Word of the day (year, I hope): "agathism"

Well, it's a new year, and as cliched as the concept of "new year = renewal, turn of the cycle, rotation of the Wheel, etc" is, I find myself, like the rest of the human population, seduced by an arbitrarily chosen point in the Earth's rotation around the Sun. Still, I suppose it's human psychology to fix points in time by which we can milestone our personal, temporal progress through this mortal coil.

Okay, grandiosely pontificating preamble over (for now).

In keeping with the Adrian Mole tradition, here are my New Year's Resolutions for 2004:

a) Lift myself up from credit card penury and repaying all outstanding debts.

b) Break self out of current stoner come-home-play-computer-games-watch-DVDs-and-download-pornography drift and concentrate on the following remaining PULGs (Post-University Lifestyle Goals): get a better job, get my CFA, move out of house.

c) Reduce alcohol consumption to twice a month. (Wine doesn't count) (Neither does beer) (Or perry) (Ditto vodka) (And house pours) (Also cocktails)

d) Reduce cigarette consumpt... ah fuck it, who am I kidding.

e) Buy only computer games I plan to complete.

f) Ditto for VCDs, DVDs, books.

g) Moratorium on new online friendships, trysts, liaisons, etc. (Occasional interaction via mailing lists, forums, tagboards, newsgroups permissible but to be more stringently QC-ed)

h) Convert existing online acquaintances into meatspace acquaintances (only two to go)

i) Resume blogging as a means of psychological catharsis, verbal "gorilla-thumping-on-chest" egotism, tediously self-pitying bitching about daily events, and vocabulary-honing.

j) Stick with capoeira classes.

k) Make perfunctory gestures towards charity and altruism and goodwill towards fellow man (ie. putting more change in beggars' bowls, not abusing idiot students with cans and stickers, joining in squatters' protests, refraining from lengthy diatribes about the need for voluntary human extinction)

l) Research cryonics potential more thoroughly as part of renewed zest for life (albeit life in some other epoch where I can hopefully own an orbital space station with rail guns, a berthed Dreadnought-class starship, and a harem of vat-grown nano-constructed concubines)

m) Expect less from friends, family and people around me as part of disappointment-avoidance strategem.

n) Make efforts to go to some of the weird cultural events they occasionally advertise on the Hitz.fm Community Infoline.

I'm currently languishing at work, and am somewhat frustrated due to the failure on the part of another party to deliver the information I need to complete a report which absolutely *must* be completed by tomorrow morning. Although I have a legitimate excuse for tarrying, it still rankles that my progress is being held back by the incompetence of others. But thinking back on this sensation, I find myself surprised to discover something that I've developed resembling work ethic - a concept previously inimical to me other than as a necessary evil required to earn money to keep myself in a reasonably comfortable lifestyle.

As a result, I'm waiting at the office, by myself, staring out the window, and suddenly, *bing*, a flash of volition and here I am, typing furiously into the blog, despite my vow a year ago to stay off blogging. Gabriel has half-heartedly prodded me into making entries now and again, but here are a few better reasons why I've started again.

a) Friendster.com has lost what little appeal it initially had

b) No good games out on the horizon (except, arguably, Thief 3)

c) No money to upgrade computer to effectively play any new good games that might emerge anyway, so why not resort to an alternative low-tech hobby

d) Initially stopped blogging because of embarrassment at lack of anything to say beyond archetypical, cliched personal whining, and because I felt I should be better occupying my rare crumbs of leisure time by either looking for another job or playing more computer games or downloading more Ai Ijima clips, but recent personal events have stripped me of any vestige of motivation or dignity I might have had left.

e) Self-righteous need to critique Gabriel's moralizing for the hollow sham that it is.

f) I like lists a lot. Blogging lets me create lists ad infinitum. BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

As a matter of fact, Gabriel is presently sore wroth at me for telling him that, in Order of the Phoenix, Severus Snape is Harry Potter's real father, that Dudley has magical powers, and that McGonagall dies. He's in the midst of reading it at the moment.

(it's the little pleasures that keep one sane)

Gabriel and I have also had a recent, very long discussion on the institution of National Service, and various alternatives. He went on a long and lengthy rant about how he, as a pacifist, vociferously opposed NS on principle, and that there should be alternatives for conscientous objectors.

I pointed out that the Jehovah's Witnesses are consicentous objectors for whom an "alternative" is provided. Granted, DB for years may be excessive, but what the hell, if you want to provide an easy alternative, everyone's going to suddenly discover their inner hippie and argue for peace and love. At least under the current system, you have to put in some effort (and luck) to get that lobo job you want.

Then I told him that I felt his current objections to NS were driven more by his own self-interest and desire to avoid the discomfiture it causes him, as opposed to any genuinely heartfelt moral principle.

He denied it vehemently of course. And cited all his other various noble causes: feminism, freedom of speech, secular humanism.

So I asked him: "If right now, they gave you a 12-3pm job, 4 days a week, but you had to go to secondary schools and give lectures on how great NS is, would you?"

Of course, he fudged. And accused me of being so morally degenerate that I assume everyone has the same base motivations as I do.

I replied: "At least I have no illusions about what I am, and what I do - well, sometimes anyway"

We then considered a few alternatives to NS; such as having a lottery, "reform vs abolition", hiring mercenaries.

"Reform vs abolition" revolves around the principle that national conscription is a necessary evil, but that the current organizational structure, implementation and use of resources is inefficient, combat-ineffective (debatable), and causes unnecessary suffering. IMHO this is broadly true; but national conscription as it currently stands is the most cost-effective way of achieving the twin military and political goals of government hegemony. No doubt there are other methods, but I really can't think of any that so effectively serve to domesticate the male population AND provide a pool of cheap bodies for the use of military defenses.

A lot of people will say that army doesn't really domesticate males; it makes them more angry and pissed off at the government, but it seems to me that what it does is that it makes them complain more in private, and figure out how to work the system; but ultimately bend their heads and just slog it out within the rules instead of upsetting the apple cart. Gabriel's recent long diatribes and emails being a case in point. It ironically makes him more complaining, more whiny, and more verbally disaffected - but disempowers him from taking any radical action towards upsetting a reinforced power/political structure - (as can be seen from the occasional court-martial-fear-driven-self-censorship in this blog).

Perhaps a more effective use of resources would be to change the incentive structure of National service; not just in terms of allowances, but in terms of servitude alternatives. For instance, a longer stint in the civil service vs 2.5 years of military service? (this would have the pleasant side-effect of devaluing PSC scholars). Or other useful forms of national-related employment? If you structure the incentives and trade-offs correctly, you can still induce/coerce enough people to fill the defensive needs of the nation, while denying Mindef an endless supply of warm bodies to perform hole-filling tasks might make it rethink the way it does things (the surfeit of zombies every year, I think, has subtly impaired its organizational thinking in some ways). This is just a hypothethical, of course, and it would require a lot of thought and fine-tuning before it becomes a workable idee fixe.

Having a lottery seems great on the surface, but the sad truth of human nature is that we'd rather see everyone suffer, even if the aggregate suffering goes up, compared to a comparative few suffering. In other words, if the government could get past the institutional inertia and actually set up a lottery system, the ones who draw the short straw are going to bitch so much that it may potentially update a (currently relatively) stable social situation. What politician would want to risk it?

(NB: Malaysia is a pretty good example of this in action - thankfully the corruption here is so endemic that a lot of people who got in have managed to weasel their way out through judicious application of resources and contacts. As a matter of fact, the M'sian government has called on Chinese and Indian volunteers to fill in the blanks caused by all these "deferments" and "disruptions" to create the ideal "racial composition". Ironic.)

Mercenaries: the only argument I like in favour of this is that none of the parties likely to come into military confrontation with Singapore can pay more so that mitigates the treachery factor to some extent.

Tangential shift to a few thoughts occupying my head.

Watched Return of the King last weekend. While watching it, I had to keep reminding myself to appreciate it as a movie on its own merits, and not address it in terms of the book. That said, however, some of the scenes were so spot on with the way I've always pictured them from Tolkien's text that it was a joy to watch. These included the death of the Witch-King, the battle at Pelennor Fields, the final confrontation at Orodruin, Smeagol's murder of Deagol, Shelob's depiction, and the wondrous cityscapes of both Minas Morgul and Minas Tirith.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who, when watching the charge of the Mumakil, thought: "Fuck! AT-AT Walkers!" (Empire Strikes Back) I kept wondering when the snowspeeders and winch cables would show up:)

I do wish that they had kept some of the more seminal scenes from the book; for instance, bringing in some of the Gondor liege lords like Imrahil and using the actual text from the Last Debate chapter, the much-discussed scouring of Saruman from the final movie, and making Denethor a little more dignified and a little less like a tyrannical glutton. Maybe the extended version DVD will help allay these complaints.

Having played the Return of the King hack'n'slash though, I have to say that it and Two Towers are the best computer-game-movie tie-ins - in terms of visual look, storyline, concept, and of course, all those cool interviews and extras.

Elijah Wood (on playing the PS2 games): "At one point, I swear, I concentrated so hard the (PS2) controller was floating in the air. Serious."

Sometimes I can relate to people who want to kill all Westerners. They come to our countries, earn obscene US-denominated salaries (often tax-included), are given luxury apartments, have our women fling themselves at them, and are reportedly more well-endowed (having lost women to the Caucasian race more than once, penis envy is something I have no qualms in admitting:). I remember once when, sitting in a bus, I was listening to a bunch of American exchange students go on and on about how hard it was to find Mexican food in the town center. Contemplated going all al-Qaeda on their heathen asses, but then I reached my stop.

But it's hard to hate them for long, given that virtually all of the technological and cultural influences that make my life enjoyable originates from them. I'm told that the Philippines feels pretty much the same kind of hate-love ambivalence towards the Yanqui.

But speaking to Gabriel's lambasting of US foreign policy, the sad truth of the matter is that despite being driven more by self-interest and personal vendetta, the whole Iraqi debacle hasn't turned out to be a total nightmare - yet. For one thing, despite everything, no one can deny life in Iraq is currently better without Saddam at the top (until everything degenerates into sectarian chaos, the odds of which are slim but not impossible at present). Ignoring the motivation behind this, and the sheer administrative stupidity that's going on in the aftermath occupation, one has to be pragmatic about the results. I would definitely be irritated by those who cast the US' recent successes as part of the vanguard of righteousness bringing harmony and peace and goodwill, but the fact of the matter is that the US has done some good on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, however cynical the real political motives, and however economically damaging it could be to all of us in the long run.

The US' deficit-fuelled economy may be good for now as a pump-primer for global growth contagion, but when it inevitably collapses? Our Asian central banks can't keep buying Treasuries forever.

Ultimately, what irks me most about the US is not so much about whether or not their actions and largesse have had good for the rest of the world (by and large, it has, despite some sore spots - its unflagging support of Israel being one example), but by their current fashion of dressing it up behind an agenda of democratisation, universal rights, and doctrinal rectitude. Why can't they just happily stick to exporting the best parts of their complicated Weltanschuung; unfettered technological innovation, sophisticated financial markets, capitalistic shenanigans, glittery hedonism, Oreos, massive flows of FDI and overwhelming military intervention in the interests of securing global oil supplies? While reining in the moral banners, the pretensions to humanitarianism, the right-wing evangelism, and reality TV?

Hm. Back to work.