Introducing the hypercracy

I hit upon a fantasy... I wonder if it's possible to have a super-efficient civil service that is nimble and responsive, that has zero barrier with the people being governed. Is that a fantasy? With google-like kind of information tech, perhaps it's not that fantastic, even something to aim for, perhaps...

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Something about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The New York Times article sure made me think a lot.

Its one of the things that happen that make people question the existence of a just loving God, and why He might allow things to happen. I have no answer to that. Only God has the answer. But I can guess, and one of the things is that, there is still Evil in the world, and sometimes, it win tiny battles, but it will still lose the war in this good/evil conflict.

Sometimes, there are just no clear answer to things. Why did the Israeli shell hit his home? Sometimes there are just no reason to things, only events as they happen. And to learn to accept these events, moving on from there, always developing this compassion and sensitivity to things - thats always a starting point to move from...

So how do I, as a global individual, as someone who has read about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, look at this tragedy, even as this tragedy is but a small tiny event in the entire universe of tragedy that has pervaded the region?

Honestly, after going through history, I can't help but feel a little jaded, but I know this jadedness is simply insensitive when talking about the tragedies that have happened there - of the heartbreak and sorrow, of the anger and hate. Intellect seems insufficient to deal with this, but for a Singaporean thousands of miles, I find it difficult to summon the emotions to think about this. I know that nothing can add or subtract to the sufferings there, but mere acknowledgment seems insufficient. I think about the need for peace - but even that is insufficient... I can only hope - put my faith in - in a God who cares for all of these tragedies, who somehow turns everything for something better. But I am painfully aware that even the idea is insufficient...

But then even these thoughts are overwhelmed by the thought of human suffering all over the world, in Darfur, in Congo, elsewhere in the world...

It is a sad broken world, and today, I'm reminded of it.

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thinking about identity, food culture, and culture in general

I've actually talked about something like this, but today, there's a different epiphany of sorts. I remembered talking about social change with my pals at NS, and they were hardly receptive about the idea. They erm... well... can't really connect to that idea of a different Singapore. All they want to do, was to get on with life, go to university, get a job, have a nice life. The old me back then would hold partially-elitist thought at them being satisfied with the status quo, and try to convince them that a better future was possible.

But now, the present me would go, 'Thats cool!'

I realise that talk about all those abstract things about social and technological revolutions - all of it seems hollow (vacuous) when I look at the guy in front me in a coffeeshop chopping pieces of meat. I wonder what he wants - just a simple life, I guess, save up enough money, buy a house, even a car, have a family, raise kids, send them off to university, perhaps. And its all the same. All of these choices seem to be equally valid ways to live their lives, and there's no badness or wrongness about it. Its only elitist people with their heads in the clouds who would want to impose a different choice for them, and to declare that ONLY these lifestyles are 'good', 'right' lifestyles to live. Which is plain nonsense.

At the same time, I'm starting to not really care about who's in front me when I order food. Be it Chinese nationals (which is beginning to become common) or anyone else - it just doesn't matter. Its a decent job, serving happiness in the form of food - everyone needs to eat, right?

As for issues of integration and assimilation, well... I guess its just one of those things that takes time. Time for them to settle down, to adapt to Singapore society.

And I'm thinking about the need for creativity. Even culinary creativity, and not just the traditional notions of academic or artistic creativity. Thinking about the notion of cultural hacking, looking at how we might change cultural norms of food and rituals, and how they might be transformed in new ways - something unexpected, but pleasant and desirable. In this instance, I'm thinking about how we might hack our food to become unique Singapore variants of food eaten in SEA.

Is it still feasible to think about intelligent jobs? The perspective that all jobs are really a form of information arbitrage between the source and the consumer. Intelligent jobs are suppose to break down the information asymmetry between the producer and the consumer for mutual benefit. How might that work out?

I guess I'll be on this line of thinking for a while...

So, what really is social change? Its more like, social justice - meaning, have equitable jobs for all, even redistributive income system of taxation, political fairness, inclusiveness, openness.

Again, coming back to the point that the average person on the street really just want to get on with life, unless there is something that captures their imagination.

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not a good science, on the second day of school...

Today was only the second day of school and already I'm feeling much negativity.

Already committed some mistakes, many things still undone, and this dreariness in school... Somehow I'm not feeling excited about school and learning, and I'm wondering if its because... there's no more writing module to do? Or is it some lingering sadness that the semester was past, and that things will NOT be the same.

I have to accept a lot of tings. That this is a time to learn about accepting myself, and accepting the role of other people in my life. That personal isolation is not such a bad thing, that out of all the experiences in life, something good will come out of all these, because well, its God. He's in control of everything. As simple as that. The semester will be tough, but He will not give me something I cannot handle. And I must get motivated again, to write and think, to continue to push my own academic and intellectual frontiers.

Its time to get working again. and to learn to rest too, in the midst of everything. Whatever happens, happens, but it all happens because of God.

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a chasm to confess

There is something that I think I might have said it before in the blog, but I'm just going to say it again. There is this distance between generations, I think, even in my family. Its just this sense of apart-ness that its always there.

Education I guess, is a double-edged sword then. It empowers people with the skillsets necessary to thrive in the global economy, but then, as with the case of Singapore, it does not facilitate in the transmission of cultural artifacts/heritage, and instead, seems to tear people apart from them. Can you imagine Hokkien Opera being an CCA? Yet we allow our kids to sing Italian/Spanish/Japanese/Korean tunes! WTH!

THe cultural heritage of our parents and grandparents have been neglected, even debased, The cultural artifacts linked to our festive seasons ends up being promoted - the lion dancers, the lanterns, the mooncakes... for economic profit? drawing in the tourist dollar? As signs of a 'vibrant cultural city'? Something doesn't sync yet. Singapore still has an emerging theatrical culture, yet its being undermined in ways that are hidden. 2 steps forward 1 step back. Why can't we embrace our dialects? And why is Singlish not tolerated? Perhaps the fluidity of the Singaporean identity - the flexibility in moving from cosmopolitan to heartlander in a single larh - that is the wonder of the Singaporean.

And now that I'm here, I was reflecting about the predominant role of English as the medium of instruction, and the Singlish that young people speak. I talk about this because I've identified in another post that the main problem of Singapore's young people is that they are not immersed in the environment of speaking English, especially in the neighbourhoods. That there are structural problems that are preventing these kids from competing in the global talent marketplace, and that meritocracy, being the mindless efficient selector of talent, just disregards the place where people come from. Sometimes, it is really not that people are not hardworking enough - it really is about not even having the environment and the motivation around them that urges them to work hard. No one is stupid. Its about whether the people around them think they are stupid or not.

I think I've moved too far for one night.

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Reading Science Fiction and the inadequacy of our knowledge

I like Amy Tan, and about the resolution of identities. But I like Sci-Fi too - that genre of fiction that truly pushes the conception of man and who he is, in the face of technological changes. I think sci-fi writers are the real people who think seriously about the human condition and what it means.

But thats just my point of view.

I was going around the various bookstores, and I suddenly picked up 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', and Applebaum's Gulag. I'm not exactly sure why I bought these books, but I guess it was just a reflection of my desire to understand history.

I think it was then somewhere during this afternoon, that something hit me really badly. What we know, our knowledge, what we think we know, barely represents the thinnest topmost layer of everything that exists. The knowledge that all of us as individuals know - is barely like dust - that we know so little!

All the books that were lying out there, all the words and the texts - these things mean barely anything, if they mean anything at all! As I furiously twittered the whole afternoon - all that we know is really, truly, NOTHING. All the knowledge that we possess, is truly a chasing after the wind.

Our perception of knowledge, of reality, is so insignificant! And yet, there is a greater reality out there, a reality formed by our collective choices - a reality that is our collective consequences - the sum of the complex web of interactions and decisions. And there too, lies other things, of souls and spirits, flowing all around us. There is only so much that the human mind can grasp all at once, but there is still so much more!

All the data that we have, all the knowledge that we know, all of it is still insufficient to describe the reality that we live in. Sure, the sciences can take us somewhere there, but once will and decisions come into focus, everything changes. Before quantum uncertainty, classical chaos was already known.

So even as I engage in exploring this infinite-land of reality, in the study of sciences (chemistry) - despite all the insufficiencies of knowing barely anything at all... What is left?

The sense of humility of knowing that there is a God, who truly takes care of everything - and then the realisation, the barest, slightest, realisation, of the awesomeness of God.

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Book Review: Jared Diamond

I thought that sometimes there isn't much point in talking a single book in isolation, but rather, it makes more sense to talk about books written by a single author, as I am trying to do here with Jared Diamond. He is the author of 3 wonderful books, and they are shown left to right, in the order they are published.

There is a perhaps, a sequence in the way he has written these books. The third chimpanzee was about the way humans are different and also similar with the other apes. And yes, the third chimpanzee refers to homo sapiens, and the first and second chimps are the chimps themselves and the bonobos.

It was fascinating in the way it talks about the evolutionary psychology and sexual selection, in particular, the differences in the sexual behaviour between the other great apes and human beings. To cut the long story short, there is this balls-to-body-mass ratio which seems to be the key. Gorillas have small ratios, which means that a single dominant male does not face sexual competition and practises polygamy (harems), while chimps have large ratios, which means well, the males are kinda promiscuous, but it also means that there is tremendous sexual comeptition, hence the large balls to dominate the competition. And humans have ratios somewhere in between that of chimps and gorillas, which means, that monogamy with affairs might be deemed to be a middle point between chimps and gorillas. At least thats one way of looking at it.

Then, having tackled the origins of the behaviour of people, Jared Diamond then takes on something much bigger - the progress of humanity since then. Jared Diamond examines the development of civilisation in various parts of the world, and examines why is it that Europeans and their descendants ended up dominating the world. First of all, he examines why Mesopotamia was the centre of the world's first civilisation - due to the diversity in tameable animals and abundance in grains. And then there is the whole part about the dominance of Europe - because of the competition due to the rise of different nation-states which originates from their geographical boundaries whereas in China, a centralised ruler could easily stifled innovation.

In other words, Jared Diamond has tried to bring natural history - geology and the environment, into the study of human history.

Collapse, then is about the various case studies into how different civilisations have interacted with the environment, some for better, and some for worse, and seeks to explain how and why. There is the example of the Easter Islanders, about how they unsustainably destroyed the forests of Easter Island in their construction of the stone statues, and points out to other South Pacific islands where islanders have lived in resouce-scarce areas for much linger time eras. The overall message is clear: there is really no determinism in the environment that says that people will either fail or succeed. Bad choices even in a resource-rich area will lead to collapse eventually. But good choices in a resource-poor area can still allow for a sustainable society.

Taking these 3 works combined, you could say that third chimp was about the basis of humanity, and GGS was about how the present came from the past, and Collapse is evidently about the future.

Jared Diamond is one of those synthetic thinkers that puts various different ideas together into a coherent whole. Evolutionary psychology explains perhaps, the basis of political power, and perhaps the environmental factors manifest those political power, be it the centralised form of power in ancient China or the competition between different states in Europe. And how these different forms of politics can either lead to the downfall or success of a civilisation. To tackle these immense problems, you probably need a mind as immense as Jared Diamond.

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