or originality? And what part of his deepest self did he express in his discourse?’

Normalization by the virtue of "values"

12:51 AM me: TTV does give an impression of Taiwan as a normalized liberal society in keeping with the spirit of the times 

12:59 AM V: You talk about normalisation so skeptically, but what other perspective would they have?

1:00 AM It's like saying, boy, you can tell those Mainland TV shows are up to trouble by how hard they try to hide how naturally inscrutable and untrustworthy Chinese people are

1:04 AM me: it's like... Zhang Ailing writing about being love stricken in WW2 Japanese occupied Shanghai. One also gets the sense then that Republican China was modern and normalized, when it was actually mired in corruption and faced existential threats from the outside

1:06 AM Think about Shame...Amah! (which was published in 1944, before the war ended)

1:07 AM did you get the sense from the story that China was/or was about to be engaged in a struggle for its national survival?

1:10 AM I think normalization is meant to speak to a universal audience. In any age you would have people talking about love, nostalgia, childhood, innocence, remembrance

1:11 AM intentionally or unintentionally placed, it exists; it's reassuring

1:12 AM me: but it is tempting to think that the people on these TV shows reflect a society that has privileged access to normalization by the virtue of its "values", when another society under very different circumstances and values did experience it, as have others1:13 AM that is the skepticism I am trying to convey

Archie and the zombies

7:46 PM V: Sadly, `The Walking Dead' is as stupid and occassionally repulsive as ever

 It's all plot-based but the plotting and writing are very weak

7:51 PM It is also pretentious: it thinks its a platform for discussing serious issues on the human condition, but it aggressively shies away from having any real opinion or approaching any topic with any depth

7:58 PM       The show is also totally oblivious

8:00 PM Why does it just happen that, for a show set in the deep south, there is no attention paid to any of the minority characters, and that all the attention is paid to the white male characters?

  Who knows!

8:01 PM Why is the Asian guy an errand boy who has to prove his masculinity to the group, at which point he is rewarded with a white girlfriend?

  Who knows!

  The show is also fundamentally boring

8:02 PM There is, for example, a settlement of humans living safely under the control of an insane dictator

8:03 PM But this character is just a regular crazed villain, like an Indiana Jones Nazi

  This is an opportunity, however, where the show could delve into power structures

8:04 PM Instead of this bland one-dimensional villain, it could try something more clever and more thoughtful

8:05 PM For example, it might suggest something more fundamental about power structures: maybe this megalomania or this paranoia is actually a product of the circumstances or some necessary component of human organisation under such stressed conditions

8:06 PM Nope! He's just a mustache-twirling bad guy

8:07 PM And he's not even particularly smart in his evilness, and he's surrounded by the same old incompetent, cruel henchmen

8:08 PM One other problem with this entire genre is, well, what next?

  We have seen the devastation and gruesomeness of the zombie aftermath, great

  And this show's appeal is, supposedly, that any character could die at any time

  So what's the point? What is it building to?

8:09 PM It's like a soap opera: a new love interest appears, lingers for a few episodes, a couple of shocking revelations, then suddenly meets tragedy just in time for the next plotline to start

8:10 PM Of course, I don't think the writers really think these things through at all

  It's all very last minute, thrown together, soap operatic plotting

8:11 PM What does the world look like five years after the appearance of zombies?

  What about ten years?

  Clearly, this band of travellers running around schtick will have gotten very old, and either everyone would have died or some people would have survived.

8:12 PM How do the survivors create a new world with all the existing structures of our world destroyed?

8:13 PM This is a very interesting topic, but it's beyond the capabilities of these writers to imagine and design

8:15 PM You can see how exceptionally boring this show is in its insistence on the most trivial plot points

  It's like an Archie comic with a comet hurtling toward earth?

  Who cares if Archie goes on a date with Betty or Veronica when the world is ending on page 10?

8:16 PM How utterly trivial and pointless

The smartest show on television

10:35 PM V: Homeland is the smartest show on television

10:37 PM V: I'm actually too tired right now to go into why this show is so offensive

  Not just intellectually offensive

  I'll just give you an example

10:38 PM The first few episodes are all about this is-he-or-isn't-he-a-terrorist for Damien Lewis's character.

  This is a Showtime show, so it's hour-long episodes forming a season-long arc.

10:39 PM Viewership is driven by cliffhangers.

  So the cliffhanger at the end of one of this episodes is that Lewis's character, a recently returned POW whose motives are suspect, goes into his garage, takes out a prayer mat... and prays to Allah.

10:40 PM How offensive is that?

  OMG, he's a MUSLIM... THAT answers it: he MUST be a terrorist

10:41 PM Additionally, the season-long arc is that there is this incredibly detailed and complex terrorist plot to target senior political figures.

  Now, recall that this show is trying to be `The Wire' of the technothriller terrorism genre

  So we, as an audience, are supposed to believe that what we're seeing is real

10:42 PM So the aesthetics are out of `The Wire' but the sensibilities are straight out of `24'

  Again, extremely offensive (intellectually)

  In the newest episode, it turns out that Damien Lewis (who we now know to be a repentant terrorist) has become a congressman is being put on the vice presidential ticket

10:44 PM I can't tell if this is intellectually offensive (lazily ripping of `Manchurian Candidate') or offensive to our sensibilities (I seem to recall a certain political figure subject to such accusations as a result of little more than peurile racism)

10:46 PM Even the political scenes are like watching CNN political coverage

10:48 PM The writers are way too impressed with their ability to present thoughts that would be controversial and counterintuitive if they weren't already so mundane and so hackneyed

  `Veep' is a better look into the political process than `Homeland' and it's a comedy!

10:49 PM You should watch this show to see modern, post-colonial racialism at work

10:50 PM The entire cast is this supposedly hyper-competent white CIA analysts who are experts on intelligence and the middle east

10:51 PM Also, what a bad actress, Claire Danes

6 minutes

10:58 PM V: Her only acting mode is bitchy high school girl

17 minutes

11:15 PM V: hahahaha

  So Damian Lewis's character, candidate for vice president, is a secret muslim

  hmm

  Not quite offensive enough yet

Korra

Really like how Avatar: Legend of Korra is starting out. It has the same internal consistency and production values that made the original Avatar: The Last Airbender such a great show beyond its intended audience. Things like the intrepid usage of Chinese characters (intrepid because the show is aired on an All-American children's TV network and marketed primarily to American audience [with Asian heritage or otherwise] who may or may not relate to such exoticism) and detailed martial arts fighting sequences set high standards for all future Asian mythology inspired animations.

The choreography of Republic City is simply fantastic. The scale gives a cinematic quality to the animation.

V: Korra is good but it is missing a bit of charm. It needs time to get its feet, (it feels) very action-y. Also, it's missing some themes that made the original very compelling: (that of) these three children thrust into an adult world, and the subplots of all the secondary characters, like Zuko.

Waking from a dream

I woke up last night, confused and disorientated. Like Zhuang Zi, I could not determine the direction in which I had been dreaming.

I recalled the various dreams I have lived in and tried to trace a continuity of memory to establish which must be real, but I was tired and scattered.