Don't Lose your Faith to your Lost Naivete

"The fight of our live's been drawn to this undying love." Viva La Gloria, Green Day

In the nearly three years that I have failed to write on this blog - in fairness, most of my writing is now done with The Edge and covers a lot of what I would have written here (Edge articles) - I think the topic that has captured my head and, if I'm being honest, my heart the most is that of inequality, specifically inequality of luck.

To be clear, I still view inequality as a societal, national and global issue. I should say, I have never once thought that there should be equality of outcome; the socialist argument that, "From each based on his abilities, to each based on his needs" has never convinced me. The need to reward innovation, hard work, and sometimes downright nerve is very important.

When I was younger, perhaps during College days, I was more persuaded by equality of opportunity. Let everyone have the same opportunity to show what they can do. What the final outcome is is less important. If we think of a 100 meter race, equality of outcome means everyone finishes the race at the same time - and therefore, finishes the race at the slowest runner's pace. Equality of opportunity - back in College - I took to mean, everyone - rich, poor, man, woman, transsexual, straight, gay, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist - starts at the same starting line and they all race from there.

I held this view until I came across the Veil of Ignorance and John Rawls during the course on Justice by Michael Sandel in the Fall of my Senior year at Harvard. In it, I was forced to confront the fact that my initial view was horribly naive; life, as it turns out, gives different people different starting positions. And even within those starting positions, the equipment that the runners used was different, the training that each of them received was different. Isn't it abundantly obvious that some people had a starting position for the 100 meter race at the 50 meter mark, with a professional coach and the best shoes money could buy? Wasn't it also abundantly obvious that others were not so lucky; some had to start at the 0 meter mark, with no training, and running barefooted? In my earlier conception of the race, I naively thought that - hey, everyone starts from the same place, let's just give everyone the opportunity to run. I still believe everyone should have the opportunity to run, but equality of opportunity, in this more nuanced - and I believe more accurate - view was still unjust.

For many years after this realisation, I did not give too much thought for this. I mean, I learned that the appropriate contextualising of events is important and that affirmative action was the right policy, even the optimal policy, under certain circumstances. Where the principle behind affirmative action often gets clouded in policy debates is when affirmative action is invariably linked with race and other forms of generalisation of under-privilege. Perfect discrimination (in the Economics sense) for affirmative action is impossible in the policy world given imperfect information; after all, not every African American needs affirmative action to succeed and some White Americans do need affirmative action to succeed.

Where I think I really doubled down on this topic in recent years is my deeper reading on 'luck.' I have now come to the belief that something like 95% of all things in life is down to pure luck. I should be clear. I see luck as just another word for chance. I mean, think of the confluence of events that would have happened in your life for you to have met your spouse or your best friend. If you think that you are lucky to find that person, just think how much of that luck depended on their (and your) parents meeting at the right time, choosing to have the child in the right time, and all the experiences that led that individual to meet you at the right time in the right place. It boggles the mind.

The same is also true of your birth. If you believe, like me, that birth is not pre-ordained by some Higher Power, then the parents to whom you were born is pure luck. I could as easily have been born to a poor family in Malawi, or to the King of Spain, or to my own parents. I did not get to choose and here I am. I got lucky. And that is just parents. You can have the best parents in the world, but if you were born in some god-forsaken village in the middle of the Indian deep jungles, how likely would you be to achieve whatever you achieved in life? So, for me, I was born to great parents, who managed to ride the wave of economic development to a life of middle-to-upper-middle class, in a country which is relatively peaceful, with no natural disasters and lots of great opportunities. How's that for luck?

Many billions of others are not so lucky. And you know what's the cherry on the cake? Good fortune or good luck is highly correlated with parental wealth (or initial good luck). It's really like an exponential function and where you start on that function (whether before x = 1, or after x = 1) will really determine a lot of the good luck you get in your life. Good luck here just means being in the right place at the right time for an opportunity to fulfill.

So, my take on this issue now is as follows. I think the largest reason for inequality of wealth or income (the hot topics today) is really the inequality of birth, and therefore the inequality of luck. I see it as the moral imperative of society and of individuals to distribute that unequal distribution of luck. The primary purpose of government, to me, is to redistribute luck (normally in the form of income but it should be more). Tax luck, not innovation, not effort. Of course, determining which portion of an income is luck-based and which is innovation- or effort-based will be tough but we need to start. For individuals, if you buy this argument, then the imperative is to try, as best as possible, to follow the Transversality Condition of Macroeconomics (basically a fancy term for, at the end of time, your net debt must be at least zero). Translating this to luck, it basically means that all the luck you have received (you are therefore in a net negative state) must be redistributed to others as best as you can (therefore reducing the net negative state to zero or perhaps even positive). This, I think, is worthy to be an undying love. 

On Interstellar, Faith, Kindness and Grace

In my last post, a rather long time ago, I posited something along the lines of how the ongoing existence of the human race is something that might not be accomplished on this planet, but on some other yet-to-be-explored planet whose exploration will, hopefully, be enabled by technology one day. So, you can imagine how excited I was to watch Interstellar. This is a non-spoiler post. The fricking tagline is, "Mankind was born on earth. It was never meant to die here." 

And in truth, while I am obviously no expert in the science and technology required for the exploration of the stars, I loved that the movie was trying to take this idea further. The movie attempts to be thematic, like most of Christopher Nolan's movies, but perhaps more subtlety would be in order. That said, even if it does beat the idea of exploration into your head, if you haven't yet wondered about the future of humanity in the universe after watching this movie, I think it's a thought experiment worth considering. 

We always say stuff like, "It really makes you feel so small in the grand scheme of things" or, "We're just specks of dust in the universe." Yes, they are both entirely true. But that's what makes it exciting, no? A 99.9999% unexplored thing is way more intriguing and exciting than a 99.9999% explored thing. It's at times like these I wished I was an astronomer professionally; to make it my life's work or, my undying love, to explore the stars. Right now, all I am is this 'dabbler':-

Source: Reddit

I should admit that, yes, right now, I just think space is pretty. But I do wonder - and perhaps it's one of the key counterfactuals of my life - what would have been had I chosen astronomy for a field instead. It's just too bad you can't choose both roads.

On a related note, so some people look at the stars and they think, "I wonder what the Big Bang was like." Some others look at the same stars and they think, "Praise the Glory of God Almighty." Let me be clear - I am an atheist, as I've said many times. I'm not a belligerent atheist, I'm just an atheist. An agnostic one at that. Although, in fairness, I am belligerent about the use of the word 'agnostic.' And, really, I do get why people believe in religion and a higher deity and I do recognize the value of religion. In fact, I would venture to suggest that I am uncomfortable with the idea of a secular government insofar as I believe the notion that policy should not be influenced by 'religion' to be false. The simple reason for this is that if the people care about religion, then policy should incorporate what these people care about. Yes, it needs to be tempered by the non-religious bunch of people, but I think it is a valid concern in the policy space that requires addressing. 

That said, it is unlikely that I will ever believe in a God or some higher deity. Personally, if I were to believe in an all-powerful being, I'd go with Zeus. Homeboy has lightning bolts. But, some of the concepts from Christianity are just so goddamn beautiful that it's hard to, sometimes, just fall on your knees for 'redeeming grace.'

You see, I get a kick out of Christmas songs, both the religious and the non-religious stuff. Stuff like Silent Night really moves me. Not so much because I believe in Jesus Christ and all that stuff, but because the power of faith and belief in people is just so strong. I have all the respect in the world for people whose faith in whatever they believe is so strong. I mean, they are staking their whole lives and culture on something that can never be proven to exist. How does that work? I suppose it's the same for most scientific studies - the Big Bang Theory, String Theory etc - but the amount of faith just blows me away. 

I think it's good to have Faith. Faith requires the ability to believe in something larger than yourself which, I think, is always a good thing. It could be some abstract value, it could be a God, it could be a community, whatever. Faith is a good thing. And Christianity is (obviously) all about faith. 

It is also about Grace. Amazing Grace is one of the most beautiful songs ever written and I agree with the main message - T'was Grace that brought us safe thus far, and Grace will lead us home. 

I mean, how beautiful are those two lines? Sure, the song means God's Grace. But if we think of Grace as something else, which is just kindness to our fellow people, I think it encapsulates exactly how we all should treat each other. With Kindness. With Forgiveness. With Grace.

On Climate Change: What Are We Really Saving?

I was fortunate enough to listen to talk recently by the head of the World Resources Institute. He spoke very eloquently about climate change - the evidence, the perils, counter-acting policies. To be clear, I am not a climate change denier. I fully think that human-sourced actions have affected the planet's ecosystem; I have seen (some of) the evidence but I think that even without the evidence, it would be seriously difficult to believe that human-sourced actions have not impacted the Earth's environment in any way. 

Where I was perhaps unconvinced by the World Resources Institute person (and by environmentalists, in general) is the notion that we must do steps A, B, C and we require global collective action D, E, F to "save the planet." To be completely pedantic, let's get something straight. We aren't "saving the planet." We are trying to extend the survival of the human race, which is essentially the evolutionary goal of all species. We just happen to be, on Earth at least, the most capable species in accomplishing that task (though, in fairness, we also happen to be the most capable species in obliterating one another). The planet is what it is; it will go on as it does till it is finally wiped out by the Sun going supernova. 

Where I think the logic of environmentalists seems very short-sighted to me - despite the notion of their actions being meant to serve some long-term sustainable goal - is that that logic fails to consider that what they are really doing is extending the planet's capacity to be a home for humanity. Their entire logic falls apart if humanity can relocate to some other planet. And, somewhere down the line - hopefully in my lifetime - I do think that that is the way forward for humanity. We've only lived 2 million years as a species. The fricking dinosaurs lived for 165 million years. In the next 163 million years, it seems completely unconceivable to me that we would still be on Earth. If we are, then I think one of two things must be true. First, we have entirely failed as a species to generate interstellar travel. Second, we have found a way to let the planet renew itself and to replenish itself.

I think the second is really unlikely. Let's consider two cases - static and dynamic. In the static case, let's suppose the Earth has some level of resources A that can accommodate exactly N number of people. With global population growing exponentially - which it has - at some point, even if we assume no depletion of resources, that level of resources A will no longer be able to accommodate that N number of people in a given time frame. In the dynamic case, we do know that resources are depleting. At the same time, we do know that there is some scope of replenishment - oil, after all, comes from fossils - but the key is that the rate of replenishment must be larger than the rate of depletion for resources to be sustainable. Moreover, since population growth, which is exponential, hastens the rate of depletion, it is difficult to imagine how the rate of replenishment can ever be larger than the rate of depletion.

Moreover, this also does not take into account the fact that, across the world, people are getting richer. As more people move into middle-income levels, particularly the world's current poor, they will consume more. As they consume more, more resources will be used beyond just the resources required to sustain some subsistence level of existence. I am not convinced that all the measures recommended by the environmentalists will ever ensure that the depletion rate of resources becomes lower than the rate of replenishment.

On a side note, there is one form of policy which will go a long way in helping so sort out this problem. That policy is population control. We need two things - first, we need to kind of figure out, given the level of resources we have, what is the population size. Second, we need to seriously reduce population growth. These policies, though technically correct, are not politically supportable, for obvious reasons. More importantly, they are not, in my mind, morally permissible. People should be able to have as many children as they want (even if it does not make sense to do so) and we certainly should not, erm, "massage" the population numbers to get the optimal number. 

So, given that population control - which is really, to my mind, the primary driver behind all of this - is out of the question, and that resources will eventually deplete, we're kind of left with one option if we are to survive as a species long after our resources deplete. We have to move. There are already "plans" for this - see Mars One (not sure how legitimate this is, of course). One could argue that the Earth is "special" in the sense that humanity's existence on it is unique and cannot be sustained elsewhere. While it is entirely possible that that is true, I just find it seriously unlikely. From what we know, there are trillions of stars in the universe. This implies that the probability of Earth being the only planet capable of hosting humanity is one in a trillion. I would not take those odds. 

There's a great Arthur Clarke quote that I like, "Two possibilities exist. Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." If we are indeed alone in the Universe which I think is supremely unlikely, then we are kind of screwed. We can last until our resources run out OR we find some cheap source of near-infinitely renewable energy. If we are not, then, to me, human settlement on other planets is inevitable (though this just delays the inevitable since everything ends and entropy is irreversible; for a great read on this, see Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question."). And even then, travelling to those other planets without some way to warp space and time to move faster than light (if it is at all possible) will take ages upon ages. We might not be able to survive that trip (see Christoper Pike's "The Tachyon Web" for an illustration of this) and even if we do arrive at some targeted destination (let's assume we got the measurement right and prepared enough supplies to get there), it may turn out that the planet is not hospitable to human life. And, as early pioneers across the globe know, settling down in a new location is not always a guarantee that life will be great (disease environment, hostile natives, brutal weather conditions etc). 

On Earth, if it makes no sense for us to be at a certain place anymore, what do we do? We move. We could try to conserve that place and sustain it, but ultimately, either the population in that place falls to a level that becomes self-sustaining (because everyone migrates out) - it may even be a ghost town (Interesting thought - we know there are ghost towns around the world and ghost cities, even; what if there are ghost nations? Or rather, nations that should be ghost nations that aren't because people cannot migrate easily across borders?). But the point is, we either move or we hope population goes down. In the case of the survival of humanity, we will therefore have to move or a sizable chunk of the population has to move. But where will they go? I certainly am opposed to any form of genocide; they will have to move somewhere else. That somewhere else is in the stars. I truly believe that it is inevitable. Environmentalists just extend the lifespan of the earth to house humanity; they do not make that lifespan infinite. When it ends, we will have to move somewhere else and should technology fail to gives us that capacity to move by then, let's at least hope that we can match even a sizable proportion of the 165 million years in which dinosaurs existed. 

12:5:13

"I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back at the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended."

If ever a person deserved everlasting rest. 

On Multiple Equilibria and What I Have Learned from Television Shows

There are several reasons that I haven't written (here, at least) for a couple of months. The first is that I now have a monthly column at The Edge Malaysia. Since some of the stuff I write there is stuff I would have written here, it does take away some of the material I have for this blog. Anyway, my Edge articles are available here. The second is school. In many ways, I find completing things for school to be way more time-consuming that completing things for work. This implies one of two possibilities - Either school is THAT consuming (with problem sets, readings, projects, generally-trying-to-understand-material) or I didn't have enough things to do at work and was a complete slacker. Some combination of the two is probably true.

Anyway, in fairness, I think I have learned quite a bit so far through this first semester, in terms of economics. And by this, I mean both facts and models (ways of thinking). Whether I will be able to successfully apply those facts and those models into something tangible and useful is a different story. But anyway, I just thought I'd discuss my favorite economic concept I've learned this semester. 

It comes from a paper by Nathan Nunn, a Harvard economist, called, "Historical Legacies: A Model Linking Africa's Past to its Current Underdevelopment." In it, he states that the reason historical events can have significant effects on present day development is if the historical events caused a move from one equilibrium to another. He develops a model which shows that a period of severe extraction in the Acemoglu-Robinson sense (where colonists, for exaple, simply extract resources from a given area without building institutions and infrastructure for long-term habitation) can cause a permanent movement to an economic equlibrium with significantly lower income levels. 

Basically, a large negative shock to an economy could move the economy from a 'good' equilibrium to a 'bad' equilibrium. And, if a country is in a 'bad' equilibrium, only a massive positive shock to the economy could get it out of that equilibrium to a 'good' equilibrium. Policies or events that aren't quite as massive will not help a country escape the 'bad' equilibrium which might explain a fair bit of why Malaysia, for instance, has been in a middle-income trap/equilibrium for ages.  Interesting, huh? And, if you think about it, this applies to many things in life too. For instance, if a given television show has settled into a nice equilibrium where it can write variations of the same jokes without overhauling the storyline or character lineup and still gain good ratings, then we can't really expect it to completely wow us with new material unless something exceedingly shocking happens - the death of a main character comes to mind easily. 

So, with that nice segue, I am going to discuss some of the main life lessons that I have learned or at least realized more concretely from television shows I have watched. These television shows do not need to have finished (in fact, for at least one of them, the fact that their run is still going is a good life lesson), they just need to be things I have watched before. And, certainly, not every show has a good life lesson (or at least I fail to understand what that life lesson is from that show) so while I've watched shows like, for instance, The Big Bang Theory, I am not quite certain what I have really learned from that beyond, "We all need a comfortable go-to no-need-to-think show", which I suppose could be an important life lesson.

1. How I Met Your Mother - Don't overstay your welcome

The Mother sits on Ted's right. This show is in Season 9 of a 4 season show. It makes no sense that Ted needs 9 fricking seaons to tell this story. It means, his story has covered (at least) 8 years! Dafuq, bro.

2. South Park - Satire is a great way to send a message

In response to any given serious current issue, topic, event, whatever, there are usually four responses - two unproductive and two productive. The two unproductive responses are apathy and irrational anger. The first productive response is to give a reasoned serious argument against it, which works well in cases which arise from rational reasons (say, GST). But this response is not so well-suited to irrational events. There is no reasoning with irrationality. For instance, "Apa Lagi Cina Mahu". There are two responses to this. One is to go down the serious route which, to me, is kind of underwhelming because you then give irrational stuff like that serious recognition. The second productive way, and the better way to deal with this (and even rational events, in my mind) is through making a mockery out of it. See, this tumblr. 

South Park consistently does an amazing job in top quality satire. See, for instance The Jeffersons, Douche and Turd, World War Zimmerman, Make Love Not Warcraft, Raisins, All About Mormons and Britney's New Look, just to name a few. Basically, if someone is being an idiot, don't take them seriously, mock the crap out of them.

3. Friday Night Lights - "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose" and what it means to have a life partner

I've covered the second part elsewhere. The first part is straightforward and a general good motto to living life. If you have clear eyes - i.e. you are aware of what's going on with you and around you - and you have a full heart - i.e. you believe in what it is you're doing wholeheartedly - then you'll be fine. Most of the time, when we think we've failed at something, it really is usually due to lacking "clear eyes" (not thinking through a situation) or lacking "full hearts" (not having enough conviction). 

4. Mad Men - So many things, all captured here

The two main lessons are, first, that people do things. People aren't all good and neither are they all bad. They just do things because that's what people do. In terms of understanding people, sometimes that is just the best explanation. The second is that people will show you who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be. 

5. Glee - Social commentary is good, but there is a line between subtlety and beating people over the head with it.

Topics Glee covered well in Season 1 - Difficulty of being a gay kid, teenage pregnancy, what it means to be a "loser" in high school. Topics Glee tried to cover after Season 1 without any subtlety whatsoever - Bullying, Surrograte Parenthood, Guns, Spousal Abuse, Teen Drinking, Teen Marriage, whole bunch of other stuff I'm probably forgetting. Lesson: Take things easy. It is better to explore 2 or 3 things in depth than 15 things broadly.

6. Angel - Doing good is an end in itself.

I love the way Angel ended. It's a good way to say that while you can accomplish one mission, if your goal is much larger than the mission - say, redemption or "doing good" - the fight never ends. Just because you achieved one victory doesn't mean you're done. Because, doing good is an end in itself. The road to redemption is an end in itself. Doing good for the sake of doing good is a, well, good thing. This is best described by this conversation between Gunn and Anne (a character who runs a homeless shelter). Anne was, at that moment, trying to transport things from one shelter to another.

Anne: It's not so bad. We've had some really decent donations, and it's helping. We actually have a part-time paid psychiatric staff.

Gunn: What if I told you it doesn't help? What would you do if you found out that none of it matters? That it's all controlled by forces more powerful and uncaring than we can conceive, and they will never let it get better down here. What would you do?

Anne: I'd get this truck packed before the new stuff gets here.

That's life, in a nutshell. If you're fighting the good fight, with clear eyes and a full heart, even if you can't ever win the fight, the fight is worth fighting and you really can't lose. 

The Big Bang Theory Theme and the Nature of Knowledge

If you don't watch the Big Bang Theory, or if you watch the Big Bang Theory but have never fully listened to the full Theme song, I wholly recommend that you go on Youtube right now and listen to the song.The theme song for the Big Bang Theory (the one by the Barenaked Ladies) is one of the most profound insights into epistemiology (or the 'Theory of Knowledge') that I've come across in popular culture. To be fair, I am self-admittedly not well-read in the realm of epistemiology, so I do wonder about the triviality of some of the things I am going to say here.

I have been (and not just recently) doing a fair share of thinking on the nature of reason and the nature of rationality/logic. Just definition-ally, I would say that rationality/logic are all positive statements in the Economics sense in the sense that rationality/logic are a sequence of facts/conclusions/statements that build on one another. Reason, on the other hand, is a normative thing - reason includes value judgments which reflect our beliefs, our ethics, and that sort of thing. For example, logic would say that a society where 1 person earns 1,000 and 9 people earn nothing is just as well-off as a society where 10 people earn 100. Reason would tell you that that may not be true because "well-off" could mean other things such as equality, distributional parity, whatever. 

That said, in my mind, neither reason nor logic is more important than the other. I think you need both to think robustly. Both reason without logic and logic without reason could lead to very flawed arguments. In any case, for the purposes of this post, I am going to assume that an argument, for whatever position, is done based on both logic and reason. This will make a lot more sense in a few paragraphs.

Consider the first two verses of the Big Bang Theory's theme:-

"Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state

Then nearly 14 billion years ago, expansion started. Wait...

The earth began to cool, 

The autotrophs began to drool,

Neanderthals developed tools,

We built a wall (we built the pyramids!)

Math, Science, History, unraveling the mystery

That all started with the Big Bang!"

[Slight digression: That second last line - "Math, Science, History, unraveling the mystery" is, as simple as it sounds, so beautiful in its thought, at least to me. Personally, I learn things not because it will make me more educated (though it should), more well-off (effect is debatable) or because I want to accumulate knowledge for knowledge's sake. I learn things because I want to understand the world better, to understand the human condition better, to understand the universe better and, further, to philosophize in some unifying theory what it all means. So, Math, Science, History (among others) unravels the mystery and that's why we (I) learn."

"Since the dawn of men is really not that long,

As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song,

A fraction of a second, and the elements were made,

The bipeds stood up straight,

The dinosaurs met their fate,

They tried to leap but they were too late,

And they all died (they froze their asses off),

The oceans and Pangaea,

See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya,

Set in motion by the same big bang."

The first two verses basically discuss scientific beliefs (I take them as fact, but for the purposes of this post, I am going to say "beliefs) about the evolution of the earth. Pretty straightforward. Also, cool fact: Pangaea was once the sole land block of the world, where all 7 continents were joined. I also wished the dinosaurs weren't too late.

Now, consider the last verse:-

"Australopithicus would really have been sick of us,

Debating why we're here, they're catching deer (we're catching viruses),

Religion or astronomy, Descartes or Deutoronomy,

It all started with the Big Bang!

Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology,

It all started with the Big Bang!"

For me, this is the profound part. Think about it - we all came from the same origin. How did the same species come up with things as widely divergent as, say, music and mythology (though they could be linked in some senses, I think - will need to think this thread through a bit more). We're the same species that produced Albert Einstein and astrology. The same one that produced Descartes and Deutoronomy. In this case, I am not saying that one is better than the other (though on a personal note, I do believe that one is actually better than the other), I am just saying that they're wildly different.

So, how did it happen? If we see the same things, and experience the same things, why do we come up with such different outcomes? And if, as per my assumption earlier, we came up with those outcomes from a logical and reasonable perspective, why are they so different? And I don't want to use the overly simplistic explanation that someone who crafted, say, music is smarter than someone who crafted some myth. 

So, the question is this. How can two very logical and very reasonable people diverge so wildly in their conclusions using very logical and very reasonable methods of arriving at those conclusions? I think there are a variety of answers to these, but I think that the most fundamental answer - and the key to most disagreements among logical and reasonable people - is that both people use different assumptions on which they build their argument. 

While this may seem like a real Captain Obvious statement, but I wonder sometimes if that is what it takes to construct or eradicate certain things which are "knowledge." I mean, consider the case of being born during, say, the Neolithic Period. Now, assume that somebody invented some time travel machine, and travelled back in time to that period with a gun. Knowing exactly what you knew as a Neolithic homo sapiens, what rational and reasonable conclusion would come to your mind first? You've never seen it before; in fact, it isn't close at all to anything that you have seen or produced. Wouldn't a rational and reasonable conclusion be - this person is some messenger from some god or perhaps a god herself? 

I'm an atheist. I don't believe in some higher being for whatever reason. Suppose one day some being appeared before me with such incomprehensible powers and/or technology such that I believe either one of two things - This person is a God (unlikely) or this person is an alien (likely). But, if this person is a human being, then that person is not an alien (I'm going to assume that aliens aren't going to pretend to look like us or mind warp us into thinking that they look like us), then maybe I'll turn to the first bit. However, knowing what I know and knowing (or at least being aware) of the concept of a time machine or the concept of mutation or whatever - I would probably hypothesize that that person is a mutant or possesses some psycho technology.

But consider the Neolithic human again. She doesn't have the knowledge I have only because the knowledge I have wasn't accummulated yet by then. So, the belief that this person is a God is the most likely. Now, this goes on - as we know - for millennia. If people weren't off worshiping rocks and trees, they were off worshipping deities. It strikes me as super duper suggestive that pretty much every group of people in the history of the world has had some belief in a higher power. I don't think those people were dumb; I think they were just making the most reasonable and most rational conclusions based on the assumptions they held at that time, which were based on the knowledge they had at that time. 

[NB: I think this is a good argument against the argument that "My religion is the only true religion." What religions tend to hold in common is a belief in some higher being. Why should a belief in Zeus, for example, be less worthy than a belief in Jesus Christ? How do you discount the various other religions around the world? If that religion is the true religion, wouldn't it be prevalent from the start?]

Anyway, the evolution of beliefs and culture is most likely path-dependent. This means that way leads on to way. So, if a particular society holds on to some theistic belief for a super long time, it is going to be difficult for members of that society to let go of those beliefs as well. But embedded in those beliefs (which are the conclusions of the argument process) are the assumptions on which those beliefs are built. I think that's why two very rational and reasonable people can disagree so widely. They use entirely different assumptions and follow the chain of logic and reasoning along those assumptions. Look, if you told me to assume that a higher being exists, then every conclusion I make would have to be based on those assumptions. So, unless someone forced me to challenge that assumption, why would I draw different conclusions?

This is also true for astrology, I think. Astrology is based on the assumption that movements in the stars (despite the fact all we see of stars (and their movements) are old photographs) and planets can affect our daily lives. Because, of course, the universe gives a shit about us. Okay, will try not to be overly snarky. But let's say I held that assumption. And let's say that everytime Venus was in some angle in the night sky from the Orion Belt or whatever, I notice that bad things tend to occur (may be a problem with availability bias, but I promised not to be snarky, so am continuing). While correlation isn't causation, I would think that it's weird and that there's some pattern. And so, I would conclude that when Venus is 45 degrees in the night sky from Orion's Belt, I better get a four leaf clover. 

Is that a reasonable conclusion to draw? Yes, if you believe the assumption. Absolutely not if you don't believe the assumption. Coming to more contemporary academic times, a lot of academic work actually goes more and more into revisiting and revaluating assumptions. I mean, if you assume that a person is smart enough to publich a journal article, you can assume that their argument - based on the assumptions - they set out, would be coherent and logical. So, how do you address the argument? By evaluating their assumptions. Because, if I held those same assumptions, I probably would be led to that same conclusion. Extreme case - If I assumed water was poisonous, I wouldn't drink water. To counter this argument, I would ask, "Why assume water is poisonous?"

And so, in epistemiology, what makes sense to me is that humanity evolved the way it did with so many different branches of knowledge and beliefs because the context/assumptions under which those branches of knowledge and beliefs developed were so different. We look down now, for example, on the primitiveness of the belief that the Sun rotated around the Earth but, under certain assumptions which were prevalent at the time, we probably would have been led to that very conclusion ourselves. It is only when we challenge assumptions that we make some progress with knowledge. 

Blink 182's "Pretty Little Girl" and the Concept of Love in Season 1 of Friday Night Lights

Due to psychotically heavy pressure from Movie Kaki Karen and slightly less but still fairly heavy pressure from Movie Kaki Ad, I watched Season 1 of Friday Night Lights. 

Minka Kelly...

If you like good television drama, chances are you will like Friday Night Lights. There are caveats, certainly. For one, I wish that some of the main characters were more nuanced just to make the story more believable. People aren't all good and neither are they all bad. People are people and people do things. Sometimes we agree with them, sometimes we don't. I wished that for some of the characters, there were more things they did that we didn't agree with. Another caveat is that some plotlines, which had some seriously intriguing premises, were way too short. I'd like to have seen those plotlines explored further. It felt that, at times, the show just wanted to address as many plotlines as possible and cram them all in. It may be good to take a page out of Mad Men's book and do a more solid construction and explication of plotlines. The third caveat is that nearly all their games seemed to go down to some dramatic finish. Real life sports is not like that. If you are that good a team, you should win some games fairly handily. If you find yourself having to always come from behind, you can't be that good a team. 

The fourth caveat is if you follow some real life sports teams fairly religiously (see: Liverpool, the Celts, the Spurs), most of the plotlines and most of the characters will seem quite unoriginal to you. The backup player who's suddenly thrust into the pressure and glory of the limelight? See Jeremy Lin, circa 2012. The talented tough guy bad boy on the team who has problems with discipline? See Terrell Owens, Stephen Jackson, and many, many others. The super talented athletic star who turns to doping to cope with high pressure? See almost every athlete in every sport, ever. The most original character in Friday Night Lights is the coach's wife, Tami Taylor or, affectionately, Mrs. Coach. She is a great reason to watch Friday Night Lights, in all seriousness.

But those aside, I found Friday Night Lights to be an overall enjoyable watch, and I can see why it can be so captivating. The acting is top-notch, particularly Coach and Mrs. Coach (more on this later). The character development is decent, though not quite at the level of Mad Men. I mean, you gotta love a show who develops its chief character, Don Draper, so much that you don't really know if you can throw your support behind Don Draper as the seasons go. You learn that as much as he is brilliant, he is also petty, vindictive and destructive. Consider this - in the pilot of Mad Men, we see Don sleeping with some chick. At the end of that same episode, we see him return home to a wife, and to two kids. How's that for nuance-ing your main protagonist? 

I do believe that seeing the evolution of a character is far more compelling - for a drama - than feeling like you can throw your support wholeheartedly behind a character. At the very least, it is intellectually more satisfying. Friday Night Lights does the 'support' bit very well, developing characters for whom it is easy to sympathize and to support. It does not do so well in developing characters that make you feel uneasy in choosing to support them. I've come to really appreciate a chief theme behind Mad Men - that the universe is indifferent and people just do things because they're motivated by whatever it is that motivates them, not by some higher ideal or whatever. Nobody is just plain good, and nobody is just plain evil. 

Side note: In my post on my favorite fictional male characters, I picked characters who were essentially just plain good characters as my favorites. Maybe this is a good time to make clear here that I believe these are characters whose ideals that I like to strive towards. The characters are not necessarily the most compelling or the most fascinating (Batman > Superman, Eddie Kapsbrak > Bill Denbrough and Ben Hanscom, John Watson > Sherlock Holmes, Frodo/Gollum > Gandalf) but they are my favorite because they give me an ideal to strive towards. Again, this is not the same as being the most compelling characters.

Anyway, back to Friday Night Lights. Besides the acting, another great reason to watch Friday Night Lights is Minka Kelly in a cheerleader uniform. Her acting isn't the best, but goddayum. 

Yummy

Mmmmmmmmmm

Anyway, what I think is best about Friday Night Lights - or at least Season 1 of Friday Night Lights - is that it provides the best depictions of young, innocent, puppy love and of grown-up, real love that I've ever seen on television or on movies. And maybe even in books, though I will have to search my memory for this. Let's take this case by base.

For the depiction of young, innocent love, I give you Matt Saracen and Julie Taylor. 

The relationship was built very well across the season. It didn't rush it. It allowed it to grow very organically, in an almost linear form. And the little things along the way. Stolen glances. Small smiles. It was all very butterfly-in-stomachs material. The scenes were also great. Very representative of what it means to be 15 or 16 and in love, or so I think. To link to Blink 182, the song, "Pretty Little Girl" has moved, I think, to become my top love song of all-time. Not so much because it sounds romantic or because it's sweet, or whatever. Not that at all. It's because it sounds real. It describes how a relationship evolves over time, in an almost literal fashion. 

Consider this bit:-

"Nineteen, your eyes are glowing to my beating heart

Oh, it seems like it is fine as my hand is moving up your arm,

And you never really know where it goes up until it starts,

I got my eye on you, what you gonna do?

Daydream near a stream where the winter bites,

Oh, I listen to the song on repeat from the other night,
And I can't picture you but I sure got the feeling right,

What a crazy world, pretty little girl.

And we wake from the night in a bed with a bruise,

And we're laughing out loud with the craziest news,

And you reached for my hand, I was scared in your room,

We fell on the floor and we started to move,

And your hands were like birds as they flew from the coop,

Up my back they would climb just as I came unglued."

The relationship between Matt and Julie reminds me exactly of this bit in "Pretty Little Girl." From the first stolen kisses, to the first time they held hands, to the first mention of the word "girlfriend", to the time he asked her out "officially", to the embrace on the muddy field, to the night they spent together when they first planned to have sex (the treatment of young sex in this episode is absolutely brilliant), to the time she was there for him when he was having problems with his dad, to when she was with him at the bus station when his dad left back for the military. Everything, really. I bolded the bits in the song lyric above which I thought make the song lyrics' description of young love super real.

Sunshine and butterflies. 

Now, on the other hand, we have Mr. and Mrs. Coach. They've been married about 15-16 years (if am not wrong), and are now in Dillon, Texas where Coach coaches the Dillon Panthers and Mrs. Coach is the School Counselor. It is so bloody refreshing to see Mrs. Coach have a proper character with a well-developed personality. It is so easy to just fall into the steroetype of a "coach's wife" (see: We are Marshall, Glory Road etc) but Mrs. Coach has her own life, her own dreams, her own friends, her own work. And it's great to see it blossom as it did in Season 1.

But I think the best part of Season 1 of Friday Night Lights is the relationship between Coach and Mrs. Coach. The way they handle problems together. The way they deal with their daughter getting a boyfriend. For the record, if I ever have a daughter, and she wanted to go out with the Quarterback of the Football Team, rest assured I would have reacted in a more domineering and more pissed off manner than Coach Taylor. Full credit to him for not carrying a shotgun around or wielding a machete. The way they fight and argue and then resolve stuff later. The way they support each other. The way you know that in this relationsihp, both parties are always going to have each other's backs. It's a real partnership in the truest sense. And I do think, or hypothesize, that all romantic relationships generally evolve to that. To being proper life partners. And I think Coach and Mrs. Coach have that relationship, documented superbly in Friday Night Lights - essentially, what it means to be life partners. She's involved in all his decisions, and he is involved in all her decisions, even if they disagree on what the decision should be. They really are each other's best friends and it is really heartening to see.

I think what makes this depiction of a marriage (I prefer life partnership, since I don't think you need to be married to have this type of relationship) so fantastic is that it feels so real. They really are a couple devoted to each other and seriously just trying to make their way through all the mess, winging it as they go along. In the episode where Matt and Jules were planning to have sex (Jules is the daughter of Coach and Mrs. Coach), the scenes between Coach and Mrs. Coach were some of the most fascinating television scenes I have ever seen. To be honest, if anybody is looking for a guide on how to have a successful life partnership, Season 1 Episode 17 of Friday Night Lights is a great place to start. There's this one scene where Coach and Mrs. Coach are waiting for Jules to get home, and they're worried and pissed and sad and all that stuff at the same time. And Mrs. Coach says:-

"You know, you and I have the exact same amount of experience being parents. We've been doing this same job the same number of years and months and days as each other and the truth of it is that we don't have any control. You know, for the most part, we're just winging it. I don't know what to do...y'know, I don't know what to do in this situation. But I'll tell you what, the most important thing to me is that my daughter be able to talk to me. A girl is entitled to that with her mother. My mother used to tell me that I was going to go to hell if a guy ever even touched me, and you know that didn't work and I'm sure as hell not going to do that to Julie. And we raised a smart, responsible, moral girl and I have faith in us and I have faith in her and we just gotta let her go."

Needless to say, she delivered the lines perfectly. And the scene ends with Coach Taylor and Mrs Coach holding hands as they wait for Jules.

I don't know how more real that can get. It's such a great bunch of lines. And, quite frankly, if you believe that you must never settle for anything in life, then you (and I) should never settle for any form of partnership/relationship that isn't close to what Coach and Mrs. Coach have. In the final episode, when Coach is deciding whether to take a job at the fictional UMT, away from Dillon, Texas, Coach and Mrs. Coach have a final conversation about the topic. It's worth noting, for context, that Mrs. Coach doesn't want to leave Dillon but Coach wants the whole family to move together. They've been arguing about this for like 2 episodes or so. Anyway, here was how it got resolved, again brilliantly delivered by Mrs. Coach:-

"I don't want to be responsible, nor do I want to have this baby be responsible for you not living out your dream. I have walked with you...I have walked with you all these years to get to this place, you and I together. And you know what else we've been doing together? We've been allowing the space to create our dreams, y'know, and you've got it, you've got it in Austin and I've got it here in Dillon, I've finally, I've finally got this job. And Julie has a big life here in Dillon. And it's going to be hard. I don't know how we're going to do it, but I know our relationship means that we can do it."

Room just got dusty. Excuse me.

Still dusty.

I MEAN, HOW COULD YOU EVER SETTLE FOR ANYTHING LESS THAN THIS?!

It's so fricking empowering knowing that there's somebody who's always got your back and you know you've always got the other person's back as well. Look, it doesn't need to be a romantic partner. It could be a parent, a friend, a cousin, whatever. But the point is, you're going through life together. Every up, every down. Coach and Mrs. Coach are more than husband and wife; they're life partners. They're going to go through everything together and they know that they'll have each other every step of the way.

To refer back to "Pretty Little Girl", they remind me of this bit in the lyrics:-

She said, if you break my heart, then I'll change your mind,
And I'll do it again,
If you play the part, then I will play mine,
And I'll do it again,
If we miss the mark, if we hold on tight,
We'll be there to try it again.

Nineteen as we roll across the bedroom floor,
Your eyes, they cannot lie as they're dreaming of our future home,
And the kids they are growing up, as you and I, we are growing old,
What a crazy world, pretty little girl.

In the rain with the drink from the back of the bar,
I would raise up my voice, you would raise it up more,
We'd forget that our lives, being apart it is hard,
We thought we were close but it still feels far,
Can we learn to get by if we learn to have scars,
We learn to forgive and accept who we are. 

It's a cry from the past, we have been through a lot,
Every year has been great and a few have been tough,
And our kids, they will reach for the stars above,
We'll sit and relax as we're cheering them on,
All the roads to the life from the crib to the grave,
We started alone, in the end we're okay. 

If we miss the mark, if we hold on tight, we'll be here to try it again.

The best part of Friday Night Lights. Better than Minka Kelly.

One more time, for the road, the Taylors and Blink 182:-

It's a cry from the past, we have been through a lot,

Every year has been great and a few have been tough,

And our kids, they will reach for the stars above,

We'll sit and relax as we're cheering them on,

All the roads to the life from the crib to the grave,

We started alone, in the end we're okay. 

We should all be so lucky. 

The "Never again, not ever, I am NOT letting this happen again" Playlist

There is a large number of people whom I know are angry, sad and, for lack of a better word, lost given the events of yesterday. Seeing the team you root for lose is generally painful in and of itself, but seeing the team you root for lose in the manner in which it did is even more so. Just to extend this a bit further, the latter bit is best addressed elsewhere by other people - on Facebook, on media outlets, on social media outlets etc - but I'd just like to take a minute to talk about the former.

A simple calculus to life is this. Happiness = Actual - Expectations. If your expectations are low, and the actual experience is high, you have a lot of happiness. Think of a wonderful surprise you once had. If your expectations are sky high, and the actual experience is just 'meh', you come away feeling very dissatisfied. Think The Dark Knight Rises. Essentially, this equation works. Yesterday, a cognitive bias I think many of us unconsciously made was an overestimation of the probability of the team we support winning, thus increasing our expectations beyond the baseline level. It's an easily-understandable thing to do. For most of us, most of our social media networks are people who are similar to us and who tend to see things the way we do. At least, most of the time anyway. 

So, when people's hopes and expectations piled onto one another, it isn't difficult to imagine how the expectations were skewed beyond the base line. It was always going to be difficult going from 82 to 112, and perhaps it was naive to expect it to happen so quickly. In any case, it is important to set our personal expectations at the baseline expectations. Perhaps a reason many feel disappointed disproportionately more than they would have is because in the Happiness = Actual - Expectations equation, the "Expectations" was set far higher than it should have. It's a good lesson in reminding ourselves to manage expectations to the baseline. 

But, nontheless, people are sad, pissed and lost. Never to fear, I present to you my latest music playlist. I call it the "Never again, not ever, I am NOT letting this happen again" Playlist, which is essentially how I felt after several events that took place yesterday. It's a mixture of defiant hope and just plain wanting to Keyser Soze everyone. For those of you who have yet to watch The Usual Suspects, the movie features a master criminal known as Keyser Soze. The description of Keyser Soze is as follows:-

"One story the guys told me, the story I believe, was from his days in Turkey. There was a gang of Hungarians that wanted their own mob...After a while, they come into power and then they come after Soze...They come to his home in the afternoon, looking for his business. They find his wife and kids in the house and decide to wait for Soze. He comes home to find his wife raped and children screaming. The Hungarians knew Soze was tough, not to be trifled with, so they let him know they meant business (Cue: One Hungarian cutting one of the kid's throats). They tell him they want his territory, all his business.

Soze looks oever the faces of his family. Then he showed these men of will what will really was. (Cue: Soze shoots two Hungarians, then shoots his children and his wife as the last Hungarian watches in surprised horror). He tells him he would rather see his family dead than live another day after this. He lets the last Hungarian go, waits until his wife and kids are in the ground, and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids. He kills their wives. He kills their parents and parents' friends. He burns down the houses they live in, the stores they work in. He kills people that owe them money."

I don't advocate Keyser Soze's methods, but I think we can all feel that sense of rage and injustice that just makes us want to lash out at something. But, I think we must also remain hopeful and to strive to do better. Because, eff this, I am not letting shit like this happen again without doing my best to make things work. I have the perfect music for this set of emotions. Here we go. Again, a shorter-than-standard 12 song playlist, in no particular order (except saving the best for the last).

1. Limp Bizkit - Break Stuff

This is actually the best song when you're super pissed off. Channels everything, really. Let's get the pissed out of the way early.

2. Michael Jackson - Beat It

"They'll kick you, then they'll beat you, then they'll tell you it's fair." Hm.

3. Oasis - Stop Crying Your Heart Out

Because at some point, you have to move forward. 

4. New Radicals - You Get What You Give

This world is gonna pull through.

5. Bob Dylan - Blowin' in the Wind

Suggest also watching this video. Very powerful. And the song itself was written about the meaningless-ness of things during the Vietnam War.

6. Blink 182 - Man Overboard

Excellent closing lyrics - "Man on a mission, can't say I miss him around. Insider information, hand in your resignation. Loss of a good friend, best of intentions I found tight-lipped procrastination. Yeah, later, see you around.

7. Blink 182 - Dammit

"And it's happened once again, I'll turn to a friend. Someone who understands, sees through the master plan when everybody's gone and I've been here for too long to face this on my own, well I guess this is growing up."

A very good song for realizing that there are friends among us who are willing to help and who want to help and that, sometimes, we don't have to face bullshit by ourselves.

8. Kanye West - All of the Lights

A haunting song. While it doesn't come across as that type of song, to me, it's a song that reminds me of hope. And about seeing the light. Cos goodness knows we need all of the lights we can get. "Turn up the lights in here baby, extra bright I want y'all to see this. Turn up the lights in here baby. You know what I need baby, want you to see everything, want you to see All of the Lights."

9. Coolio - I'll See You When You Get There

Coolio with Pachelbel's canon. A song of hope and striving for better and never letting your background and experiences drag you behind. "But I'll be rude to surrender when I know I can be a contender."

10. B.O.B, Hayley Williams and Eminem - Airplanes Part II

Don't really like the song that much, in fairness. But it's worth it for the Eminem bit. Very inspiring.

11. Journey - Don't Stop Believing

Think the title makes this fairly self-explanatory.

12. Lupe Fiasco - The Show Goes On

If you're going to listen to only one song from this list, listen to this one. I saved it for last because I think it best describes this playlist. The defiance, the hope, the idealism, and most of all, the hope. And the hope. I hope I made that clear (see what I did there). Because, dear reader, whatever happens, no matter what stupid shit life or whoever else can throw at us, the show goes on. The show always goes on. And, these lyrics seem particularly relevant, don't you think?

"So no matter what you been through, no matter what you into,

No matter what you see, when you look outside your window,

Brown grass or green grass, picket fence or barbed wire,

Never ever put them down, you just lift your arms higher.

Raise 'em till your arms tired, let 'em know you there,

That you struggling, surviving, that you gon' persevere,

Yeah, ain't nobody leaving, nobody going home,

Even if they turn the lights off, the show is going on."

I'll close with Samwise (BAMF) Gamgee who said, "It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."

10 Things on My Wish List for Malaysian Civil Society

I am a politically neutral person. I do not choose to always support a given politician or a given party. Rather, I make the choice based on all the available information I have up to that point. I do not make bricks without clay, politically. This differs from, say, my support for the Boston Celtics where I don't really care how well the team plays or how good the players are or whatever - I just care that they're the Celtics and thus, they're my team. Politically though, my stance is open to change every single day, based on information that may change my Bayesian priors.

I have followed, with much interest, the ongoings in Malaysian politics leading up to Sunday's elections. I am quite excited by it. If anything, there should be drama. In terms of election results, the most unsatisfying thing, drama-wise, would be that the incumbent maintains the number of seats it holds. That would be a major anti-climax. But anyway, I have seen politicans lob grenades at one another, mudsling for shits and giggles, conjure up completely arbitrary explanations to weird-ass stories. I'm tired of all that stuff, fascinating though it may be. At some point, the marginal "look of haughty derision" feeling just diminishes to the point that it becomes numbing. Nothing really changes the priors now. And so, the mudslinging and whatever just bounces off me.

On the other hand, what I find a lot more fascinating is the reaction by Malaysian "civil society", which I broadly define her as the rakyat who are interested in the political process but are not running for office this Sunday. Naturally, most of my observations are from Facebook where many friends I have are now political analysts or economists, all of a sudden. Yes, that was a condescending remark. Yes, it was patronizing. But, it relates to a point I want to make later. And so, it has been very interesting reading what people say, watching the videos that people put up, checking out the articles that they bring up. It's a lot of fun to see how people think and how people analyze situations. Many people feel very strongly about the Malaysian elections, as well they should be. And when people feel very strongly about things, they tend to write very unabashedly about those things. It's been fun reading those things. I have actually got to learn a lot more about my friends, or at least my Facebook friends.

The list below is a list of 10 Things I wish Malaysian civil society would practice moving forward, based on my observations from Facebook or, embarrassingly, commenters on Malaysia Insider. They are by no means comprehensive, nor are they meant to blame or accuse. I am, myself, guilty of some of these things from time to time and I fully acknowledge it. So, this list is just a Wish List, in no particular order, crafted from fairly objective observations of the things that people post on Facebook that concern the elections.

1. I wish everybody cared as much throughout the 5-year term, not just during the elections.

Straightforward here. Civil engagement should occur on a constant basis, not just when election fever hits. There is a minority of people who are constantly engaged in the political discussions, but the majority of my Facebook friends much prefer to mention what restaurants they have been to or the type of holidays they had (Hint: The word 'awesome' appears way too often as a descriptor) during the 'lull' years. Only when it comes to the Election period that they suddenly take a bigger interest in politics. I wish that Malaysian civil society always takes a large interest in the political developments of the nation on a constant basis, not just once in 5 years.

2. I wish people would have more balanced and measured statements.

On Facebook, people usually either bash a given party excessively and unfairly or praise a given party excessively and unfairly. This is not appropriate. A given party is not ALWAYS and not ALL bad and neither is another given party ALWAYS and ALL good. The point is to consider all the available evidence and factor in caveats where necessary. Being selective about data points makes for a massively flawed argument.

3. I wish people would think in terms of ideals, not in terms of parties/trasngressions. 

I believe very strongly in this one. When I select the type of government I want, it is based on the ideals that I believe a given society or even a given nation state should hold. I recognize that my ideals are not necessarily the same as others, but that's fine - I can still vote whoever based on my own conception of the required ideals for an ideal society. The French Revolution, for example, was built on Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. That's what people rally around. I'd like to see civil society in Malaysia evolve into one that rallies around particular ideals, rather than one that rallies around a corruption scandal, or a hatred of crime, or a common hatred of some party. The latter ones are not ideals. They're not what defines society. I'd like to see the electorate vote based on some conception of society that they like.

4. I wish people would read more.

To have some conception of an 'ideal' society, one must think. And to think properly, one must read. And one must read far and wide. It's not just reading about corruption cases in Malaysia or police brutality or whatever. It's reading about what it means to be a citizen and what it means to have a nation-state and what the relationship is between those two entities. Hell, read whatever genre you like - Chick Lit, Economics, Urban Planning, Design, Horror, whatever. The point is, read, read, read. Reading opens up a whole new conception of what may be possible. Key readings I would recommend - George Orwell's 1984 (or anything George Orwell, in general), Watchmen, and Michael Sandel's Justice: What is the Right Thing to Do?. These are solid introductions towards thinking about society and what our role is in society as well as our role to our fellow citizens.

5. I wish people would think more.

I don't know how to say this without coming across as patronizing or condescending so I figured I'd just go with the way I said it in my head - I wish people would think more. I find most of the statements and arguments on Facebook to be overly simplistic. Like in Point 2, things generally aren't as straightforward as we think. Most things have nuances and caveats that require serious treatment when coming up with an opinion. I wish people would consider multiple perspectives on a given issue and think more seriously about the various unintended consequences that their particular methodology or policy suggestion may have. When thinking, I'd recommend following these guidelines - Prospero's Precepts.

6. I wish people would be more consistent and less hypocritical.

In this post, this person (Ren Chung Yu) is essentially explaining numbers 5 and 6 on this list for me but with an example. He addresses the topics of potential foreign voters in Malaysia, particularly those from Bangladesh and does a very nice job in explaining the various nuances that people may have missed out. One such nuance is the whole, "Bangladeshis are foreigners. They shouldn't be allowed to vote. Let's identify Bangladeshis on polling day and warn them about voting." Guys - racial profiling is bad. Stereotyping people based on their nationality is another form of arbitrary discrimination, which is the very same thing that most of the people who commit this sin are complaining about vis-a-vis a certain political party. If you don't want to be treated as a second class human being because your ancestors only arrived on the Peninsular after somebody else's ancestors, don't do the same to these Bangladeshis. As a friend of mine writes, "As you decry instituionalized, deep rooted racism in our midst, try not to move too easily to perpetuating racist language or inch loser to xenophobia yourself."

7. I wish people would rise above rather than sink to the levels of others.

Yes, I know there are unfair tactics going on. And there's a lot of cheating. And, quite frankly, some utterly ridiculous statements. BUT, that doesn't mean you people have to respond in kind. I wish Malaysian civil society would rise above such lowballing methods and show that they are better than that, because they are. Just because someone does something bad doesn't mean you should retaliate the same way. And, "But they started it" is a terrible excuse that should be left in the playground for primary school students. If you want to do something, do it right. It's better to lose with honor than to win with dishonor. I firmly believe that.

8. I wish people would accept that it's okay for people to have differing political stances.

The whole Michelle Yeoh supporting BN thing issue was so rubbish and highlights a distinct lack of maturity among my fellow Malaysians. If she wants to support BN, it's her bloody choice and it's her bloody opinion. To say that you want to boycott her movies or to call her a traitor is completely retarded and hypocritical. I mean, if someone says that you're an idiot and a traitor for supporting PR, you would argue, "It's my choice. My life. I decide." Bro, she has the same right to that as you. Just accept that people have differing opinions and it really should not affect her capability as an actor. Get over yourself. Let's be a society that tries to understand one another, rather than one that automatically repels one another based on differing beliefs. That's the exact same thing that you're saying the government is doing, by the way.

9. I wish people were more mature.

Slightly similar to point 7, but this one doesn't require sinking to someone's level. This is just the initial level itself. Criticizing some politician for being a lousy office-holder is fine. Condemning some policy as being stupid is fine. Putting up a death prayer token on somebody's picture? Not so fine. That is in poor taste and horribly childish. We should be over this kind of stuff.

10. I wish people would speak only of what they know, and ask what they do not know.

There's no harm in not knowing something and then asking to find out about that thing. That's normal. It's called learning. What is entirely rotten is speaking of things that one does not know. As Gandalf says, "The Wise speak only of what they know." Too often, we have armchair commentators on politics and, my favorite, on economics where they spew a bunch of nonsense but sound confident enough such that people buy into that nonsense. My favorite example is on Malaysian debt levels. Yes, we are at 54% or so, not including contingent liabilities and a lot of other fun stuff. But, most of the debt is domestic - the government can print money to buy mroe bonds and get more debt to repay the debt without suffering external repercussions. This caveat is often missing in the analysis.

That's my wish list. In essence, it's really a list of things that I believe will help turn myself and my fellow Malaysians into good and virtuous participants in civil society. It's a bit Aristotle-ian in concept. It aims to maximize the ability of people to participate in politics in the polis. To have cards on the table, Aristotle did make an argument for slavery, but still. That aside, I believe that one of the most crucial aspects of any developed nation - and here I'm using the word 'developed' in a more holistic manner - is that there is an engaged, well-informed and mature civil society. I hope Malaysia can get there one day.