Chapter 13 The rules themselves are the result of the game

Interviewer: Zhang Yue, Dalian New Business Daily Time: November 23, 2003 Now, "Wu Si" has become synonymous with "revealing ashes" to look at history and officialdom from an alternative perspective. Do you understand this?Have you heard similar or other reader feedback?Has the reader's reaction exceeded your expectations? "Revealing ashes"?I heard this word for the first time.This word has a taste - we know the existence of those gray things, they are not deliberately hidden, and they may not be packed in a black box, but we don't face them squarely, and we don't put a strong light on them, so we turn a blind eye, see but don't think, see strange things No wonder.Following this metaphor, "revealing ashes" should be the job of intellectuals, and it is also the function that various scientific concepts should undertake.For example, when you see an apple falling to the ground and think of the force of gravity, it is also considered to turn gray into white, right?I think this is the right way.If more and more people observe the world with their own eyes and think about the relationship between things with their own minds, this perspective will no longer be an alternative.

I get frequent feedback from readers and emails almost every day.Everyone is encouraging me, and some readers have helped me with knowledge.There seemed to be no unexpected reactions.Some people also say that I teach corrupt officials to be bad, but this is not unexpected.I guess people who ask this question are good people, good people, they don't know that corrupt officials know more than me.Where is the University of Corrupt Officials or the Major of Corrupt Officials?In a certain pattern of interests, people will naturally find a way to maximize their interests. The parties involved have more information than outsiders and know what they want better. They are the smartest.But ordinary people outside the circle don't know the depth and are often kept in the dark.I tried my best to describe the pattern of benefits and benefits for cultivating corrupt officials, but what I drew was only a general structure. For corrupt officials, this kind of knowledge is too rough to be of much use.

There are a lot of "bandit" content involved in the book, how did you come up with the idea of ​​focusing on such a special group?How important is this group's influence on the development of history?Can it be simply understood as the underworld in reality? Both bandits and the underworld are illegal violent groups, and they are all people who live by their lives.I pay attention to them, first of all, to understand contemporary Chinese society. Haven’t we often cracked down on large-scale crimes in recent years?It can be seen that they cannot be ignored.Secondly, there are not many peaceful and prosperous times in Chinese history.In times of peace and prosperity, there were underworld activities, but at other times, violent groups such as bandits were more active.An understanding of Chinese history is inseparable from an understanding of bandits and violence.What's more, the government is also a legal violent group, and sometimes their activities are difficult to distinguish from illegal violent groups.Only by understanding the computational logic behind the violence can we gain a deeper understanding of Chinese history and Chinese society.

The book expounds such a point of view that the most violent has the final say, and regards this as a meta-rule, that is, a rule that determines the rules.You then wrote: "As soon as the needle was inserted, I felt the constriction of my heart, and my whole body twisted and deformed accordingly. The articles I wrote before suddenly had different meanings, and the structure of the book I originally imagined also changed." You What was the structure envisioned at the beginning?What does the emergence of meta-rules mean?Is there a direct causal relationship between violence and power?

I originally imagined history as a game of chess. In the game I tried to describe, there are players, strategies, rules, formulas, winners and losers, beginnings, final games, and final games.There are bright and dark chess players, bright and dark strategies, and bright and dark games. What I describe is a "dark game".This metaphor was once the title of the book.The ancients said that "the situation has not changed in a thousand years", which is an insightful and explanatory view of history. Today's game theory can provide an accurate calculation method for this view of history.However, the mention of "meta-rules" forces me to admit that the rules themselves are the result of games, and more primitive, more fundamental, and bloodier games.Effective rules are always endogenous, not exogenous.Foreign rules are often unacceptable.What is particularly important is that, through the law of blood rewards, the result of this bloody game can even be calculated by winning or losing.I found this insight more valuable, so I changed the title, as well as the structure of the book.

There is of course a causal relationship between violence and power.Chairman Mao made it very clear: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." With political power, one can legislate, enforce laws, and formulate rules.Those who are active at this level are the big players in the human history.Landlords and peasants, capitalists and workers, and other powerless social groups are just players who play chess according to the rules set by others. Once they break the rules, their lives are in danger.But they also have other countermeasures, and that is another game of chess. In the book, people in every society are calculating the cost of doing everything in order to maximize their own interests, but due to their different positions, after the meta-rules take effect, the final result is that only violent groups and rulers Only the power to pursue the maximization of one's own interests can even be chosen and modified in order to achieve this goal.Would this conclusion be too discouraging?Where do meta-rules harm society?Will it work forever?

Violence cannot control society forever.In fact, human society has invented some methods that can control violence very effectively.Democracy is the people's control of violence, and capitalism is the bourgeoisie's control of violence. These are social forms in which production groups control violent groups.Constitutional and liberal institutions can go even further to limit the violence at the hands of the people and the violence at the hands of the bourgeoisie. In addition, the scope for the ruling group to choose and modify the concept of justice is also limited.They can make up a set of subtle sayings, for example, it can be said that you should be a cow and a horse, and I should be a tyrant, because you committed crimes in my previous life, and I accumulated virtues in my previous life. This is retribution.But please note that from this statement, we can still find some difficult-to-modify concepts of justice: good will be rewarded with good, and evil will be rewarded with evil.If you do something that benefits you, you should benefit, otherwise you should not benefit.This cannot be modified.If this could be modified, the human species would die out.No species can modify the motivation of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages and the accompanying concept of symmetry, otherwise it will be eliminated by nature, which is tantamount to suicide.This is not a depressing conclusion. On the contrary, this conclusion shows that it is not an easy task for the ruling group to persuade the ruled to be willing to be an ox. It is possible to succeed for a while by making up very mysterious claims and establishing very subtle systems.Their long live dream will never come true.

For you, what is the purpose of paying attention to history? I want to understand my situation more deeply, to understand reality, to understand Chinese society.When I write about history, I started by reflecting on my failure to learn from Dazhai.From one's own problems to social problems step by step, to the origin and root of social problems, this has entered history. After the unspoken rules and the law of blood reward, do you have any plans for your next writing and long-term writing? There is a general direction, no specific plan.My reading and writing are like running around in an unfamiliar wasteland. Although I have a general goal, I find another goal that is more attractive as I walk, and soon I find that there are more interesting things. Where did it go.It's hard for me to predict right now.Even if a plan is made, it will inevitably change beyond recognition.

What historical books would you like to base your research on?Where do you advise our readers to read "true history" instead of "official history"? I think the most important thing is not the history books, but the mentality or vision.The history books I read are the common "Twenty-Four Histories", Notes of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.The question is whether we see with our own eyes, think with our own minds, or let others run in our own minds.The most serious, and probably the most common phenomenon, is that I don't even think about it when I'm reading, and I can't ask my own questions at all.In comparison, I would rather read a page with my heart than read a book indiscriminately.Unless it's to pass the time.If you learn without thinking, you will perish. If you can't read ideas, it is better not to read.