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- Cool Hand Luke 22, on bluffing Words (As Numbers)  I think our chatbots are getting along! (Source: GPT Image 2) Before explaining my answer to the cliffhanger question at the end of the previous post, on whether the United States of America can retain its long-held primacy without their President's current policies, a brief comment on LLMs such as ChatGPT and Gemini. While perhaps still occasionally prone to gross factual errors (on which more next time), I think it fair to say that their expositions are, on the whole, no less good than the average human adult, and certainly near-impeccable in technical execution, if perhaps somewhat recognizable in tone. This consistency and blandness in A.I. voice does make them especially suited to formal and commercial contexts - including but not limited to boilerplate news articles and advertising copy - and public communication in general. If nothing else, major chatbots have been tuned to be entirely sycophantic and inoffensive, channelling that preppy pal that just "fits in" and gets accepted about anywhere, like a platinum credit card. There has to be a temptation, then, of simply augmenting one of those open-source LLMs using RAG on previous blog posts, for effort-free content generation. Were approval by the widest possible readership the objective, one could do far worse. But that was never the point, was it? Ladies and gentlemen, before proceeding, I offer contrition for any ill-feeling from the suggestion that America may well not remain First; but perhaps the fact that mere words could engender such repugnance, indicates that "America First" is indeed a status taken for granted by Americans and their supporters. Oh, they may badmouth their politicians (quite eagerly, as it happens), complain about taxes and the cost of living, and readily admit to ongoing crises of healthcare and infrastructure and random warmongering - but when push comes to shove, one believes that a majority of them will still assert that yes, America is still the Greatest Nation on Earth. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, in the sense that most everyone believes that their parents are (among) the best parents, their football team is the best football team (or should be anyway, had the management not messed it all up), and their dog is the bestest boy of all. Returning to a more-neutral perspective, however, I would have to say that whether America can remain First, by the quantitative metrics that matter, has at least become a valid question. To this, I boldly add the claim that TRUMP is by and large operating to preserving America's position - as we shall soon see. Population  You didn't actually think it would work a second time, did you? (Source: GPT Image 2) The key point raised in the previous blog post was that a country's Strength correlates strongly with its population, particularly over the longer term. Historically, consider the greatest empire directly preceding America*, that of the British. At its height about 1913, it contained some 23% of the global population, much of that attributable to the British Raj in and around India, which numbered some 315 million people then. Do note that the focus on China's population advantage is not because I happen to be ethnically Chinese (or at least I was, last I checked this morning); this will likely apply for India too, sometime in the future. However, since China's GDP is currently about 2.3 (PPP) to 4.7 (nominal) times that of India's, it may be some years before America's baleful gaze turns on them. Before Britain, the title of First (in Europe at least) had been carried by the French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese in turn, going by reserve currency status - and it is perhaps no fluke that all of these powers were supported by burgeoning (often colonial) populations. Much of America had been French, after all, the Dutch controlled present-day Indonesia (the fourth most-populous nation after India, China and the U.S.) as recently discussed, and the Spanish and Portuguese (later combined for extra Strength) conquered much of the Americas (yes, again), including Macau (in China) for good measure. Right before them, there were the Mongols, who like the British controlled about a quarter of everybody living, aided by a willingness to transfer dissenters to the other side of that ledger. With this understanding, the drive towards expansion by the reigning GOD-EMPEROR of America is self-explanatory. As the Chinese probably understand better than most, "alliances" are often unreliable, and one can only count vassals and actual subjects under one's true Strength. Towards the former, TRUMP has contributed Venezuela and maybe Cuba to come, with expansion targeted for Greenland, Canada (with an Alberta secession referendum already arranged) and southwards as well. All this is not even remarkable in a historical context, mind, especially if purchase (as proposed for Greenland) is considered - just ask Britain, France, Spain, Mexico and Russia. To put it another way before moving on to the next point, the eclipse of a smaller entity by a larger one would be entirely expected, in the general sense; one might read about Qin conquering the other contenders during the Warring States period due to being larger and more centralised (especially compared to the comparably-large but fragmented Chu), and shrug because that's how it usually goes. David beats Goliath qualifies as news, exactly because it is so rare; ninety-nine times out of a hundred, "kid gets brutalized by trained warrior" doesn't get recorded, because as the Romans well knew**, slingers and velites simply aren't a match for triarii. [*Here, let us confirm that America is an Empire in no uncertain terms, and by all indications the greatest one that the world has yet seen. When one has over five thousand nukes and perhaps seven hundred foreign outposts/bases, one tends to set the rules, and therefore the "rule-based order" (which our Foreign Minister apparently preferred over "international law" during his visit to China - who're skipping the Shangri-La Dialogue again)] [**The Iranian foreign ministry has just drawn allusions to how the Roman Emperor came to terms with the Persians in the third century, thus acknowledging the GOD-EMPEROR's pedigree.] Numbers (In Green)  What took an actual World War before... (Source: livewiremarkets.com) The sheer preposterousness of American advisers, and much of their general citizenry, claiming that "(national) debt and (aggregate) trade deficits don't matter" had been addressed last September, but it is unclear as to whether any minds had been changed, given that the national debt remains increasing at a clip of some US$2.25 trillion annually - which may soon have to be refinanced at higher rates. Seriously, one has totally no idea as to how these conceptions about debt and deficits had become popular. That said, America has always been able to roll their borrowings over up to now, and are of course able to simply print money to pay it up in the worst case, thanks to Nixon abandoning the gold standard. It should be said that no fiat currency has sustained such free-spending indefinitely either, though, and this is not for lack of trying. On the persistent aggregate trade deficit front, China may indeed have something to answer for, given their record trade surplus of nearly US$1.2 trillion from last year, which roughly matches America's annual deficit. Such surplus-hogging has been customary for China, with the Qing Dynasty for example running up a huge silver surplus with Europe through the 16th to 18th centuries, thanks to their constant exports of goods such as tea, silk and porcelain - while importing next to nothing in return. Given an inability to print or mine more of this rare metal (also mirrored today), this had the British push opium on China to balance their trade deficit, which ended poorly. The above, then, explains the GOD-EMPEROR TRUMP's unprecedented Global Imperial Tariffs from last April, to which half the world bent the knee to by August (this just reaffirmed by the European Union), and which remain largely in effect despite some implementation hiccups. This led to the lowest monthly deficit in over fifteen years last October, though a more-permanent adjustment may be some time in coming, no thanks to an uncooperative judiciary - who aren't the ones paying the bills to come, by the way.  Pandemic and shutdowns, we hardly knew ye! [N.B. That rising debt may have summat to do with this.] (Source: stlouisfed.org) Even the spectacle of America's post-pandemic GDP soaring against China's might not be as rosy as it appears. Firstly, the other leg of TRUMP's tariff intentions was to bring (some) manufacturing back to the United States, which will definitely take time to come into effect. Jobs aside, it may be often missed that the ability to actually make things, has and always remains a keystone of a country's Strength in practice. America's near-total abandonment of their shipbuilding capacity had been noted last December, and while the current plan is to lean on allies such as Japan and South Korea, an obvious concern is that there are no permanent allies; what if, faced by pressure from perhaps North Korea and others, South Korea then decides to exercise their sovereign right to cancel external orders? And to cap it off, China's GDP by purchasing power parity (i.e. actual goods and services as-is) is already almost half again as large as America's (US$43.5T to US$31.8T), which makes the corresponding gulf in nominal terms rather questionable. To explain this in more concrete and relatable terms, consider the Tesla Model 3 (about US$38k in America) to the roughly-equivalent BYD Seal (about US$15k in China). This means that for the same money, one can get either one car in America, or 2.5 cars in China. Now, let us say that Tesla makes (and sells) ten thousand cars in America, and BYD does twenty thousand cars in China. In this case, American nominal GDP from car sales would be about 20% higher... but China would have twice the number of cars in actuality! While Redditors have for some reason been quite adamant about nominal GDP being the more appropriate measure (as opposed to PPP) for international trade and superpower status determination purposes, let's just say that I wouldn't want to be an admiral staring down a fleet that's some three times larger, while holding a certified missive assuring that our fleet was however bought (much) more expensively. Indeed, one gets the feeling that China has not been eager to disabuse the U.S. of this (twisted) notion either, for instance by generally keeping the yuan undervalued against the U.S. dollar within their managed float, with recent estimates being that it remains over 20% undervalued. This in turn implies that were China simply to allow the yuan to appreciate to equilibrium, its nominal GDP would also rise about 20% against America as a result, immediately snuffing out much of the latter's supposed lead. Energy  Well, well - bystanders no more? (Source: businesstimes.com.sg) As explained in April, Hormuz was quite possibly partly a means to get America's erstwhile "allies" to experience getting their own hands dirty (in principle similar to the "head tax" imposed by various enforcement organizations), and from how the U.S. almost seems to be trolling on the Iranian peace deal (re: a US$300 billion reconstruction fund), they may well be happy to drag it out until July to get NATO involved, and restore some balance to the one-sided alliance. It took TRUMP bringing the hammer down to get the freeloaders to take their own defence more seriously, and thus finally distributing a responsibility that Europe was delighted to have America bear mostly alone - with Spain getting called out after recent approaches to China. The U.S. naval blockade of Hormuz remains very much in place, and from how the Chinese Premier has just been inspecting*** their strategic oil and grain stockpiles, one figures that America may well have some secondary aims in mind. While China has been reported to be sitting on the world's largest petroleum reserves, their quantity is not officially reported (unlike for Australia). From a conference I attended several years ago, there has been ongoing research on estimating petroleum inventories using satellites, which may be quite relevant given how indispensible oil remains to military operations. Is the oil there, or is it not? Well, some countries will attempt to keep a brave face for as long as they can... [***Necessary, from how fuel had been siphoned off and replaced by water previously, an old dodge indeed.] At Once Lion And Lamb And we return to the Man, the King of Kings. And ask a question: can one man truly do, all that he has been said to have done? America has over three hundred million souls, after all; why is it then that they seem satisfied to shift responsibility to but one of their number? He built a wall; He raised the tariffs; He bullied NATO, snatched a President, started the wars; that has to be a very busy and capable man indeed! On this, the answer is much the same as that great Story, from two thousand years ago. Then, there was another man, a Lion, a Lamb, a Scapegoat who assumed the sins of his fellows, a Lord who was sacrificed; he did what had to be done, though those he saved would not admit it; they would instead gladly crucify him for it, entirely unaware of the gift they had received. Blame him, and receive Salvation by his hand - that America might yet be First, and Greatest, for a little longer...  ...that he gave his favourite† and most stably genius son (Source: ebay.co.uk; also in his version of the Good Book; perhaps illegal) [†Fine, so he made a few billion extra in the process, but to him who has more will be given and all that - unlike previous less-entrepreneurial holders of the office. This is a virtue that congresspeople are picking up on.] "No, they know not what you do for them." [To be continued...]
I do not even know where to start." - applicable to many mainstream media analyses of geopolitics  They indeed toll for thee! (Source: facebook.com) The on-again, off-again Hormuz senjata has seen Iran and Oman reportedly now considering setting up a permanent toll, if under the legal dodge of imposing them as a fee for services rendered, specifically the extremely important service of choosing not to blow transiting ships up. While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has indicated that a toll would make a diplomatic deal infeasible, it is frankly not very clear as to whether calling it a fee would make the business more palatable, from how he apparently acquiesced to China's transcription hack in bypassing extant sanctions. From a local angle, the immediate concern would be how a potential toll-called-fee would reflect on Singapore's sticking our neck out on refusing to pay one, with our Foreign Minister's tête-à-tête with his Iranian counterpart seemingly not having the intended effect. It might be a difficult time to be a minister here, one fears, with a DPM getting panned for not achieving an essentially-impossible task as previously explained, amidst questioning of so-called "economic strategy" alongside high costs and ongoing AI-based layoffs. The CEO of Standard Chartered did apologize after being knocked by our former President, amongst (some) others, for referring to replaced employees as "lower value human capital", but this notably did not affect the reality of workers being retrenched nonetheless. More bending of "international law" continued with India for example rejecting a ruling by the Hague-based Court of Arbitration, in what appears to increasingly be a choose-your-own-authority scenario for nations, as with the effective rejection of the ICC (and ICJ, for that matter) by Singapore. Despite our Senior Minister's typically-neutral-coded comments from his recent (budget) visit to Shanghai, one can only hope that our leaders have not promised some of the same thing to both Team Red and Team Blue (i.e. rehypothecation, in the financial context), and thus left one or the other party with less than they thought had been agreed to. A Ripoff Of Understanding "Son, don't you know that the dime is worth more than the nickel, despite it being smaller in size?" "Well, if I took the dime, the game would be over!"  An objective assessment of what's going on [N.B. With compliments to Google Nano Banana and GPT Image 2.] Returning to sacrifices and The Greatest Game proper, let us set the stage by recounting a couple of high-profile domestic scams from the past month. In the first, a 75 year-old lady gave S$600,000 over three years, to Elon Musk impersonators who convinced her that he needed her to help save his businesses, after also introducing her to TRUMP and Mark Zuckerberg. The victim in the second case lost nearly five million dollars, this time because our Prime Minister supposedly approached him requesting urgent funding assistance, due to the Hormuz crisis. As it happened, our PM didn't (who could have thought?!) Less-than-salutary online comments have tended to focus on how these scamees had managed to amass such fortunes while being so bereft of judgment and common sense, but the realisation here should be that people are generally only too easily swayed by peer pressure and compliance to groupthink, even where no internal consistency is to be had. A gross overestimation of one's own competency may also play a role, perhaps best exemplified by potbellied spectators yelling after a missed basket or goal that they could do better. The great irony here, then, is that intelligent readers will quite likely concede the above points... while possibly stubbornly holding on to the (standard mainstream media) viewpoint that TRUMP actually doesn't know what he is doing, and that his decisions and moves thus far are not part of some complex 5D chess scheme; because, come to think of it, Tesla isn't doing that well leading into the SpaceX IPO... perhaps Musk (net worth: over US$700 billion) does need a spare few hundred grand to tide him over in the meantime?  No really, it will pass this time! (Source: malaymail.com) But perhaps such is the genius of TRUMP, that he can repeatedly riff off the same playbook, and have his foes steadfastly refuse to admit that they have been had (again); put it this way, Cao Cao only managed to pull off the false promise of an upcoming plum grove just once, to get his troops to march onwards to the river. For TRUMP, this is basically right after every stock market close nowadays - and it's still working! All this is probably in service of a greater mission, however. On this, let us refer to a pair of commentaries in The New York Times, that were published immediately before and after POTUS had visited China. While the liberal NYT can hardly be accused of being a fan of TRUMP, they would be uniformly dismissive of China's potential in their opinion pieces, describing the PRC as "much weaker than they seem" and "not rising for (much) longer". In this, the eminent Gray Lady reflects "America First", if perhaps not in the active TRUMPIAN sense that is denounced by Democrats and Washington D.C. career politicos; instead, this is "America First" in the possessive, not as a prize to be won or a title to be sought, but as an inherited birthright that brooks no debate. America is First - in peace and war. This attitude is entirely understandable, by the way. America has been near-universally recognized as the premier superpower of the world since the crumbling of the old empires at the end of World War II some eighty years past, and the only superpower upon outlasting the Soviet Union about thirty-five years ago. Very few of the living remember it any other way. Before continuing, allow me to admit to being a great admirer of the U.S.A. - like so many others - for all their accomplishments past and present. This includes air travel, the Internet, the WWE, and of course the Pax Americana, a near-unprecedented period of global peace and prosperity, barring some unhappy outliers such as being Vietnamese in the 1960s, or Iraqi in 1991/2003. But will America be First for much longer?  A receding target? [N.B. China looked well on track to surpass the U.S., until the well-timed Covid pandemic tanked their progress wholesale, to a 4.5% growth target.] (Source: economist.com) In his May 12th op-ed, Stephens kicks off with the bold claim that China's economy would most likely never overtake America's, much as previous contenders such as the Soviet Union, Japan and the European Union had failed. This is hardly an original assertion, but slightly odd in some respects. Firstly, it is unsure as to whether the E.U. had ever truly considered themselves an economic rival; secondly, China had the largest economy in the world as recently as two centuries ago, with America hardly a blip on the chart then; and thirdly, the writer had - probably wilfully - neglected the elephant in the room: China's population is over four times that of America's. The Soviet Union, for all their boogeyman cred during the First Cold War, had a population roughly comparable to the U.S. through its peak and dissolution. Japan's population never exceeded about half of America's. As such, to overhaul America in economic Strength, these two would have had to (significantly) surpass them in per-capita GDP. The European Union had actually exceeded the U.S. in terms of nominal GDP for brief periods, while being roughly equal in purchasing parity power terms, but this was never particularly meaningful given that the E.U. is composed of very many sovereign states, each with their own motivations and objectives. China, in contrast to all of the above, is a single, unified country - and moreover one that only needs to hit 25% of America's per-capita GDP to match them, a benchmark attained by Cuba, Latvia, Barbados and Saint Kitts & Nevis, among others. This uncomfortable fact has led to Western Team Blue pundits consoling themselves about China's demographic trends, as Douthat then does in his May 16th piece on China's crashing fertility rate. To wit: "Just how confident can Chinese people really be in their culture's future if the rising generation is so disinclined to reproduce*? Just how confident should China's leaders be that they can outlast the United States if their population could be cut in half over the next few generations?" This however may neglect that current projections would have China's working age (not total) population declining... to over 600 million by 2060, or still about twice America's current total. The mainline narrative on China's economic troubles is seemingly being amplified by non-Chinese thinktanks and pundits, with even usual apologist Kishore Mahbubani recently claiming that the U.S. lead over them would only widen, alongside projections of India's forthcoming demographic rise. All this however glosses over some fundamental inconsistencies and problematic assumptions, chief amongst them being that the average worker in China will, for some reason, never be more than about a quarter as productive as his American counterpart (about this, OECD estimates the figure to be near 60% by 2035). It is a great irony, then, that any suggestion of ethnic disparities would be entirely racist and verboten in American universities... whose politically-correct international relations experts would then effectively swear blind that Chinese citizens can never match up to Americans output-wise, in their public theses. Something doesn't quite add up.  Will get around to them someday [Embiggen!] Here, one important observation might be made. While there has been a surplus of popular and academic literature insinuating ulterior motives by China in their developmental process, such as Doshi's The Long Game above, or Pillsbury's The Hundred-Year Marathon, it might be recognized that the actual issue is China's raw scale. In particular, it is difficult to brand "catching up with Lithuania's per-capita GDP of about US$30000" as some particularly malevolent strategy... but for that China would all but indisputably dethrone America as the world's leading superpower, from having about 150% America's aggregate nominal GDP, if they achieved that. This then implies that there is basically no way for China to not be recognized as a geopolitical threat by America, bar complete stagnation. But what about the authoritarian and oppressive (at least in Team Blue's telling) CCP, then? Unfortunately, one believes that China's governing philosophy is not the primary concern either, and that most of the antagonism would remain even were the CCP to be replaced by a democratic system (as hinted by our 20 year-old comic). The justification derives from America's treatment of post-war Japan, who were undeniably democratic - heck, America designed Japan's government themselves! None of this precluded America's hostile intent towards Japan when the latter drew close in economic terms in the 1980s, which was only resolved when Japan fell off the radar soon after. Having established the above facts and considerations, a natural question presents itself: if GEOTUS TRUMP is not doing what he is doing, can America remain First in the world? My short and perhaps bitter answer is: probably not. [*An argument that happens to apply to most of the developed, Western and democratic world too.] [To be continued...]
 的确是漫天浓雾，当真是新时代的起始! [N.B. The banner appears changed from "sacrifice" to "prayer", as perhaps expected for our more-modern sensibilities.] (Sources: manhuagui.com, reuters.com) Digressing to more-mundane concerns, the appropriateness of the recent description of TRUMP and Xi as Emperors and Heroes would be made manifest by the carefully-curated symbolism surrounding their reunion in Beijing. Foremost amongst these was their visit to the Temple of Heaven, historically the private preserve of the reigning Emperor, and from whence he renewed his Mandate of Heaven - coincidentally, one that both these men currently hold, over their respective domains. The GOD-EMPEROR TRUMP would then be further honoured with a personal invitation to the (former) Imperial garden at Zhongnanhai, much as Cao Cao hosted Liu Bei all those years ago (if with tea the choice of drink instead, not least due to GEOTUS's personal habits). And just in case the implication was missed, Xi would confirm to TRUMP that (almost) only Tsar Putin had been received here, in a nod towards the forthcoming Three And, just because mainstream media journalists nowadays tend to be exceedingly dense on recognizing viewpoints not sanctioned by their paymasters, President Xi would very kindly host Tsar Putin less than a week after TRUMP to drum home the point, because it wouldn't be "Three Kingdoms" without the third party; that the protocol was essentially the same as for TRUMP - as befitting their shared status as Emperors by another name - should not be missed either. Moreover, for China and Xi, this arrangement would project the unsaid statement that the Middle Kingdom had returned to its rightful place at the centre of the world, to which other states and entities paid due tribute.  虽各为其主，但今时今日，咱们还是朋友！ [N.B. If with the CEO of Nvidia a late addition to the lineup.] (Source: thestandard.com.hk) Make no mistake, though - despite the amicable exchanges, all signals are that the Emperors may be The sparring would not take long to commence after TRUMP's departure, with his first gambit being a warning to Taiwan against declaring independence, then suggesting that both China and Taiwan should cool tensions, while refusing to confirm if America would intervene were Taiwan to be invaded. The Taiwanese foreign ministry would immediately declare in response that they are a "sovereign and independent democratic nation", which must have had TRUMP giggling at how easily he had instigated Taiwan to declare their independence, while outwardly being against it and currying favour with Xi. Cao Cao would have been proud! Being a bit dim in this case, Taiwan would only realise what had happened and belatedly clarify that they "would not provoke conflict" several days later, but this little prank appears to only confirm that they are not on the same level as GOD-EMPEROR TRUMP, in matters of grand strategy. TRUMP would in any case continue by describing Taiwan as a "good negotiating chip" (which, let's face it, they kind of are). This chip is being moved, by the way, with GEOTUS granting the Taiwanese president an audience, after Xi and Putin released a joint statement accusing the U.S. and Israel of illegal attacks on Iran (which it kind of is), certainly something of a snub after TRUMP had courted them on delegitimising the International Criminal Court. International law may be getting complicated, folks!  But half a million fee-paying students is alright [N.B. This comes alongside visa sanctions after China's alleged slowing repatriation of their undocumented migrants, and spying concerns.] (Source: manhuagui.com) [To be continued...]
 Just a doctor in throwback casual wear administering succor [N.B. The red vs. blue button dilemma to be addressed soon.] (Original source: straitstimes.com [with some help from GPT-5.5]) To adequately explain the precursors and consequences of the just-concluded Sino-U.S. Summit of Emperors, it may be necessary to recount a story - The Greatest Story Ever Told. It is also the story of a man. Later known as the King of Kings, he was of humble birth, only to later arise in triumph. When he first began his campaign, he was condemned by polite society, and even called a madman by those who, of course, did not know any better. Undeterred, he proceeded to perform miracles, repeatedly succeeding where the rational mind accorded no hope. The establishment feared him and his (social) Truth, and conspired to eliminate him. At a supper (or a dinner), he would be betrayed whilst at a long table - but his time was not done yet, and he forgave them. Days before, he had been engaged in a matter of oil, and been criticized for not considering the poor instead. To this, he justifiably answered that the world would always have the poor, but they would not always have him (or his premarket announcements, which had these fellows diligently followed, they would be poor no longer), and the price was of no object. They then arrested him, and held a rigged trial, and they were angry at his supposed presentation of himself as the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One; his reply was characteristically elegant: "You have said so; You say that I am". Certainly, he said nothing of that sort himself - he merely presented himself in a plain white tunic the sort of which the meanest of peasants could wear, under a simple red cloak of no special distinction. Only his accusers, then, need explain what they saw in that.  He (maybe) worked with (plant-based) chips in his daily labours (Sources: nypost.com) But the establishment cared not for such, and despite him being eventually discharged ("I have not found this man guilty"), they would hail him as a King, bequeath upon him a crown of thorns, and mock his greatness with a four-letter acronym. Many of his former friends and allies would deny him, but he had expected that too. Before accepting his fate, he healed a wounded right ear immaculately, and while they thought him dead for a short time, he would instead rise again in glory. Mercy, as it happened, had not yet abandoned this undeserving world. Some readers may, at this point, be miffed at this presentation - if so, do please stay your wrath, sirs - we shall provide justification, in terms both theological and temporal. First, the theological. This happens to relate deeply to the viral Red Button versus Blue Button question (itself a subset of the universal Red vs. Blue trope) that has recently gained much popularity on the interwebs, and which goes as follows: Everybody on Earth has to press either a Red button or a Blue button (as enforced by aliens, the Almighty, or whatever power one prefers), under the following conditions: If a majority press the Blue button, everybody survives (whatever button they press). However, if the Blue button is not pressed by the majority, then only those who press the Red button survive. Dear reader: What button would you press? There have been many quite-complete analyses of the problem, and there is little disagreement about the basic formulation in game theory terms, which goes as follows:  The pro-life choice appears rather obvious (Source: medium.com) The safe choice for the individual is, obviously, the Red button. This ensures that he survives, no matter what the rest of the world chooses. Those that press the Blue button survive if and only if at least half of the others did as they did. Otherwise, they all perish, with only those that pressed the Red button living on. Despite the strictly-dominant* choice being the Red button (as picked by three out of four discerning LLMs), there has been considerable support for the Blue button, generally from the logic that there will be many people who, for reasons of youth, mental incompetence or otherwise, who will press the Blue button - very likely in the millions, on the global scale. To save them, then, one should also press the Blue button, and hope that enough people think the same way. The rejoinder from those that favoured the Red button has been that they are not necessarily being selfish, because everybody has the choice to also press the Red button. Their guaranteeing their own survival does not prevent anyone else from achieving it. The choice of button is wholly one of free choice, and people should bear their own consequences for it.  This is not an inaccurate perspective either (Source: buzzfeed.com) Before getting to the main point, it might be noted that various large polls run by influencers and such have tended to have the Blue button win out, by anywhere from about 56% to 74%. That said, it should be recognized that all these polls had been held under purely hypothetical conditions; nobody was actually going to die, whatever the result. Given this, a slightly-cynical interpretation would have "You Live, Nobody Dies" in all four boxes of the game theory matrix above, with an additional "You Get Recognized As An Asshole" for the Red button column. Under this framing, it might be understood as to why Blue may have an advantage compared to if the test were held for real (as in Squid Game). Further, this raises the (less-explored) question as to one's choice were the threshold for the Blue button be raised, say to 80% (which would doom the Blue Team in all major polls thus seen). Would this affect one's assessment of human nature, and eventual colour chosen? At this, some might bemoan there being no way to really judge humanity... but what if there is? For this, we have to return to the Man, that King of Kings, and sometime McDonald's drive-thru Servant of Servants. In some of his incarnations, He promised (everlasting) life to those that chose His button, and a fate worse than death if they denied Him (by choosing the other button). Against that, some have suggested that they would not accept such an outcome, for an eternal punishment for a finite sin would be manifestly unjust. They would risk persecution - and quite possibly death, in past-gone times - to try and keep such iniquity from being visited. The problem then becomes:  The mapping may not be that obvious (i.e. His choice of button actually appears to be Red.) Or: once there are some stakes, a heck of a lot of people will go for the Red button. This is not being disingenuous, by the way; death was indeed a common penalty for not believing, or even simply holding a (slightly) different version of the faith, such as with the Protestant Oxford Martyrs - and to be fair, it also goes the other direction, and for any combination of denomination or creed. The current crisis in the Holy Land for instance involves nations of two Abrahamic religions against a third, as it has been for most of its recorded history. One can peel through a multitude of wrongs committed by one or other of the parties on one another, past centuries and millennia of eyes for an eye, until one stands before a man in an ancient field, who has the blood of his brother still fresh on his hands; and at this deplorable sight, one might only turn one's face to the sky, and implore: "Sir, perhaps thou might consider the Food and Drug Administration's latest recommendations on the acceptance of fruit and vegetables as a necessary component of a healthy and sustainable diet?" And if this is how they treat their brothers of the same Father - or at a minimum, close cousins - then why should one be particularly eager to break bread with them? Maybe, one day, some may have cause to be relieved that at least a few did not agree to that, after all... [*In the colloquial sense of strict; technically, the Red button is weakly dominant taking the Blue majority case into account.] [To be continued...]
 酒既煮了，也是该谈天下百年未有之大变局了! (Source: youtube.com) The title of this blog post derives from Cao Cao's (prescient) exclamation to Liu Bei that "they are the only two true heroes of the age", during a wine-sampling session circa 199 A.D.; history tends to recur, and some one thousand and eight hundred years later, this is none other than what was observed for the meeting of the Emperors of the East and West, President Xi of China and the GOD-EMPEROR TRUMP of Great America (lately considering Venezuela as their 51st state, with a little more persuasion in store for Canada and Greenland) In the original story, Cao Cao presses Liu Bei to name the heroes of the present day, at which Liu Bei modestly suggests seven or eight names, only for the ever-mischievous Cao Cao to (pretty accurately) roast all of them as unworthy (as so often observed for GEOTUS on Twitter/X, and now Truth Social). Liu Bei is finally at a loss, at which Cao Cao explains that true heroes "cherish lofty ambitions, possess brilliant strategic ability, possess all-embracing schemes, and have the will to swallow the heavens and earth*". Liu Bei is understandably eager to know who such a man might be, and is shocked when Cao Cao confidently proclaims that Liu Bei is the only one, other than himself. Fortunately, he is able to pass off his dropping of his chopsticks as due to being startled by thunder, and the story eventually ends with Liu indeed becoming the founding emperor of Shu Han, and Cao the posthumous emperor of Wei. While more details of said "brilliant strategies" will be covered in future discussions, it can be noted that this historic summit convened under four (Team) Red lines, as declared by the Chinese ambassador to the United States (and actually a repeat from 2024). The first of these points concerned Taiwan (as also just personally re-emphasized by Xi), which has been repeatedly raised as China's greatest strategic weakness here, but this is so obvious that it is difficult to claim any credit for foreseeing it. The second and third points declared China's right to its own interpretation of democracy and human rights, and to its own (nominally-Communist) political system.  If you want Democracy, you shall have it! (Source: manhuagui.com) Our visionary twenty year-old comic (published in 2004) has this all laid out too, with the American and Chinese presidents conferring in 2019, after purported U.S.-instigated unrest in Hong Kong (including the withdrawal of funds to tank property prices), and meddling in Taiwan to "affect China's development", which just so happens to exactly be the fourth Red line on "China's Development Right", which in turn pertains to the Imperial Liberation Day tariffs. Amusingly, the comic also refers to the March 19 assassination attempt on then-Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian (about two months prior) as "a joke", and mocks those who believed that his inexplicable grazing was legit as "mentally challenged". On this, we can only bow to the GOD-EMPEROR's superior regenerative powers. Turning the spotlight back to Singapore (who have correctly been named by CNBC as being heavily invested in the summit) for a bit, our Prime Minister has just reasserted the importance of international law in a speech at SMU, while mentioning the U.N. Charter, ICJ, Geneva Conventions and UNCLOS as examples of global institutions to be supported. The conspicuous absence of the (largely-defunct) WTO from the list might be more telling, however, and it might be recognized that no reprimand of the American-Israeli attack on Iran would be made by local ministers, despite it looking like a clear breach of international law (if denied by the Department of the God of War). Just between you and me, this most clearly reflects the true essence of "international law" and "rules-based order". With no resolution to the Hormuz senjata just yet despite the Emperors' apparent agreement that it should remain open (but really, this is probably just an extension of The Greatest Game, to be explained in detail next time), our Foreign Minister's habitual presumption in speaking for our neighbours has fortunately concluded with movements towards cooperation, after Indonesia's floating of a Straits of Malacca toll likely to show displeasure (now rejected). That said, one can't knock him for his workrate, which has seen him vibe-code a Claude-based assistant (while leaking his personal contact) and win the NTUC Medal of Honour in GEOTUS-like fashion.  But again, it is important to have fun at your job [N.B. Refer "reverse UNO" and "that happening", from recent posts.] [N.N.B. The U.S. Navy are apparently having some catering issues too...] (Sources: independent.co.uk, x.com) And to tie up some loose ends, the caution against having non-ratified international laws forced on oneself would not take long to manifest itself, in the form of the U.N. Human Rights chief proposing a moratorium on the death penalty, which has seen support rise to 130 countries by 2024. Local delegates have since claimed that Singapore's executions are in accordance with international law, but one can only imagine the reaction were the U.N. to eventually vote a ban into their Charter; would we then be bound to obey, despite not ourselves ratifying it? Likewise with the much-publicized "legally binding" supply chain resilience pact with New Zealand - all's fine and dandy when both sides have (most of) the goods (in which case the pact was unnecessary), but what when there's an actual shortage, as ASEAN members are belatedly realising? Finally, on the more-technical side, a Malaysian electrican was sentenced in early April, for setting up nine VoIP GSM Gateway devices in a rented Chai Chee apartment, to make automated scam calls for a syndicate believed to be Taiwanese. Hard luck for the fellow, but as noted in January, the least a competent hacker can do would be to hire a fall guy, and not rent a bloody bungalow when a HDB flat would do. This does have one muse at the actual progenitor of all those Chinese propaganda video clips targeted at Singapore, but honestly Team Red may have a lot to learn from Team Blue in that domain. [*Winning reelection against all odds, too much strategic talent to explain as presented over the past year, overt moves towards territorial expansion and the Donroe Doctrine, ahem.]
 As stumbled upon [Embiggen!] The stay in London had also seen a visit to the Barbican Centre, a fine exemplar of brutalist architecture that also hosts two orchestras, and a bunch of ducks; other highlights included the Roman amphitheatre under Guildhall Yard and the popping into various bookstores, if mainly to take photographs of any wares that caught my fancy, for ordering on Amazon. This was more due to the inconvenience of lugging volumes home and expending limited luggage space, mind, and it would be nice were Amazon to open some brick-and-mortar storefronts to cater to readers... actually, they did, but from how all Amazon Books outlets are winding down - along with the local grocery delivery service - the rents may just be too darn high. Fortuitously, I also chanced upon the London Marathon that was held on the 26th of April, having had no clue that it was being run (well, other than the exaggerated rates for hotel rooms). This race had of course seen Sabastian Sawe officially break* the two-hour barrier for the marathon, a 26.22-milestone of a significance that will probably not be equalled (i.e. with the one-hour barrier) until humans either undergo tremendous evolution, or change their timekeeping standard to no longer rely on the hour (personally, the latter would be more likely) Quite incredibly, runner-up Yomif Kejelcha finished under two hours too, eleven seconds behind Sawe, and in his debut no less; it must have been a one-of-a-kind feeling to smash that historic mark, and not even win! It had been coming with researchers having (correctly) identified London and Berlin as having better odds than say New York or Boston for setting new records, due to generally favourable course profile and weather. A 1991 paper calculating the theoretical fastest human** finish as 1:57:58 seems like it might not hold for that much longer, but one wonders how much improvements in training/recovery regimens and footwear would contribute. As a brief spectator at the 25-mile (40.234km) mark observing competitors coming in with about 2:18 on the clock (translating to about a 2:25 finish, realistically less since they probably started slightly after the official gun time as non-favourites), it was difficult not to note how uniform their physiques were; sure, some were taller, but otherwise they looked largely cast out of the same mould, without much leeway for any excess muscle. To put this in perspective, the current national men's record is around 2:23, with the latest SEA Games gold requiring just 2:27 in Bangkok, though likely heavily discounted due to climate. One figures that genetic advantages might dominate amongst the top elite, what with the top times from 2025 being mostly African (specifically, Kenyan and Ethopian) runners, with a sprinking of Japanese (who do have a deeply-ingrained culture for it), and a few random Europeans and others. This has been partly attributed to favourable ankle-calf ratios, following the logic that the thinner one's calves and ankles (while still being sufficient to support the rest of the body), the more efficient it is to swing one's feet the approximately forty thousand strides required to complete a marathon at a competitive pace. That said, a sub-3 hour marathon appears recognized as a somewhat-reasonable target for most, assuming sufficient dedication. By my calculations, this would be roughly a 14km/h pace, which happens to still be some way from the roughly 10+km/h I managed over 10km whilst being passably fit several years back, and approximately the not-very-impressive 10:15 best for 2.4km back during National Service. Never quite enjoying running (that much) might have something to do with that, and perhaps my joints might thank me one day... [*Eliud Kipchoge had done it with twenty seconds to spare back in 2019, but this was not deemed a valid record due to the use of 41 rotating pacemakers to help with drafting, alongside other unsanctioned advantages such as laser guides from a pace car. Maintaining good pacing is harder than it may seem, with even splits (i.e. running at the same pace throughout) being theoretically ideal, but failing that a slight negative split (i.e. running the second half slightly faster than the first) is generally recommended in part for the mental advantages when overtaking***. A few advanced racers do go for positive splits (i.e. try to build an early lead, as in the frontrunning style).] [**Uma (Musume) reach 60+km/h in their typical races (over a few kilometers), which blows all human competition (with Usain Bolt maxing out at about 45km/h for the 100m sprint) out of the water. Humans do have a shot at marathon distance, however, supporting the title of being kings of endurance running.] [***As reflected by many Uma skills being triggered only when passing opponents.]
The Europe trip as informed in the latest post had been to England (specifically, London and its environs) and the Netherlands (Amsterdam - for just a couple of days), the duo of whom have played such a large part in the development of Singapore and its surroundings, as briefly discussed in February. My last trip to England may have been in 2009, but not too much had changed from memory, with the seagulls still patronizing the statues in Trafalgar Square (with a new one freshly installed at Waterloo Place, it seems), as is their custom. After making the rounds of the West End (The Mousetrap, Witness for the Prosecution, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), it would be a short hop to Avebury to take in the second most impressive collection of large stones in the vicinity, and then the dreaming spires of Oxford. Oxford, or Muggle Hogwarts, has been really leaning into the Harry Potter connection from the merchandise on offer, but it has inspired numerous other literary universes, including Pullman's His Dark Materials, arguably some of Pratchett's Discworld, C.S. Lewis' Narnia, and bits of Tolkien's Middle-Earth*, where he once trod the Merton College Library - famed for its chained books (but really, what did they do?) Seeing as Oxford has been around for a long time - longer than the Aztec Empire, anyhow - they have accumulated a wealth of eccentricities (i.e. traditions); 800 year-old Latin ceremonies (only recently gender-neutral**) aside, there's the oath taken by undergraduates against one Henry Symeonis up until very recently (A.D. 1827) alongside reciprocal confiscation of spurs, and also the most-anticipated races in the region. Not the rowing against the other place, mind, but the Annual Corpus Christi Tortoise Fair races (human substitutions allowed, and not without scandal - such is the prestige of the event) The comfiest lodgings for the trip would be at the Raffles London, which is indeed under the same management as the local flagship - if possibly being even more steeped in history, given that it was previously the British War Office building from which Churchill would give his daily morning briefings to his staff during the First World War. Ian Fleming would later dream up James Bond (and locate his MI6 HQ) here, but alas their Spy Bar was closed, so no "shaken not stirred"; we had to settle for dinner in their Drawing Room instead, to the strains of Cohen's Hallelujah - fourths, fifths, minor falls, major lifts. Oh, and it wasn't Putin that struck London, after all - it was the RMT Union for their Underground train network, on demands over working conditions... [To be continued...] [*As a follow-up on Iran's Argonath-inspired poster from mid-April, it had been observed that the statues actually face northward to mark the northern boundary of Gondor, which would make the application to Hormuz (southward) less appropriate. However, since maps from the Middle East originally had south as upwards before the north-up convention became standard during the Renaissance, these Iranian scholars and/or propagandists may well know their stuff.] [**Which brings us to All Souls College, very likely one of the most-exclusive academic institutions in the world, given that its membership consists of some 89 fellows, and "less than six" postgraduates. It had been male-only until 1981, with an eminent geneticist reportedly protesting the change with his umbrella. As might be implied, their entrance examination is also one of the most challenging anywhere; the two "specialist papers" on a candidate's field(s) aside, there are two general papers (e.g. "write the history of a colour"***), and an very-Zen essay on a single word (sadly discontinued in 2010, but possibly to be reinstated, given the rise of LLMs)] [***Interestingly, the Chinese gaokao has its fair share of such odd-duck questions too, with an example prompt being "A father is cutting articles out of a newspaper while his child embraces him and says, 'I'm willing to accompany you just like this.'" (yes, that's it). From how every single point on the examination can decide the rest of a student's life - no, not an exaggeration - this feels almost cruel.]
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