Tan Sitong, Protocolized Connectivity, and the Chinese Ethics of "Ren”(仁). By Deng Chen, guest author

How a late 19th cy. Chinese thinker prefigured peer to peer principles as the guiding principle of society

The following text has a level of complexity, but I hope readers will make an effort, and so I will introduce it first. Indeed, I believe it is very important to see that contemporary young Chinese thinkers are diving into their tradition so as to confront western modernity on their own terms, and not just through westernized lenses.

Let me explain.

Last year, I read a very important book:

• Vincent Citot, Histoire mondiale de la philosophie, Une histoire comparée des cycles de la vie intellectuelle dans huit civilisations

This is a book that looks at the intellectual and philosophical history of eight different civilizational spheres, including histories of Indian, Chinese and Japanese thought, looked at separately. The original thesis of Citot is that there are indeed definite intellectual cycles in these civilizations, in all of them, that follow a distinct pattern;

• The pre-classic phase corresponds to the emergence and constitutive phase of the civilization, and is centered around mythology and religious thought forms

• In the classical phase, such as 5th cy BC Greece or the 12th cy in medieval Europe, reason tries to make sense of religion, gradually becoming autonomous

• In the post-classical phase, reason detaches from religion, creates an autonomous and materialist science, but this is the end phase of a civilization

Civilizations can know more than one such cycle, in which case they go through a dark age, and when a new cycle emerges, the new thinkers will renew their historical stock and evolve it anew.

His chapter on Japan has an important episode though, which is that of the ‘Dutch schools’. Japan had known, after the victory of the Shogun in the 16th cy. civil wars, known as a period of relative social stability, living even in thermodynamic equilibrium with its natural resources. But the appearance of European domination led to an internal revolution, the Meji revolution, which allowed Japan to create a modern nation-state and modernize itself. A large part of this adaptation was through the emergence of so-called ‘Dutch schools’, in which Western science was learned and emulated, while at the same time, other thinkers were renewing an inquiry into their own traditions. Whatever the outcome of these efforts, in WWII for example, this effort turned Japan into a major Asian power and modern nation-state.

It is my interpretation that it is precisely the failure to do this successfully, which condemned China’s Qing dynasty to decay, and to being dominated by the West, until the Chinese Revolution of 1949, put the country back towards a period of restoration to strong nationhood.

But the Chinese failure doesn’t mean it wasn’t tried. And here is where the historical role of Tan Sitong comes in. As the author Deng Chen explains, Tan Sitong was a late 19th cy. reformer, who saw the emergence of Western domination, and proposed reforms to address the weakness of China. This involved a very important task: to undertake a synthetic and integrative return to the Chinese traditions, such as Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, to critically evaluate them, and to confront them to Wester science and the western forms of rationality, so as to prepare China for resistance and survival in the modern world. But unfortunately, Tan Sitong and his colleagues were executed by the Mother Empress, and the reform was thwarted. So this is the first reason why it is important to get to know Tan Sitong: the Chinese way to modernity, Marxism, did perhaps not adequately integrate the own traditions, and today there may be a new demand from the Chinese people and its intellectuals, to craft their own path, as an integration of the world’s wisdom that is rooted in their own and long civilizational history.

There is another reason to get to know Tan Sitong, and that is that he may have been ahead of his time, by anticipating peer to peer dynamics. I was particularly pleased to discover that Deng Cheng has made that particular connection.

I’ll close with the announcement that our book, P2P: The Commons Manifesto, has been translated into the Chinese language and that I look forward to dialogue with Chinese intellectuals on this ‘third way’ to development.

Before we start with the article proper, here a significant quote to put you in the mood of Deng Cheng, and Tan Sitong’s, important message:

“In the centralized, kin-based structures of traditional rural China, the flow of ren was largely centred in kinship structures. Tan Sitong’s radical departure was to decentralize and universalize ren: for him, China's refusal to engage with the world was itself a form of "numbness," and in modern society, ren should be based on egalitarian friendships. … For Tan Sitong, ren meant treating people as equals, but the dominant power structure—the "Three Cardinal Guides" (三纲, ruler guides minister, father guides son, husband guides wife)—remained a system of hierarchical subjugation. He believed ren would ultimately overthrow this outdated ideological framework. … Tan Sitong’s belief in ren as connectivity finds its modern counterpart in P2P (peer-to-peer) principles: a network of freely associating equals. Over 120 years have passed since his execution. While technological singularity looms ever closer, the vision of a borderless, egalitarian world faces setbacks from pandemics, wars, and deglobalization. Yet, wherever there is numbness (bu ren), ren will inevitably emerge, carving out new pathways.”

Guest Article: Tan Sitong, Protocolized Connectivity, and the Chinese Ethics of "Ren”(仁)

Deng Chen:

Tan Sitong(谭嗣同) was one of the most idiosyncratic thinkers of modern China and a member of the "Six Gentlemen of the Hundred Days' Reform" in 1898. The reform introduced changes in education, industrial production, media, military, and more, aiming to change China's backwardness in all these aspects.

Tan was executed after the reform was thwarted by the Empress Dowager Cixi, and his ideas were largely submerged in the rapid transformation of China during the 20th century. However, his ideas are inspiring for today because of his bold imagination, and because he demonstrated how traditional confucian concepts could be reinterpreted as revolutionary discourse. Tradition did not necessarily have to be limited to fundamentalist or reactionary thought.

Ether: From Ancient Philosophy to Tan Sitong’s Vision

Shortly before the reform, Tan Sitong introduced his revolutionary philosophy in his book “Renxue (The Study of Benevolence)” (《仁学》). He reinterpreted the traditional Chinese concept of “ren” through the lens of connectivity, referencing Western notions such as ether and medical knowledge about nerves (which he called 脑气筋 or "Brain-Qi-Meridians"). He argued that ether and the mechanism of neural electrical signals were mediators connecting the world. His belief in the power of the mind led him to declare that all rigid social structures and constraints could be broken—"shattering the net of entrapment.”

Long before Vitalik Buterin called Ethereum “Ethereum,” the concept of ether was first introduced by the ancient Greeks as a fundamental element of the universe. Modern Western philosophers like Leibniz and Hegel pondered its nature, and Engels described it in “Dialectics of Nature” as the medium for light transmission—an idea accepted by 17th- to 19th-century physicists until Einstein's theory of special relativity led to its rejection.

Tan Sitong's understanding of ether was actually influenced by the pseudoscientific self-help book “Ideal Suggestion through Mental Photography”(治心免病法) by American businessman Henry Wood, which reflected the widespread popularity of the ether concept in the Western cultural consumption at the time. However, Tan's focus was not on the mysticism of Henry Wood, but on demonstrating that humanity was moving toward global interconnectedness—China could not afford to remain isolated or refuse engagement with the world.

A Proto-Cybernetic Vision: Humanity's Evolution Beyond Biology

By conceptualizing human mental activities in terms of ether, and thereby creating a panpsychic imagination, Tan Sitong's vision of the future appears strikingly cybernetic—almost transhumanist. He envisioned a future where human consciousness, after transforming or even discarding its biological limitations, would enter a new phase:

"Today's electrical expertise already allows for wireless power and heat transmission, enables us to see muscles, bones, and organs, and can even measure Brain-Qi-Body-functions. In time, we shall be able to get rid of the heavy matter and retain only the light essence… As humans become increasingly cognizant, they will eventually merge their collective consciousness, transforming into beings of pure intelligence and pure spirit… able to travel freely among the planets and the sun."

In this vision, humans would use technology to "remove the heavy matter and retain the light essence," shedding biological constraints and enhancing intelligence, ultimately evolving into a "collective consciousness of many consciousnesses." Tan also acknowledged that technological progress would bring risks, but his outlook was one of optimistic accelerationism—concerns like AI replacing humanity were beyond his contemplation.

Yet, more than 120 years later, such risks seem urgent. From Vitalik Buterin’s perspective, Brain-Computer Interfaces and mind uploading may be humanity’s only means of avoiding AI domination. And he cautions that "it will be ideal for a leading role to be held by a security-focused open-source movement, rather than closed and proprietary corporations and venture capital funds.”

From Hierarchical Domination to Open and Equal Networks

Tan Sitong valued the concept of ether because he believed in universal connectivity: first identifying the common elements in all things, then using these commonalities to understand and link seemingly disparate entities. Things that appear different can be reconciled through knowledge, and common elements can serve as technological conduits connecting everything—both ether and electricity function this way.

Science, by transcending subjective biases, allows for an objective understanding of different things as variations of the same fundamental elements. Discovering a shared material basis enables the construction of common infrastructures: international transportation, global trade, communication technologies, monetary systems, linguistic translation, and resource development.

In traditional Chinese thought, ren (benevolence) denotes both kindness between people and sensory perception—ancient Chinese medical texts describe numbness as "insensitivity (不仁, bu ren)," attributing it to blocked flow of Qi and blood. However, in the centralized, kin-based structures of traditional rural China, the flow of ren was largely centred in kinship structures. Tan Sitong’s radical departure was to decentralize and universalize ren: for him, China's refusal to engage with the world was itself a form of "numbness," and in modern society, ren should be based on egalitarian friendships.

By the late Qing dynasty, China was on the cusp of immense transformation—new ideas, technologies, and institutions were entering, and democratic associations, organizations, and political parties would eventually dismantle the old royalist bureaucracy. For Tan Sitong, ren meant treating people as equals, but the dominant power structure—the "Three Cardinal Guides" (三纲, ruler guides minister, father guides son, husband guides wife)—remained a system of hierarchical subjugation. He believed ren would ultimately overthrow this outdated ideological framework.

Though Tan Sitong never explicitly used the term "protocol(协议)," the traditional hierarchical structures he opposed functioned as a “societal protocol”(社会协议) governing relationships in China. His vision of the future aimed at transnational consensus, such as:

"A law should not only benefit one nation but must not harm others, ensuring mutual prosperity. A teaching should not only work domestically but must align with universal reason, allowing both the wise and unwise to follow it."

His proposal for a trans-Eurasian railway built by weaker nations as a "highway for all nations, jointly supported and universally beneficial" envisioned public infrastructure shared globally.

From Papyrus to Computerized Protocol Intelligence

The word protocol originates from medieval Byzantine Greek, referring to a papyrus scroll affixed to official documents. By the 15th century, in Middle French, it came to mean a draft agreement. The idea of protocol as "meta-information" or a "pre-established framework" still lingers in modern usage.

Any medium that processes and transmits information requires an intermediary process of coordination. Beyond information exchange, daily activities also rely on multi-party alignment. In internet technology, the participants are not limited to humans; protocols establish rules for interaction among humans, machines, and data.

The concept of 'Protocol' as a method for handling people, events, or things can be seen in various fields. For example, scientists record the steps of an experiment in a 'protocol,' so others can follow it for verification and reproduction. Another common usage of 'protocol' refers to the code of conduct or etiquette in international diplomacy, such as how diplomats should conduct conversations, present credentials, plan and prepare meetings, and arrange seating for VIPs.

In AI development, LLMs operate on massive centralized protocol storage. Transformer models are trained on vast corpus data, learning patterns, logic, styles, and rules of human life. By recognizing these conventions, they generate context-dependent outputs—new applications based on existing structures.

With centralized storage and large-scale computational processing, AI's familiarity with and speed of handling protocols far surpass human capabilities. Gavin Wood’s 2014 vision for Web3 aimed to return data ownership to users via decentralized blockchain protocols. However, while Web3 is still in its experimental phase, centralized AI giants have already emerged from Web2.0’s vast data accumulation.

d/acc, Protocol Altruization and P2P

In My Techno-Optimism, Vitalik Buterin advocates for d/acc (defensive/decentralized/differentiated accelerationism), arguing that Individuals or societies must be able to withstand disasters without being overwhelmed in order to sustain autonomous development. We have just experienced the global disaster of the Covid-19 pandemic, and offensive technologies around the world are becoming increasingly powerful. Ordinary people need better defensive technologies to protect against infectious diseases, military attacks, political oppression, and cyber violence.

In the face of the power imbalance between AI and humans, he suggests that one of the better approaches is the so-called “human-computer cooperation”. This involves incorporating human intelligence and AI into the workflow and operations, ensuring that human intelligence is enhanced in sync with AI, rather than being left behind. In other words, the two should not only be aligned but also integrated.

I support d/acc’s commitment to empowering civil rights and look forward to more effective defensive technologies, but here I’d like to bring in a broader context beyond the narrow view of technology, returning to the perspective of protocols. We live our daily lives within countless protocols and shared systems, with protocols being layered and interconnected. For example, when you’re on the subway reading an article on your phone, what enables your reading isn’t just the technical protocols like HTTPS or MIPI, but also the light-sensitive proteins in your eyes, the language used in the article, the order regulations in the subway, and the navigation route to your destination… This is a world shaped by a complex web of protocols.

The ren, or altruization of protocols lies in making them more equitable. In the context of digital protocols, this could mean that users are no longer manipulated or controlled by big techs, that blockchain layer-two networks become more accessible and scalable for the general public, and that the free exchange model of P2P networks is promoted. If we discuss both digital and offline protocols together, it could represent the empowerment of impoverished communities to bridge the digital divide and gain access to new technologies, or enable cross-lingual communication through automatic translation technologies. In the context of offline social protocols, it should mean the improvement of the living conditions of the global poor, the promotion of international peace and governance, and the elimination of various oppressive social structures around the world.

Tan Sitong’s belief in ren as connectivity finds its modern counterpart in P2P (peer-to-peer) principles: a network of freely associating equals. Over 120 years have passed since his execution. While technological singularity looms ever closer, the vision of a borderless, egalitarian world faces setbacks from pandemics, wars, and deglobalization. Yet, wherever there is numbness (bu ren), ren will inevitably emerge, carving out new pathways.