Breaking News: Livid says CIAO to V2EX
I emailed Livid before our CN Reviews Livid interview post about him was up. V2EX was an online community that Livid started based on his open source project, Project Babel. Because of the freedom of expression of V2EX members, it was unplugged by regulatory authorities and was later blocked at the keyword level by the Great Firewall.
He told us something about V2EX that was totally unexpected. He said:
“Most things will eventually be turned into memory. So I’ve decided to shut down V2EX.com within 24 hours. I wrote down some of my thoughts on: http://www.livid.cn/doc_view.php?doc_id=5731“.
Then I checked the V2EX site using a proxy server just now and it says only 4 letters “ciao” on the big white screen, as said in the post <消失的未来> (Fading Future) he mentioned. It is a sad news.
Here is my translation to his post. I didn’t do it in word-to-word, but tried to keep the original ideas.
V2EX.com was a website with black color background to originally designed to present my personal stuff. But all the applications I developed (including an RSS aggregator lividot and a dictionary lividict) disappeared in the unplugging “accident” in early 2007.
Maybe I can tell you the exact reason why I built a site like V2EX two years’ ago. To prove something? But I can’t tell the reason now.
I don’t want to use the word “to get hurt” to describe what we have experienced. Maybe this is the best, no better way out. My thoughts have changed a lot in the past two years.
I think I spent too long hours before my computer, and I don’t think this is a good thing, for many reasons.
I believe there are a lot of people who spend at least one hour a day on Google Reader or reading blogs for a variety of complicated reasons. Is “being bored” one of the reasons?
Why can’t we spend more time on tangible things? Why can’t we spend more time to travel or to love a real person? Why must we spend more than 8 hours sitting before a computer? When is the last time the skin of your feet touch the sand on a beach or earth? Is that true the green in your eyes are only the trees along the roads in cities? Is Twitter a must have in our life?
I want to focus on what I really care about, and those are not only limited to the scope of the Web, such as douban and facebook. All these tools are trying to bring to the digital realm the realness and beauty in our life. But then some of us, even all, will consider the digital form as the backdrop of our world but not part of the world. Why?
Chinese abstraction from his blog:
最早 V2EX.com 只是一个有黑色背景的用 ColdFusion 做的陈列我的一些作品的网站. 那些作品已经悉数消失于 07 年初的拔线事件. 包括一个 RSS 聚合器 lividot 和一个词典 lividict.
或许 2 年前我会很明确地说出自己做一个像 V2EX.com 这样的网站的原因, 为了证明一些什么东西? 而现在我说不出任何明确的理由.
我不想用 [ 受到伤害 ] 这样的字眼来形容我们所有人在这个过程中所经历和体会到的. 或许, 青春本来就应该是这样的. 全无更好的出路.
2 年了, 我的很多想法改变了.
我觉得自己在电脑前坐的时间太长了. 我想, 这并不是一件十分好的事情. 原因很多.
我相信这里或许有很多人每天实际上都花超过 1 个小时甚至更多的时间在 Google Reader 或者别人的博客上, 这么做的原因很复杂, 不知道其中是否有任何 [ 无聊 ] 的因素?
…
为什么我们不能将更多的时间用于旅游, 用于去爱一个真实的人, 用于接触这个世界的更多角落呢? 为什么我们一定要这么每天在电脑面前坐超过 8 个小时呢? 你的双脚的皮肤有多长时间没有接触过泥土和沙滩了? 你眼中能看到的绿色是否只是城市里的行道树? 难道我们听的音乐只能是从 iPod 耳机中流出的而不是亲自坐在演奏者面前? Twitter 对于生活难道是必要的么?
我想关注那些我真正想关注的, 而关注之物的选择范围不应该只是从 www. 如豆瓣和 Facebook 这样的东西在试图把我们生活中一切真实的, 美好的东西都映射为电子化的存在形式, 然后我们中的一些甚至全部人则把这样的映射当作了世界的背面而不是部分. 为何如此呢?
…
Even though I only met Livid once, I feel sad about it, especially surmising the reason why he shut the community down from the post above. As our commentor Charles mentioned, Livid is working on another project, footbig. I wish him good luck!
I want to reponse to Livid’s questions in his post:
- I spend long hours at the computer because: a. I need information for decision making, for fun, for education and just for no reason; b. I need it for my work at Kango;
- I read blogs because I am seeking the wisdom of both the crowds and the leaders.
- I want to spend more time travel too; but I have many friends who simply HATE to travel. Does everyone have to want to travel, Livid?
What do you think, CN Reviews readers?
8 Responses to “Breaking News: Livid says CIAO to V2EX”
I don’t like the assumption that using the computer takes us away from important things in life, like seeing the world and connecting with others.
I spend time reading blogs because I AM traveling. I check facebook, post and view photos, email, and read blogs because I’m away from all my friends and my family. The internet is the best way to keep in touch with the people I love. Seeing photos of distant family members (especially the kids in my family) is “something tangible” to me, so is sharing my experiences with friends who are far away, and reading about theirs.
@Meg, thanks for your comment! I felt that Livid had done a great thing helping high school dropouts in a very status-oriented and educationally focused society find some community online. And then it was a bit shocking to hear Livid’s idea that “online”/”second life” takes you away from “real life.” But I suppose all things taken to an extreme can be dangerous. A few years ago I read a great post about a WoW Guild leader (I think Mage class leader) who shared about people hooked on World of Warcrack here and here. As a casual WoW gamer, I felt there was nothing wrong with the game, and got defensive about it. But its clear to me now that blogging and feedreading can be taken to the extreme, especially by people with obsessive personalities (like myself!)
Some of my answers to Livid’s questions:
1. I think feedreading and blogging can expand one’s perspective! I think there are lots of people focused entirely on “tangible things” who don’t benefit by connecting with people that are different than them. Also, I think people may be interesting in a subject or a hobby and by connecting with other enthusiasts online, it can really “raise your game” or push you to achieve more in that hobby or subject.
2. I agree with the value of travel and of touching real people! My personal interest is in travel that transforms, that teaches, and that helps you grow. A lot of tourism doesn’t really achieve this.
3. Ahhh…the Twitter question. I am so mixed on microblogging. My fellow CN Reviews blogger David Feng is an avid Twitterer. I wonder if China microblogging makes sense just as I wonder where microblogging will go here in the US. I personally am resisting Twitter. I resisted MySpace and other social networks but happen to love Facebook! So maybe “resistance is futile” and my distinctiveness will be added to the Twitter collective…
Come on, guys. His questions were born out of a certain angst and are rhetorical. He’s not really looking for answers (much less you’rs) as he is trying to prompt people to question why they do what they do. As Elliot said, sometimes we fall into routines or habits or obsessions that ultimately detract from our lives rather than improve. Your explanations, justificatons, or excuses for doing what you do are not important to him, but you pausing for a moment to evaluate your life may be. Perhaps Vivid has burned out or arrived at a crossroads in his life where he’s not fully satisfied with his situation. For him, shutting down V2EX (no more v/duece/ex and other pseudonyms?) and posting this message may have been therapeutic. Who knows.
…and maybe him doing this even pisses off some of his community’s users. I don’t know, I’ve never seen V2EX for obvious reasons. But if it does, I wouldn’t be surprised if some people chaste at the semi-”prima donna” nature of his actions.
Your’s, not you’rs. Livid, not vivid.
Sorry, knowing that Elliot plays WoW negatively affected my mental capacity for spelling correctly.
Kai, you’re right, everything I do is so ridiculous, I do agree with you, completely.
Livid, this recent attempt at sarcasm is misdirected. Nothing I said above remotely hints at accusing you of doing something “ridiculous.” I hope you’re not developing some sort of persecution complex, which your recent comments seem to indicate.
Agreeing with me, “completely,” is a obviously step in the right direction, as long as it isn’t disingenuous.