二十世纪五十至七十年代的口号和照片，出自 Mao’s War against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China。
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TomBen’s Web Excursions
二十世纪五十至七十年代的口号和照片，出自 Mao’s War against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China。
Shapiro - 2001 - Mao’s war against nature.pdf
2.9 MB
Shapiro, Judith. 2001. Mao’s War against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511512063.
Page 6:
> Over the course of the Mao years, the enemy shifted: it was variously said to be the Guomindang, the imperialist West, the revisionist Soviet Union, or land-hungry India. Meanwhile, the struggle against perceived internal threats from counterrevolutionaries, “rightists,” and other “black” elements was at times so convulsing that it threatened to bring Chinese society into a state of collapse.
Page 69:
> Britain, China’s traditional enemy and a symbol of Western imperialism, was one nominal adversary, but victory was to be won not by military engagement but by “catching up” in industry, as measured in tons of steel. Nature was the other great enemy, to be conquered and forced to yield grain in a rapid agricultural transformation. A “war against nature” was propagandized in explicitly military terms.
Page 6:
> Over the course of the Mao years, the enemy shifted: it was variously said to be the Guomindang, the imperialist West, the revisionist Soviet Union, or land-hungry India. Meanwhile, the struggle against perceived internal threats from counterrevolutionaries, “rightists,” and other “black” elements was at times so convulsing that it threatened to bring Chinese society into a state of collapse.
Page 69:
> Britain, China’s traditional enemy and a symbol of Western imperialism, was one nominal adversary, but victory was to be won not by military engagement but by “catching up” in industry, as measured in tons of steel. Nature was the other great enemy, to be conquered and forced to yield grain in a rapid agricultural transformation. A “war against nature” was propagandized in explicitly military terms.
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AI Like ChatGPT Are No Good at ‘Not’
Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept of negation. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
The problem is that the task of prediction is not equivalent to the task of understanding.
Why don’t the phrases “do not” or “is not” simply prompt the machine to ignore the best predictions from “do” and “is”?
That failure is not an accident. Negations like “not,” “never” and “none” are known as stop words, which are functional rather than descriptive.
So why can’t LLMs just learn what stop words mean? Ultimately, because “meaning” is something orthogonal to how these models work. Negations matter to us because we’re equipped to grasp what those words do. But models learn “meaning” from mathematical weights.
Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept of negation. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
The problem is that the task of prediction is not equivalent to the task of understanding.
Why don’t the phrases “do not” or “is not” simply prompt the machine to ignore the best predictions from “do” and “is”?
That failure is not an accident. Negations like “not,” “never” and “none” are known as stop words, which are functional rather than descriptive.
So why can’t LLMs just learn what stop words mean? Ultimately, because “meaning” is something orthogonal to how these models work. Negations matter to us because we’re equipped to grasp what those words do. But models learn “meaning” from mathematical weights.
Quanta Magazine
Chatbots Don’t Know What Stuff Isn’t
Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept of negation. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
TomBen’s Web Excursions
#林语堂 发明的明快打字机 Mullaney, Thomas S. 2017. The Chinese Typewriter: A History. 1st edition. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. pp. 244-247
SIXTH TONE
Hanzi, From Print to Screen
Open your smartphone’s default Chinese-language input system and start typing. Odds are the text will display in simple, clear, somewhat blocky typeface. This is Heiti, a relatively young category of typefaces — but already the default on digital devices…
这几段很好地解释了为什么当代中国人爱给外国人贴上「辱华」的标签，因为 The relations of the Chinese with surrounding areas, and with non-Chinese peoples generally, were colored by this concept of Sinocentrism and an assumption of Chinese superiority. The Chinese tended to think of their foreign relations as giving expression externally to the same principles of social and political order that were manifested internally within the Chinese state and society.
出自 Fairbank, John King, ed. 1968. The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674333482.
By the way，Fairbank 就是大名鼎鼎的美国汉学家费正清，我也是读完才知道这是他的英文名字。
出自 Fairbank, John King, ed. 1968. The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674333482.
By the way，Fairbank 就是大名鼎鼎的美国汉学家费正清，我也是读完才知道这是他的英文名字。
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TomBen’s Web Excursions
The ChatGPT King Isn’t Worried, but He Knows You Might Be he compared his company to the Manhattan Project. As if he were chatting about tomorrow’s weather forecast, he said the U.S. effort to build an atomic bomb during the Second World War had been a “project…
FixTweet / FixupX
Andrew Michael (@andrewmichaelio)
Sam Altman reconfirms that he has ZERO equity in OpenAI
Introducing the ChatGPT app for iOS
https://openai.com/blog/introducing-the-chatgpt-app-for-ios
https://apps.apple.com/app/openai-chatgpt/id6448311069
https://openai.com/blog/introducing-the-chatgpt-app-for-ios
https://apps.apple.com/app/openai-chatgpt/id6448311069
Openai
Introducing the ChatGPT app for iOS
The ChatGPT app syncs your conversations, supports voice input, and brings our latest model improvements to your fingertips.
谁是「编程随想」？
https://www.bumingbai.net/2023/05/ep-048-program-think/
阮晓寰妻子贝女士的 Twitter 账号：https://twitter.com/ruanxiaohu32309
https://www.bumingbai.net/2023/05/ep-048-program-think/
阮晓寰妻子贝女士的 Twitter 账号：https://twitter.com/ruanxiaohu32309
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Henry Kissinger explains how to avoid world war three
“We’re in the classic pre-world war one situation,” he says, “where neither side has much margin of political concession and in which any disturbance of the equilibrium can lead to catastrophic consequences.”
In his view, the fate of humanity depends on whether America and China can get along. He believes the rapid progress of AI, in particular, leaves them only five-to-ten years to find a way.
In Nazi Germany war was inevitable because Adolf Hitler needed it, Mr Kissinger says, but China is different.
Mr Kissinger sees the Chinese system as more Confucian than Marxist. That teaches Chinese leaders to attain the maximum strength of which their country is capable and to seek to be respected for their accomplishments. Chinese leaders want to be recognised as the international system’s final judges of their own interests.
Some Americans believe that a defeated China would become democratic and peaceful. Yet, however much Mr Kissinger would prefer China to be a democracy, he sees no precedent for that outcome. More likely, a collapse of the communist regime would lead to a civil war that hardened into ideological conflict and only added to global instability. “It’s not in our interest to drive China to dissolution,” he says.
they share a suspicion of the United States, but he also believes that they have an instinctive distrust of one another. “I have never met a Russian leader who said anything good about China,” he says. “And I’ve never met a Chinese leader who said anything good about Russia.” They are not natural allies.
AI cannot be abolished. China and America will therefore need to harness its power militarily to a degree, as a deterrent. But they can also limit the threat it poses, in the way that arms-control talks limited the threat of nuclear weapons.
“We’re in the classic pre-world war one situation,” he says, “where neither side has much margin of political concession and in which any disturbance of the equilibrium can lead to catastrophic consequences.”
In his view, the fate of humanity depends on whether America and China can get along. He believes the rapid progress of AI, in particular, leaves them only five-to-ten years to find a way.
In Nazi Germany war was inevitable because Adolf Hitler needed it, Mr Kissinger says, but China is different.
Mr Kissinger sees the Chinese system as more Confucian than Marxist. That teaches Chinese leaders to attain the maximum strength of which their country is capable and to seek to be respected for their accomplishments. Chinese leaders want to be recognised as the international system’s final judges of their own interests.
Some Americans believe that a defeated China would become democratic and peaceful. Yet, however much Mr Kissinger would prefer China to be a democracy, he sees no precedent for that outcome. More likely, a collapse of the communist regime would lead to a civil war that hardened into ideological conflict and only added to global instability. “It’s not in our interest to drive China to dissolution,” he says.
they share a suspicion of the United States, but he also believes that they have an instinctive distrust of one another. “I have never met a Russian leader who said anything good about China,” he says. “And I’ve never met a Chinese leader who said anything good about Russia.” They are not natural allies.
AI cannot be abolished. China and America will therefore need to harness its power militarily to a degree, as a deterrent. But they can also limit the threat it poses, in the way that arms-control talks limited the threat of nuclear weapons.
The Economist
Henry Kissinger explains how to avoid world war three
America and China must learn to live together. They have less than ten years
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孙燕姿在她的网站上写了一篇「我的 AI」的文章，回应了最近很火的「AI 孙燕姿」，写得真好。
中文版：https://www.makemusic.sg/new-blog/wodeai
English version: https://www.makemusic.sg/blog/wodeai
中文版：https://www.makemusic.sg/new-blog/wodeai
English version: https://www.makemusic.sg/blog/wodeai
MAKE / MUSIC
我的 AI — MAKE / MUSIC
当我正在为自己凸出的肚子和孩子们的日常琐事烦心时，AI孙燕姿已正式“出道”，于是我决定来写一些对它的感想。 我的粉丝们都已跳槽，也同时接受我就是一名冷门歌手的事实，而我的AI角色也成为了目前所谓的顶流。毕竟该怎么跟一个每几分钟就能推出一张新专辑的“人”比呢？ 无论是ChatGPT、AI或叫什么名字都无所谓，这个“东西”能够通过处理海量的信息，同时以最连贯的方式拼接组合手头的任务，来模仿和/或创造出独特而复杂的内容。等一下，这不就是人类已经在做的吗？之前我们一直坚信，思想或观点的形成是机器无法复制的任…
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Yuen Yuen Ang was asked: What do you think is important for college students to know about China?
One reply impressed me: That the CCP is not a monolith which only makes the correct decisions. It makes mistakes, and reforms itself when necessary.
Other replies, from the non-Chinese perspectives, are worth reading as well.
One reply impressed me: That the CCP is not a monolith which only makes the correct decisions. It makes mistakes, and reforms itself when necessary.
Other replies, from the non-Chinese perspectives, are worth reading as well.
Twitter
I was asked: What do you think is important for college students to know about China? 🤔
Curious, what do you think? 👇
Curious, what do you think? 👇
China’s security state is going totally bonkers
https://twitter.com/donaldcclarke/status/1663618302885634048
https://twitter.com/donaldcclarke/status/1663618302885634048
X (formerly Twitter)
Donald Clarke (@donaldcclarke) on X
More evidence (if it were needed) that China's security state is going totally bonkers: I tried downloading Wang Zhiqiang's "中国法律史叙事中的“判例”" ("Precedent" in the Narrative of Chinese Legal History) yesterday from CNKI and got the message below.