Spring Festival Arrives#
Every year during the Spring Festival, I spend time at my grandmother's house, and I have lost count of how many times that has been. I only remember that my grandfather always loved to play chess, while my grandmother enjoyed playing cards. When I was young, I particularly liked going to my grandmother's house because there were people to play with and I could set off firecrackers. Every year at midnight, my dad would habitually set off a string of firecrackers. This year, the sound of firecrackers outside was louder than ever before. I don't know when it started, but my "New Year" has changed, and it has become something not worth looking forward to.
Reflection#
I refer to 2024 as the "Stability Maintenance" year. Standing at a crossroads in life, I looked around and ultimately chose a middle path. Although I was reluctant, I could only accept what seemed to be fate's arrangement. That year, I lived in a daze, like a walking corpse, pondering meaningless things every day, feeling physically and mentally exhausted with severe internal conflict. Medication became a norm in my life, taking pills, stopping, and then taking them again. Each time I took medication felt like using drugs, and each time I stopped felt like going through withdrawal. However, I managed to get through it; those 365 days and nights made me realize that as long as I am alive, it is a victory. I am the best.
Future#
Recently, the large model Deepseek was released, and founder Liang Wenfeng stated, "We chose to open-source because ecology is crucial. In the past, Chinese companies were accustomed to relying on others' technological innovations to monetize, waiting for the dividends of Moore's Law to arrive. Now, what China truly lacks is not capital, but the reasonable utilization of talent. The era of making quick money has ended; passion and curiosity are the real productivity. Recently, I have also discussed the development of AGI with many friends, including its application scenarios. Just imagine, in the future, everyone could use AI for learning, AI for translation, and AI for experiments; it would be a really cool thing.
"If you still think we are caught in a downward economic cycle, then you are truly mistaken in a terrifying way. This should be the end of one era and the beginning of another." — Xu Lei
When it comes to the economy, I tend to pessimistically believe that living standards will face more severe challenges. Nowadays, many shops are vacant, and per capita income growth is sluggish. In the future, the computer industry will no longer need code farmers but will require high-end talent; the design industry will no longer rely on outsourcing but will focus more on creativity; the financial system will undergo a complete transformation, no longer depending on traditional banking systems but gradually shifting towards blockchain and decentralized technologies; the internet will transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, with distributed servers like Filecoin gradually replacing existing service models.
We are in an era that is neither better than the best nor worse than the worst. We haven't gone hungry, we haven't faced criticism, but we also missed the development period of the internet. We have no money to buy houses, no jobs, but the wood from the Old Summer Palace has not been taken away for firewood.