Years of Poems and Spirits

The news media has been zeroing in on the nationality of the shooter in VT. From NYT to ABC news all mentioned his natioanality and green-card status. To say this is not yellow journalism is a big lie. What does his immigration status have anything to do with the shooting? What attribute matters most in this case: the guy having easy access to firearms or being a Korean? If it is the latter, how come this has yet to happen in Korea? It is a simple math: there are two variables (nationality and access to weapons), to see which one is a determinant which one is irrelevant, just given them different values to see which one changes outcome.

If the nationality changes to a Chinese, this can certainly happen (I was really distraught for a while when the British tabloids first reported it was a man from Shanghai). But if the nationality remains the same and the access to firearms changes to negative, then the outcome is clearly going to be different.

This is as simple and plain as highschool math. But in a nation that is crazed about killing and violence, even intelligent adults plays the denying game. Voting for him or not, I can never forgive John McCain for standing up for the right to firearms minutes after the shooting.

Original posting at: http://vip.bokee.com/authorEdit/commentindex.php?id=265079

黎鸣先生，我没读过您的大作，随便说几句：我以为语言和语言是不平等的。但谁“好”谁“差”不是在于感性上的东西，美感啦，历史啦。而在于一个语言中“宏概念”的多少。这是一个可衡量的语言属性。 所谓宏概念是指从直觉概念中抽象出的概念。比如红，黄，绿是直觉概念，而颜色是宏概念。当然宏概念之间又有深浅。比如颜色又是什么是更深一层的宏概念。不论在自然科学还是社会科学中，宏概念的多少和深浅反映了人的理解力和创造力。 衡量一个语言的好坏，可以从那个语言中自生的宏概念的数量决定。如果一个语言有太多引进的宏概念，那个语言有可能会老化。比如“调制解调器”这个概念用的五个字，既没有一个和“计算机通讯”有关的，也没有一个会因为用在“调制解调器”这个词之后，会跟“计算机通讯”沾边。这样的语言怎么会有生命力呢？ 说玄一点，语言的能力是在于格物致知。如果一个语言环境”物少知浅“的话，语言自然跟着衰退。 不论你怎么看孔子，他的确是给中文加入了许多政治的宏概念。这也是他的东西在当时对中原以外的社会有那么强大的吸引力的原因。

Read a pretty interesting article: Pas de Deux of Sexuality Is Written in the Genes

Couple of days ago, I wrote about how politics, as a social behavior, could be driven by physical desire and is not confined in human only. This article seems to have just de-constructed the mystical emotion called love. The article seems pretty banal but that is because from scientists’ view, love itself is pretty banal.

Not much to add, just to say it confirms many things I kind of suspected/assumed/accepted: too much of man is writte0n in his genes. The irony is, if one wants to overcome any genetic deficiency and succeeds, it is probably because one has a “perseverance gene”. So much for the much philosophized “free will“.