分类： 未分类

鼓励教育也好，长辈宽容也罢；我自认从小到大还是一个挺被照顾的人 —— 半瓶子醋的晃荡容易得到表扬；自以为是的乱来也容易被原谅。自己又是个有那么点呆的人，很容易就信以为真。慢慢就养成了膨胀的心态，喜欢什么事情不掂量掂量自己的斤两就冲在最前面，也犯了不少错误：不考虑他人感受也好，不知道自己丢脸也罢；还有不懂装懂或者冒犯了别人不自知之类的，不一而足。

问题可能是我的记忆力（目前）还算不错。结果很多事情今天回想起来大抵要么后悔要么尴尬；于是慢慢学会了谨小慎微：做事努力小心翼翼得不敢越雷池半步，努力让自己懂事乖巧不犯错误。可是一方面自己说到底可能也不是一个多懂事多没有脾气的人，所以时不时还是制造点名场面；另一方面发现你不说话别人确实也会把你当成哑巴，以为你真的是个没有内容的面团可以搓长捏扁。所以最近几年觉得自己在膨胀和胆小之间反复横跳，不该争的事情疾言令色，该表达的事情忍气吞声，总是踩不到那个对的鼓点。

会反思自己为什么这么不会判断轻重，想想可能一个原因是自己太患得患失了吧：总想要证明自己是好的对的，自然会在表现自己和循规蹈矩之间不知所措。这么说来，好像放下得失心是显而易见的答案。可惜自己终归是身在局中的人，说着不在乎得失多半只是嘴上用来自欺欺人的口号；再说了，放下得失心恐怕也就放下了对得的追求；金庸说得好，“胜故欣然败亦喜”的人，恐怕计算都懒得计算，哪里下得出好棋呢？

那怎么办呢？大概有两个想法；第一可能是要知道自己到底在意什么。是在乎被人说自己刚愎自用，还是怕人说自己唯唯诺诺；是更不想自作多情，还是更不想冷漠自私；是更怕自己平庸无奇，还是更怕自己装模作样。大概知道了自己的底线，才能挑好什么东西要争，什么东西要让。

第二可能是要对自己诚实。虽然可能很多时候是用潜意识做的选择，可是总会给自己找一个冠冕堂皇的理由。可是非要坚持那些冠冕堂皇的理由，难免就会陷入死要面子活受罪的境地；只有承认自己的揭示偏好和内心的污七麻黑，才能真正让自己放下应该放下的，去争取自己应该在乎的。

可是话又说回来了，福柯告诉我们，人类还是要面子的动物，要不然怎么会被社会规训呢。笑一笑罢，人总是不能免俗的。

更不懂事一点的时候写文章非常喜欢引用豪猪，大概用法是这样的：

我们就像带刺的豪猪一样，为了取暖而彼此靠近，又因为疼痛而彼此分开。总有一天我们能找到合适的距离。

—— 那个时候还不知道什么是PID控制，不然的话大概会像现在的我一样，绞尽脑汁插入一段PID控制和段子中的豪猪如何相似的议论。人还真是本性难移呢。但是我扯远了。

小时候与自己和解的方式是教科书式的：我不完美，但是我为自己的每一个部分而自豪。或许我不是最成功的那一个，但我尽力做到了自己能做的最好；或许我放弃了更“好”的选项，但那些不是我喜欢的；不管对错，走过的路都是我自己的人生，我从不后悔。总的来说，我就是我，是不一样的烟火。

觉得长大一点之后的一个进步是对自己更诚实一点：我不完美，对自己的过去也不无后悔。会希望能够弥补以前的错误；会想忘记自己的尴尬时刻；会知道自己并没有做到能做的最好；也会盘算在一些岔路口做不一样的选择的话自己如今会身在何方。觉得现在的版本是最喜欢的自己，或许只是因为自己在合理化自己的现在而已。

另一个觉得自己长大一点的部分是意识到自己的行为有多少是为了迎合他人的眼光。可能喜欢上理科也是因为大家都说聪明的孩子应该选理科；可能读聂鲁达不仅是因为他狡黠而古怪，也是想要别人觉得自己欣赏品味没有太低。或许自己的每一个决定， 自己都在潜意识的思考别人将会怎样看待自己，而自己又该如何维护自己。

可是解构多了，难免就会陷入对意义和独特性的质疑：如果现实是自己不得不接受的妥协，那它值得珍视的地方又在何处；如果难免为他人的眼光期待所规训，那到底有多大程度的自我属于自己？而那些引以为傲的人生信念，到底又有多少是自欺欺人而已？

一种做法是解构到底：人生如戏，谁不是在骗自己呢？世间一场大梦，看谁的梦更美一点罢了。另一种做法是竖起防御：或许有我不得不妥协的事情，但是我也坚持了我的坚持。假以时日，我总归会离梦想更近一点。

写这篇文章的此刻，我也不知道哪种答案更好一点。多少有点像豪猪的刺该竖起来多少的问题，不是吗。

“那宝玉的情性只愿常聚，生怕一时散了添悲，那花只愿常开，生怕一时谢了没趣；只到筵散花谢，虽有万种悲伤，也就无可如何了。因此，今日之筵，大家无兴散了，林黛玉倒不觉得，倒是宝玉心中闷闷不乐，回至自己房中长吁短叹 ”

我是一个在聚会后半程看表就会感到一阵曲终人散的紧张的人，所以看到这段描写会心有戚戚，有的时候会想，宝玉宴席散去时大概也有林妹妹那样的焦虑吧，“桃李明年能再发，明年闺中知有谁？” 只是林妹妹比他更解构罢了。

一些关于年龄的细节挺有趣的。比如说有人会把20岁说成奔三，把30岁说成奔四。偶尔会想这种四舍五入一个亿算法的来源：或许我们害怕体内滴答作响的时钟，而这种把终点无限拉远的方法能够从某种角度上缓解焦虑吧 —— 哈哈哈哈你看跟39的人比我还年轻呢！然而话又说回来，39岁和31岁的区别在哪里呢？为什么一个手指数量决定的进制问题会让我们如此紧张？我猜，大概人类过于愚蠢，对时间的流逝毫无感觉，需要把时间用某一个特定的日期和数字标定才能意识到离衰老和死亡更进了一步吧。

这篇文章的题目叫哈德斯的仆人，意思满直白的，因为越来越觉得，冥王虽然生活在阴曹地府，我们的生活却不可避免的被死亡支配着。也包括游戏。例子大概不难找，比如健身。除了那个明显的例外，美国男政客（是的，性别刻板印象无处不在）的形象几乎跟健身房是紧密联系在一起的。奥巴马会安排他在伊利诺伊的私教来白宫给他上课。布什说他喜欢跑步，福奇也曾经是个跑步者，Beto O’rouke 喜欢跑步接受采访，用气喘吁吁的记者来展示他的健康。而这种对健康体魄的追求大概又和对死亡的恐惧有着千丝万缕的关系 —— Paul Ryan自述里有提到他少年时候在家发现父亲的尸体让他从此以后沉迷健身房。拜登团队经常用他对Peleton自行车的热爱来回应对他健康状况的质疑，也会经常听到家长前辈的教导 —— 要珍惜身体，不然老了后悔就来不及了。体检，人体工学和饮食结构被越来越多的人关注 —— 卡路里，嘌呤，升糖指数，从这个角度来说，现代中产阶级的生活方式和对衰老死亡的反抗是密切相连的。

然而再完善保养的机器也有自然的使用寿命，给这样的努力染上了一点西西弗斯式的色彩。到底为什么我们要努力延迟一个不可避免的结局呢？或许是对未竟事业的野心，害怕“出师未捷身先死”？然而我越来越怀疑，如果生活没有终点，我们真的会做同样的事情吗？考虑到拖延症的严重性，很难相信自己到时候不去再旅游一次，去把没有追完的番追完，去读个不一样的专业，总之把实现梦想的事情推后到9012年再去实现。

所以与其说是想做什么事情，不如说是害怕选择消失吧。就好像毕业或者旅游打卡一样，知道你还有机会尝试的时候，大概不会要一份全套的鸡蛋灌饼冒着胃病的风险把自己吃撑。但是你再不吃以后就没机会吃了怎么办？有的时候会觉得做这样的选择有点像大学里安排课程表 —— 因为可能一门课你毕业前不会再开了，所以你决定修掉它以防后悔。

然而课程表排得再满，大概也会有安放不下的课程。所以会想追逐某种意义上的生命延续。在自建网站的社区里，一个永远的热门话题是“如果你遭遇意外/去世，你的个人网站/NAS要怎么转交给伴侣/子女”。似乎知道自己的网站在身后仍然会存在，会给自己带来某些意义上的解脱似的。类似的，一个单身者/丁克家庭常常面临的质疑是“等你老了怎么办” —— 你看，死亡甚至规训着我们的繁衍，至于这种规训是社会的还是生理的，就不得而知了。

这个时候就会觉得Coco是一部很深刻的电影，以及人真的很自信 —— 其实，又有谁能保证后人记得你是谁呢。

不如举杯自嘲的笑一笑罢，作为凡人，真的很难不怕死呢。

本周Android 12在Google I/O上发表了，主打的特性是重新设计的用户界面。虽然我有很多好朋友都在Android团队，我也相信他们在背后为这个版本做了很多我看不到的贡献，但是我还是很想吐槽这件事。

原因大概有两条，一方面我觉得这是一种“过度工程”（Over-engineering）。从Android M以来，几乎每个版本都会重新改造Android的设计。然而我已经很长时间对Android的设计没有什么意见了，反倒是一个新设计意味着我又要重新适应一个新系统，我已有的使用习惯和已经购买的主题/图标等有可能会变得更不适用。更重要的是，我觉得Android影响我的体验的部分并不是她的设计不好——对我来说，应用隐私的忧虑，无线网和5G之间的切换，蓝牙设备偶尔掉线，应用时不时会死机（或许是三星UI的锅），或者是Google助手一年比一年慢的启动速度其实更影响我的使用体验。拿GMail的新界面举例子，老界面几乎是立即加载的，新界面速度肉眼可见的变慢。当我看到巨大的设计重构的时候，我会忍不住想，这些工程资源去打磨其他部分的体验不好吗？

另一方面，我觉得频繁的重新设计接口的结果常常会变成只求好看不求好用，是一种“形式重于内容”的直接体现。比如说我觉得Android的通知栏每年都改设计，但是一年比一年更不好用，体现在两个方面，一是为了视觉效果，有效信息密度越来越降低，为了“清晰明了一目了然”分了更多的区，字体越来越大，带来的效果是通知栏往往有两屏长，有效信息要滚屏才能看见，“一键清空通知”的按钮反倒是越来越不好按；二是界面的逻辑越来越复杂，本来简单的“通知——清理”的逻辑现在变成很多类别，有的通知可以取消，有的通知会始终驻留。比如说，通知滑动这个操作，当滑动距离不大的时候不会消除通知，而是会出现“通知设置”，我的手机屏幕比较窄，所以经常误触，然而第二次同样的滑动却会消除通知，本来只需要开环控制的操作，现在却需要根据反馈来调整。不仅如此，这些“接口设计”往往缺少文档和说明，导致我直到这周开始写这个post才搞清楚这个操作的逻辑。类似的一个设计增加逻辑复杂度的例子是安卓的手势导航 —— 本来左侧边缘是一个几乎通用的呼出菜单的操作，自从侧滑这个动作被用作返回键的功能之后，有的app的菜单是按住边缘呼出，有的app是在界面右滑呼出，有的app干脆把菜单绑定在了返回键上。好看倒是好看了，接口本身的功能却不好用了。

这种重新设计界面的热潮，我觉得或许一方面是对“直觉”的用户接口的追求，希望用户接口能够不用学习，不占空间就能够魔术般的实现用户需求；另一方面或许是对“控制”的偏爱，希望用户能够按照厂商设定的场景、设定的方式得到设定的体验，而不是交给用户工具来实现他们自己的目标。这两者似乎都指向有一个无需权衡损益，无需用户选择的最佳体验，可我对这样一个最佳答案的存在，多少有点怀疑。

本周巴以冲突和袁隆平逝世算是热点话题，有趣的是，我的timeline上对这两件事情的意见似乎和对大陆政局的意见高度相关。另外一个我觉得值得关注的点是1619项目的创始人被UNC board of trustee 拒绝tensure —— 疑似和1619 Project引起攻击有关。好吧，这就是我们生活的世界：阵营比一切都重要。

下周见。

Earlier today, I was thinking about how I need to write a post today and how I did not feel the time passing until the to-do item popped in my mind. And I realized time is a bit like observer effect or double-slit interference — the amount of time seems to decrease as soon as you try to think about how much time you have. It is kind of a trope observation but captures my inner fear of death surprisingly well.

This week, the New York Times published another detailed report on the sterilization effort of minority women in Xinjiang, China.. It is good, and you should read it, along with their previous report on Re-education camps. There are also anecdotal videos accusing Han teachers of using corporal punishment towards minorities with discriminative language circulating Twitter.

Being a mainland Chinese with many mainlander friends – I often feel pretty powerless talking about this. Partially, this is because of the censorship, and the fear of repercussions from bypassing it. However, a more significant part of the feeling comes from the skepticism from my friends — “Look, do you really believe this?” or “My friend recently went to Xinjiang, she/he says it is great!”. This skepticism seems to be partially brewing from the strong confidence that our personal experience is representative and omniscient — “I don’t think things like this can ever happen. Otherwise I would have heard about it.” “How can the minority be oppressed if they are given so many benefits?”

This to some extents, demonstrated how successful the censorship on Xinjiang is. It is almost like a Catch-22: a lot of reporting on Xinjiang rely on the second-hand account and leaked files because, well, nobody is able to report first-hand there; and people do not believe the limited reports because first-hand reports do not corroborate them. The lack of first-hand and corroborated reports also increases the risk of exacerbated reports and far-fetched reports, which can often be used as evidence of “western bias”/”counter-evidence.” As we have frequently seen in other public events, the most effective strategy is often not straight up to remove/falsify data, but to allowing certain true stories and false reports to be circulated in a controlled manner, which can easily create a post-truth cynical sense that everyone is lying. We also see this in another event with a rippling effect – the mysterious death of a Chengdu high school student in the teacher’s office building.

How can we counter this? Well, I won’t be so powerless if it is easy. I think pointing to the shared experience that the audience can relate to, like the suppression of dialects/stereotypes of minorities in other regions, might be helpful. I believe it is also important to resist the desire of shrinking into a comfortable echo chamber – a self-reinforcing community is unlikely to construct an effective persuasion to other audiences.

The impedance mismatches when talking about Xinjiang often also come from different thresholds of wrongdoing between my friends and me — “They don’t have a job, what’s so wrong about helping them work?” And that speaks to our general tendency of preferring security and stability over individual choices and liberty. Both the dystopian Chinese COVID restrictions and The Epic vs. Apple discussion highlight this – people are willing to accept dystopian controls over their phones in the name of security and view it as a feature, not a bug. Interestingly, this is also often combined with a false sense of individual responsibility and choices – “If you already follow the regulations, why would you have a problem with the system?” “If you use the iPhone/live in the country, you should comply with the regulations, love it or leave it.”

Well, that’s exactly what they are discussing on the court, and I am not super hopeful of the verdict.

See you next week.

有思考过这个系列是应该用简体中文或者是英文 —— 一方面，我曾经一度信奉的原则是作为一个世界公民，应该使用国际化的语言。简中世界相对严重的信息孤岛也加重了这种逆反情绪。另一方面，自己也越来越认同语言是身份的一部分，对通用语言的追求很大程度上也算一种精英主义者试图摆脱自身身份的努力。最后决定使用这种交替使用的形式，就算是在自己想做世界公民的愿望和不能也不愿抛弃的个体身份之间做一个平衡吧。

讲到精英主义，最近常常会想到“尊重专业”和“兼听则明”这两个我深信不疑的原则之间其实是有所冲突的。上周有提到，当“外行人”发表和自己本职工作无关的意见的时候，最常得到的回答往往是诉诸权威 —— “哎呀你去多读点书再说话”“你一个数据记者能不能不要置喙公共卫生的事情”。这的确避免了民科或者阴谋论者混淆视听误导公众，但是也的确很容易联想到学阀或者专家对话语权的垄断 —— 没有相关领域的博士?不如你闭嘴听我们的。那么，这种话语权的垄断是好事还是坏事呢？垄断的优点似乎很明显：我们难道不应该信任科学和信任专家吗？考虑到辟谣的成本远大于传谣的成本，似乎有一个权威的，学术共同体做出判断也不错。

然而潜在的问题在于，学术共同体本身其实也是个建构起来的概念。宇宙浩如烟海，真理难以琢磨，个体皓首穷经也未必能精确的了解自己的研究领域，更不用说跨领域的研究判断了。COVID疫情提供了一个现成的例子，专家也可能犯错，学术共同体也可能意见不一致。权威专家做出的判断也可能是根据自己的先验知识和证据，做出的最佳考量而已。如果我们信任学术共同体并不是因为它能保证100%的正确，而只是相信这个体系做出判断和反应的能力是现况下的最佳选择，那么面对其他的声音一概以“要尊重专家”的理由拒之门外，是否过于一刀切了呢？从传播的来说，这样会不会给公众一种”权威的指导是绝对真理”的感觉，从而影响在复杂的情况下权衡利弊（到底感染新冠还是子女无法接受面对面教育影响更大）？如果之前做出了某些错误的判断，需要做出修正，会不会被阴谋论者抓住辫子，指责反复无常？

更进一步，“尊重科学”是我们作为个体，没有能力也没有精力对复杂问题一一验证，而将这个问题交给学术共同体代理的结果。学术共同体作为这个系统下的既得利益者，真的能够免疫一切外来干扰，不受政府的审查，不受维护自身权威的动摇，不受自身政治立场的影响，做到公平持中，闻过则改吗？抛开学阀不谈，我们看到中国CDC主任高福没有根据的臆测mrna疫苗安全性不佳，也有看到西方学者对BLM示威对疫情的潜在影响有所回避。从这个角度来说，或许有点不同的声音是一种好事 —— 我们不该低估假新闻与阴谋论的影响力，但或许矫枉过正也同样危险。

发散一点说，虽然“诉诸权威”是每一本逻辑教程都会提到的逻辑谬误，但是生活中避免却未必是那么容易的事情。我们往往对自己的研究领域和方法有着深切的热爱，也难以避免有着对不同者同仇敌忾的心思。包括我自己在内，时不时看到自己不懂的观点，第一反应也往往不是试图搞懂到底作者在讲什么，而是去试图查证作者是不是领域大牛，她到底有多厉害，以此来判断她的观点好坏。从这个角度来说，我对争议人物王垠是很佩服的 —— 这不是因为他“一贯正确”，而是不管他是不是好发惊人之语，他都很少把自己的观点建立在前人权威的基础上。对公司福利的评论，对自动驾驶的责任分布，包括最近对一些乐理的观察，都可以说很有思考的价值。倒是很多对他的批评都进入了“王垠没看过XXYY根本不懂没资格大放厥词”或是“你说的这个问题其实只要看了XX或者YY就能理解”的模式，而不是回应他的观点。从某种程度上来说，这也是某种诉诸权威吧 —— “你说的这点皮毛我还能不懂吗，是你才疏学浅”。

Twitter中文圈这周的热点是…汉人有没有必要check自己的privilege。从偶尔读来的观点来看，似乎认为没必要的观点主要是两条，一是“汉人也是被压迫者，没有必要反思”，另一派是“能住酒店是基本权利根本不是什么privilege”。大体上我觉得前者是忽略了intersectionality —— 一个人处在少数族裔和社会下层的交点可能会导致他被压迫的程度更加严重，后者有”何不食肉糜“的味道 —— privilege这个概念往往讲的正是“你以为习以为常的事情在别人那里并不容易获得”。觉得有趣的部分是，这方面的讨论和对white privilege的讨论惊人的相似：我们也能看到类似于“你看少数民族加分是不是对汉人的反向歧视”的评论。

镜头拉远，全球疫情仍然肆虐 —— 印度疫情似乎尤其受人关注。南美的疫情似乎有见顶的趋势。美国刚刚宣布支持放松对COVID疫苗的专利限制。Epic和Apple的App Store案子刚刚开庭，Apple的律师显然对“Xbox on PC”的存在感到十分困惑… 举报文化仍然盛行，青春有你3惨被叫停… 中国驻日使馆想要嘲讽美国，结果不小心发表了反犹言论…这篇华北棉花的报道也十分有趣。

下周见。

After a ton of abandoned projects, I am almost afraid of jinxing this by talking about big plans upfront. So, here is a simple introduction: a week’s time, writing in a page or so.

Let’s start in China – there are a few seemingly unrelated controversies going on this week. This week was the anniversary of Tsinghua University – widely regarded as one of the two best universities in China – and a dance in the parade was widely criticized because “it has no artistic beauty, no youthful sexiness, no power of movement.”

It’s not like I can understand if the dance were any good. However, the idea that the dancing performance of Tsinghua students is a little flawed seems just fine to me. After all, they are probably just amateurs, or at best, professionals-in-training. This reminds me of a lot of “A Tsinghua student cannot find a job” style headlines produce by media – which I think fundamentally reflect some of our collective misconception about higher education – the institutions are often seen as a moving assembly line of “plug-in-and-use” geniuses that can woo the hoi polloi instantaneously, not a place for the youth (or elderly) to explore and develop themselves. I am sure Tsinghua can find professional-grade dancers among its students — they are that good — but ultimately, I would be much happier to see my classmates with some awkward moves to represent the university if I were a student.

In addition, the slut-shaming portion of this controversy is just plainly obvious – people try to paint the girls as “performing for the senior boys” in the tweet quoted earlier. There are also tweets comparing dances from Tsinghua and Waseda University — the subtext being Japenese students are more noble and elegant, where Tsinghua students have no tastes. I can’t help but feel that these comments are just male gazing – fantasizing a group of old-fashioned role-model housewives in training, to justify pointing fingers at Tsinghua students – “see, bad students”. Well, like it’s anybody’s business.

In other news, Chloe Zhao wins the Oscar, and Chinese media censors related posts. The censorship apparently boosted a few creative usages of the Chinese language. In fact, the whole Oscar got censored in China, partially because of a Hong Kong-made documentary nomination (Do Not Split), partially because Chloe Zhao has mentioned some unfavorable commentary about China in old interviews. Amusingly, there has been a huge discussion among Chinese Twitter users about whether Chloe Zhao’s allegedly lack of make-up in the ceremony “disrespects the award and audience.” There can be lots of things to unpack here – lack of tolerance and effect of consumerism being two of them. What I want to highlight here is how professionalism is often used as a tool to suppress personal choices, especially the choices of women and other minorities – “you’re on the job, why don’t you dress appropriately?” can be a very easy excuse to avoid being tolerant. Of course, a lot of these criticisms fall into common mansplaining patterns, or in Chinese explanations, 爹味 (self-appointed daddys).

Continuing this topic, New York Times published an article, detailing how “inciting mass confrontation” is used as an excuse to censor Chinese feminists. If you’re not familiar, that refers to how calls for movements like #metoo or women’s rights are inflammatory and should not be promoted. You also see some municipal courts claiming domestic violence victims should “handle emotion disputes properly” and “protect harmony and completeness”. What I often feel somewhat annoyed and powerless, though, is Chinese Internet trolls strawman arguments to paint a polarized picture of feminist arguments. “How dare you say Chole Zhao’s lack of mark up represents her power – femifights (女拳) will attack you because making up is women’s right”. Fundamentally, I think this reflects a conflict between the gender-specific and gender-blind languages in the feminist movement, but that’s for the next time.

Of course, the most important story of the world rolls forward without much mercy: COVID ravages through India, US reinstates J&J vaccine, and its domestic pandemic simmered down somehow. Almost expected at this point, there is not a lot of international or domestic resolution to actually combat this together. GOP introduced a bill to prioritize vaccines for US citizens, and we saw some British dramas. It’s sad that the nativism pitch is still on a high note globally.

In the Twitter world, the pause of the J&J vaccine in the United States has been controversial and criticized. Nate Silver, the famous data journalist, is among the most vocal opposition. Naturally, that caused a lot of people shouting, “why cannot a pollster stay in his lane.” It’s indeed a very interesting question to me – who is qualified to participate in such a public discussion, and who is not? While I see the point of respecting science and expertise instead of letting armchair epidemiologists and conspiracy theorists dominate the conversion, I can also see the this becomes a way to guard power – you don’t have a related degree or are not established, so you shouldn’t have a say. Is there a way to reconcile this? I don’t know.

There is also some drama in the Linux communities this week – from my point of view, the story is, some researcher from the University of Minnesota tried to submit a bogus patch (they pointed it out before actual merging) and their newest patch is not very high quality, so this agitated Kroah-Hartman and the university is banned, all previous patches by the entire university scheduled to be reverted, even the good ones, and “the Linux Foundation and the Linux Foundation’s Technical Advisory Board submitted a letter on Friday to your University outlining the specific actions which need to happen in order for your group, and your University, to be able to work to regain the trust of the Linux kernel community.” We can leave the detailed discussions for another day – but I am not sure throwing tantrums to the researchers of the same universities and reverting good patches solve the problem, especially when the open-source projects are supposed to be robust in the reviewing process and Linux is not that famous for being the most friendly upstream.

See you next week.

2020年的前半段似乎并不令人愉悦。疫情，警暴，族群冲突，沙文主义；整个世界似乎都上下颠倒，走向崩溃的边缘。有的时候和朋友们聊天，也会互相慨叹，不知道有什么东西，能够支撑对美好生活的信仰。

我的答案是，因为我是一个自由主义者。

我相信人性本善，相信人们为恶是不得已而为之。今天的我可以安心坐在这里写文章，要有赖于父母师长朋友的照拂，让我可以不用为衣食生计发愁。同样，我相信没有什么人是生来就决定作恶，作出这样选择的人或许有各式不得已的苦衷：家境教育的不同，残酷的现实环境，或许努力了看不到希望¹。或许对他们来说，世界已经颠倒很久了，而生活舒适的我们只不过是刚刚注意到而已。

我相信这个世界有比功利更高的价值，相信每个人都值得尊重。有利没有利值得不值得似乎已经成了我们审视一切的标准，人道援助要证明能不能给国家带来利益，移民政策要审视是不是能作出经济贡献，多样化录取要证明能够提高教育成果。然而这样的讨论，是不是太忽略“人”本身了呢？让一个人获得教育，让一个人能够过她想要的生活，让一个人免于饥寒交迫的价值，又有什么理由要用一个建构出来的群体概念加以量度呢？“人”这个词前面不应该加上什么定语，或许我们确实没有办法帮助所有的人，但是这很难说是什么心安理得的理由。

我相信交流可以带来理解。黑夜里开车总是比白天更容易路怒，因为白天你可以看到对面的司机在微笑，可以招招手表示你的意图。同样，人们在网上更容易愤怒，大概因为藏在文字后面的是一个抽象的敌手而没办法看到一个有血有肉的人。与移民接触最多的人往往对移民的接受程度最高²。这个世界的很多误解源于信息的不对称和对善意的低估，我们应该努力消弭而不是歌颂这样的鸿沟。

我相信人的力量。再好的代码没有人维护也迟早会漏洞百出，再好的规则没有人的善意也会有漏洞和缺陷³。出路不是分清敌我然后步步提防，而是努力认可人性然后彼此扶持。解决累犯问题有效的方法未必是严刑峻法，也可能是给犯错的人一条出路⁴；给人固定的基本收入不见得会催生出懒汉，也可能会让为了生计挣扎的人实现自己的价值⁵。退一步说，我们又有什么资格划分敌我呢？相信人是有风险的，有人会玩弄系统，有人会制造混乱。可是我们需要比较假阳性和假阴性的多少，需要衡量绝对安全的代价：今天我们希望牺牲一些人来保障集体的利益，明天我们会不会站在公式的另一边呢？

我知道这个世界不完美，但是我相信我们的选择会给世界带来不同。每个人都要追逐自我利益似乎已经成了这个世界的默认规则 —— 以至于如果谁讲出什么崇高的目标，大家第一反应往往是审视她/他有没有不可告人的目的。这也是假新闻最大的作用 —— 不是让人相信，而是让人冷淡。让人觉得天下乌鸦一般黑，世界的规则我们无力改变，大家不如各扫门前雪。可是我们在武汉看到志愿者不顾安危冲在一线；在明尼苏达看到各行各业的人伸出手帮助清理示威造成的混乱现场；常年在外的我也不止一次遇到路人帮忙修车带路后悄然而去。我们的信心应该来自有血有肉的人 —— 相信我们的父母亲友，相信每天共事的师长同事，相信那些毫无瓜葛而愿意帮助我们的陌路人。相信我们能做的比现在这个上下颠倒的世界更好，相信这些善良的人能够带来些许不同。

而如果不能带来不同，至少我们可以心安 —— 我们奋斗的目标，不是几个统计数字，而是每一个人的价值和自由。

[1] Pratt, T. C., & Cullen, F. T. (2005). Assessing macro-level predictors and theories of crime: A meta-analysis. Crime and justice, 32, 373-450.

[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/217250/acceptance-migrants-increases-social-interaction.aspx

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/03/britain-is-verge-constitutional-crisis/

[4] https://www.ppic.org/publication/the-impact-of-proposition-47-on-crime-and-recidivism/

[5] https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/03/13/ontario-will-test-idea-of-a-guaranteed-minimum-income-to-ease-poverty_n_9451076.html

A lot of people are mulling high-tech contact tracing measures and viewing it as the panacea for the current #COVID19 pandemic. However, I would not be too comfortable with the idea; here are a few reasons:

1) It creates a huge privacy problem. By definition, the regulating entity of such a system would know the identity, medical history, as well as the location trace of everyone. Such a measure essentially destroys ALL protections the HIPAA etc. regulations on patient privacy. Such information can be used for unrelated investigation, targeted advertisement, or discrimination against individuals based on their identity and medical history.

2) It creates a huge information security risk. Chances are, such software WILL have bugs and loopholes. One example is Weilinli, one Wuhan-based community platform. This platform was used for publishing local information such as patient information within the community etc; However, a lack of security measures has caused practically anyone could enter the system with fake GPS software. A system with such central information will likely be a very attractive target for nation-states as well as other groups. And the leak of such information would create a problem as large as the Equifax fiasco.

3) It can have discriminatory effects on minority and vulnerable groups. Sexual workers, undocumented immigrants, etc. might be put on risk if such tracing measures were enforced. Lower-income groups and homeless etc. might struggle to gain access to such a tracking device (a cellphone presumably).

4) It can strengthen the monopoly of a few technological superpowers. Only a few huge big-tech corporations have the resources to put up such a system, and such a contact-tracing measure would require EVERYTHING to be connected to such a platform. So if a small shop does not have a Visa-based payment system, or a customer does use an iOS/Android cellphone, they might not be able to perform day-to-day operations anymore. This already happened in China: it is very hard to go out if you don’t have Alipay, a PRIVATE payment software by Alibaba installed. Such a system will become a government-enforced order of using the platforms of a few big tech companies.

5) Therefore, while such a system might be efficient on paper, it might create repercussions for the reasons listed above, and in-turn limits the usefulness of such measure. Someone might very well be afraid of the privacy issue of such a system and decided to have a separate phone solely for meeting the requirements of the point of entry and ditch the device otherwise.

One final thought – One core argument of authoritarian governments for their tyrannies is a false choice between freedom and safety: “Look, the democratic countries could not keep their people safe!” In such a difficult time, it might be easy to go down the route of being as draconian as possible because that might be the easy way out. But we do need to realize there are prices and trade-offs for every policy, and there are values as fundamental as life itself that we do not want to forfeit. We should trust democracy, and believe the will and power of people to cooperate. We all need to sacrifice, but some trade-offs need to be carefully evaluated.