civilisationReview

The short answer. Yes. I’ll keep it simple. What are the factors contributing to having more information = knowing less ? 1. The human tendency to pay attention to that which interests us instead of that which doesn’t fall within our sphere of interest. 2. The influx of youngsters into the informational world to get and provide information. 3. The tendency of younger minds to be appealed to that which is immediately gratifying, trivial, sensational, publicised, etc. The discomfort of contradiction can be shunned with a single click of a mouse, and one can bathe in the self-validating mires of similitude. You don’t get wiser this way, just equally dumb. The combination of 1 to 3 mean that people tend to form self-validating enclaves of similarly interested people. Basically, the more i can interact with people of similar interests, the less i’m going to bother about people of dissimilar interests. With the world wide web, people can immediately access similarly minded people. Th...

Meritocracy. To the common mind, it simply means going by how one scores in exams. That’s it. But that’s not it. Meritocracy goes deeper than simple educational achievement. It has much to do with an overarching ‘system of preference’ that is promoted via a host of means. Of course one can say that we ‘prefer’ those with higher scores. But this sort of ‘preference’ is embedded within an overarching ‘system of preference’ that impacts on how we perceive ourselves, each other, and what we are taught to view as the right way of thinking and doing things. It is this that truly reveals what any particular ‘meritocratic’ system entails. For instance, back in the 70s and 80s, there was a common perception that manufacturing was a ‘chinese thing’; that Indians make good lawyers; or that Malays are great at song and dance. We saw lots of Malays being taken into Civil Defence, whilst I saw quite a few of my Indian friends going into Infantry or Guardsmen. This sort of perception or practi...

The following is an excerpt of an article by Muhd Shamin from the site, 'i'm getting personal', entitled, 'I am from Bangsa Singapura'. ed's comment follows. “Which brings me to the question about race. What relevance does it hold for me? Nothing. The diversity that we have in Singapore is a blessing for us all. It makes us more tolerant of each other's differences. It makes us know more things about the world. No race is superior. It is just a myth created by those in power to instill intolerance. Aren't there Malay graduates who are just as competent as Chinese and Indian graduates? Aren't there Indian businessmen who are just as rich as a Malay or Chinese businessmen? In the SDP, we do not focus on race. the colour of our members' skins are not important. Nor is there a need to create a bureau to represent a specific group of people. Of course, there are still problems that affect specific ethnic groups. These are caused by PAP policies. But ...