Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

Tsundoku, on 28 January 2022 - 09:28 AM, said:

They're surveillance cameras. Gosh, I hope it doesn't affect our guys social credit scores. Otherwise they might end up in a "dormitory" in East Turkestan ...

They're ghosts:

'Mohist doctrine builds on a particular quality of the ghosts: ming—the "illumination," or the ability to see things clearly. These ideas are based on the principle that, in order to be able to mete out punishments and rewards, ghosts need to be "clear-sighted"—ming, and thus capable of discerning right from wrong.

[...] "Ming gui" foregrounds the quality of ming—the principle of justice and Heaven's agency in human life. The execution of justice, which is the crucial concern of the treatise, depends on ming and not on ghosts. Humans, too, can be "illuminated" (ming) and serve as Heaven's agents meting out punishments and rewards.

[...] an illuminated sage ruler (ming jun 明君) is the one who, on behalf of Heaven, ultimately metes out just punishments and rewards, not the ghosts.

In Mozi "Ming gui" the main objective is a good government, which is based not so much on the belief in ghosts, but on a proper administration of punishments and rewards. A ming government, in turn, depends on the sage (ming) ruler, who, as seen in Mozi, possesses ghost-like qualities. Therefore, in the doctrine laid out in the treatise the emphasis is less on the dogmatic belief in the physical existence of ghosts and in their actual execution of rewards and punishments, and more on defining and understanding the quality of "discernment"—the concept of ming itself. "Ming gui," then, is not about the ghosts, but about ming—a universal concept not tied exclusively to ghosts and not limited to one function. The importance of the belief in actual agents from the spirit world in Mohist doctrine gives way to a more agnostic view of "ghosts" as a function of moral balance and retribution. Mozi's insistence on these qualities suggests a moral, politically pragmatic stance rather than an ontological one.'

https://www.cambridg...5A516F9299AA024

'Mohism [...] was an ancient Chinese philosophy of ethics and logic, rational thought, and science[...]

"If Mohism, rich in scientific thought, had rapidly grown and strengthened, the situation might have been very favorable to the development of a scientific structure. [...] disastrous upheavals again occurred in the process of social transformation, leading to the greatest social disorder in Chinese history. One can imagine the effect of this calamity on science."'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohism

Malazan Empire: Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics - Malazan Empire