changes in the neighbourhood

To myself, this seems ironic: I like change, but when it is unexpected, I find myself unable to accept it; yet plenty of changes unexpectedly happen...

I guess one of these examples have to do with the changes in the neighbourhood. Today I finally realise: an Indian barber whom I go to for haircuts is no longer gone. The sadder thing is that this was the same barber my mum would recommend; whom my dad would go to. I guess the Indian barber was old enough to retire. In the place of him, lie shelves of stuff, an 'organic' wholesaler from China nationals, I think.

So what do I make of these sudden, unexpected changes? Frankly, I wasn't totally surprise that he would go - people grow old, retire, and move on in their lives. I hope he has earned enough to retire comfortably for the next few decades of his life. And I guess I have to move on too, frequent another barber in the neighbourhood now, I think.

I wonder too, of the broader demographic changes - I there are many shops in the neighbourhood there have been in the entire span of my life and longer. The aquariums, the provision shops selling household items; the bakery; the many other provision shops; the coffeeshops... I have to, eventually, realise that none of these things will stay for long - the shop owners are near their retirement age, and they too, will fade away.

Yes, nostalgia is seeping in, there's simply something, missing... almost as if a part of you, or at least, a part of the memory has faded away, like a phantom limb, and though one thinks that its there, it really isn't - hence the cognitive dissonance - the disconnect that results. And this change is just is - it is neither good nor bad - it is value-neutral. The change is neither too fast nor too slow - the change has simply happened. And many more changes will happen, for example, USP will move to the Residential College, University Town, and for those involve in it, that change is looming, it will happen, and then it becomes - it has happened. To the alumni whose memory of USP has become fixed onto USP @ Blk ADM, it will be a change that they too, will have to accept... Situations change, people change, and those affected by the change are simply left to cope - find the alternative barber (which I have), or simply learn to get use to the change instead of grumbling about it constantly. Change simply is, most times. Like the cells in the body, like the sky and the clouds, like the waves in the ocean...

EMpulse-Bursts

Empulse-bursts is not a typo - Electrical impulses, was thinking of cloudbursts... I realised that when I force myself to focus when I run, I am in actual fact, meditating. And here's the 'rain':

1. I think there is a different way to conceptualise knowledge and academia, and I was thinking of this as friends were debating about psychology and sociology. I realise that different subjects are more like points in a network of knowledge, and that every point emanates influence from a metaphorical origin. Imagine waves radiating outwards from a pebble being dropped in the pond. Semiotics becomes the study of how these waves form, and what happens when they intersect - how knowledge is being created, perhaps.

Less metaphorically, semiotics is a thread that connects the different fields, in the investigation of how raw sense-data becomes knowledge, of how things become known and have meaning. It is both cognition and social constructions - because nothing in the material world has any meaning-in-itself, the meaning is given by people, and I think its a place where semiotics comes in and becomes part of the explanation.

2. Was thinking about pedagogy, was thinking that USP students are a demanding lot, and will demand high quality instructors as well. While we have always taken charge of our own education, what I'm trying to get at is that, where is the line where students decide what is being actually thought? And this leads into the next point...

3. If USP instructors are facilitators of knowledge, then this must mean, in certain instances, that students are, together with the instructors, co-creating knowlege together. Continuing on, where is the space of criticism of instructors by students? This criticism must necessarily be based on respect and decency, but I was wondering, how would instructors come to terms with this criticism? And this leads to...

4. Alan Kay said that the best way to predict the future is to make it. If we at USP are in the process of co-creating knowledge, might not we take the next step and begin to shape the future? While students can be thought of as future-in-waiting, I'm really wondering, to what extent can that future be realised? And so, on a not-so-unrelated point,

5. I'm struggling with myself, and still figuring out what is 'smartness'. My current thought is this: Social Darwinism, social engineering will fail, because genetically, getting people of the same phenotype (smartness) together would sometimes mean the meeting of genotype. Exercising social darwinism leads to some degree of inbreeding, and in some instances, retardation. I take the view that people are all smart, but that their smartness lies in different areas, and it is up to institutions to develop, and nurture those smartness. (was wondering about those government scholars - how 'smart' are they? they must definitely, certainly be very smart. so how do i 'compare' to them? they certainly can't think the thoughts i do!)

6. Which leads to the conception of democracy: in the naive case, democracy is meant to be a system of debate, of a marketplace of ideas, where ideas are debated, and thought true, and the belief is that the best ideas, by their own 'best-ness' will prevail. But that does not happen, and we end up with the belief that certain people are more worthy than others to weign in on a debate, which leads to inequality, exploitation, oppression...

7. Media technology is then, a way to level the playing field, perhaps... Which leads me to the recurring idea that socialism will come not because of revolution, but because socialism will be preferred over capitalism (stone age didn't end because we run out of stones; capitalism won't end because we run out of capital). Perhaps if we can find different perceptions of capital...

8. What we want isn't better, or newer technology - what we want are engaged, more-informed tech! And it is that socially, humanly-informed technology that might get socialism started...

9. And a world system: first started thinking about money, about how a single piece of paper note is really a contract of payment, that a $2 notes does not mean that the paper alone is worth $2, but is in fact, a promise of payment to be paid something worth $2. Extending the concept to the limit, then, international process can be thought of as things-in-process, waiting to become things-to-be. This process is never really complete. Eg., international aid: where assistance if offered to countries with the hope that these countries will develop. (aware of complications, but for the time being...) a semiotic conception of this system would look into how aid in itself becomes a sign-relation, that the sign 'aid' means within it, the outcome of development. But since things are evidently not so, aid is then, in actuality, a process of things-to-be. Thinking of Novogratz's notion of patient capitalism, where funds are not simply 'things' that arrive at a particular client, but instead carry along with it the whole development process that needs to be followed through... .

techno-socialism (kevin kelly got there first)

1. Wondering: if its possible to measure social/cultural capital, and you latch on some kind of management, distribution system to it, I think its going to look like socialism a lot. The measurement of the social/cultural capital is the problematic part, and I'm thinking if thats where the tech part will come in providing new ways to measure the intangible.

When I'm thinking of this, the Niels Bohr quote comes to mind, 'We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.'

2. So... This socialism I observe stems from my observations of technology - that Wikipedia, Internet, and various such projects have come into existence by the sheer goodwill of people, and I think if socialism is going to arrive, it won't be due to a revolution which overthrows capitalism, but the result of incremental progress made possible by the developments in technology, as how steam engines led to the 'Industrial Revolution', and to the capitalism of our present day.

This observation also stems from my observation that 'social change' usually creeps along - dramatic revolution is the exception to the norm, and so... yeap.

3. The third thread to this idea is this: that I observe that technology consists of the embodiment of ideas (remind me to read Paperclip). It is really difficult to abstract the social from any of our present-day artifice. Hence everyday-objects embody some kind of logic, and I believe in our everyday, that logic is our contemporary-capitalism - in the creation of wants, the accumulation of material, and that it is then possible to imagine a different kind of world where the everyday-logic is composed of a different set of assumptions, one that is reflected in the physical technology of things. One could imagine the forms of technology that constantly levels any hierarchy in society - in such a way, inequality is minimized to perhaps, an infinitesimal extent - and that everyone's inequality keeps things equal because of the deployment of technology in asymmetrical ways.

I'm thinking I'm not the first to... oh, Kevin Kelly wrote about it...

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism?currentPage=all

Now we're trying the same trick with collaborative social technology, applying digital socialism to a growing list of wishes—and occasionally to problems that the free market couldn't solve—to see if it works. So far, the results have been startling. At nearly every turn, the power of sharing, cooperation, collaboration, openness, free pricing, and transparency has proven to be more practical than we capitalists thought possible. Each time we try it, we find that the power of the new socialism is bigger than we imagined.

So.. I think its really interesting that socialism could come from so unexpected a source!

had fun on tv!

I'm extremely thankful to God for making tonight possible! Truly, all things have been ordained in His time. I met really nice people, and I really liked what I said back there. I talked about my passion for my generation and for SG's future, and I'm glad I said what I said - it was the things I've always wanted to say!

I have my opinions on other things, such as how SMU people 'are' - how they talk, and why, and some of it is unpleasant stuff. But to be fair to them, they embody passion too, its just well...

And another thing that kinda bugged me was that... very few of my good friends watched it. I thank those who did watch it very much, but for the rest... well... there was a halloween event, but can't help feeling slightly hurt. But its ok. Have to move on.

So thats that! Looking forward to the alumni dinner, and hope to meet cool people there, establish relationships and all!

woot!

Thank God!

KRMF

I was at a recent KRMF - stands for Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum, where MM Lee shared his 'insights' from the questions that were being asked.

Frankly, I didn't learn anything much, as the questions felt 'standard' - asking about how the financial crisis affected global balance of power, how negotiations in Copenhagen could proceed, and general threats of national identity arising from immigration and so on... He did mention several worries about demographics and the work ethic, but more importantly, the forum informed me about his frame of mind.

Assuming that the answers reflected his frame of mind, I am led to the conclusion that MM Lee is still in his immediate-post-65 mindset, where the main concern was the immediate struggle to survive, to get an economy up and going, a military force ready, to feed and house what, 2M Singaporeans back then, and so on. He did a fabulous job, and generations of Singaporeans should be grateful for what he did back then, as he laid the foundations of the country. Here, it is important to note that I DO NOT DENY that he did a wonderful job for this country, and that he does deserve respect, adoration, and so on. However, my personal intuition is that the context of development has changed in the generations after him, and that it is necessary to look back, as well as look ahead to see where the future of Singapore might go, especially without him.

I would like to mention his mindset regarding 'work'. In his answer to 'the kind of values required for Singapore's future' - he mentioned 'WORK', and he goes back to talk about opening up SG to MNCs, and getting them to set up factories and so on. He almost seemed to romanticise that past, in emphasizing the social discipline and the sense of control that made for a 'compliant' workforce that was ready to 'obey' to the MNCs and made for optimal conditions for MNCs to work in. That was then.

Things have changed now. The nature of the economy is different - in particular the manufacturing industries now take a lesser share although they are still important jobs-wise. I would question if the manufacturing industries can remain the same source of growth in light of industrialising China and India, not to mention regional neighbours in how they can compete in terms of sheer numbers and cheap surplus labour. What about the recent drives towards the 'new economy' - is that empty rhetoric? But SG has invested millions in the design, creative industries, no? Those industries have a different work ethic, one that thrives on openness, creativity, spontaneous, hardly the things that call for social discipline and control.

Again, I do not deny that MM Lee has done a good job in this country, but in the present day, there is a need to look beyond the past that has been done, and look onward to the future. Surely he has created a good system that can be passed down to generations, but there must be room of improvements, no? And it is up to every generation examine the machinery that he has built - to replace the parts that are necessary but wearing down; to take down unnecessary parts; to put in new parts...

Well, he does not have to wait until after his death for historians to revise his history. For a better future for SG, we have to start thinking of life byond him.

A footnote of sorts: what is his influence in government? How much of that mindset is still percolated through the government?