On War

I was reading one of favourite authors, Frederich Nietzsche and his thoughts on war and the state. I have to paraphrase this as I don't have the book with me right now. He goes on to say that war makes victor stupid, and the vanquished malicious. Man emerges from it stronger for good and for evil.

Very often, we avoid war/conflict at all cost but sometimes, we can be made better from it. We avoid conflict/ war simply because we tend towards peace and the fact that it brings us a level that is business as usual. We do not wish to deal with aftermath of a war that it brings.

War/ conflict brings out the best and the worst in everyone. War smoothes out the rough edges that was present before conflict happens. It has the ability to bring to fore the polarizing sides of an argument in plain sight and finally settle once and for all, who has the upper hand.

But as another Nietzsche quote goes:" He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster." This is a cautionary tale where when one is fighting someone or something, he/she while in process of fighting the enemy becomes exactly the enemy. Vengeful, malicious and evil. I noticed that a lot in politics.

It is my belief that we should not punch a person out till he/she has no ability to get up. But I have began to notice that the vultures surrounding Donald Trump, he is receiving no help except the closest allies and he almost appears to be the victim now. During the Democratic National Convention, every known speaker took his turn to knocked him out. Delivering blow after blow at him as a candidate.

But conflict/ war must be considered and should not be put off at all cost. This means that peace is not necessarily the be-all and end-all of all politics. If we do not consider war/conflict as an option, we are only postponing the need to have one as one's enemies might pressed against you. To not consider war/conflict is an absolute mistake.

If we stand firm against our principles, the aftermath of a conflict/ war is often an reinvention of oneself. As my first quote suggest, we emerge from a war/conflict very often stronger in good or evil, and it is my hope that we choose good.

Before Sunrise

I am not going to write in structured manner for this post. I have always written like this to avoid getting out of hand or saying too much that is unnecessary. But for this post, I am going to go light and unstructured. This is line with the screenplay I read on one of my favourite movies: Before Sunrise.

This book reminds me of the bluster and fluster of youth. Of the chance encounters that we so often experienced when we goes in head first during the heady days of our younger days. Of the heady idealism and constant intellectual musings that we seemed so intense when we read a great book or chanced upon a brilliant idea. Of the light and fluffy conversations that we often have with ourselves when we think of the future. The only difference is that it is based on actual conversation between an actual couple. This is coupled with one long take of movie with a no cuts at all of a film. The constant flow of intelligent conversation seems to flow like champagne overflowing out of a bottle.

The serendipitous nature of the chance encounter of an American writer and a French student is something that as a young university student we all wished that we have. They even meet a poet in the middle of street who wrote a poem spontaneously for an unsolicited fee and coupled with a fortune telling gypsy that they tell them a fortune. This is not a cliché, this is what sliding doors is about and serendipity should be about.

Of course, in Singapore, I have no illusions that such encounters would happen, of meeting a jobless poet writing a poem on the street or gypsy telling my fortune or even watching a German film with deep intellectual musings, but the spirit of the whole encounter gives hope that in my not too distant future that something serendipitous would happen to me.

Of meeting someone who is my intellectual equal and then spontaneously some feelings will blossomed out of this rather chance encounter. Someone out there is some girl who thinks like me and who is really smart, pretty, eloquent and somewhat neurotic.

Meeting someone like this would be a dream to me and I think deep down inside me I think I still hold that dream but life has told me that I was creating my cliché as well and sometimes a fantasy is really just a fantasy.

Meeting girls was the easy part and holding onto them was the difficult part- and that was one of lessons that I learnt in life. But as I begin to fade away from this fantastical future that I created in my youth, I have began to realise that there were more to life than love really.

There was much more things left unexplored that somehow parochial youth can be- it is almost oxymoronic to say that really. Youth seems to be about boundless opportunities and exploration but really we were indulged so much in that world-view that we did not realise how narrow-minded our point-of-view. Everything was about love, sex, travelling and exploration that we forgot to look in ourselves for exploration.

There was no need to go exploring to find ourselves, there was a lot in our backyard worth exploring that we simply overlooked while in search for excitement. But really, what we want is excitement and not about discovery. It was not about finding ourselves but about fulfilling some fantasy that we harbour. There was something more "real" that we leave behind that lots of movies, music, books and magazines do not tell you.

As I leave behind the light-headedness of the screenplay of Before Sunrise, I began to realise that even though, my fantasy never did get fulfilled literally [ but in reality, I got quite close to it], life did not dealt me a heavy hand, in fact, they dealt me a hand which gives me a surprises. It was surprisingly more fulfilling than my fantasy, there is an indescribable satisfaction that I have right now, rather than chasing some dream that I made up years ago that was manufactured for me by the media that I read, watch and listen. It was not light-headedness, it was lack of for a better word: just "there".

I hope you reach that stage too.

No post today

I won't be writing a post today because I was too tired to do any reading yesterday. Will be back tomorrow to make up for today.

The property market

This post is related to my previous post regarding money and finance. The media often posts huge numbers of property transactions. It often broadcast the huge numbers that are thrown around in property transactions and the amount of money being made within one single transaction by the seller of the property. But really property transactions especially those that have not been developed or enhanced does nothing for the economy simply because the money is moved simply from the left hand to the right hand. In effect, nothing tangible is created by the transaction.

No essential value has been created as nothing of value is being created and nothing is being enhanced by the seller. It is merely inflationary expectations at work that is driving prices up.

This is contrast by value creation in offering a product or service. When we offer a product for sale, we have enhanced a product so that it is of greater value hence can be sold for a higher price. In offering a service, we are facilitating a transaction and hence we have created some form of value by allowing a transaction to go through. The value creation is therefore tangible and provide some use value to the buyer.

Therefore, in my opinion, the property market should not be used as yardstick for economic activity. The problem with the property market is that much of the value comes from the price of the land and even though, developers can enhanced the attractiveness of their products, the value is actually the location of the property- this is after all, the construction cost is fairly generic.

The price of land is really the result of inflationary pressures build up over the years and that is why it is impossible to commoditized land. The location itself already provides differentiation. The only time it will be ever commoditized is when the nuclear Armageddon has happened and flatten the land to it's core.

Essentially, the property market is actually a bet on the economy that it will continue to rise and built up and hence the value of the land will increase. And this is coupled by the explosion of money with more sophisticated financial techniques which means that more money is going after ever finite supply of land.

Of course, with explosion of money comes more volatility and therefore lots of speculation activity. At the same time, the lure of quick and large sums of money due to the leverage nature of mortgages means that whatever that goes up fast will come down really fast as well.

Therefore in my opinion, property prices should rise in tandem with inflation rather than outpaced it. This is because in modern day, where most of us buy houses on mortgage, income growth should follow economic growth as well, any outpacing will result in houses being out of reach of the common person.

Therefore if we view an extremely speculative property market as a boon for the economy market, we must bear in mind that a 10% rise in a property market is in effect a 50% rise in the wealth of the economy especially if the mortgage is about 5 times leverage. Consider that your wages rise 5%, and that is not indefinite, it is also at best USD$200 per month increase. Would it be sustainable for you and by the time, it reached your children's turn to buy houses, how much would they need to fork out to even own a home.

Finance

If you read the papers, you will read about the news of central banks raising interest rates or starting another "quantitative easing program, and if you flip to the wealth section, you will read about bankers living the high life of luxury products and bespoke clothes and watches. There is a public obsession with money, banks and finance.

This I believed is an Anglo-Saxon ideal. The Americans and the British have pushed the ideal of the civilized and moneyed banker so much so that it expects everyone to aspire to be a banker but this is not true of other countries even Western ones. France and Germany have an industrial base quite unlike the British. Brexit has painfully shown how the UK is so desperately reliant on finance for economic growth. Chinese do not aspire to bankers, they aspire to be entrepreneurs. And in Japan, bankers are paid like the average salary man.

This obsession with finance forgets about the importance of industrialization. Manufacturing and industrial bases genuinely produce products that will benefit mankind. Cars, industrial equipment and consumer products all benefit mankind in one way or another even though there are cost involved such as sustainability and environmental issues. It create value in a sense which financial engineering not.

Financial engineering, in essence does not create value at all. There are many books on the alchemy of finance, of how money is created of nothing, and out of thin air. This is because financial engineering creates money simply only by shifting money. It can be argued that there are in essence providing a service by assisting companies, governments and people gain access to the capital markets. But it is really only providing a service, how much value and innovation can it create. Does it even justify the amount of money that they are paid for providing the service.

Value comes from innovation and making lives better and not by making markets more efficient. Making markets efficient should be a goal and not an aspiration. It is perhaps argued by some that financial engineering have helped many own homes with the advancement of financial innovation and credit metrics. But in effect, it can be done even without the help of all these financial engineering.

Take for example home ownership in America. It was made possible with creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which in effect guarantees the payment of mortgages by homeowners, this is coupled by the creation of mortgage-backed securities which allows banks to shift the loans out of their balance sheets and onto investors. This is really a shifting of money, and this can be done by governments had they been efficient in lending money to potential homeowners. After all, it was not unheard off that many in American had several mortgages and were betting speculatively on the upward swing of housing market and really are not home occupiers. In effect, the banks were earning large fees in originating the loans and then earning an credit spread on the loans as well and also once again for selling the loans to investors. There is really nothing of intrinsic value that was created.

We must instead focus on true innovation of which that will directly benefit mankind and not the cleverness in moving money around while earning a spread on the movement of these funds. We must focus on the products it creates rather than the money per se.

The " Je ne sais que" spirit

Yesterday, I was reading a book on Civilizations by historian Niall Ferguson. He was arguing that the Western Civilization have come to dominated the world through various masteries of technology, land, culture and medicine. He put forward the idea that through the masteries of these outward artefacts, they have controlled the world with their intellect and power. But in my opinion, this domination and colonization of land and other material artefacts is not the same as colonization of the mind or the spirit.

Colonization of the land and people includes power over its land, the erecting of institutions and other artefacts. These are merely outward trappings of power and dominations. Relatively small European powers has come to dominate large swathes of land and control masses of people through their control of political institutions and monopoly of violence. The control of land and it's people also presupposes the need to erect artefacts and institutions to demonstrate it's power

Outwardly, these material artefacts are grand and powerful but it says nothing about winning over the people's mind and spirit it claims to control. We can control the people, the movement and almost all outwardly trappings of people but you cannot colonize the spirit and the mind of people

United Kingdom or Great Britain used to control large swathes of land around England and all around the world but now it is struggling to even control the land north of itself, Scotland. They are seeking a second referendum to quit themselves from the United Kingdom. This is even after hundreds of years of war and domination.

The West claims to dominate in the field of medicine but they struggle with medical costs in keeping their people alive. They have claimed that through their advancement of medicine, mortality rate has increased throughout the years, prolonging the life of everyone - from the first world to the third world. But there are pockets of people who believed that natural medicine is better than the pathological approach that Western medicine takes to anomalies. What I am perhaps arguing is that there are lots of people who believed that God decides who lives and dies and not fellow humans.

This is almost backward but it is my belief that they are not that bothered when they die but if the medicine is available to prolong their life, it is all and dandy. But it is their belief that it is God's will when they live or die.

Hence having said that, after so-called so many years of Western domination, there are many areas that civilization is unable to conquer and that is the spirit of the people. It is not easy to define but you see it in the eyes of the people and the manner that it goes about doing things. They do not fight this so called coercion but rather maintain this spirit that this is my land, no matter what you do to change that, I will remain alive and live off the land. This might be a cop-out, but as the French will say "Je ne sais que" quality, or "I don't know what" quality that seems to exist in these people.

I think they almost pity them, for their obsession with wealth, power and prestige as they go about their own ways. They can erect the most grand court houses or the imposing institutions but they remain oblivious to the material trappings of their "colonial masters" and get on with their daily lives. This is because, they are people who remains true to the land.

Being authentic versus being restrained

"Get Real" or " Stay funky always"- these are slogans that young people always tell each other. This means that we must stay "real" always and stay true to ourselves and our emotions. We must express our happiness, anger and unhappiness always and never deny them to the public and always.

There are another group of people who prefer to keep their emotions to themselves. Not because they do not feel anything but rather they do not feel comfortable revealing what they feel to everyone. At the same time, it could be at the same time, their job requires them to less emotional and more rational and therefore any display of emotions might betray their biases and prejudices. They prefer to play safe when coming to handling people and do not readily express their euphoria or anger in the event that their upset a certain group of people

The problem with "staying real" or authentic is that we want to feel good about the whole situation. It is precisely that we want to express our true emotion that we want to feel a sort of catharsis that we wish to be authentic. But is the wish to be authentic that important.

In Western culture, where individualism takes precedence, the need to be authentic is a given when we communicate to each other. It is as if only when we are "real", can we express ourselves truthfully. But I suspect that the need to authentic is more down to the need to attract attention rather than meaningful communication. It is precisely when we are "real" that we are able to display our "grit" and demonstrate the "real" side of the world. We are not trying to sugar-coat our words and bluff you but rather, we are trying to show the "real" side, we are on your side. Everything is just propaganda. That's what always being authentic is about.

But on the hand, being restrained and measured is often seen as cold and calculative. But the need to practice restraint also means that we are trying to prevent ourselves from revealing too much. What are we hiding, it might be nothing much really.

It has been argued that rather than seeing emotions has merely biologically deterministic, which means that we have no control, we should see emotions as a choice. And when we express emotions, we are in effect trying to judge the effect of a particular action. Hence therefore when we express emotions, we are expressing a judgement on a particular action. Therefore, when we are angry about "John" for stealing the car, the object is not the car per se but rather the value that it infringes- which is not respecting private property.

Conversely, when we are angry about something, it does not necessarily mean that we are right, but rather we are expressing a judgement based on my value system. This means that expressing outrage at a particular act, does not necessarily means that we are universally true. In effect, someone might actually be outraged with our "outrage".

Therefore, in effect, actually being calm and collected about emotions is not being cold but rather guarding ourselves against being overzealous and judgemental. Yes, it can be true that someone might forgive us for being emotional, but it does not mean that being emotional means that we are right.

In my opinion, being calm and collected is better than always being authentic and always displaying our true emotion as it does not always mean that what we are feeling is always right. We can be elated or angry at something but it can also means that someone might have to suffer our emotions should he/she not share the same thinking. One can get emotional over someone's emotion as well.

Order vs Spontaniety

Nietzsche contrast the order and rationality of Apollo against the wild and spontaneous energy of Dionysus. Very often we prefer the familiar and order of what we are used to and we get uncomfortable with the wild abandonment that defines lassiez faire economics or society. We want rules so that we can make sense of world and not where an all-out assault on our senses which will disrupt how we perceived the world.

Apollo prefers order and rationality and this means things are define nicely and everybody knows their place in the world. There is a comfort in knowing that everything is familiar and orderly. We do not to expend too much energy in getting what we want. Dionysus on other hand, the God of wine is an epitome of wild and spontaneous energy. Their energy comes from feeding off each other and where systems are rejected and categories are nothing more than labels that define us. The advancement of technology and deregulation of many economies have result in the animal spirits being cultivated. Society is then predicated on energy, activity and new things breaking old rules and making the familiar new again. We should prefer the new to the old, deregulation over regulation, people power over authority, creative destruction over protectionist economics and disruption over business as usual.

In fact the period after enlightenment period is defined this upsetting of status quo: in abandoning order, categories and system for innovation, creativity and doubt. This is so much so that it has culminating in the philosophy largely popularize in the 20th century: existentialism. A rejection of any system of thought which is defined by dread, angst and a feeling of meaninglessness- since everything is in flux of what use is our religion, our beliefs or our ideology or philosophy.

This sense of meaninglessness is further exacerbated by the advancement of technology and breaking of border and an assault on our senses, which makes wonder of what use is what we learnt in school and our parents to our existence. We are alienated from the very existence of our society.

The rise of Donald Trump, Brexit, the rise of ISIS and right-wing nationalistic and conservatives surges around the world have defined our reaction to these changes in our intellectual history. We have recoil away from animal spirits into the familiar territory. We have reject an open economy and society for a society based on duties and expectations and therefore privileges. We are trying to hold back everything we hold dear in face of rapid change, we want "order" back to our life. We do not want to feel assaulted on all fronts again and we want to see familiar faces rather than strange and new but exciting faces again.

We must rethink our strategy to recoiling back to old and nostalgic. Since society are in ebb and flow does not mean that we have to squirm back to what is familiar and seemingly friendly. We must continue to reinvent ourselves. In taking risk of embracing the future while take what is familiar and integrated them together.

I read recently in a New York Times article that we have formed an urban tribe of globalized citizens who are familiar with only globalized brands who even though globalized, are really nothing more than an urban tribe which really exclusive in nature- exclusive in that they only mixed with people like them and visit shops that cater to them and not really "globalized" in that sense. This is not what we looking for, we must instead protect distinctive elements of society and ensure their survival and not want them to be just like us.

An open and globalized economy and society is a fact of life that we have to accept but in protecting what we are familiar with and values the most is not tantamount to rejecting what is unfamiliar, but rather see in a new light what is distinctive and different of which runs parallel with our lives. There is always something universal in all of us, we just have not noticed that in us or others yet.

On being under seige

Yesterday, I talked about giving, today we will talk about of a siege mentality. A siege mentality is when we faced a crisis, and hunker down and beat all odds to survive. How did that dawn on me- because it dawned on me that a lot of Singapore's success is built on this siege mentality that the government have helped cultivated over the years to ensure the people's survivability and success over the years.

The main critique of having a siege mentality is that it is perceived rather than real. In order to maintain a siege mentality we must be constantly vigilant because we have been surrounded on all sides and the only way to move forward is to gather our resources and work together to ensure that the siege from external forces can be adequately dealt with.

This is the narration that Singaporeans have been fed with over the years: we are a small nation with no resources to rely on and surrounded by Muslim countries in a Chinese-majority polity. We are thus a recipe for disaster if we are not aware of our external threats and exploit our opportunities. It would be easy to break down whether these are facts that we have to deal with and hence analyse whether is this a government-constructed narrative or is this a reality that we have to deal with.

The idea of a resource rich country having an easy time economically and politically might be a falsehood as we have seen many countries with resources squandering their resources and landing themselves into debt and plunging their countries into crisis. Take for example several African countries, Myanmar and Indonesia.

What is real in this case, is not whether we have resources, but whether we can work together, effectively and efficiently to ensure the survivability of the country. If the government decides to couch our political and economic environment in dire context, it is only to reflect the reality that they faced rather than to forced it's people to work together.

Recently the Home Affairs Minister deemed the ISIS group as "evil", this is as extreme as it can get in labelling a group as non-human. But bearing in mind that these people have families as well and could be simply disillusioned and looking for some form of salvation, would it be fair to dehumanize them. How would the families- who might not be terrorist- feel in being associated with someone "evil"

This I believed is not trying dehumanize a group, it is announce to the world and it's people in no uncertain terms that these people must be avoided at all cost and no leeway will be given whatsoever.

I read yesterday a book I bought a few years after I graduated when I was still fresh with anti-establishment ideas- that politicians twist their words in order to suit their argument. Take for example words such as "war on terror". It is already biased in the sense that it is really tautological argument. Terror is already bad and hence of course we have to waged a war on something bad. What argument is there in waging a war on "terror". It is bad therefore we must eliminate it. There were some proponents against the war and if I am not wrong, it is against the Iraq war and I believed that the author is alluding that there were no discussions whether the war is justified hence he had a beef against the sound-bite argument.

Moving closer to home in Singapore, our more staid government is not so PR savvy and our health minister recently waged a "war against diabetes". Of course, this war in this case does not conjures images of glory and sacrifice and much less glamourous but as our pragmatic government goes, it is obvious in no uncertain terms that diabetes is bad and we must eliminate it at all cost. We are under siege from diabetes.

Whether we are under siege can depends on wordings of the word, we could couch it in terms that we are in danger but we could work in cooperation with our neighbours and ensure nothing untoward happen to us. This would not have same impact of hunkering down and ensuring our survivability. This would be against the prevailing government pragmatic ideology and realist foreign policies.

It would not be fair to constantly doubt the words of government and accusing them of false propaganda, but I believe that different countries have different personalities and ideologies in running their countries and therefore couched their policies in different terms. What is false is not whether they say in a different manner but rather whether it was done in good faith and with the best interest of it's citizens at heart.

On Giving

I have written continuously for the last month, writing every alternate day on all sorts of topics. I have come to a point where I could not find an issue that was burning that I could write about. It then dawned on me that have we come to a point where we expect something from someone because we did something for him/her.

Has my writing caused a sort of expectations on other's that just because I do it for the sake of other's, I must continue to do it, otherwise the burden will be on myself to bear the expectations of other's to produce something that will change their lives. When has altruism becomes a burden, from the feeling of bliss of doing something good to one that transforms to a chore where it becomes a routine. And when the receiver expect to be given, and the giver is expect to be give. Does that even consider as altruism as context changes.

The previous day I was tired and was facing dearth of ideas, yesterday, I was tired from my French classes but I continued reading to find some inspiration but it was not giving. I then began to feel a sense of burden and dread of having to find something that will change people's lives with my writing. How then giving become a chore and have I become a nasty person just because of that. The obvious answer is no, but the niggling feeling remains.

It then dawned on me further that giving in this society is so scarce that sometimes the giver is expected to continue giving even he/she has nothing to give because no one else is chipping in to help. The giving has stopped because no one had stepped in to fill up the vacuum. Must we always expect something in return for giving to someone. Pure altruism does not exist in that we give without expect nothing in return but sometimes a gesture would suffice, a recognition would be encouraging and a smile will do wonders. It is probably not because we expect a material reward but an acknowledgement that our gesture has made a difference. After all, giving is a form of social interaction, it involves the act of giving and taking, a symbolic gesture and nothing more that one's act of kindness is appreciated and we return in kind- does that not considered as altruistic.

I was reading somewhere that an benevolent act triggers a similar somatic experience as taking drugs. It gives someone the same high as taking drugs and because of this, the act is then not considered altruistic. And because of this, the giver is not doing a altruistic act.

Giving without some form of acknowledgement is like unrequited love, one begins to ask themselves why am I doing this in the first place. In such an one-sided environment, egotism begins to rise on the taker and a sense of selflessness begins to rise in the giver but in such an environment, does it even consider as altruistic in first place. We begin to develop a hero complex in the giver and an invincible complex in the taker. Power begins to tip loop-sided to the giver as the social debt increases as the amount of giving increases. The invincibility complex begins to collapse in the taker once it suffers a first setback to it's ego to a point where he realises the social debt he has to pay is insurmountable. The onus is then on the giver for now to build on the taker's lost of confidence, does he use him/she for good or for their own self-interests. That responsibility is then on the giver for having build up the taker's confidence without regard of his welfare. What will the hero do.

Actually we all need each other and we should help each other in times of need. When we received help from others, we should always repay back in kind as soon as possible and in proportion. But to view all these in a form of transactions, would be missing the whole point altogether. Most times, people give without expecting something in return and if you acknowledge in return, you would make the opposite party happy. And if you can do that, just by smiling or saying thank you, what harm would it for you to do that in return. It might do you a whole load of good without you ever realising it.

No post for today

No post for today as I was not able to prepare anything yesterday night as I dozed off. Will try to make up tomorrow instead.

Genetically Modified Foods

The other day, I was watching a documentary on genetically modified(GM) food and I thought it was interesting debate on need to produce more food and resilient food against the what some critics had complain about it's unknown implications on human health. I am no expert on GM food but these are the few things that I gleaned from the documentary

There are two types of food. 1) genetically modified food- where human intervention in it's genes or structure has caused the food to produce more in quantity and more resilient against diseases 2) naturally occurring food- where no human intervention has occurred and where it's seeds have not been "modified" by human labs.

The benefits of genetically modified food as a result of genetic manipulation are that they produced seeds that immune to certain bugs or diseases which results in better crop yield and healthier crops. I am not sure whether steroid pumping into animals are considered as GM food but I am going to leave them out as I assuming that their genes are not altered.

On the other hand, the naturally occurring food are not given this immunity from human intervention. I am going to assume that they are natural strains which have been given "natural" settings to grow optimally. Hence seen from this angle, they are considered to be more healthy. But unfortunately, due to their natural state, they are also susceptible to their "natural" predators such as diseases or insects.. Since they have not been altered to be grown stronger, they do not grow as fast and are more expensive to grow as their environment must be primed towards their growth. This means that they must be kept in expensive environments to ensure their survivability. A good example are organic foods.

Although the GM foods are stronger, they on the other hand faced another type of opposition. The humans themselves. The main beef that most people have on GM foods is that we do not know for sure what are the health implications for consuming the food. Take for example, in the documentary, Monsanto, the GM seeds company have produced a type of brinjal that is immune to a particular type of insects which preyed specially on the brinjal. This is done by producing a type of material that is poisonous to the insect itself. The main opposition to this is that if it is poisonous to the insect, it could be poisonous to humans as well.

Although, it sounds rather scary that such foods are permeating our ecosystem but a lot of studies have shown that consuming GM foods does not affect our health in any way. Such beliefs that GM foods are affecting our health flies in the face of countless scientific studies that they do not affect our health whatsoever. Hence for countries that faced food shortages such as Bangladesh, such foods are god-send in feeding their millions of hungry people. These concerns are brushed aside in solving the more urgent issue of the hunger problems. But my belief is that these opposition to GM foods is really not just about affecting the health of those that consume the food but rather a more deep-seated fear.

I believe that the deep-seated fear is that we are afraid of playing God. We have a certain disdain against genetically altering humans such as cloning but as the same time, to these people, we are not afraid of genetically altering our foods- which is scary for people who opposes GM foods. It is our belief that God decides who lives and who dies but why can we play God to our food. It is basically contradicting ethics that we hold dear against genetically manipulating humans- which contravenes against the basic human rights of people- while we have no qualms of genetically altering plants and animals for our benefits.

Do we consider clones as humans and since we can produce humans as and when we like- do we ascribed them human rights or are they "sub-humans" which meant that they are nothing more than slaves hence do we consider GM foods as plants or animals since they are not produced naturally by "God" per se. What then are the implications of consuming food that not really "food".

This is an unknown that plays on the mind of those opposes consumption of GM foods. Is there something in the food that we don't know that only "God" knows. That is the main concern of the critics of GM foods that I believed are trying to drive at.

But it is my belief that GM foods are important for ensuring that food is plentiful and cost is kept to as low cost as possible. In my opinion, as they say in ethics a mere knowledge of ethics doesn't make you a good person, at the end of the day, ethical behaviour must also correspond with reality. Therefore, simply ignoring scientific truth while sticking close to "ethics" does not make you an ethical person.

Therefore it is pertinent, scientists continue to conduct scientific tests on the GM food that there are no side-effects to consuming these GM foods. It should continue to do so until the issue of "God" is laid to rest.

The United States of America

I have never been the US, but like many of us, I understand the US from the news, music, its movies and the books that it produces. But based what I see, I believed that the US is a bipolar country and therefore cannot be seen as a singular monolithic entity. It must be seen in it's aggregate and not be seen in individual people or events.

It is at the same time one of most free country in the world but yet it is also the most divisive country of the world. They can and have people who will fight for the rights of disenfranchised and the have-nots but also have people who the most polarizing, discriminating people- a good example being one of it's Presidential candidate: Donald Trump.

I have written about this before in previous post. But if you view it from the dialectical materialism perspective, you will realise that US is the archetypal case of a conflict of the thesis and the anti-thesis to produce a "better" or "higher" state called the synthesis. It produces a societal state which brings it to a higher plane through the confluence and conflict of forces: it brings society and it's people to a level that it is not necessarily seen before if it was harmonious and homogenous.

The problem with such a state is that it is not necessarily beneficial to a large masses of people who are unable to absorb the counteracting forces but rather for a small elite group of people who are able to harness the tension in the society to produce a level that is not possible should they only meet people that are like-minded and not necessarily diverse.

It is precisely because of this that the US produced the technological advanced machines and have the capability to be the most compassionate people but yet remain the xenophobic people- so afraid of change and diversity.

This state of situation only benefits people on the aggregate but for people on the ground, life might proved to be difficult for them.

A lot of other nations benefit from the experiment it does with it's people, from the higher technology and its selfless-ness quality but it's people on the other hand have to guard against attacks on their values from all directions. Precisely because of the diversity of values and interests that exist in American society, people will often encounter situations where things they hold dear is constantly under attack from people whom they deemed as "bad" or "evil". And because the American constitution guarantees a lot of these freedoms, they cannot seek solace in the governments stands against certain "counter-culture" acts. They find a certain leadership lacking in society.

As a result of these assault of the senses on its people, it produces strong and passionate people who have to withstand forces from all directions, which sometimes can lead to self-destruction, which is evidenced by the shootings by various interests groups on the "others"; but they also produce extremely steely characters who emerged as personalities who can lead it people to battle against other "evil" groups: Martin Luther King for example.

The people it produces are by far one of the strongest that the world has seen but it is also a society that can be wrecked by internal strife and conflict. But they always emerged the better from it and that is the American way of doing things. They go where no one dares to go and brings the world to a level not seen before in other countries.

Living Healthily

Since I was young, I have never watch what I eat. My belief was that since I was young, I can burn off anything that I want. In fact, my rationale was that the more I eat, the better off I was since I would be motivated to burn off more fats or calories by doing more or exercising more. This means that since I enjoy working or playing sports, I could eat more because I would be burning them off when I do these activities.

But as I grew older, I begin to realise that this rule does not hold. In fact, I began to realise that the rule I had earlier was totally incorrect. I was always about 10% to 20% heavier than my peers and I always attribute that to having a larger muscle mass as I was school runner and I seem to more bulked up than my friends who were skinny. I was wrong. The reason for my bigger mass, partly due to larger muscle mass, most of it were due to the diet I was eating. I was eating disproportionate amount of rice, eating lots of fast food and processed food, not eating fruits and vegetable and eating too much meat. It was simply bulking me up. During a corporate trip to Denmark, with heavy American breakfast and meaty lunch and dinner, I put on 3kg in 10 days. I was simply not exercising enough and eating unhealthily.

This bulk up in weight was made worse when I started working. When I was studying, I would play football once a week, had to climbed the stairs around the campus from the car park, I had tried to run once or twice a week. The moment I started working, my favourite part of the day was laying back in front of the television and eating chips. [ that I still do quite often actually]

Working unlike studying is a lot more stressful. We have incessant deadlines to meet, targets to hit and meetings to catch. We often eat unhealthily to make up for the lost time, to make us less high-strung and also to give that extra boost.

The reason for this unhealthy lifestyle is that we are always looking for ways to give us a boost in our energy. I used to drink 3-4 cups of coffee to give me that extra boost. Whenever I feel abit down, I eat- especially carbohydrates- to give me that extra boost. I am not sure whether it is scientific, but I always feel more energetic after I eat a bowl of noodles or you tiao. I don't have depressive issues so I don't eat to make myself to feel good but I eat as a "pick-me-up". Vegetables and fruits somehow always fails to give me that extra kick in my step.

Because we are constantly looking to kick up our performance, we always look for that extra thing that would give us that extra energy to help us achieve a notch higher in our results. That is why all these stress lead us to over-eating on all these foods.

I am not familiar with the exact science of it all. According to my dietician, I was eating way too much carbohydrates and I should cut down on my rice and increase my intake of fruits, vegetables and fish. Carbohydrates makes us put on weight fast. I used to eat more than a bowl and half of rice everyday but following my dietician's advice, I reduced it to just one bowl of rice and my weight loss has doubled in the same period. Of course at the same time, I reduced my intake of saturated fats by drinking low fat milk and creamer instead of the standard creamer.

Because I was not exercising regularly, exercising was a big thing for me. And for some reason, after a hectic round of exercise, I always craved for Macdonalds. And all my exercise would have gone to waste. I would eat one full meal plus Mcflurry. I always feel accomplished after the exercise and I wanted to reward myself and so I had my fast food fix. Because all these Macdonald's are processed foods, and they contain lots of trans fat which is unhealthy fats, it made my health worse in spite of the exercise earlier. My rule that I had mentioned earlier was no longer working.

All these extra boost and limited exercise can lead to one thing: lethargy during the down period after a period of hyperactivity. Because energy is such a finite resource, we feel depressed and down after a flurry of activities and we engaged a range of vices when we don't feel good after the initial boost. Some smoke, other's take drugs and look for the second kick, but for me I look for food.

Firstly it was lesser of two evils and it was easily accessible. I look for coffee, a snack, chips or any form of processed foods that made me feel good and I would be good to go again. I wasn't doing anything addictive and yet I was able to get a second kick. But unbeknown to me, my weight gain was ballooning. I signed up for the gym but it was not insufficient to stop this vicious cycle. I was not "exercising enough" to offset this additional food intake- again my rule is no longer valid.

My advice for everyone is that look at your lifestyle. Are you working in spurts or bursts and always looking for the fix to boost your performance. My advice is to eat healthily, eat lots of vegetables, fruits and fish, avoid processed foods and fast foods and exercise more, you will realise that you will perform more consistently as you will be more energetic throughout the day rather than performing in swings. You are pushing yourself too hard, if you are always looking for the next mountain to climb, my advice is to make it up slowly, surely and healthily. Because all the chasing for the next challenge can only lead to health risks of bingeing and unhealthy lifestyle.

On Nihilism or Meaninglessness

There has been a spate of terrorist attacks by the ISIS group as well as other religious related militant groups around the world. I thought it would be good contribute to the debate about how seductive these militant group ideologies is compared to our commonly held world view.

First things first, the main difference between these violent ideologies and our commonly-held and agreed upon ideologies is that they devalue what is good and bad, high and low, rich and poor and, strong and weak. They reject these simple dichotomies. They believe these categories are merely made up by people to oppressed them, to categorize them as evil, bad, terrorist and violent hence to subject them to their own "oppressive peaceful"value systems.

Most of our main understandings of things around us comes in form good/bad, rich/ poor, strong/weak  and have/have-nots so on and so forth. Therefore we strive to be good not bad, strong, not weak, rich and not poor.

The ISIS ideologies are much more sophisticated, they outright reject these categories and pronounced these as merely Western labels meant to subjugate them to Western-led standards hence to them, these are merely categories and humans should not subjected to themselves. Not themselves and not anybody else.

Since these are merely categories and labels and we should not be tied or circumscribed by them, the logical conclusion to this would be: an utter destruction of these categories. These are very sexy and seductive ideologies to the disenchanted and disillusioned youths that faced no meaning in their lives. They feel a freedom from this societal imposed pressures to conform to a certain ideal and yet does not wish to labelled negatively. These are smart youths and not necessarily ghetto youths who have no future in life. The recent attacks in Bangladesh was a good example. They were committed by a group of middle-class to upper class youths and was highly educated. They were not stupid individuals who were attracted by the idea of martyrdom. They had wanted a revolution.

That is precisely why it ties in so nicely with the hot-blooded and agitated stage defined by youth and young adulthood. They had wanted change, they had wanted a revolution. But I do not want to die for a "cause" like those martyrs of yesteryears, I want to die for "no cause" because I reject your value system. Those violent ideologies propagated by ISIS is precisely the vessel by which I can carry them out because they understand my angst, my feeling of desolation.

I might die for their flag but I am carrying out God's will because we must not be oppressed by other's- especially those that espoused decadent and debauchery value systems. Do not impose your values onto me but rather reflect on your unfulfilled lives. I kill your people not because I hate them. It's precisely because I loved them that they die. They and everyone need to know that they are being oppressed. Stop being foolish and wake up from your ideas.

These are the words of these intelligent but disillusioned youths trying to say. They want a change and not to further a cause. Change to what end, no one knows.

We, the so-called "oppressed people" on the other hand, prefer rebuilding, and incremental changes. We want things that we are familiar with and not wholesale change. When we talk about disruptive technology or changes, we want more convenience, cheaper and more features.

We do not necessarily want to abandon our smartphones for say pagers. We do not want to abandon Uber or Grab for calling the unresponsive cab companies. We do not want to abandon our Alibaba/ Amazon for our mom and pop stores. And even if we ever do, we only want to do that out of nostalgia and that's where hipsters come in.

Hence in my view, it would be a mistake to demonize or dehumanize these terrorists. It is precisely what they expect you to do. Since you must be good, and I must be bad, it is precisely why I must help you get rid of this errant thinking- that is precisely what they think of you.

It would be much better to rehabilitate them from their violent thinking. It is better to understand where they come from rather than be quick to dismiss them as disinfected and lost youths of today. It would be mistake to dismiss what they think as merely crazy talk, but what they say does have some intellectual salience. But the means that they achieved them are wholly wrong. Think about it, we embraced disruptive technology and yet we dismissed "change", we embraced the future but yet we dismissed advancements in intellect and understandings in human psyche. Are we not hypocrites.

Lest I appear to support the ISIS ideology but I absolutely reject them as they take advantage of youthful disenchantment and alienation. Nietzsche is one of proponents of pessimism as a source of strength of power and as he say:

"Nihilism ( or a feeling of nothingness and meaninglessness) represents a pathological transitional stage...whether the productive forces are not yet strong enough, or whether decadence still hesitates and has not yet invented it's remedies"

The old men at ISIS took advantage what is merely a temporary stage in human psyche and turned it into a permanent one- infecting it's people with a "meaningless" [categorically and in every sense of the word] cause

The judiciary as an objective state organ.

I am no legal expert neither am I a lawyer by training- but there was one question that I asked myself: How impartial is our legal system or judiciary? Let me set up the context the importance of impartiality of our judiciary.

There three main state organs: 1) Executive- which is in effect the civil service, they are the ones who execute the laws, ie the police 2) Legislative- the people are enact the laws, they are the ministers or members of parliament and 3) Judiciary- the justice system, the judges and they are the one's who interpret the laws.

According to western democratic political system, each of these three state organs must be separate from each other so that no one single person or entity can have a preponderant effect on the country and how it governs. This is to prevent any form of autocracy from happening. Take for example, long before the existing political system, the king held control over the executive, the people who executive the laws ie the police and the army. He could command the police to catch anyone who he deemed that contravene the law. He also enact the laws, he also sets out rules for all it's people to abide by. He is the law and above the law. Lastly he also interpret the laws, he can decide whether this person has broken the law and how heavy the punishment should be. Therefore he controls are three state organs.

In the modern context, all three state organs must act freely from each other to prevent anyone from abusing their authority. For example, a corrupted member of parliament can be prosecuted by the police and send to jail by the judges because the MP cannot prevent the law from enforced and also being pronounced guilty if there is sufficient evidence against him.

Take for example, the members of parliament exert an undue influence on the judiciary and pronounced the member of parliament not guilty  in spite of overwhelming evidence. In this case, the political system is not working as it is supposed to.

Therefore the judiciary is important in it's role in ensuring that no one is above the law. He or she must interpret the laws impartially to ensure the laws are fair to everyone and no favouritism is shown.

But this question begs my first question: But how objective is our judiciary? In other words, how does the judges apply the letter of law to it's letter?

It is my belief that the judiciary is not objective. It differs from country to country and depends on the political culture and system of the country and it's societal and economic context.

If it differs from country to country, how then can the legal system or judiciary by fair in the first place?

I believe that and I cannot speak for the judges themselves, the judges also take into consideration the above factors when interpreting the laws. This means that depending on country to country, the country also judge on expediencies of the country. China is not a good example but it demonstrates that the laws can be applied depending on the context. One can be shot or even imprisoned for life for corruption in China but this is not necessarily true in Western style legal system. Similarly, some countries uses the legal system to bring down the opposition. Take for example, in Singapore, it is almost "institutionalized" that anyone who speaks untruths or blow things out of proportion against the ruling party, he is liable to be sued by the incumbents for slander. This is considered as "undemocratic" and "authoritarian" in nature by many Western style democracies

On the other end of continuum, in America, children can sue their parents for physical abuse- and be successful- if they are physically disciplined. This would be ridiculous in the Asian context.

To me, the judiciary are the moral arbiters of society. They set the tone for society what can or cannot be done and how serious your actions can be. They are not objective arbiters of the truth and apply the law "without any bias". Depending on the context of the country, some judgements can be deemed as "unfair" or "undemocratic" to some, all other's are seem as "overly- litigious".

Therefore, in my opinion, do not compare the judgements of your country and think that one's legal system is "unfair" and "primitive". The judges are also guided by the moral, economic, political and societal tone of the country before they make judgements. They can be autonomous but not necessarily objective.

Humanity being a privilege

One of the first books that I ever bought was a book on leadership called "Leadership IQ". I was on the cusp of adulthood and I was aspiring towards a leadership position when I grow up. But as I grew up, I begin to realise that a leader that there are so many qualities and values that a leader has to embody that he/she must almost be a saint before one can succeed.

But there was one thing that I realised as I grew even older one privilege that the have-nots or/ down-trodden have that the leaders or elites cannot have and that is humanity. Before I sound like a autocrat, let me spell out some values and qualities that one leader must have.

In the above-mentioned book, the book suggests that a leader must be a problem-solver, be committed, humble and selfless- all at the same time. There are even some other qualities that I missed out as there were too many.

These qualities are what a leader requires to be a successful leader even before we can talk about their technical abilities. And these include being a "selector" of good men/women, a negotiator, a healer of people, a protector of values among other things.

Let us talk about some of the values and qualities that were mentioned earlier.

 Being committed requires a resilience and steel in the character to stay steadfast in our values and goals that were set out earlier. This also means being steadfast to our people and trust them to do the job.

One must be humble so that we can get people to work with us. In the book, the author talks about " strategic humility" which means that being humble have a strategic advantage. In another book, "Good to Great" by another business/ management writer, he writes that top leaders are " unassuming and mild-mannered people" who focused more on the job on hand than his own ego/personal interest.

Lastly, being selfless, requires us to put others before self. In the above-mentioned book, it requires one to be customer-focused and focus on the benefits it brings to others rather than oneself. He also went to extol the values of working through others rather than concentrating everything on that singular charismatic leader.

These are values that the book writes on being a top leader and succeeding in the world. These seems to be values of a saint rather than a business leader or any leader for that matter.

There are another type of leaders that claimed to be working for the people or general good of the other's. These are the people with revolutionary ideas or people that seem only to aim in overthrowing or upsetting the existing order.

These people excludes people of a certain pedigree and also claims to be working for the down-trodden/ the have-nots and the oppressed. And there is one thing he/she has above all else is humanity. Let us bring to the earlier point on leaders not having the privilege of humanity.

The above qualities/ values that a leader must have in order to succeed, already requires he/she to be a humanitarian organization in itself but what a successful leader cannot always have is the privilege of constantly questioning the quality and work of it's people. He/she does not have the luxury or privilege of questioning the existing system to the benefit of one section of people over another. Even if it seems to be morally questionable.

Hence I say that humanity is a privilege of the downtrodden. Take for example, the revolutionary leader is able to come down to the level of the people he speaking and appear to be "at one with people" because the leader is leading the charge for the oppressed against the oppressors. There are no other ways to galvanize a group of "downtrodden" people against the "other's"- which in this case is the elites or "upper class" and many other names that has been called.

But as I reiterate again, the elites or leaders does not have the luxury of appearing humane to a certain group of people over the other's.

He/she must have faith in it's people and it's system to do the job provided he/she has been doing his job. He must be objective and have faith that the system will do it's job. He must not be swayed by personal biases and inclination otherwise, his status and position as a leader will be undermined.

He must also be committed to it's organization and believed that his/her entity can do the job. He/she must put the organization before oneself. He/she must embody the system, otherwise how would his people work for him. He must have faith in it's system, it's people and the value that it embodies.

That is why many leaders appear cold and calculating. This is because many leaders have to appear to represent it's organization sometimes even at the expense of it's personal judgement. And that is why "revolutionary" leaders always appear to be humane and "people's person". Simply because he is fighting the system which is supposed to be "cold" and "calculating".

I think we must think first before criticizing our leaders because in order to get into that position, he/she already had to make quite a number a personal sacrifices unseen to the public. It might seem quite glamorous to be seen with the who's who but I believed that they were simply doing their job and away from the public eye, they were still doing their job- otherwise, it would be impossible to reach that privilege position.

Being humane is sometimes a privilege that some of us have that other's don't.