人算不如天算。曾宁有好友海云，也是网络上粉丝无数的奇女子（http://blog.wenxuecity.com/myindex.php?blogID=10156），应硅谷女性之邀，要在硅谷女性的招牌活动读书会上主讲龙应台其人其文。宁妹子于是在本坛以转贴的形式发出了“曾宁有约”的通告（http://www.dingding.tv/bbs/read.php?tid=404：“明天我会去的，希望能在那里会见朋友们“），给海云有约站台。尽管是 short notice, 立委绝不想错过此等双重有约之良机，欣然前往应约。
There are two types of command economies. In a strong command economy, such as communism, the state makes all the economic decisions. The state controls all the resources for the common good. The state decides what to produce, how much, and how to distribute it. China, Cuba and many Latin American and African countries have strong command economies.
引用:
In a moderate command economy, also called socialism, there is some form of private enterprise. The state owns major resources, such as airlines and steel, and makes the key economic decisions. However, individuals may own some businesses. France and Sweden are countries that have moderate comman economies.
The primary advantages of a command economy is that it guarantees everyone an equal standard of living. The state provides you with a job, a place to live, and health care. Goods and services are distributed evenly. The state also takes care of things like utilities, transportation, and defense. There is usually less crime and poverty because everyone's needs and wants are equally met.
Mixed Economy: A free market economy and a command economy are great ideas in principle but don't always work in practice. In a market economy, there can be great poverty in the midst of great wealth. In a command economy, everyone is economically equal. In reality, few nations have an economy based totally on one model or the other. Most nations have a mixed economy, a combination of a market and command economy. The state takes care of people's needs while the marketplace takes care of people's wants. In the United States, for example, the government provides things like defense and education. The marketplace provides things like cars, computers and fast food. There is some government regulation of business.
Scott Thompson 雅虎CEO因履历上的电脑学位并非事实遭遇质疑，被迫“因个人原因”下台。
互联网巨头雅虎这几年管理混乱，风雨飘摇，人心涣散，人才大量流失。其创始人及前 CEO 杨致远战线太长，一再失误，空有雄心，回天无力，雅虎股价持续下挫，成为投资人弃之可惜食之无味的鸡肋。董事局好不容易下了决心，请杨致远出局，找到了这个据说能力超强的新CEO，开始了大刀阔斧的裁员和公司重构，却闹出这么个丑闻，使得CEO不得不谢罪下台，雅虎前途是一片黯淡。本来就是个巨大的烂摊子，Scott 的改革也未见得奏效，但不改必死，让一个有经验的执行长改革一下，也许可以死里逃生，也未可知。
据统计，在美国履历造假也是普遍现象，高达近五成。大部分履历造假都得以逃避惩罚，因为雇主很少做真正的背景审查。不过，企业高管的履历造假丑闻引发诚信问题，有损公司信誉，迫使董事局有时不得不忍痛自断其臂。但也有董事局顶住压力，为了公司的最大利益，坚持保住履历有瑕疵者的职位的先例。Bausch & Lomb CEO Ronald Zarrella 就是如此，丑闻以后他被迫让出了一百万的奖金，以平息股东的愤怒，得以保住其位，励精图治，五年以后成功出卖了公司，从而收获了三千万。
A study conducted in 2009 by payroll and HR outsourcing firm ADP found that 46 percent of reference checks turned up discrepancies. If it seems surprising that nearly half of job applicants fudge their credentials in one way or another, another stat explains why: It's really easy to get away with it. According to the Society for HumanResourceManagement, just under half of companies check to see if job applicants have the degrees they claim to hold. An even smaller percentage verifies that job-seekers actually went to the schools they say they attended.
Most of these job-seekers obviously aren't CEOs, but Thompson isn't the first chief executive to have a resume that doesn't match up to the facts. RadioShack CEO David Edmondson resigned in 2006 after the Fort Worth Star-Telegram discovered that he hadn't earned the two degrees he claimed. Kenneth Lonchar, CFO of Veritas Software, resigned in 2002 after the company found out he didn't hold the MBA he claimed to have earned.
These executives don't always leave. When it was discovered in 2002 that Bausch & Lomb CEO Ronald Zarrella hadn't really gotten an MBA from NYU's Stern SchoolofBusiness, he had to give up more than a million dollars in bonus compensation. The longtime company executive got to keep his job, though. Five years later, Zarrella netted nearly $30 million from a private equity takeover of the company.
The irony is that Thompson's degree didn't really matter when Yahoo hired him, Challenger said. "No company wants someone who's been lying on his or her background, but in terms of job searches for executives, companies don't care much about what they did when they were 22. They care about what they did in the last five or 10 years."
Yahoo is standing behind Thompson, saying in a statement, "This in no way alters the fact that Mr. Thompson is a highly qualified executive with a successful track record leading large consumer technology companies."
民为本在中土有深长的思想积淀，无论正统还是在野，包括起义军，也包括中共上台前和后，一切为民都是响当当的从来都是政治正确的口号。彭德怀当年就说：当官不为民做主，不如回家烤白薯。
曰： 以人为本，不是中国的传统价值，你整反了。
你举的例子都是民和官的关系，无论谁在上还 是下，仍然是官民关系，父子关系，都是社会关系，强调团体利益。 以人为本，强调的是个人价值，state and quality of being an individual, being self expressive, independent. 后者是西方文化的传统价值。眼下中土大力提倡“以人为本”，其实准确的表达应该是“以民为本”，符合传统文化和当下国家利益
既然如此，为什么大数据调查发现，至少最近一个月，在加州、纽约州等地，转基因成为热门话题。我的猜想是，可能这些州华人不少，也许由于国内转基因争论反过来影响了这边的升温。另一个原因可能是转基因标识提案引起的 awareness，大家这才意识到，哦，原来还有这么个转基因的事儿呀。至于为什么加州微弱多数否决了标识的提案，我觉得不能简单说加州人民大多数都不在乎（我觉得解读成不热心反对更加靠谱）。因为人的本性是懒惰的，不到不得已不去改变 status quo，因此只有到民间积累了足够的反对力量和激情，才有可能通过这样的提案。如果考虑到很多人以前从来不了解这个东西，那么最近40%多反对票实际上很可能说明，从趋势上看，反转的力量在民间有增长的趋势（trends）。以后我有机会，会从时间曲线的大数据统计来证实或否定我这个直观的感觉，让事实说话。
6. 反转挺转超越科学争论的另一点是意识形态和世界观：是自然主义还是科学主义？是人定胜天还是返璞归真？这不仅仅是科学和迷信，或者科学和愚昧的问题。这种世界观之争会永远持续下去，挺转反转只是其表现之一。打压、嘲笑对方是无效的，只能引发更多的反弹。启发民智和说服（科普）的办法也难以奏效。很多时候是相互 agree to disagree，淡化理念的冲突，学会和平共处。正如镜兄说的：
在生日前，她收到两份「來自天空的惊喜礼物」。原来大熊星座的一个银河系里，有一颗编号TYC3448-456-1的星星，就是以方李邦琴的英文名字Florence Lee Fang命名。另外，还有一颗今年才发现的星星，名称为Kepler-413，编号KIC 12351927，则是由朋友安排方李邦琴认领，这顆星星的名字也是按方李邦琴的英文名字命名。在生日会上方李邦琴女风趣地说﹕「等我将来在太空有了办公室，请大家都来作客。」
Social study interview on post-Mao Chinese immigration to America
1. Why did you and Mom choose to leave your homeland over 20 years ago?
Well, in the beginning, it was more of a trend we followed rather than an educated choice. Our childhood and teenager time were in Mao's totalitarian government very much like today's North Korea. No one was permitted to go out of the country (those who dare including my English professor Miss Wang, once found, were sent to prison). We were brain-washed to believe that our homeland was the best in the world and the rest of the world with the 2/3 population of mankind was a living hell where the poor people were struggling everyday waiting for us to liberate them one day. Mao's era ended in 1976 when he died and when we graduated from high school.
Shortly after Mao died, a great man named Deng Xiaoping took power. He opened the door of China to the world and started his reform and open-door campaign that fundamentally changed China. Although China was still under the highly controlled government and speech and press were still censored, the reform led China into a market economy and developed China into a strong country at an unprecedented development speed.
We benefited a lot from his reform. After Deng reopened universities which Mao shut down for 10 years (1966-1976) during his Cultural Revolution, we were able to attend colleges through very tough college entrance examinations, only 4% of the candidates were selected. So we were the lucky few to get the high education at that time and the government assigned jobs to everyone of us upon graduation. I was even luckier in getting into the top academy in China for my master's program in Machine Translation research in 1983. With the master degree in hands, I got the job of assistant researcher in this academy and my career was smooth and the future was bright. There was really no need or pressure to change the status-quo. Life was good.
However, there was a stronger and stronger wave of "going abroad for study" at the time. The Chinese people were shocked at observing the huge gaps between the prosperity of the West and the poverty of the then-China. Almost all young people were pursuing this dream of going abroad after China opened the door. We had been closed for too long and we wanted to see the outside world. The dream became even more attractive and valuable as the visa was so difficult to get. Unless you are exceptionally good to be able to get full scholarships, your chances of getting the visa to study abroad were very slim. So my schoolmates seemed all working very hard on GRE and TOFEL in order to achieve perfect scores to help with the scholarships they needed. I was fairly late in considering this path but most of my schoolmates with decent English went abroad, most to the US, one after another. This gave me more and more self-inflicted pressure and anxiety. At least, I should go out to see the world, like my schoolmates.
There was one historical event that greatly changed this Chinese immigration wave, that is the Tiananmen Event in 1989. Until that event occurred, the majority of Chinese students and scholars who studied abroad then still had two options before them: some who could land on a job most probably would continue their journey of living abroad until being naturalized in time; others, especially those on J1 visa who were sponsored by the Chinese government, would go back to serve China as required by the laws or regulations of both the US and Chinese governments. But the 1989 event changed everything. As a response to this event for which the US condemned the Chinese government for violating the basic human rights, the US congress soon passed a special immigration law to allow Chinese students and scholars in the US to obtain green cards. The landscape of this wave of Chinese immigration has been fundamentally affected, with this pool of highly educated and skilled Chinese new immigrants finally settling down in the US for good. 1989 marked the point of no return for many overseas Chinese in the US.
We were a bit later than others in coming out of the country in 1991, first to the UK for one year, then immigrated to Canada where you were born and ended up in moving to the US 16 years ago for career development after I got PhD. Nevertheless, the 1989 event definitely had a considerable impact on our decision to pursue immigration to Canada. We love our homeland where we were born and brought up, with so many connections including family and friends, but we would not want to go back. More importantly, during the long journey in pursuing the American Dream in the new land, we have always been motivated by the desire to pursue a better environment for our child (you) to grow.
So we "chose" to leave our home country (i.e. emigration) not because we were not doing well in China, but because we wanted to see the world as the initial motivation. The decision for pursuing immigration in North America was triggered by the historical event and your birth. It does not make sense to bring you back to a society that restricts basic freedom. This is very different from earlier generations of immigrants who left home country mainly due to the poor living situations, or religious or political prosecution.
2. What are pros and cons of immigration to America?
The biggest pro is to see you grow well in this land from childhood to college, enjoying the freedom we were deprived of when young and knowing that opportunities are all opened up for you. We were also very thankful to the US who provided me with an opportunity in using my skills and experiences for career development. In a new land with no connections, purely based on my own talents and abilities, I was able to quickly develop myself into the key role of tech lead and senior management (VP for R&D for my first company and Chief Scientist for my second company), acting as Principal Investigator for 17 government projects totaling 9 million dollars and successfully transferred my technology into real world products distributed globally to the business clients of Fortune 500. All these achievements demonstrate that the US is a mature and fair society for new talents from around the world. We have been working extra hard for sure, but the reward has also been great. We love the new land despite its own social problems.
The cons include the tremendous pains and hardships we came across along the way, from the initial cultural shock and deep depression we experienced as we had to cut off the old ties and started everything from grand zero with no connections and support from family and friends as we had in China. I think this is a common pain for all first generation immigrants who are struggling to adapt to an entirely new environment in a new land. It was a price we had to pay once we are on the road of immigration.
3. Did you ever regret your decision?
No, there has never been regret in the decision although by choosing to come out, we did miss a historical opportunity of China's economic boom in the last 2 decades. The huge change in China was accompanied with more opportunities with bigger platforms for talents. Friends of mine with similar background and education who did not come out have been doing exceptionally well, playing bigger roles in the society and organizations. So most probably if I had stayed in China, there would have been a bigger role for me to impact the society. But there is no "if" in one's life and we are happy where we are. We have nothing to complain, especially when we see you grow here, free and healthy, as a second generation immigrant. This land is our third home (second home is Canada), but it is your homeland with all your schoolmates and friends. We appreciate living here as much as you do as a native.
We love our homeland where we were born and brought up, with so many connections including family and friends, but we would not want to go back. More importantly, during the long journey in pursuing the American Dream in the new land, we have always been motivated by the desire to pursue a better environment for our child (you) to grow.
So we "chose" to leave our home country (i.e. emigration) not because we were not doing well in China, but because we wanted to see the world as the initial motivation. The decision for pursuing immigration in North America was triggered by the historical event and your birth. It does not make sense to bring you back to a society that restricts basic freedom. This is very different from earlier generations of immigrants who left home country mainly due to the poor living situations, or religious or political prosecution.
---
Dr Li, lets co-operate in starting up an enterprise much grander than your fellow classmates in China have achieved 🙂
W: by the way, a study on my generation of immigrants is of considerable interest and value
as it is not well studied and it is still developing and evolving with no solid social analysis yet
T: i'm actually quite interested in this
W: the early generation of Chinese immigrants is very different
they are purely kuli
hard labor demanded at the time when this land needs infrastructure construction
after they were used, it became an issue or burden
T: i like your interview a lot
you tell me a lot of hard facts
and make it easy for me to research the push/pull factors
and driving forces
like
"why are young people all choosing to leave the country"
that type of stuff
W: that generation of Chinese did not adapt to new environment
with cultural and language barriers so tough
As for your questions on how well my peers did in the West
in general they have been doing well
many became professors, scientists/researchers and engineers
based on their education and talents as well as their hard working spirit which is fairly typical for all first generation immigrants
For myself, I was lucky to come to the US at a time
of economic boom under Clinton's administration
in fact it was at a time of overheat of economy
so called dot-com bubble
I came in 1997 and it was not difficult for us to get the Venture Capital of first 10 million dollars in 1999 for the IT sector innovation
although the market crashed in 2000-2001,
I was lucky to keep my team
having survived the crash due to the government funding we got
T: trying to think of time period
you've mentioned berlin wall
tian an men
mao's rule
is this cold war era?
W: Cold War ended in 1989
with the fall of Berlin Wall
Tiananmen event happened before the fall of Beilin Wall in the same year
in a sense, it helped speed up the fall of Berlin Wall
Mao's Era ended in 1976
way before 1989
in between there were a decade of Deng's crippled Reform
crippled in the sense that Deng the new leader was only willing to reform the economy to make it a market economy just like the Western capitwalist countries
but he was not ready to reform the political system
so the nation was still under totalitarian government
in the name of socialism although the economic fundamentals were changing hugely
many aspects of life and society especially the economy
have been transformed to be more like the west than the old Red China systems
T: organizing
+ have to make more questions
this is coming together nicely
W: history can be very fun and revealing
as a side note, when I mentioned the cons of immigration
those pains, blood and tears in adapting to an entirely new land with cultural shocks
having to cut the old ties and started everything from ground zero
this reminds me of your difficulty in adapting to a new school
if you feel depressed and the pain in adapting to the new school
I can only tell that the pains in first generation immigrants in adapting to a new culture in a new land
is 10 times what you feel today
it was overwhelmingly pain
I was already 30 years old when I came out of China for UK
supposed to be fairly mature
but I was still feeling the overwhelming pains and emptiness
like a tree pulled out of the old soil
and transplanted to a new land with no familiar sources of support
a tree standing on itself with roots cut or deeply hurt
it was just awful as you can imagine
but again, this is a common pain experienced by all immigrants
when this pain was added by the lack of abilities to earn a living in a new land, it can be devastating
that's why the suicide rate is fairly high for new immigrants
it is just too much to bear
Fortunately for us
I have never been pushed to the extreme situation that I ran out of living resources
our pains are more from the cultural shock and inability to adapt soon
not from the physical inability of making a living and surviving in the new land
so we managed to overcome the pains with time
time is a cure for everything
T: i see
i was gonna ask
what was the early period of deng's rule like
anything in particular?
you said that he only bothered to change things economically instead of politically
W: right
Deng is a great man
it opened a new era post-Mao
but he came from Mao's team historically
so he could only reform that much
he has his own historical limitation
he himself suffered a lot from his wrong decision in 1989
and was criticized and attacked by the entire world
for a time, he lost almost all the friends
after the event
but he was not stupid
soon he realized that he could not go back to Mao's government style
so he decided to re-energize the economic reform
that made his reform continue for another decade with amazing development speed
gradually the world resumed relationship with him and China
because after all, China was still on the path of reform
and the society became more open
and the economy became the second biggest in the world
only second to the US and surpassed Japan
almost like a miracle, China became a power in the world
T: i meant to ask something like
since deng's reign would be drastically different from mao's
therefore the initial change between mao's and deng's reign would seem strange to you?
what was that adjustment like?
W: that was a great feel
after Mao died
we were confused a while
but soon after Deng took the power and started the reform and open-door
everyone was happy
we were the beneficiaries
so we were extremely happy in the first few years of his reform
the change was great
every change seemed to provide new opportunities
the society was in a very good shape under the new reform
until 1989
when the reform came across some obstacles and there have been anger
and complaints in the society for the rise of high price due to the free market fluctuations and also due to some government officials corruption
as a response, students in Beijing University
which is like UC Berkely
started the movement for freedom and democracy
which they believed could cure the problem of corruption and other problems caused by
reforming only economy without political system
T: what reform caused tian an men
what were the initial reforms deng made
W: when the economy transitioned from so called planned economy
decided and controlled by government
to the free market economy in the reform
problems may occur
especially the reform is transitional in the beginning
so two systems ran parallel
which left a lot of room for corruption
people in power can use the loopholes of the two running systems
one planned economy and the other free economy
to gain personal interest and wealth which angered the people
at the same time, the price fluctuations were too big
once something was put under the control of market
which is called "invisible hand"
in economics
that price fluctuations, mainly the quick rise of price for basic commodities such as food and necessities
rose to a point that people could not tolerate any more
so people went to the street to protest against the corruption and the price rise
demanding freedom and democracy which were believed to help solve these problems
T: i see
so the new reforms --> price raise/corruption --> protests
then why did you think deng was so great
if it seems he couldn't control the economy?
W: it was trial and error
nobody could predict all problems in such a drastic reform in such a big country
Deng's greatness was his courage to take an anti-Mao path
to lead the country to the modern society and made China strong
without Deng, China was just a huge North Korea
we would be suffering from minimal living standards and sometimes from hunger
and would never be strong in the world and could not even see the world
T: i see
but i meant
retrospectively
that is the case
but at that very moment
was it the same feelings?
W: the first 5 years of reform by Deng
made Deng a favorite leader among all people
especially among students
that was the happy time
this was like liberation
we were slaves
under Mao
spiritual slaves for sure
as well as physical slaves to a large extent
for example, farmers are not allowed to move to the cities
all farmers and their children cannot enjoy medicare
and other benefits enjoyed by city residents
very strict classes in Red China under Mao
with Deng's reform
it was like liberation of slaves
of course there were genuine feelings of gratitude to him
T: i see
why only 5 years/
W: because the honey moon got to end
and side effects and problems would occur
the initial happiness of seeing the liberation and finding the economy benefits will
gradually be weakened by the day-to-day worries of
how we could tolerate the crazy rise of prices
even if the living standards were way better than before in general,
by human nature, they would still be angered by those side effects
there was a strong sense of unfairness due to the corruption they see everyday
people in power can turn power into benefits and money
T: i see
i think i can research an economic graph
of deng's time
see what happens after roughly 5 years
thank you
if i have any more questions
i'll ask them
for now
i think this is more than enough
communist china
really looks a lot like north korea
mao ze dong looks a little like kim jong jun
LOL
W: exactly like North Korea, just in a bigger scale
the Mao's death account in your reference
was talking about the power vacuum after Mao died before Deng took the power
it was about one year
there was a transitional leader named Hua Guofeng
during that time, Hua decided to get rid of the leftist wing
headed by Mao's wife Jiang Qing, so called the Gang of Four
that was a brave measure
which helped to end Mao's era
but Hua was a weak leader
so with political skills, Deng replaced Hua and opened the Deng-era
those are details
you do not have to get into
the key is Deng's reform
opened the door
so emigration became not only possible but fashionable as a trend
T: this is just really interesting to me
didn't know any of this
T: dot com boom is basically the same as
gold rush
LOL
some differences i'll find
W: Tiananmen event was the key to make those emigrants who may return to their country
after seeing the world and got the education degrees abroad
decide to become immigrants
both spiritually and materially
spiritually those Chinese were disappointed at the government of their homeland
so they no longer wanted to go back to that land
materially the event triggered the immigration law passed in the congress very quickly
to make the otherwise very lengthy journey of immigration short and tangible
tens of thousands of overseas Chinese got the green cards over night
W: by the way, a study on my generation of immigrants is of considerable interest and value
as it is not well studied and it is still developing and evolving with no solid social analysis yet
----
I am going to pick this topic for the dissertation 🙂
By the way, this interview reminds me of Tanya's family album book she wrote at grade 4 (I read that at xjchi). I have been eager to know where she has gone to study, but I believe I can find it out from your blog.
USA不同种族的寿命差别，其实坦白说更主要的原因是贫富差距导致的。相同的数据来源，如果你不分种族，只看贫富，恐怕会得到更明显的统计学差异。
当然，饮食对健康确实重要，代谢研究里十分著名的教授 Jeremy Nicholson 认为基因的解释力非常有限，并且认为东亚传统饮食是世界上最健康的。其实USA可以大力地鼓励各族人民放弃原来的饮食习惯改吃中餐。我们实验室的瑞典人现在就很有意识地多吃中餐，午饭时间一看带来的饭盒常常都是米饭和炒菜。我们实验室集体下馆子，去的不是中国就是泰国餐馆，虽然我们实验室一直以来就我一个亚洲人。
。
关于转基因及其社会媒体大数据挖掘的种种问题
他弄得肥皂泡很大，就像现在很多弄潮人的SCI论文多得一塌糊涂那样，可是百年之后，可有半片文字留下 
，2014.6.14
