Zou Yan: Ancient China’s Philosopher of Cosmic Cocktails

Zou Yan was a man from the Qi state, and his exact years of existence are shrouded in mystery. He initially delved into the study of Confucianism. As mentioned in the “Discourses on Salt and Iron – On Confucianism, Chapter 11”: “Zou Yan tried to serve the rulers of the world with Confucian doctrines, but was not accepted. He then put forward theories about change and the beginning and end, and eventually became famous. … Zou Yan’s works on the art of change also returned to the principles of benevolence and righteousness.” However, he later switched to the study of Yin-Yang and Five Elements theory. The “Discourses on Salt and Iron – On Zou, Chapter 53” points out: “Zou Yan criticized the Confucianism and Mohism of later generations for not understanding the vastness of heaven and earth, and the bright and open way. They tried to use a single principle to explain the nine bends of the way; they guarded a corner and wanted to know all directions, just like having no standard and wanting to know the height and low, having no rules and wanting to know the square and round. Therefore, he deduced the fate of great sages from beginning to end to illustrate the kings and nobles…” It can be seen that whether studying Confucianism or the theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements, we can see Zou Yan’s spirit of helping the country and saving the people.

The following is a brief introduction to Zou Yan’s Five Elements theory. During the Warring States period, Zou Yan founded the Yin-Yang and Five Elements school, which combined the concepts of Yin and Yang with the Five Elements theory and made it mysterious, using it to explain the laws of change in heaven, earth, and human ways, forming a unique system of immortality theory, which met people’s wishes to escape worldly disasters, pray for liberation from life and death, and seek a paradise. According to the records of “Records of the Grand Historian” and “Wenxuan Zhu”, Zou Yan’s theory has three main points:

1. “Deeply observing the rise and fall of Yin and Yang”, that is, explaining the law of seasonal changes through the observation of the rise and fall of Yin and Yang energy.

2. “Jixiang Du Zhi”, also known as the theory of “Heaven’s auspicious signs and heavenly punishment”, is a theory for divining auspicious and inauspicious days.

3. “The transfer of Five Virtues” or “The beginning and end of Five Virtues”, which explains the historical phenomenon of the rise and fall of dynasties through the theory of the generation and restraint of the Five Elements.

In the “Ying Tong” and “Zhao Lei” chapters of “Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals”, it is said that “the rise of emperors and kings is preceded by auspicious signs, and one of the Five Elements is regarded as the color of the revered qi.” That is to say, the rise of each emperor will have corresponding signs, and these signs can be examined through the characteristics of the Five Elements.

“The Algorithm of Heaven”

Prologue: Silicon Valley, 2023
Jake Thompson swiped left on another LinkedIn recruiter’s message. “Another startup wants me to optimize their AI ethics model?” He snorted, tossing his phone onto the couch. Four years ago, he’d been Stanford’s golden boy—a philosophy prodigy turned tech evangelist. Now? He was the guy who’d written “Ethics for Robots”… right before ChatGPT started ghostwriting breakup texts.

His eyes drifted to the bookshelf—Sun Tzu, Marcus Aurelius, and a dusty red volume: 《Zou Yan: The Man Who Sold the Sky》. A gag gift from his grad school days.

“What’s the point?” he muttered. “Even ancient philosophers pivoted to clickbait.”

Chapter 1: The Burnout
Flashback—Stanford, 2019
Young Jake stood before a lecture hall, sweat pooling under his TEDx-branded blazer.

“Ethics isn’t code you patch into an app!” His voice cracked. “It’s the humanity behind the algorithm!”

A venture capitalist in the front row yawned. “Kid, you ever heard of scalability?”

That night, over lukewarm ramen, his advisor warned him: “Stick to Kant. Mysticism doesn’t pay tuition.”

Chapter 2: The Scroll
Present day
A power outage trapped Jake in his apartment. Bored, he cracked open the Zou Yan book.

“In 300 BCE, a scholar traded Confucian dogma for cosmic storytelling…”

Jake smirked. “So even back then, philosophers were hustling side gigs.”

But as he read, his pulse quickened. Zou Yan’s theories read like a proto-TikTok strategy:

• Viral Portents: “A comet isn’t just space ice—it’s Heaven’s comment section!”
• Elemental Branding: “New dynasty? Rebrand with ‘Earth Chic’ aesthetics!”
• Apocalypse FOMO: “Harvest failed? Here’s 5 signs your king angered the Wood element!”

“Holy shit,” Jake whispered. “He wasn’t a philosopher—he was a narrative engineer.”

Chapter 3: The Pivot
Next morning, Jake stormed into a VC’s office clutching a stolen whiteboard marker.

“You want disruption? Let’s talk moral machine learning.” He drew feverishly:

• Yin-Yang Code: “What if AIs balanced logic (Yang) with empathy (Yin)?”
• Five-Element UX: “Apps that ‘renew’ like Spring (Wood) or ‘purge’ like Fire!”
• Karma Metrics: “Track user karma via carbon footprint + playlist vibes!”

The VC blinked. “It’s like… astrology for SaaS?”

“No,” Jake grinned. “It’s Zou 2.0.”

Chapter 4: The Backlash
Tech Twitter erupted:

• @BlockchainBro: “Woke AI? This is why we need web3!”
• @StartupShaman: “Finally! Tech that respects Mercury retrograde 💫”
• @EthicsProf: “Reducing millennia of thought to… this?”

Jake’s insomnia returned. Did I just turn philosophy into an astrology app?

Then, the death threat arrived:
“Stop weaponizing Eastern wisdom. – Concerned Scholars”

Climax: The Keynote
At Y Combinator Demo Day, Jake took the stage to muted applause.

“You think I’m selling snake oil?” His mic feedback screeched. “Let me tell you about Zou Yan—a man who saw warlords burning villages and said, ‘Let’s explain chaos with elements.’ Was it science? Hell no. But it gave hope. A story to survive by.”

He clicked to a slide of California wildfires.

“We’re not coding ethics. We’re coding meaning. So yeah—my AI asks if you’ve hugged a tree today. Sue me.”

Silence. Then, a single clap from the back—the VC who’d mocked him years ago.

Epilogue: The Mandate of Metrics
Jake’s startup, Mandate, hit 10M users in 6 months.

Users didn’t care about Zou Yan. They cared that the app:

• Nudged them to compost during “Earth Phase” hours
• Matched Tinder dates by elemental compatibility (“Water signs avoid Fire users 🔥”)
• Turned carbon credits into karma points redeemable for Taylor Swift tickets

At 3 AM, Jake finally replied to @EthicsProf’s tweet:

“Zou Yan taught me: Sometimes, saving the world starts with letting people believe in magic.”