Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 273 - 273 53 Teaching and Learning Benefit Each Other

273: Chapter 53: Teaching and Learning Benefit Each Other 273: Chapter 53: Teaching and Learning Benefit Each Other Superman Enterprise strictly followed “nine to five” working hours, with an additional two-hour lunch break in between.

In other words, there were only about six hours of work time every day.

When the Red Alliance was in its Ascending Period, it also implemented a “six-hour workday” and a “seven-hour workday” policy.

For approved hazardous or heavy labor tasks by relevant departments, a four-hour workday was all that was required.

To the citizens of the Red Alliance during that era, an “eight-hour workday” was still very capitalist and exploitative.

“Overtime” even contributed to the economic crisis of overproduction.

This was not an exaggeration.

One person doing the work of two but only receiving the wages of one and a half essentially eliminated the consumption of half a person.

Without sufficient consumer spending, the great cycle of societal reproduction would be hindered, and an economic crisis would naturally sprout.

In Japan, where employees clock out then return to their desks to work and save the company on wages—a move that also leaves the labor bureau powerless—perhaps the economy was just too normal.

However, the former Red Alliance was constantly troubled both internally and externally, and thus the enforcement of these work policies was not uniform across regions.

With the Third Reich lurking, the Alliance suspended these systems in preparation for war.

Among the blood and chaos of the Patriotic War, the Red Alliance started to disregard costs, and their once noble ideals were completely forgotten.

Starting from the sixties and seventies, the privileged class in the Red Alliance did whatever they pleased, even having the audacity to brag about doing things “however they wanted.” The systems meant to protect worker benefits were in name only.

Apart from a very few small-scale workshop-style businesses, Superman Enterprise might be the only large enterprise on Earth since the 1990s with such a short average annual working time.

And the six hours outside of work were freely arranged by the employees.

Across at the West Third Ring, seeing Tao Enhai, the office clerk, was rare.

It seems that after work, they could also plan to go shopping in a mall or watch a movie.

Or they might even have a chat.

After all, there was only one office over there.

On the other hand, there were many more options available at the research center.

Xiang Shan and his team occupied an entire office building.

Not just that, but several nearby laboratories were theirs as well.

There was much more free space left over.

Superman Enterprise also had a rather impressive library, administered by dedicated staff and open to employees even on rest days.

It was well-stocked with materials, as well as some entertainment products for relaxing.

In addition, Superman Enterprise encouraged its employees to spontaneously form “interest groups” and the like outside of work.

Moderate exercise was beneficial for maintaining vitality.

Mr.

Chen Feng, an Armed Combat enthusiast, even formed a “Lunch Break Swordsmanship Training Class” within the company, where several hobbyists would often use the lunch break to practice in the basement.

Still, they also had more scholarly leisure activities suited to their “scholarly” status.

For instance, lecturing.

Even among top world scholars, many held teaching positions.

Here, a “teaching position” doesn’t mean supervising graduate students like a craftsman with apprentices, but rather legitimately teaching classes.

For example, Mr.

Hermann Minkowski encountered the then-unknown Albert Einstein in a mathematics class at the University of Zurich, leaving remarks about the latter such as “poor at math” and “a lazy dog.”

Keep in mind that at seventeen, Minkowski was already a first-rate mathematician in the world, and by his early twenties, he could converse with David Hilbert, the world’s leading mathematician at the time.

And when he looked down on the young Einstein’s mathematical skills, he had already reached the age of maturity.

Besides the idea of “passing on ultimate techniques” and satisfying the spiritual need of “educating others,” holding a teaching position is also very beneficial to the scholars themselves.

Science is essentially using a set of “discourses everyone can accept” to capture the “partial truths” one sees in writing, then putting them out for comparison, mutual sharpening, and continuous progression.

And contemplating “how to teach the truth I know to others” is a holistic thought process of one’s learning.

You need to show others the facts you see, convince them, and lead them from nothing to fully accepting your thoughts.

This process is beneficial for systematic and scholarly research.

Naturally, Xiang Shan was listed at Tsinghua, and Chen Feng was considered a researcher at Peking University.

Apart from them, other scholars at Superman Enterprise didn’t mind having their names affiliated with local academic institutions.

It also helped them integrate into the local environment.

However, due to research commitments, researchers at Superman Enterprise hardly held academic positions at universities.

So, if they wanted to teach, it was for internal audiences only.

This was an initiative advocated by Xiang Shan.

Many of the research department heads had done something like this to some extent.

Be it during rest times or work times without research tasks, they took it as they wished, defined the content themselves, and lectured to the company’s internal employees to organize their thoughts systematically.

For the employees of the research department, this was practically a benefit.

Most of the scholars, including Yawgmoth, were among the world’s elite.

And even if not, they would quickly elevate in such an environment.

This was a rare opportunity in the outside world.

“`

If Yawgmoth were willing to give a lecture at Tsinghua and Peking University, it’s likely the entire biology department would squeeze in to listen.

Tao Enhai had been with the company for three weeks now, and he had encountered this sort of lecture several times.

However, he hadn’t attended many of them.

Once he left his area of expertise, he was as ignorant as the average person in other fields.

Interdisciplinary research didn’t mean starting from the most cutting-edge topics in other disciplines.

He still needed to lay the groundwork.

After Ingrid finished writing the topic, she said, “Indeed, would you be interested in coming to listen?”

Although Ms.

Ingrid Granat was a linguist, self-proclaimed as from the traditional “generative-transformational school,” her research methods were very close to “cognitive science.” She also studied the mechanisms by which the human brain processes language.

Tao Enhai felt that if he were to seriously pursue this field, there would be no small chance of collaborating with this lady.

“This topic…” Tao Enhai glanced at the whiteboard: “I didn’t understand the first word.”

“Hmm, the name of an African tribe.

A mix of several tribal names…

you can understand it as ‘linguistic research based on a new type of Creole language.’

“Creole language…

Oh.” It took a while for Tao Enhai to remember what this term meant.

Creole languages were originally called “mixed languages,” and in the field of linguistics, they can also be considered “natural languages that have mixed several different languages but have a self-contained grammar and lexicon and are spoken as a mother tongue by people.”

The initial Creole languages stemmed from the slave trade.

The Spaniards forced natives to mine in the Americas.

But after local residents died out, slaves were brought over from Africa.

These slaves came from different African tribes and spoke different native languages.

They also had difficulty communicating with each other.

To communicate with each other, the slaves mixed everyone’s mother tongue with the language of their masters.

This mixed language was just some vocabulary with no grammatical rules.

However, the descendants of these slaves, listening to their elders converse in this language, took it as their mother tongue.

Subsequently, they instinctively filled in the gaps for this language with no grammar or lexicon, turning it into an “independent” natural language.

This process often only took one generation.

The existence of Creole languages proved that “language” itself is an instinct—just like eating, drinking, walking, or a knee-jerk reaction, it is an instinct ingrained in the flesh.

Although the specific grammar is still passed down through nurture, and each ethnicity’s language comes from a long history, the ability to “speak” and the ability to “learn a foreign language” are innate.

Many psycholinguists believe that the process of the creation of Creole languages is evidence for the existence of “Universal Grammar.”

“I have a friend who has been doing fieldwork in Africa for a long time,” Ingrid said.

“In the past few years, the country he’s visited is quite small, but it has been mired in civil war for a long time.

You understand…

more than a decade ago, when the entire world wasn’t in good shape, that kind of worldwide crisis also affected there.

The small country fell into civil war, and people killed each other.

If it weren’t for the strengthening of the Peacekeeping Forces by various countries over the past 30 years, it would have been another great disaster.”

“Even with the intervention of the United Nations, there were orphans from different tribes…

they were gathered together by the United Nations.

And in refugee camps, a new language was born.”

“This really is…

miraculous,” Tao Enhai remarked.

“I see the boss is also interested in this topic…”

“Pfft…” Ingrid laughed indiscreetly.

She shook her head: “The chances of that guy attending this lecture are very low.”

“But doesn’t he often come to listen to your lectures?”

“Shan is only concerned with the hierarchical structure of grammar, the basis of grammar in the brain.

His goal is a language that can run smoothly both in the human brain and in computers,” Ingrid said as she patted the whiteboard.

“He doesn’t care about the origin and evolution of language.

After all, he isn’t a linguist.

He doesn’t even care about the interaction between culture and language…”

Tao Enhai scratched his head: “Is the boss really that untraditional?”

“In his eyes, traditional culture can probably be divided into Ancient Greek-Roman trash, Two Rivers trash, Vedas trash, Pre-Qin trash, Prairie Barbarians trash, other trash, and the harmful substances produced by these trashes fermenting for two thousand years,” Ingrid coughed and imitated Shan’s tone: “‘Ah yes, I know these things were very advanced three thousand years ago.

But would you dare eat a pastry that’s been stored for two thousand years?’—That’s roughly his attitude.

He only respects legal holidays and shows no interest in traditional festivals.

His willingness to eat with family during your Republic’s ‘reunion moment’ is more about valuing family than tradition.

That’s just the kind of person he is.”

Ingrid pointed to the whiteboard behind her: “Research laden with a lot of cultural and historical background, he’ll at most ask for a copy of the lecture notes afterward.”

“`