photos...

musee marrakesh

mint tea

marrakshi sunset, with the adhan sounding over the city

road to ouarzazate

high atlas

amsterdam... pardon the digression, pretty good photo of her, which i neglected to pass to her. she's living it up in greece now. "la vie en rose" was not a particularly good film, but i like its theme. life is lived in moments. all this is just in-between. i am particulaly sceptical now about looking out for the future, etc. a whole year of it. today i want to live in the past. i miss the past. coming back to singapore. whatever lah, go talk about jobs and whatever you're going to do this summer and whatever, the reality is, i'm just doing what i'm going to do because i am afraid of being bored and just don't want to stay in the same place. i work to earn money. end of story. a reason, an aim? non, rien de rien.

ok, airport shot, lame.

lame.

horse, lame.

madrasah ali ben youssef

first day was spent trawling the souqs in the medina of marrakech. it reminds me of the little markets in hanoi because each street literally sells a different type of thing. leather street, lamp street etc. didn't bargain to well for my first purchase, i didn't know the prices and i got it down to only half and i felt in a rush. got it down to 40% of his price.

in contrast, in Ouarzazate, ورزازات ,which was a Saharan desert outpost 200 km south of Marrakesh, I got bored with the really really boring kasbah there. 1. It was really hot, about 42 degrees celsius. 2. it was a crappy kasbah. i had seen Ait Benhaddou a while earlier. I had one and a half hours to spend, and i didn't want to sit in the cafe listening to the old man playing his two-stringed instrument strangely reminiscent of the erhu. even the spanish couple remarked as such. anyway, i looked around, and i got waylaid by a berber who tried to sell me cloths and camel skin leather. i get pretty irritated when people konichiwa me, although it usually means they haven't seen enough chinese in the area to tell me apart from japanese. i usually try to set them straight. anyway, i went off in franglish, and the berber got confused and asked me what language i wanted to bargain in. i said anything, and he said arabic? so i asked if he would like to bargain with me in chinese, we all laughed and sat down. the rivalry had begun.

so this time i got the price down to very very low. (albeit it was a crappier quality, and they start with higher prices. it's so unrealistic. 65 euro starting price?) it got down to the point where i refused to budge, and he asked if i had anything to offer him. no cigarettes this time, and then he wanted to look through my bag to see if i had anything interesting. i anticipated him asking if i was willing to sell any of my prized possessions for a low low price. now, i'd just bought my fred perry jacket for £15, but i wouldn't mind selling it to him at 225 dirham. there, just so you know i can part with things for above cost as well. aah yes, but why would he need a jacket in the sahara? (for the desert nights i retorted). no cigarettes on me, and there was no way i was giving him my only pen required for filling in embarkation cards.

morocco

i have unfortunately packed my card reader in and therefore i will have no photos to post on morocco. perhaps i will steal some off the net.



ryanair had just run a feature on travelling solo. i do know that for long periods of time, travelling solo just gets to me. sometimes you just don't know where to go, and you'd prefer just following someone who'd see something they'd like.

anyway, i'm glad to report i returned safe and sound from morocco. firstly, morocco is largely francophone, so getting by was not much of a problem. it seems many of them speak it as a second language. nothing lost, and the budget was incredible, it was 8 euro a night for accommodation, for a nice riad-like hostel with a bright room and nice enough bed. showers were rubbish, not hot water, manual flush (fill pail with water, pour pail into hole) squatting toilets and no cold water. at least it's not take water from big tank and pour over myself. otherwise, just like rural indonesia. i don't think some of my fellow travellers got what they bargained for.

Food

food was generally affordable. the first night at the djemaa (the largest square in africa) i wandered around and was looking at what to eat. lentil soup was 2.5 dirhams (0.25 euro), and i had also a nice 4 course meal later, consisting of bread, aubergine paste, moroccan salsa (that's what i call it) fried fish and chips. fish was fried in light batter, very boney. along with a drink, 2.7 euro in total. you do the usual trick of going where you see only moroccans.

now the stupid thing is, i got stuck in the tourist trap AFTER doing this. the next night, enlightened by my first experience, i trawled the djemaa again. because i wanted to have some couscous/tagine, i decided to go to one of the larger stalls where there were a few moroccans, and a big thai production crew who were filming after being in fez. had crappy tagine and food for 7.5 euros! anyway, i learnt later that most moroccans don't eat out.

Best tagine was at Cafe Argana, a restaurant overlooking the square, on the last night. nice lamb tagine with figs and dates, sweet and very citrusy.

big lovers of orange juice, everywhere there are people juicing oranges. their pastries are influenced by the french, lots of croissants. btw, "croissant rouge" is the red cross! lots of dates and sweet things. i was also addicted to mint tea

i did not see much shisha, although dodgy young men were constantly trying to sell me hashish/kif, and i saw some glue sniffers around. i felt pretty safe in morocco, in the sense that i felt there was a constant police presence and a sense of social justice in the place. for example, i realised that the attitude they take towards beggars is very different. many of them choose to give freely and even banter with people who ask for alms, and they give though they themselves to do not look fantastically well off.

i woke up at 6 everyday, not feeling too tired, and was off and running by 6.15. in case this sounds insanely early, the adhan sounds at 4 - 4.30 in the morning. this usually wakes me, and an hour or more of sleep will suffice. moroccans are early risers (as most developing countries tend to be), and i usually had to get up early for the bus out.

to write on:

leonard cohen
morocco
"let him look towards his bond."

i know what i feel

it always gives way to tiredness.

when it comes down to reality
it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide

past 2 nights, drink then sleep. i get sleepy so soon.
i know. i feel tired. it's been so tiring.

i've let enough slide. what's the point anyway, when you're not respected/appreciated/rewarded.

day by day lah. you'll get there.

reality says you're not good enough. so just go to sleep.

tomorrow, tomorrow, you're always a day away

i bought this cd by kate walsh, this essex girl, which promised someone coming on as janis joplin with a glass of southern comfort. maybe her first album was, thought i don't quite think so.

she reminds me of the girl with braces and rosy cheeks and the "don't hurt me voice." i like girls like that, who write about butterflies and rainbows and fireworks. even when they're singing about being the town slag or one night stands, they still sound like the world is made out of big lumps of sugar. you cannot bear to hurt creatures such as these. when she introduces her song as about when her ex boyfriend dumped her, your temptation to cringe is immediately disarmed as she says: "in some other concerts, they'd have said aww." awwww. then "i'm not bitter, no i'm not." and she starts singing, and all is forgiven.

it's not fair. she's so cute.

they need to knock off some zeroes from the indonesian rupiah

exams are over, and i've gone for mahjong but skipped the drinking after. i'm too tired perhaps.

many a time i've gone onto this blog during the exam period, and i must have had last year too. i seem to be rather more out of whack during these periods. but i've had people now to share my thoughts too, so i think they don't matter as much. what are they but transient anyway?

i did possible the most perfect paper in my life. perhaps it is a little premature to say so but i think it is close to perfect, down to all the little details. i was rather relaxed for econometrics, perhaps all a little too burnt out, but it's nice to just sit down and let the thoughts flow through you. i was glad to be doing the paper and not some inane practice. i feel better about it than statistics last year, or maybe economic history. more fulfilling.

i felt god was with me, but maybe that was because i was listening to bob marley before hand, i i felt someone delivered me through the last 3 papers giving me exactly what i wanted to see, vs micro 2 which thoroughly deflated me.

i mean, don't pretend it's just another exam paper. it's something you put your life on hold for 2 months for. don't tell me it doesn't matter. in the large scheme of things it doesn't, but in the small scheme it's just like completing a marathon.

but back to the god metaphor, it's out of my hands now. i've looked for the right people (i hope), i've done the studying, which admittedly wasn't 100%, but now that i look at the years to come i just see mediocrity. it's humbling, in a way what has happened during the exam period. the hubris is gone, and i'm setting my life to default and i darent expect what will come next.

road trip to the lake district, and then my little jaunt to morocco. where i want to see the desert. part of a million things to do, like indonesian visa stuff, learning bahasa, house looking, arranging these things. but once i'm away i'm away, as i say, and i stop worrying, which is why i want to leave. it bugs me how i'm like that, how when the exam is over, nowadays i just worry about what needs to be settled next. just like a mother with 3 kids.

my kancheong dad called me, and it's heartwarming to here his kancheongness. it's more concern about how my paper was. he never fails to ask me that. but he asks me nowadays as well how i am, and he's generally taken a mellower edge. i never understood his fetish for results, not while younger at least. they don't matter, not in the big scheme of things. but i see a little.

last year when i finished my exam, i remember i grabbed a richard dawkins book and started digesting it voraciously. now i'm doing history of the arab peoples, and when i'm ready enough i'll start on some economics. drinking is beyond me, sometimes i wonder if i'm incapable of having fun or giving fun to those around me. i don't live to be the life of the party, maybe i just live for that ethereal feeling when you've done something perfect. and it's something you've accomplished not by destroying others, but racing against yourself.

bullshit aside, honestly, i really feel these things, whether i am illusioned or not. i thought, why let the fact that i can't seem to have fun depress me? they will come when it's time, and when i'm more ready for it. the other thought that bugs me is that i am a gaping hole, and i'm inadequately able to fit into what people desire for me. not enough love, not enough fun, related stream of thought.

i am massively afraid of abandonment. that it could be the last time i see someone. it's hitting me now, it could maybe not be the last time, but maybe the last chance to have fun together? i think about my grandmother and i worry about how much every last hug matters. or how every last hug matters so much that it's painful that you choose to inure yourself against hugging for fear that it will make you cry.

humans are like that as well, they're not just a bundle of emotion. that's why they're so tricky.

will be free today

a beautiful acoustic song by bob marley

Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the 'and of the Almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfil de book.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Wo! Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfil de book.
Won't you help to sing
Dese songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs -
All I ever had:
Redemption songs:
These songs of freedom,
Songs of freedom.

i am objectively nothing, because that is what people want to see.
in trying to be objectively something, you incur subjective wrath.
lie low, keep under the radar
everything's objectively better

shhhh.

it is better thus to be objectively neutral, like water.
water is objectively neutral.

belief is false, only what you want is true.

riddle me this riddle me that, bet you haven't got a clue!

i guess i am not a poet.

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
actually no, this isn't quite me
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for he time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

-W.H. Auden

i'l n'y a personne

deconstructing mythologies, or writing comes back when you write back to something

THIS IS PRACTICE. I FORGOT HOW TO SPELL. EVER HEARD OF DERRIDA? OH AND YES I CAN'T SLEEP.

i just read that clarence is somewhere snorkelling in zanzibar taking a break from the somewhat thankless task of lending a hand to help in africa. the continent seems to suck in its fair share of volunteers, and why not, there is no other place in the world which is made out to be so despondent, so helpless. unfortunately, i am only able to tell from the figures, for neither my course nor my job will put me in such clear and present danger (although i will be doing development economics), and it is debatable if i will ever go to africa given that most of my economics classmates (and more) think africa has the appeal of a dead monkey, unless i happen to do field study for further study, which we all know they don't prescribe anyway. i won't go into the theory.

i miss singapore. yes, that place where i never quite fit in, but where do i fit in anyway. that place, which, is paternalistic, everyone dances in circles and dances the same thing and doesn't accept innovation in dance moves. yes, all very valid and pertinent points.

i cannot help thinking that our psychology is ruled by our pet peeves. (duh!). but, no, what i mean is, it is not weird that you thought all this in zouk. after all, it's your pet gripe, and you will see it everywhere. there is nothing like being out of love to notice how everyone else is getting together like take that again. theories are your cognitive biases. but you identify the following causal linkage, which i don't quite get. 1. singaporeans are superficial 2. therefore they are poseurs 3. therefore they are posing in a circle at zouk. under 2, there is a side point about not being able act differently. the way i see it fitting with the hypothesis, it is because there is a. a set social persona that people are expected to conform and behave to, and that is why everyone slots into their roles and isn't creative.

i've often thought that, until i realize i don't get drunk because of my much referenced problems with alcohol (no, not driving charges, i'm on the other scale.) i always thought when i died that i should give my liver to those caught for drunk driving so that they may never metabolize or enjoy alcohol again, but i digress. so, perhaps i am a poseur for simply turning up at a club and not dancing?

social situations all inevitably bring out an element of posing.

yes the japanese have it bad. but i think they gave the world sushi conveyor belts, sushi, and eating sushi off a naked woman's body. and tempura.

not forgetting copious amounts of creative pron fetish (hahah pron, tempura, get it?) condom vending machines, used underwear vending machines, gigantic walls of colour, anime, the playstation and the final fantasy series. and, the ito integral, just in case you think they're all about fun, and the mitsubishi evo. it didn't dent their creativity, it must be something else.

i agree, that maybe we should take life one day at a time. after all jamaica has it great, and they get to host the cricket world cup from time to time.

work is okay. many people define themselves like that, because a job has labels to it doesn't it? doctor, compassionate or maybe professional, lawyer, eloquent, investment banker, challenging etc. of course, money is the adjective in common. but why bang that? people do not work hard simply to buy stuff, here is the chronology (i am not disputing some people follow the suggested one, but here is an alternative)

oh damn, i'm leaving school. oh fuck fuck what should i do. i went to this good school and all, should think about getting a good job and all, after all, marx says, your job is your status right, esp in this capitalist society. hmm, ok, can choose challenging and hard job lah. but, some jobs work hard also, but also cannot buy LV mahnolo. if need to work hard, might as well choose better paying one right. so said person chooses job.

payday coming. wow. gonna get a lot of money, good good, can spend and reward myself.
vs.
payday coming. work so hard, cannot buy anything, prices keep going up.

life is tough.

argument: so you don't need to choose such a tough job. i used to be a socialist, i agreed. but i realised people work tough jobs whether they are paid or not, unless they think their way out of the system, or the system is changed. some people have the opportunity to get pretty slack okay paying jobs, good. but someone needs to do the tough jobs. actually, maybe not finance, maybe the world should just do with less capital and lower returns, less diversification of risk etc but don't correlations go to 1?

say you are looking for hardcore creativity. like making your own stuff, just chilling creative creative stuff. yeah great you have youtube, bloggers, tons of amateur stuff which is nice to look at, (and funny as it is, please, let's not take all art down that route). you need fucking insane people. the very people driven crazy by society, yet feel guilty enough to stick a knife in themselves from time to time. i can say that maybe what they lack is passion, but passion is the wrong word, passion is more like what you feel for your school. a kind of hard up desperation for fame success and immortality, that will destroy and consume you in flames muhaha. you need to be crazy. but crazy isn't chilling out, enjoying yourself. crazy is talking to yourself, crazy is believing you are right all the time, crazy is willing to spend 1000 hours because you think 1000 is a nice number.

anyway, there are lots of non-conformist singaporeans. probably just happened to be at the wrong party, on the wrong day.

i also agree that people shouldn't buy LVs or whatever, but it's a bit mean to say all people. clearly, if you are extraordinarily beautiful, you deserve one, maybe by being a model or something. if you're rich, and i don't mean need days to toil kind of rich, then you should be allowed to buy them too. why it is a violation of one's rights. clearly if i have the top decile of the income distribution concentrated on my hands i should be allowed to spend it. just acquisition and transfer, you know, and the like.

living for the moment, okay, but how is that not hedonistic, or can i call you a poseur too because i have seen you through my psychological pet peeve.

in variation, all things are sweet, said the poet euripides. not so, said aristotle, for just as it is the inferior human being who is prone to variation, so also the nature that needs variation is inferior, since it is not simple or decent.

aristotle is certainly a big fan of boredom (and he practises what he preaches!)

C is for Sleepy

one day, i will type out every single letter of Anscombe's pamphlet, Mr Truman's degree, regardless of legality, since people complain they can't find the text online. In it contains every last drop of sarcasm and wit that I have lost over the past few years used to bitch about various aspects of how the world is unfair. it makes pleasant studying, at least, to see that people can still be so bitingly funny.

as i sit and think, all i run up against is frustration.

my computer is down.
I can't sleep, but there is nothing to do when i can't sleep because i don't have my own computer, so i rely on little raids on Michelle's computer.
She is sleeping now.
My allowances aren't in yet.
My internship posting is left hanging.
I have to study for exams.

so there are 6 negative things hanging over me now, in the immediate present. is there a tense for that. ten-sion.

spring is here. i wonder whether chairman's read blogs. because my friend in the edb has his chairman looking around from time to time. right, public domain and all. i've had it with blogs anyway, there's probably a new wave around. like twitterrific or something.

i cannot how imagine how someone would want to read blogs anyway. look at all the sordid photo whoring, the whining like this, the shrines to once own existence. look at the other hundred thousand youths with enough computers and free time to write. people like you and i. well, alright, some people write well. or about interesting things. that other people exist. that other people younger than you exist. other people like you with pretty legs and being in the sun in singapore, not like the weather isnt good here but there are no beaches.

i would, if i didn't somehow feel guilty about wasting time. i should just eat sleeping pills, of which there is a pack lying around somewhere. but it's such a waste, of this energy, i should be studying except that i've been half doing that all day. and i do not like pills. they frighten me. i wonder what happens if you chew them instead of swallow. part of me worries i have fatal familial insomnia, and how scary that would be, but i relax as i learn i am not 40 and it is only tonight. such irony, all that time wanting to sleep less and here it is i am in someone else's room not wanting to turn on the light or do anything and just wait for tomorrow to come. i have spent a lot of time waiting without a computer, i guess i could survive without it but i just spend so much time thinking blank thoughts.

i am thinking about boats racing on the thames. cambridge won. why? because i checked online.
sleep. i am envious of sleeping people. i should be studying, but i don't want to turn on the light to disturb equilibrium, no, i don't want to study. i have been half doing it all day, the other half a smorgasbord of prison break, cooking and wanting to exercise.

no inspiration to write. wikipedia and blogspot disabled. where will i get my ready supply of knowledge?

on the day you are a joyless, luckless individual. do you want to know how to write well, how to make people feel despondent? i learnt that trick when i was young. have many words, some which may not mean much at all, and put a less behind them. come, try it, repeat after me.

joyless, penniless, homeless, luckless, computerless, sleeplessness (i cheated, there was a ness in there, but it rhymes), motherless, fatherless, faithless, solace.

her profession is her religion, her sin is her lifelessness

weather is a good ice-breaker, pardon the pun

what is hail?

hail is stones falling from the sky

you hear that? stones are going to fall from the sky tomorrow

sleet?

sleet is small stones

kamm's principle of permissible harm

"it appears weird that a small segment of track which doesn't even come into play should by the doctrine of double effect now be declared impermissible."

can we flip the switch? - intuitions

push man off bridge: no
lazy susan: yes
trolley : yes
loop trolley: yes
race to brake: no

now, if we want to distinguish and formulate a theory which would justify our intutions, if i can produce another coherent explanation it would show that the PPH is not necessary.

i am leaning towards a psychological error theory, something to do with risk and causal perceptions. in both the trolley and the loop trolley case, the evil that either the 1 or the 5 face the same kind of risk, to be run over by a train, which is an unfortunate consequence of the fact that they happen to be on the tracks. they thus both share the implicit risk of being run over by the train within the situation, which is the evil which is foremost on our minds. it would thus seem unfair to introduce this risk or evil to someone who is crossing a bridge or the road on the way to the brake, although these risks exist in practice, they do not dominate in our analysis of the immediate threat. it thus seems unfair to introduce this new "threat" in which they are used as a means.

lazy susan is allowed because again the implicit risk has been introduced into the question: i.e. the risk that landslides happen and are caused by nature. regardless of the fact that you cause the landslide by rotating the lazy susan, the particular risk is already embedded in the rocks and the strata and it would seem that you did not intentionally put someone in greater danger as a result of your action. you have not increaed the overall risk of the system. and the error is that "natural" causes in these case absolve one of moral responsibility, because trapdoor, running over someone, all seem to be artificial causes, whereas trolley accidents and landlides are simply unfortunate incidents.

paradox of deontology

normative judgements part 2

and clearly even if you thought about things and arrived at no definite answer, there seems to be something about acting after you have thought through something which is better than not thinking about it at all i.e. wilful ignorance.

even if international relations, philosophy, economics provides no good predictors of the way we live, apart from clearing up the confusion of thinking about things, it just allows people to think things through.

reflective equilibrium: how can we use the way we currently do things to justify how things should be done in the future? this is another criticism of this method of morality, and even economics in general. are we just being squeamish in not killing this group of people to save a larger amount? hey, maybe all this being nice and polite to people and going to church on sunday is just slave morality, foisted on us by all these disgruntled slaves? and maybe we like economics so much because it is the justification of a system which makes people rich, and continues to make them richer.

i do find it dangerous, though, to think that we can throw off whatever influences we have, however far back they go, and say, hey morality is not working out for a group of us. let's fuck it. i think an explanation is still owed, similarly, if you wish to change the structure of the world economy, and if you believe that third world countries are being screwed over by richer ones, i like to think that you have to make a good case for it.

but why? why do people like to think things through before making a choice, even in less clear cut cases? clearly they would have to perform a first evaluative judgement in weighing up the things of value on both sides of the questions. the argument will be then on what is of value, and what weights we assign to them, and that would be tricky, as Hume correctly points out. How are we to be sure that our emotions of not interfere with our weightings? but surely it's important to know in the first place what these factors are. and it is only because we are doomed to think and wonder anyway, that we attempt to act rationally (if we do) to try to pre-empt regret which is basically thinking things through ex-post.

so i think it is still important to think about things like medical ethics and morality and why the "ethics as justification" argument makes sense. if you have to do something, it would be nice for a start if you knew why you were doing it. it would help you act according to consistent principles.

abstraction. reading a poem, or watching a film where everyone overcomes the odds, it's so unreal. not everyone can be a rocky balboa. not everyone is persistent and 100% hardworking, but of course, the premise is to give you something to hope for, to do better in, to have that one ideal or dream you can fight for. for every rocky, there's the person who didn't train as hard and got beat by him.

and it is so easy to be a specialist, and be the captain of your soul, to overcome physical hurdles but it is difficult and seems to be slightly different in this world, in this world maybe it is difficult simply to will things to be so and coherent in one principle, in all its messiness, maybe success involves things like sleeping around if you have to or learning how to lie, flatter or deceive. you would not like to think it so, but i am sure a case can be made for it, and where are these success stories in rocky balboa shows? how does the second place guy feel, knn, you think he never train? all this stuff about being the best is bullshit. not inspiring, so shouldn't be a model for our success? but if that's the case, then behaving ethically or in a noble way is not a prerequisite even helps success, but seems to be an added constraint. so if you act noble and succeed, then you get 2 points, instead of 1.

deep down, i feel an urge to be the best in what i do. but i know in many areas i settle for being good enough, even average. what is wrong with good enough (well, because people doing the best strive for human progress and the world moves and everything), but the more i see, i seem to feel that competition makes me unhappy. i enjoy better environments where people are less competitive, perhaps its a lack of drive thing, but maybe i also feel it changes part of me to be a less nice person. i feel changed by the people around me, i feel it is necessary to do well in micro 2 etc etc, or have a good job, or whatever status. i wish i was just good enough. so all this propaganda about making in to the top, for every top, there is an asswipe down there who resents having to clear your trays for minimum wage. and then the only thing to live for is, well, make sure i'm not one of them. that is why cashiers at tesco bug me so and why i am glad they introduce auto-cashiers at tesco. go tesco.

that is why i think hard work, though important, neglects many other variables. and why people always settle for one of the other points, relative failure or ethical failure.

i got over a bit of the boredom of yesterday, and also a bit of the anger, after it was put in disarmingly simple terms, that i don't have a problem or anything, i'm just an introvert perhaps.

the spring is here, the sun has been shining, it's st patrick's day and ireland is trashing italy in the RBS six nations, and the pub fills with irish catholic songs. perhaps catholic is an unnecessary adjective, but it is just soo irish if you know what i mean. sounds very soulful, kinda like dirges.

i was arguing about the relevance of economics in the modern world.

if the objection to economics is that it focuses too much on money and self interest, and that a lot of people end up sitting around doing nothing productive, then why the focus on just subjects which have some inherent productive value? clearly production is not the only thing that matters in this world, and a secondary principle could be fulfilling intrinsic human needs such as curiosity.

secondly, the fact that economics only explains common sense principles. i feel a need to distinguish between "science" and "technology". it is obvious to me that an apple should fall from a tree, but it is not obvious to me why. I am unsure if physics even provides an answer to why apples fall from trees, because they are really describing the dynamics and laws which govern the mutual attraction of objects, but given that why is a question of motivation, and trees, apples are the earth are not assumed to have innate free will, we could even ask the creator why a world should be governed by the laws or physics, or why humans would want to find a way to think about and organise their sensory perceptions. physics really isn't the straightforward if you think about its deeper philosophical foundations.

in the same way, just because something happens and is commonplace experience or common sense does not mean that we shouldn't try to explain it or try to figure out where our common sense intuitions fail us, and this is something i've learnt from doing moral philosophy. we all know it's common sense we shouldn't kill people, but why? why do we respect people's rights, or do we not kill them just because we're scared. of course there are many possible answers, but if you arrive at a principle you live by, i guess it will make choices such as abortion (and i just being selfish or do i have a right to choose?) less random. would you kill 1 person to save 5? if not, why don't you donate your own organs to 5 other people?

okay, but then it comes to technology. the offspring of biology, physics and the pure sciences, and we get magnetic resonance scanners, computers, nuclear energy, you know, stuff that really helps people. economics seems to be a dark art in that respect because by nature (on the micro scale it is a question of choice), on the macro scale it involves decisions taken by a large number of people. it has more variables, and it is less certain if economics is useful as a technology-generating science, or rather, a science with a practical bent and application.

i agree that at best, economics can only aspire towards aims such as better organizational or incentive structures, because that is the business that they deal with. they can recommend laws, systems, or ways to keep the system going because ultimately it is about interactions. what successes do they have to claim, given that countries with or without good economists grow have fantastic GDP growth anyway.

but just because we are economists doesn't mean our job is to make everyone produce more, we are not interested in more, we are interested in efficient. efficient, and equilibrium. there are some things which appear to be common sense, but we have had to learn empirically and understand why through a theory. for example, stagflation, and how not to conduct monetary policy. why are interest rates and inflation so stable nowadays? how did we arrive at a regime targeting interest rates, when 25 years ago they were targeting money supply, or letting interest rates fluctuate? isn't the way things are not more stable for lending/borrowing money?

aren't there principles to auction design? individually, people on ebay act irrationally, but when it comes to companies handling deals wirth some $38 billion on more, one can expect some semblance of rationality when it comes to games of auctioning. to me, the notion that the second-highest bid wins given imperfect information produces the optimal auction proceeds is not a self-evident fact which i would have guessed without economics.

whatever derivatives or black arts mergers/acquisitions and stuff do, or whether capitalism is the best system are still questions for economics. do a history in economics course, and economic thinking applies whether you are a marxist or capitalist (although, given that marxism predicted the collapse of world capitalism, it is a discredited theory), again, proved by experiment. the capitalists would have said, "i told you so". i would say derivatives, like insurance, hedge risk, risk that people are generally afraid of. this is not to say that everyone in finance is doing it for the good of the world, no probably not, it is to make more money and you could quesiton why there are so many financial markets. but you would have to examine development economics, and ask yourself, how are countries crippled from growing if they do not have well-developed lending/borrowing or capital raising markets? a lot of what seems obvious (produce, then produce lorh), is not that simple, how are the funds raised, how do people with a bright idea turn it into a reality in some countries but are just oppressed in others?

no-arbitrage is also a very powerful principle, and you just have to see how the prices of budget airlines converge to prices of super-economy on standard airlines on the internet (a perfectly competitive market) to observe it in action. it is the basis of black-scholes and other pricing formulae which people instinctively gravitate to.

i wanted to review the nobel-prize winning ideas for the past 20 years but i will do that in another post.

The Who: Baba O Riley

What bad hairstyles!



Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Don't cry
Don't raise your eyes
It's only teenage wasteland

Sally, take my hand
We'll travel south cross the land
Put out the fire
And don't look past my shoulder
The exodus is here
The happy ones are near
Let's get together
Before we get much older

Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
Oh, yeah
Teenage wasteland
They're all wasted!

statistics and lies.

we could set out an entire website on the misuse and abuse of statistics. some of them involve drawing spurious correlations from sparse data sets.

but then there is also stupid probability and lies dressed up as something interesting, or as page fillers. what not to do if you are a journalist:

Excerpt from the Daily Mail, about the FA Cup draw

"Once Clemence had plucked Blackburn from the bowl, the odds were stacked hugely in the FA's favour. A 66 per-cent chance of getting the winner from the two remaining replays. Only a 33 per-cent chance of drawing poor old Watford next."

This is absolute rubbish. Blackburn had a 66 percent chance of facing Man Utd or Chelsea before the first ball was drawn. The fact they were the first ball to be drawn changes nothing.

To illustrate this, say Man United had been drawn first. What is the conditional probability that Blackburn would face them. 1 of 3 remaining balls was blackburn, thefore 33%.

If Chelsea had been picked, the conditional probability is 33%. If Watford was picked, also 33%. Sum up the conditional probabilities and they add to 1, the daily mail has taught us nothing new with that statement.

Still, there are many desperate and smart Russians around who would tell you the same thing. It is interesting how many postgraduate scholarships there are for someone of Eastern European origin

"Nous chassons la richesse quand nous avons la vie
Nous chassons la vie où nous avons la richesse."

kena ask to translate by alex. interesting how when we write, we want to think that everyone is reading/listening, that we have this device that can warp time and space. for example, i didn't read this until march 9, 2007, but when he wrote it on the 28th of february he wrote it as if i were reading it already.

yah it sounds cheem whatever, but it is not one of my favourite french phrases. you also forgot to mention that german also sounds cheem, but that it doesn't look sophisticated and sounds like philosophy or things tumbling over themselves. sorry german speakers. but they must have very precise long words though.

we chase wealth when we have life
we chase life where we have wealth

actually, this kind of thing english also got equivalent saying also right?

occasionally when i stay up late at nights i have the opportunity to trawl through blogs, stay on msn, and do all the things an ex-lonely boy used to do. materially, nothing much has changed, it isn't that my life is positively full and bursting of people.

i wish i were an evangelist now. evangelists irritate people sometimes. i occupy a hole between different types of friends. some friends say, why blog? why share your love, joys and insecurities? on the other hand i have friends whose blogs i trawl, heart on sleeve etc. associated with the first camp, is the viewpoint that the thoughts that matter, you share with someone you can talk to, or otherwise they are invalid and teenage anyway. with the second camp, a kind of shouting from the mountain top. "i want to sing, it's fresh like spring... i want yes i want to pass yes to pass it on passiton passiton passitpassitpassiton." couldn't resist.

why tell the world that you love someone? why don't you just tell her? write it in your diary? but you know, i think it's difficult sometimes. what is in the literature known as "quality time" is in short supply. sure you could create it, but when you feel like talking, i'm doing work, when i feel emotional, maybe you're already sound asleep. so you put off what you have to say sometimes, and the impetus goes away, or comes as unexplained tears (of happiness/sadness?)

when i was lonelier, i wanted to project my feelings onto things. i wanted to think that trees felt sad, or daffodils were happy, or that this protagonist of that book over there was going through the same depths of despair. you notice things more. i was more sensitive.

haha,actually alex blog very nice to read. it's like watching the progression of someone. mine has started to fill with gaps.

no, i guess i don't take a lot of photos of me and michelle anymore. we should more often. maybe posting photos of us together would be my evangelical message. shun the non-believers. shun. i do love her, i wish i had the ability to succintly summarize our relationship in a paragraph without embarassing anyone, (because we did have many experiences, and how many will we forget?) and to sing "jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. red and yellow black and white we are xxxx in his sight, jesus loves the little children off the world.

i have succeeded in attracting mortal scorn, but i have written what i wanted.