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Tag Archives: China
China’s New Silk Road Economic Belt
Eight jarring quotes from a recent Salon article by Pepe Escobar, a correspondent for Asia Times, suggest to me that China is going to fly past the United States as the preeminent global power–perhaps as early as a decade from … Continue reading
Breeding for Intelligence? A Google Employee Asks the Question to Researcher Stephen Hsu of the Beijing Genomics Institute
In the below Google Tech Talk, Stephen Hsu talks to Google employees about the search for the genes behind intelligence (and seeks to recruit them into an ongoing study being conducted at the Beijing Genomics Institute). I shit you not. … Continue reading
My “Candide” Retort to Margaret MacMillan
It’s 2014. A hundred years ago, the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand initiated a series of calamitous events that brought on World War I. And the way WWI ended (with the Versailles Treaty) led to yet another series … Continue reading
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Tagged China, John Gray, nationalism, optimism, pessimism, philosophy, psychology, religion
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What’s Coming (A Prediction)
A century from now, were you and I to see it, I think we would exclaim, like Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, “O brave new world that has such men in it!” And I worry that those men will not be religious … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, Darwin, eugenics, evolution, humanism, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, science fiction
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Not Waving, But Drowning
At the Daily Beast, Megan McArdle sees college as the American middle class’s last desperate bet for economic security in the fast-shifting global economy: If employers have mostly been using college degrees to weed out the inept and the unmotivated, then … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, China, college, critical thinking, education, jobs, the middle class, universities
4 Comments
Chinese News Report Mistakes a Sex Toy for a Mushroom!
No, this is not the Onion. And no, it’s not a meaty sea mushroom of some sort. It’s a hot pocket. _____ Yes, this is amusing, but it’s also enervating philosophically, don’t you think? How human it is to be fooled! It … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged bread, China, comedy, critical thinking, funny, humor, mushrooms, reason, sex, sex toys
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What do Harvard, MIT, Coursera, and Udacity Have in Common?
Answer: ambitions for offering massively open online courses. MOOCS. That’s what they’re calling them. This is really great news, and certainly puts on display the Internet’s power for good [New York Times]: Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a … Continue reading
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Tagged America, China, Harvard, humanity, India, internet, MIT, technology, the future
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Mao Luther King?
I don’t like the look or feel of the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington D.C. For one, he looks fat, and he wasn’t particularly fat. And there’s something weirdly Maoist about it—a throwback to 20th century communist … Continue reading
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Tagged Abraham Lincoln, America, China, civil liberties, civil rights, freedom, Mao, Maoism, Martin Luther King, sculpture, Thomas Jefferson
2 Comments
The Future is Not Us: The New York Times on China’s Rapid Rise
The following quotes from a recent piece in the New York Times (“Power in Numbers: China Aims for High-Tech Primacy”) really jumped out at me. Here’s the first: China’s great weakness may prove to be too much government control. Chinese … Continue reading
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Tagged America, capitalism, China, science, silicon valley, technology, the 21st century, The Arab Spring, the Chinese spring
6 Comments
Jiaozhou Bay Bridge: China’s 26 Mile Sea Bridge is the Largest Ever Built
This is not an artist’s simulation of a 26 mile sea bridge that the Chinese would like to build someday. It’s a 26 mile sea bridge that the Chinese actually opened recently. They are starting to run circles around the … Continue reading
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Tagged 21st century, America, architecture, beauty, bridges, China, economics, economy, the future is now, wake up
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The United States vs. China: Who Will Win the 21st Century’s Outer and Inner Space Races?
The writing is on the wall, Nebuchadnezzar. This little tidbit was in the Washington Times late last year: The median age of NASA’s manned space engineers is now over 55. Over a quarter are past retirement age. Meanwhile, China’s average … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, China, eugenics, genome, science, space, space exploration, the moon, United States
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What is Humanism, and Where is 21st Century Atheism Taking Us, Really?
Just as Unitarianism is the featherbed for catching the falling Christian (Erasmus Darwin), humanism is the featherbed for catching the falling atheist. What humanism functions to conceal for the squeamish atheist and agnostic (and I am one of those squeamish agnostics) is … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, China, Darwinism, eugenics, evolution, God, humanism, jerry coyne, Nietzsche, nihilism, the future
25 Comments
China vs. America: Advantage the United States (Because of Its Mind Wells)
If a recent projection is to be believed, China and the United States will be at gross domestic product parity sometime around 2016 (each country with a GDP in the 18-20 trillion dollar range). And because China’s growth is likely … Continue reading
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Tagged China, conscience, economics, feminism, free speech, freedom, Harvard, mind wells, Saudi Arabia, silicon valley, United States, women's rights
7 Comments
American Tea Party Politics Arrives in China?
Mark Lilla, writing in the New Republic, tells a fascinating anecdote, which occurred just a few years back, of an end-of-semester discussion that he had in his office with a bright student from Beijing that he taught at the University … Continue reading
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Tagged carl schmitt, China, conservatism, herderianism, leo strauss, nationalism, neoconservatism, tea partiers, weimar
39 Comments
China’s Quiet Brain Drain (Contrasted with America’s Mind Wells)
Do you live in a brain drain society (like China) or a mind gathering—or mind well—society (like the United States)? The Atlantic’s James Fallows has been living in China for many years, and recently made this astute observation: Because 95 percent of the world’s population … Continue reading
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Tagged America, brain drains, China, free speech, freedom, John Locke, Liu Xiaobo, mind wells, San Francisco, the 21st century, the Enlightenment, the future
4 Comments
2014: The Nine Sky Gardens of Shanghai Tower are Coming
When Shanghai Tower opens in 2014 it will be a building that you’ll likely want to put on your “architecture to see before you die” list. Nebuchadnezzar’s famed Hanging Gardens of Babylon (circa the 7th century BCE) are going to be … Continue reading
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Tagged 21st century, architecture, China, gardens, gensler, hanging gardens of babylon, parks, penis envy, shanghai tower, skyscrapers, trends
1 Comment
Yet Another Reason to Enroll Your Children in Mandarin Language Courses
A little quote from an Associated Press report this week on China’s role in the global skyscraper market: The U.S. high-rise market is “pretty much dead,” said Dan Winey, a managing director for Gensler, the Shanghai Tower’s San Francisco-based architects. … Continue reading
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Tagged 21st century, America, China, compact flourescent lightbulbs, economy, lightbulbs, skyscrapers, zeitgeist
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Prometheus Unbound 