I should not have been lingering around for such long time without putting a letter here. Actually, I had written something during this period of time talking about the life I had been spending in Downtown Seattle and the limited knowledge that I had learned about the history of my ex-company and how it impacts the south Lake Union area. This is a question thrown on the website zhihu.com and surprisingly enough, this question was also a question that I asked my interviewer when I was struggling to join my ex-company. The interviewer obviously did not expect to be asked questions like this, but I was at that moment trying to find some answers to it. I would like to know more about this place. And now it has been more than two years since I moved here.

The word record has more than one meanings. Here, I am either writing down some notes to record my life or I think I have made some personal records in my life till now. This month I conquered the Mount St. Helens on the first day of May. That is a nice record in my life since I would like it to become my very starting point of mountaineering. My short-term goal is to get to the top of Mount Rainier. I am targeting that.

This April, I did my last Stevens Pass day on 24th and then made an post-work hike to Tiger Mountain. During this month, I started some other day hikes. I went to Sauer’s Mountain for the first weekend after the St. Helens trip, and then to Lake Serene for the second weekend. I recall that I had been to Lake Serene before but the memory gets blurred since I am going to spend the third summer here and there are so many trails heading to a lake surrounded by mountains. And this is one of the reasons that I believe recording would be helpful. This weekend I went to the Ocean City State Park and be a razor clammer. And the following long weekend I will be spending it in Oregon - my last snowboarding of this season.

I tried to gain some habits to ‘waste’ my money and time and to distinguish myself from others. I hope my efforts will not be in vain.

The experience of reading the book ‘Far from the Tree’ is profound.

The search for the self-identity is forever the ultimate goal of an alive human being. I indeed discussed about some related issues with my friend on similar topics, e.g., if being gay is an illness or not, if color blindness is a deficiency or are we ‘normal people’ seeing ‘too much’ than we ought to see. Actually it is a quite pleasant and interesting topic when discussing some unique features not that serious in nowadays and especially when they are not occurring to you. I once wondered that if color blindness is due to the deficiency of the eyes or the deficiency of the brain and it turned out that science proves the correctness of the former explanation. However, as we know color blindness is a kind of heritable gene differences from the rest of us, how we argue a ‘correct sample’ out of all different kinds of gene mutations. Correctness is hard to define, yet we are trying to form a standardized reference out of the the great majority. We say that it is the ‘right’ one when most people possess this feature - an obvious double standard when saying that truth always rests in the hands of a few people.

I watched a video describing a new invention saying that it could give back the original color to the people who have color vision deficiency. It recorded several people who were talking about their lives as they were seeing the world in a different way from the others. Then a doctor put a pair of this special glasses for them. I was truly moved when seeing these guys tearing up and whimpering the fact that a brand new colorful world opened to them. I never doubted about the happiness of being normal again after this cure and started thinking about if I need to support my friend to buy one instantly. I never considered color blindness as a ‘horizontal identity’ - maybe in a fleeting feeling, until I started reading this book.

The book ‘Far from the Tree’ throws out a critical topic that blur the line an identity and an illness. In today’s society, people are more and more acceptable towards gay and considering it as an identity. But what about the autism, the dwarfism, the Down syndrome people, etc. Everyone is seeking the identification from the society as we are always noticing that people are slightly different from the others in all kinds of manners, i.e., appearances, characteristics, personalities. People are acceptable to the minor differences and calling it diversity. But what about those people who share some features that are so different from your experiences that you might call it deficiency? The line between normal and abnormal is as blur as finding out the number of hairlines you have when you turn to be bald.

While social acceptance is pressuring the minority, the acknowledgement from its own family seems is more precious. The book, I believe, tries to illustrate more happy-ending stories and the happy families are relatively in return more inclined to talk about themselves. I cannot imagine how my mom will act if she find out her son is somewhat different from her in some certain ways, or how I will act if in the future my child is to some degree different from myself or my expectations. The issue is even severe for our ‘one-child policy’ generation.

To predict how the society goes is intriguing. We are living in an environment that endures more and more diversities while we are becoming more and more capable of eliminating the differences. Image a future that everyone is a clone of a standard. That is not impossible.

看了《饥饿游戏》不妨借此机会谈谈未来。

前几天恰好是《回到未来》中主角穿越到未来的这一天，随着时间不断的推进一个又一个当年畅想过得未来的时间点成为今天。想象力可及范围内对于短期未来的畅想无非是各种改善生活的小玩意，因为我们现在大抵处于这一波文明革命的中期，计算机的普及和进一步的发展还可以继续延续未来的几十年直至下一个突破点。很多电影小说中会描绘出各式各样的未来人类社会图景，它们大都有着相似和共通之处——许多情节都是有着玻璃幕墙的拥有流线型外观高耸入云的摩天大楼，拥有垂直公共交通体系，亦或是浮于空中拥有轻盈轨道的磁悬浮似的列车，不然则是将现有的汽车一并拥有了飞行的功能，生活中则是所到之处都有透明或不透明的显示设备将各式各样信息呈现在眼前，再加之则是饮食衣着都是由一些造型奇特的机器一键式完成。以上这些频繁出现的元素是我们想象力轻易可及之处，距离我们现在的生活并不遥远，不需要好奇的怀疑它们真实与否，假以时日都会实现。

我更好奇那些也许无从得知未来会是如何的问题。《饥饿游戏》描绘了一个中央集权的社会，这似乎也是许多其他故事乐于呈现的背景。我以为这都来源于经典《一九八四》类政治乌托邦小说的影响。日本动漫《叛逆的鲁鲁修》也讲述一个中央政府压迫殖民区和殖民区反抗的故事。让人困惑的是，什么样的发展路线最终会到达这样一个高度集权的社会，在从我们当下的生活中跳脱去那些故事的背景中时，是否会疑惑这些故事背景距离我们有多远，这个时空距离之中到底发生了什么。

《云图》的一个故事中描绘了人类的未来生活。让我印象深刻的是星美看到她们死后被重新处理加工成为食物的过程。这整一个工厂的描绘我相信作者亦或是导演一定去过现代化的屠宰场，曾经在视频网站上看到过题为惊叹德国人如何屠宰加工猪肉的视频过程，大抵是展示这一系列的先进机器是多么现代化，还有推荐广大屠宰场老板慷慨解囊购买的广告。这很有趣，把人替换到原来猪的位置上（我们暂且认为星美是人），这种视觉冲击可想而知。如果我们把星美换成一个机器人呢？假使这个机器人做的有如《A.I.》中的小男孩一样，或许和星美没有什么区别。如果和《E.T.》中的机器人类似呢？甚至如果只是和富士康生产的流水线上的机器手臂一样？其实我们已经可以做出生产机器人的机器人了，当这些机器人用尽，我们自然也会有（或者已经有了）处理回收这些机器人的机器人。那么这个场景和云图中描绘的被用以循环利用的『机器人』相比区别在哪里呢？

《云图》描绘的未来也是一个集权社会的未来——人类集权统治『人造人』。这似乎是一个可以预见的未来之一。接下来的短期的未来中必定会迎来一轮接一轮的劳动力大解放。这是否将使得人类本身可以不劳动就能继续存活和繁衍生息。很难想象如果回到百万年前，让那些尚未进化完全的人类享受到无需耕作、无需打猎、无需生命被收到自然界威胁的生活，这样的社会会朝向什么方向发展。会是更加的迅速进化成为新新人类还是停滞不前甚至倒退？似乎我们行将走到这一步了。我们走到这一步前替代我们劳动力的似乎只可能是机器人。从这点看来，人类对于机器人的集权社会是一条必经之路，而时下流行的人工智能带给我们的一方面是机器人的劳动力的提升，一方面则是为未来所谓的『道德』问题和『社会』冲突埋下伏笔。

见过机器人对打的比赛吧，只是时下机器人的样子长的和你不一样让你没法产生通感罢了。和《饥饿游戏》中的擂台区别大吗，和古罗马的角斗场区别大吗，小时候玩儿的斗蛐蛐呢，如今我们的拳击格斗比赛呢。这种难以逾越的人性本身当其赋予了对于机器『人』的无限权力的时候，我发觉《云图》中的未来首尔其实近在眼前。那么人类社会自己内部会变为如此吗？似乎也有可能。假使劳动力大解放之后，第三产业或许是唯一仍然需要人类本身参与的活动。当最低生活标准达到一定高度之后，社会是否会重新回到《一九八四》描写的三角形社会结构——底层社会享受最基本的物质生活和相互之间的服务业，中间阶层做管理而上层则垄断资本。这个时候资本是什么呢？假设你在玩帝国时代然后开启了资源无限的秘籍，资本或许就是从事第三产业的劳动力吧。这是否会成为未来集权社会的契机呢。

《来自新世界》的故事提供了另外一个思路。偶然的有一小部分人有了常人不得的『特异功能』，于是随着时间推移，最终这批人为了防止对没有特异功能的人类的『集权统治』和自身的『道德绑架』的冲突，将剩余的人类『改造』成了非人类并且与之社会完全隔离。这个故事我很喜欢，讨论了很多对错间模棱两可的模糊地带和对未来的另一种想象。虽然他的结局和其他众所周知的类似故事一样，回到了美好的『民主共和新世界』，但是万一回不去呢。