The Economist [Fri, 07 Aug 2020]
Many students buy the university experience not just to boost their earning capacity, but also to get away from their parents, make friends and find partners.

In Australia foreign students provide a quarter of universities’ income. In Canada the tuition fees for a science degree at McGill, one of the country’s top universities, cost C$45,656 ($34,000) a year for an overseas student, compared with C$2,623 for a local.

The Economist [Fri, 14 Aug 2020]
Mr Xi’s new economic agenda is to make markets and innovation work better within tightly defined boundaries and subject to all-seeing Communist Party surveillance. It isn’t Milton Friedman, but this ruthless mix of autocracy, technology and dynamism could propel growth for years.

LAST YEAR Zotye, a carmaker, used it to tackle weak sales, and Wuliangye, a distiller, to improve the quality of its baiju; it helped Zheshang Bank to digitise its operations and catalysed the development of energy-saving technologies at China National Nuclear Power. “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” is, on the basis of these companies’ annual reports, quite the business-practice panacea.

世界变得越来越复杂，人们意识不到自己有多么无知。结果是，一群对气象学或生物学一窍不通的人就气候变化和转基因作物等议题吵翻了天，而另一群根本不知道伊拉克或乌克兰在哪儿的人，极力主张要对这些地区采取行动。人们很少发觉自己的无知，因为他们会沉浸在一个高度同质性的环境中，其信念被不断自证与加强，鲜有相左之声。 — 尤瓦尔·赫拉利（《人类简史》作者）

曾看到一句很经典的话：当年，懂毛的去了台湾，懂老蒋的留在大陆，两个都懂的去了美国。

他只是辍学，并没有停止学习。

在人类学家玛格丽特·米德的论述里，人类文明最初的标志是“愈合的骨折股骨化石”——在远古时代，断了股骨的人，除非得到他人帮助，否则必死无疑，因为伤者不能打猎，也难逃野兽伤害。