For English speakers, I’d still like to share with you what is said in the video, so I’ve transcribed and translated the video, and here’s the lecture in English（把上面的视频翻译成了英文，以便英文读者理解）：
Now let me briefly introduce decision tree, which is an important tool to be used to aid the sequential decision mode of the subject of political decision. Sequential decision refers to the decisions made by contestants in political struggles in a sequential way, which means one decision is made in response to the action initiated or taken by the opponent. So far as I know, the nonviolent conflict field of research has not yet introduced decision tree, but I feel it crucial for us, especially the parties in their very early stages of their causes. Decision tree theory involves four featured steps, namely, forward looking, inference, evaluation, and strategic decision on the equilibrium point.
Here are the meanings of each of the four concepts in a nutshell: forward looking refers to the expectation of the opponents’ options before you take any actions; inference means to think about all possible consequences that you could be faced with, which means you have to list out all of what you may think of regardless of their probabilities; evaluation refers to the process of giving points to both sides in question; then the last is to find the equilibrium in the contest, which is to inform your strategic decision.
Following these steps we make the decision trees. So in the next session, I’m moving on to illustrate how to draw on your knowledge and experience to map out a decision tree.
First of all, as the party initiating your action, you are the first mover. So here you draw a square, which is a token that you are to make your move. Next, write the name of your planned campaign in the square. Next decision is whether you are to make your campaign publicly known or develop by word of mouth, which is the key step. Now just for the purpose of this presentation, I am to change the title of the campaign into “Boycott Baidu”, which is not a real campaign but just for people to understand the session here.
Next comes to the government’s response to your campaign initiated. As it is known, to the publicized campaign, government is to respond in a way that may be different from the privately initiated one. Therefore, we draw two squares below the two pathways respectively, representing government under different conditions.
On the part of the opponent, in this case is the government, they have different options in response, and we are not sure which they are going to take. Therefore, we list out all the probable reactions from the opponent’s side under the this square. This necessarily means that there’s always a consequence of a responsive action from your opponent. Therefore, we draw a square under each probable consequence listed out in the map.
For each action, the opponent (or government in this case) has two responses, i.e., suppression and non suppression. Under suppression, it has three options, including legal proceedings with punishments such as criminalization and imprisonment; administrative penalties, such as fines, reprimands, invoking honors or certificates etc.; and extralegal means, especially the terrorist violence, such as hiring thugs roughing up the protester or assassination etc. Therefore, the opponents have four options in total.
After this, we are ready to take the stock of all the consequences that the campaign have to face with. For each probable response from the opponent (government in this case), there are four results: no change, which means the team maintains the same as before the campaign; expansion, which means the team becomes larger and stronger than before; shrinkage, which means the team becomes smaller and weaker; and dead, which means the team get dissolved as a result of the government’s response, but this doesn’t necessarily mean the team members are dead; it only means the team stops functioning and existing.
So under each line of opponent’s option, we draw a square representing the campaign and under each square of the campaign, we draw four probable results. We use circle to represent “remain unchanged”, large square for “expansion”, small square for “shrinkage”, and a diamond for “dead”. So now under the publicized campaign, we see 16 results, which we copy all and paste under the other pathway. Now we have 32 probable results in total.
So now it makes a complete decision tree. Next step is evaluation. We need to evaluate each result with marks. We assign two marks, writing two numbers in brackets under each result. The first number represents the first mover’s points; while the second, the respondent’s points. The points indicate each party’s degree of satisfaction on the result. I’m using a “0-10”point-scale here. But some would rather use “-5 - 5” point-scale. For me, a 10-point scale is clear enough to express the degree of satisfaction: a “0” mean the least of what you wished, while “10” means the most.
In this session, I can’t evaluate all the 32 results. I’m going to mark the eight scenarios of the “dead”. So now, we have finished step three. Now let’s turn back to the original map in the presentation, in which we see a note with an asterisk that says you can’t compare the results across different movers; you can only compare the different results under the same mover. Therefore, we can’t just say, under this result, we get 0 while the opponent gets 8, as compared with another result, where the opponent gets 10, this seems better. You can’t make such conclusions based on cross-actor comparisons.
Now after the completion of all the three steps, we are to decide on the equilibrium point. This depends on which is most probable and what you want as well. You can’t simply choose the highest scored outcome, which may not be the most probable or not likely to happen. In order to be well informed of each result, we need to use probability calculation to figure out the equilibrium point and strategize the planned campaign.
But before we move on to probability calculation, I’d like to use the decision tree to review a campaign that’s not premeditated or planned. I’m not going to draw the map but to use this ready-made map in the presentation. Reviewing on this map, you can see the the campaign is not the first mover. The movement happens mostly on an incident breaking out at the time, or the government’s new policy or introduction of a reformed policy or law, of which we have already seen many examples, such as an official’s death; a reformed policy on medical care; an introduction of an act, which was basically against people’s will, all of which were out of the agenda of the campaigns.
So in this map, what we see on top is the government’s actions, which means the government is the first mover. As a response, the campaign really doesn’t have many options. They either oppose or don’t. In the case that you don’t oppose, there’s no need to draw the results, which is also subject to the four possible endings. For instance, even if the campaign remains silent, your members may choose to leave or your social influence may be tarnished due to its silence. But if you oppose, you are also to choose whether you do it openly or secretly. Then consequently, you are subject to the same 32 results, just as what we have drawn in the previous map. However, the difference is that the results are not for you to choose, but subject to the government’s reactions toward you as the campaign, which means you do not have as much room to make the choice as in the previous map where you are the first mover, because you are just acting as a response, while the government has had responsive systems in place to act on any anticipated responses. So the results are more dependent on the government’s actions than of your own strategic choice, which means your ability to choose is weakened. That’s why we say in general, the campaign is in better position if it acts as the first mover.
Thank you so much for your generosity. I was surfing on the universe page and found your note, and then dropped a line, didn’t really expect any response. So thank you very much for zapping me even though I broke your rule!
I’d self recommend for my multiple years of sharing sensitive knowledge banned in China on my own expenses and tons of risks.
我特别拿ICNC课程中的下面这张图说明一下：
在各种抗议手段中，学者将它们分作三大类，第一类（第一行）是言语表达类；第二、三类是行动类。
如果看第一类的言语表达，你会发现，游行抗议示威都在这一类里面，换句话说，中国几十年来的所有的抗议中，即使最高境界的游行抗议，也只是言语表达，而不是行动，正因如此，中国不会有任何改变，因为行动才是最关键的。
如果看第二行，这是不合作的行动，包括罢工、抵制等。许多人可能以为这些都是无用的、也是软弱的，实际上，这些才是最常见的获胜方式。
总之，言语表达的抵抗如果没有行动的配合，那就不会成功。如果看过去二十年的公民维权，就可以看到，不仅没有进展，反而自709镇压后，萎缩到几乎没有了。
Introducing the application of decision tree, a subject topic of political decision in order to help activist teams to hone up their strategic decisions.
如何更好地为计划中的行动作决策？当然你需要有一个团队，团队在制定计划中，需要考虑到对手的反应，以避免不可承受的风险发生。在此介绍政治决策中的一个决策工具——决策树的使用和概率计算的方法：
只要这样的状况持续下去，无论任何人说任何事，最终越来越多的人会成为过着猪狗不如的日子的人。阿富汗70%的人吃不饱，塔利班却还是统治着这个国家。
Eager to share key information about political science that’s not yet appreciated, and not in other topics, but virtually no significant audience. People are busy struggling with their own problems.
Screwed up a lot of things, but will take a rest still.
弄糟了一堆事，不过还是休息一下吧。
Trying a new function on “request to delete“ from Android phone resulted in the deletion of the following note, but just from Android phone.
試了一下刪除請求的新功能，在安卓手機上的，然後安卓上的這一帖就沒有了，但只是安卓機上消失而已。
#[0]
After Elon Musk bought out Twitter, I have been looking out for new platforms, but so far, I still can’t say for sure this is the right place I can settle down. I feel sorry about this outcome.
马斯克买断推特之后，我一直在寻找新的平台，但到现在为止，我还不能肯定这里是我可以安顿下来的地方。对这样的结果，我只能说遗憾。
I’m aware that a lot of people may say that’s exactly what I want to see. Well, farewell to you guys.
我知道很多人会说，这正是我希望看到的。那么，这里和你们这些人先说声再见。
That said, I’d like just to inform that one day you may find me disappearing from this platform out of mixed feelings.
基于此，我想说一下，可能有一天大家会发现我不再出现了，因为好坏掺杂的感受。
I’m a teacher at where I work, but not in a position to teach anyone. I’m sharing this because I’m almost thinking of leaving this platform based on two issues: 1. people are argumentative; 2. the platform is filled up with spams, so much that I can’t practically use the global platform.
我在我工作的地方是老师，但我不是任何其他地方的老师。我分享上述感受是因为我差不多在 考虑离开这里了，原因有亮点：1.这里的人沉溺于争吵；2. 这个平台充斥着垃圾信息，多到我几乎无法使用全球平台。
I base this on my experience over the past one month on this platform and i’m going to do it myself. I also wish it be tried out by others who’d like to enjoy positive experience here by sharing and communicating.
我发上述帖基于过去一个月来在这个平台上的个人体验，所以我会这样做。我也希望其他人，如果希望通过分享和沟通在这个平台上获得正面体验的人，也可以试试像这样。
A practical way to avoid arguments is not to respond to what you think are obviously questionable opinions expressed by others and you may just unfollow them, but you may still comment on what you find are against the facts if you feel they are open minded enough. If you believe what you want to share is knowledge or technology, you post it as a note. Communication is a key skill that everyone needs to learn, young or old.
要回避争论的一个有用的方法就是，如果你认为他人所表述的意见是明显有问题的，你就不要去回复，也可以选择取关；如果你发现某种论述与事实不符，而你认为对方有足够开放的思维，你仍然可以选择作评论；如果你认为想说的是知识或技术，你可以发主帖。沟通技能是每个人需要学习的，不管年轻或年长。
中国宪法的问题（三）
毫无疑问的是，中国宪法因其未保护个人权利（正利）和自由，且被置于中国共产党权威之下而受到了许多法律专家和人权倡导者的批评。
阐述这个问题的一个方法就是，突出宪法作为保护公民免受政府滥用权力、保障所有公民的基本权利（正利）的屏障的重要性。在一个民主社会中，宪法通常被视为人民和政府之间的契约，确立政府权力的规则和该权力所受到的限制，并确保个人权利（正利）和自由得到尊重。
然而，在中国，许多人认为，宪法更像是政府的工具，而不是保护人民权利的手段。这可以从几点看出来：1. 宪法将司法体系置于党的领导之下；2. 限制言论和集会自由；3. 允许未经审判就可以实施拘留和惩罚。
It is certainly true that the Chinese Constitution has been criticized by many legal experts and human rights advocates for its lack of protections for individual rights and freedoms, and for its subordination to the authority of the Communist Party.
One way to frame this issue is to highlight the importance of a constitution that serves as a safeguard against government abuses of power and protects the fundamental rights of all citizens. In a democratic society, the constitution is typically viewed as a contract between the people and the government, outlining the rules and limits of government power and ensuring that individual rights and freedoms are respected.
However, in China, the constitution is seen by many as more of a tool of the government, rather than a means of protecting the rights of the people. This can be seen in the way that the constitution subordinates the judiciary to the party, limits freedom of speech and assembly, and allows for detention and punishment without trial.