All posts by Wan Kong Yew

Fun, Politics

Math is hard

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Or at least it seems to be for the notorious U.S.-based network Fox News. The first picture above is from a month ago and anyone even casually glancing at it should realize that something is wrong with that pie chart. Apparently Fox News didn’t just make a mistake in getting the graphics right, its news anchor Byron Harlan actually spoke these figures out loud as part of his news report.

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This second graphic appeared only recently and again, it’s very obvious that the figures don’t add up. What’s worse is that the original statistics came from reputable polling agencies and their original figures certainly make sense but Fox News seems to have decided to interpret them more creatively. This post on Think Progress explains that fuzzy reasoning. Goofing up the occasional graphic is understandable, but when your news anchors repeat these mistakes on air, it smacks of a deliberate conspiracy, especially when well-educated, highly intelligent news anchors pretend to be dumb in order to better connect with an anti-intellectual audience.

Politics

The infamous BTN

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The Biro Tata Negara (BTN) or in English, the National Civics Bureau, issue is something that almost everyone has always known about but rarely dared to speak out about. But once the cat’s out of the bag and the taboo of not talking about has been broken, there’s no shortage of people condemning it with their every breath. I guess I’m no different. In case there are any non-Malaysians reading this who have no idea what I’m talking about, it refers to a government agency run by the Prime Minister’s department that runs courses with the ostensible aim of promoting patriotism amongst Malaysians.

To that effect, it runs a series of courses for which attendance is obligatory for everyone wishing to qualify for a government job. However, many Malaysians have complained that the courses actually promote racism and seek to segregate the different ethnic groups that comprise the country’s citizens. The Malays in particular are consistently taught that they are special and hold a superior position with regards to the other ethnic groups while Chinese and Indian participants are taught that their Malaysian citizenship is not a right but rather a privilege for which they must be forever thankful to the Malays.

I’ve never attended one of these courses myself but I heard some very shocking anecdotes recounted by a friend of my wife about the course she was forced to take only a few years ago. This was part of a process that she had to go through to be hired as a public school teacher. I recall that the lecturer was described as being extremely provocative, to the point of shouting at participants even if that meant driving them into a rage or to tears. The Malay participants were constantly harangued with the question, “Are you Malaysians? Yes or no?” When they inevitably replied “Yes”, he would reply, “No, you are Bumiputera!”

This refers to the special classification assigned to ethnic groups recognized as being indigenous to the country, of which the Malays are by far the largest group, and hence accorded special privileges and rights under the national constitution. It goes without saying that this is resented not only by the ethnic groups not included under the bumiputera classification but also by more enlightened bumiputera who believe that such special privileges are a slur on their abilities.

Anyway the most interesting part about the experience that was related to me was towards the end of the course. One of the participants, a male Indian, was seen to be becoming more and more agitated as the lecturer spoke and looked like he was ready to start a fight then and there. The lecturer ignored him and just kept going. However, after he ended his talk, the lecturer took the time to take the Indian guy to one side to calm him down and told him not to take it too seriously and that he was just a guy doing his job. I honestly don’t know if that’s something to laugh or cry over.

Science

Recent Interesting Science Articles (November ’09)

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A little late with this one as I’ve been busy with my gaming blog. Three articles this month and all them are about human nature. The first one examines whether or not there is a placebo effect in the consumption of coffee, the second one examines if the habit of overspending has a genetic component and the last one tells about the surprising fact that the most successful male athletes also tend to be the most good looking ones.

Like many other people, I have the habit of drinking a cup of coffee every morning, but unlike some people, I’m not conscious of whether this actually has any effect on my concentration. Plenty of people seem to think it’s essential for them to function properly in the office so scientists are understandably curious about whether or not the effect is real. This post on Neuroskeptic links to and summarizes a new paper about a study that tried to determine whether or not the claimed benefits of caffeine are attributable to the placebo effect.

Continue reading Recent Interesting Science Articles (November ’09) →

Politics, Religion

Swiss ban on minaret construction

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As much as I detest militant Islam, I haven’t hesitated to defend the religion itself in the past. Similarly, I have no qualms about condemning the recent blanket ban on the construction of minarets in Switzerland. Whatever assurances the government issues, it amounts to religious discrimination plain and simple. What’s even more ridiculous is that as far as I know the existing zoning laws already make it difficult to build tall minarets in urban areas. To me, construction regulations that prohibit the demolition of recognized heritage sites or the construction of overly tall towers that spoil the existing cityscape is reasonable. This is why you can’t build huge skyscrapers in the centre of Paris, for example.

Also reasonable would be moves to restrict the noise generated by places of worship so long as such rules apply equally to all religions. But unsurprisingly, for many Europeans being roused from your sleep on Sunday morning by the tolling of church bells is perfectly okay, but the Muslim call to prayer is deemed as being offensive. To be fair, many Muslim majority countries restrict the activities of other religions as well but this doesn’t give the minaret banning any legitimacy. Framing this as a tit-for-tat bargaining move is not acceptable.

Those who don’t think this is particularly alarming should recall the familiar “First they came…” lines by Martin Niemöller. The far right parties in Europe are targeting Muslims because they’ve realized that this is an unpopular group and they can score easy populist victories off of this cause. But historically the far right parties have no love for many other minority groups as well, including Jews, homosexuals and blacks. As one poster on QT3 put it, they might be only saying, “Let’s get all the Muslims out of Europe now” but they are really thinking, “And the rest of them will follow later.”

The most worrisome thing about this is that the ban came not from a government decision but from a public vote, which makes it an example of one of the limitations of a democracy. The correct response is not that democracy is bad and authoritarian governments are good, but that democracy should be curtailed by a set of inviolable rights for all individuals. Regardless of the source of a government’s legitimacy, no government should have the power to overturn anyone’s basic rights and being able to build whatever places of worship people want is certainly one of those rights.

Fun

Awesome stuff you can buy from Amazon.com

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It’s been a while since I wrote a silly post in this category and tomorrow’s a public holiday here in Malaysia, so here a few examples of some of the totally crazy and awesome stuff you can buy from Amazon.com. If you go check these out, please remember to read the user comments. It’s all part of the fun! Pictured above is the JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank which can be yours for a mere US$20,000.00. Unfortunately, it is not road legal, nor does it come with any actual weapons.

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Thinking of Christmas presents? If it’s someone who is frequently on the road, the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk might be a novel gift. It can instantly turn your car into a mini workspace. I’m sure nothing can go wrong with this invention. Disregard all the customer submitted photos on that page.

Finally, Amazon.com even sells fresh whole rabbits. Perfect for those moments when you need to hold a Satanic ritual at the last minute and you can’t find an appropriate sacrifice in time. Warning: buying one of these as a pet for your children would be a bad idea!

I’m pretty sure The Sycologist’s faked Andy Warhol prints would make this list too if it were on Amazon.

News & Politics

Idiotic economics

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A couple of examples of dodgy economics thinking in the effort of protect jobs via Marginal Revolution:

In Allentown, Pennsylvania in the US, the local Service Employees International Union (SEIU) made complaining noises about the free work done by a teenager in pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge. The teen, Kevin Anderson, worked for over 200 hours to clear a path in a local park after noticing that there were missing connections. The SEIU was sore however as the city had laid off union members due to the recession and had demanded that no volunteers be allowed to do any work for the city. They particularly insisted that no one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.

Since the issue blew up in their faces, they’d since been forced to concede that they won’t take any official action but it still makes for a rather ridiculous stance to take. It’s a classic textbook example of the lump of labour fallacy.

Meanwhile in Italy, a bank trying to persuade its workers to retire early struck a novel deal with its unionized employees. If they accept the bank’s offer and retire, they will get to choose from either one of two benefits: the traditional one-time payoff or the bank’s promise that their jobs will be given to their children. If they choose the latter, the bank still reserves the right to interview the relatives put forward by the retirees and to verify their qualifications, but ultimately it amounts to a hereditary jobs programme. Unsurprisingly, this has drawn a great deal of criticism, even from the national union bodies.

According to the article, as odd as it seems, this practice isn’t exactly rare even in modern day Italy. It cites the example of the hereditary nature of the post of  painters allowed sketch tourists outside the Uffizi gallery in Florence, which as the article notes, is doubly ridiculous when you realize that a talent for painting isn’t exactly heritable.

Politics

What was Saddam thinking?

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One of my personal habits is that I like to know how other people think. It’s not even the decision or idea itself that is necessarily interesting. What I’m constantly curious about is the chain of thought that led to a specific decision beginning from the person’s basic assumptions and observations to the step-by-step logic that they perform based on those assumptions. Most of the time, I end up being disappointed because people mostly do not make decisions through a conscious, deliberative process but act impulsively or instinctively instead.

Some of the most puzzling decisions on the world stage in recent history have been made by the late Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Why did he send contradictory signals over whether or not he actually possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)? Why was he so stubborn in not allowing weapons inspectors full access to Iraq when in fact he had no WMDs? Why did he even choose to invade Kuwait in the early 90s? This blog post answers some of these questions and illuminates some of the thought processes that were going on inside the dictator’s head.

For example, it turned out that he was so nonchalant about the prospect of being invaded by the U.S. because he believed that he had won against the U.S. and its allies in the First Gulf War. His reasoning was that the coalition of over 30 countries had tried to overthrow him in 1991 but he survived, therefore he had won and if the U.S. wanted to try again, history would just repeat itself. In reality, the U.S. deliberately left his regime in place because George Bush Sr. feared the chaos that deposing him would unleash.

Another example showing how out of sync with reality he was: he had WMDs in 1991 but was afraid to use them because he believed that if he did, the U.S. would unleash its own chemical weapons on Iraq. In 2003 he did not have WMDs but didn’t want to admit that because he was more afraid of an internal coup than of an invasion by foreign forces. The blog post is full of more examples of such convoluted thinking.

Once again, this shows that dictators, surrounded as they always are only by yes-men, quickly become delusional and lose all grasp of reality. But it’s also a reminder to everyone how important it is to constantly reassess your fundamental assumptions and beliefs to ensure that what you believe is indeed the truth.