"If piracy means using the creative property of others without their permission, then the history of the content industry is a history of piracy." - Lawrence Lessig

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My No. 1 fan blah blah on my angel letter (yes, it's finished!): u're like those mean preppy girls they always show on american movies, those mean bimbos

Then later: wa lao u're writing like one of those STForum writers ew
it sounds damn manufactured, like the ST editors got to it and edited it
it sound STERILE!

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My mother thinks that brown streaks on the wall at waist level are actually traces of blue hair dye (which, after all, is applied to the head), and no amount of rational argument will dissuade her.

Bah.

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Our smart students not willing to think critically

I FIND it ironic that after decades of praising the education system for producing students who are adept at memorising formulas, a skill that has enabled them to be world beaters in international mathematics and science competitions, the Government now wants youths who are able to express their opinions about what sort of Singapore they want to build.

Unfortunately, as in the case of the bilingual policy, we cannot have our cake and eat it, a fact that has taken the Government some time to figure out.

The more we reward students for their ability to memorise model answers, the less willing students will be to use their critical minds. Why should they risk getting low grades by expressing critical, unorthodox views when it is so easy for them to just be spoon-fed by their teachers?

In his article, 'Lost generation or future leaders: Our call' (ST, Dec 30), Mr Verghese Matthews questions whether figures of authority have instilled in young people the critical spirit and the moral courage to use it for the good of society.

He is optimistic that there is hope yet for Singapore's future: 'I am confident that there are many young critical thinkers in our society who are testing the waters.'

I applaud Mr Matthews' attempt to bring into public discussion the question of whether enough is being done to encourage critical thinking among Singaporean youths, but alas his article has come two decades too late for my generation.

Having gone to a top secondary school and junior college, and now doing my undergraduate studies at a local university, I can safely say that there is an appalling lack of passionate, critical thinkers, even among the intellectual elite of Singapore's youth.

It is not that my generation does not have smart people with critical-thinking skills. The problem is that too many of my peers lack the moral courage to speak out after going through an education system that rewards conformity and punishes originality.

We have become a generation of sheep, too afraid to challenge the authority of our herders. The few wolves left among us who do challenge the status quo run the risk of being labelled as anarchists and troublemakers.

It is no wonder that many have become so jaded that they no longer feel it worth their while to carry on expressing their views, choosing instead to either remain quiet or to head for greener pastures elsewhere, in which case they run the risk of being labelled as 'quitters'.

In both cases, the ultimate loser is Singapore, for conformity results in stagnation, while 'invention is always born of dissension', as the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard so rightly pointed out.

In 1784, the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote his famous essay 'What is Enlightenment?' in which he appealed to his countrymen to have the courage and resolution to use their own reasoning skills instead of blindly depending on the authority of so-called experts. More than two centuries on and in a country far away from his beloved Prussia, his emotional appeal still remains relevant.

Sadly, the works of Kant seldom take pride of place on the bookshelves of many of our policy-makers, who would much rather fill their shelves with more 'practical' books, such as those by economist John Maynard Keynes.

The price Singapore is paying for their narrow reading habits is an entire generation of lost sheep: Gen S. My generation.

Jamie Han Li Chou


The only question I have: What does the "S" in "Gen S." stand for?

Friend: "Generation suck-thumb"


Singabloodypore: "I have had many students come to me after lectures and tell me that I should not criticise, that criticsim is negative. The mis-conception of criticism as fault finding, and argumentative or unnecessary is a myth in the land of 'lah-lah'.

If you wish to be creative the first thing to be done is to tear apart, or break into small pieces, and then put it back together. You must learn how it works and as with a car engine that means taking it apart. To the untrained layperson it appears destructive or negative. It is the necessary first step."

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Someone on Choose Your Own Adventure books:

"I just finished reading Showdown, and I don't like the way they illustrate the reader as a female. I know that's not the only book in the series to do that, and it always irritates me when I see that because it's very demeaning and insulting to be called a girl. I know that the books were probably read and enjoyed by both genders and that they were probably trying to be fair since girls might not like to be
called boys; but what they really should've done is put out two versions of each book, one that illustrates the reader as a boy and one that illustrates the reader as a girl."

wth?!

Someone else:

"I've heard it said that [Michael] Moorcock speedwrote many of his fantasy novels while drunk on whisky, but I have no idea if it's true."

Heh heh

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One thing that intrigues me is how non-evolutionists like to accuse evolutionists of believing that it is right and proper for the fit to lord it over the weak, because of the theory of the Survival of the Fittest. Some even attempt to propagate a form of Social Darwinism, ala Herbert Spencer, which most evolutionists rightly recoil at.

However, if anything evolutionists are much less likely than non-evolutionists to believe in Natural Law theory - that what is natural is good, and that what is natural is not good. It is precisely because we see that nature is, as Hobbes observed, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" that we recognise that the natural state of things is not necessarily right and proper.


"I cannot forbear adding to these reasonings an observation, which may, perhaps, be found of some importance. In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention wou'd subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv'd by reason."

David Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature,
Book III: Of Morals,
Part I: Of Virtue and Vice in General,
Section I: Moral Distinctions Not Deriv'd From Reason

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"The rhetorical trick of presenting a false dichotomy (or false set of more options than two) is very popular. You often see a version of it in Christian evangelical literature. Christ, they say, claimed to be the son of God. He must have been telling the truth, lying or mad. There is no evidence that he was a liar or mad, so therefore he must have been telling the truth.

Of course, the problem is again that the options presented don't exhaust the possibilities. Jesus may well not have claimed any such thing - the Gospels may be unreliable. He may also have meant something more metaphorical. After all, in Genesis it is said that "When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose." (6:1-2) So clearly being the son of God isn't a unique achievement and may mean something less than it is usually taken to be. Whichever way you look at it, there are more than the three options presented."

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