Applied for job with Shell. If anything, I felt my answer to their question on the global challenge on water might've lost it for me. Were they looking for some answer that pollyannish belief that Shell and R&DS would solve everything, and a lip service to sustainable resources, so that present-day consumption patterns needn't be changed?
Obviously I gave them what I knew: a treatise on the realities of climate change. We need to change our patterns of life. Even if it means de-industrialisation, painful changes to the global economy.
And then, 1 day after their rejection letter came, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report broke out and was covered by the BBC and New Scientist.
Not the first time I knew what answer was expected, what I saw to be the right answer, and gave that instead of the expected answer - and lost the job. And like the previous occasion, a report gets published to vindicate my position.
31 March 2005
29 March 2005
Names changed to protect the innocent
Overheard on the internet:
akikonomu> Oh dear... sounds like the pope is about to be mortal
gnu> I don't get why they don't let the poor man die in peace
akikonomu> Let's just hope bush doesn't nominate Donald Rumsfeld as the new pope =^_^=
gnu> He is too busy changing laws to please his Christian base
akikonomu> Well, Bush did nominate warmonger Wolfowitz to the world bank -_-
gnu> Yeah, he will use his Iraq war experience to give credit to the poor
akikonomu> Who cares about giving credit to the poor?
akikonomu> He shall give democracy and freedom to the poor! And liberate them of their lives as well -_-
gnu> Democracy = american troops ?
akikonomu> And American corporations. Preferably Haliburton
gnu> The best part is that they will export voting machines to the poor, just to be sure the election will be like in Florida
akikonomu> And we thought clinton was a bad president -_-
gnu> The only reason I can make fun of other governments is because the world media does not cover what politicians do here
akikonomu> So what do politicians do in Brazil?
gnu> One said employing half his family in public jobs was a service to the country
akikonomu> Oh, that's what our politicians do, too.
Tomorrow's headlines in the ST:
Singapore Exports Meritocratic System to Brazil
akikonomu> Oh dear... sounds like the pope is about to be mortal
gnu> I don't get why they don't let the poor man die in peace
akikonomu> Let's just hope bush doesn't nominate Donald Rumsfeld as the new pope =^_^=
gnu> He is too busy changing laws to please his Christian base
akikonomu> Well, Bush did nominate warmonger Wolfowitz to the world bank -_-
gnu> Yeah, he will use his Iraq war experience to give credit to the poor
akikonomu> Who cares about giving credit to the poor?
akikonomu> He shall give democracy and freedom to the poor! And liberate them of their lives as well -_-
gnu> Democracy = american troops ?
akikonomu> And American corporations. Preferably Haliburton
gnu> The best part is that they will export voting machines to the poor, just to be sure the election will be like in Florida
akikonomu> And we thought clinton was a bad president -_-
gnu> The only reason I can make fun of other governments is because the world media does not cover what politicians do here
akikonomu> So what do politicians do in Brazil?
gnu> One said employing half his family in public jobs was a service to the country
akikonomu> Oh, that's what our politicians do, too.
Tomorrow's headlines in the ST:
Singapore Exports Meritocratic System to Brazil
28 March 2005
Advice for Andy Ho: Don't write what you don't understand
Advice for Andy Ho of the Straits Times:
Don't write about what you don't understand
"Dr" Andy Ho is a "senior writer" of the Straits Times. He is apparently their science and ethics columnist. He has an MBA from Yale and a PhD from MIT and an undergrad medical degree, I think. Apparently all that education taught him nothing.
In this opinion piece, Ho weighs in on the case of Terry Schiavo. His usual dedication to in-depth research and literature review is displayed to the world once more...
Ho writes:
Strike one: Much of Terri's brain is dead. If Dr Ho had gone one step further to check which portion of her brain is dead, he would've stumbled upon this:
For comparison's sake, this is what a normal brain looks like under a CT scan:
And once again, especially for "Dr" Ho, who thinks there is no scan that can confirm the lack of awareness and its permanence:
The dark blue bits in Mrs Schiavo's CT scan - in the centre and elsewhere - are spinal fluid. That is to say, after her heart attack, much of Terri's brain died and turned into gooey fluid. Repeat (with apologies to Mrs Schiavo): She has NO BRAIN.
For the medically-savvy, Terri has no cerebral cortex. I would appreciate if Dr Ho would occasionally do proper research and refer to his medical texts, which state from the vantage of accepted neuroscience, that the
In case we didn't notice, Dr Ho wrote: the assumptions of both the lack of awareness and its permanence are not medical facts but merely, by their very nature, unprovable guesses...
Strike Two
"Dr" Ho did do lots of research! He discloses that he got his information from www.Terrisfight.org. Amazing. There's a 4 minute video that shows how lucid and responsive she is. She laughs and smiles to stimuli. She opens and closes her eyes in response to commands issued by a doctor.
All very well. If only Ho actually did proper online research, instead of visiting a biased pro-lifer site that shrilly announces "Treating convicted murderers better than Terri"? I mean, there are much better medical resources on the internet that may provide the relevant information for his assertion that Terri is fully sensate.
Like the University of Miami website that's tracking all medical, legal, and ethical issues linked to the case.
If Dr Ho had bothered to do his research, he'd find that
1. The 4-minute video of an apparently responsive and sensate Terri was formerly submitted to the Florida court and rejected, because...
2. The video was heavily edited from a 4-hour recording.
3. Mrs Schiavo would respond to commands, only after more than 10 or 20 minutes after they were issued, and other commands had been given in the intervening period - and then she'd respond randomly and sometimes repeatedly. It's very bad science to claim that she's therefore aware of the commands and following them. It's intellectually dishonest to edit out the intervening time period and leave out these facts.
4. It is normal for patients in similar persistive vegetative states to laugh, sigh, moan, articulate vowels randomly.
Advice to "Dr" Andy Ho: you need to do better research before you write on medical issues. Other bloggers have caught your biased and uninformed articles on strokes, homosexuality and AIDS, drug prescriptions, and a whole host of other booboos.
Don't write about what you don't understand
"Dr" Andy Ho is a "senior writer" of the Straits Times. He is apparently their science and ethics columnist. He has an MBA from Yale and a PhD from MIT and an undergrad medical degree, I think. Apparently all that education taught him nothing.
In this opinion piece, Ho weighs in on the case of Terry Schiavo. His usual dedication to in-depth research and literature review is displayed to the world once more...
Ho writes:
Let us be clear about Mrs Schiavo's condition.
She is not brain-dead. She is a living, breathing person in what doctors call the permanent vegetative state, a term first invented in 1972.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the assumptions of both the lack of awareness and its permanence are not medical facts but merely, by their very nature, unprovable guesses. That is, there are no scans, blood tests or any other technology that can confirm such a diagnosis.
Strike one: Much of Terri's brain is dead. If Dr Ho had gone one step further to check which portion of her brain is dead, he would've stumbled upon this:
For comparison's sake, this is what a normal brain looks like under a CT scan:
And once again, especially for "Dr" Ho, who thinks there is no scan that can confirm the lack of awareness and its permanence:
The dark blue bits in Mrs Schiavo's CT scan - in the centre and elsewhere - are spinal fluid. That is to say, after her heart attack, much of Terri's brain died and turned into gooey fluid. Repeat (with apologies to Mrs Schiavo): She has NO BRAIN.
For the medically-savvy, Terri has no cerebral cortex. I would appreciate if Dr Ho would occasionally do proper research and refer to his medical texts, which state from the vantage of accepted neuroscience, that the
cerebral cortex is the seat of all our higher brain functions. Without a cerebral cortex, it is impossible for a human being to experience thought, emotions, consciousness, pain, pleasure, or anything at all; nor, barring a miracle, is it possible for a patient lacking a cerebral cortex to recover.
In case we didn't notice, Dr Ho wrote: the assumptions of both the lack of awareness and its permanence are not medical facts but merely, by their very nature, unprovable guesses...
Strike Two
"Dr" Ho did do lots of research! He discloses that he got his information from www.Terrisfight.org. Amazing. There's a 4 minute video that shows how lucid and responsive she is. She laughs and smiles to stimuli. She opens and closes her eyes in response to commands issued by a doctor.
All very well. If only Ho actually did proper online research, instead of visiting a biased pro-lifer site that shrilly announces "Treating convicted murderers better than Terri"? I mean, there are much better medical resources on the internet that may provide the relevant information for his assertion that Terri is fully sensate.
Like the University of Miami website that's tracking all medical, legal, and ethical issues linked to the case.
If Dr Ho had bothered to do his research, he'd find that
1. The 4-minute video of an apparently responsive and sensate Terri was formerly submitted to the Florida court and rejected, because...
2. The video was heavily edited from a 4-hour recording.
3. Mrs Schiavo would respond to commands, only after more than 10 or 20 minutes after they were issued, and other commands had been given in the intervening period - and then she'd respond randomly and sometimes repeatedly. It's very bad science to claim that she's therefore aware of the commands and following them. It's intellectually dishonest to edit out the intervening time period and leave out these facts.
4. It is normal for patients in similar persistive vegetative states to laugh, sigh, moan, articulate vowels randomly.
Advice to "Dr" Andy Ho: you need to do better research before you write on medical issues. Other bloggers have caught your biased and uninformed articles on strokes, homosexuality and AIDS, drug prescriptions, and a whole host of other booboos.
In the beginning was the illusio...
Hi, I'm Aki.
For the good part of the past 3 years, I've been blogging elsewhere, but many readers complained that the blog service was terrible since it forced them to sign up before they could comment on any articles I write.
So here I am.
I'll be posting my articles here and there.
For the good part of the past 3 years, I've been blogging elsewhere, but many readers complained that the blog service was terrible since it forced them to sign up before they could comment on any articles I write.
So here I am.
I'll be posting my articles here and there.
04 March 2005
Claims of Singapore's economic woes purely anecdotal
"For more accurate news, read the Straits Times" edition
Today morning, a position for a presenter for a small radio station drew more than 50 hopefuls.
Yours truly didn't get past the voice test.
However, I did talk to the girl beside me. She, an engineering graduate, had been working as a kitchen staff in a restaurant for months before she quit out of disgust for the low pay.
Singapore's students are the world's best in mathematics and science, but that still can't get them jobs.
Meanwhile, I'll say nothing - NOTHING - about the recently complete farce of a debate over the casino in Parliament, since MiniLee said the matter is not open to referendum, voting, or debate.
Today morning, a position for a presenter for a small radio station drew more than 50 hopefuls.
Yours truly didn't get past the voice test.
However, I did talk to the girl beside me. She, an engineering graduate, had been working as a kitchen staff in a restaurant for months before she quit out of disgust for the low pay.
Singapore's students are the world's best in mathematics and science, but that still can't get them jobs.
Meanwhile, I'll say nothing - NOTHING - about the recently complete farce of a debate over the casino in Parliament, since MiniLee said the matter is not open to referendum, voting, or debate.
25 February 2005
Facing the incomprehensible: Lessons from Kafka's Trial
Kafka's The Trial is required reading at high school level in most societies, perhaps because Eng. Lit. teachers have found this the perfect text to confound their rebellious and angsty students.
Most readers, however, will go through lengths to insist that the character of Joseph K is so inaccessible they cannot empathise with his predicament. The entire book is incomprehensible, they say.
It's not too difficult to describe what occurs in Kafka's dark novella: a man is caught up in a legal prosecution, in which no one knows the precise charges against him, no one knows how the process should go, and no one knows for certain how it will end (if at all). But Joseph K's life is put on hold forever and he'll never know why, who, how, what, when and how...
The characters populating K's world have no idea either, but they are possessed by their confidence of the System: there's this big bureaucracy whose rules we don't know, but it's a coherent system (never mind we don't know HOW exactly it's coherent) and justice should be done because the system is fair.
Most literary critics adopt a similar view as well. Kafka CANNOT be saying that life is meaningless or absurd. He can't be saying that the state is corrupt, or by extension, "everything is meaningless". Hence the story is really about sin and redemption, nevermind that the judicial system described by Kafka is completely corrupt and obtuse. The Trial is actually a warming parable about God's forgiveness.
Stupid? Blinkered?
But how many people will want to consider that things don't happen for a reason, that there's no sense of morality in the world?
(Incidentally, this is why the problem of evil will be very easily solved by people of faith)
I wrote a post about a very strange interview experience few days ago. It was incomprehensible.
But like readers of Kafka, people will jump to the defense of the system (most notably my dad. Not meant to describe anyone who replied to my previous post). Maybe it was a weird psychological test, a breeching experiment. No, it CAN'T be that the company is run by nutcases or sadists. There HAS to be a good reason and purpose to what they were doing. It's not a bad company. The chairman, no matter that I don't know who he is, is a good man.
People of faith, arise!
I'm willing to play along, of course.
A. This was not a test, they were really being rude.
In which case, it doesn't matter... This is the kind of company that might just abuse you for really low pay if they give you the contract.
B. This was a test.
I'm willing to accept this possibility. But I'm willing to ask more questions into this, such as:
What kind of companies resort to these type of tests during hiring? Not every company deviates from the usual job interview. If some companies 'test' their applicants, it usually isn't to this extent of incivility.
But. Back to this: that a company is willing to resort to such incivility during a job interview, what does it show about the corporate culture?
Presumably, if the applicant overturns and rejects the experiment by refusing to play along (i.e. protests during the interview itself about the bad treatment), the company may just fall back to a "well, this was a test. Of course you understand this is just a test, and it looks like you don't have enough humour/wisdom to tolerate..."
In which case, the company wants to have eat its cake and have it at the same time. It's very convenient to say "you can't take a joke", because it protects them from the accusation that they meant to do it, that part of them relished in behaving badly anyway.
Now, this tells more about the culture within the company more than what I would want to know, so I'm ending this post.
Most readers, however, will go through lengths to insist that the character of Joseph K is so inaccessible they cannot empathise with his predicament. The entire book is incomprehensible, they say.
It's not too difficult to describe what occurs in Kafka's dark novella: a man is caught up in a legal prosecution, in which no one knows the precise charges against him, no one knows how the process should go, and no one knows for certain how it will end (if at all). But Joseph K's life is put on hold forever and he'll never know why, who, how, what, when and how...
The characters populating K's world have no idea either, but they are possessed by their confidence of the System: there's this big bureaucracy whose rules we don't know, but it's a coherent system (never mind we don't know HOW exactly it's coherent) and justice should be done because the system is fair.
Most literary critics adopt a similar view as well. Kafka CANNOT be saying that life is meaningless or absurd. He can't be saying that the state is corrupt, or by extension, "everything is meaningless". Hence the story is really about sin and redemption, nevermind that the judicial system described by Kafka is completely corrupt and obtuse. The Trial is actually a warming parable about God's forgiveness.
Stupid? Blinkered?
But how many people will want to consider that things don't happen for a reason, that there's no sense of morality in the world?
(Incidentally, this is why the problem of evil will be very easily solved by people of faith)
I wrote a post about a very strange interview experience few days ago. It was incomprehensible.
But like readers of Kafka, people will jump to the defense of the system (most notably my dad. Not meant to describe anyone who replied to my previous post). Maybe it was a weird psychological test, a breeching experiment. No, it CAN'T be that the company is run by nutcases or sadists. There HAS to be a good reason and purpose to what they were doing. It's not a bad company. The chairman, no matter that I don't know who he is, is a good man.
People of faith, arise!
I'm willing to play along, of course.
A. This was not a test, they were really being rude.
In which case, it doesn't matter... This is the kind of company that might just abuse you for really low pay if they give you the contract.
B. This was a test.
I'm willing to accept this possibility. But I'm willing to ask more questions into this, such as:
What kind of companies resort to these type of tests during hiring? Not every company deviates from the usual job interview. If some companies 'test' their applicants, it usually isn't to this extent of incivility.
But. Back to this: that a company is willing to resort to such incivility during a job interview, what does it show about the corporate culture?
Presumably, if the applicant overturns and rejects the experiment by refusing to play along (i.e. protests during the interview itself about the bad treatment), the company may just fall back to a "well, this was a test. Of course you understand this is just a test, and it looks like you don't have enough humour/wisdom to tolerate..."
In which case, the company wants to have eat its cake and have it at the same time. It's very convenient to say "you can't take a joke", because it protects them from the accusation that they meant to do it, that part of them relished in behaving badly anyway.
Now, this tells more about the culture within the company more than what I would want to know, so I'm ending this post.
23 February 2005
Most surreal interview. Ever
Okay, not the most surreal since the geezer wasn't bonking a camel at the table while interviewing me...
But still, what does it mean when the interview with the chairman of the company is conducted like this?
A HR flunky interviews me, with exactly the same set of questions he asked the first time round, a month ago;
While the Chairman is on the phone and reading his snail mail;
And less than 5 minutes into the interview, we're (the flunky and me) asked to move out into the lounge to continue the interview;
None of the 2 other applicants suffered the same ignominy (but presumably also got the same "reading mail, talking on the phone" treatment, judging from their PO looks).
But still, what does it mean when the interview with the chairman of the company is conducted like this?
A HR flunky interviews me, with exactly the same set of questions he asked the first time round, a month ago;
While the Chairman is on the phone and reading his snail mail;
And less than 5 minutes into the interview, we're (the flunky and me) asked to move out into the lounge to continue the interview;
None of the 2 other applicants suffered the same ignominy (but presumably also got the same "reading mail, talking on the phone" treatment, judging from their PO looks).
21 February 2005
Lessons from Job
And we're back to God, his problem, and our problem with him...
The sole source of the Bible grappling with the problem of evil is in the Book of Job, which forms part of the Wisdom literature. Job, the most virtuous man of his age, is visited by a series of natural disasters: his children are struck down, his fields go fallow, his cattle die, and Job himself contracts a disfiguring skin disease. All because God allowed these disasters to happen.
Unlike the premoderns, Job refuses to opt for passive acceptance of his hand. He recognises that the disaster is unwarranted, meaningless. In a way, he questions God for allowing this to happen. If God is good and all, why this evil? Especially to a pious man like himself?
Job holds God to account. Actually, Job files a lawsuit against God, making him the first man to hold God accountable for His own action/inaction. Not even the philosophers would court karmic disaster by filing suit against the Almighty outside from their academic musings!
Like our 18th century philosophers, Job presents his case: the evil and suffering existing in this world is unjustified and out of proportion to normal human failing. Disasters happen by chance, striking evil and terror indiscriminately to everyone. By what right does a good God persecute or even allow this?
After Job's impassioned prosecution, God's defense is classic.
So, you want to know why? Little man, stand still and ponder:
Where were you when I made the world? Do you know how I made the earth, filled the seas?
Do you know how to call on the rain and the dew?
Can you send lightning? Move the stars?
Do you provide the birds with their food?
So does that answer your question, little man?
Of course, I'm paraphrasing here, but that's essentially what transpired. One might argue, as many atheists have, that this is essentially a cop-out: God refuses to answer Job's question, refuses to account for his actions, and instead makes what is technically an argument to force: "I'm more powerful than you, so I'm not required to defend myself to you."
Or, one might say that God reminds us of the mystical nature of the Divine Will, that the ways of God and even the nature of God is beyond the comprehension of humanity. God may be a personal saviour who intercedes, but do not mistake him for a human being, do not assume that He shares our idea of "good" and "evil".
Unluckily for the philosophers and their "free will" and "greater good" defenses, God doesn't seem to think much about humanity and its sufferings in Job 37-39. Is there a Divine Plan? Yes. Is there justice? Yes. But no, don't think the entire universe revolves around humanity, that divine justice must resemble human concepts. God mentions about the stars, animals, birds, the seasons and their places within his plan, but not a single word about humanity.
How humbling. And Job was so stunned, then humbled that he dropped his lawsuit against God.
And indeed, the only proper response for a person of faith during a time of disaster is not to demand an accounting from God, but to be awed by the extent of the disaster, to be humbled from it. And then, to accept it.
The sole source of the Bible grappling with the problem of evil is in the Book of Job, which forms part of the Wisdom literature. Job, the most virtuous man of his age, is visited by a series of natural disasters: his children are struck down, his fields go fallow, his cattle die, and Job himself contracts a disfiguring skin disease. All because God allowed these disasters to happen.
Unlike the premoderns, Job refuses to opt for passive acceptance of his hand. He recognises that the disaster is unwarranted, meaningless. In a way, he questions God for allowing this to happen. If God is good and all, why this evil? Especially to a pious man like himself?
Job holds God to account. Actually, Job files a lawsuit against God, making him the first man to hold God accountable for His own action/inaction. Not even the philosophers would court karmic disaster by filing suit against the Almighty outside from their academic musings!
Like our 18th century philosophers, Job presents his case: the evil and suffering existing in this world is unjustified and out of proportion to normal human failing. Disasters happen by chance, striking evil and terror indiscriminately to everyone. By what right does a good God persecute or even allow this?
After Job's impassioned prosecution, God's defense is classic.
So, you want to know why? Little man, stand still and ponder:
Where were you when I made the world? Do you know how I made the earth, filled the seas?
Do you know how to call on the rain and the dew?
Can you send lightning? Move the stars?
Do you provide the birds with their food?
So does that answer your question, little man?
Of course, I'm paraphrasing here, but that's essentially what transpired. One might argue, as many atheists have, that this is essentially a cop-out: God refuses to answer Job's question, refuses to account for his actions, and instead makes what is technically an argument to force: "I'm more powerful than you, so I'm not required to defend myself to you."
Or, one might say that God reminds us of the mystical nature of the Divine Will, that the ways of God and even the nature of God is beyond the comprehension of humanity. God may be a personal saviour who intercedes, but do not mistake him for a human being, do not assume that He shares our idea of "good" and "evil".
Unluckily for the philosophers and their "free will" and "greater good" defenses, God doesn't seem to think much about humanity and its sufferings in Job 37-39. Is there a Divine Plan? Yes. Is there justice? Yes. But no, don't think the entire universe revolves around humanity, that divine justice must resemble human concepts. God mentions about the stars, animals, birds, the seasons and their places within his plan, but not a single word about humanity.
How humbling. And Job was so stunned, then humbled that he dropped his lawsuit against God.
And indeed, the only proper response for a person of faith during a time of disaster is not to demand an accounting from God, but to be awed by the extent of the disaster, to be humbled from it. And then, to accept it.
16 February 2005
Theodicy II
Theodicy was first coined in the 18th century by the philosopher Liebniz. While the field of philosophy loves to formulate problems as abstractly ahistorical, the problem of evil is a modern problem, and is only problematic for modern society.
Through their investigation of the problem of evil, Liebniz and his contemporaries shed more light on the sensibilities of their milleu. As far as the Divine Will is concerned, the disenchantment of the age and declining importance of religion manifest themselves in the logical formulation of God.
The Divine Will is boiled down into 3 attributes - and stripped of other qualities such as mercy, mystery, and awe. God, in theodicy, becomes the God of the philosophers, not the God of Isaac, Jacob and Abraham. The problem of evil accelerated the decline in the belief of a Divine Will for Liebniz's generation.
How did they deal with it? In the 18th and 19th centuries the solution to the problem resided in the "Clockmaker God" defense - God institutes the laws of nature during the Creation, then steps back and lets the laws of nature operate - which lead to the unfortunate but necessary disasters. As God is omnibenevolent, he cannot break his own laws...
But what about miracles? Protestant theology at that time believed that the age of miracles had ended. For the early moderns, the statement of the problem and its solution indicate the fading of God from the world, the disenchantment and increasing rationality of society.
What about us? Why did the Straitened Times devote at least 3 editorials to the problem of evil and the tsunami?
Singapore, like the US, has experienced a recent trend of religious resurgence - mostly evangelical and fundamentalist. The problem of evil poses a threat to these Christian sects - the God in their weekly sessions is a deeply personal being, a Great Communicator, and the world is literally filled with God...
It's not so much of believing that God speaks to us, as being convinced that a particular phrase in the Bible tells us directly and authoritatively that Harry Potter books are evil... Not so much of believing that God intercedes for us, but being convinced that he is actively working on OUR SIDE when we're trying to fight our way to the train, earning our first million, protesting for a pay rise... That we almost tripped while coming down the staircase but didn't, is a miracle, an intervention from the very Hand of God...
For people like this, a natural disaster wrecks havoc on their concept of God. "What, isn't he supposed to make me rich when I pray for it? How could he send a tsunami instead?" laments a Singaporean follower of the prosperity gospel. (Yes, those very strange people have a strong presence here in Singapore, or used to before 2001's recession)
The maleovence of disasters like this reflect badly on their God. The most popular response from these Christians appear to be the "for the greater good" defense: God must have allowed this to happen because either "free will" should be preserved through his inaction above all else, or "a better good will come out of this suffering".
Of course, the only Christians who believe in that kind of defense are comfortably middle class, bourgeois, and distanced enough from the actual disaster to distance themselves even further from it. No luck if you were personally affected by the tsunami - chances are you won't be spouting this particular defense.
Through their investigation of the problem of evil, Liebniz and his contemporaries shed more light on the sensibilities of their milleu. As far as the Divine Will is concerned, the disenchantment of the age and declining importance of religion manifest themselves in the logical formulation of God.
The Divine Will is boiled down into 3 attributes - and stripped of other qualities such as mercy, mystery, and awe. God, in theodicy, becomes the God of the philosophers, not the God of Isaac, Jacob and Abraham. The problem of evil accelerated the decline in the belief of a Divine Will for Liebniz's generation.
How did they deal with it? In the 18th and 19th centuries the solution to the problem resided in the "Clockmaker God" defense - God institutes the laws of nature during the Creation, then steps back and lets the laws of nature operate - which lead to the unfortunate but necessary disasters. As God is omnibenevolent, he cannot break his own laws...
But what about miracles? Protestant theology at that time believed that the age of miracles had ended. For the early moderns, the statement of the problem and its solution indicate the fading of God from the world, the disenchantment and increasing rationality of society.
What about us? Why did the Straitened Times devote at least 3 editorials to the problem of evil and the tsunami?
Singapore, like the US, has experienced a recent trend of religious resurgence - mostly evangelical and fundamentalist. The problem of evil poses a threat to these Christian sects - the God in their weekly sessions is a deeply personal being, a Great Communicator, and the world is literally filled with God...
It's not so much of believing that God speaks to us, as being convinced that a particular phrase in the Bible tells us directly and authoritatively that Harry Potter books are evil... Not so much of believing that God intercedes for us, but being convinced that he is actively working on OUR SIDE when we're trying to fight our way to the train, earning our first million, protesting for a pay rise... That we almost tripped while coming down the staircase but didn't, is a miracle, an intervention from the very Hand of God...
For people like this, a natural disaster wrecks havoc on their concept of God. "What, isn't he supposed to make me rich when I pray for it? How could he send a tsunami instead?" laments a Singaporean follower of the prosperity gospel. (Yes, those very strange people have a strong presence here in Singapore, or used to before 2001's recession)
The maleovence of disasters like this reflect badly on their God. The most popular response from these Christians appear to be the "for the greater good" defense: God must have allowed this to happen because either "free will" should be preserved through his inaction above all else, or "a better good will come out of this suffering".
Of course, the only Christians who believe in that kind of defense are comfortably middle class, bourgeois, and distanced enough from the actual disaster to distance themselves even further from it. No luck if you were personally affected by the tsunami - chances are you won't be spouting this particular defense.
15 February 2005
Theodicy: Tsunamis, the problem of evil, the problem for God
There was a tsunami in the region almost two months ago. Yes, it's a little late to start reporting it, but it isn't too late to examine what - if any - lasting impact it has on people here.
The Straitened Times had its Senior Writer Dr Andy Ho, normally a medical doctor, write about the tsunami and the problem of evil in an editorial, which I believe misses the point and relevance of the issue.
What is the problem of evil? We take the tsunami, the lost lives, livelihoods and general devastation in the wake of its trail as an illustration of evil. If there exists a Divine Will (hereafter known as 'God'), and assuming that God is perfectly good, all-knowing and all-powerful, why was such evil permitted to exist?
The real issue isn't about a philosophical solution to the problem of evil and theodicy (the justification for the existence of God). It's about how we as humans adjust to the unexpected, the 'evil', the unjust. And about what historical changes have taken place over the centuries, to change our responses to 'evil'.
To understand all that, we must get to the root of Theodicy. Not the premisses behind the argument of evil (already stated in para. 2), but the operating social assumptions that the problem and the attributes of God both build on.
For a problem of evil and theodicy to exist, there are two corresponding novel social assumptions:
1. God (or his nature) is perfectly understandable to the human mind - hence we can abstract his attributes and intentions.
2. God is fully accountable for his action or inaction. If his mind, intent and nature are known to us, then he is called to account when reality (evil tsunamis) clashes with our conception of Him.
The Straitened Times had its Senior Writer Dr Andy Ho, normally a medical doctor, write about the tsunami and the problem of evil in an editorial, which I believe misses the point and relevance of the issue.
What is the problem of evil? We take the tsunami, the lost lives, livelihoods and general devastation in the wake of its trail as an illustration of evil. If there exists a Divine Will (hereafter known as 'God'), and assuming that God is perfectly good, all-knowing and all-powerful, why was such evil permitted to exist?
The real issue isn't about a philosophical solution to the problem of evil and theodicy (the justification for the existence of God). It's about how we as humans adjust to the unexpected, the 'evil', the unjust. And about what historical changes have taken place over the centuries, to change our responses to 'evil'.
To understand all that, we must get to the root of Theodicy. Not the premisses behind the argument of evil (already stated in para. 2), but the operating social assumptions that the problem and the attributes of God both build on.
For a problem of evil and theodicy to exist, there are two corresponding novel social assumptions:
1. God (or his nature) is perfectly understandable to the human mind - hence we can abstract his attributes and intentions.
2. God is fully accountable for his action or inaction. If his mind, intent and nature are known to us, then he is called to account when reality (evil tsunamis) clashes with our conception of Him.
07 February 2005
Hub around the world
or, NOT the starhub advertisement you know
EXT. ORCHARD RD – DAY
TWO rowdy young men step out of a mall. They look like they haven’t had enough fun and are off to another ‘happening’ place.
GLENN (mid-laugh)
(points to RON’s shoe)
Brother, you have something stuck on your shoe, man! Whoa, so big somemore!
ROD looks down. CLOSE-UP on the frown that develops. Wipes shoe on sidewalk in attempt to get rid of the WAD.
ROD
Hey brother, not cool to laugh at me, man! I’d like, appreciate some help from someone here...
GLENN
Okay, okay. Brother, you are one of a kind, cannot remove something like this yourself... Hold still.
GLENN proceeds to use his shoe to slide the WAD from ROD’s. He succeeds in removing the WAD without using his fingers, but...
ROD (laughing again)
Brother, now the wad is on the other shoe! (Sees GLENN struggle with it) Ah, so it’s not that easy, right, brother? You’re also another one of a kind! (pause) Hey hey, don’t you get mad at me! Let’s leave it alone for now, until we find someone else.
MONTAGE:
a) STILL PAN of Clarke Quay
b) CLOSE-UP of stiletto shoe trying to remove WAD from GLENN’s shoe. VO: “No, it’s fine, really. I just wanted to help out.”
c) STILL PAN of Chinatown
CLOSE-UP of a granny slipper, with similar dialogue in dialect.
d) STILL PAN of Little India
e) CLOSE-UP of jewelled or fancy sandal
f) STILL PAN of Singapore Skyline
g) CLOSE-UP of executive/working shoe (men’s)
h) CLOSE-UP of a shoe shoe
i) CLOSE-UP of a trendy canvass shoe
etc. with dialogs in various languages and different accents of Singaporean English
END MONTAGE
UNIDENTIFIED LOCAL
You look like you need help there...
TOURIST IN HAWAIIAN/ORCHID CLOTHING
Ah, sure! It’s tough to get this out.
LOCAL
You should try using your fingers. More practical.
LOCAL succeeds in removing WAD. It’s a green promotion stub bearing the logo of a company. However from his bewildered expression, we know the WAD is now stuck to his fingers.
ZOOM OUT to reveal the CHECKPOINT BUILDING at the CAUSEWAY, on the Malaysian side.
FLASH: "TO BE CONTINUED..."
EXT. ORCHARD RD – DAY
TWO rowdy young men step out of a mall. They look like they haven’t had enough fun and are off to another ‘happening’ place.
GLENN (mid-laugh)
(points to RON’s shoe)
Brother, you have something stuck on your shoe, man! Whoa, so big somemore!
ROD looks down. CLOSE-UP on the frown that develops. Wipes shoe on sidewalk in attempt to get rid of the WAD.
ROD
Hey brother, not cool to laugh at me, man! I’d like, appreciate some help from someone here...
GLENN
Okay, okay. Brother, you are one of a kind, cannot remove something like this yourself... Hold still.
GLENN proceeds to use his shoe to slide the WAD from ROD’s. He succeeds in removing the WAD without using his fingers, but...
ROD (laughing again)
Brother, now the wad is on the other shoe! (Sees GLENN struggle with it) Ah, so it’s not that easy, right, brother? You’re also another one of a kind! (pause) Hey hey, don’t you get mad at me! Let’s leave it alone for now, until we find someone else.
MONTAGE:
a) STILL PAN of Clarke Quay
b) CLOSE-UP of stiletto shoe trying to remove WAD from GLENN’s shoe. VO: “No, it’s fine, really. I just wanted to help out.”
c) STILL PAN of Chinatown
CLOSE-UP of a granny slipper, with similar dialogue in dialect.
d) STILL PAN of Little India
e) CLOSE-UP of jewelled or fancy sandal
f) STILL PAN of Singapore Skyline
g) CLOSE-UP of executive/working shoe (men’s)
h) CLOSE-UP of a shoe shoe
i) CLOSE-UP of a trendy canvass shoe
etc. with dialogs in various languages and different accents of Singaporean English
END MONTAGE
UNIDENTIFIED LOCAL
You look like you need help there...
TOURIST IN HAWAIIAN/ORCHID CLOTHING
Ah, sure! It’s tough to get this out.
LOCAL
You should try using your fingers. More practical.
LOCAL succeeds in removing WAD. It’s a green promotion stub bearing the logo of a company. However from his bewildered expression, we know the WAD is now stuck to his fingers.
ZOOM OUT to reveal the CHECKPOINT BUILDING at the CAUSEWAY, on the Malaysian side.
FLASH: "TO BE CONTINUED..."
04 February 2005
More Notes from a Very Small Island and Its Funny Proxy Technology
Few days ago, I described a workaround to Singnet's fluctuating proxy servers.
But how and why does it work?
Singapore's leaders decided early on that the nation had to be protected from undesirable content on the internets such as pr0n, www.playboy.com, pr0n, politically-sensitive (i.e. critical of Singapore's policies and leaders) writings, pr0n, viagra ads, pr0n, email spams, pr0n, William Safire, pr0n with eggs and ham, pr-n, pr_n and prawn.
The OTHER problem Singapore's leaders tried to solve at that time (and are still trying) is the nation's plummeting birth rates. And I blame Singapore's net nanny for censoring normal pr0n sites and not censoring something as dangerous as www.gay.com or www.sgboy.com. Hello, people!??
There were several censoring/proxy solutions:
1. Vet through every website in existence and create a blacklist. Rejected as the growth of webpages is exponential. What we do now is to create a blacklist of prominent sites.
2. Vet through what every Singaporean surfs online. Rejected. You'd require an ever-expanding bureacracy that would mestasize to include the entire population of Singapore, in order to keep tabs on what Singaporeans read online...
3. Have an intelligent program, in essense a True Proxy, that intercepts every url request your browser sends to the ISP. Your request will be blocked if matched with a site on the blacklist. Rejected as this will greatly slow down traffic on the internets. The degradation in surfing will be a warning sign to investors in the knowledge-based economy.
This is what Singapore now does: every ISP here has a program that checks if your browser is configured to have a proxy. It doesn't actually check which proxy you use: you can surf the internets as long as you have one configured. For them to do any more layers of censorship would severely degrade surfing.
If your IE/netscape has no proxy set, the new transparent proxy system (phased in about 4-5 years ago. Before that, you really had to configure your proxy settings) assigns the ISP's proxy server to you.
Hassle-free surfing: the people don't know their internet is being censored.
Now, what happens when you follow my guide and configure a foreign proxy server (such as the ones in Malaysia)? Singnet, Pacnet and Starhub's sniffing programs don't care. And you can now surf the entire internet, censorship-free.
The implications? Tremendous.
Websites that track your IP can only detect the proxy server you're using. That means I appear to be a Malaysian whenever I log into the Straitened Times Online. I can finally register, provide all the fake information, and search their articles without worrying about my privacy. Of course, the ST's search engine is still as craptastic as ever - searching for articles more than 3 days old does not work. With the free subscription-only searching, this means even google can't find the articles on ST that I know exist, and want to retrieve.
Google, the search engine that uses IP tracking to find out what country you're from (Gee, thanks!), frightens the hell out of my privacy-concerned friends. Let me just say that since I changed my proxy server, google now thinks I'm from Malaysia. Whoopie, privacy-enhanced surfing once again.
I'll let you know what more practical goodies can come out of this proxy substition in the future.
But how and why does it work?
Singapore's leaders decided early on that the nation had to be protected from undesirable content on the internets such as pr0n, www.playboy.com, pr0n, politically-sensitive (i.e. critical of Singapore's policies and leaders) writings, pr0n, viagra ads, pr0n, email spams, pr0n, William Safire, pr0n with eggs and ham, pr-n, pr_n and prawn.
The OTHER problem Singapore's leaders tried to solve at that time (and are still trying) is the nation's plummeting birth rates. And I blame Singapore's net nanny for censoring normal pr0n sites and not censoring something as dangerous as www.gay.com or www.sgboy.com. Hello, people!??
There were several censoring/proxy solutions:
1. Vet through every website in existence and create a blacklist. Rejected as the growth of webpages is exponential. What we do now is to create a blacklist of prominent sites.
2. Vet through what every Singaporean surfs online. Rejected. You'd require an ever-expanding bureacracy that would mestasize to include the entire population of Singapore, in order to keep tabs on what Singaporeans read online...
3. Have an intelligent program, in essense a True Proxy, that intercepts every url request your browser sends to the ISP. Your request will be blocked if matched with a site on the blacklist. Rejected as this will greatly slow down traffic on the internets. The degradation in surfing will be a warning sign to investors in the knowledge-based economy.
This is what Singapore now does: every ISP here has a program that checks if your browser is configured to have a proxy. It doesn't actually check which proxy you use: you can surf the internets as long as you have one configured. For them to do any more layers of censorship would severely degrade surfing.
If your IE/netscape has no proxy set, the new transparent proxy system (phased in about 4-5 years ago. Before that, you really had to configure your proxy settings) assigns the ISP's proxy server to you.
Hassle-free surfing: the people don't know their internet is being censored.
Now, what happens when you follow my guide and configure a foreign proxy server (such as the ones in Malaysia)? Singnet, Pacnet and Starhub's sniffing programs don't care. And you can now surf the entire internet, censorship-free.
The implications? Tremendous.
Websites that track your IP can only detect the proxy server you're using. That means I appear to be a Malaysian whenever I log into the Straitened Times Online. I can finally register, provide all the fake information, and search their articles without worrying about my privacy. Of course, the ST's search engine is still as craptastic as ever - searching for articles more than 3 days old does not work. With the free subscription-only searching, this means even google can't find the articles on ST that I know exist, and want to retrieve.
Google, the search engine that uses IP tracking to find out what country you're from (Gee, thanks!), frightens the hell out of my privacy-concerned friends. Let me just say that since I changed my proxy server, google now thinks I'm from Malaysia. Whoopie, privacy-enhanced surfing once again.
I'll let you know what more practical goodies can come out of this proxy substition in the future.
01 February 2005
More specialist blogs
Recently I've landed a freelance writing stint for a scientific trade magazine. After a few hiccups, I'm proud to report it's not too difficult to write.
Although, being sent to a conference where everyone was drawing presentations full of organic compounds brought back too many memories of JC chemistry. I feel like I just took an S paper for chemistry yesterday, in fact.
The neat thing about this job though, is the research is making me smarter! While most jobs in the Singaporean economy make people less smart or more lazy - all thanks to working for incompetent and uninspiring bosses, according to that separate studies by too many survey organisations like Watson Wyatt and Gallup...
So as part of my patriotic duty to fellow Singaporeans, I've decided to recommend a science blog, written by the most intelligent science writers and journalists. Please take some time to visit Corante.
Although, being sent to a conference where everyone was drawing presentations full of organic compounds brought back too many memories of JC chemistry. I feel like I just took an S paper for chemistry yesterday, in fact.
The neat thing about this job though, is the research is making me smarter! While most jobs in the Singaporean economy make people less smart or more lazy - all thanks to working for incompetent and uninspiring bosses, according to that separate studies by too many survey organisations like Watson Wyatt and Gallup...
So as part of my patriotic duty to fellow Singaporeans, I've decided to recommend a science blog, written by the most intelligent science writers and journalists. Please take some time to visit Corante.
28 January 2005
Singnet Service Outtage
or, More Funny Proxy Technology from Disneyland with the Speakers Corner
In plain English, Singapore Singnet's proxy servers to all foreign content went down around 5pm in the afternoon. BBC was inaccessible; so was wired.com, cnn.com, GOOGLE, all of blogspot (I pity Singaporean blogspot users, they get it every time our proxies go down!). Webmail is down, antivirus updates are down. HOWEVER, irc is up, Winmx is up, bittorrent has no problems connecting to US IP addresses.
In Singnet's English, "Please be informed there is a congestion in the Internet service to United States. We are currently investigating this and apologise for the inconvenience caused." (RIGHT. The BBC is located in the US, which is why it's also unavailable?)
Note to all: Singnet's communicade obfuscates.
"There is a congestion" suggests that it's NOT the fault of Singnet. It has nothing to do with Singnet's creaking, rusty, falling-apart proxy technology.
The typical English-hobbled Singaporean reader reads "to the United States" to suggest that the congestion is due to a failure in the United States. Not Singnet fault okay!
Well. I now come with great tidings for Singnet's users. The problem is with Singnet's proxy technology: it is their proxy servers that screwed up.
Ailing Singnet users, try this for size on your Mozilla/Firefox, IE or Opera. Under Internet proxy settings, change to one of the following:
202.157.192.130:3128
219.93.175.67:3128
219.93.181.3:3128
219.93.175.66:3128
219.93.174.195:3128 (fastest)
Tada. Internet surfing is now back to normal, thanks to free, alternate, proxy servers located in... Malaysia.
This is a list of fast, free, non-censoring, proxy servers available on the internet for Singaporean users wishing to cut their dependence on our silly ISPs' funny proxy technology.
ICQ will even work even with the new proxy settings. You just need to change the proxy stuff in ICQ manually...
In plain English, Singapore Singnet's proxy servers to all foreign content went down around 5pm in the afternoon. BBC was inaccessible; so was wired.com, cnn.com, GOOGLE, all of blogspot (I pity Singaporean blogspot users, they get it every time our proxies go down!). Webmail is down, antivirus updates are down. HOWEVER, irc is up, Winmx is up, bittorrent has no problems connecting to US IP addresses.
In Singnet's English, "Please be informed there is a congestion in the Internet service to United States. We are currently investigating this and apologise for the inconvenience caused." (RIGHT. The BBC is located in the US, which is why it's also unavailable?)
Note to all: Singnet's communicade obfuscates.
"There is a congestion" suggests that it's NOT the fault of Singnet. It has nothing to do with Singnet's creaking, rusty, falling-apart proxy technology.
The typical English-hobbled Singaporean reader reads "to the United States" to suggest that the congestion is due to a failure in the United States. Not Singnet fault okay!
Well. I now come with great tidings for Singnet's users. The problem is with Singnet's proxy technology: it is their proxy servers that screwed up.
Ailing Singnet users, try this for size on your Mozilla/Firefox, IE or Opera. Under Internet proxy settings, change to one of the following:
202.157.192.130:3128
219.93.175.67:3128
219.93.181.3:3128
219.93.175.66:3128
219.93.174.195:3128 (fastest)
Tada. Internet surfing is now back to normal, thanks to free, alternate, proxy servers located in... Malaysia.
This is a list of fast, free, non-censoring, proxy servers available on the internet for Singaporean users wishing to cut their dependence on our silly ISPs' funny proxy technology.
ICQ will even work even with the new proxy settings. You just need to change the proxy stuff in ICQ manually...
27 January 2005
We feel so safe now
This is a lyrical adaptation of a previous blog entry.
Caption: A grim-faced semi-automatic machine-gunned policeman
Walking
Barely a month had passed
since squadrons of grim-faced semi-automatic machine-gunned policemen
descended on our streets.
I decide to walk down Orchard, not to shop -
but merely to warm my blue fingers
while trekking under the megawatt lights.
I could out-walk any bus here in Orchard
nearer to Christmas:
Perhaps the frowning commuters on their buses
think this while they stare out of the windows -
but they do not get off, do not start walking.
It confuses me this time, to see the
costumed carnivallers, stiltwalkers, jugglers, acrobats even,
and the dolled-up women or men scattered throughout.
Perhaps the tourism board wanted to celebrate
both Mardi Gras and Christmas.
A crowd stared, immobile, at an empty taped-off space
as if something would magically appear at the right time.
Across the street, another crowd looking on,
perhaps waiting for the moment
they'd know what this crowd was looking at.
Shrugging, I move on into the swarm
and realise I haven't seen any grim-faced squad carrying machine guns
and feel, for a moment, secure. Perhaps.
Caption: A grim-faced semi-automatic machine-gunned policeman
Walking
Barely a month had passed
since squadrons of grim-faced semi-automatic machine-gunned policemen
descended on our streets.
I decide to walk down Orchard, not to shop -
but merely to warm my blue fingers
while trekking under the megawatt lights.
I could out-walk any bus here in Orchard
nearer to Christmas:
Perhaps the frowning commuters on their buses
think this while they stare out of the windows -
but they do not get off, do not start walking.
It confuses me this time, to see the
costumed carnivallers, stiltwalkers, jugglers, acrobats even,
and the dolled-up women or men scattered throughout.
Perhaps the tourism board wanted to celebrate
both Mardi Gras and Christmas.
A crowd stared, immobile, at an empty taped-off space
as if something would magically appear at the right time.
Across the street, another crowd looking on,
perhaps waiting for the moment
they'd know what this crowd was looking at.
Shrugging, I move on into the swarm
and realise I haven't seen any grim-faced squad carrying machine guns
and feel, for a moment, secure. Perhaps.
26 January 2005
On Blogging (rework of old post)
Perhaps you are eager to start a blog. But perhaps, like most people, you are uncomfortable with writing a diary that can be read by anyone online: Where is the privacy? Aren't journals meant to be sacred communications with oneself? I'm not really a natural exhibitionist, you think. And yet finally, with mind steeled and fingers poised on the keyboard, you are at a loss on what to write.
Long before Samuel Pepys begins his candid – but still private – diary in 1660, long before the modern phenomenon of online blogging, Asian writers had already mastered the public diary.
Murasaki Shikibu is better known as the author of the Genji Monogatari. Murasaki began writing what is now regarded as the world's first 'true novel' around 1007 on the escapades of the eponymous character, covering (and anticipating the Modern) themes of ennui, sense of self, fashion and fashionability, love and commitment, romance and satire.
More importantly, Murasaki Shikibu wrote a diary of her service in the Japanese court as a lady-in-waiting to the Empress from 1008-10. Diaries written by noblewomen in the Heian period were simply not meant to be private writings: they were shown to fellow writers, friends and colleagues; copies were made and distributed, due to the ready availability of paper.
Murasaki's diary is predominantly interested in high culture, fashion and art. She also pokes gentle fun of her patron, the Empress, and her immediate circle of ladies-in-waiting, as well as court bureaucracy in general – and was loved all the more for it, as readers waited for each new installment of the diary. Picture, if you will, a medieval Dilbert!
Her detail and sharpness of observation, of penetrating human nature, is surprising. This caustic yet mature view of the world continues to inspire bloggers and diarists even today. Murasaki even ponders on the subject of self-improvement: “What is good character for a lady-in-waiting?”, “What talents would be good to have?”, and muses on the gap between public persona and private self – questions that still plague modern-day writers and thinkers.
Or you could consider Sei Shonagon, writing her Pillow Book a few years before her rival's masterpieces. Shonagon's entries are witty, even gossipy conversations that run from a plethora of lists of items (“Nice things that inspire on a spring day”, “Things I hate in people”); entries describing daily life; musings on the beauty of nature, the meaning of life, the pettiness of rivals in the workplace...
The intensely personal or narcissistic “me-blog”, on the trials and tribulations of the author, may chronicle a fight against cancer, an epic search for the ideal job, the journey towards that academic degree. Yet all this pales in comparison to the Gossamer Diary by a lady known only as “Mitchitsuna's Mother”, detailing the breakdown of her marriage over the years. We do not know what her husband, the regent Fujiwara Kaneie, thought of the disclosure of his philandering ways, although the public (and popular) diary might have bolstered his reputation as a ladies' man. It is not unlikely that he even appreciated his wife's efforts.
You could even invent an entertaining or controversial persona your blog. In Ki no Tsurayuki's Tosa Diary of 935, the court poet and governor of Tosa province in Kyoto writes as a fictitious lady in his entourage, describing the voyage back to the capitol from Shikoku island. Singlehandedly, Tsurayuki invented the genre of public diary writing for Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shonagon, Mitchitsuna's mother, and many others, centuries later.
And the modern blogger? Blogging is in our blood. You could even say it's part of the Asian heritage.
Long before Samuel Pepys begins his candid – but still private – diary in 1660, long before the modern phenomenon of online blogging, Asian writers had already mastered the public diary.
Murasaki Shikibu is better known as the author of the Genji Monogatari. Murasaki began writing what is now regarded as the world's first 'true novel' around 1007 on the escapades of the eponymous character, covering (and anticipating the Modern) themes of ennui, sense of self, fashion and fashionability, love and commitment, romance and satire.
More importantly, Murasaki Shikibu wrote a diary of her service in the Japanese court as a lady-in-waiting to the Empress from 1008-10. Diaries written by noblewomen in the Heian period were simply not meant to be private writings: they were shown to fellow writers, friends and colleagues; copies were made and distributed, due to the ready availability of paper.
Murasaki's diary is predominantly interested in high culture, fashion and art. She also pokes gentle fun of her patron, the Empress, and her immediate circle of ladies-in-waiting, as well as court bureaucracy in general – and was loved all the more for it, as readers waited for each new installment of the diary. Picture, if you will, a medieval Dilbert!
Her detail and sharpness of observation, of penetrating human nature, is surprising. This caustic yet mature view of the world continues to inspire bloggers and diarists even today. Murasaki even ponders on the subject of self-improvement: “What is good character for a lady-in-waiting?”, “What talents would be good to have?”, and muses on the gap between public persona and private self – questions that still plague modern-day writers and thinkers.
Or you could consider Sei Shonagon, writing her Pillow Book a few years before her rival's masterpieces. Shonagon's entries are witty, even gossipy conversations that run from a plethora of lists of items (“Nice things that inspire on a spring day”, “Things I hate in people”); entries describing daily life; musings on the beauty of nature, the meaning of life, the pettiness of rivals in the workplace...
The intensely personal or narcissistic “me-blog”, on the trials and tribulations of the author, may chronicle a fight against cancer, an epic search for the ideal job, the journey towards that academic degree. Yet all this pales in comparison to the Gossamer Diary by a lady known only as “Mitchitsuna's Mother”, detailing the breakdown of her marriage over the years. We do not know what her husband, the regent Fujiwara Kaneie, thought of the disclosure of his philandering ways, although the public (and popular) diary might have bolstered his reputation as a ladies' man. It is not unlikely that he even appreciated his wife's efforts.
You could even invent an entertaining or controversial persona your blog. In Ki no Tsurayuki's Tosa Diary of 935, the court poet and governor of Tosa province in Kyoto writes as a fictitious lady in his entourage, describing the voyage back to the capitol from Shikoku island. Singlehandedly, Tsurayuki invented the genre of public diary writing for Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shonagon, Mitchitsuna's mother, and many others, centuries later.
And the modern blogger? Blogging is in our blood. You could even say it's part of the Asian heritage.
18 January 2005
It had to happen sooner or later!
filed under: Department of the Exasperated
Finally, our MPs proclaim in Parliament that the tsunami disaster bonded Singaporeans together.
It does seem that any trivial incident (young child wanders from home for less than 2 days), huge disaster, major triumph (Sunday's football victory), or withering defeat (table tennis and badminton imports fail to win medals) - in short, just about ANYTHING - will inevitably lead to one or more of our enlightened leaders proclaiming increased social cohesion among Singaporeans.
Is that what we're paying our taxes for? Insincere pithy plaitudes that seem to be crafted from a template?
Finally, our MPs proclaim in Parliament that the tsunami disaster bonded Singaporeans together.
It does seem that any trivial incident (young child wanders from home for less than 2 days), huge disaster, major triumph (Sunday's football victory), or withering defeat (table tennis and badminton imports fail to win medals) - in short, just about ANYTHING - will inevitably lead to one or more of our enlightened leaders proclaiming increased social cohesion among Singaporeans.
Is that what we're paying our taxes for? Insincere pithy plaitudes that seem to be crafted from a template?
10 January 2005
01 January 2005
On Twiddledee and Twiddledum
First, I shall attempt a summary of the previous post.
"While the official line was that MediaworksTV was a commercially unviable venture, the forced merger came about due to deliberate choices made by both parties to make each other's operations commercially unviable."
While the last post attacked the official explanation on the "rational" portion of its "rational economics" spiel, this post will attack the "economics" portion.
The interesting question raised from the 2x2 matrix of the Dee/Dum game is: if the lose-lose outcome is *the* Nash Equilibrium, why aren't every company in the global media market rushing to bankrupt themselves and their competitors?
Perhaps a way to solve the conundrum is to ask: what were the circumstances that actually allowed Mediaworks and Mediacorp to adopt the beggar-thy-neighbour strategy as a legitimate and legal strategy in the Singapore media market?
Let's put ourselves in their shoes.
"Now here's a great plan: we cut off our own flesh and force them to do the same. Whoever blinks first, loses. Of course, revenue will hurt in the meantime and we'll have negative profits. Who's game for this brilliant idea?"
Indeed, who would say no?
The shareholders, perhaps? But Mediacorp is completely owned by the government, it's not even a listed company. No protests by angry shareholders at the Annual General Meeting for them. And Mediaworks? The govnerment has substantial shares there, through its parent SPH. For there to be zero protests, for the plan to go through, suggests the shareholders and the owners of Twiddledum and Twiddledee, knew about it and approved it...
Senior management, perhaps? But... we all know all the senior positions are in effect government appointments, in which case management = shareholders. In existing cases in the US where management of certain companies defraud their shareholders (Enron et. al.), it was only because management had inside information not privvy to shareholders, and exercised power over the monopoly of information.
Regulatory framework, perhaps? Ah, but from 2000 to early 2004, there was "no legal controlling authority", no antitrust or anti-competition law!
And most importantly, both companies were able to play the beggar-thy-neighbour strategy because they were betting that the government would intervene in the worst case scenario. Because the government still owns both companies (in one way or another).
I will leave it to you, to decide how much of a theatrical production, a charade, an act, this short-lived "media competition" was.
"While the official line was that MediaworksTV was a commercially unviable venture, the forced merger came about due to deliberate choices made by both parties to make each other's operations commercially unviable."
While the last post attacked the official explanation on the "rational" portion of its "rational economics" spiel, this post will attack the "economics" portion.
The interesting question raised from the 2x2 matrix of the Dee/Dum game is: if the lose-lose outcome is *the* Nash Equilibrium, why aren't every company in the global media market rushing to bankrupt themselves and their competitors?
Perhaps a way to solve the conundrum is to ask: what were the circumstances that actually allowed Mediaworks and Mediacorp to adopt the beggar-thy-neighbour strategy as a legitimate and legal strategy in the Singapore media market?
Let's put ourselves in their shoes.
"Now here's a great plan: we cut off our own flesh and force them to do the same. Whoever blinks first, loses. Of course, revenue will hurt in the meantime and we'll have negative profits. Who's game for this brilliant idea?"
Indeed, who would say no?
The shareholders, perhaps? But Mediacorp is completely owned by the government, it's not even a listed company. No protests by angry shareholders at the Annual General Meeting for them. And Mediaworks? The govnerment has substantial shares there, through its parent SPH. For there to be zero protests, for the plan to go through, suggests the shareholders and the owners of Twiddledum and Twiddledee, knew about it and approved it...
Senior management, perhaps? But... we all know all the senior positions are in effect government appointments, in which case management = shareholders. In existing cases in the US where management of certain companies defraud their shareholders (Enron et. al.), it was only because management had inside information not privvy to shareholders, and exercised power over the monopoly of information.
Regulatory framework, perhaps? Ah, but from 2000 to early 2004, there was "no legal controlling authority", no antitrust or anti-competition law!
And most importantly, both companies were able to play the beggar-thy-neighbour strategy because they were betting that the government would intervene in the worst case scenario. Because the government still owns both companies (in one way or another).
I will leave it to you, to decide how much of a theatrical production, a charade, an act, this short-lived "media competition" was.
30 December 2004
Twiddledum and Twiddledee are now one!
As 2004 ends, the Singapore media market enters into a phase of rationalisation.
The orthodox line, as proclaimed by the authorities and the media players, is that there is too little space in this tiny city of 4 million for even 2 media/news networks. The decision to remerge Twiddledum and Twiddledee is a rational, economically-justified one. In other words, it's yet another one of Singapore's "done deals" that the authorities hope the populace won't analyse too deeply and start picking on the flaws.
Instead of asking whether the merger was inevitable, we should be questioning: under what circumstances and actions would this outcome be considered inevitable?
I will forgo the details of the Prisoner's Dilemma, and instead treat the Twiddledum and Twiddledee situation as a similar game.
Picture, if you will, the situation in June 2000. Dum and Dee, the state-owned monopolists of the print and tv media, have been granted licenses to operate in each other's domains. There are two strategies open to both players, namely, S1: Beggar thy neighbour by lowering advertising prices in your papers, magazines and broadcasts below fair prices, in order to bankrupt the competitor out of the market; and S2: Grow the pie by innovating and introducing new, different programmes and formats.
Here's the table of outcomes:
Evidently, if one player adopts the nice-guy strategy, he'll be competed out of the market (and possibly his previous dominant position) if the competitor plays the beggar thy neighbour cards. The "win-win" outcome is achieved if both players in the media market had adopted S2. Both would have some gains, as advertisers would buy airtime in two tv networks with very different programming.
And if both players adopt S1? Both of them might go bust. There would be a mediated outcome, courtesy of the government, to return both players to their previous monopoly decisions, rescind the market liberalisation, and declare the experiment a failure.. And it's not the most optimum outcome, given the wastage of resources from both sides when they employ the beggar-thy-neighbour strategy.
However, this is the most likely outcome. The Nash Equilibrium. Both players, not knowing the strategy of the other, will rationally pick the strategy that pays off the most for itself (S1). Nash Equilibrium refers to the strategies where "no
player can benefit any more by changing her strategy while the other players keep their strategies unchanged", and the corresponding outcomes or payoffs. And here, the Nash Equilibrium is the lose-lose outcome, as with the Prisoner's Dilemma, where both players get heavy jail sentences because they both choose to confess.
We should note that mutual cooperation (S2, S2) is not an equilibrium point: a player can obtain better results for himself by playing mean while the other still cooperates...
Sometimes rational decisions aren't sensible.
Notes: it is a fact that is acknowledged, but rarely discussed - Twiddledum and Twiddledee had record year-on-year increases in advertising volume in the period June 2000 - present, yet their advertising revenue had plumetted completely in the same period. Beggar thy neighbour indeed.
If they had been less rational, both media players could've walked away with spanking profits, just that they wouldn't be the sole players on the hill.
The orthodox line, as proclaimed by the authorities and the media players, is that there is too little space in this tiny city of 4 million for even 2 media/news networks. The decision to remerge Twiddledum and Twiddledee is a rational, economically-justified one. In other words, it's yet another one of Singapore's "done deals" that the authorities hope the populace won't analyse too deeply and start picking on the flaws.
Instead of asking whether the merger was inevitable, we should be questioning: under what circumstances and actions would this outcome be considered inevitable?
I will forgo the details of the Prisoner's Dilemma, and instead treat the Twiddledum and Twiddledee situation as a similar game.
Picture, if you will, the situation in June 2000. Dum and Dee, the state-owned monopolists of the print and tv media, have been granted licenses to operate in each other's domains. There are two strategies open to both players, namely, S1: Beggar thy neighbour by lowering advertising prices in your papers, magazines and broadcasts below fair prices, in order to bankrupt the competitor out of the market; and S2: Grow the pie by innovating and introducing new, different programmes and formats.
Here's the table of outcomes:
| Dee (S1) | Dee (S2) | |
| Dum (S1) | -50, -50 | 100, -50 |
| Dum (S2) | -50, 100 | 50, 50 |
Evidently, if one player adopts the nice-guy strategy, he'll be competed out of the market (and possibly his previous dominant position) if the competitor plays the beggar thy neighbour cards. The "win-win" outcome is achieved if both players in the media market had adopted S2. Both would have some gains, as advertisers would buy airtime in two tv networks with very different programming.
And if both players adopt S1? Both of them might go bust. There would be a mediated outcome, courtesy of the government, to return both players to their previous monopoly decisions, rescind the market liberalisation, and declare the experiment a failure.. And it's not the most optimum outcome, given the wastage of resources from both sides when they employ the beggar-thy-neighbour strategy.
However, this is the most likely outcome. The Nash Equilibrium. Both players, not knowing the strategy of the other, will rationally pick the strategy that pays off the most for itself (S1). Nash Equilibrium refers to the strategies where "no
player can benefit any more by changing her strategy while the other players keep their strategies unchanged", and the corresponding outcomes or payoffs. And here, the Nash Equilibrium is the lose-lose outcome, as with the Prisoner's Dilemma, where both players get heavy jail sentences because they both choose to confess.
We should note that mutual cooperation (S2, S2) is not an equilibrium point: a player can obtain better results for himself by playing mean while the other still cooperates...
Sometimes rational decisions aren't sensible.
Notes: it is a fact that is acknowledged, but rarely discussed - Twiddledum and Twiddledee had record year-on-year increases in advertising volume in the period June 2000 - present, yet their advertising revenue had plumetted completely in the same period. Beggar thy neighbour indeed.
If they had been less rational, both media players could've walked away with spanking profits, just that they wouldn't be the sole players on the hill.
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