高耀洁：我一生几次逃难

我这次外出，完全是为了让艾滋病人用鲜血和生命换来的资料，不能在这个世界消失。我要为他们发声。2007 年 3 月，我赴美国领取「生命之音」奖，很多美国要人和权贵出面留我住在美国安度晚年，我没有接受，仍坚持回国了。因为我还要继续为艾滋病人伸冤，很多事情没有完成。但是这次，我不得已出走，因为我已经没有说话的地方了。

我是一个风烛残年的老人，非万不得己，不会只身离开自己的国家。这次盲目外出，不知所如，只是为了把这些资料 (关于中国艾滋病疫情的三本书) 留给后人。苍苍大地，茫茫人海，何处是我的归宿？

Stop trying to have “interesting” friends

If I think about what kind of person I want to be close friends with—my best man at my wedding, people I would do anything for, the ones I can rely on when I’m at my lowest—smart and interesting really aren’t front of mind.

An alternative view is that friends are aspirational. You know you will change and grow, you acknowledge you don’t know for certain where you’re going, and your friends are the people you most want to share that journey with.

What should we look for in friends? What is a better north star to guide our relationships?

One thing I keep coming back to is open-mindedness. I’m drawn to people who don’t take themselves too seriously.

Mearsheimer, John J., and Sebastian Rosato. 2023. How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300274967.

Building a Universal AI Scraper

https://timconnors.co/posts/ai-scraper

The scraper is designed to analyze a given web page, extract text information from any relevant parts, perform any necessary interactions, and repeat until the goal is reached. The author ultimately created an assistant based on the GPT-4-Turbo model that can analyze a web page and extract text information from relevant parts, and can decide what type of interaction is necessary to accomplish the goal.

最近在 Pandoc 和 Quarto 的 GitHub repo 中发现了 Typst。Typst 是一种新型标记语言排版系统，由 Rust 编写，代码开源，旨在提供与 LaTeX 相当的强大功能，同时更易于学习和使用。使用 Typst 可以轻松生成优美的 PDF 文档（之后还将支持输出为 HTML 和 EPUB），并且渲染速度非常快。

Typst 的出现，源于两位来自柏林的开发者对 LaTeX 的不满意。不得不说，使用 LaTeX 确实很麻烦，不仅要下载硕大无比的 TeX Live 发行版，还要忍受极不友好的报错信息，对于中文用户来说，设置字体更是麻烦。很高兴有 Typst 这类工具的出现，推荐尝试一下。

上图是我跟着 Typst 文档写的一个例子，左侧是源码，右侧是生成的 PDF 文档。与 LaTeX 相比，生成 PDF 的速度极快，几乎可以实现实时预览。

乍一看上去，Typst 的标记语法有点复杂，不过你可以不用深入学习它，而只需要使用 Pandoc 或 Quarto 将 Markdown 转换为 Typst，然后再生成 PDF。此外，你也可以 在线使用 Typst。

AI and the transformation of social science research

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming social science research, particularly with large language models (LLMs) that can simulate human-like responses and behaviors. LLMs have the potential to supplant human participants for data collection, generate responses across a wider range of parameters, and enhance policy analysis by reproducing views of different theoretical or ideological schools of thought.

However, incorporating LLMs into agent-based models (ABMs) introduces new challenges due to their differing operational principles. Researchers must establish guidelines for the ethical use of LLMs in research, addressing concerns related to data privacy, algorithmic fairness, environmental costs, and potential misuse of LLM-generated findings.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi1778

Remembering Li Keqiang: From divergence to convergence in Zhongnanhai

The unexpected passing of Li Keqiang, the former Chinese Premier, has prompted widespread public mourning, reflecting a profound sense of loss for a time of economic potential and openness. In assessing Li’s representation, achievement, and limitation, this study explores his policy orientation concerning state–market relations in comparison to General Secretary Xi Jinping.

Employing a semi-supervised machine learning method, our analysis reveals that Li favoured market-oriented policies, while Xi displayed a preference for state-centric approaches. Notably, the findings show an initial divergence between the two leaders, followed by a substantial narrowing of the gap during Xi’s second term. This study also finds that discursive differences between the two leaders were linked to a decline in firm-level investment, suggesting the gap in policy orientation may generate significant political uncertainty. As the first attempt to quantify Li Keqiang’s policy position and influence, this study contributes to the literature on the leadership dynamics in economic policy-making and its outcomes.

https://www.harvard-yenching.org/research/remembering-li-keqiang-from-divergence-to-convergence-in-zhongnanhai

Fengshui in the Qing Dynasty courtroom 风水

Fengshui was not a guide to sofa placement, but a long-established body of Chinese knowledge about the natural environment in relationship to the constructed world.

Brown has written a new book about this rich and overlooked past, “Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China,” published this month by Princeton University Press. In it, he examines the place of fengshui in Chinese society, specifically as a doctrine of knowledge used to inform legal cases and public policy decisions at a time of industrialization and modernization. In this sense, fengshui was not a matter of private taste, but a crucial part of the public sphere.

晚清的「风水」很有意思，不只是因为从今天的视角看来很新奇，更与学术界爱提的 modernization 紧密相关。

1867 年，恭亲王奕䜣给滨海沿江通商口岸地方将军督抚大臣发文，就即将进行的关于修订《天津条约》的谈判征求意见，其中很多大臣都谈到了风水，见《籌辦夷務始末（同治朝）第六册》。

1868 年，奕䜣在会见美国驻北京临时代办 William H. Seward 时，也以风水的理由对美国在烟台附近开采金矿 表达关切。

截图出自：Wu, Albert. 2022. “Superstition and Statecraft in Late Qing China: Towards a Global History.” Past & Present 255 (1): 279–316. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtab017.

Four possible futures of China predicted in 2015 by Youwei, a pseudonym for a scholar based in China:

1. A new party might be born, one that could govern China with efficiency and benevolence. Policy reforms would continue, the country’s economic potential would be unleashed, and the resulting productivity and progress would boost the new party’s legitimacy and power. Such a future is unlikely.

2. The second and most likely future, at least in the short term, is a continuation of the status quo. This might be what we are experiencing.

3. The third possible future: democratization through a crisis. It has not emerged yet.

4. A fourth scenario—controlled and sequenced democratization—would be the best for China but is unfortunately unlikely.

Youwei. 2015. “The End of Reform in China.” Foreign Affairs 94 (3): 2–7. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2015-06-04/end-reform-china.

Probably this is one of the best articles on China’s destiny I read in 2023.

Response to George Qiao by the author of the book.

Dykstra, Maura. 2023. “Response to George Qiao’s Review of Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine: The Administrative Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century Qing State.” Journal of Chinese History 中國歷史學刊, December, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2023.35.

历史的残局

https://wuyagege.substack.com/p/ebf

Bye, RStudio/Posit!

A little over two weeks ago, I was told that I was laid off and my last day would be 2023-12-31.

The end of a relationship often does not imply anything wrong or a failure of either party. Instead, it can simply indicate a mismatch, which is normal. People just change.

For the first time, I’m mentioning my Github sponsorship page in my blog: https://github.com/sponsors/yihui. I will be very grateful if anyone could support me for a few months before I transition into the next stable phase of life. I will notify you when I do not need the sponsorship any more so you can cancel it if you are on a monthly tier.

https://yihui.org/en/2024/01/bye-rstudio/

Yihui Xie’s work and writings helped and inspired me a lot. You could support him if you have ever benefited from his work.

https://vxtwitter.com/yiqinfu/status/1743696420085825829

左手墨迹分享的是蒋廷黻 1938 年所著的《中国近代史》，中华书局 2019 年再版的 增订本。

我下载了《中国近代史》这本书的 10 个版本：

1938-藝文研究會.pdf
1939-藝文研究會-再版.pdf
1939-青年書店.pdf
1959-啓明書店.pdf
1996-东方出版社.pdf
1999-岳麓书社.pdf
1999-上海古籍出版社.pdf
2004-上海古籍出版社.pdf
2006-世纪出版集团.pdf
2016-中华书局.pdf

浏览之后，我发现只有二十世纪三十年代出版的 3 本书的内容是完整的。以「第七节 蒋总裁贯彻总理的遗教」为例，之后的版本要不直接删掉了这一节，要不删掉其中部分段落字词，或者像中华书局这样使用「口口口」代替「蒋总统」、「共产党」、「反动」等。

中国古代王朝史官记录先朝皇帝各类事迹所编写的「实录」，其英文翻译为 Veritable Records，显然之后的出版社再版蒋廷黻先生的《中国近代史》不是 veritable 的。