-.-

Well I've fallen out of the habit of writing regular posts and these last couple of months have been pretty quiet. Just to reassure you guys that I'm still alive and posting, some thoughts:

I ran 21km in 2 hours 12 mins woohoo! Alright it's not fantastic but I think it's pretty good for a first try.

-----

People should be educated about the difference between (ethical) right and wrong and (factual) right and wrong. If you think about it, the confusion between the two is one of the main reasons why bigotry exists.

-----

I'm very disappointed at the maturity of political and social discourse in Singapore. I read the Online Citizen (TOC) and some local blogs semi-regularly, and the comments are highly unedifying. Usually on one side it's just inane and unsophisticated government bashing, while on the other we have those equally mindless cult-of-PAP fanatics. Why is no more effort being expended in being thoughtful and reasoned?

I think Kenneth Jeyaratnam's National Day message was a step in the right direction: we have got to recognise that yes the PAP has brought us economic development but no there's more to it than just GDP.

-----

Poets and authors and playwrights in Singapore have got to start asking the difficult questions: why else do they exist? Entertainment?

-----

What on earth was our foreign ministry thinking when they said they were "happy" that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was granted amnesty for half her sentence (1.5 years now) and that she will be under house arrest instead of being imprisoned? Oh the tender mercies of Myanmar's military government. Is she now expected to be grateful?And does the foreign service not have the balls to tell Myanmar their conduct is unacceptable? Or do our arms manufacturers really need their dirty money?

-----

I am absolutely enthralled by John Bayless's reinterpretations of Beatles songs in the style of Bach. Why is this genius not more widely heard?

-----

I think TPO, OMM and re:mix have got to come together and talk. They're cannibalising players off each other, and there's no way our amateur music scene can support so many groups in the state it's in right now. Music-making here could be so much better.

-----

From a comment I posted on someone else's blog some time ago:

Any particular set of values, of necessity, excludes others that don't agree with them. The point is that tolerance and secularism, by definition, exclude the least. Consider this statement: "the only thing I can't tolerate is intolerance".

To describe someone else as heathen is as good as saying: I am morally right, you are wrong, and therefore beneath me. It is an elitism of morality.

Chrome OS

[Sources here, here and here.]

Google's launching a new operating system based on Chrome, evidently aimed at hitting Microsoft where it really hurts. At first it does seem like a game-breaker: to run an entire OS and all your programs from a browser. And admittedly it does look enticing - after all the future of the computer is the internet.

But I can't help thinking that this is history repeating itself. First, we had command-line-based OSes. I guess most of my generation isn't familiar with DOS, but my family was an early adopter when it came to computers and I used it for probably 2-3 years when I was a kid.

And then came Windows 3.1, which came with a delightful tutorial demonstrating things like how to use the mouse, and windowed applications - believe it or not, applications weren't always either full-screen or boxes with the minimize/restore/exit boxes at the top-right corner! - and things like check-boxes and drop-down menus. I remember a portion of the tutorial where you could do something like choose different flavours of ice-cream and toppings and it would calculate the number of calories for that serving. Really unimpressive now but then it was quite something.

And then Windows 95 introduced the Start button and the Taskbar, another significant leap forward. (And it was also much less of an eyesore!) The Internet came along around this time too, and with it Netscape. Netscape was my first and primary browser for a long time, before I reluctantly moved back to IE because Netscape 7 was intolerably unstable. 

Then came Firefox (Firebird at first) and tabbed browsing, and then I started using Opera (which I still stick to) and mouse gestures (which I cannot live without, now), and Chrome came along late last year - and now Chrome OS.

Come to think of it, tabbed browsing is awfully similar to a taskbar - they're visual ways of swapping between pages or applications. As for web applications, they've been around since javascript and flash, and nowadays with Java and all the different scripting languages you can get incredible functionality packaged neatly in a single webpage. Gmail for instance - a pretty good example of packaging combined with sophisticated scripting underneath.

But it should be pointed out this is simply a reworking of the old situation. Where once we had an OS reading programming code to display applications onscreen, now we have an OS reading code to display a web browser, which reads yet more code to display web applications, streaming videos, flash games and the like.

So now that we can spend nearly all our computer time on a web browser, it kind of makes sense to cut out the OS entirely - to make the browser the OS, as Google plans to do. Google seems to have a plan to take over everything, just that this new Chrome OS idea really isn't as revolutionary as it's being made out to be. 

If you don't have programming experience or know next to nuts about computers, I guess all this would be lost on you. So to navigate away from this page, you might as well click here.

sneaking feeling

I have a sneaking feeling that the world economy works only because

1. everyone wants it to
2. it's way too complicated for anyone to work out why it shouldn't, actually - and/or to convince everyone else.

For instance, look at fractional reserve banking. The principle behind it is, say a bank gets a $100 deposit. It can then go and loan out a much larger amount, based on what percentage the central bank/financial regulators require it to keep in its vaults - the fractional reserve requirement; this is typically about 10-15% in most countries. The corollary of this is that when someone withdraws $100 out of a bank, the amount that the bank can loan out shrinks by far more than $100.

Imagine a day when everyone decides to take out their money (a run on the bank). The amount the bank can loan effectively shrinks to zero - although in practice the loans are more often left unrepaid, and the bank goes into insolvency instead. If everyone decided to take out all their money from every bank in the world, we would all be royally screwed.

And oh, foreign exchange. Transaction costs related to foreign exchange probably cost us something like 1-2% of global GDP. (I read that somewhere, just can't remember where exactly.) And besides, where's the logic when if Zimbabwe's government expands its money supply, the value of its currency collapses, whereas if the American government expands its money supply, everyone rushes to buy more US dollars? Other than the fact that US dollars are rather more attractive things than Zimbabwean dollars.

Okay enough ^^ when I think of more I'll let you know.

a couple more thoughts on aware

Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely glad that AWARE has been reclaimed by forward-looking, sensible women. By all accounts the day of the EOGM was a good day for democracy and the voice of the people, and this whole episode has certainly shaken some apathetic Singaporeans.

I just think there's very little more that I can add to the incredible amount of internet traffic there is about it, and I should shut up. But I think the spirit of the meeting was awesome, and the new new exco should be proud of themselves, and get to work.

thoughts about aware

I've been reading Kurt Vonnegut's extremely short and engaging semi-autobiographical musings A Man without a Country, and lots of things he mentioned struck me. Particularly these: 

• "I say of Jesus, as all humanists do, 'If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?'"
• "For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I've never heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere."

And for those who don't know, or need reminding, here are the Beatitudes (from Matthew 5:3-5:10)

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

-----

It's struck me, too, that few people have looked at the unfortunate events at AWARE from a Christian perspective. I'm eminently unqualified in this, not being a Christian myself. But on the other hand, I've always thought that it's far better to be Christian at heart and in spirit than to be a self-righteous, lecturing Pharisee – a small-c christian rather than a capital-C Christian, if you will. 

And it strikes me that looking at the Beatitudes (Matthew 5-7 and Luke 6:17-6:49) that these capital-C Christian women trumpeting their "pro-family" "feminist" agenda have missed the mark.

The old AWARE was about empowering women – including lesbian women – and this, among other things, means tolerance and acceptance, even love in the agape sense. It was very much about comforting the persecuted, downtrodden and neglected members of society. It was much closer to the spirit of the Beatitudes than anything I've heard from or about the "new guard".

It seems to me that in their zeal they've forgotten about the meek and the persecuted and the peacemakers. In their urge to change locks, hold press conferences and generally drag the good work of the old members of AWARE in the mud, they've actually lost sight of the central message of their own religion – that their God is a God of love.

Shame on Thio Su-Mien, a very un-christian Christian. She and her ilk disgust me.

Aiding is Abetting

A startlingly fresh perspective on the Great African Problem.

http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/954/moyo/

children nowadays

I'm quite disturbed by kids nowadays (I mean primary school, kindergarten, that kind of age). They're awfully spoilt. They get the latest phones, tons of junky toys, their doting parents do their homework and overfeed them, that kinda thing. Just look at the kids you pass at the supermarket or on the MRT or generally around the place, they're glued to PSPs and stuff. Or the ST surveys that show primary 3 kids on the internet 15-20 hours a week, that sort of thing. (I mean, I do that, yes, but that's out of the time that the SAF's robbed off my life. And I'm not playing maplestory.)

The thing that really gets me is when parents don't raise their kids right. Like when they wonder why their kids are failing, when they're doing all their projects and homework for them. Or when they worry about their kids getting fat while they're busy feeding them. Parenting is vitally important for kids to be all that they can be, fulfil their potential and all that. I'm glad that my parents seldom interfered with my learning after primary 2 or 3, and almost never after pri 4. 

And to tell kids that it's ok to fail is all nice and politically correct, but I believe it's wrong. Parents shouldn't be satisfied with mediocrity; worse, they shouldn't let their kids be satisfied with mediocrity. If they have to suffer to get their grades and mould their minds, by all means make them suffer. 

one-man campaign of disinformation

Andy Ho's one-man campaign of disinformation has done it again. (For more examples of his egregious errors of fact and logic look here. Or Google his name. If anyone sees an online petition calling for his dismissal I'd be enormously grateful - in fact, I might write one myself.)

In his latest column (yes he has a regular weekly column!) he now suggests that you can catch cancer. This is nothing but alarmist, irresponsible disinformation of the highest order. And he is a trained doctor.

Yes, some forms of cancer may develop from infections - for instance cervical cancer almost always develops from a HPV infection (not to say that catching HPV invariably leads to cervical cancer); hepatitis B or C may lead to liver cancer - but the causes of cancer are far more diverse and complex than Andy Ho attempts to convey.

He suggests, for example, that the RI guy who died from leukemia a couple of months back might have caught some kind of virus (not mentioned in the article, but presumably human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 or HTLV-I). It is indeed possible for a HTLV-I infection to progress to leukemia but studies show that the time lag between infection and onset of cancer is believed to be about sixty years in Japan, and less than forty years in the Caribbean. (Wikipedia)

Andy Ho also mentions the Epstein-Barr Virus as a causative agent for lymphoma - which his relative has unfortunately developed - and writes that the hospital's dietician "advised my relative's wife to cook bigger portions. Her husband would then have more to eat and, for the sake of convenience, she could just consume the leftovers. No risk of catching his lymphoma, of course, she added."

Well, for a start, EBV doesn't necessarily lead to lymphoma - 95% of 35-40 year-olds in the US have been infected at some point in their lives, and they aren't dying of a lymphoma epidemic - and catching EBV is obviously not equivalent to "catching lymphoma". No one "catches cancer" or "cancer viruses"; although viral infections may develop into cancer, the two are very different concepts.

Yet he uses EBV and other diseases to suggest that "the takeaway lesson here for family members? Don't be politically uncorrect unto death."

This reminded me of a dinner conversation nearly two years ago, just after my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer. He said he wasn't sure if cancer was infectious, and maybe he should eat separately or have different food for us. It was an emotional moment, I think at one point we broke down. To me it was utterly unthinkable, and I rejected it immediately. To have done that would have destroyed a centrepiece of our family life, removed any sense of normalcy. It wasn't any question of political correctness, it was a matter of hanging together as a family. 

UPDATE: I've just sent a letter in to ST Forums. It may not get published, but hopefully it'll at least hit the Straits Times editors with a dose of reality.

fun theory

I recently stumbled across this extremely interesting piece in Overcoming Bias, one of those rare blogs that actually make you think. It's about something which would not normally qualify as a fit subject for academic inquiry: fun. I've done a bit of Googling and here are a couple of links:

http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/fun-theory
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/fun-theory-sequence.html

And these are some of the questions the author poses:

• How much fun is there in the universe?
• What is the relation of available fun to intelligence?
• What kind of emotional architecture is necessary to have fun?
• Will eternal life be boring?
• Will we ever run out of fun?
  

I guess it's a work in progress, and it seems to be all one person's work right now. Rather inexplicably too, it seems to approach it from an AI (that's artificial intelligence) angle, which to me makes no sense. There isn't much point attempting to create a more rigorous "fun system" or "model" to explore normative questions of fun maximisation or optimisation if, for a start, we're not even entirely sure what fun is.

So what is fun? Wikipedia is disgustingly unhelpful; searching for fun produces a redirect to recreation, and the two are far from being identically equal. The American Heritage Dictionary (from dictionary.reference.com) tells us that fun (n.) is

1. A source of enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure.
2. Enjoyment; amusement: have fun at the beach.
3. Playful, often noisy, activity

Semantically, too, the phrasal verb have fun is telling: fun is incidental to an activity, it does not exist in and of itself, but is created by people through various actions. In this, fun closely parallels the economic concept of utility: consumption generates utility; doing fun stuff generates fun. However this is circular - what stuff is considered fun? And we're back where we started.

So some questions of my own, to get myself started:

• What is fun?
• Is fun measurable? Not in the sense that length or mass is measurable, but in the sense that there are degrees of fun: more fun, less fun, no fun.
• Is fun universal? Do people broadly find the same activities fun? Excluding, of course, psychopaths and fetishists. (A more refined fun theory might incorporate them, but I don't want to get started)
• What is the relationship of fun to happiness? Are they dependent? Related? Does one generate the other?
• What is the relationship of fun to utility/satisfaction? How similar/parallel are they? Are they identically equal? Is an economic understanding of utility applicable to fun?
• Are humans fun optimisers or maximisers? Is the optimum level of fun also the maximum level of fun? Is fun finite in a finite universe? (Although the universe is finite, wants are infinite, for instance.)

I'm sure there're lots more questions to be answered. And even more crucially, to be asked. A dialogue from Plato and some other readings would be good.

motivation

I do believe that sometimes we're so battered and close to giving up, that the only thing keeping us going is the sense of "I'm better than all the other lousy fuckers around me", and an overriding desire to prove it.

Pride or hubris? Honour or ego? You decide. But it makes people do extraordinary things.

blue whales

Ok I guess you guys want a break from all that tosh I usually rave or rant about, right? Yeah so today I'm going to rave about the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus).

First thing is, it's freaking huge and heavy. Those monsters generally weigh 150-170 tonnes - after they've been cut up because they can't be weighed whole. And not because they're too heavy; because they're too large to be weighed. And the longest whales ever recorded were >33m in length. Crikey. I don't think the stomach could fit in my miserably modest flat.

And yet it would choke on a beach ball. Blimey. Blue whales eat krill, mostly, except when they accidentally catch small fish, squid, or plastic bags. I'm sure I eat larger stuff than that. I mean, I eat cows. (Though admittedly, carved up.) And that's precisely what makes the blue whale so disarmingly endearing: the combination of zomg hugeness and awww vulnerability. And how can you go wrong with that?

For their 7 months blue whales drink about 400 litres of milk a day. That's insane. How many human babies can that feed? I think a standard dosage of milk is what... 400-500ml? So what, a thousand servings of milk for little toddles? Get this: we should give up on cows and farm blue whales for milk. Never mind if it tastes like piss, they'll all grow up to drink Starbucks anyway (and apparently, think it's "good coffee", both of which are descriptors that I have semantic issues with) so might as well start young right? 

I won't start on their mating rituals, but apparently they sing underwater. The only time humans sing with water in their mouths is at class parties while playing forfeits for stupid games, when they should know better, ahem Daniel.

And what's more, its scientific name is an original Latin pun. (Not like, say, homo which has acquired a double meaning only fairly recently.) Balaenoptera, as far as I can tell, means "whale-thing" and comes from the Middle English word baleen, meaning whale. But musculus is the clincher: it may mean either muscular or little mouse (mouse is mus in Latin). I think that for a biologist that's an extremely acute sense of humour Linnaeus had. Maybe it was a drunken bet. (So the more buff you get, the closer you are to being a little mouse. Irony ftw!)

I think blue whales are quite possibly, other than some humans of course, nearly the coolest animals ever. Adam might question me, but he's just jealous, even if he'd never admit it. xP

Is ideology overhyped?

Much has been written about a dramatic shift to Keynesian thought in economics. Governments around the world are poking their grubby hands and snotty noses into the free market, and journalists (especially the financial ones, having little to write about anyway other than the depressing stuff about oil, banks and people losing their life savings) are having a hell of a time pointing it out.

I think this is rather overstated. Sure, government intervention has become much more pervasive over the last few months (more regulatory oversight, much more spending in the economy, stimulus packages and such); sure, governments have realised that their economies will screw up big-time if they don't step in. But economic policies and schools of thought are never applicable under all circumstances; they were never meant to be. Different approaches are useful at different times, based on a government's macroeconomic aims - ranging from the growth-at-all-costs approach of China and Vietnam, to the control of inflation that countries like the UK seem to be obsessed with. 

And times have changed dramatically. Who would've thought that the housing bubble would have burst so spectacularly, with such dramatic spillover effects into the money markets? And who would've thought that the effect on the money markets would be so pronounced as to affect the real economy? Added to that we had the oil-price peak, only just behind us (and possibly not for long); there was food inflation caused partly by the adoption of biofuels and the food scares we've had. Set against this, arguing (as Friedman did) that "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" is perhaps pushing the case too far.

New Classical approaches combined with the lack of adequate regulation were largely to blame for the brouhaha that financial institutions (and governments) are finding themselves in. It follows then that these approaches were clearly inadequate in dealing with the current situation, if not in the strictly economic sense then certainly in the sense of not being politically expedient. 

To argue, then, as some economic journalists seem to be doing, that this is a new Keynesian age ("we are all Keynesians now" as Ronald Reagan said), is a bit naive, both for the reason stated earlier (i.e. a New Classical approach is clearly inadequate in dealing with the current situation) and for something more fundamental in the nature of politics. Governments have a natural bias against doing nothing; it's their job to govern, for better or for worse. Especially in a multiparty democracy, where to bum around is to hand the political initiative (and quite possibly the next election) to the opposition. Blame it on the goldfish attention spans of the electorate, but like it or not, no government would sit around fiddling while Rome burned. Obviously they had to come up with something to show the voters, and this is the result - Keynes is back in vogue. 

Perhaps it is pertinent, now, to remind everyone that the subject of economics was once called political economy. And decoupling the armchair contemplation of theoretical economic niceties from the nitty-gritty conduct of economic policy is possibly more illuminating than raving about the dawn of a new Keynesian era.

particularly enlightened

I thought this comment on the history of Arab-Israeli relations was particularly enlightened:

Incidentally, if Moses had turned right instead of left, the Jews could have had the oil, and the Arabs would have got the oranges.

Thanks to Chase me Ladies. Though I believe it isn't original.

what if morality were... economical?

No, I'm serious. Think about it. Economists, what if morality were subject to the dictates of cost-benefit analysis?

-----

Now, a post by Sam Tho (Nov 30) regarding gratuitous swearing got me thinking. Yes I'm certainly one of those who inspired the post, for I cuss without too much thought in the company of friends. (Of course, this depends on who I'm with - that night was him, Remus, Justin and me.) So Sam doesn't use the word fuck, and has never done so and doesn't plan to start. Commendable. Certainly, there are people who live by thou shalt not swear, but I see the benefits, and the costs aren't particularly compelling, so heck.

In my analysis, he greatly overestimates the negative externalities (costs) generated by swearing (the disapproval of peers and family, the breakdown of the fabric of society, the affront to morality and God, etc.) and underestimates the benefits (harmless stress-relief/catharsis, endearment to friends, better conversation, etc.). My own estimation is probably skewed towards the other extreme, simply because I perceive the benefits to be greater - because they accrue to myself and those around me - and the costs to be lesser. 

Generally, I've found that if I swear

1. I'm comfortable with the company I'm with
2. The conversation is going well, and pretty interesting
3. It gets even better after that

This is of course an example of the familiarity heuristic. Occasionally it doesn't work, and it sucks. But usually it's fine, because I'm not usually the one to initiate the swearing.

You might say I was being economical with morality there. I think that's true; some people place a high premium on strong ideals of morality - they associate it with strong positive externalities - and it's simply easier to abide by monolithic rules than to weigh the costs and benefits each time (because the costs are so high and the benefits - of breaking the rules - are so low). 

But to take this one step further, we could examine the development of morality itself. Besides divine endowment (stone tablets, burning bushes, Brian Blessed voices etc.), I think morality may be thought of as a result of people living in societies. Values and ethics develop so that people may live with each other and not hate each other as a result. And societies with developed notions of morality probably tend to fare better than those without (because they hate each other less, they're probably more inclined to cooperate). 

Morality also springs from conceptions of fairness, which are to some extent shared by animals: [1] [2] To some extent there may be an evolutionary basis for morality.

But economics? Might people live moral lives simply because the benefits were greater than the costs? The effect of a change in cigarette prices on smokers' behaviour is pretty well-documented; Tim Harford gives a convincing economic explanation for the increase in oral sex among American teenagers. But to extend economic analysis to morality as a whole... probably needs a bit more thought on my part. I'll get back to you on this.

ST Forums: George Lim archive

http://gssq.livejournal.com/150751.html
http://www.drmikeloh.com/07/jun01.htm

I was laughing my butt off at this bumbling social reformer/moraliser George Lim Heng Chye and his missives to the Straits Times forum page. Oh dear me... Well yeah, some of his letters are reasonable: Man exposed himself to boys yeah that sounds horrible, but oh geez read this!- All the movies are about sex and violence. Time for censors to act:

I turned to the cinema pages of the Life! Section in the Straits Times last Saturday and noted the sort of movies being shown in town. The main themes focussed on violence, crime, death and sex. Here are some of the movies:

• The Black Dahlia - about Hollywood’s most infamous sex murders;
• Dead man’s shoes - about revenge;
• Silk - about spirits;
• Death Note - about death;
• The Departed - a crime drama;
• Wet hot sake - about sex, sleaze and sensuality;
• My Summer of Love - more sex and sleaze.

The other movies are about inconsequential events. These are time-wasters and sad to watch:

• Talladega Nights - about brainless and crazy people with fast cars;
• World Trade Centre - a disaster;
• Rob -B-Hood - no theme.

These movies do not provide any wholesome and meaningful lessons in life. The more a person watches them, the more he would be made to feel that life is hopeless and meaningless.

Movie directors are happily ripping off the public by giving us worthless movies that harm us.

It is useless to bar only children and those below 18 from watching these movies as the tasteless pictures in the media continue to defile good sense and morals.

Where are our educators? Why are they silent on this sad state of affairs? What does our conscience tell us about such movies being screened in public? Do we have a conscience at all?

One may argue that we have a choice not to watch these shows. But if it Hobson’s choice everyday with such low quality movies, where is the freedom for one to choose a wholesome and good movie when none is available?

What about the public’s right to see good movies? And why do we create for ourselves a famine of morally enriching shows?

A movie that is worthwhile watching would give hope to the viewer about the meaning of life and its purpose. A good movie should result in stirring a person’s mind and heart to do good for society. It should focus on wholesome family values of love and care, and respect for the elders and the government.

How should we rate a movie for its value? We should not give ratings to reflect its popularity based on violence, crime and sex, but instead focus on good values such as kindness, gentleness, love, peace, goodness, faithfulness, self-control and joy.

Unfortunately, none of these good values can be found in the movies mentioned above. Movies that espouse the desirable values are rare. These are ‘Chariots of Fire’ and ‘Akeelah and the Bee’. I particularly enjoy watching Jack Neo’s portrayal of our primary school system in ‘I not stupid’.

Yet if it remains only a portrayal of our country’s meritocratic education system, it alone would not be able to help us make further progress. It is not enough just to point out society’s ills. The movie’s director should have concluded the show with lessons on corrective measures for the public.

I would like the Board of Film Censors to critically review and evaluate the quality of the movies currently being screened in public. The guiding principle of the authority should always be driven by good and responsible values that promote hope, compassion and love. And it should not be influenced by the public’s lust for sex, violence and death that leads to a sense of hopelessness for the viewer.

I've reproduced his letter in full to let the full measure of his naivete sink in. I don't know; my egalitarian instincts and political-correctness gearstick prevent me from saying anything more than that he must have had a very sad and disturbed childhood.

It seems that giving this letter an answer would merely glorify it. But since our venerable newspaper of record published it - and I'm sure many people were nodding their heads in agreement on reading his letters - it would seem that it is worthy of an answer.

Brilliant right? As if film censorship wasn't enough, this guy wants to dictate what movies we watch, so that only films with upright values get shown, so as to educate and improve young minds.

Tosh! Does Mr George Lim live in snooty Victorian England or does he have a ten-foot pole up his shithole? He intends to perpetrate social engineering - and not just that, he intends to do so by screening Chariots of Fire! Any of you - us - youngsters would lap that up? Anyone out there as ridiculously inexperienced in the ways of the world, as dear George?

The world is meaningless and hopeless and ugly and filthy and corrupt and depraved and rich and beautiful and wonderous and human in its depravity, deal with it! Even good clean family-friendly Mozart wrote the piece "Lick me in the arse"! Go on, George, ban Mozart! This time I'm with you all the way!

I absolutely detest this self-righteous sense of moral rectitude that he exudes with every word. I drip with scorn.

Sure, rate movies on how they portray values of kindness and love. I'm sure he wants to watch Barney all day, too. Or maybe not - he might take actually offence at Barney's paedophilic, effeminate and *shock horror* homosexual image! He's purple, for fuckssake!

Oh yeah, that reminds me - he has stuff to say on homosexuality too. But I'll let a better mind guide you through it: I've found an excellent and thoughtful blog by this guy Sam, who's incidentally commented on it. Go browse his other posts, it really is quite thought-provoking.

Alright that's it from me now; I've really gotta go sleep. Man, all that suppressed laughter was a good abs workout.

bye-bye bush

It's hard not to be overawed by the immensity and momentousness of it all. Even Dubya must be astonisherated. It's taken this long for Black America to produce a president, but they've finally done it. I think it shows there's still a place for ideals like equality and justice in the world, and for that Americans deserve to be proud of themselves.

The thing about the US is that more than any other nation it was founded on values, not just thirst for power, wealth, people or land, and it has sacrificed much for its values. Without those values there might still be slaves, Europe might be facist, Asia might be communist, and the world might be worse off. 

Still, it remains to be seen how President-elect Obama will handle the mess he's inherited; it's not a pretty sight, and it's going to take more than just solid competence to clean up after Bush. Now, I guess the world's just holding its breath, waiting in hope.

jbj and how singapore is generally screwed.

I saw the Economist had an article on JBJ in their latest issue (the obits section), so immediately dashed to buy a copy. 12 freaking bucks. Well worth it, but still painful, painful. (More painful in the context of buying a whole new comp but that's another post for another day!)

I also couldn't resist posting a comment. I must say, not having to grovel for a govt scholarship is a highly liberating feeling, I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. (If I have to grovel for a govt job later in life these words will come back to haunt me muhaha!) And here it is:

Unfortunately, as many people (both Singaporeans and foreigners) fail to appreciate fully, Singaporeans live in an incestuous compact between the state, the media, and the people. Here, democratic sensibilities are subordinated to considerations of material well-being, and economic advancement is regarded (not unfairly) as the best route to success. Singaporean voters merely elect whoever delivers the economic goods, and so far, the PAP hasn't slipped up.

The media establishment is staffed by former civil servants and government figures (including a former deputy prime minister) who naturally have an interest in the larger status quo. What observers may see as complicity is simply their self-interest coinciding with that of those in power. The liberty of the Singaporean press is not compromised; rather, the natural tendency to liberty has been extinguished.

Singapore's unique problem is that everything has been done by the book, but in such a fortuitous way as to favour the governing elite. They've developed a vested interest in the status quo, in satisfying the population with economic and material well-being. At the same time they've quietly reduced the space for social, political and intellectual debate, in the name of stability and prosperity. And Singaporeans have been understandably acquiescent. This is going to continue as long as the incestuous compact works; once Singapore sinks this will probably break down. Unfortunately it will take nothing less than total systemic failure for Singaporeans to wake up.

Singapore needs more brave souls like JBJ, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I guess he'll be remembered as the heretic who preached democracy and rights while the rest of us were eating out of the PAP's hand. As for Lee Kuan Yew, he's a brilliant man, but nonetheless only human, and the demise of one of his fiercest political opponents should remind him that his time is drawing to an end, too.

-----

I must say I'm not in support of the opposition. Au contraire, I'm deeply apolitical, and that does not mean apathetic. The opposition is largely incoherent, and JBJ was about as good as it ever got. They don't seem to realise the fundamental realities of Singapore, the PAP-created fundamental realities.

Standing for your democratic principles is all very well and good, but when principles cost dearly then (for most Singaporeans, at least) it pays to abrogate them. Not that that's a good thing; far from it. I really must thank my lucky stars that I haven't needed to do that yet.

I'm afraid it'll take nothing less than catastrophic collapse for Singaporeans to realise that relying on the PAP is wholly inadequate, and for the PAP to realise that its self-interest is not the same as Singapore's self-interest. Like every other entity, the PAP's self-interest is self-preservation, first and foremost; political survival. And by co-opting the best and brightest of Singapore into the party or its patronage, through its extensive and (as I characterise it) incestuous links with the private sector, civil service, military, academia and media, the PAP has inadvertently reduced the space for independent views to be heard. This is its self-preservation at the expense of Singapore's. In the long run, the lack of a marketplace of ideas will only be to Singapore's detriment. Voters don't realise this because the cost of working this out for themselves (in terms of time and effort) would likely outweight the satisfaction thus derived (in other words, they don't give a flip), and also because the discount rate on potential future failure is high (in other words, they don't know what they're potentially in for).

Why do I care? I care because I was perilously close to being bonded to the civil service, where the reality of intellectually sleeping with the enemy would be all too apparent. I care because many of my friends are perilously close to having a vested interest in the system, and I want them to know that it isn't all a bed of roses. And I perversely care because after 19 years of living in this place one can't help but feel some kind of empathy, of one-ness with Singapore, even though one wishes things were better.

I really, really like that phrase "incestuous compact". xP

blue planet

I spotted this just a while ago while talking to Daniel on msn (who's not much more responsive than a teabag): the Economist's Global Electoral College. It's basically an online poll with an extension of America's antediluvian electoral college system. China has 1900 votes, Kiribati has 3.

Haha looks like you'd have to go to Macedonia or Andorra (here's my challenge: find Andorra!) to find a country that votes McCain. True, the Economist's readers are probably more likely to be liberal, and therefore more likely to vote Obama. But since no one else is trying, I guess for all intents and purposes the world is an Obama world. xP

Maid abuse.

I saw another depressing case of maid abuse in the papers today. Allegedly this woman Loke Phooi Ling (yeah true she isn't convicted yet, but I still feel it's justifiable to drag her name in mud, try her in the court of public opinion a bit) faces 32 charges of abuse - including rubbing her domestic helper's lips with toilet brushes and steel wool, kicking her genitals and hitting her head against walls.

It's so routine that it's ceased to produce outrage (if it ever did). And these aren't the dregs of Singapore society; her husband was a bank executive. Besides if they were rich enough to afford to hire a maid they can't have been that dumb: the only possibilities I can countenance to explain their behaviour are insanity and inhumanity. In the former case they should be treated, in the latter they should be given a punishment befitting their crime.

And this is why I would like to make the case for maid abusers - even women - to be caned.

The official case against caning women, as far as I'm aware, is that women are especially fragile, specifically their ability to bear children. But this is a humane consideration, and Singapore has historically not given a fig about humane considerations - witness our country's stand on hangings and whippings. So why start now? And anyway, if the female genitals are fragile, how about the males? Us guys are, as House puts it (Season 4), "danglers", after all...

True, some would argue caning is "cruel and unusual punishment" and wrong in any context. I personally would agree with them but since Singapore isn't likely to revise its stand on it I don't see how standing on principles would help. Moreover I think caning is actually comparatively humane compared to what some of their maids had to go through - that's cruel and unusual punishment for you, inflicted through the caprices of twisted (and often female) minds. I'm not suggesting impalement, not even the ducking chair, just plain ol' caning.

Besides, convicts who get caned reportedly have to strip naked (it helps aiming, I guess!), so it works in their favour right? Women caned by women, considerations of modesty? If Singaporean lawmakers are really that soft-hearted they could reduce the number of strokes women are liable to be sentenced to, or specify a lighter kind of cane, or cane them on their thighs or other less sensitive area; but I don't think it's necessary. That would just send out the wrong signals.

Alright, the case for caning. One of the justifications for caning is its ability to get to the most hardened criminals. And these maid abusers are certainly hardened, and very often unrepentant; they perpetrate acts of senseless brutality, they use acid and bleach on their employees, they physically abuse them, often with implements - in other words, torture.

Another of the justifications is the deterrent effect that caning has. This fits the profile of many maid abusers too; certainly these people need deterring, since maid abuse is a prominent fixture in our legal news. It's a systemic vice in our society that needs weeding out. They can cane loan sharks, why can't they cane maid abusers?

Think of it as protecting the victims too. Most maids are heavily indebted to their agents when they reach here; they have very little legal protection, often no social network, and they're clueless about how things work here; they have no power; they're often expected to be subservient, a demeaning practice which says something about the egotistical superiority cult that many Singaporeans feel the need to keep up, just so they can feel secure; and relatively many are abused, some quite shockingly. It's common to see cars being washed at ungodly hours - that in itself is a mild but systematic form of abuse too.

Furthermore, this would extend caning to a huge swathe of the population that's hitherto been exempt: women. To some extent this is reflective of a caveman, male chauvinist attitude in Singapore - women stay at home to clean, cook and sew, never mind work, NS - or caning. But this is an attitude that needs changing; our modern times, our dehumanised natures demand it. Besides, maid abusers are often female - particularly the most vicious ones. You hear of vigorous beatings, slappings, pinchings, disfigurement even; surely if these women are strong enough to inflict these on their maids, they can stand a lashing or 24 of their own?

These maid abusers are some of the most virulent, recalcitrant, heinous villainesses that walk the streets of Singapore. Are we to overlook their twisted, violent nature and deny them the punishment they deserve, just because they walk the streets in high-heels? It seems that fines and jail terms aren't enough to deter them, and certainly death's too good for them. Why spare maid abusers the cane just because they happen to be female?

They've got their rights; time to pay their dues...

econs link

Behavioural Economics: Is it such a big deal?

A link from ZH again; nice one, you got me interested. I tend to side with Tim Harford, and in my own defence would just like to point out: economics is, broadly speaking, the study of human responses to incentives, choices - in a word, behaviour. And seen in that light, "behavioural" economics is a mere tautology; a linguistic soufflé. True, a very nifty one, but a soufflé nonetheless.