banner
LightNews
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
@chenchenzhang.net
8.4K followers 330 following 1.5K posts
migrant & researcher interested in politics and other things. currently: digital narratives, postcolonial nationalism, the global right, China stuff. neurodiversity-affirming parenting. she/her. 不必等待炬火. https://chenchenzhang.net
chenchenzhang.net
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 7h
interesting this is kinda surprising to me. but the 'ethnic minority' groups refer to South Asian and African communities. it's extremely common for Chinese parents to use grandparent childcare - in China some study finds 80% of urban homes
theconversation.com/white-britis...
White British families more likely to depend on grandparents for childcare – our research explores why
The extent to which parents rely on others to care for children reflects embedded cultural norms and expectations.
theconversation.com
5
Reposted by Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
cibled.bsky.social
Carla Ibled @cibled.bsky.social · Apr 10
Very happy to say that my article on Musk and Thiel's political theory of the founder (drawing on Lacan on the way) is out with @jcultecon.bsky.social! Strange to see it out there with all what happened in the last year, but it will hopefully make it a good read

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
‘Founder as Victim, Founder as God’: Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and the two bodies of the entrepreneur
Silicon Valley’s tech moguls have increasing political ambitions, as spectacularly illustrated by Peter Thiel’s and Elon Musk’s involvements in the US 2022 midterm elections and 2024 presidential e...
www.tandfonline.com
8 37 67
Reposted by Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
abeba.bsky.social
Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 1d
i don't have the words to emphasise how seriously bad things are gonna get
63 300 1.1K
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 12h
why does this person keep showing up in my feeds, each time with ever more absurd claims
the US and the EU are literally China's largest trading partners ok fine
screenshot of a guy in a video interview, with text reads "China is waiting for the West to collapse"
1 11
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 14h
headline may be a little dumb but it's well worth a read.
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 14h
solar panels covering an area 7 times the size of Manhattan on the Tibetan Plateau
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/b...
Why China Built 162 Square Miles of Solar Panels on the World’s Highest Plateau
www.nytimes.com
2 2
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 16h
borders have never been more tightly controlled in human history than now, with the help of state-of-the-art technologies www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Border failings in Europe are eroding trust in nation states, warns Mahmood
Home secretary to tell meeting of interior ministers that international cooperation is way to curb irregular migration
www.theguardian.com
4 17
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 1d
to manage the Dept's LinkedIn page I had to re-activate my long abandoned and never used account, thereby discovering the little known (to me) world of academic LinkedIn. very interesting.
Reposted by Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
durhamchina.bsky.social
Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies @durhamchina.bsky.social · 1d
📝New blog post! Soumya Ranjan Gahir writes about square dancing 广场舞 as an everyday practice that reclaims urban space, asserts gendered visibility in a society that often sidelines older women, and adapts creatively to the rhythms of digital culture.
oddchinaout.wordpress.com/2025/10/10/t...
The Quiet Power of China’s Dancing Women
One summer evening in Chengdu, a video went viral: hundreds of women in sequined tops and trainers filled a shopping-mall plaza, dancing in synchrony to a remixed pop anthem. The clip was shared mi…
oddchinaout.wordpress.com
3 6
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 1d
that was a comment on the politician, not your article:)
1
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 1d
similar to how Liu Cixin is used in tech-reactionary discourse, here Tolkien is apparently used in Peter Thiel's mythic civilizationism
bsky.app/profile/chen...
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 4d
and? the pursuit of technological and strategic superiority. ensure tech company's loyalty to the military. it's something "bigger", civilizational, world-historical.
According to Thiel and Karp, the United States can only maintain its technological and strategic superiority if tech companies ally with the US military. Critics— particularly former employees—argue that the founders use this pro-Western mission and Tolkien symbolism to give young employees the idea that they are contributing to something "bigger." But in practice, this rhetoric should primarily foster loyalty. In an interview at an event hosted by investment bank JP Morgan, Alex Karp described his company's culture as a "cult, minus the drugs and the sex." Palantirians are "snobby" about their intellect, difficult to convince, and driven not by money but by technical challenges and the founders' mission, Karp said. "My success is in making Palantirians believe my ideas are theirs." "
1 12
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 1d
perhaps the less people take sci-fi as political lessons the better
madeinchinajournal.com/2023/12/11/t...
1 7 26
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 1d
perhaps the less people take sci-fi as political lessons the better
bsky.app/profile/made...
madeinchinajournal.com
Made in China Journal @madeinchinajournal.com · Dec 12
In this essay, @chenchenzh.bsky.social explores how the theories, plot, and characters of Liu Cixin's Three-Body Problem series are employed in Chinese digital discourse to illustrate visions of authoritarian, conservative, and misogynistic politics. madeinchinajournal.com/2023/12/11/t...
The ‘Three-Body Problem’, the Imperative of Survival, and the Misogyny of Reactionary Rhetoric |...
Liu Cixin’s the Three-Body Problem book trilogy is one of the world’s bestselling Chinese sci-fi series, being read and endorsed by figures such as George R.R. Martin and Barack Obama. In Chinese ...
madeinchinajournal.com
1 1 1
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 2d
interesting discovery... so the "ham" in "Nottingham" or "Birmingham" is not the same "ham" in "Durham". the first group is from Old English "ham" which is homestead. Durham is from Old English "dun" (hill) + Old Norse "holmr" (river island). a river island like Stockholm.
1 7 51
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 3d
hate the em dash, but absolutely love the en dash.
1 1 9
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 4d
and? the pursuit of technological and strategic superiority. ensure tech company's loyalty to the military. it's something "bigger", civilizational, world-historical.
According to Thiel and Karp, the United States can only maintain its technological and strategic superiority if tech companies ally with the US military. Critics— particularly former employees—argue that the founders use this pro-Western mission and Tolkien symbolism to give young employees the idea that they are contributing to something "bigger." But in practice, this rhetoric should primarily foster loyalty. In an interview at an event hosted by investment bank JP Morgan, Alex Karp described his company's culture as a "cult, minus the drugs and the sex." Palantirians are "snobby" about their intellect, difficult to convince, and driven not by money but by technical challenges and the founders' mission, Karp said. "My success is in making Palantirians believe my ideas are theirs." "
1 6
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 4d
commonalities & differences between US techno-libertarians and Chinese techno-authoritarians. the former "the govt should do nothing to hinder tech progress", the latter "the govt should do everything to enable and guide tech progress". both anti-democratic and anti "woke".
Libertarian Thiel and Democrat Karp differ in their political views but share a common aversion to the culture of progressive, woke Silicon Valley, which they believe forces companies to engage in moral self-censorship. For this reason, Palantir moved its headquarters from California to Denver, the capital of Colorado, five years ago. Karp and Thiel espouse a "techno-libertarian" belief: the government should do nothing to hinder technological progress. In their worldview, the best changes come not from lengthy deliberation or democratic consensus, but from radical choices made by visionary thinkers and entrepreneurs. Thiel, in particular, regularly delivers fierce criticism of what he sees as the conformist culture of politicians and scientists. People who, in his view, behave in a morally"
1 2 7
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 4d
fascinating read on Palantir's ideologues and "cult" culture beyond Peter Thiel (I assume machine translation is pretty reliable with Dutch-English)
nrc.nl
NRC @nrc.nl · 4d
Het Westen is superieur en moet altijd winnen, vindt databedrijf Palantir. Het is een van de meest invloedrijke, geheimzinnige en controversiële bedrijven ter wereld. NRC ging langs op het kantoor in Londen. Wat is het wereldbeeld van het bedrijf? buff.ly/494BwOc
Het Westen is superieur en moet altijd winnen, vindt Palantir. Zo kijkt dit invloedrijke techbedrijf naar de wereld
Militaire AI-software: Databedrijf Palantir is een van de meest invloedrijke, geheimzinnige en controversiële bedrijven ter wereld. NRC ging langs op het kantoor in Londen. Wat is het wereldbeeld van…
buff.ly
1 1 6
Reposted by Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
sorayanadiamcdonald.com
Soraya Nadia McDonald @sorayanadiamcdonald.com · 4d
People paid $200 a ticket to listen to Peter Thiel do bog issue antisemitism for four lectures about his belief in the antichrist.

Lots of fools wishing to be relieved of their money, I guess.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Screenshot text from The Guardian: He believes the Armageddon will be ushered in by an antichrist-type figure who cultivates a fear of existential threats such as climate change, AI and nuclear war to amass inordinate power. The idea is this figure will convince people to do everything they can to avoid something like a third world war, including accepting a one-world order charged with protecting everyone from the apocalypse that implements a complete restriction of technological progress. In his mind, this is already happening. Thiel said that international financial bodies, which make it more difficult for people to shelter their wealth in tax havens, are one sign the antichrist may be amassing power and hastening Armageddon, saying: “It’s become quite difficult to hide one’s money.” It’s because the antichrist talks about Armageddon nonstop. We’re all scared to death that we’re sleepwalking into Armageddon. And then because we know world war three will be an unjust war, that pushes us. We’re going hard towards peace at any price. What I worry about in that sort of situation is you don’t think too hard about the details of the peace and it becomes much more likely that you get an unjust peace. This is, by the way, the slogan of the antichrist: 1 Thessalonians 5:3. It’s peace and safety, sort of the unjust peace. Let me conclude on this choice of antichrist or Armageddon. And again, in some ways the stagnation and the existential risks are complementary, not contradictory. The existential risk pushes us towards stagnation and distracts us from it. How does Thiel think Armageddon will happen? Thiel rarely gives a definitive answer about who exactly the antichrist might be or how Armageddon might come about – a central point across his lectures is that nothing is written in stone or inevitable – but he does give the contours of what a global conflict that could lead to Armageddon might look like.
54 140 570
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 4d
thanks! good to see it resonates beyond the Sinophone circle.
1 2
Reposted by Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 10d
Some thoughts on Zhongyuan Mandarin - from someone growing up internalizing the stigma associated with our native dialect chenchenzhang.net/2025/10/05/s...
Some thoughts on Zhongyuan Mandarin
On why re-examining our “dialects” is about resisting hierarchies, opposing discrimination, and pursuing linguistic justice, rather than cultural “orthodoxy”.
chenchenzhang.net
1 11 35
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 5d
it's an endless battle
1 1
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 5d
my dad brought this custom here while visiting. every time we ate out, he'd find some way to pay away from the table, while pretending to go to bathroom (maybe real too), WITHOUT SPEAKING ENGLISH.
15
chenchenzhang.net
Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 5d
don't know it's hot but that's every group meal in China
"katy_ward 15h You know what's hot? When the guy gets up and goes to the waiter to pay away from the table, letting me think he went to the bathroom. Apex flirting right there"
4 2 20
Reposted by Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
unsocialtheory.bsky.social
Jana Bacevic @unsocialtheory.bsky.social · 5d
Good morning, in today's edition of How UK Universities are Becoming More Like the US, but not in terms of quality, research rigour, or internalisation www.theguardian.com/education/20...
UK universities offered to monitor students’ social media for arms firms, emails show
Loughborough, Heriot-Watt and Glasgow corresponded with companies concerned about campus protests
www.theguardian.com
8 24