Taiwan Archives - Unintended Consequences

2019-10-012020-10-06

The 70th anniversary of the PRC

“So it’s his fault?!”

That was what I heard a Taiwanese visitor say years ago in front of the statue of Koxinga, located in Tainan, Taiwan.

Koxinga was a Ming dynasty general who fled to Taiwan and established an Ming outpost there from 1662 to 1683. The Qing dynasty (which defeated the Ming) later defeated Koxinga’s new kingdom and wrapped Taiwan into the Qing dynasty.

The visitor’s complaint: that without Koxinga there would not be a struggle, going on even today, over the future of Taiwan.

This is a post about founding ceremonies. And today is the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Continue reading “The 70th anniversary of the PRC”

2019-02-262022-01-21

Uyghurs in Xinjiang

This week’s post is different from the others. It’s me reflecting on my own experience in Xinjiang, a province of China that now has mass internments of the indigenous Uyghur (or Uighur) population. Why did these internments happen and what are the second-order effects? Continue reading “Uyghurs in Xinjiang”

2018-09-072021-07-31

Anything at Scale

While we usually talk about non-linear scale transformations in physical materials (radically different properties exhibited at nano scale, for example) there are also different scale effects driven by people and businesses. What will happen at scale is not always apparent, especially when our observations are biased toward single user or small group settings. Situations can grow less obvious or chaotic with growth.

Let’s look at effects of scale transformations in housing, fast wealth creation in a large population, transportation, and what happens when forces converge on places that are just too beautiful. Continue reading “Anything at Scale”