labitx

[labitx]

Awareness and Deliberation

When two people walking on the road bumps into each other, one wasn't looking at not aware. The other saw and was well aware. Who's more at fault?

A very common situation indeed, but the outcome of the situation is quite nuanced. Really, who is at fault?

Argument #1: The person who is most dangerous, is the person who isn't aware of how dangerous it is.

This argument is probably the most common argument, and it makes sense. Even if we assume that all humans have good intent, you can only exercise that good intent if you are aware of the situation around you. Knowing is often step 1, and hence if you aren't even aware, you can't do much about it.

We see that in many situations in life: blind spots when driving along the road, distracted walking as evident in the above.

Argument #2: The person who is aware and still engage in the conflict, is deliberate in its intent.

Those who often argue with argument #1 often forget it predicates on a the basic assumption that all humans act with good intent. That is highly untrue of human nature, and is ever increasingly untrue in our society today.

The increase in road rage incidents is a clear indication that people are increasingly intolerant of others. People want to be right, people don't like to be inconvenienced. This is more true than ever in any point in time in history, for now attention spans are ever shorter thanks to short content formats, and things are so smooth and automatic that we cannot tolerate any hiccups and lack the skills for everyday human interaction in most situations.

Intent precedes action - that is whether someone is cognizant of the situation when causing harm of damage is often more important than the act itself.

This is also built upon legal concepts of the day, where whether you are in full control of your mental capacities when committing the crime, and whether the action was deliberate or unintentional. A person who knowingly hurts someone vs a pure accident despite taking all precautions, the first is often viewed as a more severe crime than the latter for the intent is more important. Thus, while it may seem very immediate that the person who didn't watch his way accidentally bumped into someone who watched his way and didn't care to step aside, is it really that clear who is at fault?

To generalise, the point is also to look beyond basic instinct when we evaluate any situation. It may be convenient to see something as simple and straightforward, but as critical thinkers, sometimes we should think deeper and that's where we improve our thinking skills and in turn, perhaps could change the world's mindset and elevate all our thinking.

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High Performance: difference between Demanding and Stressful

Top people in the world aren't afraid of a demanding environment, they're afraid of a stressful one.

It may sound illogical but there's a very strict difference between a demanding environment and a stressful one. We all know that being the top somewhere often entails doing the nearly impossible, and you need to set high expectations of a high performing team to deliver that. It is never easy to become the top, and even harder to maintain that leadership. But this high expectation can easily turn from being demanding, to being stressful if it is not managed well.

There are some points that sets the difference.

Point #1: Set clear expectations

A narrow or high goalpost may be hard to shoot at, but with sufficient effort and preparation, as well as a clear plan, that can make the expectations and goals possible. The worst kind of goals are not difficult goals, but ever changing goals. It'd be harder to shoot at a goalpost that changes regularly, and worse for goals that are bounded on both sides. This is one kind of lack of clarity in the goal - besides if you can change the goal once, who knows when will you change it again? And at worst, right before assessment? This makes people distrust goals, and hence not work towards them or feels super stressed trying to catch up with the goal.

We need to be clear which are the expectations, which are targets that should be generally achievable, and which are the stretch goals which are slightly beyond, but still within the realm of possibility. If a goal that is required and it's beyond by conventional thinking, then be frank about it. This ensures that everyone knows that you know which are possible, which are stretch, which are presently impossible goals, and not just being unreasonable.

It's okay to have impossible goals (I believe what seems impossible will just take a while longer), but be frank about it. It's very demoralising and alienating if you only continue to point at the team's lack of ability to deliver the goals, especially you already know what to be a difficult or impossible goal. Focusing on the results only will just serve to alienate and contribute to the stress.

Point #2: Have a vision of the future

Even if you want to torture your team, you need to give them a good reason for it. There must be a business reason and situation, or a long term strategic reason for pursuing something. It is absolutely important to communicate this to the team, and any assumption that team members will only act selfishly and not think of the team or the company is either foolish, or if true, you've hired the wrong bunch.

Communicate clearly and overtly over the situation, and through this communication, you may even elicit responses or ideas that can help you overcome that goal. Believe that you have the correct talent, and you can share these openly and frankly with them so that they share a common shared vision with you. Tie also this vision to their own growth - both with the company and as an individual and for their own career. The worst thing you can do is to focus on development of the organisation or your own goals and careers and just rebranding it as theirs. At some point in time, your team will find out that you're more about yourself than them, and the lost of trust will be hard to rebuild.

Point #3: Align reward with performance

It would seem absolutely ironic and hypocritical when the leaders of the company espoused a record year for the company, and yet the rewards reaching the average team member doesn't exactly reflect that. Be consistent with your rewards program and your company's financial performance - there's only so much people are willing to tolerate to deliver top results if it doesn't in turn enirch themselves.

Remember that every talent and future leader starts off at the ground level, and hypocrisy often don't sit well with them.

Point #4: Be objective oriented

In a high performing environment, and especially you're either the market or technology leader trying to push the unknown boundaries, you'd expect the probability of failure to increase significantly. Hence the likelihood of a very well thought out plan going on exactly as it had panned out is lower - that doesn't mean that the person didn't plan well or failed to plan, but is the nature of things.

Thus in such an environment, adaptability is of paramount. The ability to manage a situation, and by that it means both the technical, business, and non-technical aspects, is probably more important than to have the answers to everything. So be objective oriented - focus on delivering the business solution, resolving the situation at hand, and not on the person.

People won't get things right all the time. When something goes wrong, focus on what's the next thing to do. When a plan fails to pan out as expected, focus on what alternatives. Have a forward looking approach, even when reflecting on what has happened. Focus on driving the root cause as a method to drive a better approach next time, instead of fault or blame finding. Focus on whether the situation can be handled better, instead of whether a particular person is right or wrong. So there's nothing wrong to place high expectations on the situation, but you should focus on it, and reward the person accordingly when they manage the situation well and resolve the issue accordingly.

Point #5: Encourage collaboration

When we ask for responsibility, we often ask to give individuals a directly responsible measurable, the SMART goal concept. By the nature of businesses, the best outcome for a company requires many indicators to perform well, and in a high performing organisation, these are optimised such that they're often a trade off.

Thus it's inevitable that in SMART goals, they require negotiation and collaboration between the goal owners to strike a balance, wherein the balance results in the best outcome for the entire organisation. If individuals are all only focused on their own goals and defending their own performance index, then it's the same as the prior focus on the individuals and not on the issue. It'd result in the wrong kind of focus, and inevitably counterproductive.

Point #6: Be ready to support

There's nothing more annoying to a top talent than having to deal with a difficult situation with a bunch of mediocre peers, and their supervisors just continuously reminding them of the failure to deliver without offering an iota of support.

Thus when setting a high performance target, trust first that your team is doing their best. If you feel you can't trust your team, then change your team. For you have hired the wrong persons with either the wrong capability, or an incompatible character that doesn't contribute positively to the organisation. Top talents doesn't like to be doubted. Challenge their thinking you must, but it should also be done in a manner that accords respect to both their capability, and their attitude.

Then be ready to support with the resource that they need, or open up the channels of communication to further them. Be an enabler and a sponsor of their success, both for the team and for the team member's own career. It's quite evident to clever people whether you're supporting them so you can extract more value from them, or you're supporting them for their own good.

Conclusion - build trust

Ultimately, a high performing environment is rewarding. But for it to be effective, the fundamental key is trust. Trust between individuals that build a really cohesive team.

Trust is built from earnest care and concern for the team member both professional and personal levels. And when they feel trusted, they'd heed your direction more easily, align with you faster and put in more effort.

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Luck: When Opportunity Meets Preparation

Opportunities are like a public bus - you can choose to run for the one that is about to leave, or you can relax, and wait for the next one that comes.

I hold that truth in the way I approach both opportunities in life, and also in my career. Because the fact is that there's nothing to be gained by lamenting over a lost opportunity, the only thing you can move forward with is to look forward to the next opportunity. And that opportunity will always come - it's just a matter of time.

When we look at an opportunity, we also have to ask ourselves if we are at peace with it? Is it really attracting you, or are you being pushed out from where you are today? If you aren't at peace, or it's more of a push than a pull then I'd say don't take it. For every opportunity more often than not, means more efforts. You may think that the opportunity is an easier life, but often we forget the efficiency we have built up in where we are from - familiarity in both the work, the processes, and also the people. The effect of the network is the most powerful thing you can tap into and transplanting yourself somewhere else, even within the same organisation, means giving up some or the whole part of that and starting over again. That takes effort, and it's only when you're at peace with the opportunity that you'd be willing to put in the effort to make it work.

So if an opportunity does makes peace with us, or we aren't able to grab the opportunity, then what can we do? We can only prepare ourselves. Chinese has put it better - right time, right place, right people.

A lucky break is just that - when the opportunity comes, and we are in the right place, at the right time, with the right people. While we cannot control the opportunity, we can control the preparation. Are you looking out to expand your network? Are you building the skillsets needed? Are you building up your successor?

Networking is often the single most important thing that you can do for your career, and that's often not just a matter of attending a few events and talking to people. Work on projects, even if it's not related to your core work. This helps you show people that you have what it takes, and often, non-core work activities can give you access to people you normally don't have access to and allow them to asses your aptitude and attitude. Trust is not solely built on some written evidences, but familiarity with a particular person makes the norming and acceptance process much more easier.

Then you enhance that with your pedigree. Be ready to shoulder more so you can showcase yourself. Betting on tasks and projects that seems to have the highest visibility may seem logical, but more often than not, it's harder through that approach. For when something is having the highest visiblity, you lose control of the reality - people fighting for the same piece of the pie (you think others don't know?), multiple stakeholders with complex (and even conflicting) interests that limit your ability to flex yourself, and generally the amount of high level attention can either make you, or break you. Visibility works both ways, and you may end up having to share too much credit if the work is super big. It's better to build your pedigree with what you can control, and what you have free reign over - in that way you can shape things the way you'd want it to be.

The last thing that many forget, especially those exploring within their organisations, is that the more critical you become in a certain position, the less likely you'd be free to move around. It may sound crazy to some to share the opportunities at work, or give up certain opportunities to your peers, but that's actually important. Your expertise both ensures your importance (and job security, and vertical movement within your organisations) but also significantly reduces that chances from any potential lateral opportunities. It's a double edged sword: you've become simply too mission critical for the team. So share that opportunity - uplift the people around you, and at the same time, increase your flexibility.

In these ways, you prepare yourself for opportunities to come. And when the opportunity come, you have the decision power in your hand and not be tied down by your circumstances.

[labitx]

Critical Thinking, Excellence and a Demanding Citizenry

Only the best, and anything less than perfect is failure.

That quote pretty much sums up the expectations that individual levy on society. As the thinking capacity of a society increases through improved education, general skepticism increases. An independent thinker would always look at the present state and analyze the situation through the own lenses. Since each individual’s exposure and thinking capacity is different, this would result in a myriad of, but invariably skeptical, comments regarding how the society and the government is advancing forward. There will always be someone who retrospectively believe that there’s something that can be done better in a certain way, and hence, the (things we think are) impossible would just take a while longer - its just that someone have yet to come up with a way to circumvent the current limitations.

But is this expectation able to be matched by what is actually delivered, or practically deliverable by the society and the government? Not always. A good example would be civics. One would expect that as the education and cultural level in a society increases, we would improve in our civic behavior without social engineering and interventions. However one look at major cities in developed countries would clarify that it’s not true. No matter how socially advanced a society is, there will always be someone left behind. It’s not right or wrong, its just the reality.

The best way to look at the relationship between expectations and actual deliverable is somewhat best described by a Malthusian catastrophe - expectations growing linearly while actual deliverable tend to plateau after some time. When a society is poorly developed, a small stimulus can result in a huge improvement. Thus in the early stages, the actual deliverable often exceed the expectations of the society since a poorly developed society would expect very little. However as the society progresses, we learn from our experience of past progression and hence increases our expectations. At some point, these overlaps and beyond that, the expectation of the society becomes higher than what is actually deliverable. 

This results in a situation whereby expectation exceeds deliverable, and hence results in a discontented society. However, here is where the interesting thing is. As compared to the society raising expectations when deliverable exceed initial expectations, society seldom decrease their expectation when the deliverable failed to meet their expectations. This ever increasing demand thus behest us to understand why we have ever increasing demands.

The root of people’s demands lies in their mindset, which in turn is formed through their experience, including family, education, society and many more cultural & soft factors.

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Cool to be Liberal, to Oppose

It is a fine line between critical analysis, reasonable stand and outright opposition for the sake of it.

Since the teenager and youth burst into the mainstream and first took the spotlight in the 60s and 70s, the influence of youths in our society have dramatically increased over the decades. Eroding the transitional structure and tearing down ageism in our society, the world today is open to the youths expressing themselves. With social media, these opinions of the youths are well heard and influences social norms.

Young people are naturally free thinking, footloose and generally anti-establishment, a hangover from the desire to break free from parental control as a teenager. Thus it is natural that the youths subscribe to liberalism. This often grows into full blown movements in colleges (think liberal arts college) and often drag into workplaces whereby they are not afraid to challenge the current state of matter.

That is good. A truly liberal society is one whereby everyone can express their opinions without worry of repercussions. Freedom of speech is and should be encouraged. This helps to keep thinking alive and ensures that many ideas are generated and all perspectives can be considered when making a decision. The culture of open and frank discussions also help to nurture an atmosphere of trust and acceptance between the different factions in a society. It helps to break down barriers and everyone can work together to create a more peaceful society.

What is then the worry? The worry is 2 fold - to the individual and to the society.

To the individual, there is the problem of self righteousness. A truly liberal person would accept that everyone have differing opinions. However it is an observable phenomenon that most liberals on social media are not as accepting of others opinions. Why is then that, something which seems relatively contrary to their liberalism tendencies? Self righteousness.

Most mankind are more self-centered than they would rate themselves. They consider doing something not for the altruistic purpose of doing it, but more of how they can benefit from it. Many volunteer so they can have a more wholesome résumé. That's similar in liberals, whereby they take their belief so strongly that the defense of their beliefs takes precedence against what their belief advocates. That is especially true in ultra-liberals - they vehemently defend their position against anything that have the slightest tinge of conservatism. That is dangerous as it can easily result in the polarization of society, like any extremist culture.

To the society, it has an impact on social cohesion. The manner to which freedom of speech is true must be considered. Even in regions known for their freedom of expression, there's often an accepted sensitivity by the society to others in the society. France being an obvious outlier (making personal jokes and attacks on others are routine and actually acceptable), Europe generally have a taboo against anti-semitism and are combating neo-nazism with great fervor. America defends their freedom of speech, yet have a complex set of unwritten social rules about afro-Americans, or blacks or whatever is 'politically correct' to say. These examples are examples of curbs at pure freedom due to the fact that we are living in a society. When we live in a society, we need to learn to respect one another and considers each other's sensitivities when exercising our freedom.

Clearly today liberals hold the high ground in social media, aided by the fact that their stand allows them to take the natural moral high ground. Social aid for the underprivileged, uplift the poor, equal access by everyone. Those are great ideals and would definitely be good if they truly worked. That is the allure of liberalism and socialism to most people, especially the youths whom are full of ideals and aspirations. They aspire to do the moral thing, which is viewed as the right thing.

But as above, humans are self centered and when they are in an advantageous position, they want to keep that. Hence liberalism is more often that not used as a tool for revolution in the modern era. A tool used by those who doesn't have power to shake up the current forces, not for the betterment of society but so that in the flux they can take the dominant position. That is probably the main reason why the revolutions in the Middle East failed to work - people who have tried having power eventually get tainted by it and end up working for themselves instead of the society.

Moreover because of the dominant position of liberalism amongst the youth, mix that in with a bit of schoolyard politics and you've got yourself a repressive environment against any form of conservatism. Thus it would seem to be uncool to be conservative. But does that mean that nobody have conservative tendencies? No. It is just repressed. It is also probably the main reason why the latest British elections turned out shocking results. People professing something doesn't equate what they think, and doesn't that sound contrary to liberalism. But the fact is that the ultra-liberalism dominance of social media and youth social circles have suppressed those who are in the middle, straddling between a moderate conservatism and moderate liberalism outlook. This gave a false sense of the dominance of liberalism.

So in this mess, what's the truth? The fact is that liberal tendencies is good, most still consider the realities of the world. There's a good reason why communism generally fell across the world - the extreme left is not sustainable. Hence a truly liberal society is one that respects all opinions, and discourse being encouraged without affecting each other's feelings. Hardline stands are the worse for a cohesive society, and the key to a cohesive yet liberal society is one that breaks communication barriers down and eliminate hardliners.

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Enclaves, Groupthink & Social Media

Internet helps in the liberation of information and communication. Social media reverse liberation to form enclaves.

The internet began with military roots, and hence secretive. However when it was made available to the general public, its purpose quickly transformed into a quick platform for the transmission of information. Anyone and everyone could put information out there, and there is an equal number of others who search the internet for information that they require. 

As time passes, this system becomes more complex as the internet grew and took on more roles and functions. Today, it is a sprawling system that allows you to do pretty much through this interface. However with such complexities also come with its problems - navigation. Thus search engines came to the rescue. Since the early 90s, search engines came and go. Today, we are dominated by the ubiquitous Google, so much so that googling means to search the web. 

The reason for Google’s dominance is the power of its search engine which can almost always provide you a solution you most expect. This is done through understanding you - your history of search, your web behavior and many things which defines you. However this also creates a known problem - the google bubble. Precisely because it anticipates what you want, it goes against the purpose of internet which is to make available all information openly, because certain parts of the internet is closed to you if you search through Google. 

So what’s the problem? People are comfortable with that. They want expected answers and things that are in line with what they are thinking. If you instead search using something like duckduckgo.com, you will realise there is a whole slew of alternative information and opinions that are different from yours.

Why is this important? Not wanting to hear something that doesn’t sit well with you is the first step to segregation. 

In today’s context, the greatest source of worry is perhaps social media and community forums. Since the internet liberated and accelerated communication between people, people have started to form interest groups on the internet as community forums and discussion pages. These are usually highly specialised and discussed common topics. Amongst them, most are hobbyist groups and some are socioeconomic and sociopolitical forums for people with an interest in these topics. This made it easy for people with common interest to organize themselves, but at the same time also made it much more easily for people to form enclaves. 

More often than not, if one has a certain bend in a subject, you tend to read forums and websites that support your viewpoint in a self-reinforcing manner. Over time, this has the same effect as groupthink. Different groups would develop a false impression that their viewpoints are supported by ‘everyone’, and would claim that other parties are ‘wrong’ and ‘minorities’ in the society without actually knowing the true nature. Pro or against, the inability to recognize and respect that someone have an equal and opposite stand with its own reasonable bases for their decision constitutes to segregation. This creates a highly bigoted society with contentious and differing groups, a bad concoction when you want to create a cohesive and inclusive society.

Social media is just the next incarnation of this development that helps to further propagate that. The key problem with social media is it is outside of social planning controls, and in today’s connected world, anyone and everyone can conveniently access social media or even create one at their own will. This results in information control that is traditionally used to be in feasible to stop the propagation of objectionable and subjective information. But the question is then, do we need to? 

Facts show that human nature have not changed over time - we still like to reinforce our own thoughts. But that doesn’t mean that there is a risk of radicalization which is a possibility and a danger only in a vulnerable society - people are not well informed and could not really think for themselves. If we can recognize that, then we have a better solution which is to propagate critical thinking, open discussions and promote paths of amicable discourse. Instead of creating an environment of hostility towards opposing ideas, promote the discussion and cross critique by different parties. Develop a culture whereby people can seek discourse with respect for each’s position.

An educated society is not necessary a thinking and questioning society. Only in a thinking and questioning society, people can be comfortable with disagreements and discuss issues as that. Bringing the discussion out helps, and let the better fact speak for itself.

Thus it is probably not hard to say that any sort of reading bias would land you into groupthink. You think you're enlightened because you don't take government propaganda, but inevitably you're allowing yourself to be taken over by opposing propaganda. That is equally bad

[labitx]

Support or Oppose

To oppose something is not always equal to support of the reverse.

In a world where bigotry is the norm (communist v.s. capitalist, liberal v.s. conservative), people often associate opinion as a binary state - that is the expression of opposition to one implies the support of the other. However in reality people are often not binary in their thought. Assuming a simple linear relationship between the 2 opposing ends, most people’s opinion lie somewhere in between with a tendency to either depending on the importance of each criteria to the individual and their socioeconomic bend. Even someone far left or far right often does not subscribe to a purist view of their stance.

Expanding on that thought, what’s more in a multifaceted world which is a better representation of how our world are. Instead of being expressed as a point on a line, our opinions are better expressed in spider diagrams with different tendencies towards each apex but definitely not purist. In such an environment, it is thus often a fallacy to claim that the opposition of A would support A’, its equal and opposite.

Bringing this to a political context, the ruling government always have the difficult task of trying to satisfy every group in society. But anyone with common sense (or, if you have placed Democracy 3) would know that it is not possible to implement policies that satisfy everyone. So more often than not, you try to appease as many as possible i.e. a utilitarian approach, and a society above the individual approach to policy making. This inevitably means that there are some people left out of these policies, and would over time develop resentment to the incumbent government and look for alternatives. This then begs the question, is this support for the opposition, or opposition to the incumbent?

There is a subtle yet important difference between that. Yes, both would inevitably result in the same outcome which is that the vote of this particular person would go to the opposition. However the basis of this decision is important.

If one’s purpose is opposition to the incumbent, the purpose of voting for the opposition is more often than not to ‘wake up the government’ or ‘teach the incumbent a lesson’, which means that the vote is driven through hate. This would likely imply that the one who cast the vote didn’t consider carefully the possibility of the party which one voted for would be sent into power and how their rule would be, and that the position and stand which the party would take may not be totally in line with the expectation that one have of the government.

For the people, the implications are wide in the sense that they might end up with a government that is far inferior, and yet still do not serve their needs exactly. Thus it is probably prudent to say that even if you dislike the incumbent government, consider voting the opposition only when one is certain that one is fully comfortable with the opposition, and better if one fully subscribes to the party manifesto and ideology.

To bring that further, the correct way to decide on a vote is to put aside the incumbent or the opposition and evaluate each election by itself. In a representative democracy with party associations, this decision is based on a combination of 2 things - the representative itself and the ideals of the party. For the party ideology, it is important that it align with yours. This of course entails that one have to be clear with what kind of society and ideal state that one have in mind. Else not, it would be a waste of time to consider this. After that, the individual candidate have to be evaluated to determine the suitability of that individual to be part of the government, and to represent one’s interests. Which factor is more important is personal - is it worthwhile to vote against a good candidate and politician that have done much good (much more if it personally benefited one) simply because that politician is in the opposite camp? It is a trade off that everyone have to make a decision on.

For the politicians, that seems to be the weakness that many oppositions try to exploit. After all, this is your life but it is their livelihood - they need to get voted into power. Such a careerist approach towards running for office is bad, and will only result in very populist approach towards governance and not considering what is truly good for the people and for the country.

An interesting observation can be made when looking further than opposition-incumbent interaction, and look at opposition-opposition interaction. When 2 opposition parties with vastly different ideologies seem to be too friendly with each other, that’s probably a good red flag. It begs a question whether they are campaigning to make a change to the society and expand their beliefs, or are they simply working towards unseating the incumbent? That is typically prevalent in systems whereby there is a dominating majority from one party.

It may seem trivial to many - why is it important what they are fighting for? There are 2 factors.

1. If they are fighting to simply unseat the incumbent, their sole purpose and agenda is geared towards such. This would mean that their ideology is an innate belief and strongly entrenched. When they come to power, they may not act along the lines which they have previously espoused. The agenda is simply there to serve the populist purpose of garnering them votes.

2. If their efforts are focused on critiquing the incumbent (in an effort to unseat them), they aren’t really preparing the deployment of their own ideology. Some general papers about how it can be deployed with no data or projections / basis of calculations to back that paper up is nothing more than fighting a war on paper.

I am sure that even opposition parties don’t see eye to eye because of ideological differences, and more likely because of personal needs. People who are 100% committed to something would fight their very best to secure get their position, for they have taken an all-in approach towards it. Same in politics, anyone who exhibits less of a fight means that politics is probably a part time or CCA to them. They have personal interests vested elsewhere and would not be up to their best performance to represent you.

In conclusion, when selecting something, it is important to make it clear to yourself are you making that selection our of support or opposition. That attitude and approach makes a big difference.

[labitx]

Democracy and Good Governance

Democracy does not result in good governance - it simply prevents poor governments from stay in power forever.

Democracy innately serves 2 purposes. Firstly, it defines the source which the government draws it’s power from to be the people. The people have a right to choose who to lead them, and in cases of conflict, the minority respects the decisions of the majority. The popular vote as we know it defines the characteristics of governance styles in most representative democracies in the world today. 

Secondly, it is also a process of enabling the transition of power from one government to another peacefully. Democracy is like a civil proxy for war. You fight on the podium for popular support with words and ideas instead of forcefully taking control of a piece of land through warfare like in the older days. It facilitates this through the first purpose - by asking people who they want to represent them and the power transitions by such. A necessary instrument in a world with the rule of law.

All that sounds great. Let’s say you don’t like whoever is representing you now. So great, you get to have a say in who you want to represent you, and I say that because although you have a say, it does not guarantee that the person who you want will eventually represent you. Democracy also advocates the ideas of utilitarianism - the respect for the majority and for the benefit of the majority. This is also in-line with the idea of the popular vote - a politician would need a majority support to win and hence would want to make decisions that are good for the majority. Thus only if sufficiently large number of people have the same idea as you, that alternative would be the elected person and eventually represents you.

At this point, there is another question. That is, have you ever made a wrong decision before?

Of course everyone makes a bad decision once in a while, or sometimes more often than we would want to. Thus there is always a possibility that the population makes the wrong decision in their vote, selecting the wrong people into power. There are a myriad of ways this can go wrong - an angry population can be easily radicalized. Well, Hitler was first voted into power before he seized the government and turned it into a dictatorship. That is as good an example as any that democracies can also result in bad people getting into power.

Browsing through social media today, it is evident that there are many people who are not happy with the democratic processes, more so in less free countries but the same complaints are existing in traditionally strong democracies like in Britain or the U.S. It is thus interesting to examine further such comments of relationship between an incompetent government and a poor democratic system. However as said previously, there is always a chance that the entire country makes a mistake and votes into power a poor government. Hence one just have to delve deeper to find that what they are yearning for is a competent and strong government, and not exactly the democracy itself.

Flash to another hypothetical circumstance. A strong and competent government takes power. The government manage to improve the lives of most of its citizens and deliver what the citizens needs. The fact that the government is able to meet the demands of most of its citizens would ensue its continued governing, which is another function of democracy - a mechanism to validate the mandate of the people to the government which it votes into power. The more people supporting a government, the stronger the mandate.

In such circumstances, insistence on democratic processes serve more as hindrance to advancement. For example, Franklin D. Roosevelt. served 4 terms as president, leading America through the new deal and eventually through the second world war. No doubt there are critics, it does not make any of his contributions lesser to Americans and U.S. If the 22nd amendment had been in effect, he wouldn’t have been able to continue serving and the country won’t benefit from his good governance. In such a circumstance, it forces one to select a lesser person even though there is a more qualified candidate which is highly un-meritocratic. That is relatively unfair.

When we look at this together, it is in fact good governance that people are looking for. The innate links to democracy is due to the corruption of power, whereby human nature results in most people who hold power for long terms to be corrupted by it, serving themselves more than the people who they are accountable to. The fact that there are good emperors and kings in the past that have done great for their people shows that democracy is not a necessary ingredient for good governance. Though, as said, most people get corrupted by power and hence there are not many good kings and emperors that last through their lives - usually they become self-obsessed when they reach old age.

Having said that, it does not diminish the importance of democracy in contributing governance. Instead of looking at a way to ensure good governance, democracy serves to ensure that bad governance does not hang around for long. Once the government is not able to deliver for most people, democracy allow the people to remove any incompetent government and not allow them to take root. This is what is happening in most dictatorships around the world - the dictator is a bad leader and the people want to remove him. Think, why would you want to remove a good leader just for the sake of democracy? You’d definitely stand to loose more, like in the cases of many good American presidents that came after the 22nd Amendment with Ronald Reagan as an example.

Thus for discussions about democracy and its benefits for the people, one should set the perspective right. Democracy is an enabler for good governance, in the sense it allows peaceful removal of a poor government, but it does not ensure that the selected government is good. Ultimately, it is good governance that is important and not democratic processes itself.

[labitx]

Aims, Policy and Reality

A good policy is one that recognizes the innate ugliness of humankind and attempts to correct it. 

As much as many people would want to deny it, humans are full of deficiencies. From our social attitude to our work ethic, many people exhibit varying degrees of ugliness. We are no where near perfect. People we consider good men are simply those who possesses, or for some exhibit publicly, lesser of these ugly nature. Thus more often than not idealist who believe in the best of mankind find themselves disadvantaged, for lack of a realistic expectation. 

This is all okay if we were to consider the individual - you can really do whatever you want. But in today's world, most of us belong to a society and generally a part of the larger world community. Thus we not only have responsibility to ourselves, we have responsibility to others to. This is where the problem begins, for most of these ugliness of mankind start to exhibit not when we are by ourselves, but when we are around others. Hey, if there's no other humans, how does one commit murder? 

Jokes aside, this is the basis of the law - to outline the rules of engagement between different humans and define the appropriate remedies when these rules of engagement are broken. The purpose of lawmakers and policy writers, namely the government today, is thus to develop a set of policies and laws that addresses these issues of interaction between humans. 

Generally speaking, one can classify the approach in 2 ways based on their innate assumption - the best of mankind or the worst of mankind. To illustrate that, a good example would be to compare the penal system in Finland and U.S. The Finnish penal system is based on the assumption of the best of mankind, that humans are innately good and willing to change. Thus the system encompasses a very relaxed jailor system with a highly rehabilitative approach, preparing them to re-integrate into the society at large. On the other hand, the American system is one that assumes the worst of mankind, that bad guys will always be bad. Thus it seeks to keep these men away from the society, and act as a deterrence to prevent them to re-committing the act when released.

The key to understanding how to approach making good laws and policies is that none of these assumptions are the best - it depends on the circumstance. Based on the example above, we can see that assuming the worst out of humans does nothing to help and it is better to assume that they will change and prepare them for re-integrating into society. However when we look at other cases, we would probably want to assume the worse out of society, such as in cases of compliance in business practices. That might not be true for most of the society, but it is a safeguard and assurance.

It is important to know that assuming the best and worst requires a keen understanding of human nature, as it is different in different situations. If human nature exhibits positive tendencies in an aspect and you assume the worst of it, you would be creating a policy and system that goes against the societal attitude and results in resentment. On the other hand, if human nature is innately negative but you assume it to be positive, you remove necessary safeguards to assure the stability and peaceful nature of the society. Thus good governance is a good balance of both, maintaining good agreement with societal expectations and assuring the stability of the society.

The application of such an analysis is of great importance when aligning government aims and policy. Governments often have an aim which they want to achieve in society which can be anything from supporting LGBT movement to racial neutrality. This stance stems from either societal attitudes towards the issue of the attitude of the government itself. he translation of this to society and everyday life is through policies and laws. 

More often than not, governments directly translate these aims into laws that espouses these ideals. However this is not realistic for it fails to consider the nature of humans and their innate attitude towards these issues. Adding to that, the fact that a government have to intervene in it means that there is a good chance that the society at large is generally negative towards it. Thus that bags a question, is it just simply good enough to express that aim in the law? Most likely it would be no.

Let’s take equality as a good example. The most likely imperative for any kind of laws expressing equality is that there is innate inequality in the society in that respect, for example, race. Humans are generally racist, no matter whether you like to admit to it or not. We are more comfortable with people who look and speak like us. Admittedly, the west have always tried to impose laws regarding equality of race in terms of employment and what not. However these laws seems to be highly inefficient in making society less racial. For example, in the U.S. racial related issues are still highly prevalent and communities tend to group themselves according to their racial background. That is the nature of the humans themselves, and that shows that the laws definitely did not serve to achieve any of its set aims.

Anyone who have done process control understand that for you to return something to neutrality, you need to take overt action in the opposite direction. It’s called counterbalance and that ensures practicality which achieves the desired outcome. Taking the racial example, the best solution to achieve racial harmony is probably found in my home country - a racial law to eliminate racial differences. Forcing people of different races to stay in close proximity, distributing foreigners across the country, using a very racial approach towards policy making inevitably makes people of different races having to interact and live in the same location and over time acclimatize to each other and understanding each other’s way of life. I would go as far to say that if not for the ethnic melting point, I would not be able to feel comfortable being around people of any race or religion. The use of racial laws to counterbalance the innate nature of people to separate themselves from people of other races, forcing them to integrate and eventually achieve the aim of racial neutrality as much as possible.

Another good example is with the problem of gerrymandering. People often claim that gerrymandering is a hindrance to democratic advancement, and that the best way to avoid this is to avoid changing electoral boundaries. However people move and no matter at what point in time you fix it, you can’t avoid an eventual situation whereby people are split along some kind of political allegiance resulting in some constituencies having a disproportionate number of supporters for a party. Since the politicians’ aim is to keep their positions, the strategy used is for politicians to run for positions in constituencies that they are almost assured to win. This creates a stagnant government and definitely does not help democratic advancement. Instead the best solution towards fixing within the government is to gerrymander, but in the opposite direction. Instead of gerrymandering to the advantage of political parties, do it in such a way that each party have an almost equal chance of winning the constituency. This will bump up the competition and ensure healthy advancement of democracy. Since the nature of this practice will jeopardize the position of policymakers, it’s highly unlikely that any country would adopt such a practice. However in theory, it’s best for the people this way.

If this is so, then why governments today still choose to pass laws that are neutral? That’s because it is more important for politicians to look correct than to achieve the correct outcome. However if it is indeed for the people, then it can be argued that the actual outcome of the policy is more important than the idea expressed by the policy or law itself. The writing of the law is immaterial to the everyday person, the outcome is. What more if the written law have no actual impact on the lives of the every day person? It would thus be more correct to align the outcome with the aim the government have in mind, and then write the policy that will enable this alignment. That is truly effective.

In conclusion, it is important to understand that simply expressing the aim of the government in laws does nothing at all. The way to achieve the aim is to understand human nature in that respect, and design policies and laws that help to counterbalance and ameliorate the innate tendencies of the humans to achieve the eventual desired outcome which is more important. Else, this quote is the best expression of neutral laws - “The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing”

[labitx]

From 3rd World to 1st - 光耀百年

Even from my sick bed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel something is going wrong, I will get up.

- Lee Kuan Yew, National Day Rally 1988

Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the founding Prime Minister of modern Singapore is no more. Today he rested, but he did not get up again. But he did that only when knowing that we are in good shape and in good hands. He dedicated his entire life to Singapore, you can question his methods, but you can never question his commitment and conviction. Reading this statement made in the year I was born and looking at my life now, I’d say he earned his well deserved rest.

Seldom have the passing of a great person affected me, but LKY’s passing today have made my heart heavy. He isn’t the only great person I admire - from Rajaratnam, Goh Keng Swee to Toh Chin Chye, his team of 1st class leaders deserved all my admiration, but passing in the advanced aged (90+) were felt by me as a point of remembrance and respect for I believed their long and illustrious lives were lived to their fullest.

It may be the fact that his presence is felt throughout my life as a Singaporean, whereby all other old guards were only one for the history books. Born when he was the Prime Minister, first knew him as our Senior minister and studied about him as our Minister Mentor, Singaporeans born in my generation have been thoroughly baptised in his influence for our formative years were when his policies were most complete and whole. The way we think, the way we work - these are all directly shaped by his policies and vision.

Thus for a person whom I’ve never met or interacted with in real life, he feels exceedingly close. I look around me, the education I had received, the house I stay in, the availability of resources to me & the opportunities that I am given, people from any other countries would die for. Self centered people would think that all these is by their own effort (or maybe by their parents effort). But in reality, the more important factor is the overarching direction and the underlying vision that were set into motion to bring out the chance for you to achieve this. If there was no vision of a garden city, we would not have our beautiful and meticulously clean Singapore. If there was no ideals for home ownership, there won’t be HDB. If there were no conscious efforts to bring in MNCs to Singapore and link our local universities up to overseas universities, educational options and employment options would be limited. All these enable you to go forth to achieve the success that you think is only by your effort.

It may also be his conviction to the good of Singapore that was shown through that statement, and his pervasive influence in the decision making of the government of Singapore till the day he drew his last breath that brought out my utmost respect. For a man that was committed not to retire, he lived up to his motto. After stepping down as PM, he changed his focus to helping Singapore develop networks that benefited Singapore directly and indirectly. He cast the net of Singapore far and wide, bringing back with him the fruits of his relationships with other world leaders. Not for his own glory, but for the greater benefit of Singapore. ESM Goh carries forward this mission today.

I doubt that anyone could have achieved what he had done without the same pitfalls of his policies and approach. I don’t believe that there’s another person that can make a better decision with the options and resources available to him. He made the best decision for us, it is now up to the scholars that will study his illustrious political career to deliver the definitive verdict.

What really makes me sad is not his passing, but the Singaporeans who don’t understand him. If you read his books, get into his mind, you’d realise that there is wisdom beyond the Art of War in that mind. His understanding of the realities and the inner workings of this world is immense and unbelievably accurate. The truth may be hard to swallow, for he throws in front of you the both the pretty and ugly truth about humanity. He is a realist, he sees how the world works and suit it to the best of his advantage. That applied to Singapore brought us the pragmatism and the famously unashamed meritocratic approach in the way which Singapore works. You may say that he doesn’t aspire to human ideals, but let me ask you, how many of those are real, and how many more have we created over time? If you bend to these ideals, you’d never finish catching up with them.

I never really feel overtly proud of Singapore when in Singapore. For LKY was right, the typical Singaporean is hard-working, industrious, rugged, but he is also a typical grumbler. What can I say to these people? Take a step out of the country and see for yourself, then you would know what we have achieved is not by chance. I was traveling to Denmark for my exchange program when I stopped by Dubai for a few days. What shocked me the most was at the airport when my passport was being checked for travel to Europe. The counter lady was shocked at our accessibility, from a small island nation. These are moments I feel proud to have served my NS, hold my pink IC and my red passport. Today I can think about selecting a different government because Singapore is now a stable and strong economy, no little thanks to LKY. But back then? I wouldn’t risk anything else. If you want me to choose a person to follow, it’d be him.

No man is perfect in his thoughts, you’re not God. But this is sure one man that is more perfect than others. He fought hard to defend his position. People in this era who didn’t have to fight tooth and nail to just survive don’t understand his stance towards politics. Western civilisation have been established and stable for a long while, and they are all big countries. But Singapore is small and new, it is different. The tough approach is like how you fight in a war which is what democracy is about - making war one with words instead of swords.

Although his passing comes few months shy of our nation’s 50th birthday, but I believe that the man who led us at the birth of our nation doesn’t want us to look back and bemoan his times. Instead in this true pragmatic approach, I believe that his greatest wish is for us to build on the work of his life and bring Singapore to great success.

Like all great people, he won’t live physically forever. But the difference is that great people are remembered for their works. And his works will not and God forbids all Singaporeans to forget what he had done for us in our lives. The fact that anyone reading this could sit comfortably in their home and being connected to the internet with all their creature comforts are a testament to what we had achieved. I sincerely believe that he epitomises what my Singapore is about, and it is only through his vision and leadership that we are at where we are today.

The question now is, what’s next?

My take? His passing marks a great watershed moment for Singapore in our way forward. His ways and means were suited for his times and it was the best decision. It has brought us thus far. But now that he’s gone, there should be no baggage to innovate for our times. Things will start to change with the changing social and political attitudes in Singapore, and this change will continue to dominate the socio-politics of Singapore. However I must still say that the ability for us having this choice is predicated on where we are standing today. Where we are standing today is the ground world laid by our forefathers.

I thank you Mr Lee Kuan Yew, for all that you have done for Singapore, for all that you have done for me. You are indeed a truly great leader, a thinker and an inspiration to me. Because of you, I am where I am today.

[labitx]

Modern Fengshui Masters - A Critique on Reviews and Reviewers

The information technology age have ushered in an era of cheap and easily available information. The internet connected us to every part of the world in an instant, Google & graph search technology made it easy for us to search through the entire web for things that we are interested in. To fill up the space on the web with the information, we have the critics and reviewers.

Today we have reviews for almost anything - from articles on CNet / Tech Radar to fashion & lifestyle bloggers to Let’s play & fashion tutorials on YouTube, we can easily look for information about products, services or destinations that we are interested in. There will also be home-made techniques, hacks & tricks that is put out there by a plethora of people. Most of these people claim to have a specific interest in those topics that the write or speak about, and many others claim to be experts. Others, such as those on Q&A websites are simply ‘good samaritans’ that offers advise and clarifications to others who need them.

Would like to first think about the experts. These ‘experts’ seemed to have devoted so much of their time to experimenting and researching on their topic of interest. They also seem to have an exposure to a wide variety of that particular product and have considerable experience. Thus when the reviewer or critique says something is really good, it must be really good for me too. It would be stupid not to take the advise of these ‘experts’! Sounds logical? Except that it is not.

That may come as a shock, but the key to understanding this is to appreciate the fact that things exists in context. When something is taken out of context, then it is only a fact, but not the truth i.e. it doesn’t present you the complete picture. You would always need to consider the environment in which the review is being done and more than often it is the reviewer themselves. Most of them are probably leading a very different life from you - they write or film videos when you don’t being the most obvious difference. The lifestyle of the reviewer is very important for everything have multiple functions and its benefits and pitfalls can only be seen through the context, which is the lifestyle.

Based on that, I’d go to argue that most reviewers reviews aren’t suitable for mass consumer products but instead should be more suited for niche fields. For example, high end photographic equipment reviews are often written by someone which have a significant interest, no matter a professional or an amateur, in photography for other like minded people. High fidelity sound systems & earphones / headphones reviews are done by audiophiles for other audiophiles. In these situations, the reviewer’s pretext and the reader’s pretext is the same – they both have relatively similar level of interest in the topic at hand just probably the reviewer have had the first adopter advantage or have had more exposure opportunities while the reader haven’t had the same luxury. Thus the review is indeed useful for the lifestyle specific to that aspect is the same.

However if we were to consider mass consumer products, they are produced for the widest variety of audiences. Let’s take smartphones as an example which is relatively appropriate as it is probably the quintessential mass consumer product of this decade. A smartphone is pretty diverse, it can be used for simple purposes and for much more complex tasks. It can vary from very easy to use to very technically challenging to operate. Pretty much it exists quite differently for different people and hence explains the nearly infinite number of models and iterations of them. However if you realise, invariably smartphones are reviewed by techies who have some vested interest in smartphones and are set about exploring their usability. This is very much in contrast with the reader which consists of a population of people looking at performing only simple tasks or slightly advanced tasks on their smartphone. Most of the people don’t even utilise 30% of the customizations and functions available on their smartphones! Thus this presents a mismatch between the reviewer’s frame of mind and the reader’s frame of mind. Such reviews are potentially misleading for the reader, for it may mislead them into making the wrong decisions.

Seemingly appropriate and related to information on the web is the recent scrutiny and fire that the social media marketing scene had come under recently. Mainstream media and traditional advertising is probably here to stay another few decades, but its heyday is definitely over and over. Today we see more and more people looking for information online, and since the web is a place whereby anyone and anybody can put information on, there is a surge and rise in self-made popular figures in the social media. Instagram, YouTube, Blogger and many other platforms simply enabled this phenomenon by providing a common platform whereby anyone can put anything they want online. This increased the chances of your everyday person becoming famous and popular. With that popularity comes influence that traditionally is only held by a select few that is selected by mainstream media.

This is a definitely a much welcomed refreshing new trend and definitely shook up the advertising and marketing meta-game that have pretty much staged unchanged since the invention of the radio and television. However this also means that the web is also becoming saturated with advertisements, and in the debated case, embedded into the messages of these popular figures. The method of embedding the information is scary, for it often makes it hard to distinguish between the true reviews and comments and paid advertisements whereby these figures and reviewers are bound to say good things about the products that they are discussing. In traditional advertising, it is clear what you see on television is most probably paid advertisement. But in social media marketing techniques, the message is more sublime and embedded. What makes it even further confusing and misleading is that most of these social media influencers often start off by themselves doing actual reviews and commentaries that gained them the following in the early days that made their career possible. Thus when there is a precept that this person’s review is trustworthy, it is probably indistinguishable if they start sneaking in some paid advertisements.

This is the part which makes social media marketing much more efficient that traditional marketing and that’s why companies are willing to invest into this method of advertisement. However it is this exact method that is called to question over the ethics of using the trust which the public have put into these figures to increase their . In some way, you can say that there is a breach of trust for readers trust that the information put forth is true and real but in fact it’s a constructed advertisement which is what the readers did not support the influencer for. However if we were to label it as advertisement, the technique would yield much poorer or only comparable results as traditional advertisement through endorsement. This presents another realm of challenge to anyone finding information online.

The best analogy of looking for advise or review online is perhaps that of the geomancer. A geomancer advises you on how to set-up the best fengshui for your house, but the fundamental thing is that the house is yours and you should decorate the way that you like it. If you do everything by your geomancer, it becomes the geomancer’s house and not yours. Choose carefully what you read or listen to – don’t follow blindly.

[labitx]

The Elusive Nature of Rights

It takes the taking away of rights to accord rights.

Sounds confusing? Not really when you consider the right to freedom of speech in inherently restricted when interacting with freedom from discrimination & worker rights. The right to free association is diminished by the fact that extremist groups are banned in the name of protection from harm. The discussion of rights to this extent sounds absurd? It surely is.

Instead I’d prefer to put it in perspective through the concept of an individual sphere of influence. Rights activists often tout human rights that are often very individualistic. However the reality is that we live in a society with others around. With that comes the need for consideration of others. You can thus say that the limitation of individual rights come from societal needs. For example, you can say whatever you want but you have to consider if you are offending others with your speech for they too have rights in freedom from oppression and hate.

Thus a utopian societies where both civics and individual rights are completely uphold is not possible. The civics of society acts as a barrier which helps to prevent your individual rights from infringing on the individual rights of others. At the same time you're entitled to go anywhere you want, others have a right to deny you entry to their private property and so do you have on others. Thus bringing the concept of rights and freedom to totality and absolute will simply reduce the argument to absurdity. Society simply cannot function that way and civics is the compromise between individual rights and a stable society

All in all, the premise of rights is to the extent whereby it has no perceptible impact on others. The basic premise is that every individual has a sphere that you cannot enter without his permission.

[labitx]

Let the Facts Speak for Themselves, or for You

Very often facts, data and figures speak for you and not for themselves. Product positioning is almost ubiquitous in today's mass marketing world. We are used to companies that offer a range of products, each targeting at a different consumer group. That is, the design specifics and highlighted features are aimed at capturing some part of the society. Companies tend to inflate the benefits of their products and if ever they publish the downside (which is almost never), it is heavily downplayed. To many people that is something that only marketers do, for they can easily mislead the unknowing public. But this can be easily done in professional circles as well. Let me introduce a little less known practice called data positioning. That is the same data set can speak differently in the hands of different people. This is based on the fact that most information can be interpreted in multiple ways depending on what you want. For example, you can compare with competition based on the number of products sold, market share or profits. All three are valid ways of comparison, but you would realize that the can each paint a very different story about how your company stand against competition. Further manipulation of data will make the conclusion even more diverse, for example, by breaking the data up into customer segments. Such data manipulation is not wrong unless the basis for these manipulation is unfounded. However by splitting up the data, you can tell a different story and it really depends on how you want to measure your performance. In this data and matrices driven world where everyone ask for supporting information to claims, it is hard not to position your data. Often you position your data to prove a point, or to measure the outcome of your project. Hence you do indeed want to present a picture of success for your project. In some other instances, people will opposing performance indices would often manipulate the same data to defend their position and protect their own interests. Hence it begs some questions for management - do we continue to still trust data, and how do we measure performance? Data driven decisions is traditionally viewed as being etched in facts and is the most sensible and safe approach. The data is often viewed as proof of ability or truth. However as above, data can be manipulated to show an entirely different story dependent on the position of the person who did the data analysis. Hence how much can we trust the data we are presented? You may say that we can see through the manipulation, but often each manipulation is a valid manipulation. Moreover with big data, we can put together even more information see more trends. But do we trust each of them? How many of them should we reach to? Big data is probably the hottest topic in data analytics today. Yes true it does let us see more trends that we previously can't, but we often have to question is this trending true. Is the relationship direct? Is there causality? The question of casualty is often something that we don't bring up. There's often this mantra amongst decision makers that if theory and data opposes each other, data always reign for it is actual facts. But often we don't question if the data is correct? Is that the correct way to see the relationship between the factors? Is there anything wrong with the manipulation of the data? I believe as decision makers it is important to question the basis of the data, but the problem is then that decision makers will have objectives in their minds which only leads them to question information that is opposite of their objectives. It is important to have objectives, but when something is too promising, we should also question that. Very often people only question the bad data when it does not go according to their objectives. But I believe that the trigger for data questioning should not be our objective but instead our theories and logic. I believe that when we see data that contradicts our theories and logical progression, we should question and probe further. Illogical decisions are the worse, especially when you say you have data to support. More than often, the presentation of the data have some fundamental errors in its assumption. Thus decision makers need to probe even deeper to ensure that the data is actually good data. Once confirmed then we can go ahead to re-look at our theoretical formulation. So if there is indeed a causality shown by the data, we have to ask theoretically is it possible? Is there a gap in our data and is the fix to look at the item on the x-axis. With traditional data methods juxtaposed with our theories, we see quite clear causal relationships. Thus we can easily work on fixes which are established. However when we turn to big data, there are so many more seemingly relationships such that your causality web becomes too interconnected. However one just have to dive into the web of interconnects to realize that there's a lot of duplicity that's brought up by too much data. For example, if A affects B and B affects C and C affects D, you can draw casual links from A to B, C & D! This causes confusion if this indirect causality problem is applied to a larger web - things that we didn't see previously as directly connected but we see now. It is good, but is it too confusing? Hence it is probably more important to know which data makes sense and which doesn't. Which is more important and which is not, before we decide to take action on it. Don't think that data can guide you, sometimes it misleads you more than guide you.

[labitx]

Right Thing and Right Thing To Do - Diversity of Opinion & Embracing Differences

"The right thing is sometimes not the right thing to do."

This concept always seems contradictory at first - how can something right be not the right thing to do, but it is actually not if we were to examine the statement the greater detail.

The first point that we need to consider is regarding the phrase that appeared twice in the statement – ‘right thing’. There’s probably nothing much to discuss about ‘thing’, but ‘right’ may not be as clearly defined a word as many would have thought. It may seem clear or even indisputable what is ‘right’, but we have to realize that right is a term that is equal and opposite to that of it’s evil twin – ‘wrong’. In such polar words, there is no absoluteness as something which is right simply means that it isn’t wrong and vise versa. They are thus not a word with a fixed definition, but in fact the opposite ends of a scale which in the middle is neither right nor wrong.

All things in our lives will lie on this scale, somewhere between absolutely right of wrong. However this scale is somewhat personal, that is that mine might differ slightly differently from yours due to personal and cultural differences. Our background and individual experience define our opinion, and it is this opinion that decides where the individual cases fall along our scale of right and wrong. For example, if I come from a more communitarian society where everything is shared, I’d find it wrong for any person to have individual possessions and may even view that as hoarding resources. But for someone who comes from a more individualistic society, that may be the norm. Thus it cannot be said that having personal possessions is right or wrong, but it depends on your belief. Another good example of cultural differences that of spitting. Many who visited China before would have noticed that spitting seems to be a common thing. To many of us who live outside China (that includes the multitude of overseas Chinese), this is a socially unacceptable and highly uncultured behavior. However, we need to look into history to understand that spitting is a culture of the Chinese people. From the village folk to the educated to the official class, spitting is a norm. In restaurants, there are urns below the table for you to spit into – the spittoon! At some point in our history, heterogamy, oppression of women & slavery are accepted norms! So what is right or wrong, there’s actually no absolute.

I’d thus go to say that the need to decide between right and wrong expressively is a form of cynicism associated with the self. I’d argue that many people are becoming more individualistic and self focused, seeking to make themselves feel better. Thus to call something right or wrong outright is simply an act of self righteousness. By doing so, you have made yourself the judge of everything. Who gave you that privilege? In fact I would feel that this is a great disrespect to others who hold a different opinion.

In today’s society where we emphasize a lot on the diversity of opinion, we have to be very careful about how we express our opinion on right and wrong. The diversity of opinion can only come from a respect for the diversity of opinion. By using hurtful language towards others who hold a different opinion from you is in fact a contradictory to the diversity of opinion, it just shows that you’re immature and is focused on wanting to feel good about yourself. Judgement of others is more self-serving than for the good of the society. Can you imagine if someone were to present an opposite opinion and is immediately mowed down by a bunch of people, who would want to or even dare to propose an alternative opinion?

That is the main driving factor towards groupthink, a concept that many people don’t understand but love to use to describe people who makes decisions without considering that of others. Groupthink is not a lack of opinion, it is a lack of mixing of opinions. If you have an alternative opinion, you should try to engage with those of the other camp and try to present your opinion to them. By bunching together with others having the same alternative opinion, you’re not helping in dissipating that but instead creating a different camp with your own set of groupthink. That is the beginning of social divide, whereby those who hold privileged positions do not actively engage the masses and the masses do not expressively participate in the opinion gathering platforms but instead choose to mix with their own kind whereby everyone around them reinforces their opinion.

This cannot be blamed for as humans, we seek others to reinforce our opinion. We are more likely to mix with people who are like us than those who are different. This can be drawn along racial, social, political and economical lines. It makes us happier and more comfortable to be around people who are like us – it forms our comfort zone. Everyone likes to stay within their comfort zone and many are unwilling to leave it. But the fact is that when you leave your comfort zone, you are venturing into new ground and enlarging our comfort zone. For example, I was relatively socially inward for most of my teenage years. However that started to change in JC whereby I decided against going to where most of my secondary school would go to to experience an entirely different environment and a different culture. I needed to adapt to a different speak, different social style and a different outlook towards life. It is of course uncomfortable initially, but eventually I managed to get used to it and it went to help when serving in the army, when I was in university and till now.

I believe we should embrace the diversity of opinion. That is others can have an entirely different set of beliefs and opinion from you can have an amicable discussion. We can understand each other’s position when we discuss, but still hold on to what we belief. Nothing is that black and white, the world is more gray than most people expect. For example, when looking at discussions on social media, you can conclude if you like or dislike something, but you cannot it for someone else. Don’t jump to use hurtful and disrespectful words to others who express a different opinion from you. If you want to comment, express your opinion about the issue at hand instead of jumping at someone else. Make yourself listen to opposite opinions, internalize them and then diversity will be your comfort zone and adapting to the changes and differences is part and parcel of you. This world is highly volatile, things don’t stay the way they are.

Back to the right thing. After all that, it is clear that the ‘right thing’ is not so direct after all. Very often this depends on our personal perception of the issue, and these are in turn determined by experiential and cultural factors. At work, we often have our personal and official objectives and this often conflicts with others as ‘pareto optimal’ is usually the approach. Thus when demanding of others, try to think of their position and what objectives they need to hold. It’s the art of negotiation whereby each party have a certain amount of irreducible position that they need to hold. When something is not so critical to you, you can choose to concede. It is like a bank, you need to deposit some good faith, let it accrue interest over time. When there is something that you cannot concede, then you can withdraw all the deposited favors.

[labitx]

A Cooperative World, or a Divided One

UN, EU, AU, ASEAN and the Arab League are but a few of the multitude of supernational bodies that exist today. This is a stark difference from just a century ago, where the world is a highly divided one, along national and cultural boundaries. Thus one would wonder, with so many unions being formed, are we moving towards a more cooperative world?

Every person can be generally described by a few characteristics of which your gender, race , religion, and for some nationality, political belief, economical belief, are just some examples of. These characteristics often have equal and opposite stances, for example socialism & capitalism in economic beliefs, and your actual trait lies somewhere between the two extremes. No person is truly biased just as nobody is purely objective.

Beyond just the characteristic itself, we also have a different affinity for the characteristics which we use to weigh between the importance of each characteristic. This creates a hierarchy of importance amongst your characteristics that will allow you to resolve into a decision when faced with conflicting situations. For example, a capitalist liberal that have a higher affinity for liberalism than capitalism would not mind giving up some capitalism ideals in pursuit of liberalism ones. With multiple pairs of characteristics & a myriad of affinities that you can take for each characteristic, together they form an infinite possibility of characters which makes each individual unique.

Which end of the spectrum you stand at and the affinity you have depends on your environment. Thus it evolves over time, as you gain new experience and old experiences loses its persistence in you, forming who you are today. The historical experience and the present geo-socio-political-economic situations juxtaposes to form your character. This in turns defines your outlook, and the societal bonds are thus defined by the degree of similarities and differences of your character.

Based on such a complex look at humans, everyone is pretty much an individual even within families and such that humans tend not to bond with each other. The innate difference results in what chemical engineers would call an “activation energy”, a hump which requires a push to bring us over. This push can come from all sort of places. For example, when you come to a new place you’re more likely to start off in a social circle consisting of people who look the same as you and speak the same language. You may (and should, else you are not evolving) eventually move to a social circle that have less similarities with you originally, but that is because you have developed new common experience and in turn your characteristics and affinity changed, changing your activation energy in the process as well.

Common experience is a great catalyst to forge mutual understanding, like how the European Union was formed in the light of the horrors and disaster of world war 2. It gives you common grounds of understanding with each other for you know each other better. In today's world of globalization and mass media, information is passed around the world in an instant. Since we base our perception on the information received, unless we are there first hand, our impression and understanding is shaped by the information provided by the major news outlets which is relatively the same around the world. This provides for a common background towards major incidents and less difference in opinions and thoughts. Thus we are able to agree with others, find common topics and exhibit camaraderie with others who hail from miles away. Thus the power of the modern media, mainstream, alternative and social alike, will help to provide a common background and knowledge about the world.

What's the use of mutual understanding if you cannot communicate with each other? The key to bond is the ability to communicate, and this is primarily done through speech and writing. Yes there are other forms of communication like music or art, nothing is more efficient and direct as the spoken & written language. But you may say, the world has tons of languages. So does this make us a very divided world? Maybe, maybe not. The world's largest native language is Mandarin Chinese with approximately 14% of the world. This is followed closely by Spanish. However if you consider second languages, you would realize that most of the world are at least slightly bilingual. English is an unbeatable force if you put together native and secondary speakers. Thus we have a world language, a common language that you can find amongst many people. This allows communication at both the individual and societal level, allowing the interaction between people without the ambiguity of language and distortion of translations.

Thus in conclusion, one can argue that the world is coming together. But on the other hand, the existence of multiple small unions despite the fact that there is a UN still indicates that the world is still divided, albeit a little less divided than a century ago.

We can try our best, and I believe we will, continue to move towards a common society. But to come together as a species, that probably needs more overarching factors, perhaps the rise or appearance of another intelligent species, to push us over the activation hump.

[labitx]

Equality & Individualism - Opponents that Shares Common Ground

In today's world, there's an egalitarian belief of equality which is that all men should be treated equally. On the equal and opposite end there is a scream for individuality, a criticism of examinations as a standardized yardstick which does not consider the unique talent of the individual. These 2 ideas seem to be ideologically opposite, with one calling for the breaking down of preferential treatments while the other calls for special consideration. Indeed if you take it superficially you cannot have an equal society that respects the individual and accord them special attention. No where is this more evident than in the west, and by that I generally refer to America more than Europe, than Asia. That could be because Asian societies are more communitarian, and hence we are okay to an extent to commute some individuality in exchange for consensus and equality. To us, we are less averse to uniformity and we don't cause divide simply to express ourselves. But in an individualistic society like America, distinguishing oneself is of greater importance and creating self awareness is primary. This makes it hard for equality to exist, for if you want to be distinguished as an individual, being the same as someone else simply won't work. But maybe there is a resolution to this. First we have to debunk the concept of equality. By what do we measure equality? There are 2 types of equality - equality of opportunities and equality of outcome. As Lee Kwan Yew said, "We can only ensure that everyone have the same opportunity & access to education, but we cannot ensure that you will end up the same." Thus it is probably pretty reasonable to say that we are talking about equality of opportunity and not of outcome. However our innate self to compare with others may lead some to think of the latter. Especially in a meritocratic society, being distinguished is important for there is an imaginary 'packing order'. This is evident through parents, who when their kids perform worse expects to have their outcome matched as others. But if your kid is the one doing better, you want it to remain that way. Hence the concept of equality is blurred by this innate competitiveness in people brought up in a meritocratic society. Additionally, if you were to say equality of opportunity, what are we also measuring for equality? Should we be blind to everything about an individual? The great teacher Confucius answer is a definitive no which is enshrined in his concept of 应材施教 - to teach based on one's ability& talent. All of us have an innate capability or flair for something, and that we should have opportunities to display that better. The problem in today's society is that not all talents are born equal. Some talents are more valued over others e.g. Science in our society, resulting in a preferential treatment of students good in science in an education system meant to develop and highlight individuals with this talent. This leaves equally talented individuals, with talents less wanted by this society, feeling unfair. Thus yes, we should be blind to things that doesn't correlate to ability like gender and race (that said some jobs are innately more suitable to a specific gender or race due to specific traits but that's beyond the discussion). Thus I would prefer to say that the lack of equality is the lack of comprehensiveness in our current measurement systems. Our current examinations focus heavily academics, specifically scientific & engineering skills as described before. Thus it doesn't have an all encompassing measure of capability. Firstly academic subjects doesn't consider a lot of other important skills in life, and it is also relatively irrelevant in many fields. For example, why does a business student have to be good with physics? Instead why not use a better measurement system that takes into consideration more factors. I'm not being an idealist here - I know this takes resources but should we let that be the primary roadblock? I think no. Expose students to more things, let them have a feel of what they are good at and what they like from young so that they can focus and develop them. Shape societal belief and thinking to smoothen out the differences in opinion about professions and it will help ease equality. In such a system, the individual's unique strength can be reinforced so that they can be at their full potential for their own good and their best can be harnessed by the society for the good of all. Individualism and equality can co-exist, we just need to change our attitudes and our approach to developing and recognizing individual talents.

[labitx]

Freedom & Choice, or Anarchy?

Freedom and anarchy is often separated by a fine line. America is probably regarded by most as the world's greatest beacon of freedom & liberty. It is hard Yet it in itself is oxymoronic in its approach to freedom. On one hand, its policy at home is one of individual freedom, rights & liberty. It provision for individual privacy*, free speech*, freedom to associate*, freedom of movement*, free press* and up to the extent of the rights to bear arms*. Based on those principles, America is indeed a free country. However, notice those asterisks? That's because those are only true under limited circumstances. The greatest example for this is political correctness, which is contained n laws prohibiting the professing of any degrading language and forbidding open discussions of racially or religiously sensitive topics. That effectively curtails free speech, for there are some topics or words which are frowned upon by society and in some cases totally outlawed. To each of the freedom enshrined by the American constitution there's an equal and opposite law or social norm that curtail it to some extent. On the other hand, American foreign policy hardly enshrines the concept of freedom. Using force in another country, invasive checks at airports hardly shows any respect for individual rights and privacy. America waged multiple wars in the Middle East in the name of liberation from oppression. On the surface this may sound like a noble move. But if you were to look at it in another way, is it right for America to impose their brand of democracy and freedom on the rest of the world? Is their unique brand of democracy suitable for others, or are they leaving disasters all over the world which others end up having to tolerate and live with? That imposition of their ideas on others contravenes the concept of freedom, that is choice. Reports from many American set-up democracies that the method the Americans used is hardly in line with what they said they set out to. If the champion of freedom in this world cannot have a clear definition for freedom, it thus begs one to question what is freedom indeed? For us to start understanding that, let's first take a look at the liberals. In the textbook meaning, liberals are a group of people that believe in the freedom of the individual and that there should be as little intervention of the government as possible. There should be no restrictions, in fact, of any kind. Incidentally, data scientists have also discovered that most liberals are young, and they start to exhibit traits and increasing tendencies towards turning conservative as they grow older. There also exist a slight trending with income, with more poor professing that they are liberals than rich. This thus begs a question - are these trends coincidental or is there a casual relationship? I would tend to think the latter. Freedom is a concept steeped in individualism and the right to do whatever one wants to do. With increasing freedom, there is a relaxation of controls and thus it would seem to appeal more to the younger group which is tired of parental controls and yet to develop commitments. When you are poorer, you also often have less to loose and is tired of bureaucracy which is often seen as a roadblock to further oneself. Thus you are footloose and carefree, more focused on yourself and hence embraces individual freedom more. However as one ages, we pick up more commitments and have more concerns. As we amass more wealth, we also tend to seek more stability and freedom. Incidents we face through our life experience rounded our rough edges, which makes us less aggressive and thus makes us appreciate predictable patterns & a more calm environment. When you become a parent, you also begin to appreciate the need for control and less individual freedom. Why is this so? The main proponents and complete freedom forget that we live in a society with other people. Thus it begs us to consider not only what we want to do, but what others want to do and how what we do have an impact on others around us. Laws and regulations are simply a formalization of the rules of engagement in our society. In some cases, the underwrite controls that are needed to prevent one from intruding into other's space. True freedom leads to anarchy. In a world whereby everyone does whatever he or she likes, people can overthrow governments at their whim. The killing of one another, domination by force will become an everyday affair if not for the laws and regulations that govern these activities to act as deterrents. If we do not have a credible force to protect our borders, invasions would be an every day affair. That may seem very extreme and fatalist, but it is what will happen. You may think that it won't be that bad, which may be true. But this is the worst that can happen, and are we ready to risk this for true freedom? I don't think many, even proponents of freedom, would. Democracy, contrary to popular belief, can also be viewed as a curtailment of freedom - it restricts the transition of power to only through a system of voting as opposed to freedom whereby everyone can just take power in whichever way they want. Together with the rule of laws, such method regulate our society's rule of engagement and forms a basic infrastructure that protects the individual while granting some form of freedom. People cannot do whatever they want is a fact of life that we all have to live with. We need force & laws to protect our freedom, thus in a way we give up part of freedom to protect the rest. They key is then balance, how much control is necessary? There is probably no clear answer for it depends on the geo-socio-political-economic situation and the appetite of the society for freedom.