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Mason L. Wong 王樂知

@masonlwong.bsky.social
278 followers 175 following 6 posts

PhD candidate working on modern China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and global Asias at NYU Comp Lit. Fellow at New Lines Magazine. Hoya Saxa, go Ephs.

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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
What happens when “all logic has evaporated into server clouds, the institutions of education are dying, and the ‘news’ doesn’t mean much?” For Mahika Dhar, the answer is brain rot. www.publicbooks.org/if-we-rot-yo...
publicbooks.org
If We Rot, You Rot with Us - Public Books
“Despite the enduring belief that literary nonsense is primarily directed toward children—an idea that has its roots in the popularity of Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss—literary nonsense has…
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 13/09/2026
the way to understand a piece like this from schmitz is that he lives in an urban, cosmopolitan millieu and the popularity of country music is a novelty to him. and so to explain it, he has to fit it into his volkish conception of america, whether or not that makes any actual sense.
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
conputer dipshit @davidcrespo.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I am a more broadly optimistic person but I think this is a very reasonable attitude
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Lupita Nihongo @otsumamiboy.blacksky.app · 01/09/2026
It’s not suicide it is social murder. It is the result of policy that is explicitly designed to Inflict maximum pain & make a class of people feel as life isn’t worth living.
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
the abbot of unreason (an archaeologist) @merovingians.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
an actual, preventable, death of despair
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Ryan Dunlavey > NYCC table L-24 @ryandunlavey.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
I was just talking to a friend today about Dolly Parton's Imagination Library - new books every month, totally for free, for kids ages 1-5. My son was part of the program - this is a copy of the letter that came with his last book, right after his 5th birthday.
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Last Will and Testament Moss @williammoss.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I guess the lesson is, live your life so that when you die, everyone is properly devastated and sharing stories of the wonderful things you did and art you created and not, say, deliriously popping champagne corks and lighting sparklers in the streets.
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Indivisible One New Jersey ❌👑 @njindivisible.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/08/20/n...
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
tits andronicus @tambourine.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
this is the start of a poem
two push notifications on my phone:


The New Yorker
Should you believe in fate?
26m ago

The New Yorker
Does your baby need a book on coding?
3h ago
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Zero new NSF grants in sociology, anthropology, political science and economics. The agenda of this US govt is to stop documenting the society in which we live while they are destroying it. We will find other ways to track and explain our times and fight to restore our research funding.
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Yakov Feygin @buddyyakov.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Fascism is aesthetics as politics and we have the dumbest fucking fascists.
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Brandy Jensen @brandyjensen.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
love love love this essay by David Hollingshead. So smart, so funny, and winningly earnest
defector.com
Humanists Have Done Nothing Wrong | Defector
For many years, I’ve held a pet theory that cultural consumers can be grouped into two broad categories: Primary Source People and Secondary Source People. The former are the book lovers, cinephiles, ...
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 13/08/2026
I often tell my American colleagues that the U.S.'s media consolidation and rollback of civil rights is roughly and steadily one decade behind Hong Kong's civic societal collapse. This is another example
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
“The volta of a novel is subjective.” With poetry, one can mark the volta with a pencil on the page. But for novels? This pivot point is different for everyone. www.publicbooks.org/every-novel-...
publicbooks.org
Every Novel Is Boring—Until It Isn’t - Public Books
“If you didn’t get into novels at a young age—and organically discover that, at some point, a switch would flip, and then you couldn’t stop reading if you tried—there is no reason to intuit that this…
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
YTSL @ytsl.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
A measure of how low Jackie Chan's stock is in Hong Kong. No mention of his attendance at Nansun Shi's memorial... unlike for Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, Tsui Hark,Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Carina Lau, Chow Yun-fat, Sammo Hung, Zhou Xun, Li Bingbing, Jia Zhangke, Feng Xiaogang, Kevin Tsai and Gwei Lun-mei.
thestandard.com.hk
Celebrities and industry figures pay tribute at Nansun Shi’s memorial
More than 100 celebrities and industry figures from Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan gathered on Sunday (Aug 2) to bid farewell to veteran film producer and media executive Nansun Shi, who died la...
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Vituperative Erb @vituperativeerb.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
“A lot of writers now only quote from primary or secondary sources” ok sure what were you doing before
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Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
“What might explain the persistent appeal of stories that emphasize the distance between the Chinese state and its Western counterparts?” For answers, @masonlwong.bsky.social looks to “the engineering state’s natural habitat”: fiction & the political imagination.
publicbooks.org
Lineages of the Engineering State: On China, the United States, and the Future - Public Books
“Perhaps, when we claim that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of the West, what we really mean is that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of American journalists and defense…
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
“If the engineering state eludes our conceptual grasp, it is only because we want it to.”
publicbooks.org
Lineages of the Engineering State: On China, the United States, and the Future - Public Books
“Perhaps, when we claim that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of the West, what we really mean is that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of American journalists and defense…
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
“Even if we doubt the explanatory power of Wang’s theorizing, we might still glean something about the cultural dynamics of US-China relations from the oppositions that Breakneck sets up.” New at PB: @masonlwong.bsky.social reviews Dan Wang’s “Breakneck.”
publicbooks.org
Lineages of the Engineering State: On China, the United States, and the Future - Public Books
“Perhaps, when we claim that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of the West, what we really mean is that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of American journalists and defense…
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Sam Crane @uselesstree.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Great piece. @masonlwong.bsky.social is asking all the right questions. www.publicbooks.org/lineages-of-...
publicbooks.org
Lineages of the Engineering State: On China, the United States, and the Future - Public Books
“Perhaps, when we claim that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of the West, what we really mean is that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of American journalists and defense inte...
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Eli Friedman @elifriedman.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Appreciate this review. "The engineering state" to the extent it is a real governing logic, is itself a thing to be explained. Obv it wouldn't apply to the PRC circa 1967, so why did it come into existence? Whatever the answer, it's clear there is nothing essentially "Chinese" about it
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
In a review of Dan Wang’s “Breakneck,” @masonlwong.bsky.social argues that the book “leaves those of us interested in the longer arc of Chinese or world history with very little in the way of how we should fit his theory into a bigger picture.”
publicbooks.org
Lineages of the Engineering State: On China, the United States, and the Future - Public Books
“Perhaps, when we claim that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of the West, what we really mean is that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of American journalists and defense…
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
New at PB: @masonlwong.bsky.social reviews “Breakneck” by Dan Wang (@wwnorton.com), arguing that despite the book’s hype, it’s “best read by contextualizing its vivid depictions of the Chinese economy within a longer history of global capitalism.”
publicbooks.org
Lineages of the Engineering State: On China, the United States, and the Future - Public Books
“Perhaps, when we claim that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of the West, what we really mean is that China has exhausted the conceptual resources of American journalists and defense…
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
If the U.S. does decide it’s strategically necessary to “bail in” various AI companies, it should absolutely be conditional on none of the executives getting one red cent.
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Corinne Blalock @corinneblalock.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
it's such a fucking privilege to live in this city in this moment
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Like many people who have worked in politics for decades, I am baffled and upset to see candidates who say they are going to try to make things better defeating candidates who say they are trying to make it more or less like it was in the years before things tipped over into Oaf-Style Fascism.
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Brendan O’Kane @bokane.org · 24/06/2026
no disrespect to the STEM types but there used to be a joint in Beijing that would give you a free bowl of noodles if you could write 𰻞 by hand
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Sharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
i don't think you can look at US foreign policy and think that it selects for intellectuals
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
David Alman @davidalman.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
This is unbelievably good. Eric Robinson both diagnoses the problem and offers a solution for future Democratic foreign policy / defense talent. Read and share widely. @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/no-more-cupb...
liberalcurrents.com
No More Cupbearers
A new liberal foreign policy must be built on personnel with real experience, not glossy yes-men with ivied pedigrees.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21/06/2026
"the left has ceded all notions of patriotism to the right" is a real [citation needed] claim
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Brendan O’Kane @bokane.org · 19/06/2026
Happy Duanwu everybody
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
RIP Mark Rothko. You would have loved how the hydrogen peroxide bleach is only turning the Reflecting Pool blue around the perimeter
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 15/06/2026
From @theathleticfc.bsky.social: Cape Verde’s Vozinha says U.S. visa issues stopped his mother from witnessing his World Cup heroics in person. The 40-year-old goalkeeper was visibly emotional on the pitch after the game. nyti.ms/4vW6UsB
“My mum could not be here either for a visa issue, and the money we had to pay for it.” - Vozinha, player of the match in Cape Verde's stunning World Cup draw with Spain
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
The way that Silicon Valley has completely colonized our collective view of the future is a major, major problem foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/15/f...
foreignpolicy.com
The End of the Future
Only Silicon Valley looks ahead now.
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Barry Petchesky @barryp.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Brooklyn’s going nuts, I just went to the zoo and walked out with a Pallas’ Cat, they’re not even checking
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Brendan O’Kane @bokane.org · 14/06/2026
Classical Chinese for the Ten Thousand-Year Reign of Zohran Mamdani: 凡帝王之將興也,天必先見祥乎下民 “Whenever an emperor or a king is about to rise, Heaven will first send down signs to the people below."
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Bread @jacobreaded.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
There is an element of 'lol dario wut did u expect?' but I think it is genuinely really bad that we effectively do not have a functional government that is capable of regulating a very important but potentially dangerous technology in any way that isn't driven by corrupt personal grievance.
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Bread @jacobreaded.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Again it really fucking sucks that we're dealing with this stage of LLM development and the people in charge of regulating it are composed entirely of corrupt morons who lie constantly.
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 09/06/2026
european [soccer teams/fans] coming to america and finding out that this place is incredible is always fun
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Conversation
Freddy🇩🇪
@FreddyLA7
Currently tubing down Chattahoochee River🌊
Image
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2:18 PM · Jun 8, 2026
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4.5M
 
Views
 https://x.com/FreddyLA7/status/2064049526466343395
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Dr Alex Fitzpatrick @animalarchaeology.com · 08/06/2026
🏺As promised, I've finally written up a little blog post looking at the archaeology of all of those 'little guys' we all seem to love so much online. 📜 animalarchaeology.com/2026/06/08/a...
animalarchaeology.com
A (Little) Archaeology of ‘Little Guys’
What is a ‘little guy’? It’s a descriptor often thrown around in Internet parlance, usually as part of a copypasta, like ‘I’m Just a Silly Little Guy”, or used i…
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 02/06/2026
said this in a work email last week and, uh, shared my views with one of my groupchats.
my list of most likely affected products in north america if this goes on for another 2 months:
1. non-natgas fuels [higher cuts like gasoline and propane first]; propane is starting to show shortage here in NA, developing asia is basically turbofucked already due to heavy use of lpg as cooknig fuel. SPRs will be basically empty by september or so.
2. lubricants (round half of global motor oil was made in the gulf)
3. aluminum (price soaring, gulf was 10% of global aluminum)
4. ammonia/fertilizer (already in critical shortage, GCC was 1/3rd global urea supply). given weather (el nino), this years harvest is gonna suck.
5. plastics, particularly naptha-derived plastics (polyethylene and polypropylene are the two most common plastics, like half the market, and they are both from naptha) - my concern now is food packaging, i've got supply chain guys wondering where they're gonna get salad bags. lot of stuff will be moving to paper soon.
6. sulfur. basically all electrical metals refining (copper, cobalt, etc) requires this. GCC was half.
7. methanol; china uses a TON of this for all their olefin/alkene manufacturing processes, third of that is gone (think PET water bottles, polyester clothes...)
8. helium; essential for MRI operations and chip manufacturing, TSMC says they have enough to get through the summer. bout a third was supplied by qatar and it all got blowed up.
9. petcoke, but they're substituting with coal coke for now. this is dumb and bad for the machines but short-term fine.

Can't print molecules.
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Yakov Feygin @buddyyakov.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
The tech industry deserves it and can fix these issues now if they weren’t so stubborn and myopic. Learning what all large infra companies do for decades.
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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
normatively and socially a technology I have deep qualms about, technologically and empirically it's clearly only getting better, and at this point the belief that it's all a scam or fake is a belief in the religious sense, not one backed by actual events.
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Brendan O’Kane @bokane.org · 15/05/2026
i resurrected han feizi but he keeps suggesting more "ice cream"
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
The China Model shows that a well-organized system that dispenses with political rights, environmental protections, and fair labor standards & conditions can achieve rapid economic growth, it is unclear whether this model achieves the true purpose of growth, namely the improvement of well-being.
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the abbot of unreason (an archaeologist) @merovingians.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
wondering today if there's a zoomer/millennial cleavage between the people who remembered the dream of liberal internationalism to solve truly intractable problems and those who...don't
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Reposted by Mason L. Wong 王樂知
Michael E. Mann @michaelemann.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Carl warned us
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