Observations - 15th December 2017

"When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear." - Thomas Sowell

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Are rich liberals stupid for voting against their economic interests - for politicians who will raise taxes?

If a Chinese has bad experiences with Indian people and concludes Indian people are annoying, he is racist
If an Indian has bad experiences with Chinese people and concludes Chinese people are racist, he is right

The fact that minorities are only championed and fetishised when they're unsuccessful points to an underlying ideology of envy and spitefulness

"I asked some antifas why its okay for them to be violent but duterte's "vigilantism" is a human right violation
Wahhhh everyone damn triggered."

"Whatever happened to "be the change you want to see in the world?"
It became "bitch about the change you want to see in the world.""

"If our ecosystem is collapsing because we consume too much, should we really be bringing people from low consuming countries to high consuming countries where they'll end up consuming more than they would have back home?"

"When I was younger and dumber I thought I could transform unhappy people into happy people by giving them whatever they wanted, or fixing whatever they thought was broken. This approach worked approximately zero times. Once a dopamine addict’s alleged problem is fixed, the addict still needs the next high. So they magnify small problems into big ones just to feel something. Or they create a problem where there was none."


Do people who don't look like their parents have identity issues? (mixed race children and adoptees being some examples)

Having a second kid so the first one doesn't think it's the most important person in the world is like not having a second kid because you're afraid of favouritism. Or, in a different way, like giving away your money to charity so you don't gamble it away

"The best celebration after surviving the first year is a year's holiday without the kid. 😩"


Going by the philosophy that those who have not accomplished much have no standing to criticise those who have done more (a philosophy which seems not uncommon in Singapore), Confucius should be ignored since he only had a brief civil service career before becoming a scholar. So all the rulers who sought his advice were idiots

A lot of Singaporeans think that testing claims for logical consistency is changing the subject. But then, so much about Singapore is special pleading or exceptionalism


Why do people celebrate Down's Syndrome in a way that they don't cerebral palsy?

[On bemoaning the youth] "The people who created the next generation are pretty quick to absolve themselves of the mess they created."

'A great novel can change who you are. For example, after I read "War and Peace", I became way more pretentious.'

"Social constructs are a social construct"

"The government says if you're not doing anything wrong you shouldn't have to hide anything. If that's true shouldn't the government declassify everything?" (aka if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide and nothing to hear from increasing surveillance and violations of privacy)

Reusing disposable plastic containers means the contents may spill. Onto your pants. On 2 separate days. Before you save the earth, you must save yourself.