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the Chinese internet, where she goes by the alias Zhong Shu and hosts a popular podcast with hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners.

Late last month, Zhuge, who is in her late twenties, interviewed Christopher Nolan, one of the most influential directors in Hollywood, who was in Beijing promoting The Odyssey. Rather than asking about celebrities or Hollywood, Zhuge posed a series of deeply philosophical questions to Nolan about the Christianization of Greek philosophy and how to portray heroes in films. The first thing she asked: “Are you a bard for a civilization at dusk?”

Nolan was visibly impressed by Zhuge. After the interview was published in China, Geoff Keighley, a video game journalist and the son of Nolan’s longtime friend David Keighley, shared the interview on X, calling it “a great listen.” Keighley’s video has been watched over 18 million times, and when Zhuge later posted the interview on her own X account, it racked up another 6.9 million views.

For the first time, Zhuge had become the main character of the English-speaking internet. She was being praised, mocked, criticized, and defended all at the same time. Many people said it was the best interview Nolan has done for The Odyssey, while the National Review called it a “CCP hostage video.” But everyone ultimately wanted to know the same thing: Who was this young Chinese woman with a bob haircut talking about the decline of civilizations?

While almost no one in the West knows her name, Zhuge is already one of the most prominent young intellectuals in China and has been interviewed by many of the country’s cultural elite. She was featured in Vogue China as an example of a successful woman in her twenties and frequently shares yoga and fitness tips to her 360,000 fans on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu.

When I spoke to Zhuge this week, she framed her success as being born out of personal tragedy. “I was going through an adulterous divorce in which my ex-husband sued me and I accumulated a lot of legal debt,” she says. “I felt discouraged in the English-speaking academia because of certain personal experiences related to that personal tragedy, so I turned my attention back to the Chinese-speaking world to build a career there and pay off my debt.”

When I started digging into Zhuge’s career, I was shocked by her level of productivity. Aside from publishing philosophy translations and writing articles for Chinese media outlets, she has recorded more than 360 episodes of her podcast Monologues of a Committed Observer in just the last three years. That’s an average of one new episode every three days. Most of the time, she just monologues about political science concepts for a half an hour, seemingly unscripted. On XiaoyuzhouFM, the most popular podcast streaming platform in China, she has over 940,000 subscribers.

But despite her prolific posting, Zhuge claims she isn’t interested in being famous. “I have no attachment to fame and no desire to preserve it for its own sake,” she tells me. “What I want is enough freedom and time to build a life centered on thought. That life requires some money, but not very much.”

View From America

When Zhuge asked Nolan if he saw himself as “a bard for a civilization at dusk,” she says she didn’t have a particular civilization in mind.

She views the question instead as part of the long philosophical tradition of pondering the demise of value systems. “I was not primarily attempting to issue a verdict on the contemporary United States,” she says, but “people are free to interpret the phrase through current debates about American or Western decline.”

#Chinese #Philosopher #Americans #Stop #Fightingmade in china,china,christopher nolan,movies,interviews,hollywood,philosophy"> The Chinese Philosopher Americans Can’t Stop Fighting AboutYiyang Zhuge learned last week that when you go extremely viral, the people you have been following for years suddenly start following you back. Zhuge logged onto X and found that a string of famous professors and scholars were in her list of new followers. A PhD candidate in political philosophy at Boston College, Zhuge had previously only lurked on X to keep up with the latest debates and gossip in academia. The vast majority of her social media activity happens on the Chinese internet, where she goes by the alias Zhong Shu and hosts a popular podcast with hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners.Late last month, Zhuge, who is in her late twenties, interviewed Christopher Nolan, one of the most influential directors in Hollywood, who was in Beijing promoting The Odyssey. Rather than asking about celebrities or Hollywood, Zhuge posed a series of deeply philosophical questions to Nolan about the Christianization of Greek philosophy and how to portray heroes in films. The first thing she asked: “Are you a bard for a civilization at dusk?”Nolan was visibly impressed by Zhuge. After the interview was published in China, Geoff Keighley, a video game journalist and the son of Nolan’s longtime friend David Keighley, shared the interview on X, calling it “a great listen.” Keighley’s video has been watched over 18 million times, and when Zhuge later posted the interview on her own X account, it racked up another 6.9 million views.For the first time, Zhuge had become the main character of the English-speaking internet. She was being praised, mocked, criticized, and defended all at the same time. Many people said it was the best interview Nolan has done for The Odyssey, while the National Review called it a “CCP hostage video.” But everyone ultimately wanted to know the same thing: Who was this young Chinese woman with a bob haircut talking about the decline of civilizations?While almost no one in the West knows her name, Zhuge is already one of the most prominent young intellectuals in China and has been interviewed by many of the country’s cultural elite. She was featured in Vogue China as an example of a successful woman in her twenties and frequently shares yoga and fitness tips to her 360,000 fans on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu.When I spoke to Zhuge this week, she framed her success as being born out of personal tragedy. “I was going through an adulterous divorce in which my ex-husband sued me and I accumulated a lot of legal debt,” she says. “I felt discouraged in the English-speaking academia because of certain personal experiences related to that personal tragedy, so I turned my attention back to the Chinese-speaking world to build a career there and pay off my debt.”When I started digging into Zhuge’s career, I was shocked by her level of productivity. Aside from publishing philosophy translations and writing articles for Chinese media outlets, she has recorded more than 360 episodes of her podcast Monologues of a Committed Observer in just the last three years. That’s an average of one new episode every three days. Most of the time, she just monologues about political science concepts for a half an hour, seemingly unscripted. On XiaoyuzhouFM, the most popular podcast streaming platform in China, she has over 940,000 subscribers.But despite her prolific posting, Zhuge claims she isn’t interested in being famous. “I have no attachment to fame and no desire to preserve it for its own sake,” she tells me. “What I want is enough freedom and time to build a life centered on thought. That life requires some money, but not very much.”View From AmericaWhen Zhuge asked Nolan if he saw himself as “a bard for a civilization at dusk,” she says she didn’t have a particular civilization in mind.She views the question instead as part of the long philosophical tradition of pondering the demise of value systems. “I was not primarily attempting to issue a verdict on the contemporary United States,” she says, but “people are free to interpret the phrase through current debates about American or Western decline.”#Chinese #Philosopher #Americans #Stop #Fightingmade in china,china,christopher nolan,movies,interviews,hollywood,philosophy
Tech-news

the Chinese internet, where she goes by the alias Zhong Shu and hosts a popular podcast with hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners.

Late last month, Zhuge, who is in her late twenties, interviewed Christopher Nolan, one of the most influential directors in Hollywood, who was in Beijing promoting The Odyssey. Rather than asking about celebrities or Hollywood, Zhuge posed a series of deeply philosophical questions to Nolan about the Christianization of Greek philosophy and how to portray heroes in films. The first thing she asked: “Are you a bard for a civilization at dusk?”

Nolan was visibly impressed by Zhuge. After the interview was published in China, Geoff Keighley, a video game journalist and the son of Nolan’s longtime friend David Keighley, shared the interview on X, calling it “a great listen.” Keighley’s video has been watched over 18 million times, and when Zhuge later posted the interview on her own X account, it racked up another 6.9 million views.

For the first time, Zhuge had become the main character of the English-speaking internet. She was being praised, mocked, criticized, and defended all at the same time. Many people said it was the best interview Nolan has done for The Odyssey, while the National Review called it a “CCP hostage video.” But everyone ultimately wanted to know the same thing: Who was this young Chinese woman with a bob haircut talking about the decline of civilizations?

While almost no one in the West knows her name, Zhuge is already one of the most prominent young intellectuals in China and has been interviewed by many of the country’s cultural elite. She was featured in Vogue China as an example of a successful woman in her twenties and frequently shares yoga and fitness tips to her 360,000 fans on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu.

When I spoke to Zhuge this week, she framed her success as being born out of personal tragedy. “I was going through an adulterous divorce in which my ex-husband sued me and I accumulated a lot of legal debt,” she says. “I felt discouraged in the English-speaking academia because of certain personal experiences related to that personal tragedy, so I turned my attention back to the Chinese-speaking world to build a career there and pay off my debt.”

When I started digging into Zhuge’s career, I was shocked by her level of productivity. Aside from publishing philosophy translations and writing articles for Chinese media outlets, she has recorded more than 360 episodes of her podcast Monologues of a Committed Observer in just the last three years. That’s an average of one new episode every three days. Most of the time, she just monologues about political science concepts for a half an hour, seemingly unscripted. On XiaoyuzhouFM, the most popular podcast streaming platform in China, she has over 940,000 subscribers.

But despite her prolific posting, Zhuge claims she isn’t interested in being famous. “I have no attachment to fame and no desire to preserve it for its own sake,” she tells me. “What I want is enough freedom and time to build a life centered on thought. That life requires some money, but not very much.”

View From America

When Zhuge asked Nolan if he saw himself as “a bard for a civilization at dusk,” she says she didn’t have a particular civilization in mind.

She views the question instead as part of the long philosophical tradition of pondering the demise of value systems. “I was not primarily attempting to issue a verdict on the contemporary United States,” she says, but “people are free to interpret the phrase through current debates about American or Western decline.”

#Chinese #Philosopher #Americans #Stop #Fightingmade in china,china,christopher nolan,movies,interviews,hollywood,philosophy">The Chinese Philosopher Americans Can’t Stop Fighting About

Yiyang Zhuge learned last week that when you go extremely viral, the people you have been following for years suddenly start following you back. Zhuge logged onto X and found that a string of famous professors and scholars were in her list of new followers. A PhD candidate in political philosophy at Boston College, Zhuge had previously only lurked on X to keep up with the latest debates and gossip in academia. The vast majority of her social media activity happens on the Chinese internet, where she goes by the alias Zhong Shu and hosts a popular podcast with hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners.

Late last month, Zhuge, who is in her late twenties, interviewed Christopher Nolan, one of the most influential directors in Hollywood, who was in Beijing promoting The Odyssey. Rather than asking about celebrities or Hollywood, Zhuge posed a series of deeply philosophical questions to Nolan about the Christianization of Greek philosophy and how to portray heroes in films. The first thing she asked: “Are you a bard for a civilization at dusk?”

Nolan was visibly impressed by Zhuge. After the interview was published in China, Geoff Keighley, a video game journalist and the son of Nolan’s longtime friend David Keighley, shared the interview on X, calling it “a great listen.” Keighley’s video has been watched over 18 million times, and when Zhuge later posted the interview on her own X account, it racked up another 6.9 million views.

For the first time, Zhuge had become the main character of the English-speaking internet. She was being praised, mocked, criticized, and defended all at the same time. Many people said it was the best interview Nolan has done for The Odyssey, while the National Review called it a “CCP hostage video.” But everyone ultimately wanted to know the same thing: Who was this young Chinese woman with a bob haircut talking about the decline of civilizations?

While almost no one in the West knows her name, Zhuge is already one of the most prominent young intellectuals in China and has been interviewed by many of the country’s cultural elite. She was featured in Vogue China as an example of a successful woman in her twenties and frequently shares yoga and fitness tips to her 360,000 fans on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu.

When I spoke to Zhuge this week, she framed her success as being born out of personal tragedy. “I was going through an adulterous divorce in which my ex-husband sued me and I accumulated a lot of legal debt,” she says. “I felt discouraged in the English-speaking academia because of certain personal experiences related to that personal tragedy, so I turned my attention back to the Chinese-speaking world to build a career there and pay off my debt.”

When I started digging into Zhuge’s career, I was shocked by her level of productivity. Aside from publishing philosophy translations and writing articles for Chinese media outlets, she has recorded more than 360 episodes of her podcast Monologues of a Committed Observer in just the last three years. That’s an average of one new episode every three days. Most of the time, she just monologues about political science concepts for a half an hour, seemingly unscripted. On XiaoyuzhouFM, the most popular podcast streaming platform in China, she has over 940,000 subscribers.

But despite her prolific posting, Zhuge claims she isn’t interested in being famous. “I have no attachment to fame and no desire to preserve it for its own sake,” she tells me. “What I want is enough freedom and time to build a life centered on thought. That life requires some money, but not very much.”

View From America

When Zhuge asked Nolan if he saw himself as “a bard for a civilization at dusk,” she says she didn’t have a particular civilization in mind.

She views the question instead as part of the long philosophical tradition of pondering the demise of value systems. “I was not primarily attempting to issue a verdict on the contemporary United States,” she says, but “people are free to interpret the phrase through current debates about American or Western decline.”

#Chinese #Philosopher #Americans #Stop #Fightingmade in china,china,christopher nolan,movies,interviews,hollywood,philosophy

Yiyang Zhuge learned last week that when you go extremely viral, the people you have…

Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 and DeepSeek R1 came out of nowhere. But the truth is that even if you never travel to China, there’s an easy way to get a sense of what Chinese AI researchers are up to: log on to X.

In the past year, I’ve seen a steady increase of Chinese artificial intelligence researchers joining X and participating in the wider discourse about AI development and commercialization. Take Moonshot AI, the company behind Kimi K3, as an example. On Thursday, I was able to quickly find around 30 accounts on X run by people who claim to be currently affiliated with Moonshot, including two of the startup’s cofounders, as well as half a dozen former employees and collaborators. And these are not dormant accounts: They talk about Moonshot’s big releases and incremental research papers, make friends with Western researchers, and share details about their personal life and hobbies.

Moonshot is arguably the Chinese AI lab that’s most active on X, but you will easily find executives and technical staff from other leading Chinese startups, like Minimax and Z.ai. Even several employees at DeepSeek, who reportedly are unable to leave China because the government confiscated their passports, regularly post on X about the latest AI news and share job listings to recruit new talent.

“X is the best community” for AI discussions right now, says Meng Fanqing, cofounder of the startup Evolvent AI and a former intern at Moonshot, where he worked on the Kimi K2.5 model. “There are both Chinese and overseas audiences, and the recommendation algorithm works pretty well for showing you content in the same circle that you are in,” he says. Compared with Chinese platforms, where it’s often hard to have serious technical discussions, Chinese researchers like Meng say they would rather spend their time on X.

Meng says he started actively posting on X in mid-2025. At the start of the year, DeepSeek’s R1 model went viral around the world, shining a bright spotlight on China’s AI industry. Many Chinese researchers seized the moment and joined X to start sharing their perspective. “Around that time, all the Chinese researchers are starting to think about branding on an international level,” Meng says.

Chinese AI researchers may also be helping fill a growing gap left by researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic, who have become more reluctant to share their thinking online as their employers have grown into behemoth companies, says Tiezhen Wang, an independent AI analyst and former researcher at Hugging Face. “I guess they feel that their model architecture and how they train the model is kind of a secret, so they’re posting less,” Wang explains. As a result, Chinese researchers are getting more attention from audiences on X who are hungry to make sense of what’s happening in the fast-moving world of AI.

Why Choose X?

One reason X may have become popular among Chinese AI researchers is that there’s not really a comparable social platform in China for high-quality technical discussions about AI and other emerging technologies.

Some people say they used to post on Zhihu, a Quora-like platform that once branded itself as the premier destination for educated professionals to show and tell. But since 2020, Zhihu has increasingly pivoted to hosting fiction content, and expert contributors have gradually fallen off. For example, Deng Yu, a Chinese mathematician who was awarded a Fields Medal this year, publicly wrote on Zhihu in 2018 that he decided to stop posting on the site due to the rise of low-quality content.

#Chinese #Researchers #Finding #Voicemade in china,china,artificial intelligence,x,twitter,rednote,deepseek"> Chinese AI Researchers Are Finding Their Voice on XThe prevailing narrative in Silicon Valley is that Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 and DeepSeek R1 came out of nowhere. But the truth is that even if you never travel to China, there’s an easy way to get a sense of what Chinese AI researchers are up to: log on to X.In the past year, I’ve seen a steady increase of Chinese artificial intelligence researchers joining X and participating in the wider discourse about AI development and commercialization. Take Moonshot AI, the company behind Kimi K3, as an example. On Thursday, I was able to quickly find around 30 accounts on X run by people who claim to be currently affiliated with Moonshot, including two of the startup’s cofounders, as well as half a dozen former employees and collaborators. And these are not dormant accounts: They talk about Moonshot’s big releases and incremental research papers, make friends with Western researchers, and share details about their personal life and hobbies.Moonshot is arguably the Chinese AI lab that’s most active on X, but you will easily find executives and technical staff from other leading Chinese startups, like Minimax and Z.ai. Even several employees at DeepSeek, who reportedly are unable to leave China because the government confiscated their passports, regularly post on X about the latest AI news and share job listings to recruit new talent.“X is the best community” for AI discussions right now, says Meng Fanqing, cofounder of the startup Evolvent AI and a former intern at Moonshot, where he worked on the Kimi K2.5 model. “There are both Chinese and overseas audiences, and the recommendation algorithm works pretty well for showing you content in the same circle that you are in,” he says. Compared with Chinese platforms, where it’s often hard to have serious technical discussions, Chinese researchers like Meng say they would rather spend their time on X.Meng says he started actively posting on X in mid-2025. At the start of the year, DeepSeek’s R1 model went viral around the world, shining a bright spotlight on China’s AI industry. Many Chinese researchers seized the moment and joined X to start sharing their perspective. “Around that time, all the Chinese researchers are starting to think about branding on an international level,” Meng says.Chinese AI researchers may also be helping fill a growing gap left by researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic, who have become more reluctant to share their thinking online as their employers have grown into behemoth companies, says Tiezhen Wang, an independent AI analyst and former researcher at Hugging Face. “I guess they feel that their model architecture and how they train the model is kind of a secret, so they’re posting less,” Wang explains. As a result, Chinese researchers are getting more attention from audiences on X who are hungry to make sense of what’s happening in the fast-moving world of AI.Why Choose X?One reason X may have become popular among Chinese AI researchers is that there’s not really a comparable social platform in China for high-quality technical discussions about AI and other emerging technologies.Some people say they used to post on Zhihu, a Quora-like platform that once branded itself as the premier destination for educated professionals to show and tell. But since 2020, Zhihu has increasingly pivoted to hosting fiction content, and expert contributors have gradually fallen off. For example, Deng Yu, a Chinese mathematician who was awarded a Fields Medal this year, publicly wrote on Zhihu in 2018 that he decided to stop posting on the site due to the rise of low-quality content.#Chinese #Researchers #Finding #Voicemade in china,china,artificial intelligence,x,twitter,rednote,deepseek
Tech-news

Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 and DeepSeek R1 came out of nowhere. But the truth is that even if you never travel to China, there’s an easy way to get a sense of what Chinese AI researchers are up to: log on to X.

In the past year, I’ve seen a steady increase of Chinese artificial intelligence researchers joining X and participating in the wider discourse about AI development and commercialization. Take Moonshot AI, the company behind Kimi K3, as an example. On Thursday, I was able to quickly find around 30 accounts on X run by people who claim to be currently affiliated with Moonshot, including two of the startup’s cofounders, as well as half a dozen former employees and collaborators. And these are not dormant accounts: They talk about Moonshot’s big releases and incremental research papers, make friends with Western researchers, and share details about their personal life and hobbies.

Moonshot is arguably the Chinese AI lab that’s most active on X, but you will easily find executives and technical staff from other leading Chinese startups, like Minimax and Z.ai. Even several employees at DeepSeek, who reportedly are unable to leave China because the government confiscated their passports, regularly post on X about the latest AI news and share job listings to recruit new talent.

“X is the best community” for AI discussions right now, says Meng Fanqing, cofounder of the startup Evolvent AI and a former intern at Moonshot, where he worked on the Kimi K2.5 model. “There are both Chinese and overseas audiences, and the recommendation algorithm works pretty well for showing you content in the same circle that you are in,” he says. Compared with Chinese platforms, where it’s often hard to have serious technical discussions, Chinese researchers like Meng say they would rather spend their time on X.

Meng says he started actively posting on X in mid-2025. At the start of the year, DeepSeek’s R1 model went viral around the world, shining a bright spotlight on China’s AI industry. Many Chinese researchers seized the moment and joined X to start sharing their perspective. “Around that time, all the Chinese researchers are starting to think about branding on an international level,” Meng says.

Chinese AI researchers may also be helping fill a growing gap left by researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic, who have become more reluctant to share their thinking online as their employers have grown into behemoth companies, says Tiezhen Wang, an independent AI analyst and former researcher at Hugging Face. “I guess they feel that their model architecture and how they train the model is kind of a secret, so they’re posting less,” Wang explains. As a result, Chinese researchers are getting more attention from audiences on X who are hungry to make sense of what’s happening in the fast-moving world of AI.

Why Choose X?

One reason X may have become popular among Chinese AI researchers is that there’s not really a comparable social platform in China for high-quality technical discussions about AI and other emerging technologies.

Some people say they used to post on Zhihu, a Quora-like platform that once branded itself as the premier destination for educated professionals to show and tell. But since 2020, Zhihu has increasingly pivoted to hosting fiction content, and expert contributors have gradually fallen off. For example, Deng Yu, a Chinese mathematician who was awarded a Fields Medal this year, publicly wrote on Zhihu in 2018 that he decided to stop posting on the site due to the rise of low-quality content.

#Chinese #Researchers #Finding #Voicemade in china,china,artificial intelligence,x,twitter,rednote,deepseek">Chinese AI Researchers Are Finding Their Voice on X

The prevailing narrative in Silicon Valley is that Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 and DeepSeek R1 came out of nowhere. But the truth is that even if you never travel to China, there’s an easy way to get a sense of what Chinese AI researchers are up to: log on to X.

In the past year, I’ve seen a steady increase of Chinese artificial intelligence researchers joining X and participating in the wider discourse about AI development and commercialization. Take Moonshot AI, the company behind Kimi K3, as an example. On Thursday, I was able to quickly find around 30 accounts on X run by people who claim to be currently affiliated with Moonshot, including two of the startup’s cofounders, as well as half a dozen former employees and collaborators. And these are not dormant accounts: They talk about Moonshot’s big releases and incremental research papers, make friends with Western researchers, and share details about their personal life and hobbies.

Moonshot is arguably the Chinese AI lab that’s most active on X, but you will easily find executives and technical staff from other leading Chinese startups, like Minimax and Z.ai. Even several employees at DeepSeek, who reportedly are unable to leave China because the government confiscated their passports, regularly post on X about the latest AI news and share job listings to recruit new talent.

“X is the best community” for AI discussions right now, says Meng Fanqing, cofounder of the startup Evolvent AI and a former intern at Moonshot, where he worked on the Kimi K2.5 model. “There are both Chinese and overseas audiences, and the recommendation algorithm works pretty well for showing you content in the same circle that you are in,” he says. Compared with Chinese platforms, where it’s often hard to have serious technical discussions, Chinese researchers like Meng say they would rather spend their time on X.

Meng says he started actively posting on X in mid-2025. At the start of the year, DeepSeek’s R1 model went viral around the world, shining a bright spotlight on China’s AI industry. Many Chinese researchers seized the moment and joined X to start sharing their perspective. “Around that time, all the Chinese researchers are starting to think about branding on an international level,” Meng says.

Chinese AI researchers may also be helping fill a growing gap left by researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic, who have become more reluctant to share their thinking online as their employers have grown into behemoth companies, says Tiezhen Wang, an independent AI analyst and former researcher at Hugging Face. “I guess they feel that their model architecture and how they train the model is kind of a secret, so they’re posting less,” Wang explains. As a result, Chinese researchers are getting more attention from audiences on X who are hungry to make sense of what’s happening in the fast-moving world of AI.

Why Choose X?

One reason X may have become popular among Chinese AI researchers is that there’s not really a comparable social platform in China for high-quality technical discussions about AI and other emerging technologies.

Some people say they used to post on Zhihu, a Quora-like platform that once branded itself as the premier destination for educated professionals to show and tell. But since 2020, Zhihu has increasingly pivoted to hosting fiction content, and expert contributors have gradually fallen off. For example, Deng Yu, a Chinese mathematician who was awarded a Fields Medal this year, publicly wrote on Zhihu in 2018 that he decided to stop posting on the site due to the rise of low-quality content.

#Chinese #Researchers #Finding #Voicemade in china,china,artificial intelligence,x,twitter,rednote,deepseek

The prevailing narrative in Silicon Valley is that Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 and…