Robots, Their Quest to be Human and the Meaning of Humanity

I’m not an engineer or scientist. I’ll just talk about robots from a popular science, and more importantly, from a philosophical perspective.

But first, for those of you who don’t know, the word “robot” comes from the Czech word “robota” which means “compulsory slave labour.”

The word first appeared in Czech playwright Karel Capek’s play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), a play about industrial machines and their conflict with humankind. This was the play that marked the beginning of robot culture.

The theme of Man vs. Machine, inspired by R.U.R., perpetuates itself throughout sci-fi, from movies like Terminator to The Matrix, to I, Robot, among others.


But in Japan, people’s attitudes towards robots are different. The Japanese imagined robots to be extensions of themselves, and were fundamentally value-neutral. They could serve both good and evil, but the matter is that good robots in the control of good forces would ultimately prevail.

This theme also perpetuates Japanese popular culture, from Astro Boy, to Transformers (yes, Transformers is a Japanese creation), to Gundam.

Robots didn’t start out looking human. The first true robots were industrial robots, usually being little more than an arm. They perform tasks deemed too dangerous or tedious for humans, their values being tireless and precise in their actions.

Gradually, robots came to look more and more like human beings. There is a term for it, called Anthropomorphism.

This is because for robot scientists, particularly Japanese robot scientists believe that robots could better serve society when they could relate better with humans. By making them more similar to humans, they bring robots closer to humans, and increase their sense of familiarity to people.

And so far, they have been very successful, with examples such as Honda’s ASIMO, and Sony’s Qrio.



But so much for an introduction, what is my post going to discuss?

What I’m going to explore is the philosophical approach in understanding robots and how they relate to us.

You see, robots can look exactly human (there are already models developed as such), but two things separates man from machine. The first is what Masahiro Mori (a robotics scientist) calls the “Uncanny Valley”, which compares human likeness to familiarity.

To put it simply, a robot like ASIMO may look less human but people are accepting of it, but a zombie, who looks more human than ASIMO, is less acceptable to humans. When this happens, we say a zombie is in the Uncanny Valley.

A robot may look human, but subtle differences between man and machine causes us to reject them.


Second, is the critical element of emotion.

I remember watching a documentary about the world of the future. There was a scene where a child of the future giving an ASIMO (by then obsolete) instructions, and having a sense of frustration when the robot could not understand the instruction. The robot could not understand the feeling of frustration in its master, only mindlessly repeat the question.

So, what does it mean for a future with robots?

When the time comes for androids to be living and working side by side with us in the world, would we be accepting of them, despite our differences, however subtle? We as humans already struggle to live with each other, having this irrelevant difference called “race”, how different would our interaction with androids be?

We are learning to cope, but have we? In Japanese companies, robots are treated with respect. New robots are welcomed in ceremonies; they are named, and are well maintained.

In the US, however, robots are still treated as what their names mean: Slaves. They work till they break.

I think for we should accept robots, which have helped us so much in our lives, doing the dirty work, plus others simply too difficult to do by ourselves, like visit Jupiter.

Because futures like R.U.R., or the Matrix, where robots revolt out of human oppression is truly scary.

And this understanding will be critical when robots have emotions. Now they don’t, and even robots today can only simulate emotion. Emotion is an extremely complex system of behavior unique to humans. It governs our interaction with people, and even non – living things.

Almost everything of our civilization is an expression of emotion. Our art, literature, language, society…

When robots have emotions, do they become human?

I don’t have the definite answer, but this video, which inspired this post, might provide some ideas.

KOKORO, by RIN (by the way,a vocaloid, actually a program)



It’s a song about a robot, which was created without emotions. But her/its scientist designed a program called “KOKORO” (heart in Japanese), an emotive program. But the program was too powerful for the robot, so the scientist warned the robot not to open the program.

Hundreds of years passed, and the program was opened. The robot recalled memories of her/its time with the scientist, and with emotions, these memories acquired meaning.

She then realized how much she loved the scientist/father, and the scientist/father loved her.

Quoting from the lyrics:

"I now know how to feel happy
...
I now know how to feel sad
...
How deep and touching they are..."


A Pinocchio story with a tragic twist.

Sometimes, robots have this ability to help us understand more about ourselves as humans.

Fast Food and Modern Culture – Why I Quit Fast Food

I’m sure every one of us has eaten fast food some time in our lives. Some in fact can’t do without it. Some can't help it because of practical reasons (De Maitre's one of them). It’s convenient, fast, good...

“Good?” well, “Are you sure?” will be my response.

I quit fast food immediately after my NS, for a variety of reasons. Although I’ve watched Supersize Me (that was in JC), that didn’t really stop me from eating fast food, though it was truly frightening. It was only until later on, when I thought deeper about the issue of fast food that some ideas and the movie came to mind. I then decided it’s pretty much enough.

So, what are the issues?


First, the quality of food.

It’s fast, it’s convenient, but consider how they get that speed. Large-scale production, standard ingredients, standardised cooking and preparation methods, and standardised packaging.

So while every Mc-Spicy burger in every outlet looks the same, they also look equally revolting.

A very important aspect of food quality was sacrificed for speed: presentation.
For speed, processed food is used (so, don’t take their talk of the “freshest” ingredients too seriously, but I must say at least their fries are good), ingredients are haphazardly prepared and packed, and packed into boring paper wrappers or boxes, not to mention the wastage of resources.

To sum up, wait 1 minute for a squashed, soggy burger with yellowed veggies shredded so thin you wonder whether that’s a failed attempt to cut cost. I wonder how people can be happy with that.


Next, health issues.

Actually, Mac’s is partly right when they say healthy is when energy in = energy out. That’s how people get fat. They eat more than they need, the excess simply becomes fat.

But that’s no excuse for an unbalanced life. You can’t just eat and not expect to get fat without moderation and some form (any form) of exercise.

But there’s more to it than that. The constituents of the food are also important to consider. I’m sure I don’t have to elaborate too much on the dangers of trans-fat.

Of course, trans-fat is everywhere, even in the seemingly harmless margarine. But think about quantity. A thin spread of margarine or a large pack of fries: which is worse?

It then begs the question. Why so popular?

Speed and convenience aside, it has much to do with Mac’s marketing strategy and the social culture in general. Understanding the issue from a business, sociological and psychological perspective can tell us more about the stranglehold than Mac’s, et al have on our food culture.


A Marketing strategy of lifestyle promotion and fringe benefits

Mac’s is typical of the big-brand mega-corporations today; they don’t just sell products, they sell lifestyles. This is evident in the way they advertise, and in the services they provide.

Mac’s has a very comprehensive and powerful advertising strategy. They employ psychologists as consultants for their ads. What Mac’s is able to do, like the other big-brands, is to show that their products are a means to achieving a certain kind of lifestyle. Like for example, the company of friendship, a sense of personal achievement and empowerment, etc.

It appeals to the young in society (the prime target of Mac’s machinations), who have strong desires for company, and empowerment.

This is augmented by the services they provide. Take for example, 24hr delivery. It is catered to people who have company at the wee hours of the night, and tacitly encourage such social behaviour. I remember the days in NS when the others would order Mac’s for supper during night guard duty... well, that’s beside the point, but Mac’s certainly captured this aspect of the market.

Second, you may be surprised when I say Mac’s doesn’t really sell food. It’s the fringe products and freebies that they actually “sell”. From toys to the Coke cups now.

Remember the hype in Singapore when the Hello Kitty toys were given out with meals? The (very) long queues, the huge piles of discarded food outside the outlets. It almost appears that the meals were the freebies instead of the toys.

But for Mac’s, it doesn’t matter whether people buy their meals for the meals or not. People buy, and their strategy worked.


Psychological influences and understanding social patterns

The other thing Mac’s is good at is to change and influence the mindset of people. This is why Supersize Me hasn’t caused the collapse of Mac’s et al.

Take for example my previous point on energy in = energy out. This is an idea catered to the predispositions of the American mindset.

You see, Americans are interesting people. They get fat, and they know they are getting fat because they eat too much, and they want to slim down, but they want to do so, to put it nicely, with the minimum disruption to their dietary and behavioural habits. To put it crudely, they want to slim down by eating.
That’s why there are all the Atkins’ diet and such out there in the market.

Mac’s understand this mindset, and therefore tell the people that they can still have Mac’s as long as they follow this simple rule, which actually means nothing. And they succeeded.


The next point is on capturing the children market. Yes, marketing to children.
It’s insidious, horrible to some people, and I agree. This is because the social ramifications for doing so are immense, far-reaching, and damaging.

Children, as we all know, are susceptible to influences. When certain ideas and influences are taken up by children at critical ages, it’s very difficult for them to “unlearn”. The result is that these ideas are with them till they grow up, and influences their behaviour in their teenage and adult life.

So what are the consequences of advertising to kids, especially the kind of “lifestyle promotion” that Mac’s uses?

Kids will find these lifestyles attractive, and have a cultural and emotional attachment to Mac’s. This is even more insidious than simply being addicted to the food.

The emotional attachment influences their dietary habits, and therefore Mac’s stranglehold on youth food culture is complete. And this is a relationship than is certain to last.


I’m not a conspiracy theorist, so I don’t think Mac’s is aiming for nothing less than world domination. But they do want to achieve the dream of every mega-corp: monopoly.

It’s not interested in the world per se; it’s interested in the control of the world food culture.

Thanks to Evone, Leanne and P3St for ideas for this post.

De Maitre’s list of 10 important inventions across time

Just a little post about many inventions that we take for granted today. =) I hope you will enjoy them!

1. The Ball Point Pen
This is the most important invention to avid writers like me. Imagine using the old fashion quail pens during exams. They get blunt easily, so you need to sharpen them every 20 minutes or so. They break easily, so people like me will need a pen full of live quails nearby for the sake of easy supply. Spillages occur easily and the ink takes a long time to dry up. So clumsy people like me will probably submit illegible answers by the end of the exams, half the paper will be covered in ink blotches and the other half would be covered with barely legible words where the wet ink has been smeared by a stray hand or arm.

2. The Toilet Bowl (aka, flushing system)
I have a sensitive nose, it hates foul smells. I will just die if we have to go back to the chamberpot days... For those who don't know what it is, you do your business in a "golden" pot and stuff it under your bed. The next morning, the stool collector will make his rounds along the street. You bring your chamberpot out and empty its contents into the gigantic vats in his cart. The smell would have been awful. Alternatively, there was the pre-sewage European practice of emptying one's chamberpot out of the window literally. If you get hit by a "shower of blessings", too bad, luck isn't on your side today.

3. Light Bulb
I’m night blind. Seriously. A candle is just too dim, so I will love Thomas Edison to the day I die. He created light that won’t extinguish just because I sneeze on it and a light that doesn’t flicker when I’m trying to read something. Thanks to him, I can run with a torch lighting the way instead of having to move slowly with a hand cupped around a candle flame.

4. Bricks
Good old solid bricks make up a strong house that doesn’t get torn down by the elements easily. Remember the story of the 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf? Similar concept brick houses are much more secure than those made up of straw or wood. There are many methods of creating brinks-using red clay or straw and mud, baking them in ovens or drying them under the sun, etc.

5. The Spear
The spear was important throughout the course of human evolution. It was the best weapon for hunting game by our ancestors. It had a longer reach that a common dagger, putting some distance between the hunter and the cornered prey. It can also be thrown effectively and accurately, allowing the hunter to bring his prey down from a safe distance.

6. The Wig
A woman’s crowning glory is her hair. Come to think of it, it’s the clowning glory for most men too. I’m going to be evil and say the men are more prone towards baldness. Unfortunately, baldness is normally correlated with ageing. So wigs are the perfect cover up as long as they are made of human hair (horse tail hairs are so much coarser, don’t try it).

7. Soap
Given my obsession for clean smells, hygiene is an important factor. To our ancestors, bath was a luxury rather than a necessity. Showers were normally limited to quick splashes of river/well water. Naturally, you won’t smell very good, nor will most of the dirt and grime be removed. In ancient Rome, bathing was considered the activity that all civilized men should engage in. As they didn’t have soap, you had to sweat it out in the Caldarium (hot room) and scrape off the dirt and grime using a strigil (a type a scrapper). It’s quite painful, so yes, soaps are very important.

8. The Comb
I think the difference between a civilized person and a barbarian lies between grooming. The comb certainly did a good job with de-matting messy hair that most barbarians braid up as a control measure.

9. Paper
In History, before the discovery of paper or papyrus, people wrote on clay slates, wax tablets or animal skins. Clay tablets were fragile and heavy, wax was easily damaged and animal skins tend to rot and absorb the ink. They aren’t friendly for when it comes to portability and storage. Paper was a much better alternative. It was light, easy to make and can be easily bound into books. Most importantly, paper had another function, as toilet paper. =) I can’t live without my toilet paper (one of the reasons why I hate China).

10. The bra
Love them or hate them, they are important in history if you are going to compare them to the torture device called the corset.

The Question of Religion in a Disenchanted World

We have witnessed many ideological revolutions in our history– the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Postmodern era – but this question continues to be an important part of the human consciousness.

The Question of Religion.

We live in a world governed by science and reason, enforced by a separation of church and state, a world in which, owing to the Scientific Revolution, has become disenchanted.

That is, a world where God has a gradually decreasing role in our lives.

Or is it?

To some extent it is true. Science and philosophy has allowed us to understand our world better, without having to evoke God. In fact, some scientists and philosophers are so convinced that since science, and reason can explain the world properly, God’s existence is questionable, if not outright redundant. Examples of such figures are Richard Dawkins, a prominent evolutionary biologist, and Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

Personally, I’m on their side too.

But it appears some of us have only become MORE religious. More people attend church then ever, and the US, the birthplace of the doctrine of separation of church and state, has become the most Christian country in the West, and has even been dogged by debates between religious activists and secular authorities, such as the case of Intelligent Design in the Dover School District case.

Of course, this assertion has to be qualified. While religiosity has advanced in the US, it has retreated in other areas, particularly Northern Europe.

The issue that I’ll be discussing today is whether religiosity is a good thing for society.

On the personal and community level, I have nothing against religion. It’s a way in which people find identity, peace, a sense of community, and security, both from their fellow believers and from God.

It offers a simple way of understanding the world, to act morally, and to have meaning in their lives.

What I am against is sloppy or shallow thinking due to religiosity, and radical activism. I’ll explain them in detail.


First, myopic reasoning. De Maitre has mentioned some examples. I’ll touch on some more complex issues.

Let’s take evolution as an example.

The arguments creationists use for their case against evolution are generally as follows: that human beings cannot have evolved from simple creatures, that the age of the earth is much younger than geologists determine, that the Bible represents the infallible truth and therefore nothing must contradict it…

First, the only reason they reject human evolution is because of their Homo-centrism. It’s their belief that the world was created for humans and therefore all creatures are subordinate to humankind. Well, it’s ignorant at best and arrogant at worst to say this. No creature is privileged in its position on this planet, just as this planet has no privileged position in the universe, in contrast to the Geo-centric perspective taken by the church hundreds of years ago.

Second, it is manifest of their blind faith and sloppy thinking to reject the sheer quantity of scientific evidence in favour of evolutionary theory. From the age of the earth (4 billion, not 6 thousand), to the fossil record, to microbiology, to discoveries in cosmology… you get the drift.

Third, it’s ironic that Christians can know so little about their Bible. Historians agree that the different books of the Bible were written at different times, by different people, and what they ended up with was not even the complete collection of gospels.

From a historical and philosophical perspective, the writers were writing at the limits of their knowledge. The Bible, like it or not, is a product of its time. To enable it to be relevant in today’s context, one has to study it from a metaphorical or allegorical perspective, rather than the literal approach taken by the born-again Christians in the US.

The literal perspective opens up a whole can of worms, as the Bible would be full of contradictions from the literal perspective.


From here, I’ll talk about religious activism. Some fundamentalists, thinking that their faith is infallible, want to spread their ideology. But by doing so, they infringe on the rights of others, on the principles of science, and expose their own bigotry.

Examples? From the US, how fundamentalist school board members force a controversial textbook teaching Intelligent Design into their high school, threatening the standards of science teaching, in Singapore, two individuals being charged under the Sedition Act for spreading anti-Muslim pamphlets, not to mention Islamist terrorists who kill in the name of their God.

This is how religion, while preaching peace, have persistently discredited themselves. From religious pogroms in Roman Times, to the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to international terrorism today.


Of course, that’s not to say religion is fundamentally bad. It’s only because radicals have distorted the ideas of their religion for their own ends.
But the point is, this is what religion has done for us in the disenchanted world. When doctrine is threatened, radicals do not adapt to change; they suppress change in the past, and deny change now.


I do not doubt the good things about religion. But I personally believe in science and reason.

The real problem, however, is that religion and science are two different paradigms for explaining the world.

But nevertheless, science and reason are the best tools against the myopic and shallow thinking that has plagued religiosity.

The Significance of Death Rites

I was talking to another friend yesterday about how disgusted I was with most of the new Christian converts today. They have been so well brainwashed by their churches and cell leaders that they have forgotten how to value their culture over the new teachings. I’m speaking from the point of a Chinese who does not have a religion but with plenty of respect for culture and tradition.

Many of our ancestors are Taoists or Buddhists, where there is a strong belief in life after death. I was quite sad when an acquaintance refused to offer a joss stick to her grandmother just because her church told her that God condones such actions as evil. I was quite disgusted when I heard that, if God is such a petty and vindictive entity, that he doesn’t deserve the respect and reverence that we offer him/her/it (depending on the religion). Offering a joss stick to your ancestor is not a violation of your new faith, it is a symbol of your respect for your grandmother, for remembering that she brought you up, cooked your favorite food and how she was there for you to talk to when you needed her.

Similarly, many look upon the Taoist and Buddhist chanting and rites during funerals as nothing but an unnecessary expenditure on charlatans who are out to cheat stupid people of their money. That’s really sad; it creates a stigma that all non-Christians are steeped in superstition that is both backward and evil. Some believe that the deceased will never enjoy a peaceful after life if he did not convert to the way of the Christ. I would like to point out how wrong these misconceptions are. Death rites are to comfort the living rather than the dead.

As mentioned in my earlier posts “The fascination with Death and Immortality” and “The Origins of Religion”, I mentioned how mankind has always been obsessed with death and what lies beyond it. Death rites are a manifestation of this fear. The concept of heaven and hell was created to inspire good deeds and discourage evil among people. The Chinese proposed the concept of the 18 levels of hell (Diyu 地狱), with each level punishing a person for different sins. The Muslims and Christians believe that sinners and non-believers will be condemned to hell, with the latter being doomed to remain there for all eternity. Since you can either be Muslim OR Christian, I guess your soul will be hotly contested between 2 divine entities, one trying to place you in heaven and the other trying to stuff you into hell. So ultimately, let’s forget about trying to do good since we’re destined to go to hell anyway.

I’m joking. I don’t believe in hell, I think having your conscience to guide you is good enough. I rather die knowing that I listened to my conscience than to wonder if I’m going to hell just because I had murderous thoughts about annoying friend. Hell is an artificial construct created by people to scare themselves into behaving properly. So be good for your sake and for the people around you, not for God. If everyone were to think like this, society would be at peace. This should be the basis of morality- a set of behavioral norms that define relations between individuals in society

Now let’s go back to the topic about death rites- why is it more for the living then the dead? Well, let’s put it this way, the dead have no physical bodies, they have no need for material goods anymore. They are beyond that. Do they need the houses, cars, televisions sets, radio sets and jewelry that the Taoists burn for their material comforts in the next life? Even if they received the offerings, would it be in the form of paper houses, cars and hollow TVs? Is there electricity in hell? Can the TVs and radios operate without circuit boards? No one knows…

Through archaeology, we can understand that people from civilizations across the world have always maintained a sentimental value towards their departed relatives and friends. In most tomb excavations, we find personal artifacts being buried with the deceased in hopes that he will find it useful in the next life. A warrior would have been buried with his sword and shield, with a little food to sustain him on the way to the next world. The Egyptian Pharaohs had chests full of food and rooms of furniture that they once used in their tombs; scribes were laid to rest with their beloved writing implements and farmers with their tools.

To me, the spirits of the dead still exists somewhere else, I don’t think they are in hell nor do I think they are in heaven. They are around us but they no longer have the ability to partake in the joys of mortality- physical sensation, physical needs, and physical wants. That’s what differentiates us from them. When we have funeral rites, such as burning incense, saying prayers, etc, it is comfort the living relatives by giving them an illusion that their loved ones would be comfortable and in need of nothing in the next life (if any).

Based on the fact that no one has ever given a verifiable report from the land of the dead, we can assume that everything that we know about life after death is artificially constructed by humans. The dead are beyond worries and material needs. They are at rest at last. So death rites are thus contrived as a means to comfort grieving relatives, with the assurance that the departed would be happy at last.

Cosmopolitanism, the Quest for Growth and the Quest for Identity

The influx of foreigners, be it the average low to mid-skilled worker to highly skilled and educated foreign “talent”, has always been a touchy issue for many Singaporeans.

The reactions from Singaporeans have been varied, ranging from outright embrace, to total dismay and anger, to sheer indifference. The arguments thrown around have also been varied, from promoting growth in the long term (that’s the stand of the government too), to the idea of stealing jobs, to the issue of integration.

The problem that we face now, and this is true, is that according to the government, our population is not growing fast enough to maintain the current state of economic growth. We are not even replacing ourselves. The birth rate of Singapore has recently fallen to a new low, making the issue even more imperative.

But let’s think about some issues while the government works on this problem.

First, the first question in my head is this: do we need so many people?

The government said categorically, “Yes!” in fact, the government said that our current population is far from the optimum population level. A population of over 4 million, one-third of which are foreigners, and that’s not enough?

To some extent, the government’s sentiments are understandable. Manpower is an issue for certain aspects of development. For example, large infrastructure projects like the IRs, new sports facilities, etc. Since the new generation of Singaporeans are not willing to take up such menial labour, the only solution is to bring in foreign workers to fill the gap.

The problem is how the government boosts the country’s population at the expense of other national issues. The most critical is that of national identity and social cohesion.

This “growth at all costs” strategy threatens national identity in the following ways:


First, the influx of foreigners introduces tensions in Singapore society, as foreigners have their own cultural predispositions and way of life not always acceptable to Singaporeans. This impedes integration and assimilation.

However, we would then also have to consider whether we as Singapore-born Singaporeans have our own set of cultural predispositions for them to follow, because, come to think of it, we don’t.

Singapore’s not like countries like Japan or Korea where there are clear cultural norms and values. Singapore, being multiracial in nature, maintains a high degree of cultural heterogeneity. Since the cultural values of each ethnicity is maintained, the reasons for foreigners not to retain their own identities do not exist.

The government’s policy of multiracialism is based on the premise that the heterogeneity of races in Singapore is a problem to be carefully managed. The current situation, however, is that the advent of globalisation has made the issue of ethnicity somewhat irrelevant.

It will be unrealistic, for example, to put PRC Chinese in Singapore under the local Chinese category, because their cultural ethos is different. Having lived under different socio-political climates, their values, norms of behaviour are not congruent to local values. Any attempt to integrate foreigners of any ethnicity or nationality would have to put this into consideration.


Second, the influx of foreigners can erode the sense of belonging amongst locals. Locals can feel increasingly marginalised by the influx of foreigners, and the tensions between local and foreigner in terms of relations can generate a strong sense of discontentment amongst the locals. To make things worse, the influx of foreigners in large numbers can complicate the plight of Singaporeans who already face the threat of marginalisation, such as the Malay community, such as the older workers, whose age, type and level of skill puts them at a disadvantage in the job market.

Since these workers are still able to work, and many of them still have to work, because of their families, because of their financial foundations, because the government has repeatedly raised the retirement age, the policy of introducing foreigners, and more importantly, restructuring the economy has to be controlled, and with the concerns of these groups in mind.

The government cannot risk the alienation of locals in the pursuit of economic growth, the results of which are not so easily predictable (referring to the current recession), and more critically, the results of which may not reach everyone (the lower income, who only get worse off given the widening income gap and the digital divide, and the middle class, increasingly subordinated by the super-rich)


The third threat is in the form of identity. It is possible to identify ourselves as cosmopolitan in nature, and nationalism from a primordialist perspective is unrealistic in Singapore’s case, and has the potential for disaster. But if we do not have a set of “shared values” (not the “Shared Values” by then PM, now SM Goh), a set of ideas that define a Singaporean, that what is Singapore?

Just a place people from all over work, study, perhaps play?

If there is a crisis, who’s left to defend Singapore for what it is?

People come during the boom times; they reap the benefits of prosperity, political stability and good governance, but what happens in a crisis? Would they stay? Or would they leave?

If the people responsible for the country’s success leave, will Singapore be the same again when they return, if they return?

Of course, the scenario I’m postulating here is radical, but it has happened to many city-states in history, like Venice.

The conclusion is this. A one-step forward, two steps back approach to national identity renders the quest for national identity difficult, if not self-defeating.

A “growth at all costs” strategy by introducing foreigners at large numbers without considering the socio-political context has a tendency towards unsustainable growth.

Historical figures hated by De Maitre

** I decided to move my list to the main blog itself **

1. Caliph Umar -for burning ALL the contents in the Library of Alexandria.

2.Empress Dowager Cixi -for her stupidity at believing the Boxers' claims of being bullet proof

3. Francisco Pizarro - for ordering the mass cremation of the Incan Royal Mummies and destroying the Inca culture

4. George Bush -for being such a lousy liar and for being so stupid

5. Hernán Cortés -for destroying the Aztecs and his treachery

6. Ilse Koch - for killing concentration camp inmates to keep their tattoos as souvenirs

7. Joseph Fritzl -raping your children is really beyond screwed-up

8. Mao Zedong - for starting the cultural revolution which led to children turning on their parents

9. Maximilien Robespierre - for killing off so many French aristocrats and innocent people

10. Pol Pot - for killing peoople who were smarter and richer than him

11. Pope Leo X - for using the Sale of Indulgances to support his extravagent lifestyle

12. Sarah Palin - for being making bimbos look clever and for being a complete geography idiot- Afganistan and Russia are NOWHERE near the USA

13. Stalin - for killing people who were smarter than him and dislike him

The Origins of Religion

I always found it ironic that people only remember that God exists only when they need something through the means of divine intervention. Where did religion come from? Is religion really necessary in our daily lives?

Since time immemorial, humans have always feared the unknown- we fear the unpredictable, we fear what lies after death. As a result, we created a divine figure that we believe has power over the unknown. As hunters, we worshipped animals whose powers we would like to emulate, such as the antelope and cheetah for speed; lion and bear for power; panther and leopard for stalking. As gatherers, we worshipped mother earth as a symbol of fertility and life. As farmers, we worshipped the elements- the sun, the mood, the river god, and good old mother earth.

As you can see, we always worshipped a divine entity that we associate with being a source of control over unpredictable elements that affect our lives. Ancient religion used to consist of a Parthenon of Gods and Goddesses, each worshipped for a different reason.

E.g. for the Wisdom and Knowledge, the Ancient Egyptians has Thoth, the Ancient Greeks had Athena, the Romans had Minerva, the Hindus have Ganesha, the Norse had Odin and the Babylonians have Nabu. (I invoke their names ritually before every exam out of desperation. That’s probably how I got to university. Hah.)

Towards the 200-800 CE all that changed there was a sudden push towards spreading the 4 main religions that we have today- Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. Personally, I wouldn’t call Buddhism a religion, it’s a belief. But let’s get back to the topic. During the 16-18th century, most indigenous religions have been wiped out by overzealous Christian colonialists. Ancient traditions died along with the old way of life and made way for globalization and industrialization, which brought along its own set of problem.

Industrialization and globalization created a culture of material greed. It seems as man progresses towards science, he seems to be losing a part of his soul. I don’t mean it in a religious sense; I meant it in the material sense. Suddenly, man can’t decide where his satisfaction point is. We are literally aiming for a glass ceiling! We can’t see it and at the speed we’re hurling ourselves towards reaching it, we end up dead by the time we hit it. I guess that’s the point where people contemplate their achievements in life (flashbacks?) before they finally kick the bucket- e.g. having brought up children as strong healthy citizens, being faithful to one’s spouse, achieving all the goals that he set as a young man (buying a house, car, etc). The main difference between men now and then is technology- we no longer obey nature’s laws.

The world is severely overpopulated by people; ideally, we should have a population count of less than two hundred million individuals globally. We are the most destructive species around, we are truly on top the food chain, and we consume resources at a phenomenal rate whilst giving nothing but shit back. Evolution predicted the survival of the fittest- mankind has emerged the victor; we have conquered every predator nature placed above us in the food chain through the use of technology. With technology, we overharvest fish from the sea, hunt animals to extinction, etc. Deforestation is occurring at a phenomenal rate, we generate more rubbish than the landfills and incinerator can clear, we are polluting what’s left of our dwindling supply of clean air, water and land. Because of us, the animals are suffering from accidents created by humans- oil spills, forest fires, global warming, etc. If God exists, mankind is probably his biggest mistake.

Humans are innately aggressive, that may be nature’s way of ensuring that our population stays constant- we kill each other off. That sounds brutal, but it’s true. Whole villages and tribes were terminated through massacres of human sacrifices. However, the major religions of today forbid human sacrifices. Now we have a potential nuclear war upcoming and plenty of terrorist movements worldwide. Will that be the final solution towards resolving the issues of human overpopulation? Perhaps.

If we fail to kill each other off, nature is trying other ways to restore homeostasis- disease. And look at us wretched humans; we develop antibiotics and antigens to counter new disease. Are we defying nature? If we are going against nature’s will of achieving homeostasis, than yes we are. If we are merely following the rules of the survival of fitness, than no we are not. Ultimately, the path of the latter would only spell the end of the world when we completely run out of consumable resources.

We even use science and technology to postpone death! Improved healthcare, medical treatment and the mass production of medicine has extended the human lifespan from an average of 30years to approximately 80 years.

Given the role of reason, logic, science and technology in our daily lives, is there still room for God? After all, we no longer need them as much as we used to. Food supply is assured thanks to genetic manipulation- more resistant crops and harvests. We all logically understand that peace is better than war. Some people argue that science and technology cannot answer man’s emotional needs. Humans are all insecure people, beliefs helps to get over the daily hassles in life. I disagree.

As a person who hates religion, I think people can live without religion as long as they are in control of themselves. I have friends who tell me that Gods answer their prayers by imprinting an answer in their minds. Rationally, I believe that the answer is there, you just have to search for it. If anything, meditation helps. I’m not talking about sitting in the lotus position going “oooohhhmmm”. No, I’m talking about taking a step back and examining the problem slowly and rationally. The answers are there waiting for you to pick them up. The inner voice you hear is your own.

One of the things that science cannot explain is- what happens after death? No one know. Does that make me fear the unknown? Nope, I believe in taking each day as it comes, no point worrying about what happens after death. WK did ask me to be more optimistic, well, I will admit that people do know how to tell right from wrong. I don’t think we need God to guide us, we just need our conscience. So, do we need God? In my opinion, no, we don’t need God; we just need to trust ourselves.

In summary, people suffer from a disenchantment of the world, because science can offer alternative explanations, God becomes irrelevant. Most people practice religion today out of tradition, peer pressure or for the sake of achieving inner peace.

Some Horror Stories

De Maitre’s post on the qualities of a good teacher is truly enlightening. Education is an important task that has effects not just on the individual level, but on the national level as well.

Like a friend of mine, currently a relief teacher says: “it’s easy to be a teacher, difficult to be a good teacher.”

But I am confident in saying that such disappointing teachers that De Maitre has mentioned are the exception, rather than the norm in Singapore. At least, even if we say that the case studies are reflective of the plummeting standards of teaching in Singapore, Singapore ultimately still has one of the best educational systems in the world today.

And that across the board, from primarily to secondary, to pre-university (junior colleges and polytechnics), to ITEs, and finally, the big three (NUS, NTU and SMU).

This is because in our education system is reinforced by an effective system based on the principles of meritocracy.

However, not all countries share the same strengths in their education system as we have. In fact, you’ll be surprised that their education standards are not reflective of their international status.

I’m going to talk about the horrors of the US and Chinese education system.


First, the US. It is ironic that the United States of America, the remaining superpower in the world, in the forefront of science and technology, has a public education system that falls way below international standards.

I’ll give you a simple example, just to give you a sense of the magnitude of the problem. A journalist conducted identical tests to high school students from Belgium and the US, and the results showed that the Belgian students scored 76%, in comparison to 47% of the US students.

And a worse case: many US students cannot read (yes, read as in read a book, their textbooks, or whatever) even up to high school.

What on earth happened? That’s the most powerful country in the world?

Basically, three things happened to the US education system. First, education in the US is a government monopoly. Families have no choice in their choice of public schools, so if you get a lousy school, where teachers don’t come for lessons or don’t teach properly, that’s just too bad. Unlike the Singapore system, where there are common standards to be met, are strictly enforced, and more importantly, people get to chose; the US system does not enforce these standards.

Second, improvement in public education is severely hindered by the resistance from teachers’ unions. The teachers’ unions force schools to keep teachers even if they don’t perform. They make firing teachers very tedious and difficult, and do not cooperate with the state in improving education for the country. In other words, these teachers are just selfish.

Third, and related to the teachers, some teachers in the US just can’t be bothered. Tell you, they are far worse then the teachers De Maitre talks about. At least De Maitre’s teachers teach. Some US teachers don’t.

And what do schools do, since they can’t be fired (refer to previous point)? They put them in so-called “rubber rooms”, lounges where they chit-chat, play games and yes, still get paid.

This is ridiculous!

The problem for the US is a systemic problem, a failure at the institutional level. No wonder more and more Americans are opting for homeschooling or charter schools.


What about china? Actually not very much, just their exams system.
I did a post a few weeks ago on the Chinese university entry exams. The problems highlighted are just one aspect of the pitfalls in the Chinese education system.
You see, in china, the only way to get to a university is through the entry exams.

Unlike Singapore where there are many ways to get to uni.

Here’s a list:

With A levels (like I did)
With a poly diploma
With SAT
With N levels, then O levels, then A levels
With Higher Nitec, then diploma

In china, only the “high exam”

So people get desperate. Parents get desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures. So they cheat. If not, they try all the ridiculous methods, like pure O2, like “brain food”, etc.


So Singaporeans, be fortunate you have an education system that you can be proud of. Unlike the US students, who want to learn, but can’t. At the very least, remember US schools use OUR textbooks.

Our exam system is tough, but it’s far from The End. As long as we are willing to learn and make use of them, opportunities are always open for us.

The role of a Teacher

The role of a teacher is not just about teaching, it is about inspiring love of the topic amongst one’s students. After so many years of undergoing the education system, I’ve met teachers who made me love what I’m studying and I’ve met teachers from HELL. So what differentiates a good teacher from a bad one? I will attempt to quantify them now.

1. Encouraging
Teachers should always be encouraging. When a student scores 1/25 for a quiz, never ever tell him/her that the one mark was given out of sympathy. It is just plain demoralizing to the student, as he/she will start to hate the subject and hate the teacher.

Don’t try to use peer pressure on the student by announcing your magnanimous sympathy for the student to the whole class. For one, you’re humiliating the student. Second, you just revealed to the world what a bloody stinko you are when it comes to the word “generosity”. Thirdly, your attempt to be kind would have mutated into an insult- to me, you can keep the one mark and give me the zero for all I care. That one mark isn’t worth the humiliation and degrading treatment.

When a student scores well for other subjects other than your own, never discourage him/her by telling him that if he continues to fail your subject, he/she is still doomed to a bleak future. Instead, a good teacher would praise him for doing well in his other subjects and gently prod for a reason WHY he/she isn’t doing so well in the topic you’re teaching. There are two possibilities, either he/she can’t grasp the subject well or you are just one hell of a lousy teacher.

However, whilst taking pains not to discourage students, one must NOT encourage them either. It creates a false sense of security. Stop telling you’re students that they are fine when they have room for improvement. If you keep praising their efforts without any criticisms, they would think that scoring an A is guaranteed. Needless to say, they will hate you and the topic if they receive anything short of an A.

2. Dedication
When I mention dedication, I mean dedication towards making your students understand, love and enjoy what you are teaching. I do not mean dedication to career. I have met a teacher who cancelled a tutorial after reaching a consensus with her students, so that she could go to MOE for an interview (in hopes of an advancement in career). Unfortunately, she called her students back on a Saturday for make-up lessons (something that wasn’t mentioned before reaching the consensus).

I’ve met teachers who blame their students for not studying hard enough. However, some of these ranting sessions are unjustified- sometimes it’s the fault of the student for not studying hard or sometimes, it’s your fault for being a lousy teacher. Either way, heaping blame on your students it’s not going to work out because everyone will know that you are upset that their low overall scores are going to affect your next pay raise or promotional prospects. They will know that they rank second on your list of dedications. Remember, your students are smarter than you think they are.

3. Consideration and Care
In my opinion, all teachers, even lousy ones, should have a rudimentary amount of consideration and care for their students. Treat them like they are your little children that need emotional and psychological support.

I have seen teachers coolly reject those “under-achievers”- namely the residential Ah Lians, Ah Bengs, Minas, Mats, etc. These people are emotionally insecure, they may be brash and rude, but it’s all a facade. They want to succeed but they don’t know how to, so they don’t try anymore. Instead of pushing them to succeed, many teachers just leave them to their own devices, allowing them to engage in a self-fulfilling prophecy of self-destruction (in the academic sense). Oh yes, please don’t lower yourself and call your students “dumbo” or “bimbo” into their face. It’s not ethical and it doesn’t reflect well on your maturity or upbringing.

Once a teacher made my whole class stay come back on Saturday for an extra “extra lesson”. It was 1pm and we were hungry. All she did was the grab a plate of crackers from the Staff Lounge and that small little paper plate was supposed to be lunch for 20 odd hungry adolescents. It just shows how much consideration she had for us. The least she could have done was to order pizza! As a teacher, I’m sure she would have remembered what it was like to be a student- a hungry stomach creates cognitive shut down.

When a student’s grades drops, it may be an indication of emotional and psychological problems that could stem from relationship problems between friends, families or BGR. Instead of exploring this possibility, many teachers rather attack students for not putting in an effort or being lazy. That is the ultimate indication of a teacher’s lack of care/consideration of her student’s welfare.

4. Approachable
I think all teachers should be approachable but they have to create a glass wall. When your students like you, chances are, they’ll study harder for you. By spending more time engaging in informal interaction with students, you will come to understand each other better, instead of looking at each other as fellow cogs in the Great Engine of Education. This is a healthy relationship which I actively promote.

Sadly, most teachers today are MOE scholars- most of them see teaching as a career, rather than a passion. As a result, most of them are quite unapproachable. Teaching is their duty; therefore, most of them refuse to have anything more than a formal student-teacher relationship. Bad, bad, bad. By the way, I think being a teacher, does not give you the right to ride your students down by humiliating them and making fools out of them. It just makes you unworthy of approaching friendly, which is worse in my opinion.

However, it must be noted that being too friendly with students might result in insubordination. So there must be a balance.

5. Humility
Yes, we all know our teachers are supposed to be smarter than us. But some teachers just have to rub it into your face. I remember my first lesson with a particular teacher. Oh man, I came out of that class traumatized. First, I was told that I was useless and I had no future, so I should quit school and save the teacher the time and effort of having to try and teach me. Second, I knew she was an honors student and I was nothing compared to her. Lastly, she’s a scholar with a soaring career and I was a tiny nit with no future. Reverse psychology to make me work harder to prove her wrong??Nah, there are better ways to do that. That teacher was just a show off, plain and simple- her comments always came out as personal insults.

It’s just not ethical to tear all of your students’ egos apart. Hey, if they can make it to JC, they are good enough to have a decent future. There are hundreds of people who didn’t make it past O’Levels. The teenage years are fraught with insecurities regarding relationships, what the future holds for us and academic uncertainty. It’s not too much to ask for an encouraging teacher who will help you see alternate paths in life isn’t it? We don’t need proud teachers who like to regale every one of their past achievements and run down those who have yet to embark on their road to success. Success is relative; we attach differing amounts of satisfaction to different goals. To some, academic and financial success is not as important as spiritual belief.

In the elitist atmosphere in Singapore, humility is important and all teachers should embody that. A degree does not make you a smart person, you may specialize in one area but other people specialize in others. The Educated elite in Singapore like to call the lesser-educated people stupid. Well, let me ask you this- where did your plumbers, air-con technicians and rubbish collectors come from? Without them, the elites can live in broken down homes with trash piling up everywhere around them. That would be the day where wealth and brains will get you nowhere, because pride is in the way.

The pursuit of happiness(?) in Singapore

In Singapore, busy is our middle name. We rush from appointment to appointment, we cram as much activity as possible into our schedule each day, our children have more tuition and extra curriculum activities than they need and our students are learning more than they need. Why? Are there any side effect? How will it influence our future? Who is to blame?

Why?
Singaporeans are the epitomes of the concept of “Kiasu-ism”-. This mentality was probably born out of politics. Yes, politics, to be more specific, political-economic survival. Small, insecure Singapore had an uncertain future in the 1950s. We were small and undeveloped, at risk of being overwhelmed by communist fractions, ambitious individuals from the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia and Philippines. After the separation from Malaysia in 1965, Singapore decided that the only way to maintain our independence would be to be the best in everything we do. This mentality was hammered into the psyche of all Singaporeans- the concept of elitism was born.
This mentality has empowered the generation X (Gen X) [ii]. Unfortunately, most of the Gen X’s parents were unable to finance their children towards achieving university degrees and Gen X grew up in the hippy environment, so studying hard wasn’t foremost in their daily concerns. Most of Gen X left school for the workforce when they hit 20. As they progressed towards the 1980s, they realized their comparative lack of education had placed them at a comparative disadvantage to University graduates when it comes to promotional prospects. From then on, many resolved to make sure their children would score nothing but the best.

It can be seen that children born after the 1980s received greater education, attended a lot more tuition and “unnecessary” lessons in music and dance. Their parents never cease to drill in this concept into their head “if you don’t study hard, you’ll end up as a road sweeper”. High earning practices such as doctors and lawyers became the ideal jobs that all children were pressured to aim for. Academic achievement was tied to social prestige, moral integrity became less important. Children were taught to appreciate the value of the 5 Cs- Cash, Credit Card, Car & Condo.

Side Effects?
Having been deprived of greater achievements by a lack of education and money, Gen X had projected all their unfulfilled hopes and dreams on their children. In a bid to make them more competitive, Generation Y (Gen Y) [iii] is often referred to as the “Trophy Generation”, where no one loses and everyone gets a “Thanks for participating” trophy. This created an overambitious mindset where Gen Ys have idealistically huge expectations of the workplace. If anything, Gen Y is known for selling their souls to the organizations they work for. They are highly ambitious and greedy for feedback. Promotions are a must and they set very high (and often unrealistic) goals.

In order to ensure that their children have the financial means to enjoy life and enter university, both parents are normally working extremely hard. Children are raised by grandparents or foreign domestic workers. As a result, many of the Gen Y population have relatively detached sentimental ties to the concept of family. They place material achievement over social and familial ties. Interviews done with Gen Y Singaporeans have shown that material achievement is their primary source of happiness.

Coming from the Gen Y group, I’ve always found myself questioning this- Why am I studying so hard? Why am I working so hard? Am I doing this for myself (as I’ve been taught)? Am I happy?

I still don’t know if I’m happy or sad. I’m a high achiever but to what ends? I’ve been taught that money and promotions are all important. My parents want me to work in the corporate world, but I don’t. I prefer the academic life. My short stints in the corporate world taught me that I can survive there well enough but I’ll never be happy there.

Ultimately, after years of self-reflection, I came upon this conclusion- you should never do something because others tell you to. It is not academic achievement that matter, but personal satisfaction. People attach different meanings to their achievements.

I’ll put it this way, if your parents tell you to study law even if you don’t like it (maybe you prefer studying English Literature). You graduate from law school with flying colors, your parents are happy and you are happy you got a degree after four years of hard work. You find yourself working at a law firm, as your parents wished, but you hated practicing law. You are bored, you hate your clients and you hate your boss. Every day, you go home with an artificial smile for the sake of your parents. When they ask you how was your day at work, you smile and say good. Your parents would probably enjoy your prestige as a lawyer for another 30 years or so. You will have to live with it for the rest of your life. Who is the one who is miserable? YOU.
If your parents really loved you, they would understand your choice. To me, if they didn’t understand me, than they are breeding me for the sake of being a prized trophy, nothing more. Psychological research has pointed out that our parents want nothing but the best for us (nothing wrong with that), but their approach may be wrong. What they want may not be what we want and I’m sure they don’t want to see their child being miserable as a lawyer. Try as you may to hide you unhappiness, they are your parents, and they will feel your unhappiness sooner or later. By then, they would feel guilty for pushing you to do something you never liked to begin with. No one will be happy in the end. Tragic cycle isn’t it?

Interview any parent you want, and you’ll find that they only want their children to be happy and healthy. However, throughout the years, the message became misconstrued by the children. Love is not something most people recognize even when it is placed in front of them. Most children go through a phase of hating their parents for causing them so much stress. Some children feel so obliged to make their parents happy, even if it were to be at their own expense.

Our Future?
This made me question where is Singapore heading to? Singaporeans are experts at intellectual bulimia. Children in Primary One are attending tuition meant for Primary Three students, all in the name of academic excellence. Children have piano lessons, swimming lessons, ballet lessons, golf lessons, etc. All in the name of “friendly competition”- aka “my neighbour’s kids are having swimming and golf lessons, she said it will help them get into primary schools if they are good! AIyah, just enroll them in swimming and golf classes, hopefully they’ll be very good at it”. This Kiasu mentality is really gagging. As I read many of 13-15 year old kid’s blogs, it seems many of them choose to rebel against this upbringing. They cut school, they smoke, they spend money like water, they think $6 an hour is a good pay that they can live with for the rest of their lives, etc. They are just so SHELTERED by their parents!

I have met an undergraduate while working once. She was just so stupid, I seriously don’t know how she got to Uni. She couldn’t use a cheap calculator, she didn’t know how to use the phone, she couldn’t tell when her direct line was ringing or when all our phones are ringing together, she took naps very openly in the office when she had nothing to do (and drooled in an extremely unsightly manner) and she didn’t realize the printer was down despite me making countless calls to my manager complaining about the dysfunctional IT equipment. If this is the byproduct from years of tuition, extra classes and by an undergraduate no less, I can foresee a bleak future for us all. The bulk of the population is overworked, stressed, tired and frustrated, suddenly they realize material achievement is not everything they thought it to be like.

Who is to blame?
Is it our parents? Or the socio-political culture? Or is it a Chinese family problem? It is not that the non-Chinese do not recognize the value of education; it is just that they dun make it a make-or-break issue. The Chinese culture has been shaped by over one thousand years of meritocratic practices- academic achievement has been tied to social status. So I would place the blame squarely on the socio-political culture that shaped Gen X and Gen Y. Who said history was a dead and unimportant subject?

[i] It means they are afraid to lose out to others
[ii] Based loosely around the post baby boom till pre-1980s.
[iii] Based loosely around 1980-1988

Should politics be limited to the clever people?

Politics. That aspect of life some dive into, some avoid for their lives, and some just can’t be bothered.

Since we are a democracy, albeit the illiberal type, the question of political participation will be a critical question in the status of our democracy. The question I want to explore today, with advice from De Maitre is this: Should politics be limited to the clever people?

Of course, people will start questioning, what you mean by “clever people?”

Well, I’ll use a simple example to illustrate the difference between “clever”, as defined in this post, and “stupid”, its opposite.

Just imagine Sarah Palin beating Joe Biden to become Vice President of the US. Now that’s the triumph of stupidity.

Not putting down Palin, but here, stupidity clearly refers not to the politician’s IQ, but how aware the politician is with the local, regional and global issues affecting the country.

Someone who doesn’t even have the closest idea of the proximity between countries (Alaska and Russia), and the ideology of her commander-in-chief (the Bush Doctrine) can hardly be the first choice for a candidate in a vice-presidential election, but well, she was, but that’s beside the point.

So clearly, politics should be left to the clever people by this definition. Of course we want people who know their stuff to be handling the affairs of this country, especially when we are one of the most prosperous countries in the world today.


But extending the issue just a little further, the politicians certainly aren’t the only clever ones; there are people outside politics that are just as knowledgeable about the field they are in, or about the issues affecting the country. They may be even better than the MPs or ministers in the level of their understanding.

Yes, I’m talking about civic and civil society.

“Sounds the same to me.” You might think. There’s a subtle difference. Civic society refers to individuals who are actively involved in political or social participation. Writing letters to the press, or doing a blog post, like me now, are manifestations of the civic society.

Civil society refers to independent groups that actively promote a specific interest through cooperation or working with the government. In most democracies, trade unions, mass media, welfare groups will fall under this category,

But,

Singapore is unique. Trade unions, mass media, and some welfare groups are not considered civil society groups because they are controlled by the government. Therefore, in political science lingo, they are called para-political organizations.

So we are actually down to not many groups, most of which are not political at all.
The most (in)famous one for now: AWARE.

But the point is, these groups are constituted by people who are first, dedicated in their work, second, spent a great deal of time and effort on their work, doing research, submitting proposals to the government, third, and most importantly, they know their stuff.

That is, not “stupid”.


The difference between "clever" and "stupid" is a not a difficult one to acertain. but the problem is whether is fair to say that one is "stupid" because one doesn't wear the white shirt.

National issues should be the concern of every discerning Singaporean, and more important, the government can a good listener as well as a good doer.

The North Korean Crisis, The Issues, and a Post-war Korea

The recent provocative action by the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, or North (N) Korea, has been the subject of much international concern. The latest nuclear test, along with the radical and reckless rhetoric on the part of the N Korean government (if i can call that a government) has resulted in the UN Security Council passing Resolution 1874, slapping tougher sanctions on the reclusive Stalinist regime.

Here, I’ll talk about how the crisis escalated to the seriousness we witness now, the issues behind the crisis, the possibility and implications of a second Korean War, if war actually breaks out.

The predicament faced by the international community where the N Korean nuclear programme in concerned, is the result of two main factors. First, the inconsistency and lack of flexibility of the US policy, and the constraints and considerations of all the five parties (the six parties excluding N Korea) in the handling of the crisis.

First, the inconsistency and inflexibility of policy. The N Korean nuclear crisis began during the Clinton administration. Then the US still had some flexibility to handle the situation, as it had several policy options. It chose to adopt a policy of giving incentives in exchange for the abandonment of the nuclear programme. The most crucial features in the agreement included the export of petroleum and two light water reactors (the kind used for generating electricity, not for weapons-grade uranium). It was called the Agreed Framework, and it created potential for a peaceful resolution to the nuclear problem.

However, the Bush administration was against the Agreed Framework, and tried all means to kill the idea. Ultimately, the Agreed Framework was abandoned before its full implementation, particularly the delivery of the light reactors.

In addition, the Bush administration had strong predispositions about N Korea. It refused to engage in bilateral negotiations, adopted a very tough and inflexible approach, and refused anything less than the “complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantling” of N Korea’s nuclear facilities.

The result?

All of the policy options available to the US were closed off. Given N Korea’s provocative style, this meant that the US would not have any other option against N Korea if it succeeds in completing its nuclear programme.

Which was exactly what happened.

The situation we see now is that N Korea has completed the process of building and testing a weapons device. The nuclearisation of N Korea is a foregone conclusion, and the US has therefore failed in preventing N Korea from having nuclear weaponry.

Resolution 1874, while being a strong signal by the international community in its condemnation of N Korea’s actions, is also a manifestation of the frustration by the international community, particularly the US, S Korea and Japan at their lack of options against N Korea.

So, what about the other parties?

China has its own considerations. Actually, China is very dissatisfied with N Korea’s actions, firstly because it seriously threatens the peace in the region, and secondly, it marked the defiance of N Korea towards China, a country it recognizes as its “big brother”. But, the last thing China wants is the collapse of the N Korean regime. It will mean the massive exodus of N Korean refugees into China, a humanitarian crisis China is not willing and able to handle, and also the extension of S Korean and US influence in the Korean peninsula. So despite its anger, it has no wish to upset the status quo, and has therefore taken a restrained (read weak), conciliatory approach to the crisis.

Japan? That’s quite obvious. Japan is bound by its pacifist constitution, in which it permanently renounces the use of force as a solution to diplomatic issues. In addition, it takes on a secondary role as compared to that of the US.

Russia. Russia’s real interest in not in the Far East. It’s in Eastern Europe. The reason why Russia’s in the six party talks in the first place is because of its proximity and that the US wanted to leverage on Russia to exert pressure on N Korea in a multilateral approach to the crisis.

S Korea, like Japan, it does not play the leading role. Like the US, a change of government in S Korea also meant the change in stance. The approach by President Lee is a departure from the “Sunshine Policy” of President Kim and the conciliatory policy of President Roh. In addition, if a war does break out, S Korea will be first to face the full brunt of the conflict.

These considerations combine to create an overall approach that is inconsistent at best, weak at worst.

I will not go on detail the consequences of a nuclear N Korea, since it has been much explored. I’ll just do a quick list:

The Nuclearisation of Northeast Asia

The sale of nuclear technology by N Korea to threatening countries or groups

The increase in military buildup and deployment in the Korean peninsula

The change in Japan’s military posture to a more aggressive one

Among others.

Instead, let’s talk about something which might not happen but will interest most people.

Actually, the Korean War never ended. What was signed in 1953 was an armistice, a ceasefire. So technically, the two Koreas, and the US are still in a state of war. So to call a war, if it breaks out, the “Second Korean War” will be a misnomer.

N Korea can continue with its rhetoric, but can never launch a war. That’s because it knows it cannot win. But it also knows that the other parties will not be willing to fight that war, for the reasons I mentioned above. So it continues its reckless rhetoric, stirring up international sentiment, and amplifying the magnitude of the crisis.

But what if war does break out? What if N Korea lives up to its word? What if the US, S Korea and Japan orchestrate a pre-emptive strike at Yongbyon? What if China runs out of patience?

The “Second Korean War”, if I can call it that, will be the most destructive war of the early 21st century, and will also be the greatest humanitarian crisis of the early 21st century. It might not be exaggerating to call it WW3 instead.

What about after the war? What happens next? Questions abound, but here’s what I think:

The international community needs to act together to address probably the worst humanitarian crisis in our time. Millions of refugees, having starved for many years, trapped in a war zone more volatile than that of Sri Lanka, will start flooding towards Northeast China. Millions will die due to starvation and exposure. More will die in the cross-fire.

The creation of a new political system in N Korea. The N Korean people, having lived under that regime for so long, knows no other. Decades will have to be spent creating a new political, economic and social structure that is workable, or N Korea will fall back into a failed state. The effect of decades of propaganda and brainwashing will also be difficult to address. It’ll be foolish to suggest instituting democracy in post-war N Korea. Decades will have to be spent instead on creating strong and good government almost on the N Korean model itself. Decades will also have to be spent on a reverse-propaganda campaign to discredit the N Korean regime.

The problem of die-hards. What about those die-hards steadfastly loyal to the Kims and their regime? What if the Allies fail to capture Kim, his successor, and to destroy his leadership? Decades will again have to be spent fighting these remnants in a terrorist problem more serious than that faced by Pakistan and Afghanistan against the Taliban.

This is how I look at the N Korean crisis. However it develops, it doesn’t spell well for peace in the region, and the world.

The Meaning of Evil - A Response

The concept of evil is a complex one. It brings into discussion many philosophical and religious concepts. It is a question that has been part of our civilization for a very long time.

De Maitre has discussed the psychological perspective behind evil, as well as the fact that the “evil” acts of the figures brought up are the consequences of intentions carried too far. My conclusions are slightly different. I take a more philosophical approach to evil, and explore the more fundamental aspects of humanity that define this phenomenon we call “evil.”

Here, I’ll talk about the nature of evil, whether it exists in the first place, and whether the events that we consider evil are evil at all.

First, what is evil? Has evil been an intrinsic part of our species? Philosophers across time and space since the dawn of civilization have explored this issue, and the arguments can be summarized under what philosophers call “the state of nature,” that is, the nature of human beings before the advent of civilization.

There are philosophers who believe humans were kind by nature, or at least had a tendency towards kindness. Evil exists because circumstances force them to act against their morality. Examples of philosophers in this school are Confucius and Mencius.

In fact, kindness was thought to be a natural tendency. According to Mencius, the tendency of human beings to do good is as inevitable as water flowing from a higher level to a lower level.

And of course, there are philosophers who think otherwise.

Starting with China, the legalists such as Han Fei-zi believed humans were fundamentally evil. To him, the reason why society is in such chaos is because there is no inherent morality in humans. The only way to achieve peace between people is by harsh laws and strict control from the state.

And in Europe, Thomas Hobbes continued this tradition by stating that the state of nature would be “a war of everyone against everyone”, the result of which the life of men will be “poor, solitary, nasty, brutish and short.”

But all these philosophers take one thing for granted: that evil had always been, or has never been with us since the dawn of time. Evil is something inherent, not external or imported.

What about the Christian notion of evil? Christian philosophers found evil equally difficult to address. This is because of the main reason that God being all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving wouldn’t have allowed evil to exist in our world, or at least, amongst His followers. And of course, this reason has been the point of much scrutiny from philosophers.

Just take what Epicurus said:
Is God willing but unable? Then He is not omnipotent. Is God able but unwilling? Then why call Him God?

The premise of God being all-powerful yet at the same time not able to eradicate evil poses a serious challenge to Christian thinkers. A whole new branch of thinking is devoted to this question – the question of evil – theodicy.

Let’s look at some of the arguments they came up with.

First, Satan. A personification of evil. Someone who constantly challenges God in his work, who destroys what He creates, who bring suffering to the world.

But this argument is not without flaws. First, if God’s omnipotent, wouldn’t it be easy for Him to just destroy Satan himself? Second, if God’s all-loving, why let Satan do what he likes? Some rebut that Satan is acting on God’s will, but that’s already conceding to the previous argument.

So there’s a new argument, that God has a role for evil to play. Then we have notions of retribution for “evil” deeds, and in the process, a moral compass is created for believers.

But it wouldn’t help explain why “evil” things happen to good, innocent people. People rebut saying its evil precisely because it befalls on innocents, but that’ll run their own idea of an all-loving and omnipotent God, and the idea of Him as a
moral judge down, because surely God wouldn’t let that happen?

So the question of evil remains unanswered.

My take? Either the definition of evil must change, or evil simply doesn’t exist. I take the latter stand. My reasons are simple.

First, the definition of evil keeps changing. Evil is just what a particular individual or group dislike strongly about. People, groups, institutions dislike something, feel that it’s a serious threat, and then call it evil. In other words, evil is what you say it is.

Second, this stand is the only possible way of reconciling religion with philosophy. The religious idea of evil is severely discredited by philosophy, due to its weak reasoning and critical assumptions. So to say evil doesn’t exist, simply means that misfortune and evil are not synonymous, and that God does not directly intervene in worldly affairs. This is the view taken by most moderate Christians.

In fact, even Chinese philosophers agree with that. The philosopher Xun-zi illustrated clearly the relationship between heaven and man. He states that the affairs of heaven and the affairs of man are unrelated. What happens to the mortal world does not affect what happens in heaven, and the mechanisms that govern heaven do not affect human activity as well. Evil, if it exists, if uniquely human, not the effect of some heavenly process.

This is my take on the question of evil. It’s a philosophical and religious take on the issue. It is neither comprehensive nor complete, but it gives an idea of the debates that occur where the issue of evil is concerned. Humans are interested in evil, precisely because it is a question that has defied our understanding. It will be ironic that after thousands of years exploring the issue, we might conclude by saying it never existed in the first place.

The Meaning of EVIL

Looking at the list of people WK and I hate, it brings into mind the concept of evil. From a rough survey of websites listing the most evil people in history, it seems characters like Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Joseph Fritzel, Jim Jones, Tomás de Torquemada, Kim Jung Il, etc are all considered evil by the common man. Let’s examine what are the factors that make them evil. Dictators like Hitler, Pol Pot and Kim Jung Il share a common issue- they are considered mass murders because of extermination campaigns against the “undesirables”. Torquemada and Jim Jones are what I call “victims of their own beliefs”. They were one of the worst cases of religious excesses. Personally, would I call these people evil? No, I think they had good intentions of purifying their sphere of control. It is only their methods that are disputable.

This brings in the philosophical questions of “What is evil?” and “Does evil exist?”.
I believe humans are inherently evil- greed plagues us all. Greed creates dreams, dreams form ideals, and ideals are the root of all excesses. E.g. Hitler was greedy for fame and power, from these he created wrote Mein Kampf and thereby creating the Nazi ideology, this Nazi Idealogy powered the Third Reich’s holocaust which killed millions of Jews. Was Hitler evil? To me, I would say no, because he was merely following his dream of a pure Aryan Germany. He was no more evil than Torquemada who wanted to purge his faith of heretics. Unfortunately, it has been proven in history that the best way to purify anything was to kill off the deviants, the same way we exterminate an ant colony by doing our best to kill every single one of them so that chance of repopulation would be reduced to zero.

The intention of idealistic men like Hitler and Torquemada were actually pure in intent. Similarly, the witch hunts in Europe were sparked of by the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum- Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. Were they evil? I wouldn’t say so, they were from a period where misogyny prevailed- people were thought that women were the source of evil, the same way how Eve introduced evil to the world. Women inspired feelings of lust in men, therefore they were the root of all evil. Naturally, Kramer and Sprenger fulfilled their role as spiritual leaders of men by advocating the destruction of these evil women. In a sense, they are no more evil than you and I are. When you hate an opposing fraction sufficiently, you will want all of them dead.

When we talk about mass murderers such as Gilles de Rais, Richard Treton Chase, Jeffrey Dahmer, Albert Fish, Andrei Chikatilo, Joachim Kroll, Dennis Rader, Javed Iqbal Mughal and Ted Bundy (taken from http://listverse.com/2007/08/22/top-10-evil-serial-killers/ ) I wouldn’t say they are evil. They all share one thing in common- mental illness. To them, violence and sexual arousal are irreversibly intertwined. Sadism is a mental condition, I wouldn’t call it evil! Some of them engaged in cannibalism, necrophilia, coprohilia, urophilia, pedophilia and masochism. They were sick people, not evil! They had compulsive urges that could not be denied- to date, no one knows for sure what makes people sadistic or masochistic. Evidence strongly points towards an abusive childhood, however, not abused children become mass murderers, there seems to be a missing X-factor.

Thus, I would conclude that evil exists, but not in the way we commonly see it. Saints are exceptions rather than the norm, even then, they are plagued by insecurities, temptations and fears just like normal people are. Are they evil in their own way? Perhaps. We are evil even when we pursue our own dreams at the expense of our spending time with our family members. Who are we to say that they have never hurt anyone? We could say they were greedy to be close to God? They were greedy to achieve their own little spot in Nirvana. Who knows? To me, people are inherently evil; good is used to describe people who are less evil than others. Evil exists to remind us of human imperfection- therefore, the more evil you are, the less perfect you are.

Top Twelve Most Hate-able People in History

When people talk about the hated people in history, people always talk about mass-murderers, dictators, or people like that. But actually, why don’t we consider other people who did other forms of damage, such as those CEOs who fatten their own wallets while destroying the jobs and livelihoods of millions, MPs who squander public money during an economic crisis, and to re-interpret those mass-murderers for what they did, by bringing their verdict to a new level beyond just “they killed a lot of people.”

So here’s my own list, in response to De Maitre’s list of hated figures. Some names overlap, goes to show how hated they are, but there are also some new people, who are not very likeable either. And of course, the list differs for each individual, so this is just my own take on the most ”hate-able” (meaning you’ll have reasons to hate them) people.


12. Bernard Madoff - Criminal Executive Officer

Here I quote from the Time website:
“Next to Bernie Madoff, the rest of the sticky-fingered CEOs on this list seem like dime-store shoplifters. Madoff's decades-long, $65 billion Ponzi scheme, which came to a screeching halt with his Dec. 11, 2008 arrest, is perhaps history's biggest financial swindle, and his trademark thin-lipped smile became the defining image of the avarice that last fall nearly brought the global financial system to its knees.”

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1903155_1903156_1903160,00.html

Those CEOs who live opulent lives while many others lose their homes to foreclosures or their jobs due to the recession are hardly likeable.


11. George W Bush – President of the US (2001 – 2008)

He’s hate-able for reasons we are all too familiar with: Iraq. Iraq was illegitimate, it was poorly planned, and the post-war crisis and the torture incident proved to be an embarrassment at best and a scandal at worst. The US’s relations with the world were at an all-time low, not to mention a whole host of other problems, international and domestic. North Korea, hurricane Katrina, etc. People would probably remember him as the most incompetent president in US history.


10. Mao Zedong – Leader of the Peoples' Republic of China (1949 – 1976)

Whose Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution more than just killed and ruined lives, it almost destroyed a civilisation. The Chinese are still suffering from its effects today.


09. Zhu Yuan Zhang – Founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644)

Scholars hate him. They hate him for his literary inquisitions. Hundreds of scholars died under him for writing poems that left him feeling offended. You see, in Chinese, there are different characters that sound the same. So the emperor hated the use of words like sounded like “monk”, “beggar”, because that’s what he was before becoming emperor. But surely he’s a little too paranoid? But more importantly, the impact on Chinese literature and culture? Honestly, as a member of the modern literati, I hate him too.


08. Tomás de Torquemada - High Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition

Actually, not just him, but all the inquisitors before and after. It’s one thing to kill, but to kill and then say “it’s for your own good” is just so hypocritical, not to mention being so religiously intolerant. This is the problem with some religious people like him: they believe in something so strongly that they simply don’t care about the human costs while trying to realise that goal. His actions and those of many other inquisitors remind us of the inhumanity and bigotry of religious intolerance.

Rather than say: “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” we should say: “Nobody desires the Spanish Inquisition!”


07. Dick Cheney – Vice President of the US (2001 – 2008)

You might wonder, why is the vice-president above the president in this list? That’s simply because he’s more responsible than Bush for the US’s predicament. Arguably one of the most powerful VPs in US history and the defining figure amongst the neo-conservatives, he’s the real architect behind US policy in Iraq, and in North Korea. The trouble is, he has such a narrow world-view that his foreign policy becomes more than just conservative, it becomes very unrealistic. Proof? Still defending Guatanamo when it has become a source of international anger and symbol of US double standards. And in a way, the thousands of American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the countless civilians in both countries, the messy situation in the Korean peninsula were pretty much his doing.


06. Kim Jong Il – leader of The Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, otherwise known as North Korea.

People hate him, not just because he has done so little for the poor North Korean people, who starve as I write this post, but because he continues his opulent, decadent way of life as it happens. Haven’t you noticed he’s the only fat person in North Korea? All the fine food, prepared by chefs from all over the world he recruited, plus the fine wine, plus the collection of Hollywood movies, and how he kidnapped a director and actress to build his own movie industry.

And of course, there the nuclear weapons, missile tests, detained journalists… you get the drift. North Korea is a state run not by politicians and statesmen, but by criminals.


05. Jim Jones – leader of the Peoples’ Temple

He’s not the ordinary murderer. He’s a mass murderer. Another one of those who would kill for the sake of a utopia. The story goes like this. He founded this cult called the Peoples’ Temple, and took his followers to the jungles of Guyana to set up a utopian community called Jonestown, with himself as the spiritual and nominal leader of the community. All was fine until some wanted to leave. Jones wouldn’t let that happen, so he orchestrated a mass suicide, which was actually mass murder, because the victims were fed the cyanide. How many people did he kill?

900 people, including himself.


04. Osama bin Laden – Leader of the Al Qaeda terror network

Well, I don’t have to tell you what he did. But what I want to say here is what his actions meant for the world. He sparked the greatest conflict since World War 2, in which many countries now face the threat of terrorism, religious extremism, and religious conflict. His act inspired many other groups to follow, and resulted in terrorism becoming the most serious international problem of the 21st century.


03. Adolf Hitler -Fuehrer of Nazi Germany (1933 – 1945)

He’s too-talked-about. So I’m not going into detail. I’ll just address the issue: why third place? In my opinion, he’s like Torque and Alexander the Great combined. Religious and racial hatred mixed with a thirst for world domination. That’s him. But true mass murderers have this special quality, which is a sheer sense of inhumanity. That’s for the top two places. Besides, even if we take the game of numbers, the top two would have killed more than he did (unless we take the total casualties for the European and North African theatres of World War 2, then he’s unmatched.)


02. Pol Pot – leader of the Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia

Why him? Two reasons. First, because he’s another one who killed remorselessly in his attempt to create a utopia. When the Khmer Rouge gained power in Cambodia, everyone from the cities was “evacuated” to the countryside to start collectives. They were so determined to create that new society; they called that year, Year Zero. But dissent and resistance was ruthlessly crushed. People were tortured and killed for the slightest dissent. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, then millions, died in the hands of the regime. Schools became prisons and torture centres, and the people lived in five long years of fear and inhumanity.

Second, it was his own people he killed. Many mass murders killed the “other”, but he targeted his own Khmer people. That goes to show his sheer inhumanity.


01. Josef Stalin – Leader of the Soviet Union (1924 – 1953)

Like Hitler, he’s too talked-about. I’ll just use one line. He killed, he killed by the millions, and he kills at a rate of hundreds a day. He signs death warrants every night, and decides who not to kill (yet) at a whim. No one was safe in Soviet Russia.

On Examinations and Moral Character

I was reading Lianhe Zaobao, the local Chinese newspaper in Singapore this morning, and I came across this article covering the university entry examinations in China, known in China as the “高考（gao kao）”

I was indignant about the on-goings during the course of the examinations, as covered by the article, and was also reminded of previous articles covering the examinations as well.

Here, I will share some of the information gathered from these articles, as well as my insights, what it means for Chinese society and the issues behind exam culture in general.

So, what really happened?

Let’s start by talking about before the exams. It is understandable that in any national examination, not excluding the GCE ‘A’ Level examinations, which I sat for almost 4 years ago, there are bound to be episodes of nervousness, anxiety, et cetera.

But it goes way beyond that in China. If you are nervous, your parents are even more nervous than you. They camp outside the school (something you’ll never see in Singapore exams), haunt you before you enter the exam hall, and still won’t give you peace when you’re out, because they’ll bombard you with a hundred and one questions:

How was it?

Could you handle it?

Any questions you couldn't do?

Was it a difficult paper?

Were there easy questions?

How did the class react when they saw the questions?

…

Did the notes you smuggle in help?

The last question leads me to discuss my second issue.

Cheating.

Cheating is a serious problem for the entry exams. And it goes beyond the usual smuggling of notes, or the swopping of papers, it’s systemic corruption.

Let’s start with talking about the usual tricks. The most basic is to smuggle in notes. But they have gone high-tech too. They now have miniature wireless receivers and equivalents, and there is now an underground industry catering to the demand for these “exam-use equipment”.

But you’ll have thought the teachers and invigilators could spot them out. Well, not exactly. You see, some parents bribe their teachers, getting the teachers to help be lookouts against the invigilators sent by the central government. The teachers sometimes even help the students by hinting them or even feeding them answers.

According to the article, in Nong An county, some parents were so uptight, they assaulted the invigilators.


So, what does this all mean?

First, it’s a manifestation of a corrupted society. The Chinese have prided themselves for their emphasis on education as a mechanism for social improvement, and as a Chinese myself, I’m very proud of this positive attitude. But apparently some Chinese have gone too far this time.

They have forsaken the principles of good education, and have resorted to dishonest tactics just for the sake of entering university.

Quoting from the article, “it goes to show that in these places integrity and morality have completely disappeared.”

It’s a poor reflection of Chinese society, exposing the dishonesty and corruption that has prevailed over their society.

Second, what about the impact to China’s image in its educational arena? China has good universities as well, like Beijing University and Qinghua University, among others, but what would be the impact if cheats enter university at the expense of genuinely hardworking and honest students? What would it reflect of educational standards in China?

Third, and on a more personal level, is cheating really worth it? Not to mention what will happen when one does get caught cheating, but even if one succeeds, and succeeds in entering university as well, how is this experience of cheating going to be of any use for university studies? University education demands independent learning, discipline, and to have a spirit of enquiry and inquisitiveness. A habit of cheating will not only not help in gaining these qualities, but will also seriously impede one’s ability to perform in university as well, not to mention the problem of personal integrity.

The problem of a corrupt examinations culture is a serious one. Countries hoping to create an education system able to attract talented students must bear these problems in mind. I’m fortunate to have studied under an education system that is free from these systemic problems, and I pride myself for having survived a system that is tough, but honest and fair, and hence being in an institution that prides itself for its success and integrity in academic work.