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
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Reposted by Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
abeba.bsky.social
i don't have the words to emphasise how seriously bad things are gonna get
chenchenzhang.net
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"
chenchenzhang.net
headline may be a little dumb but it's well worth a read.
chenchenzhang.net
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
📝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
chenchenzhang.net
that was a comment on the politician, not your article:)
chenchenzhang.net
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
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." "
chenchenzhang.net
perhaps the less people take sci-fi as political lessons the better
madeinchinajournal.com/2023/12/11/t...
chenchenzhang.net
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.
chenchenzhang.net
hate the em dash, but absolutely love the en dash.
chenchenzhang.net
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." "
chenchenzhang.net
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"
chenchenzhang.net
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
Reposted by Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
sorayanadiamcdonald.com
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.
chenchenzhang.net
thanks! good to see it resonates beyond the Sinophone circle.
chenchenzhang.net
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.
chenchenzhang.net
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"
Reposted by Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
chenchenzhang.net
the most non-sarcastic pepe bot I've seen. or maybe an AI explain that no one needs is the newest form of sarcasm...
Reposted by Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️
thebossross.bsky.social
The BBC's justification for platforming Farage beyond the actual significance of his small parliamentary party are his polls. A rather cynical explanation, for he wouldn't be where he is without the constant, uncritical appearances he's given on the BBC. It's a (literally) vicious circle.