On Iraq

Right from the start I was against the war in Iraq. I thought it was a terrible idea, especially when we were lied to about the weapons of mass destruction, Sadam’s relations with Al Queda and the rest. Iraq should never have been invaded and doing so has been the biggest mistake on a huge list of mistakes that Bush has made, nonetheless, I must now say that it is essential that the ‘battle’ in Iraq somehow not be lost.

Notice that I do not say ‘won’. That’s because I don’t think it is possible to actually win the war. Even if somehow, wonder over wonder, a democratic, functioning society is created, Iraq will still not be won. This is because the rest of the Arab world will be innately distrustful of any western backed regime change. The Iraqi government will be considered a stooge of the west and will not be respected, even if they are successful. The Arab world will, in fact, possibly feel even more humiliated because it will seem like the only way that a Middle Eastern country can be made democratic is through outside intervention.

To lose the war, however, would be much, much worse. It would be a rallying cry for the forces of extremist Islam and the extremists now fighting in Iraq would flow across the world, battle hardened and honed into deadly killing machines, making all our lives miserable. They would also, in all likelihood, help to undermine those few moderate Islamic states that do actually exist. Those few states - like Turkey, Dubai and Malaysia - which we should be looking to as examples of modern Islam and helping in every way possible (instead of spurning, like the EU is currently doing with Turkey).

If I had my way I would have the UN security council pass a new resolution, condemning the start of the Iraqi conflict but accepting that it must now be won, and have them change the entire nature of the conflict into a legitimate international attempt to bring peace and stability to the country.

With the emphasis taken away from the American occupation and instead focused on an international peace keeping mission, those groups now stuck between a rock and a hard place (i.e. the sectarian death squads and the occupying Americans) would have somewhere to turn. These groups, enlisted on the side of the allies, could then help stabilise and reform the country.

Of course, that will never happen. No country has the stomach, or the actual political capital to make something like this possible. What ever you say about the Americans (and I say a lot), the Europeans with their constant internal and external squabbles, would be fully incapable of accomplishing something like this, to forget about Russia and China (who seem quite content to let the Islamists continue to bloody the west’s nose).

So I guess the Americans must go at it alone. Well, I guess it’s what they deserve. I just hope that they remember that old adage, ‘finish what you start’.

The Luck Factor the Third

One of the things the Luck Factor advised was building up a network of luck. It said that the more people you know, the more opportunities there are for you to get lucky. That sounds reasonable enough, right?

Creating a lucky network, the book continued, requires two things. It requires getting in touch with people and staying in touch with people. When I read that I realised that I was pretty good at the first (though I could work on it a bit more), but that it was really the second facet of creating a network that I was bad at.

I decided to change that by following a piece of advice that the book actually gave. It said, every week from now on, get in touch with a friend that you haven’t spoken with for over six months. So I’ve been sending out e-mails to people from before.

The response has been amazing and very invigorating. One guy even suddenly up and left Holland and came to Singapore. I doubt having contact with me brought that situation about (he was invited over by somebody else) but it was still a pleasant surprise.

So I’ll keep sending out those e-mails and I’ll keep on reaching out. Even if the only thing I get is just surprised e-mails from the past that will be enough. The energy that I get from that will be hugely influential in the rest of my life.

Spurts and Starts

Growth isn’t gradual. Growth is sudden and abrupt. For the longest time no significant change is really visible and then suddenly it hits us. You can almost hear the ‘chachunk’ as the tracks switch and the whole network of trains and traffic flow down a different route, towards a different end.

That’s because most of it happens beneath the surface. That old cliché of the iceberg of your brain became a cliché I the first place, simply because it was such an apt description, down to the very water tension keeping you afloat. Beneath the surface, where we constantly venture, but never see, lies the true you.

There the ice accumulated and changes, as the seas swirls and tugs. We don’t know what happens down there, till suddenly the whole weight of the iceberg shifts and from one day to the next people suddenly look at you strange, wondering where you went.

It happened to my former colleague and new boss. His promotion was like the iceberg of his soul being torpedoed. ‘Who are you and what did you do with me friend?’

Of course there are always signs. Those little character traits that you were able to ignore before, but have now being magnified and intensified, focused and empowered. That look that you questioned for a moment, but then disregarded as paranoia and those comments that you just hoped were meant in jest.

Not that it would have mattered. After all, in the end, it’s their iceberg. Just watch, learn and try to learn as much as they changed. All change is for the good, just not always that of the changed.

Those life changing decisions

For a few weeks now I’ve been saying ‘I’m going to go to university! This September I’m going to start!’ I’ve looked at a couple of unis and have looked at their application process. I haven’t applied yet, however. I’ve been telling myself that it’s no problem, as most of the unis prefer that I apply in February.

Now I’m starting to think there might be another reason I haven’t applied yet. Maybe it’s because secretly I want to do something else. For many years now I’ve had it in mind to go on a world trip. I’ve always proclaimed ‘If I had the money and the time I would visit India first, then go on to Africa and then in one fell swoop do South America’.

Now I’ve got the time. If I start uni one year later then I’ve got more than a year. The money also shouldn’t be a problem. As I’ve matured I’ve noticed making money has become easier. So now might well be the best opportunity to do this.

Yet, should I put my work related life on hold for a year while I sit in the sun and lie on the beach? Better yet, is that what I would be doing? I mean, after all it should be possible to do some work even while I travel, right?

Should I go to university immediately, or should I do that life trip that might not be possible afterwards?

For some reason it feels a little like I’m at a crossroads. Here I decide what direction the rest of my life will take. Do I take the life of academia? Or do I, instead, opt for the life of the traveller?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Feeling Good

Many people always say that ultimately we’re all just trying to be happy. For a long time I was one of those people my self. A couple of days ago, however, I realised that it isn’t actually true. It’s close, but it isn’t exactly it. With my armchair reasoning (the best kind of reasoning there is, since you don’t have to do any research) I came to the conclusion that we’re not all trying to be happy, we’re all just trying to feel good.

The difference might appear subtle, but I think it’s still significant. Happy is a very specific state of mind, while feeling good can be associated with a great deal more things. Feeling happy is something that people do not feel on a regular basis, but good is not that uncommon of a phenomenon.

Some people feel good feeling sad. Some people feel good when they’re suffering. Some people feel good sacrificing and some people feel good being abused in relationships. These people are clearly not happy doing these things, but yet they continue doing them. For that reason I seriously suspect that they are not after happiness, but just want to feel good.

This isn’t the moral kind of good, either. This is the physical kind of good, the one where specific substances are released and enjoyed by the body. The types of substances that then help reinforce that type of behaviour.

The body rewards and punishes certain types of behaviour based on nature and nurture triggers. Some of us just happen to be lucky enough to have triggers for productive actions, while others, unfortunately, have triggers for destructive behaviour.

I haven’t yet figured out how these triggers are implanted exactly (beyond nature and nurture), but I’ll be sure to tell you when I do.

Black as Sin, Bitter as Hell

Hmmmm.... coffee

I wonder when I'll start building up a tolarance to the stuff. I probably already am, but it's been helping me get through the rather busy days of the last month or so. I hope it will just last those last couple of weeks until the inevitable lesson slump.

I used to be a capachino and latte man, but recently, in order to save that extra dollar (at the urging of the book 'the Undercover Economist') I've switched to the cheaper black stuff in a cup, no milk, no sugar. Black as sin, bitter as hell.

A point on a line

A huge number of people believe that we are an end stage. That humanity is the culmination of either design or evolution. I don’t know about design. I personally don’t believe in it, but I’ll leave that alone for today. Today, I want to talk about the belief that we are the end result or an evolutionary process.

People who hold this belief resist any form of change among humanity. They want us to physically continue as we are. They oppose any future modification that might become possible. Many of them divide all medical advancement into two broad categories. The first category is best referred to as ‘healing’. It is where people are brought back to the average, which is a state these people see as optimum. Then there is a second category which we shall call ‘improvement’. This category is concerned with advances that actually enhance those treated beyond average.

This group of people believe the first form of medical advance is alright, while the second shouldn’t be used. They are afraid that we will lose our humanity to these improvements.

This is interesting, because in truth humanity is but a smudge on the line of the evolutionary process. There is a fantastic philosophical question which encapsulates what I’m trying to say. ‘How many grains of sand does it take to make a pile?’ Hard question to answer, isn't it?

A pile is a concept that we’ve created, which in truth has only a partial bearing of reality. Concepts are models we use to make decision making possible. For that reason they are often drastic simplifications of reality. Concepts are also highly malleable, often changing with time.

Humanity is such a concept. Since it is such a malleable concept we will never lose our humanity, because we will simply continue to reinterpret it as our understanding (and we physically) change(s).

But they have another reason they oppose these types of advancements. They say that they don’t feel it’s natural. I’m not sure what natural is anymore (as it seems to be a concept that is even more malleable than humanity) but I think they are talking about that it isn’t evolutionary. It’s messing with the logical progression of the processes that have brought us into existence in the first place.

There is an assumption in that, though, that I think should be backed up with some very strong argument rather than just implicitly assumed. That’s the argument that science is somehow outside evolution. I’ve seen no evidence to that effect.

Science is just the newest stage of evolutionary growth and it is in no way outside the, dare I say the word, ‘natural’ process.

Now, I’m not saying that we abandon all caution and race headlong into physical modification. All I’m saying is that we should not just oppose it out of some falsely held principle.

Should

I haven't posted on here since Monday. I probably should be posting on here more often. I am not, though. Hell, I should be cooking myself a meal and taking care of myself. I'm not going to do that either. Nor am I going to sit down and write my university application. Instead I'm going to drink the beers i just bought, eat part of a bag of chips (though it might be all) and watch some stupid as shit movie.

What I should be doing doesn't concern me, right now. I've just worked for ten hours and I'm exhausted. If that's a problem for you, well then you're truly living a blessed life or not much of one.

Time has gone funny.

Inspired by Jabberwocky

The golden shadows played over the fields of my conscience. There a maiden lay, among the flowers and the thorns. It wasn’t long before memory forgot her place and took over from sexuality. Suddenly lust was lived through childhood memories and they termed him a pedophile.

When the rain falls I think of the atomic nuclei of heavy hydrogen bursting into flame there at the edge of a little black spot. Twice I asked her what she wanted, then I just blew her head off. After all, it isn’t that I didn’t care, it was just that it didn’t really matter, her being a figment of my reality and all. In the prison of my perceptions I wander through slivers of drivel.

What if we all saw the same? Wouldn’t that just be the ultimate expression of my sock drawer? Another cloud passes over the consciousness of the mad man and for that moment he contemplates homicide. A single moment is sometimes all it takes. They found the old man nailed to heavens door. ‘Man sacrificed to save the trinity’ the note read.

It’s where purple and blue mash that they had hidden the loot. The rainbow really did lead somewhere, as he plugged it into his veins. They took his voice for that. Took it and made it sing like the memory of reality.

Where does this all leave us? But then, it never really leaves us. Nothing ever really does. It all gets mixed in to that grand formula that is you. Expressing the need to express myself is ultimately as futile as the epiphany that just escapes you.

So it leaves us somehow dissatisfied, but yet still somewhere forgotten. Two little men sit by the dock and share a cigarette.

The Jabberwocky

Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe

The Luck Factor part Duex

So how was my first week of luck? Not bad, truth be told. Three of my students cancelled their classes (which means I still get paid but I don’t have to work, something I refer to as free money) when normally it would be at most one in that period, public transportation has been arriving within minutes of my arrival at the train or bus stop, I’ve been getting a huge number of classes (meaning I can get out of here faster) and people have been reacting to me much more positively.

All in all I would say my luck has improved about 20% so far. (I’ve come to that figure after carefully multiplying all the numbers I saw in the newspaper together, dividing them by the number of the beast and adding four, for the four leaf clover. In other words, I was very scientific about it.)

The main challenge I see ahead is keeping it up. I have to somehow learn to internalise the lessons of ‘The Luck Factor’ and make them a part of my life. That is a challenge, a challenge that is well worth it, mind you, but still a challenge. I have to make it so that these things I am supposed to do are no longer conscious decisions but just simply ‘me’.

I’ll tell you how that goes.

How much time have we got?

How much time do we have? ‘To the naked eye’ we’ve got roughly from about .10 of a second to about 100 years. The first number is about the quickest reaction time we’ve got available, while the second number will probably be about the average approximate age that most of us will live by the time we get close to the end of our lives.

These times, from 1/10^th of a second to 100 years, are pretty much our ‘visible time range’. It’s a bit like our colour spectrum of time, running from our shortest time length, to our longest.

But, much like the colour spectrum, there is a great deal beyond that at both sides. Some of us can get a glimpse at part of that, for example some air fighter pilots (or gamers, for that matter) react that bit faster, and some people manage to live just that bit longer, but none of us can truly appreciate the grand scheme of it all without tools and a great deal of imagination.

For all intended purposes the whole range of time runs from about the age of the universe, which is more than 10 billion years, down to hugely small numbers of time, like attoseconds (one billionth of a billionth of a second, better expressed as: one attosecond is to a second what one second is to the age of the universe).

We can barely measure these numbers, yet they are hugely significant to our galaxy, just as radioactive radiation and radio waves are hugely important. This just shows how limited we are as a species. We truly only ever see one small range of one small corner of one tiny moment of ‘our’ galaxy.

What if there is a species out there for whom 10,000 of our years passes as one second? Or what if there is another species for which one second of our time passes as 10,000 years? As it stands right now, we probably won’t even realise these species exist, even if we run into them head first, let alone find any way to communicate with them.

It seems to me that we must re-evaluate our tunnel-visioned perspective of the reality around us. If we don’t, we’ll miss the stuff right in front of our noses, never mind the really difficult secrets.

Y the J Curve

'The J curve, a new way to understand why nations rise and fall' is a newish book by Ian Bremmer about, not surprisingly, the rise and fall of nations. I just finished it and I didn't think it was bad, with the only piece of criticism I have being that it's boring. (Normally you would argue that that is actually a killer piece of criticism, but those types of things change when you're talking about a book of politics.)

The basic premise, where the J curve basically describes the difference between closed nations and open nations (with closed nations sitting on the short end of the J and open nations on the long end) is interesting enough. It does a pretty good job of explaining why so many nations fail to move from closed to open (which is the bend in the J, where stability is lowest) and it is in general a useful analogy to look at the political world.

Still, like is often the case with these types of books, I felt there was a lot of fluff to fill in what was not all that complex of an idea (inspired maybe, complex no). Maybe it wasn't really aimed at me though, as I took a great deal of the arguments as self evident, which many people clearly don't do. Maybe this book was more aimed at those that believe that external force can open up a society and make it liberal and free. (This book argues it can't and it doesn't).

I think I advise this book only to those that have a keen interest in politics and either disagree strongly with the author, or drink a great deal of coffee. Though I guess it might serve as a bed time story, cause at times it certainly made me sleepy.

Strange fiction indeed

Since I'm trusting on luck yesterday a mate and myself went to see a movie based on the title alone. Originally it wasn't the idea, but all the movies we did want to see weren't starting anywhere soon, so we decided to go for the movie 'Stranger Than Fiction'. Even as we were buying the tickets we had to ask 'what genre is this, exactly?'

Comedy, the girl behind the counter told us.

We were surprised that she actually knew her movies. Turned out she didn't, not really, because Stranger Than Fiction is a great deal more than just a comedy.

To start with, it's actually good. Especially if you're not expecting this type of movie. There were some fantastic visuals at the beginning of the movie (excellent visual representations of thought). It is also deep, absurd and well written.

Suffice it to say that it's like accessible Charlie Kaufman. Catch it, if you can and don't read any other reviews about it than this one. Trust me, it makes it far more entertaining.

Disney Delhi

What the fuck? The Singapore government is planning to destroy the only place left that actually has some soul in Singapore, namely little India. For some reason they just don’t understand that of the two forms of city growth, organic and planned, and you need both if you don’t want your city to be either too chaotic or too artificial respectively.

They're going to turn the last outpost of true organic growth into another one of their Planned, artificial projects, like they did with Sentosa, Clarke Quay and Bugis (better known as Disney on the Water, Disney at Night and Disney Shop).

And I had only just discovered little India properly too. It reminded me of real Asia, the places I loved while I travelled. It felt like the type of place where you could actually turn around a corner and be somewhere exciting and interesting, rather than seeing the same bland design that they like oh so much here, but really has so little soul.

They are sanitising Singapore. Soon they will expect us all to wear latex gloves, white will be the only legal colour and their debugging will expand to debirding, depollination and dehumanizing.

I used to be undecided about whether the world depicted in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was good or bad, but now that I’m living in it I can definitely tell you that it is bad.

Thank Luck I’m getting out of here.

un-Fair Trade

Walked by the body shop today and saw that famous old 'Fair Trade' poster and I couldn't help but recall one of the arguments from 'The Undercover Economist' about why this type of fair trade isn't a good idea.

The argument ran something like this:
(I'm going to use coffee in this case, because it is the best known)

Fair trade distorts markets. How does it do this? Well, when people buy fair trade coffee they are creating the illusion that producing coffee is actually more valuable than it is. Economics tells us that when prices rise, production rises. This means that more poor farmers in these countries enter into the coffee market.

This, in turn, forces the prices of coffee in non-fair-trade areas down (when supply goes up and demand remains the same, price goes down). So those people that enter into it hoping to get a fair trade deal but don't, end up being worse off than if fair trade had never existed in the first place (first off they are in a market they might not have entered otherwise and secondly the price of coffee is actually lower than it should be, because there are too many farmers in the market).

For this reason, fair trade doesn't work. That doesn't mean you should give up on trying to help poor people, it just means that you should try to help them in other ways. Don't buy fair trade coffee, instead invest money into some sort of farmer education fund (not tied to any specific product, like coffee, since that just encourages more farmers to enter that specific market). Then these farmers have the opportunity to learn another trade. That will really help them a great deal more than Fair trade.

Impressive

About a week ago I bought myself a new laptop. It was necessary, what with me often having hours off at a time from work and feeling I was wasting the time I had (especially now that the time to get home has gone up from just fifteen minutes to half an hour and inconvenient to others). Today I'm out and about for the first time with my new purchase and I decided to try and make use of the free WiFi all over the city.

This is a new experience for me, the last time I had a laptop A) the network was not very widespread yet B) the laptop only had about 10 mins of juice in it before it died (not terribly useful) and C) it weighed about as much as a small military convoy.

I had to 'shop around' for networks for a bit, but eventually found a good one that gave me free access (with no bloody registration). Then I did what I considered the ultimate test. I pulled up Peekvid and clicked on one of the movie links, which is probably the most demanding usage I make of the internet, and it worked beautifully. Pretty much as well as it does at home.

What does this mean? It means I'm no longer bound to a specific place. I am now a mobile/ global citizen. It's a fantastic feeling to be able to continue working anywhere in this city for the price of a cup of coffee.

Life only gets better.

The Luck Factor

I've just finished reading the book 'The Luck Factor' by Prof. Richard Wiseman and I have to say it was quite interesting. Basically the assumption of the book is that luck is something that we create through our behaviour and actions. His theory is that even though we can't control everything to do with luck, we can certainly make ourselves more lucky by behaving in certain 'lucky' ways.

This isn't just hocus pocus, however. He's based this on eight years of research. He divides luck into four basic principles, which in turn are all divided into several sub categories. The principles are:

Maximise your Chance Opportunities
Listen to your Lucky Hunches
Expect Good Fortune
Turn your Bad Luck into Good Luck

Now, I realise that sounds pretty vague, but suffice it to say that I'm convinced enough to give them a try and try it I can, because he doesn't just show us what the principles are, but he also shows us how to introduce them into our own lives. (I'm apparently weakest in principle two and three). His theory is that I should start seeing a slight improvement in my luck within a week and possibly a dramatic improvement in a month.

Self fulfilling prophecy? You bet! That, it turns out, is part of the entire point. You get the luck you expect, along with the luck you create for yourself.

I'll keep you posted.

Mahatma Gandhi

"To believe in Something and not live it, is dishonest"

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is a attribute of the strong."

"An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind."

"Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom."

-Mahatma Gandhi

Find his Wikipedia entry here.