Sunday, July 8, 2007
Racial Harmony
I have to admit that my brain is partially dead as I struggle to type this article. I'm trying, I really am, but it seems that whenever I am faced with the horrid task of discussing issues political in nature, my brain just shuts now. Must be some flaw in my biological make up…hah allergic to political issues, now that would be a first. Ok, ok, patience, patience, I’m getting to it.
It is of course blatantly obvious to most now, that freedom of speech in Singapore is almost in non-existence. Should you require some evidence to back that statement, take our government’s banning of the Civil Society group from entering our country during the IMF meetings as one instance. But before we go on to criticize how such a stand is detrimental to our progressing society let us take some time to consider why. Why does our government choose to impose such heavy restrictions on her people’s freedom of speech? First of all it is crucial to know that freedom of speech means that should one go around sprouting racially bias statement, the government has no right to detain him.
With this piece of information at hand let us consider the racial make up of Singapore. Do not forget that in Singapore no one race is in minority, every single race have an equally large make up, therefore should a racist statement be made this would probably led to the inflammation of severe racial tensions.
Therefore if I am made to decide which approach (Singer or Szilagyi) Singapore should adopt, it would definitely have to be Szilagyi. For the media or any source of information for that matter, in their mission to provide accurate and detailed information to the masses, needs to show due respect for every individual. Only then can a peaceful racial climate in Singapore be achieved.
However, as in all political topics (that’s what I hate about them!!), Szilagyi approach is not without its shortcoming. With the absence of freedom of speech and the media being so restrained on the information it is allowed to publish, Singaporeans might all become devoid of their personal opinions and have no stand of their own. This would also be detrimental to the future of Singapore. An excellent example would be the likes of popular column write of Today, Mr. Brown who was fired from his job due to an article entitled “Singaporeans are fed up with progress”. Therefore in situations such as these, the government should adopt Singer’s approach and instead of firing Brown from his job, should have justified their actions like a proper gentleman!
So I suppose it is rather obvious now the direction I am going, if forced to choose one approach, it be Szilagyi because Singapore cannot afford to deal with the negative aspects of Singer’s approach. However for the better political climate of Singapore, a balance of both approached should be adopted. There! I’m done!!!
2:00 AM
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Since I've been in the pyschology mood lately, here's my recommendation of two books which have the psychology plus crime element in it, a fantastic combination! The first is Mind Catcher by John Darnton. The second, The Intepretaion of murder by Jed Rubenfield.
Mind Catcher is about this mad psychologist working in a mental research insituite trying to capture the human mind as it escapes from the brain when it nears death. The concept behind his idea is that since our brain shuts down in folds from the outside to the inside, the mind located at the centre of it all will struggle to escape and when given an open portal will do so. Thus if his resaerch and experiement ( for what is a mad doctor without his mad experiement) suceeds, this will prove his theory, that the human mind (or anima as he calls it) can exist outside a body, correct.
Interetsing bits of the book i really like, include the short argument on the difference between the mind and the brain. Really enlightening, and i would have posted up a short exerpt if not for the constrain of time. The book also featured different mental illnesses, such as a man who believes his flesh is rotting. Kinda scary, but then again scary is interesting.
As for The Intepretation of murder, i havn't yet read the book as i intend to save it for the holidays when i can slowly savour every single page without the constant nagging of homework. But how can a book ever go wrong with a charcter like Freud featured as the detective of the novel!?! Also, i have to but add, that this is the very first book i bought on impulse. I almost never buy books except for the one time i was force to get one for my brithday and ended up with the ridiculously boring "water babies".
3:10 AM
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Hey Rachel!
First and foremost, it's an interesting read! For both essays, you manage to address the question and you sustaniate your points. Plus, it's not too formal too turn off the reader from reading.
For the prejudice article,
Good points:
- interesting and relevant example =)
- good sentence structure, signposting it's easy to follow your clear path of thoughts
Areas to improve on
- just a minor thing it's " at no time" not "at not time" x_x
- the second paragraph becomes slightly irrelevant as you didn't link it back to the question clearly.
That's all =) I look forward to your furure aticles!
8:30 PM
Saturday, May 12, 2007
I dreamt of spiders yesterday and snakes a few weeks ago. I’ve been telling anybody who would listen about it, believe me it makes excellent conversation material when you’re walking silently with your friend along a long and empty road and there’s about another 10 mins more of walking you’ve got to do. So how are my dreams related to GP, you ask. Well, it answers the ongoing GP question on whether Singapore teens are stress, cause if young girls like me have creepy crawlies instead of white daffodil fields or tantalizing chocolate buffets in my dreams, then yes, apparently I am very stress.
So back to my dream. In it, my sis lose her tarantula spider (you know, those huge brown ones with fangs), and it sank its fangs into a passerby who then after dies in approximately 3 minutes. I thought she would have learned her lesson and kept the lid on her spider cage a little more tight after that unfortunate incident, but as with all pesky little sisters, she didn’t. This time round her Arizona spider escaped, I just freaked out. It’s a horrible feeling when you are aware that something so lethally dangerous is hanging around you but you just can’t see it. I searched everywhere in the house armed with my graphical calculator (another sign that school is driving young teens mad!) ready to smash that “eight legged freak” into pulp, then…..my mom called, I woke up.
I remember telling Yi Herng today that dreams are merely a reflection of our hidden desires. Not literally of course (when are things like these ever straight forward!?!) they exist as Freudian symbols. Freudian symbols are just a theory evolved by the great father of psychology, Sigmund Freud. He says that dreams are repress forms of our sexual desires (yuck! For those who doesn’t know, Freud really does have some weird theories), for example a sword in our dream might be a phallic symbol. Ive checked, snakes and spiders mean something too. But, I’m not going to tell you what, there is just this much you can share in your blog. But check it out yourself, there’s always Google and the ever “reliable”, Wikipedia.
10:44 PM
Monday, May 7, 2007
Just look at my new blogskin...really just look..you are looking at 2 hours of hard hard work. I have to admit though that half way through those stupid codings you have to copy and paste..and then oops...copy and paste again...i began to wonder why on Earth a computer idiot like me was attempting to venture into this dangerous terrain of template changing. But, its all worth it! Just look at it, the perfect symetry of colours, such an adept song, such beautiful graphics, such...ok, that's enough i think you get the point.
So then i was thinking, why should such a beautiful blog such as mine( thankyou. thankyou)go to waste. I should blog more often, yar tht's what i should do. Try to link every nosensical happenings of my life to GP. I can almost hear the Gp teachers going in their sagely voice "yes, GP exist all around you". So...
Oh crap! Mom's calling, its 11pm what do you think you're doing on your computer, err...im doing my homework don't disturb me. That's not going to work, she knows a blogpage when she sees one.
8:01 AM
Sunday, April 29, 2007
YouTube has no ethics, it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.” Do you agree?
YouTube…I wasn’t really awaken to the many possibilities YouTube held like being able to watch the thriller of latest DEXTER, CSI etc. until last year. Kinda slow I know, but there you go I’m a self-confess computer idiot.
Once again this is an argument of a definite nature determined by the word “sole” which means “being the only one” (definition courtesy of www.dictionary.reference.com). One further word to clarify, “ethics”, which is a system of moral principles. So all in all, our argument for today would be (drum roll please….). YouTube has no system of morale principles and it’s only purpose of creation was for entertainment and money-making.
I’ve decided (after much thought, mind you, cause I hate “techy” questions) to break this argument into 3 sub parts. Firstly “YouTube has no ethics”. I agree with that. As YouTube has a “free for all” concept, almost anybody can post videos of any nature onto it’s site. The videos post can contain materials of any gene, however offensive they may be. Usually they are only sieved out when users lodge a complaint. So it is safe to say that when users post their videos online, they are not constricted by a system of morale principals they have to adhere to.
Secondly, “YouTube was created for the sole purpose of entertainment”. I cannot agree with that. The two of the three founders of Youtube only reportedly sai that YOuTube was created to enable videos to be shared online, there was no specification as to whether these videos were intended to be only of entertainment values. To back that up, although currently majority of the videos on the YouTube scene are that of entertainment value, however more and more videos of different genres have appeared. An excellent example would be the posting of videos demonstrating how to sample blood sugar levels and use an inhaler, by a government funded clinic in Builth in Wales, UK. That is posting for as medical reason.
Thirdly (lastly too, thank god!), “YouTube was created for the sole purpose of money”, again not true. YouTube is a non-profit orietntated project. It was created so videos could shared and no profit is earned when the public download or upload videos. The only way YouTube has been sustaining itself is true the advertisments other compnaies such as google,choosesto feature on it’s site. However, advertisments only came in after the sudden pupularity of YouTube. During it’s creation process, no one expected the impact YouTube would make therefore it is impossible to conclude that profits were taken into account during the creation process. And I hereby end my argument!!
4:42 AM
So prejudice...
Before I continue to make my stand, I think it’ll be most appropriate for me to highlight the key words in this argument. Firstly, we have “prejudice” which is basically defined as a preconceived negative opinion/attitude about a group of people. Then we have “never: which means “at not time”. Lastly we have disease, which is any harmful, depraved, or morbid condition, as of the mind or society. So all in all, the argument we’ll be discussing can be said as: The preconceived negative opinion about certain groups of people is a depraved condition which will at no time be eradicated.
I don’t agree with this statement. Firstly, since prejudice is in actual fact a state of mentality, it’ll be highly impossible to detect it’s existence in people unless of course we use some form of high-tech brain scanning equipment to determine if such a mentality exist in our minds, but of course that’s highly absurd not only because no such machines exist at the moment but also because it’ll be highly impossible to scan every single human’s brain. So the only other way to detect prejudice is through the actions carried of by people who are “infected” with the prejudicial mentality. This is when words such as “discrimination” comes along. Discrimination is the act of limiting the opportunities of certain groups of people who we are prejudice against. Therefore, the only way in which we can conclude that prejudice has been gotten rid of is when its resulting action, discrimination, no longer exist.
As this argument is one of a definite nature particularly due to the word “never”, all we need is one instance in which discrimination has been stop to be prove this statement wrong. A classic example would be the discrimination against female gamers situation. Due to past prejudicial perceptions against a female’s ability to perform in the gaming world, many male gamers have refused to allow them to join their gaming groups or if they’re allowed, proceeded to sprout sexist remarks and belittling comments to the females during the game. However, the situation has since experience changes, as reported in an issue of Digital Life. Due to a sudden increase in the amount of female gamers globally, male gamers are being given a run for their money. Many female gamers prove to be as skilled or sometimes more competent compared to the male gamers. This has led to a confession from several male gamers who have fallen in the hands of the fairer sex, that they will never underestimate a female gamer ever again. This is one example of discrimination and thus prejudices being eradicated.
With this one example alone, it is enough to falsify the above statement. However, please don’t get me wrong, I am by no means deducing from the above example that all forms of prejudicial mentality will be able to follow suit and eventually be eradicated, for that is highly impossible. But for the mean time, we have to take consolation with the fact that that is at least some forms of prejudice that can be gotten rid of and hope towards a better tomorrow! :)
2:45 AM