Cheap Reason: Intelligence as Infrastructure

What happens to human society when reason itself detaches from the biological brain to become a metered public utility? After the steam engine unbundled physical force from muscle and digital computing unbundled memory and calculation from the mind, large-scale artificial intelligence is executing the third and deepest unbundling in technological history—turning linguistic synthesis, conceptual abstraction, and logical deduction into cheap, abundant infrastructure.

Tracing a single unbroken causal chain across five parts and fourteen chapters (with 205 scholarly endnotes), Cheap Reason bridges philosophy of science, comparative jurisprudence, institutional economics, and moral philosophy. Parts I and II introduce the Typhoon–Raindrop paradigm of statistical emergence, the Five-Rung Ladder of Cognitive Isomorphism, and the inward turn of the human cognitive bottleneck, before examining why AI sprints through closed-world software compilers yet decelerates inside H.L.A. Hart's "open texture" of law—and how to cure the "Judgment Debt" created when automation saws off the bottom rungs of the professional apprenticeship ladder.

Parts III and IV step onto the balance sheets of global commerce and state innovation systems: identifying the three structural variables that govern AI's Jagged Frontier across software engineering, law, finance, and education; formulating the bidirectional "Coasean Shock" reshaping firm boundaries and the labor contract; and analyzing how resource constraints redirect engineering evolution, how scientific discovery scales through the Four-Link Conversion Chain (Discovery → Engineering → Deployment → Diffusion), and how cross-border "Model Mismatch" can be bridged through procedural interoperability.

Part V returns to the human condition: establishing public fiduciary stewardship and four institutional safeguards (explanation, review, choice, and correction) against algorithmic compression, reclaiming the three non-delegable sovereignties of human self-authorship (questioning, valuation, and owning consequences), and envisioning a good society that provides every citizen with both Roots (material security and predictable rules) and Wings (pluralistic space beneath Zhuangzi's Useless Tree). Complete with an Intellectual Map of Fifteen Core Concepts and a tri-jurisdictional Comparative Matrix of AI Law and Governance across the US, EU, and China.

Why does the U.S. Congress remain Washington's most unyielding bastion of support for Taiwan—often going further than the White House itself, regardless of which party occupies the presidency?

Drawing on declassified diplomatic archives, committee hearings, roll-call votes, and statutory texts across eight decades (1943–2026), The Hill and the Island dissects the eight institutional layers behind Capitol Hill's enduring alignment with Taiwan. From Madame Chiang Kai-shek's historic 1943 address and the 1979 legislative revolt that forged the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), to the 1995 Cornell visa confrontation (396–0 in the House, 97–1 in the Senate), Speaker Pelosi's 2022 Taipei visit, and billions in Presidential Drawdown Authority military aid, Congress has acted as an independent constitutional engine shaping U.S.–Taiwan policy.

The analysis unpacks the Article I vs. Article II constitutional asymmetry—where the President bears the direct diplomatic cost of managing U.S.–China relations while Congress controls law, appropriations, and arms sales oversight—alongside Taiwan's democratic reframing in the 1980s, the machinery of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, semiconductor and defense-industrial constituencies, and the critical line between binding statutes and symbolic resolutions.

Concluding with ten core analytical principles and a rigorous 2026–2040 strategic forecast of four cross-Strait scenarios and pathways to peace, this companion volume to The US Foreign Policy with China and the Status of Taiwan offers essential reading for policymakers, scholars, and citizens seeking institutional clarity beneath geopolitical noise.

This groundbreaking work offers a comprehensive examination of United States foreign policy toward China and the complex question of Taiwan's status, spanning over two centuries from America's founding to the normalization of US-China relations in 1979.

Drawing extensively from official US government documents, diplomatic records, and historical archives, this book traces the evolution of American strategic thinking and policy decisions regarding China and Taiwan through critical periods including the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China era, World War II, the Chinese Civil War, and the Cold War.

The analysis reveals how US policymakers navigated competing interests—from trade and missionary activities in the 19th century to strategic considerations during the Pacific War and the subsequent ideological confrontation of the Cold War. Special attention is given to the pivotal decisions surrounding Taiwan's status, including the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations, the post-war period, and the eventual shift toward recognizing the People's Republic of China.

Essential reading for scholars, policymakers, and anyone seeking to understand the historical foundations of contemporary US-China relations and the enduring Taiwan question.