psykonee

[psykonee]

Your nationality is not you

Almost everyone at birth has at least one nationality and no choice at birth over which one(s) they have.  Almost everyone alive is a national of at least one country.  There are some who are stateless, without nationality which creates considerable difficulties for them. Yet it does establish that being human does not require a nationality, it is not a mandatory part of your identity.

Nationalities can be fluid. People can acquire and give up nationalities over a life time, either by force (the country of your nationality ceases to exist) or by choice (you choose to become a national of a new country).  If your nationality changes it does not automatically change what you may think or feel about anything.

If you have a nationality for a particular country it is possible you may never live or even visit that country during your life.  At a minimum it may just be what you write in various documents and have in your passport.  It is also possible to have been born with a nationality and live without ever knowing you have it, if it never becomes relevant to you.  Nationality can be seen as pretty arbitrary and abstract.

If you woke up with a completely different nationality from the one you had the day before, you would still be the same person.  If you never told anyone of the sudden change, nobody else may notice the difference.  

Nationalities tend to be closely related to countries. There is generally a one-to-one link between a country and a nationality.  A country generally means territory, government and recognition by other countries.  (What makes a country a country is outside of this scope).  What happens in a country, what the government of a country does is in almost all circumstances far removed from your direct decision making.  In the extremely unlikely event that an absolute ruler is reading this, even you do not have control over literally everything that happens in the country you rule.

When the actions of a country’s government are criticised by external parties, it is not a criticism of you based upon one of your nationalities.  If something happens in a country that one of your nationalities belongs to and it is criticised it is not a criticism of you.  The connection between self and nationality is not automatic.

Attachment to a nationality can vary considerably.  Some can identify more strongly to a different tribes than their national one or more than one.  For example someone could identify more strongly as a Londoner than as British.  The complexity of overlapping identities and senses of belonging is considerable.  They are not the whole of you, without them you would still exist.

A sense of belonging to a nationality, or any other identity, can be powerful.  It can offer a sense of togetherness, the strength of the group, of being a part of something larger than the self.  It can also be exclusionary, creating a sense of separation from others, which has had horrific implications.

A view that sees self and nationality has tightly bound together is problematic.  A thin skinned view of criticism combined with seeing nationality and self bound tightly has been a contributing factor in some of the worst episodes in human history.  No nationality or the country it is closely tied to is uniquely unblemished and perfect. There are no traits that are unique to any one nationality.  The self and external perception of them can be shattered by events or circumcision.  Worse, would be to hold the perception even in the face of contrary reality.

[psykonee]

A decade on a tropical island

My skin burns easily.  I dislike feeling sweaty.  I like the freshness of cold weather. I generally dislike crowded places.

I never thought I would spend a decade in one of the planet’s smallest, hottest and densest tropical islands.

Singapore.

Mistaken preconceptions

English as a main language does not mean a culture that is very similar to that of other mainly English speaking nations.

Having chewing gum is OK, even though nowhere sells it.

One of the richest countries in the world has some extremely poor people – for example elderly people working as cleaners and collecting cardboard.

Behind the ultra modern façade there tends be a more traditional and conservative mindset.

Surprises

Male Singaporeans having to do national service for 2 years, which at least some resent having to do.

The first group (late 1960s) to do national service had Israeli instructors.

The reason the police on the metro system look like teenagers is that they are.

The legality of prostitution.

Sometimes it is older Singaporeans that are most likely to be openly breaking the rules – for example during the Covid lock-down last year, it was common to see groups of older Singaporeans together in a way that was in breach of the restrictions.

At least at the level of individual seats elections can be genuinely competitive.

The normalcy of families having live in maids.

Very little built after independence (1965) has been considered worthy of protection from redevelopment.

Around 80% of Singaporeans live in homes that have 99 year lease holds from what is effectively the state.

How many Singaporeans live with their parents until well into their 30s.

The degree of language fluidity – for example, being with an Indian Singaporean who ordered drinks in Mandarin.

Singlish – an officially frowned upon blend of Chinese dialects with Malay, Tamil and English which is an organic part of the Singaporean identity, as opposed to many other things which have been driven from the top down.

Pre-covid the largest event in favour of making progressive changes each year has been Pink Dot.

The amount of green space, particularly in the core part of the island. It is not uncommon to see monkeys, otters, monitor lizards and other wildlife.

Understanding

The location on the map at the junction of the main sea routes between East Asia and India, the Middle East and Europe makes a port here logical.

The colonial legacy is complex.  The influence of the early, segregated city plan is still clearly visible in terms of street names and the nature of the oldest buildings.

WW2, defeat and occupation are critical to making sense of the structures created and the decisions made by the post-independence leaders.

Without Lee Kuan Yew (the first Prime Minister) things would have been very different.  He effectively got to play Sim City for real.

The country became independent from Malaysia and not directly from the UK.

Singapore was not a backwater at independence (the grand colonial buildings in the core of the city attest to that), but it did have serious issues (amongst other things few natural resources, housing problems) at independence.

To become what it is now has required a huge effort by many over the decades, but it has come at a high cost.

Not all laws are enforced equally.  There are some that are very strongly enforced (e.g. the ban on recreational drugs) and others which exist more on paper than in practice (e.g. the colonial legacy anti gay laws).

Singapore may have a populace that is majority Chinese by background, but it is very different from China and cannot be assumed to side with China (or any other country) on anything.

The degree of direct and indirect state involvement in the economy is far more than a crude look at economic freedom indices would suggest.  In some cases the largest companies in local sectors have significant (in some cases, controlling) shareholdings by the country’s sovereign wealth funds.

This is not a police state, but it is one of the safest countries.  In general there is quite a lot of latitude in what can be said or done by people.  People are largely free to be supportive or critical of the government or anything else here.  At the same time there some things which would be possible elsewhere which are barely tolerated here (e.g. protests are legal in just one place, a legal strike is almost unheard of).

Relative to many countries in the same region Singapore is in many respects liberal, open and tolerant.

People

Anyone can be Singaporean.

Kiasu – a fear of missing out, which makes behaviour around limited events pretty predictable.

Kiasi – a fear of death, which in practice means an avoidance of taking risks.

Conformity tends to be valued over individuality.

Stability is highly valued.

I have found that it is generally guess correctly from a conversation with a Singaporean if they have spent a significant part of their lives outside the country or not.

It is a village on a larger scale, which can be both a source of community and suffocation.

There is an emphasis on self and family reliance, which at its best makes people strive to be as successful as they can be, but at its worst can lead to an indifference in the well being of others.

Given the mix of people and cultures there tends to be a live and let live mentally for the most part in public spaces.

There can be a tenancy by some to resort to official means (e.g. reporting something to the police) instead of trying to resolve disputes without the involvement of the authorities.

Related to this there can be a tendency towards passive aggressiveness over directly confronting problems.

There can be a very hierarchical view of organisations, which can lead to a rigidity and inflexibility.

People will help you if you ask, but it is much less common to get unsolicited assistance.

Ideals and the reality

To be a clean city, but it is maintained more by an army of low paid workers, than a deeply ingrained culture of care of civic spaces. The amount of waste in piles at the beaches can be depressing.

Racism is officially not tolerated in any circumstances.  In practice it is easy to find examples of racism e.g. coming across rental listings that make it clear Indian applicants are not welcome.

To have gender equality, but in practice a patriarchal and defined gender roles remain strongly ingrained.

Education is highly valued, but with a strong emphasis on scoring high marks on structured exams it can lead (along with other factors) to a square box mindset and a lack of creativity.

Officially there are four languages (English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil).  In practice many things are only in English, often in English and Mandarin and rarely only in the other two outside of some limited contexts.

Speculation on further evolution

Same sex marriage is more likely to be legalised in the medium term than recreational drug use.

Singapore is continuing to slowly liberalise at its own pace – for example many films that were banned in the previous century are now available on streaming services.

Can you forge a national identity with what appears to be a largely top down approach?  It will be interesting how this evolves over the coming decades.

The same party has been in power since before independence.  It is likely that other parties will win more seats (currently they hold 11% of them) in future elections.  If and when it happens a successful and peaceful transfer of power would be a momentous event.

Fragmentation of experience by linguistic and other factors in a small, young country which is open to the influences from louder places.

How Singapore has changed me

I can eat with chopsticks.

I effectively ceased to cook after realising eating out was cheaper, arguably tastier and easier.

I have eaten far more varied food here than anywhere else, tried so many new things.

Eating out alone feels normal.

I see more value in a collectivist approach than an individualistic one than I used to.

Paying $20 for a single drink no longer feels as outrageous as it used to.

My body has adjusted to the heat and humidity.  30C now feels normal and 20C can feel cold.

I walk slower to remain cooler.

Travelling 10km within the country feels like a long way.

I can understand and use some Singlish.

I tryto talk slower and clearer because it makes it easier for others to understand what I am saying.

Those who I am friends with and work with is far more diverse than before.

I have toned down some of how I tend to be naturally (swearing a lot, directness) in order to be more accommodating of others.

I have become quite used to standing out in many places due to my appearance.

Singapore has felt like home for some time.

Miscellany

The number of Singaporeans who have thought I am Australian.

The airport is the world’s best in terms of ease of use and facilities.

The one time my beer glass was freely refilled was while eating dinner I found myself amongst supporters of one of the opposition parties who were ecstatic the night they won a seat in a by-election from the ruling party.

The government information adverts (e.g. visit your relatives more than once a year) shown in some cinemas would not be taken with a straight face in many other countries.

The unexpected can lead to things grinding to a halt as orders are awaited.

The ubiquity of high speed internet access has made controlling what people can see, read or experience effectively impossible.  A great firewall is not a viable option here.

[psykonee]

The selectively invisible people and the virus

This was written in the middle of 2020, during the Covid 19 virus pandemic at a time when it was far from being resolved or completely contained anywhere.  As I write this there are tens of thousands of daily new cases globally, with hundreds of deaths.  The numbers for both are known to be wrong, far lower than the real numbers due to many factors that are beyond the narrower scope of this.  The focus here is on a part of the pandemic situation in a country I am very familiar with.

One of the problems with Covid 19 is that unlike something obviously nasty, e.g. Ebola, it is boring.  There are no unusual symptoms and most that get it experience little different from a bad cold or flu symptoms.  Worse there are many that are asymptomatic and potentially infectious.  Being boring has enabled the virus to rapidly spread to almost every country on Earth within a few months.

For the first months of 2020 the pandemic situation in this country was contained.  Contact tracing, isolation and restrictions on new arrivals from known hotspots managed to keep things under control. The country was internationally praised for doing an excellent job. For a long time there were no deaths due to the virus.  Things within the country remained largely as before, with some limited restrictions imposed to introduce a degree of social distancing. Compared to worse hit countries like Spain and Italy things felt generally fine.  Perhaps there was complacency that things would be OK, everything was under control and there was little to be worried about.  The virus threat was being kept mostly outside the country and when it did get in it was being rapidly contained.  This turned out to be a false impression of the real virus situation.

By the start of April 2020 the virus had infected an unknown number of people in this country living in near perfect environments for virus transmission.  From the first cases detected in these places, the numbers reported grew exponentially from dozens to more than a thousand per day.  They grew to a point were it was near certain that if more tests could have been performed in these places, the cases detected per day would have been far higher.  Not just a thousand, perhaps 3, 4, 5 or even 6 thousand new cases could have been detected on some days if the capacity had existed.  As I write this, this section of the population has an infection rate 50 times higher than that of the rest of the populace.

What is this section of the populace that is so badly hit?

They are almost all younger men.  They are all immigrant workers from much less developed countries.  They do the jobs that many locals would rather not do (generally dirty and / or dangerous), for rates of pay far below that of almost all locals.  Typical earnings for these workers are around 10% of the median earnings of local workers.  They build housing, shopping malls, metro lines and do maintenance.  They work outside in the perpetual summer heat and humidity.  They are invisible to many most of the time.  You would never see them in offices, never see them in shops  (with one exception which will be covered) or otherwise in public places.  They would be seen at most in passing as you go past where they work or when they are being transported.  Few of the rest in the country would ever social interact with them due to a number of factors including language barriers.

They mostly live apart in accommodation that has been purpose built or converted to house people with limited personal space for each person.  Multiple people sleeping in each room, shared cooking and cleaning facilities with variable standards of cleanliness.  No local would ever live in these places and very few would have any reason to visit them.  

One day a week those that live in these places become more visible when they have their day off, but only in some areas.  In theory they are free to go anywhere and do anything on their day off like anyone else.  In practice many prefer to go to the parts of the country that offer food and other services related to the country they are from. This can make these parts of the country very crowded on this day with lots of close interactions between people who would otherwise never come into proximity.  In normal circumstances this is economically a good thing for the businesses in those parts and also gives them a distinctive vibrancy that other areas lack.  At the same time if you are in other parts that they tend not to visit on their days off they would remain mostly invisible.

At some point the virus infected at least a few people in this group. Perhaps they came into the country already infected, but showing no symptoms.  Perhaps they got infected while working or enjoying their day off from interacting with someone outside this group.  It may never be known what the starting point was.  Once the virus established itself it was too late.  If you are infected and sleeping in a room with 20 other people close together you could easily infect all of them.  Similarly the dozens of others you may pass close to while working, eating or washing.  As many are generally young and healthy and the virus is boring many will not have realised they had the virus.

Worse, many people work while they are sick.  This can be from a mix of a wish to keep working, not wanting to let others down, to a fear of loss of income (or worse job loss) from reporting themselves as sick. It could be reasonable for someone to consider their best interests to be served by not reporting themselves as possibly having the virus.

Could this have been prevented?  Could monitoring and checks have been in place to detect the virus in this vulnerable to transmission group before exponential growth took off? Arguably yes, the spread could have been prevented or at least contained much earlier if more attention and care had been paid.  A lack of visibility, generally seen as out of sight and out of mind.  A lack of interest in their well being, of seeing them as separate from everyone else.  They are not completely separate, even with much of their accommodation quarantined people from outside still go in to provide them with food and other essentials.  Some of those get infected even though they are taking precautions.

Similar has been seen in other countries with Covid 19 and population groups that are generally seen as out of sight and out of mind, seen as separate that have been failed.  Care homes for the elderly have seen horrific infection and death rates due to similar reasons of neglect and lack of visibility.  Prisoners have been another common population group that have seen considerably higher infection rates than elsewhere in many countries.  There have been globally terrible failures to prevent and contain the spread of the virus in some of the least visible groups in societies.  

“We are all in this together,” to deal with this virus only has meaning if everyone is cared for, if everyone is considered, if there are no groups that are forgotten or seen as less important than the rest. Covid 19 will not be the last pandemic to hit humans, there will be another novel virus that starts infecting people in the future.  All the mistakes, the gaps, the failings need to be learned from so that next time no group is ignored or neglected in the response.  Next time we may find ourselves a part of a group that is vulnerable to infection, so it is in our self interest that everyone is treated well.

[psykonee]

Illiteracy from technology

I can read English very well and I can also read to some extent other languages written in a Latin derived alphabet.  I can type on both a keyboard and a phone with a reasonable degree of speed and accuracy. My handwriting is terrible, quite often incomprehensible to others and sometimes, even to myself.  Historically if you could not communicate in handwriting you would be deemed to be illiterate. With the advancement of technology and the prevalence of typed communication, being unable to hand write is less of a problem.

In a typical week I sometimes don’t hand-write anything.  In other weeks the only time I would have held a pen would have been to sign something.  Anything longer is generally notes for myself; where the act of writing them can be more important for the memory than being able to read them later. Looking back it has been years since I hand wrote more than a few hundred words for any reason.

I would guess that many people have similar experiences.  I think being able to type has become a more important skill than being able to write by hand.  There will be children who have typed on tablets before they have learned how to write by hand.

I remember exams I sat more than a decade ago.  My writing hand hurt towards the end of them because it struggled to keep up with the speed of my thoughts.  It was the only time I had to hand write a lot at speed with an immediate deadline. Since then I have never had to do this, which makes exams even more artificial than they were in earlier decades.

Similarly being able to type is more important at work and in official communications than handwriting.  I think you could function in much of the world without ever learning how to write by hand.

So why bother learning to write by hand when it isn’t required nay more?  The act of hand writing, with the muscle memory can make it easier to remember something. If there is no power, then pen and paper will still work as an alternative.  Technology can fail, but writing materials can often be improvised.  Handwriting is also more personal and allows for personality expression in a more free form way than lines of typed text on a screen.  Handwriting can be more flexible than typing.  It can also be quicker – writing a note on a napkin is much easier to pass around than doing the same to the devices of a large group of disparate people.

[psykonee]

The two Samoas

In the South Pacific there are a chain of three significant islands that straddle the international date line.  The Samoan islands. Until a series of events in the late 19th century they were physically and culturally considered to be one place.  From the actions of outside powers the islands were split into a larger Western part (German, then Australia and New Zealand) and an Eastern part (American).  The language and culture was the same before this split, but over the more than 100 years since then they have diverged noticeably.  They are two of the more isolated places on the planet, with the nearest significant neighbours, Fiji and Tonga, around 500 miles away.  Hawaii which is the main link to American Samoa is more than 2500 miles away.  Auckland, the main link to Samoa a mere 1800 miles.

Getting from Samoa to American Samoa involves either a ferry trip or a more frequent air service.  The planes are small, taking around 20 passengers, or less due to the weight limits.  The airport in the Samoan capital used for this is tiny, with very basic facilities.  In contrast the American Samoan airport and runways are disproportionality large for the size of the flights.

Aircraft between the two Samoas

For many nationalities Samoa has visa free entry for tourists.  American Samoa if you are not an America is oddly complex to gain entry.  It is not a part of the standard American visa waiver and entry system. Instead you have to apply directly to the American Samoan local government for entry, which is checked on arrival.

There are some obvious similarities between them –

people look roughly the same,

the style of dress is similar,

Samoan and English are the main languages,

I found the people to be generally welcoming and friendly,

there are a lot of churches (Samoans tend to be religious),

as a consequence Sundays are very quiet days,

fast food from places like McDonald's is common,

the public buses are mostly decades old,

prices felt fairly similar because both are quite isolated with high shipping costs,

and the main islands of both are mountainous, wet and covered in forests with fairly clear waters.

Samoa

American Samoa

There are also some obvious differences –

Samoa has its own currency and American Samoa uses the US dollar,

driving is on the left in Samoa (like Australia and New Zealand) and on the right in American Samoa (like, well, America),

cars in American Samoa tend to be American models with Asian brands more common in Samoa,

the general infrastructure like the roads is in a better state in American Samoa,

and the places are a day a part with the international date line between them (which when I was there meant the same time, but different days).

Beyond that there are some less readily apparent differences -

Samoans tend to be quite big, which can mean fat or muscle, which in turn is a good build for rugby players (Samoa) or American football,

Samoans tend to have extended family in Australia and New Zealand but in American Samoa the links are more with Hawaii,

media is also similarly linked to the respective larger places.

As a very crude analogy it can feel like twins who grew up together and then in early teenage years were adopted by similar, but different families living a short distance apart.  The world has become more connected, travel is easier than it was before, which means there is much more of a global shared experience.  It will be interesting to see the impact of the greater global commonality, combined with an older, more specific one, along with the differences that came from the outside.

One comment has stuck in the mind since American Samoa, from a local who had spent time in America.  She said that the corn fields of Iowa were like home, unlike the other universe of New York city.  Rural places, quiet, small, churches and seas of corn / water.

[psykonee]

People are scary

It is quite likely I have the physical capability to kill you.  With also probably damage you.  With a weapon I could probably force you to do many things out of fear for your life or other harmful consequences.

You are probably physically capable of doing the same to me.  How can either of us be certain that the other won’t do something dreadful to us?  We cannot read each-other’s minds.  Go outside and look at all the other humans around.  Many of them could be physically capable of doing terrible things to either of us.  The driver of any car could at any moment try to run one of us over.  We don’t know if it will happen or not.  We tend to assume that others will not do dreadful things to us.  The alternative would be living in constant fear of other humans and expecting the worst.

The capability of humans is pretty terrifying.  Over tens of thousands of years considerable effort and ingenuity has been devoted by humans to harm or kill other humans in various ways or in large numbers as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Humans are the only species on this planet with the potential to choose to cause their own extinction.  

Yet with all this potential for destruction almost all people all of the time will not try to kill or maim you on sight.  It is generally very rare to be attacked by any human.

Why do humans rarely act to their terrifying potential?  If I went outside and hit someone, it is plausible they would fight back, or I would be arrested. I would also have nothing to gain from hitting a random person.  In general I would see limited gains and be at risk of considerable losses if I did.  This makes it in my self interest for me not to harm others.  This self interest would also apply to others.  Rationally there are few scenarios in which violence towards another human is a reasonable thing to do. Thought processes are not always rational and it is also possible to head down a path of reasoning that leads to the conclusion that violence towards other humans is a rational objective.

Anyone reading this will have survived past infancy, with some care and attention from other humans, no matter how poor.  We are all alive because on some level other humans have felt we are worth the effort of keeping alive.  Unlike some species young humans would probably not last a week without support from other humans.  Our initial survival depended on the cooperation of other humans.  This means on some fundamental level we know that at least some humans have not been hostile to us and therefore it is reasonable to believe there are others who would be the same.  Survival generally depends on cooperation with other humans, even if it is in a transactional format.

[psykonee]

Ancestral crimes

I have broken laws.  I think it is reasonable to believe that most people have transgressed the law at some point in their lives, even if it is something very minor.  From this premise it would be reasonable to assume my parents have also done so over the course of their lives and similarly their parents and so on over the generations past the point laws came into existence.

Amongst my ancestors it is plausible that at least a few of them committed serious crimes like murder.  Should I be considered responsible for the criminal actions of any of them?  At face value this can seem like an absurd question – how can I be responsible for the actions of others that are long dead?  It is also possible they did things that are illegal now, but were legal at the time.  An alternative would be to consider if I have in some way benefited from their crimes.  My existence may be a long term consequence of rape(s) and subsequent events.  If I am the direct beneficiary of a crime by an ancestor then there could be a case for looking at if I should benefit.  Quantifying any benefit gets harder and more diffuse the further back any event took place.

It would also be be possible to look at it from the other perspective – is there anyone alive today who would be considered to be hindered by some illegal act in the past from which I have benefited?  Further, should I try to do something to make up for the crimes of my ancestors even though I had no involvement in their actions?  It would be very easy to reduce this to absurdity even without considering that I could be descended from both the beneficiary and harmed parties of illegal activity.

It could be better to consider these things on a scale other than the individual and personal. To an extent companies, nations and other institutions can be considered as people which can benefit from and suffer the consequences of illegal activity.  This can be seen as evident from the numerous fines that companies receive for breaking laws or the Catholic church in child abuse cases.  If an institution has existed for decades, in some cases centuries, can they be considered to be effectively the same person?  If so, then if they benefited from illegal activity in the distant past that has only come to light in the present, then it could be reasonable that the institution should be penalised for what happened.  The same could also be applied the other way, with an institution being compensated for past losses.

What is legal or illegal changes over time.  Slavery was legal in many places for hundreds of years.  If myself or an entity benefited from something that was previously legal, but is no longer legal, then should the benefit be retained?  I think in general it would be reasonable to do so because it isn’t possible to know the future law before it exists.  In some cases in order to have complied with the current law, the actions would have been illegal under the previous law.  It could however be reasonable to compensate those who suffered under the previous law because compensation is different from retrospective enforcement.

[psykonee]

Watching someone die for entertainment

Almost everything has a non-zero unknown possibility of having fatal consequences.  Crossing a road, eating, flying, diving, driving and many other things that could potentially result in death in worst cases.  Yet we still do them because doing nothing would also eventually be fatal.

Some activities carry higher risks – I have flown to Lukla in Nepal which has a pretty terrible aviation safety record, been high on mountains with large drops within metres, travelled to cities with high levels of violent crime, ridden vehicles in terrible conditions and so many other things.  I did them because I enjoyed them, they were something to experience, to get out of my regular comfort zone. Away from these experiences I live in one of the safest cities in the world and work in an office that has minimal risks to my well being.

There are ways to live that involve far greater risks – either by choice or not.  The later case, imposed high risk, is not something that will be focused on here.  Choosing higher risks can lead to doing things that can be seen as worthwhile, as a part of some greater goal or good for the group as a whole.  This can cover jobs like firefighters and test pilots that arguably make things safer for humanity as a whole.  Then there are those who take potentially fatal risks for the enjoyment of themselves and others like mountain guides or racing drivers.  It was one of the later that I effectively paid to watch take a risk with their life and die.

Jules Bianchi was a French Formula 1 driver that suffered catastrophic brain injuries from a crash at the October 2014 Japanese Formula 1 Grand Prix at Suzuka, which resulted in his death 9 months later.  I attended this race and in other circumstances I could have been watching from a different place with a direct view of the crash.

The conditions at Suzuka that day were awful – the rain bands on the edge of a typhoon lashed the circuit, the clouds black and by the time of the crash the invisible sun would have been getting quite low in the sky.  One thing watching F1on TV does not show very well is how much spray comes off the back of the cars in wet conditions, almost a net curtain hanging in the air a dozen or more metres high behind each car.  All this made the visibility appalling.  Yet they drove, in some cases overtaking with an awesome mix of bravery and skill.  It was thrilling to see, engaging, seeing cars and drivers on the limit, every moment a balance of risks and rewards.

Then Bianchi was involved in the accident from which he would never recover.  News of what had happened gradually filtered through the non-Japanese speaking part of the crowd, making for a subdued ending to the race weekend.  Leaving the circuit hoping for the best, but suspecting the worst.  I have seen at other races crashes that destroyed the cars in question, but the drivers have extracted themselves from the wreckage and been shaken, but OK.  This was different because there was no good news of his condition to be reported.

Over the subsequent months the hope that he could recover was somewhere in a part of the back of my mind.  When his death was reported the following year I felt sad about it as I had after the race.  I questioned whether or not it is OK for me to watch a sport that has a real risk of killing its participants.  It was the first death during a Formula 1 race since Senna at Imola in 1994.  The fatality rate in earlier decades was considerably higher and it was almost expected that drivers would get badly hurt and possibly killed each season. Yet the drivers still made the choice to drive, in some cases to drive again after horrific crashes.

I concluded for myself that watching races or anything else that has a fatal risk for the participants is acceptable because the participants are all free to do something less risky and the reason I watch is not to see people die or get hurt.  I watch to see people do things far beyond my own abilities, to take themselves to the edge and to feel a small part of the thrill of the speeds involved myself.

[psykonee]

Monastery stay

In the north of Thailand, not far from the Myanmar boarder in a small valley just off the road from Pai to Mae Hong Son there is Wat Pa Tam Wua, a forest monastery.  A friend of mine stayed there almost 2 years before I did and from what they said it sounded like it would be an interesting experience to stay there, quite different from anything I had done previously.  It is good to leave the familiar and the comfortable and embrace a new experience.  To get there either drive yourself or take any bus heading from Pai or Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son and asked to be dropped off at the monastery.  There is no need to book in advance or let them know you are coming, but they do prefer if you arrive before 4pm.

I was dropped off in the middle of a sunny afternoon, with only the road, a small shop and a sign for the way to the monastery around. Heading in the direction of the sign for 1km I reached the monastery grounds.  There was still silence, sunlight over the grass, trees and small hills all around.  The setting is beautiful – wooded hills, fields, small lakes and the complex itself amongst them.

Heading to the main building there was a sign saying “Information.”  I could see dozens of people dressed in white, silently lying on the floor and nobody else in sight.  The next day I would be doing exactly the same thing.

I waited for the meditation session to end and approached the desk to check in with one of the volunteers that live there.  Most things are done in a mix of Thai and English.  You can stay for as little as one night or as long as your Thai visa lasts.  After checking in the rules for staying there were pointed out with the schedule and I was briefly shown around. We then went to collect some bedding and white clothes for me to borrow (it may be better to bring your own whites).

The accommodation is single gender and basic – you sleep on the floor on a mat, with blankets and a small pillow.  This is not a resort. You are responsible for keeping your own area and the whole monastery clean.  There are individual huts to sleep in, but if they are busy you will be sleeping in a dorm, which was not full when I was there in late December.  The dorm I was in had small lockers for securing things like your passport.

A little before 6pm I entered the main hall for the evening chanting and meditation with little idea of what I was meant to do.  Men sit at the front, women at the back (supposedly to keep the monks away from temptation).  There are cushions to sit on the floor and a few rows of plastic chairs.  I felt the best thing to do was to copy everyone else.  The chanting was in Pali, Thai and English with books to use with the words.  I was attempting to make sense of the experience, the unfamiliar words, the actions.  The monks sat in front of us in a single raised row, led by the Abbot.  I felt disorientated, confused and a little uncomfortable to start with. After the chanting we began sitting meditation in the darkness.  I meditate a bit, but doing so amongst dozens like this was new to me. I closed my eyes and attempted to clear the mind and just focus on my slow breathing.  It was challenging, disorientating and relaxing as I become accustomed to the situation.  By 7.30pm it was over and we were free to read, talk, meditate or go to sleep.

I went to sleep early because the next morning’s activities started around 6am.  This consisted of offering rice to the monks, followed by breakfast and more meditation.  The meditation was not just sitting or lying down, it included walking which I had never done before.  Slowly walking, focusing on breathing, slow steps and not being distracted.  I found this hard to start with because I was focusing more on what I was about to step on than not focusing. After the morning meditation it was time for lunch before noon.

Food is predominantly vegan, served twice a day and in good quantities. If you are attempting to follow things you should not eat after midday.  In practise you will not be stopped from eating later in the day.  I had little problem with following this rule for the full day I was there, but it could take some getting used to.  Water, both cold and hot is freely available along with tea.  

While there everything is freely provided.  You can leave without paying anything and nobody would know other than yourself.  If you would like to donate ask for an envelope to put money in and then deposit it in a small site a short distance from the main building.

The emphasis is on making the decision for yourself about how strictly to follow some of the rules and schedule.  The Abbot jokingly referred to the 5am self meditation in the schedule as “sleeping meditation,” which was a fair description.  If you wish to go to the shop on the main road, you are free to do so.  If you are looking for a place with rigidly enforced discipline this is not the right place.  On the opposite side, if you clearly break some of the rules (e.g. not being there for any of the schedule, drinking alcohol) you would be asked to leave.  The religious aspects are a part of the place, but not forcefully.  At the same time it is more than a place to try meditation.

The experience left me with much to consider.  It would be very easy while staying there to lose track of the outside world and to let go of external considerations.  I used my phone there only as a time piece and camera – no need to keep updated with other things. There is nothing to desire for there – your basic physical needs of food, water, sleep and cleanliness are met.  Slow down, no need to rush in an imaginary race.  The regular schedule means you have no need to think about planning anything.  With all this you can let go of the unimportant distractions.  I feel 2 nights, like I did, is a bare minimum to benefit from the experience of staying there.  A week or longer could have been better.

I do not see myself as a Buddhist, but a lot of the philosophy side of it feels like it makes more sense to me than the other religions I have encountered.  As I write this 2 months later I feel like some more of the inner negativity has dissipated.  I feel a little calmer and more at ease with existence.  I meditate a few times a week, usually flat on my back because it is more comfortable.  Small things and those outside of myself are less frustrating because there is nothing beneficial from having negative thoughts about them.  There have been a number of moments since being there when I have tried to adjust what I am doing or thinking / feeling in light of the experience.

Compassion towards others and also towards yourself.

http://watpatamwua.com/ ←this web address may no longer be working, but there quite a few other sources of information available

[psykonee]

Madagascar

A queue.  Another slow moving queue.  A third queue.  Hours in stuffy, slow moving lines.  Not the best first impressions of a country. Welcome to Madagascar.  Madagascar is beautiful, dysfunctional, scared, diverse and unlike anywhere else I’ve ever been.  A part of Africa, but very different from the mainland.  The people tend to look more like those from Malaysia and Indonesia than the rest of Africa.  Much of the wildlife and fauna are unique to Madagascar. The landscape varies within a few hundred miles to encompass rainforests, deserts,  highlands of rice terraces and more temperate mountains.

Humans have left many scars on the land.  Overgrazing from cattle (zebu), logging, slash and burn agriculture and the global problem of disregarded plastic littering many places.  Some of it is from development, but it is mostly as a consequence of people trying to survive.  The country is very poor, with some villages lacking electricity or any infrastructure beyond the road through the middle. Housing in rural areas is mainly made of mud bricks, often made in the kilns in the vicinity.  The children in these areas tended to be curious of outsiders and looked like they were generally happy.

At higher income levels and for tourists there remains a strong French colonial influence.  Menus in French instead of Malagasy, French style food, fresh baguettes (one of the best things is many former French colonies is the availability of good fresh bread).  One of the main supermarkets in the capital Antananarivo could have been fairly seamlessly teleported to France.  If you like steak and chips you’re in the right country.  In the south zebu grazing dominates much of the landscape.  Chips are really good for some reason – perhaps the climate is ideal with for the right potatoes and everything is freshly prepared.

Lemurs are the most well known Madagascan animals.  They are primates and different species of them live everywhere from the rainforests to the mountains.  From what I saw some lived almost entirely in the trees, swinging and leaping from branches.  Others moved along the ground almost like kangaroos hoping and using their long tails for support. In protected areas they appeared to be completely disinterested in the presence of humans.

Of the fauna the baobab trees stand out the most, which can be hundreds if not thousands of years old.  To survive in the more arid areas the trees can appear almost lifeless, with few leaves to be seen in the dry season.  Some of the trees were very tall, others more squat in appearance.  The fruit is edible and on some trees you could see the distorted steps that had been cut into the trunk decades previously to get the fruit.

[psykonee]

Go back to where you came from

The global refrain of those who feel that a space is theirs and has people there that they would like to leave or expel.

Where are you from?

Is this defined by place of birth (I have never lived in the city I was born in), nationality (I have more than one) or should your ancestors points of origin be the overriding consideration (just taking into account my parents, that would be two different countries)?  Perhaps a different definition would be better?

If you were to go back, where would it be to?

This is where it gets more complex.  I have not lived in the country I was born in for some years, but I could go back there with little difficulty.  If we start to consider the ancestral definition, should I somehow split myself in two, pick one or would neither country be applicable?  Going back over a dozen generations it may be the case that a place I have no affinity with turns out to be the most common ancestral source.

It is possible to lose legal nationality by various means – e.g. not all countries allow having more than one.  So if you acquire another one, you would be expected to renounce your initial one.  It would be plausible to have a different nationality from both your parents by this means (and others).  Where should you go back to if neither is legally possible?

Countries change borders.  New ones appear and others disappear.  On a scale of centuries very few countries, if any, have not changed their borders. It is possible to be born in one place, live a lifetime in one place and have had several nationalities e.g. if you had been born in Lviv in present day Ukraine in 1915 you would have conceivably had Austro-Hungarian, Polish, USSR and Ukrainian nationalities without ever leaving the city.  Nationalities are not fixed constructs.

Ethnicity would be in the view of some a better answer to ‘from’ than nationality.  In many cases where ethnic groups originate from is unclear.  They also would not have emerged from nowhere; meaning that a group of humans that became the group originated from somewhere else.  Trace this back and you would eventually reach the groups that were the first humans.  Should all of humanity leave the rest of the planet and only reside in what is the best guess origin point(s) of our most common ancestors?

What if… people really did go back to where they came from?

To simplify things a little – ‘from’ would be as far back as can be determined by family trees, the most common origin would be the answer.  If it is exactly equal parts more than one country, then divide equally those in the group amongst the destination countries.

To use Australia as a starting country for people returning to where they are from, that would mean anyone who could not prove that their most common ancestral origin is aboriginal would have to leave Australia.  Of those remaining, they would have to go to the part of Australia most strongly identified with the most significant part of their ancestral background.

It would be interesting to see what Australia would look like after this considerable reduction in the human population.  It would also be interesting to see the impact of thousands of new arrivals in other countries.

Apply this to the USA, Canada, Brazil, France, UAE, India, Singapore, Spain, South Africa… and so on.  The movements would be in the billions of people.  Some countries would experience considerable population falls, others large increases.  Very few countries would unaffected.  It is plausible that the least impact would be in ethnically homogeneous, isolated countries that have experienced very little emigration or immigration.   North Korea and Bhutan come to mind as countries that would experience relatively little impact.

Doing this would be pretty clearly absurd.  People move.  Places change. People are from a mix of places.  People see themselves as different things.  We are all human.

[psykonee]

Nowhere

You enter this place.  The temperature is moderated by the faint hum of the air-conditioning.  The light is similarly moderate and amidst the signs there is nothing remarkable.  Over the course of a brief walk deeper inside, you can see signs for Starbucks, Apple, Samsung, McDonald's and a whole host of other familiar brands.  There are posters on one of the walls for the cinema showing the latest releases.  A few smaller shops amongst the larger ones sell phone accessories.  There are signs directing you to different floors, toilets, exits and parking.  Some of the other people look much like yourself, a few stand out as a little different.

Based on this – in what country and city are you in?

It could be almost impossible to tell.  Such places exist across a significant part of the planet.  I’ve seen them in Europe, Asia, America and Australia.  They could be anywhere that has reached a certain level of consumption.  The world sharing the same, effectively identical places.  Use teleportation to mix several of them between countries, update the language and the prices to the local currency, and the change would be pretty unremarkable.  

Many consume in the same places across the globe.  Homogenisation and blandness spreading everywhere.  In some senses it makes things easier – if you travel, some things will be familiar, e.g. if you like Starbucks in one country you’re going to get a broadly similar experience in another one.  There is little chance of an unpleasant surprise.  Familiarity can be deeply comfortable.  The price is a loss of what previously made places distinctive.  If places are interchangeable what is the point of going anywhere new?

Can anything be done?  Should anything be done?  If things are available to the largest possible number of people then you could argue it is a good thing.

Unfamiliar shops in new countries can tell you something about where you are. The range of food in a supermarket gives you some idea what is popular.  The sizes, styles and types of clothing available provide a similar insight.  The more specialised shops can be more revealing. In contrast seeing a H&M in a country tells you very little about where you are.

I find one of the most enjoyable parts of travelling is eating and drinking new things.  If a country produces wine or beer then I will aim to try them (they also tend to be cheaper) there.  Not all food is available everywhere yet and with some foods they can be far fresher nearer to their place of origin.  I have also occasionally ordered blind – being unable to read the menu and just taking a guess to see what I end up with.  Sometimes it has been not quite what I thought it would be, like the pastries containing red beans in Japan, but generally it has been fine.

[psykonee]

Human Property

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.” - Larkin, This be the verse.

Should they have the right to do so, for better or worse?

At birth, by yourself you would probably survive, perhaps at most, a week by yourself.  It wouldn’t be pleasant – starving, dehydrated, covered in your own excretions and suffering.  You are pretty helpless and, most commonly, one or more parents acts to ensure your survival.  To start with you have less autonomy than many pets.  In practical terms you are owned by those caring for you, with little freedom and no ability to survive if it was suddenly imposed on you.

For many years to come your actions will be constrained, you will be made to do things you do not like and possibly have to perform tasks without payment.

If an adult human was restricted to live in one place, ordered to work without compensation and could be subjected to pretty arbitrary punishment, it would look a lot like enslavement – the treating of other humans as property.

To what extent are children the property of their parents (actual or de facto)?  To what extent are they free to do what they like with their children?  At what point do children become free from the control of their parents?  In some cultures, arguably never.

If I was a manager and I decided to punish a subordinate by slapping them, then that would be unacceptable.  In some jurisdictions it is permissible to slap one of your children as punishment.  In most other contexts it would be treated as assault.  Is a child of mine less human than others, so I should be free to assault them as punishment?

The body of a child is treated as property and often modified in a way they may not have chosen if they had been in a position to make a choice.  For example, in some places in the world circumcision, both male and female is a common practice.  The procedure is irreversible. It would be better if irreversible modification of children’s bodies was left for them to decide themselves when they are capable of doing so.

Children are generally not given freedom of thought.  Quite frequently children are indoctrinated in the religion of one or both of their parents.  Indoctrination can also cover other things like political views.  Forced religious or political conversion in any other circumstances is generally considered unacceptable, why should this be the exception?  I would argue that children should be free to make up their own minds on what religion, if any, or political views, if any, they should adopt without having the views of others imposed on them.

If I became a parent, what would I do with the child?

They would need to be kept alive.  Oxygen, food, liquids and a good degree of comfort.  Nobody remembers being newly born.  This part of life is before the ability to formulate thoughts beyond the most basic.  All this new sensory input to make sense of, literally everything is new experience.  Affection, love, encouragement, the needs beyond basic survival.  Language, music, colours, movement.  Their body and mind are theirs.  Offer them possibilities and open doors instead of beating them with carved stone slabs.  Do not prevent them from making their informed choices. Ensure there is space for them to make mistakes and to learn from them.  Do not hinder their exploration of the universe.  Treat them as a human, not a slave, not something to be controlled.  Respect them.  Make it clear that I am not always right, that other views are available besides mine.  Be available for them when things go wrong.  Never resort to the failure admitting trump card of “I am your parent” to close a debate or to get them to do something.  Never assault them.  Never treat them as a possession.  Never see them as a mini-me.  Let them live.  Allow them to see this and hopefully the reality will not have been hypocritical.

[psykonee]

The far south

The lonely road continues south amid the near unchanging arid grass and scrub filling the vast space to the distant Andes.  The coach continues its journey across the day with hours between places of any note.  There is a beauty to the monotonous expanse as the sun sets behind the distant mountains.  The scale of everything beyond the road is vast – the continuous chain of mountains, the expanse of scrub, the open skies.  Overnight I get some sleep before the coach reaches its destination, but not mine.  Still another 12 hours or more, heading further south.  

Another coach, across the border into Chile.  Then a ferry across the Magellan straight, a name from an atlas, with a small pod of dolphins for company.  The coach crosses back into Argentina amongst more rugged terrain.  Almost 36 hours, over 1000 miles and finally...

Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego.  Debatably the southern most city in the world. There are a few places south of the Beagle channel in Chile and beyond that, across Drake’s passage lies Antarctica.  It feels like the edge of the world, a frontier place.  A place that feels more natural than human.  It is early summer here, yet snow fall still occurs.  Glaciers, seals, penguins, forests and blue lakes.  Even in the low temperatures the sunlight is very strong thanks to the ozone hole.

A dawn departure for the only coach heading back north and towards El Calafate one of the closest towns to the Patagonian ice field.  West of there in the Andes is the Perito Moreno glacier, which is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  A vast tongue of white / blue ice flowing from the mountains, a crumbling front with building sized blocks falling into the blue lake in front of it.  You can hear the grown of the ice, the stresses of its flow between the mountains and into the lake.  When a block falls it crashes into the lake triggering an expanding ripple of waves.  I could have comfortably watched it for hours, never knowing when the next fragment of ice will fall.  The ice looked almost alive.  For a brief time I walk on the ice – a landscape of pale blues and white, unlike anything else I’d ever experienced.  An alien world of sculpted water.

A little north to the village of El Chalten, to be amongst the Andes. The clear air and beauty of being on the fringes of the wilderness. There are more glaciers here and a real sense of being away from everything.  Every day a new sight of something wonderful, the feel of the wind, of being some place raw, vital, wondrous.

Across into Chile, to Puerto Natales which has a similar feel of humanity clinging on to a place.  From there into Torres del Paine for a completely new experience.  I had never done a hike of more than a single day, never had to carry a tent and all food supplies for a few days before.  At the start my lower legs screamed with the load being placed on them.  The trails are so well worn and the presence of others it makes getting lost impossible.  Yet these ant tracks of humanity are mere scratches on the natural beauty of the surroundings.  More glaciers, forests, rain, rain, snow, multiple seasons in one day.  Over the days my body adjusts to the effort, my pack became a little lighter as the food was consumed.  On the last night I pitch the tent with snow falling on the hard ground.  On the last morning I woke early to see sunrise with the three giant rock towers that give  the park its name.  Briefly they were lit up by the golden light of the dawning sun which felt good.  Afterwards I unpitched the tent for the last time and walked out of the park. Just outside the park there is a fairly luxurious hotel.  I leave the pack outside head for the hotel’s bar for a beer that felt like a well deserved reward after the past 5 days.  A feeling of achievement, of having pushed myself into new personal territory, of having opened up further possibilities.

The ferry ride north, amongst the Patagonian fjords, sometimes lost in the fog and clouds.  Exposed to the full force of the open ocean as the only land at this latitude is to our east, with thousands of miles of open ocean to the west.  More glaciers as they flow into the ocean.

This sense of isolation this far south, far from any large city.  A sense of this place being raw nature, something which has been largely lost in so much of the world.  A rugged place of beauty.

[psykonee]

Who are us?

See yourself.  Look into your own eyes, your face, the rest of your body and any clothes you wear.  Say your name, hear your voice.  Close your eyes and touch your skin, taste your lips.  All this is you, but what if… you opened your eyes and saw a very different face looking back at you, your hands with a very different skin tone.  Saying your name once more and hearing a different voice from your own lips.  Are you still you?  If so, then are you the same?  If not what has become of you?

I think I would still be myself even with these changes.  I don’t see myself as entirely what is externally perceptible.  Taken further – if my brain was placed in a machine would I still be myself?  Again, I think so.   That implies I see myself as my brain.  Brains like any other organs that can be damaged and will fail eventually.  Does this mean that as the brain fails with age myself crumbles and falls apart?  I’ve seen two of my grandparents brains crumble in the years before their physical deaths.  Failing memories, brain cells ceasing to function.  Perhaps they ceased to be themselves some time before they stopped breathing.

What if you completely lost all your memories – would you still exist? If not – are you merely a collection of memories?  I think they are a part of what makes us, us, but not everything.  We are born and from that moment, perhaps earlier, we are experiencing sensory inputs that have an impact on our brains, ourselves.  Are we us at that moment, what if we could be reset to that moment, would ourselves still exist after a reset?

To look a little more outward, the language we think in has a considerable impact on how we are.  Some concepts don’t exist in every language and the structure of a language constrains the thoughts that are easily possible.  In the past I could think in a language other than English, but my capability with that language is far less than it is in English, which I found to be limiting.  Are we in part the languages we think in?  We must be capable of thinking without language because we learned language in the first place.  

To go further out – how much of you is how you see yourself as a part of any group?  By group I would mean work, family, religion, interests, nationality, membership of anything that has a constituency of more than one.  Would giving you the passport of another nationality change who you are?  At a minimum it would change how the world interacts with you.  A change of job would have a similar, but probably lesser impact.  This I think is the greatest effect of external things like appearance on who we are – it significantly influences how the rest of the world interacts with us, which in turn feeds into ourselves.

[psykonee]

Bad behaviour

Confronting yourself is rarely easy.  I think I try to act well towards others, but there have been times I did not.  To focus more on the few, which as much as I do not like it, fall within the same spectrum of behaviour that #metoo has covered in the later part of this year – what I choose to do in those situations was wrong and they are my responsibility alone, along with the consequences. I can try to reason, excuse or otherwise explain them, but doing so here would serve no purpose.  There is within myself the potential to act badly towards others in the future, it is as much as part of me as the potential to act well towards others.

With the instances I can recall (I cannot rule out there being others which I cannot), I regretted my actions around the time and told myself to act better and differently in the future.  I think I also said sorry to them, if I did not, I should have done.  Together that is a pretty low minimum for reasonable human behaviour – acknowledge my fuckups, do not hide from them, apologise, try to empathise and make acting better the future default. 

I’ve tried to think about any situations were someone acted like I did with me and nothing really comes to mind.  I can try to visualise something similar happening to me, which helps with empathising and trying to understand things, but it is not the same thing as experiencing something myself.

There is a problem.  To generalise the problem is predominantly males acting terribly towards females and some combination of seeing their behaviour as acceptable or thinking they can get away with it.  From conversations I’ve had with some of my female friends this problem isn’t confined to any one place or culture – it is global and a lot of it happens in public.  I try to visualise some of the things they’ve told me happening to me – walking, having my body stared at, lewd comments being made about me, being groped by someone…  it would feel awful, I would feel unsafe, it would be upsetting.  Yet it happens and over the time I’ve taken to write this has almost certainly happened to tens thousands of people.  I can think of only one specific instance of seeing this awful behaviour up close and I should have done a lot more than I did at the time to put a stop to it.  It is highly likely others things have occurred that either don’t register in the memory or I was oblivious to at the time.

Why does this happen in public?  It should be clear it isn’t acceptable behaviour, a mental exercise in role reversal would make that point. When it comes to getting away with it – they should not feel they can.  The city I live in I think makes a better effort on this than many other places – there are regular reports of males being convicted of doing things to females that would probably go nowhere in a lot of other places.  The regularity of the reports means these things keep happening even with enforcement, so it is not a complete answer.

Power is a part of what happens with this.  Any power is open to the temptation to abuse it.  The inner voice saying ‘I could get away with this,’ opens a path to many awful possibilities.  A lot of the worst stories to emerge have involved those with the power to change someone’s life for the better abusing it in order to gratify themselves.  Quite often a part of the problem is those on the receiving end felt nobody would believe them or the abuse was a normal part of the world they are in.

The perception of other humans could be a part of this.  If you see others as lesser, less important, as property, as something you are entitled to, which combined with a lack of empathy can lead to some of the more horrific things I have heard about.  In much of the world females are culturally seen as having less status than males.  In the minds of some males, this could mean to them that any female is beneath them. Children are even more generally seen as lesser than adults.

Perception and power can merge together into a sense of entitlement to act in a particular way.

What can be done?  Enforcement helps, but I think things need to be done earlier with children to educate them about acceptable behaviour with others.  Changing the culture of the world is rarely easy.  It would be better if the unacceptable behaviour could be freely pointed out and something done before it becomes a part of a pattern of behaviour.  If you are made aware that behaving in a way is wrong, then you can make changes to how you behave.  They may genuinely think what they did was OK with the other person.  I think it is worse if someone is aware what they are doing is wrong and they feel they can do it anyway.  

[psykonee]

Taxi, Taxi

You arrive late in a new city, and your phone is not working, it is long past the time when any public transport from where you are, if it exists, has ceased to operate.  You have no choice but to use a taxi to get to your destination.  Good luck.

When taking a taxi in an unfamiliar place you can be quite vulnerable. You are trusting a complete stranger to take you safely somewhere. It might be just you and the driver alone for a considerable amount of time.  Having just arrived is one of the few times in a new place you will be going somewhere with all your possessions with you.  This vulnerability and unfamiliarity is exploited all too often.

I think almost anyone that has travelled extensively will have stories of being overcharged, or worse, by a taxi driver.  I’ve so far avoid the ‘worse,’ but overcharging by various means has been all too common.  From my own experiences I’ve been given far too little change in Buenos Aires, had taxis refusing to use meters in Vietnam, taken the scenic route in Bangkok and been quoted ridiculously high fares in more places where the taxis don’t have meters than I would care to count.  In other places there can be a taxi mafia / cartel which keeps prices artificially high, when a more reasonable pricing structure may actually be better all round – people would be more willing to use taxis if they knew the fares were fair, which would mean more journeys for the taxi drivers, raising their earnings.  I know I am less inclined to use things if I feel the charges are exorbitant.

The chicken and egg type question that comes to mind given how widespread problems with taxis are – does the job of taxi driver attract a disproportionate number of untrustworthy people or does being a taxi driver make some people become untrustworthy?  Being a taxi driver cannot be easy sometimes – unpredictable earnings, long hours, working alone, a job that is inherently sedentary, the traffic and the possibility of your customers being unpleasant, refusing to pay or worse.

Into this scenario steps disruptive technologies like Uber, Grab and similar apps.  In some places this had lead to violent conflict between taxi drivers and those taking passengers based on the apps. At least in the case of Uber there are numerous instances of it operating illegally or failing to make sufficient checks on the drivers.  Yet Uber is pretty popular and not just due to the price. If you are somewhere unfamiliar, it can be easier to trust a ride booked using an app over risking the potential of being scammed by a taxi driver working either for themselves or a company you’ve never heard of before.  Uber is not perfect, but given the downsides of the alternatives, it can look like the best available option.  Uber also makes things easier – the same app works across a section of the planet, so less of a need to deal with the unfamiliar.