YoungForest's blog

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This is a collection of articles from Liu Shen Lei Lei’s WeChat public account of the same name, organized by different Jin Yong novels. Reading it all at once felt very satisfying. I clapped my hands in delight many times.

Because these were originally WeChat public-account articles, they are very good at attracting traffic and readers. The language is relaxed and humorous, yet also very reasonable. It counts as a set of unique interpretations of Jin Yong’s novels. The author has clearly read the novels many times, so he can bring up characters from different works effortlessly. He is good at horizontal comparisons (different characters in the same novel) and vertical comparisons (similar characters across different novels), and even knows the experiences and fates of many minor characters by heart. He pays attention not only to the protagonists, but also to supporting characters, always starting from their own perspectives. This reveals a kind of compassion for the world. The author also believes this is one of the core qualities of Jin Yong’s novels. Another is “the great hero serves the country and the people.” The perspective is also very modern. Sometimes he jumps out of the jianghu and compares things to companies or real life, and the humorous effect appears.

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Do not be deceived by the title. Do not judge it literally and think this is a success book, where after reading it you can learn to be thick-faced and black-hearted and become a hero. It is not. This book is mainly a satire of history and social reality. Hou Hei Xue was written in the early Republic of China, precisely when society was undergoing drastic transformation. Traditional Chinese doctrines were being reflected on and overthrown, while modern Western doctrines had not yet been fully accepted. It was in this context that the patriarch of Hou Hei wrote this satirical theory. It truly tears old China’s benevolence, righteousness, and morality into pieces, revealing the dark reality of society.

Although more than a hundred years have passed and Chinese society has initially modernized and made considerable progress, much of the book’s satire can still criticize today’s problems. Excellent works really do endure because they talk about human nature. Even if society changes and technology advances, human evolution is very slow. Different environments merely trigger different expressions. Therefore, as long as one grasps deep human nature, surface things do not change much. For example, Lu Xun’s essays still make people waver and cry out today. Another example is Yes, Minister or Yes, Prime Minister. Although they write about British politics from 50 years ago, many lines still apply today, and even apply to other countries.

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XiaoLin is one of my favorite uploaders. Beautiful, top student, Wall Street investment banking, startup founder. All kinds of eye-catching labels. And her videos are genuinely high quality: well produced, while still easy to understand. I read her book partly to support her. The content of the whole book, to be honest, is basically all covered in her videos, and in many cases the videos explain it even better. After all, videos make it much easier to show charts and diagrams. So actually, even if you do not read this book, just watching her YouTube or Bilibili videos is probably enough. The most magical thing about reading this book is that it comes with a built-in voice feature. I have to marvel at how powerful the human brain is: while reading, XiaoLin’s voice and videos automatically start playing in my head. It was a pretty nice experience. It also worked as a review of the knowledge she had talked about in earlier videos.

Still, I do want to emphasize one point. XiaoLin’s videos and books are all popular-science oriented. Although there is quite a bit of solid macroeconomics content, the overall tone is still light and entertainment-oriented. Even though she supports the arguments with many papers and data points, the explanations can still feel quite shallow, and many causal relationships are not necessarily as straightforward as her analysis presents them. After all, economics is an extremely complex discipline. Many times people are using the rear-view mirror to look for causes, rather than using the present to predict the future. Friends who trade stocks or follow the economy should all have this feeling. Every analyst gives a different analysis, and nobody states things too absolutely. Then half a year later, when reality turns out to be very different from the original analysis, they can still make the story sound internally consistent. I also follow a few investment uploaders myself, but I will not name or recommend them here, so that I do not mislead anyone.

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After watching The Knockout, I also came to read The Art of War. I could not understand the original, so I came to an interpretation. I also watched Lao Gao’s videos, and they are indeed impressive. Gao Qiqiang used one copy of The Art of War to settle Jinghai City, growing from a small fishmonger into the boss of both black and white forces. Of course, saying he relied only on The Art of War is somewhat exaggerated, but it was indeed a necessary condition. After reading it, I feel The Art of War is like the Nine Yin Manual in wuxia novels. Although it talks about military strategy, all things in the world have countless hidden connections behind them. Many of its principles are useful in business and even personal life, especially investing and personal finance. An information model I learned before says “wisdom, knowledge, and information” go from most important to least important, and from least numerous to most numerous. True wisdom is great principles made simple, explainable in just a few sentences. The Art of War mainly talks about wisdom and knowledge, and also about how to gather information and intelligence, which is why it has endured for five thousand years.

The points that inspired me most and are most valuable for ordinary life:

Recently Netflix’s version of The Three-Body Problem has become popular, surrounded by both praise and criticism. I have not watched it, so I cannot really comment. But it did bring back my own memories with The Three-Body Problem.

As for the novels, I read them about ten years ago in the Shahe library. Although the series had not yet won the Hugo Award at the time, it was already slowly becoming popular. In my memory, the original title was something like Remembrance of Earth’s Past: The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End. Although The Three-Body Problem is only the first book and also the name of the virtual reality game in it, because it became so popular, it gradually became the name people used for the whole series. The funny thing is that in the library, I could only borrow the first and third books. The second book was always impossible to reserve. So my reading order was: first, third, second. I also read Baoshu’s continuation, The Redemption of Time. My personal ranking of the three books is: Death’s End > The Dark Forest > The Three-Body Problem. That was also how I fell into the science fiction pit. After that, I read Liu Cixin’s other novels. I also encountered Asimov’s Foundation and Galactic Empire series, and the novella The End of Eternity. They are all excellent and recommended.

The most magical feeling is this: when I was less than twenty, after finishing the books, I worshiped Luo Ji, respected Wade, and looked down on Cheng Xin. Now, as I am approaching thirty, I find myself becoming more and more like Cheng Xin. I do not know whether it is because I have grown older or something else, but I have become increasingly gentle and kind toward others, the world, and humanity. Question Cheng Xin, understand Cheng Xin, become Cheng Xin. I also better understand some details in the books: why Luo Ji was willing to hand over the Swordholder power, even while knowing the consequences for himself and for humanity; why Zhang Beihai hesitated when carrying out dark forest action against friendly ships; why even Wade, whose deterrence degree was almost full, ultimately kept his promise and handed over power, even while foreseeing the consequences for himself and humanity. Humans are a combination of intelligence, emotion, and animal nature. Liu Cixin’s view is clearly that, for human survival, intelligence > animal nature > emotion. Wade’s line, “If we lose our humanity, we lose much; if we lose our bestial nature, we lose everything,” is very representative. But it is exactly this emotion that plays an important role at every critical moment, changing history and humanity’s fate. Of course, every time, it changes things toward catastrophe. Even so, humans still cannot escape the constraints of human nature. Even someone as strong as Wade ultimately could not remove all humanity and make decisions purely according to reason and animal nature.

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A very good investing book, somewhat similar to The Psychology of Money. It uses a lot of data and backtesting to convince readers.

The points I benefited from most:

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Giving up the English edition and switching to the translated edition was indeed the right choice. 380,000 Chinese characters, finished in one week. So satisfying. Especially the section about the first decade after 2000, covering the early days of SpaceX and Tesla, was truly inspiring: an adventure that changed the course of human history. Compared with the original, the translation is somewhat abridged, mainly around the China-related parts. I compared them; there is actually not much missing, and it is understandable for passing review.

The whole book can roughly be divided into several parts:

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Another book that was delightful and hard to put down. Besides the familiar story from Greek philosophy to classical physics, and then to modern physics, including relativity and quantum physics, the book mainly focuses on cutting-edge “loop quantum gravity”: a theory that tries to unify relativity and quantum mechanics. The earlier historical part is relatively brief, but it offers a different angle. For that part, you can also read Cao Tianyuan’s Does God Play Dice?, which is also excellent and tells more of the story.

The author currently believes more in loop quantum gravity than in the now-popular string theory or M-theory. Of course, all of this lies at the boundary between the known and the unknown. There is still no decisive advantage or evidence to prove which side is correct.

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A classic book on computer programming and software. It was written in 1986, which can be considered the medieval period of computing, the beginning of the PC era. Therefore, many examples in the book may feel unfamiliar and hard to understand for “modern” programmers, such as its emphasis on algorithms, attention to memory, disk-related programming, and refusal to use standard libraries. Some important concepts emphasized in the book are now household knowledge and basic abilities, such as binary search, sorting algorithms, strings, BST, heap, and estimating and tuning time and space complexity. Reading classics always feels like talking with masters across time and space. It is truly refreshing and awe-inspiring. This book rewards rereading. I read it in university and seem to have bought a paper copy then. Now I have been learning programming for ten years and have formally entered the industry for almost three years. Reading it again, I feel it is very simple, yet so profound. Classics truly are immortal.

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The best book I read this year, the one that resonated with me most and inspired the most thinking. Strongly recommended. I have many thoughts and feelings I want to share, but it is hard to judge the boundary. So bold, so brave. It summarizes economic reforms from ancient times to today, especially the six rounds of “the state advances while the private sector retreats” after the modern era. It contains many thoughts and many awakening golden lines. Although it seems to intentionally ignore Zhang Juzheng’s reform, the flaws do not obscure the merits. Economic reforms under centralization are bound to compete with the people for profit, aiming at a rich state, strong military, and stable rule, but in the long run they instead lead to collusion between officials and merchants and to popular uprisings everywhere. Liberalism, rule of law, protection of private property, the bourgeoisie, and technological progress are the long-term solution, especially for the country and the people. The root of economic reform is still political reform. Without supporting institutions, economic reform cannot be thorough, and achievements already obtained will be lost. This book

was written in 2013, so it did not cover what happened afterward. The reforms after 2013 were the seventh round of “the state advances while the private sector retreats” in modern Chinese history. The landmark events were the renewed rise of state-owned enterprises and central SOEs, and stronger control over private capitalists. In 2020, blocking Ant’s IPO opened the prelude to restricting the “disorderly expansion of capital.” Again, it used common prosperity as the excuse. We have all seen the final result: when one whale falls, everything dies.