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Saturday, Apr 02, 2016 - 23:57 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Lazy April Day

Quick n' dirty short post here, the way I like them.

Top domestic news of the week was undoubtedly our Minister Mentor's (extremely qualified) daughter declaring on Facebook that she would "no longer write for SPH as the editors there do not allow me freedom of speech" [!] [verbatim]. Coming as it did yesterday, locals were understandably extra-skeptical about whether she was for real, but given that there have as yet been no takebacks, one has to take it at face value.

Which is a pity as her columns were always... candid. Quite coincidentally, North Korea has just banned Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, which more than a few quipped would greatly disappoint the roughly three affected people there. Meanwhile in China, news editors are also resigning over censorship, and in a true show of balls, 171 loyal Communist Party members have signed a missive calling on President Xi to step down. Of course, this will merely result in 171 mysterious disappearances, perhaps with family members dragged in too like the old days, but hey, lookit those balls!

While we're at it, there's been more talk about a "robot car revolution" here, and to be honest, we do have many helpful prerequisites - heavily urban, well-maintained roads, a docile populace. As discussed before, 100% automated vehicles is indeed probably more manageable than having a mix, due to guaranteed coordination (which might even make traffic lights obsolete). Unfortunately, recent happenings continue to cast a pall over the technical competency of our transport operators, before even going into angry mobs of newly-unemployed cabbies, and satellite ERP system supporters...


Truth By Approximation

How long is knowledge valid? This seems a fair question, after the past couple of months has seen research that had previously been covered here, possibly discredited.

First up, Graeber's theory on how debt developed. Recall, instead of the longstanding common-sense of "barter first", Graeber called upon anthropology to establish the primacy of informal credit. Well, the economists are defending their turf (and in passing, the honour of Old Master Smith), beginning by reasoning that the lack of documented historical evidence for barter economies might simply be survivorship bias. Graeber was apparently unimpressed. I see a good feud in the making.

Next up, on Jared Diamond's Collapse, new analysis on the tools that the Easter Islanders used, seems to suggest that they declined not due to internecine fighting predicated by ecological destruction, but more likely due to European diseases. Then again, this is hardly the first critique, with the Viking fish taboo, as well as past works such as Guns, Germs and Steel, also heavily panned. I suppose the only way to avoid this would be to do pure math, which however does run the risk of not managing to figure out what the heck one's own dissertation was about, after awhile; at least chances are that nobody else will bother to poke holes either...

Given this, one understands why there's been a shift from selling books, to hawking knick-knacks (remember, the same thing happened to the university's main co-op); so much more profit, for so much less trouble!


Lelong Lelong

Transitioning to point form:

And, remember to work out!




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