關於 cold war economy ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

《當西雅圖也失去了愛情故事時：Bill Gates離婚前推薦的書籍》

這幾天，朋友不斷的傳Bill Gates離婚協議的訊息給我。而我恰恰好是對這類訊息沒有太多感覺的人。他人的人生，千轉百迴，外人沒有什麼好議論。Bill Gates是天才，但在愛情面前，天才也可能變儍子。何況婚姻，愛情只是一樁婚姻的基礎小要素之一，可能不到10%，構成一樁「可循環再使用」的婚姻，有太多的條件：它比宇宙天文還不可測。

他們的宅邸在西雅圖，我想起了那部電影：Sleepless In Seattle 。

所以，我惟一的評語是：西雅圖也未必保證了愛情故事。

當然許多人關注的是財產分配，全球第四富豪。這只再度呈現了我們當代的庸俗及不堪。連繫愛情與婚姻的，一開始可能摻和了「麵包」（財富條件），但它持續不了。這對夫妻的離婚消息重點，只突顯了多數人金錢觀的偏差。首富！離婚！錢！閲讀者被驅動，錢取代了性衝動，它是當代人的荷爾蒙。

於是相處一生的夫妻，或是半生的伴侶，離婚時只剩下一個議題：財產爭奪戰，而且鬧上法庭。

我對Bill Gates有興趣的反而是這段時間他在閱讀什麼？以他和妻子的長久信賴，離婚應該是一個促膝長談的過程，或者雙方試著溝通、改變對方，終而放棄（我不喜歡用失敗兩個字，他們可能未來仍然是好友，只是彼此放下了夫妻關係，那是放手，是改變，而不是失敗。）

對酷愛閱讀的Bill Gates，此時他選擇的閲讀，格外特別。一般人可能是療癒之書，Bill Gates？

他沒有讓我失望。他選擇一本大歷史中描述二戰期間英國民衆天天躲防空洞的細述書籍，那是小人物在大時代的悲劇，也是更具備情感的歷史，另一個視角。

他也選擇了討論當代快速發展經濟（Good Economy)下，人與人之間的矛盾，特別是貧富差距。

他離開自己當下的心情，或者痛，眼光走到遠方。或是過往，或是當代的難題。

畢竟人不是為成全一樁成功的婚姻而誕生，何況Bill Gates。

以下是他2020年12月19日推薦的書籍：

1）《The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness》
By Michelle Alexander |

比爾·蓋茲：與許多白人一樣，近幾個月來，我一直嚐試加深自己對系統性種族主義的理解。亞歷山大的這本書提供了一個令人眼界大開的視角，用來看待我們的刑事司法體系，如何不公地對待有色人種群體——尤其是黑人群體。

2）《Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World》
By David Epstein |

比爾·蓋茲：在看了愛潑斯坦 2014 年精彩 TED 演講後，我開始關注他的工作。在這本引人入勝的著作中，他指出雖然世界似乎需要越來越多的專業化（例如在你的職場上），但我們真正需要的，其實是更多「起步時涉獵廣泛，並在進步中擁抱不同經驗和觀點」的人。

他舉的例子從費德勒到達爾文，再到冷戰時期的蘇聯問題專家。我認為他的想法甚至可以解釋一部分微軟的成功，因為我們僱用兼具領域內和跨領域知識的人才。如果你是一名通才，感覺被周圍專才型同事掩蓋了光芒，這本書就是為你寫的。

3）《The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz》 |《輝煌與邪惡：閃電戰期間邱吉爾、家人與反抗的傳奇》
By Erik Larson |

比爾·蓋茲：有時，歷史書使人產生的代入感要比作者想象的更加強烈。這本書對 1940 和 1941 年的精彩記敘就是這樣的例子，當時德國試圖用轟炸讓英國人屈服，這使得後者幾乎每一夜都要擠在地下室和地鐵站裡。他們感受到的恐懼和焦慮似曾相識——但比我們在新冠疫情中經歷的要嚴重得多。

拉森令你生動地感受到，在這個可怕時期，普通人的生活是怎樣的。他還出色地描寫了一些帶領人民度過危機的英國領導人，包括邱吉爾和他親近的顧問們。這本書的記敘範圍十分狹窄，以至於不足以成為你閱讀的關於二戰的唯一書籍，卻是對關於那段悲慘歲月的文學作品的極大補充。

4）《The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War》|《間諜與叛徒：冷戰時期最偉大的間諜故事》
By Ben Macintyre |

比爾·蓋茲：這個非虛構故事主要描寫了兩個人：成為英國雙重間諜的克格勃特工奧列格·戈德爾維斯基，以及可能出賣了他的美國叛變者奧爾德里奇·艾姆斯。麥金泰爾重新講述了他們的故事，不僅引述了西方的內容來源（包括戈德爾維斯基自己），而且也站在了俄羅斯的角度。它的精彩程度與我最喜歡的諜戰小說不相上下。

5）《Breath from Salt: A Deadly Genetic Disease, a New Era in Science, and the Patients and Families Who Changed Medicine》|《從鹽來的呼吸：致命的遺傳性疾病、科學新時代、以及改變醫學的病人和家庭》
By Bijal P. Trivedi |

比爾·茲：這本書實在令人振奮。它記錄了一項傑出科學創新的故事，講述這項創新如何改善了幾乎所有囊腫性纖維化病人及其家屬的生活。這個故事對我尤其具有意義，因為我認識一些家庭，他們已經從書里描寫的新藥獲益。隨著生物醫學奇跡從實驗室以更快的速度誕生，我想我們將在未來幾年見到更多這樣的書問世。

I studied in Sydney, Australia for 7 years from 1990. Below is received from a old Aussie friend by WhatsApp. I did some FCs, and seems this was written in May 2020. Not sure if he has any new/updated views.

*OPINION*
*Australian ABC Radio Peter Goers:
With China, many Aussies are absolute hypocrites.*

‘Revolution is just a T-shirt away,” sings Billy Bragg.

*The T-shirts are made in China like everything else. We wear and consume the proof of the success of the Chinese Revolution and they drink our wine, use our iron ore, eat our tucker and enrich our entire tourism and education sectors.*

It is almost impossible for almost anyone in the world to go a single day without buying or using something from China.

*China is the engine of the world and now rules the world economically. * We once ludicrously feared Reds under the beds. Now they’ve made the beds we lie in. One in five people in the world is Chinese.

*The People’s Republic of China (as even ardent conservatives attest) achieved the greatest social, political and economic miracle in world history by raising 1.5 billion people out of feudal poverty into a middle class in 50 years*

China has wisely followed the American and British examples of economic colonisation of the world but avoided the appalling errors of fighting useless and expensive wars. *China has not caused a war for hundreds of years.*

The economy of the world is predicated on China. *We ignore China’s communism when we make money from it, but because of the COVID-19 virus we are suddenly sabre-rattling and loathing China’s political system. Hypocrisy rules.*

Britain lied about COVID-19 mortality rates, and Trump’s US continues to exacerbate the virus. Has Australia demanded an inquiry into those countries? No. Japan has been building islands for decades with no international criticism. China builds islands and we send gunboats.

Australia rails against China’s human rights violations yet we continue to imprison refugees in concentration camps and continue to treat Aboriginal people appallingly. Australia is the nation which persecuted and demeaned the Chinese and others through the iniquitous White Australia policy.

Australia continues to treat the Chinese with racism and suspicion through an apparent genetic disposition to distrust them. We despair of Chinese surveillance of its citizens yet increase surveillance on our own. We despair of the Chinese persecution of minority races yet we are eternally trying to weaken our own Racial Discrimination Act.

Our Government is trying to suppress the press. We welcomed the English lords Vestey and McAlpine owning half of northern Australia, we allow American surveillance and military bases and yet we resent any Chinese investment in Australia.

China is a developing nation and is far from perfect – but we have much to learn from it. The cold war against China is damaging and dangerous. The British tried twice to poison and weaken the Chinese through opium addiction, invaded China and stole Hong Kong. There are Australians and Americans who’d gladly try to repeat that.

Sadly, Sinophobia is back officially and publicly as Australians are spitting on Chinese-Australians. Shame.

We are encouraged to criticise China but we rail against Chinese criticism of us. Isn’t Professor Kam Louie, of Hong Kong University, right when he says Australian leadership is “male, pale and stale”, and aren’t the Chinese right when they say Australia is America’s dog?

The Chinese came to Australia before the British, traded peacefully with Aboriginal people and had the good manners not to invade, claim the country and dispossess and massacre them.

The US and Britain are dying. China is flourishing. Napoleon was right when he said 200 years ago: “China is a sleeping giant. When she wakes, she will move the world.”

Australia must move with and not against China with respect and showing good example. Then we grow together in the great leap forward. Put that on a T-shirt made in China.

*Peter Goers can be heard weeknights and Sundays on ABC Radio Adelaide”*

#為何香港是新冷戰下的東柏林

https://twitter.com/joshuawongcf/status/1326918252082171904

「若然全球陷入新冷戰，在威權政體和自由世界之間，香港必然就是新柏林。」在上世紀的冷戰，柏林仍是資本主義與共產主義競爭的地域，而香港如今則成為民主與獨裁對抗的重要陣地。毋容置疑，中國共產黨很想擴大其影響力，如以經濟影響力爭取世界同盟靠攏其命令，但我相信越來越多國家將意識其威脅並投入抵抗。

外交專家們已經指出，中美持續的緊張關係，從結構上將改變世界秩序，也說明國際社會描述角力為新冷戰的源起。我想，貿易戰只是一個開始，接下來的信息競賽和科技競爭，反而更為關鍵。即使香港不像上世紀的柏林一樣劃分為四個佔領區，但也被界分分為兩個陣營，支持中共專政和支持自由與民主的政府。

若然香港不能力挽狂瀾，將產生骨牌效應，動搖世界經濟體系的既有秩序，並衝擊本來大家所擁抱的民主信仰。這就說明，香港抗爭並非只限於影響香港人，香港抗爭的未來形勢，在地緣政治的層面，將牽一髮而動全身。

’If we are in the new Cold War, HK is the new Berlin.’’ -- for we are now standing between the free world and the dictatorship of China. I’m not an expert in academic but perhaps the historical context would help us shed light on many similarities.

First of all, during the Cold War, Berlin was the forefront of the two competing ideologies - Capitalism & Communism; ironically, at present, Hong Kong has become the wrestling ground for two ideologies-- Democratic values, liberties versus absolute dictatorship. The communist party is very eager in expanding its influence in the world and setting up satellite states through economic means. The free world is realizing its intention and preparing itself to resist its threat.

Diplomatic experts already pointed out that the ongoing tension between China and US had structurally changed the world order & would eventually escalate into the new Cold War. The trade dispute is only the beginning, there lies the information and technology competition. The development in 2020 has proven so. And Hong Kong is like Berlin, not being physically divided into four occupation zones, but is divided into two opposing ideologies-- the government that supports the dictatorship and those who support freedom and democracy.

However, if HK falls, the domino effect will follow, it will hinder the world’s economy & the beliefs of democracy. That is why we, HKers are not just fighting this uphill battle for our own. The world and we, are all in this together.

．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．
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https://twitter.com/joshuawongcf/status/1326918252082171904