2021 Letter | Dan Wang

Thus, in my view, the Chinese conceptions of the new world order will need to respond to this fundamental mismatch and develop a cosmopolitan ideal whether from historical traditions, from new conceptions of universalism, or from some emergent combination thereof. The Chinese ideal of tianxia was perhaps the last archaic universalism to have surviv

... See more

in part because relative to the Chinese state it’s actually opposition media. See videos like this from DW and this. Hooking it into AI. Read Kai-Fu Lee’s AI Superpowers and then read this, this, and this. Supplement it with Dan Wang’s letters, or this 2019 post from a Chinese intellectual published at Reading the Chinese Dream that is still able t

... See more

I'm generally in the first camp; I am concerned about the prospect of both the West and China settling into a kind of low-growth conservatism, I love how imperfect coordination between nation states limits the enforceability of things like global copyright law, and I'm concerned about the possibility that, with future surveillance technology, the w... See more

I’ve found a strikingly similar pattern among political leaders, academics, NGO workers, businesspeople and young high-fliers, and not just in Europe and North America. Young people that I met in Africa were generally quite optimistic, but here too, despite burgeoning science-fiction scenes, dynamic hubs of digital innovation and lively political m

... See more

Basically, there are always a lot of problems in the world, and the media is always happy to deliver them right to your doorstep in order to drive engagement. And so there’s a natural tendency to read the news and think that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket. But these problems aren’t all related, and in fact sometimes some of them help am... See more