Most writers are shy of opining on the “Inscrutable Orient”, nowadays; the laziness and sleaziness of the term has become too obvious. Algorithms still get the inscrutable treatment, though (e.g. here or here to take recent examples from when I’m posting this in 2021). Every time I read about an inscrutable algorithm, I always hear a dizi play in the distance, and feel compelled to stroke my beard and look contemplatively into space.

I had a chance to muse about orientalism, the inside/outsideness of machines, capitalism, cognition, and share trading rats, for the &&& Journal in 2016, in a piece called The Chinese Rooms of Cognitive Capital.