＜熊出沒注意＞縱貫法學？！（熊秉元）

An Attempt at Fumbling around in Law

Author: Hsiung Bing-yuan Posted on Mar 10, 2010, Apple Daily
Translator: Welson Xiong (Mar 15, 2010)

Having been puttering around in economics for nearly 30 years, I do have some knowledge obtained from the purported "Queen of the social sciences." A few years ago, I wrote an essay titled as "Economics 012" aiming to capture the core ideas of economics, which I have recognized can use only three numbers - 0, 1 and 2 to express four main theorems.

Theorem I: ○>0. The big zero is larger than the small one, which means that much/many is better than little/few, and that sweet is better than sour. I wish the salary cannot be too much. I prefer to live in a luxurious spacious house instead of living in a small apartment, and whenever my going out or coming back, I would like to have my own sedan car and chauffeur, rather than to ride the shabby bike and put up with the traffic smoke nuisance. Put Theorem I into words: Man is rational and capable of thinking. Man is self-interested as well, wishing to pursue his own well-being. Theorem II: 1+1＜2. 「Being」 may not be necessarily reasonable, but there is certainly a reason for its existence. The outcome of a falling drop onto another does not get two drops. The same is also true of social phenomena. It seems that those things which got someone's goat, in fact, had their own antecedents. If they all had been able to be solved by reason, we wouldn’t have needed to harbor an emotional grievance against each other.

Theorem III: 1+1＞2. A good value emerges conditionally. We all wish a peaceful, progressive community, a happy, harmonious family, and a vitality and a prosperity for our health and career. However, there is no free lunch. As you sow, so shall you reap. Wishing to enjoy juicy fruits, one must check first if the conditions are ample for them to grow. Theorem IV: 0~0. Things would lose their meaning if they were not balanced by other things. Without leaves as the foil, there shows no salient features of the flower. If there were not a bad sort, one would not be able to appreciate the value of a good sort. All things, no matter good or bad, right or wrong, are relative one another. Therefore, it is worth one’s while mulling over in an inertial frame of reference.

I believe that to a considerable extent, these four theorems capture the essence of economics. Moreover, in theory or in practice, there is still a lot of scope for their further elaboration. Apart from self-righteous pleasure, the brainchild of mine also makes it much easier to dialogue with both other disciplines and the general public.

Generic Economic Concepts

One day about two or three years ago, it suddenly struck me that "If Economics can be condensed into the core ideas, can I follow suit for the noble, age-old, traditional Law? Moreover, if a blessing is upon me, I may also use some simple symbols to bring out the crucial points of Law."

Unfortunately, my intermittent thinking on that wish has made little progress. On the one hand my knowledge of law is limited; on the other, significant differences exist in interdisciplinary nature. My refinement work seems having sparkles while the process, but its structure is actually more like fragments, far from a sound construction. However, no matter what the ultimate result of my endeavor is, I think some of the found concepts are indeed stepping stones to master the core of law, especially from an economic point of view!

Firstly, the concept of "Repeated Games": A man’s life shall go through a number of seasons, so especially do a state or a society. Therefore, the design and plan for rules and regulations (The legal and judicial systems are among the links) must focus on the future. To punish the fault seems to deal with the past but, in fact, is for the sake of the future. If a society (person) survived only one day, then there wouldn’t need a variety of norms and prisons. Another proper expression to describe the concept is that the sun will still rise tomorrow.

Secondly, the concept of "Tools": While the evolutionary process of survival of the fittest in natural selection, man develops a wide variety of tools, hoping to fend for himself, pursue good fortune and avoid disaster. Therefore, all kinds of things such as axe, wheel, gunpowder, car, table, chair, etc. are tools; various rules and regulations are nothing but tools. Since the law is set in this manner, a man’s thought, from the abstract point of view, makes no exception. Now that all inventions are regarded as tools, it is worthwhile to choose a better one, whereas the concept of cost-effectiveness can be applied in time to help making a decision. To put it simply, the pursuit of fairness and justice can not make light of the price it may cost!

Abstractly speaking, not only is the attempt to find out whatever the core ideas of economics, law or any other subjects itself interesting, but it is mentally challenging. The approach to grope about in the dark could have often been sui generis and gained one’s own point of view. It is just like the similar activities of thousands of years ago as Chinese philosopher Tsang said about Confucius - "The way of our Master is 'doing one’s utmost and putting oneself in the other’s place,' nothing more."

The author is now Professor in the Institute & Department of Economics, National Taiwan University, and Consultant of Lukang town, Changhua County.

The Entanglement between Self-interest and Public Interest

Author: Hsiung Bing-yuan Posted on Oct 21, 2009, Apple Daily

Translator: Welson Xiong (Oct 25, 2009)

In Chinese society, the subtle relationships between public sphere and private sphere have been discussed in a number of treatises. For example, incivism, which has been recognized as the common fault in Chinese community (including mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan). However, there are two additional familiar phenomena are seldom read in a written text.

On the one hand, the traditional education repeatedly stresses that the purpose for what one has learned from books of ancient Chinese sages is to regulate one’s family, govern the nation and bring the peace to the world; that the principium of being a Gentleman is to forget one’s own affairs for the sake of public affairs; and that while it is impossible to reconcile both loyalty and filial piety, one should be loyal to his country rather than be a filial son. A foregone conclusion: while personal affairs meet public affairs, the former should normally give priority to the latter. On the other hand, signed by the official seal, numerous official documents bear no name of person in charge, thus what people could face is just the cold, void and abstract name of a public institution. Also, lots of letters from readers have no signature either. It seems being afraid to have their names exposed, and shows a bit shady self-consciousness.

The coexistence of these strange and even conflicting phenomena seemly reflect in Chinese culture the deficiency of a healthy and affirmative awareness for their both treatments and relative relationships of public and private affairs. Assuming that human beings are rational (capable of thinking) and self-interested (pursuing their recognized well-being), the rudiments of economics might perhaps provide a little help to resolve the problem between public interest and self-interest.

Several common misconceptions are worth to be clarified in advance. First of all, both self-interest and public interest are conflicting and incompatible with each other. For this intuitive awareness, let the evidence speaks for itself: a bottle of milk, whose cost is 30 dollars(NT), is sold 50 dollars; (assuming that) the consumer who bought it earns 80-dollar pleasure. Therefore, the seller and the buyer, though seeking their respective benefit, could mutually profit by trading; the well-being of both sides increases “simultaneously,” and the rights and interests of both sides “are“ treated equally, so self-interest and public interest also concurrently risen.

Secondly, public interest could not be compared with its amount because it is unquantifiable. Ordinary people would not commit this kind of error, but occasionally it does happen to some learned scholars who read books in a priggish manner. Surely public interest could differ in types just as the interest has various amounts. Student interests (a kind of public interest) among primary schools, primary and secondary schools, and all schools, even including all the faculties and students interests, definitely vary in their specific scopes, ranging from small to large sizes. Moreover, the values of size, beauty or ugliness, and right or wrong, etc. are an ordering concept; series figures of 1,2,3,4, etc. are a numerical concept. The size of public interest is relevant to ordering, but has no direct correlation with quantification. In fact, the procedure of democratic representation is designed for the decision-making between public interest and self-interest.

Public Interest—Overlapping Part of Multiple Self-interests

Thirdly, self-interest, once running into public interest, should make a concession to it. This illusion deserves a careful discretion. During the competitive conflict, public interest and self-interest are just like two ends of a scale. What their priorities are depend on other interrelated conditions. Take Japanese Narita Airport for example, its construction triggered violent protests from nearby residents, and finally, the airport changed its design, shortened its runway and switched its runway’s direction. Correspondingly, the airport operating capacity, including its airplane taking off and landing, has made a huge and uncountable cost increase. As long as the airport keeps on its operation for one day, Japanese future generations would have to assume these costs for one more day.

The above case shows that in the conflict between self-interest and public interest, if self-interest (people's property rights) surpasses public interest (airport operations, passenger rights, etc.), public interest gives in. Of course, at the abstract level, respect for private property itself is a kind of public interest. In the long term, the stability of private property is far beyond the gain and loss of an airport!

This transition, in fact, touches the most fundamental and the most crucial problem of public interest and self-interest. What on earth the relevance between them? The answer in the final analysis is quite simple: public interest is composed of multiple self-interests; the common overlapping part of self-interests is public interest. Therefore, a bachelor's interest is self-interest; the common interest of the husband and wife after marriage is public interest owned by both of them; the common interest among the couple, their children and relatives is the family’s public interest…... and etc.

Ronald Harry Coase, Nobel Prize winner, is best known for two awarded articles in particular, one of which is “The Problem of Social Cost.” The major idea of the article, summarized up in one word, is that there is no so-called social cost, only private cost.

For the problem between self-interest and public interest, one might also think it in the same way. Although it is quite an extreme description, yet it goes right down to the heart of the matter!

The author is now Professor in the Institute & Department of Economics, National Taiwan University, and Lukang Consultant.

The Relations across the Taiwan Straits after Half-century(英譯稿)

Author: Hsiung Bing-yuan Posted on Oct 14, 2009 Apple Daily
Translator: Welson Xiong (Oct 18, 2009)

In distinct fields there are different issues to be dealt with; however, the representation of each issue seemly diverges tremendously, yet ways of its analysis are often interlinked or identical.

Epitaph Thinking for Planning

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, written by Stephen R. Covey, is a business bestseller with more than 10 million copies sold. This book comes out with lots of Covey’s fetching viewpoints, one of which is “Epitaph Thinking” for life planning, e.g. firstly asking yourself in your mind: At the end of your life journey what epitaphs would you prefer your family and closed friends saying to you and having them written on your tombstone—“Here lies a man. Honest and caring.” or “A man full of inimitable enthusiasm?” Accordingly, setting those memorial words as your goal, and then returning to the present making choices ever since responsively. To make sure whatever you do is to move slowly toward the goal.

The similar concept also exists in both mathematics and economics. It is based on initial conditions to compute in a dynamic system the most desirable outcome, then to reverse step by step the process at each critical point of time to determine a sequence of optimal actions, which composes a responsive track to the end of a problem or situation. The terminology for this algorithm is named “backward induction.” Abstractly speaking, it is virtually “Epitaph Thinking.”

One of the most significant ordeals that confront Chinese community, Asia or even the world as well is cross-strait relations. If political strife and hostile confrontation between Blue and Green camps were merely temporary twists and turns, what would cross-strait relations eventually turn out, and what exact position should Taiwan take? To mull over those questions by epitaph thinking or backward induction not only has an intellectual interest but acquires more substantial enlightenments in policy. Once the current clashes are ignored and all unrests are settled, the problem becomes quite simple. How would the relationship status across the Straits evolve, then?

For so many years I have been speculating on this issue, to which, as far as I know, only Nanfang Shuo(南方朔), a pseudonym of Wang Hsing-ching(王杏慶), a social commentator and thinker, has addressed his remarks. His viewpoint is to take the relations between England and Scotland as a reference coordinate,—in short, the northern Scotland and southern England, with different backgrounds of language, history and culture, had fought each other for centuries; nevertheless, influenced by various interaction forces, the two countries finally have formed an excellent coalition and become the main members of the United Kingdom. Nowadays, Scotland still enjoys its unique tradition, and unceasingly makes its contributions in culture, art and science to the British society.

Other than Nanfang Shuo’s analysis, I would also like to share my humble opinion here: Cross-strait relations, while reaching a stable and long-lasting state, would resemble the case of America and Canada, both of which share a common cultural background and language, and treats each other with equality and reciprocity. They are two political entities and remain an independent relationship respectively despite some occasional unexpected conflicts.

What I mean is from the perspective of historical background, an intimate relationship between Taiwan and Mainland China is normal, but an isolated state would be accidental. Additionally, from the current exchange of personnel and goods in trade and economics, it is out of the question for both to have been caught in such a long deadlock of hostility. Half-century later, through the magic interaction of various forces the relationship between Taiwan and Mainland China should be in a new phase of inseparability, harmony and mutual prosperity. As for the choice of name title, whatever there might have been diverse emphases on “Special State-to-State Relationship,” “One Country on Each Side” or “Two States in One Nation,” etc., it could be almost certain that both sides across the Straits would develop the situation of “one plus one is bigger than two.”

Jump out of Blue and Green Antagonistic Frame

Certainly, the examples, Scotland/England and US/Canada, enumerated for cross-strait relations as reference coordinates might not completely appropriate. After all, both sides, disconnected by land, are not to merge into a commonwealth with one parliament. On the other hand, in terms of scale and master-slave relationships, Taiwan/Mainland China could not be compared with US/Canada. The main function of reference coordinates is to provide the point of force application for thinking, using a ready-made framework to speculate on the extremely urgent issue.

In any case, it is better to open up horizons and widen the scene than to spin in circles within the Blue and Green antagonistic frame. It is not drawing lessons from history, but setting the future as a starting point. It is based on the ideal state of the distant horizon to find out the path toward one’s whereabouts for settling down and pursuing well-being.

The author is now Professor in the Institute & Department of Economics, National Taiwan University and Chair Professor in China University of Technology.

9 Ways to Take Your Site from One to One Million Users [英譯中]

拓增網路用戶的九種方法

主講人：凱文．羅斯 (Kevin Rose) 2009年10月5日

In this video from The Future of Web Apps London (FOWA), Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, WeFollow and Revision3, shares 9 things he did to increase his users to 1,000,000 and beyond.

來自「倫敦未來網絡應用服務公司 (簡稱FOWA)」的凱文．羅斯 (Kevin Rose)，同時也是Digg(社交新聞)、WeFollow (twitter用戶目錄)和Revision3 (網路電視)三家網站的創始人，在這部影片裡面分享了九種方法將其用戶增至100萬戶，甚至更多的經驗。

Here’s a quick bullet-point summary. You can watch the video, view the presentation slides or download the audio.

演講內容摘要成下列九個重點，分別以影片、幻燈片或下載聲音檔三種方式呈現，供您選擇。

Editor’s Note: We’re bringing The Future of Web Apps to Miami on Feb 22-24th 2010. Speakers include: Alex Payne (Twitter), Aaron Patzer (Mint.com), John Resig (jQuery), Steve Huffman (Reddit) and more. Mega Early Bird tickets go on sale on Wednesday and they’ll sell out immediately (only 20 tickets at $200, which is 56% off).

編者註解：未來網絡應用服務將於2010年2月22日至24日在邁阿密舉辦演講。演講人包括：Twitter亞歷克．佩恩（Alex Payne）、Mint.com阿倫．帕茲爾（Aaron Patzer）、jQuery約翰．瑞希格（John Resig），以及Reddit史蒂夫哈夫曼（Steve Huffman）等。週三起開始預售Mega Early Bird tickets門票，門票有限欲購者請從速（4.4折優惠票僅20張，每張200美元）。

#1. Ego

Ask yourself: Does this feature increase the users self-worth or stoke the ego?
If a user is contributing to my system, what emotional rewards do they walk away with? What (visible) rewards will they receive?

方法一：自我

試問自己：是否 [網路] 這項功能，能增加用戶的自我價值或激發其自我？
如果用戶一直對我的系統有所貢獻，他們是帶著什麼樣的情感獎勵離開呢？他們能得到什麼樣的（實質的）獎勵？

#2. Simplicity

Stop over building features
Pick 2-3 things to focus on
Ask yourself: Is there anything I can take out of this feature?

方法二：簡單化

停止一再增添功能

專注於2-3項功能上

試問自己：該項功能是否還能予以簡化

#3. Build & Release

Stop thinking you understand your users
Learn from what they’re actually doing on your site, not what you think they’ll do
Decide on what you’re going to build… and build it (avoid analysis paralysis)
Build, release, iterate, and repeat

方法三：開發和發布

切勿自認了解你的用戶

了解他們在您網站到底做了些什麼事，而不是自認為他們會做些什麼事

決定您想要開發什麼…決定好就去做 (避免優柔寡斷)

開發、發布，週而復始

#4. Hack The Press

Invite only system (Pownce, Digg v3)
Talk to the junior bloggers
Attend parties for events you can’t afford – network w/influencers, bring a demo

方法四：利用媒體宣傳

只邀請系統業者 (例如Pownce, Digg v3)

與後進的部落格業者討論

參與高級社交活動—與具影響力的人建立交流，並記得攜帶展示樣本

#5. Connect with your community

Start a podcast (it’s OK if not everyone listens)
Throw a launch party, then yearly/quarterly events – invite the press/influencers personally – don’t tell the bar
Engage w/the community, be an active participant your own ecosystem

方法五：與自我社區交流

開始宣傳 (假如有人不願意聆聽，您也別太在意)

舉辦首度發表會，續辦季度／年度活動，親自邀請媒體／具影響力的人

全心投入社區，在自我生態系統裡做個活躍的參與人

#6. Advisors

What technical problems are you going to have?
Advisors can be helpful in a whole slew of areas (marketing/hiring/bizdev)
Stock compensation, typically not a board seat, solid advisors help during fund raising

方法六：咨詢顧問

您將會遇到何種技術上的問題？

顧問能提供多方領域（市場行銷/招聘/業務開發）之專業協助

可靠的顧問負責資金籌募期間的協助，至於股票報酬，尤其是董事會席位則無關其咨詢範疇

#7. Leverage your userbase to spread the word

方法七：藉助您的用戶群口耳相傳

#8. Does your product provide value for 3^rd party sites?

方法八：您的產品對第三方網站有價值嗎？

#9. Analyze your traffic

Install Google analytics
Entrance sources (search?)
Paths through site
Top exit pages

方法九：網路流量分析

安裝Google analytics

流量來源 (蒐尋？)

用戶瀏覽網站軌跡

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