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Saturday, Dec 24, 2011 - 23:49 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Continued

Mr. Ham has been taking the demise of his idol Kim Jong-il very hard indeed, and has barely moved from his spot since the news broke, in a touching display of piety:


It cannot be!


I tried my best to cheer him up by noting that the Great Successor is being hailed as the Kim's reincarnation (or the Kim's father's, but their spirit is considered to be mostly equivalent as far as I can tell), so it's as if he never left us, some metaphysical kinks to be worked out besides.

Mr. Ham was not consoled, so I hastened to add that Kim kept up his understated style even in death, with the "sky turning red, cracks appearing in frozen lakes, and a Manchurian crane bowing its head in grief", which cheered Mr. Ham up a little, especially after hearing that some reports had the supernatural sight occur at Hamhung - "...the crane seemed to mourn the demise of Kim Jong-il, born of heaven, after flying down there at dead of cold night, unable to forget him."

While I'm not exactly a fan of the departed, unlike Mr. Ham, I do have to grudgingly admit that the crane makes for an elegant symmetry with his first (or was it second?) coming, which had birds singing in human voices.

I was about to muse aloud that skies routinely go red during sunrise and sunset, and that frozen lakes must crack if they are not to be forever frozen, and that birds can't go around with their heads up for the entire day, but Mr. Ham looked so positively blissful that I decided to leave it at that.


Then I saw these birds forming a guard of honour by the overhead bridge to NUS


And deeper within NUS...


I don't want to work with hamsters anymore



Getting What You Pay For

As Mr. Ham is still indisposed with grief, I suppose I shall have to hold the fort. Impulsively purchased a SanDisk Cruzer Blade 16GB thumbdrive on offer at about S$12, and only later discovered that its reviews aren't all that hot. On testing, it does take some time to be recognized by the computer, and copy speed is pretty dismal, but other than that it works fine. Further, I was marvelling at how small it had gotten despite its generous capacity, and then I found this.

It hasn't been a good couple of weeks for public services over here, with the MRT breakdowns, liberally garnished with barely-concealed disdain for initiative in extraordinary circumstances, very bad timing by the CEO on grand entrances, and careless remarks which may be construed as racist from an MP to boot (a certain Luis Suarez and John Terry might empathize). Well, let it not be said that they are being wasteful in their spending, and to be fair, you can duct-tape an airworthy plane together if required.

In a valiant attempt to take some of the heat off their compatriots, the PUB has stepped in to describe ground being submerged under a foot of water as "ponding" and not flooding, the first I have heard of the term being used in this way. Well, since it is on good authority that Singapore floods only once in fifty years, and half a century has yet to pass since the last occurance, as Sherlock Holmes said, once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?





Finish It

I had better wrap up the piece on Hard Truths before I forget all about it, and will now focus only on the major ideas of each chapter for brevity:


Chapter 3: The Cream On Top

The PAP picks out talent after they have been unearthed by the academic/corporate/military system, which is proper since no leadership is wholly selected from the bottom up. Singapore does not have that much true talent due to its small population, especially compared to places like China and India.

[N.B. It so happens that the First Law of Singapore Politics appears to be: Regardless of dynamic factors such as immigration and (much-ballyhooed) educational advancements (then again, MM Lee states that "the rejects of Beijing University could score a first class in our university"), the number of competent political parties that can be sustained by available talent remains exactly one]

While the leadership selection system seems (is) biased towards those from privileged backgrounds, this is because he realised that leaders require the same qualities in almost any field [N.B. Following this theory, if talented enough, somebody trained as an engineer can be tasked to head one of the largest investment companies in existence without appreciable financial experience, ahead of any number of seasoned CEOs who have decades in the specific industry under their belt]

Ministerial pay is high so as to attract the top talents. Holding political office long-term should not be expected to be for done solely for honour, and the entire team costs less than one F15 (over S$30 million). (Paraphrased) Communist/socialist systems eventually degenerate into situations where everybody is theoretically equal and nobody owns anything, but some people somehow get access to much more. [N.B. This, at least, is true]

[N.B. The long-awaited report will be out any day now]


Chapter 4: Keeping The Economic Miracle Alive

Global MNCs (which will continue consolidating) will always be the primary drivers of the local economy. Even places like Taiwan and Hong Kong are not keeping up with Japan and South Korea, who have more (and more talented) people [N.B. That again], with local SMEs at best getting the second tier of talent.

The Japanese focus on rapid incremental improvement, and the USA on innovation, and even outlier success stories like Ikea and Nokia may not keep up in the long run. Moreover, the Scandinavians had a ready-made market in the European Union [N.B. Now under siege], while we face restrictions in the neighbourhood (e.g. Malaysia, Indonesia...)

Other nations have cheaper and better labour, such as the Vietnamese who will take one-third the salaries and one-quarter the price of land, and we are therefore differentiating ourselves on aspects like [N.B. political?] stability, security, connectivity, healthcare and education.

As such, Singapore should grow as fast as is sustainable [N.B. key word], the alternative is slow growth and fewer jobs and lower pay [N.B. smaller pie to divide], and income tax is kept low [N.B. has in fact been reduced] to keep the high income earners [N.B. Well, the government has never been apologetic about it being SG Inc.]

Citizens are given a substantial amount to buy a home which will increase in value [N.B. Two points: First, while a subsidy is given, how the pre-subsidy price is arrived at has never been very clear - see the Housing section in this post; second, while prices may indeed increase, the only way to actually unlock that increase is to be a quitter and emigrate. Future generations will only get the short end of the stick if wages do not increase in tandem, but at least over the long term property prices should moderate as population limits are reached]


Chapter 5: Tough Love

Intelligence is largely heritable (a figure of 70-80% for "mental capacity" was given in a previous chapter). This conclusion was arrived at after observing many cases, such as that of animal breeding, intermarriage between small groups on the Southern Islands, dyscalculia among some lower caste Indians and corresponding achievement among higher castes, and the effect of polygamy among the talented in traditional Chinese society.

"So when the graduate man does not want to marry a graduate woman, I tell him he's a fool, stupid. You marry your clerk or your secretary, you're going to have problems, some children bright, some not bright. You'll be tearing your hair out... So if you watch doctors now, you find that in the old days the doctors used to marry the nurses, then the children - some become doctors, some don't..."

"...And my daughter who is a neurologist has tested them (the grandkids) all. Their IQ is 140 and above. So the parents don't have to worry. That's a fact of life..."

[N.B. While I cannot find fault with the premise that intelligence is to a large extent heritable, I feel that the importance of having intelligent men and women marry (at least more than which naturally occurs) is grossly overstated. It could be argued that programs like the Social Development Unit's would turn out to be a close approximation of the Indian caste system if successfully implemented for the long run (millenia in fact), and while the Brahmins (and Jews/Chinese) may in fact have turned out to be smarter than most (as noted), where did that get their societies? Extended tuition under the barbarian Britons?

Additionally, if heritability of intelligence (or any other trait correlating very strong with success) is true, and people mate assortatively, then social mobility should tend to decrease in any "new" society, to some long-term floor (implicit classes/castes), at least until the next revolution. Empirically, this looks to be true. Anyway, local average I.Q. has been measured to be among the highest in the world (108 in 2006) - not bad for a nation of "genetic inferiors", so whatever is holding us back, raw I.Q. is probably not it]

"The role of government is how to keep the society united so that you don't have an underclass that feels disaffected, discontented and rebellious as in America. And the answer in Britain and in Europe is welfare... We cannot go that way or we will not perform."

[N.B. Truth to tell, no easy solution. Half the people will always be below average, when measured on any particular dimension. But there is hope...]

The government is "trying like mad" to create other paths to success, like in music, art and sports. For example, Malays may be better at graphics, and the Japanese train their artists from an early age instead of conversion into designers based on A-level results. But it is hard to get quality teachers [N.B. Very true]


Chapter 6: Regarding Race, Language And Religion

[N.B. This is the chapter that got (especially) many hot under the collar - quote: "I would say today, we can integrate all religions and races except Islam"; he later stood corrected, albeit in the lead-in to elections]

"Echoing a comment he made in 1996, he again wondered if, in a famine, a Malay neighbour would share her last few grains of rice with another neighbour or her own family or fellow Muslims."

[N.B. Realistically, in a famine, how many people would share their *last* grains with their neighbours, whatever their race or religion? Moreover, how many don't even really know their neighbours nowadays?]

"...the Islam that Lee became most at ease with was the relaxed, easygoing version practised by his childhood friends and old guard colleagues. It was not strict about what Muslims could eat or drink or how they should dress in public. It was tolerant of pre-Islamic rituals - like 'put a chilli up and we get the bomoh to pray so there will be no rain'..."

[N.B. This was a revelation as I frankly can't imagine pork-eating Muslims being accepted in the present day. Then again, this is the classical pattern when religions get organized - they start to claim that others are not true (insert religion) because they don't (do this and do that)]

Malay Muslims were deployed mainly to the police and not the army because of potential conflicts of allegiance, and the injunctions on food, drink and dressing strike him as evidence of Islam's exclusive nature.

[N.B. It can be noted that strict Buddhists (and Taoists and Christians) may insist on a vegetarian diet, but the main point here seems to be that most adherents of these faiths are not very stubborn on these details. As for dressing, as in the tudung issue, this is more complicated than it seems as, for example, Sikhs are allowed their turbans, and despite benighted appeal to colonial practice, it appears that there was in fact no ban on tudungs in those times]

Mainland Chinese immigration is barely replacing the local Chinese population, while there is a relatively large influx of highly-qualified Indians, especially in IT and banking. However, there are still plans to retain a significant Malay population, but this is not easy because Malay talent tends to find it easier in Malaysia thanks to favourable policies there.

The government got the local Islamic Religious Council to agree not to allow foreign (specifically, Saudi Wahhabi) backward-looking preachers [N.B. Though even the Saudis may be slowly reforming], instead building our own mosques.

"Even in the buses, when Londoners see a Muslim, they move away. They worry that the man may be carrying a bomb. If he explodes it, you'll be dead. Human beings react that way..."

[N.B. Veracity aside, how much good would it do to move away but remain in the same bus, if there was really a bomb?]

"We cannot guarantee that somebody will not slip through, go into the underground station and blow himself up, or worse, go into the tunnel and blow himself up. Then you have a tremendously difficult rescue operation..."

[N.B. Thankfully suicidal terrorists are mostly not very smart, but on current evidence all they have to do is cut a few cable ties, or sneak into a depot and plant explosives on the undercarriage]

Other religions (i.e. Christians) have been getting more vocal, but will generally be tolerated as long as they remain law-abiding and not interfere in politics (as the Catholic Church allegedly tried to in the 1980s). The trend towards Christianity can be explained as because ancestor-worship religions are not convincing to the Western-educated, who deem it superstition, and instead believe a superior being somewhere created the world [N.B. Hmm.]

In particular, the Christian ministers (who number more than might be expected from the general population share) are not aggressive Christians and know how to live and let live.

"Homosexuality will eventually be accepted. It's already accepted in China. It's a matter of time before it's accepted here."

[N.B. Impressively, America has recently declared gay rights as human rights despite its own considerable religiosity]

[To be continued again...]



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Next: Merry Merry


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