Run Run Run
After the intense battle with the Dark Ones, I had a chat with a very civic-minded taxi driver on the way home and it made me think about things.
In the past, physical survival could definitely be said to have been fundamentally based on consumption. Back then, land was in no short supply, and in that land there was food, some of it hard to get and some of it effortless to collect. People may have starved at times, but simply living off the land was certainly a feasible option.
Today, it's hard to imagine eating without working for food first. For many of the many people now crowding together in this world, the free lunch has become a thing of the past. Survival is now primarily defined by production, be it the production of food, appliances, entertainment, or knowledge. The trouble is, the kind of production the average person engages in is constantly being devalued by forces larger than any single individual, forces such as global competition or wage setting in private businesses.
The monetary valuation of your work drops simply by virtue of the fact that someone else is willing to work for a lower salary. Just like that. Maintaining a state of prosperity or even mere survival entails having to global-scale sprinting race, even though our stamina and our very lives are finite. Right now, human beings are collectively like a single hamster running to reach the 'end' of its hamster wheel.
But some people are hungrier than others, and these people are willing to drift from country to country to survive and to thrive. And there's no better destination for them than those countries with the most food, electric lighting, and tweeters.
Foreign workers: Yes or no? Yes, on the ideological grounds that what we are willing to spare them in terms of wages changes their whole lives, and on the practical grounds that there just aren't enough Singaporeans who are willing and able to do all the heavy lifting (Don't know how true this is in terms of flat out unemployment rate though). There is nothing simple or brainless about construction work- there are smart construction workers and brainless ones, eloquent journalists and ridiculous ones, passionate sociologists and those who talk shit and write papers just to make a living. Yet I know I would never consider construction work. I was born to be a lover, not a builder. And I only know two or three people who would consider this line of work.
Foreign talent? I don't know. Sure, it would probably lower the cost of operating in some respects. Yes, it's probably true that we need some foreign talent to bring in new perspective and specific competencies. And maybe having some of them come here would make wages and job-seeking more 'competitive'. But the problem is that foreign talent and foreign students are starting to squeeze people out at the tertiary level education and work level. We all probably know at least a few people who have had to go overseas to study, not because the foreign school is especially prestigious (e.g.Oxford), but because their 1 A and 2 B's couldn't get them where they wanted to be. I think the argument of 'competitiveness' is somewhat lame, because Singaporeans are generally damn frickin' competitive already.
Kids these days have long hours of school followed by tuition, and then followed by piano tuition. The taxi driver was right in a sense. How is it natural that children, who did nothing but run around in the field and milk cows 500 years ago, now have to spend the larger part of their week sitting still and writing? My youngest brother is still playing games way too much, just like I did when I was younger. I find it hard to chastise him at times, knowing that I myself was just as undisciplined in my youth. At the same time, I know he does need to play to some extent to get a break from all the tuition and schooling.
But the fact remains that foreign talent probably promotes itself more aggressively than we do; they do have talents specific to their backgrounds, and they are definitely just as hungry as we are for the good life, probably more so. It is not going to end completely, no matter how much government intervention we cry out for. Yet I hope the flow continues to be stemmed for now, not by CHARGING THEM MORE MONEY TO STAY, but by... I don't know, reducing the total number of successful applications per year or something. Singapore's success may have been built on the hard work of immigrants seeking new opportunities, but back then this island did not have the labor required to execute the plans of the British. Today, we have 3 million Singaporeans here, also looking for the good life, and to say that we still need immigrants to maintain the success of this island-shaped ball of money and prosperity is to ignore the fact that plenty of Singaporeans are already willing and able to do so.
Yes, practically we need some foreign talent, and we do need to open an ear to the needs of a wider global community. But we also need to attend to the needs of Singaporeans who are equally as important. We might be only 85% as capable as the foreign applicant applying for the same job, but this is our home. Is 15% more really that worth it? I do try to be friendly to foreigners whenever I can, but I don't want to wake up one day to a country filled with people I barely understand or can connect with, simply because foreign labor has been streaming in and Singaporeans have been streaming out.
------------------------------------
Good decision?
"The food here is tough and tasteless. The people- even more so."
... Breast hat...
Yes. Good decision. I want my own maxed-out-stats, photon-torpedo-breathing dragon.
How to Train Your Dragon might have used a slightly better script, but that is a minor flaw in what is otherwise a really great movie. At first it seemed it would become a cliche, but the people at Dreamworks have been really at the top of their game lately in terms of storytelling sense. The show never got melodramatic or cloyingly sentimental; the creators really made it into something quite unexpected and refreshing; they managed to make flying beautiful again. It's an example of a movie that leaves its impact deeply without resorting to overpowering you emotionally.
And the ending was poignant, poetic in its symmetry with the beginning.
-------------------------------------
Removing all unnecessary movements, and all excess worries...
This might seem like cavalier advice to give, but if any of you soci kids are getting worn out and fatigued by consecutive readings, try taking a day off to relax. And when I say that, I don't mean the kind of surface relaxation we take part in just to escape problems that linger in the backs of our minds. Instead, slowly lie back and take stock of all the non-study things going on in your life. Pick a problem that is both manageable yet important to you, and take a step towards completing it. You don't have to fix it completely. Just work towards fixing something important, and feel good about that.
Then go watch an awesome, attention-capturing show like 'How to Train Your Dragon'.
-----------------------------------------
"He is a political person in appearance, but apolitical in spirit."
Cool eh? No?
In the past, physical survival could definitely be said to have been fundamentally based on consumption. Back then, land was in no short supply, and in that land there was food, some of it hard to get and some of it effortless to collect. People may have starved at times, but simply living off the land was certainly a feasible option.
Today, it's hard to imagine eating without working for food first. For many of the many people now crowding together in this world, the free lunch has become a thing of the past. Survival is now primarily defined by production, be it the production of food, appliances, entertainment, or knowledge. The trouble is, the kind of production the average person engages in is constantly being devalued by forces larger than any single individual, forces such as global competition or wage setting in private businesses.
The monetary valuation of your work drops simply by virtue of the fact that someone else is willing to work for a lower salary. Just like that. Maintaining a state of prosperity or even mere survival entails having to global-scale sprinting race, even though our stamina and our very lives are finite. Right now, human beings are collectively like a single hamster running to reach the 'end' of its hamster wheel.
But some people are hungrier than others, and these people are willing to drift from country to country to survive and to thrive. And there's no better destination for them than those countries with the most food, electric lighting, and tweeters.
Foreign workers: Yes or no? Yes, on the ideological grounds that what we are willing to spare them in terms of wages changes their whole lives, and on the practical grounds that there just aren't enough Singaporeans who are willing and able to do all the heavy lifting (Don't know how true this is in terms of flat out unemployment rate though). There is nothing simple or brainless about construction work- there are smart construction workers and brainless ones, eloquent journalists and ridiculous ones, passionate sociologists and those who talk shit and write papers just to make a living. Yet I know I would never consider construction work. I was born to be a lover, not a builder. And I only know two or three people who would consider this line of work.
Foreign talent? I don't know. Sure, it would probably lower the cost of operating in some respects. Yes, it's probably true that we need some foreign talent to bring in new perspective and specific competencies. And maybe having some of them come here would make wages and job-seeking more 'competitive'. But the problem is that foreign talent and foreign students are starting to squeeze people out at the tertiary level education and work level. We all probably know at least a few people who have had to go overseas to study, not because the foreign school is especially prestigious (e.g.Oxford), but because their 1 A and 2 B's couldn't get them where they wanted to be. I think the argument of 'competitiveness' is somewhat lame, because Singaporeans are generally damn frickin' competitive already.
Kids these days have long hours of school followed by tuition, and then followed by piano tuition. The taxi driver was right in a sense. How is it natural that children, who did nothing but run around in the field and milk cows 500 years ago, now have to spend the larger part of their week sitting still and writing? My youngest brother is still playing games way too much, just like I did when I was younger. I find it hard to chastise him at times, knowing that I myself was just as undisciplined in my youth. At the same time, I know he does need to play to some extent to get a break from all the tuition and schooling.
But the fact remains that foreign talent probably promotes itself more aggressively than we do; they do have talents specific to their backgrounds, and they are definitely just as hungry as we are for the good life, probably more so. It is not going to end completely, no matter how much government intervention we cry out for. Yet I hope the flow continues to be stemmed for now, not by CHARGING THEM MORE MONEY TO STAY, but by... I don't know, reducing the total number of successful applications per year or something. Singapore's success may have been built on the hard work of immigrants seeking new opportunities, but back then this island did not have the labor required to execute the plans of the British. Today, we have 3 million Singaporeans here, also looking for the good life, and to say that we still need immigrants to maintain the success of this island-shaped ball of money and prosperity is to ignore the fact that plenty of Singaporeans are already willing and able to do so.
Yes, practically we need some foreign talent, and we do need to open an ear to the needs of a wider global community. But we also need to attend to the needs of Singaporeans who are equally as important. We might be only 85% as capable as the foreign applicant applying for the same job, but this is our home. Is 15% more really that worth it? I do try to be friendly to foreigners whenever I can, but I don't want to wake up one day to a country filled with people I barely understand or can connect with, simply because foreign labor has been streaming in and Singaporeans have been streaming out.
------------------------------------
Good decision?
"The food here is tough and tasteless. The people- even more so."
... Breast hat...
Yes. Good decision. I want my own maxed-out-stats, photon-torpedo-breathing dragon.
How to Train Your Dragon might have used a slightly better script, but that is a minor flaw in what is otherwise a really great movie. At first it seemed it would become a cliche, but the people at Dreamworks have been really at the top of their game lately in terms of storytelling sense. The show never got melodramatic or cloyingly sentimental; the creators really made it into something quite unexpected and refreshing; they managed to make flying beautiful again. It's an example of a movie that leaves its impact deeply without resorting to overpowering you emotionally.
And the ending was poignant, poetic in its symmetry with the beginning.
-------------------------------------
Removing all unnecessary movements, and all excess worries...
This might seem like cavalier advice to give, but if any of you soci kids are getting worn out and fatigued by consecutive readings, try taking a day off to relax. And when I say that, I don't mean the kind of surface relaxation we take part in just to escape problems that linger in the backs of our minds. Instead, slowly lie back and take stock of all the non-study things going on in your life. Pick a problem that is both manageable yet important to you, and take a step towards completing it. You don't have to fix it completely. Just work towards fixing something important, and feel good about that.
Then go watch an awesome, attention-capturing show like 'How to Train Your Dragon'.
-----------------------------------------
"He is a political person in appearance, but apolitical in spirit."
Cool eh? No?
Labels: discourse
posted by moet at 2:35 AM
1 Comments:
"I think the argument of 'competitiveness' is somewhat lame, because Singaporeans are generally damn frickin' competitive already."
DAMN RIGHT!
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