Future Economy - how to prepare for it?

[15 Feb 2017]

The Committee on the Future Economy released it's report. And the opposition parties immediately savaged it.

I don't blame them. The report was disappointing. Uninspiring. Insipid. Unreadable. And... what did SDP's Chee say?

“Long on rhetoric but woefully lacking in bold and aggressive measures to tackle the serious problems that confront Singapore”.

"Long on rhetoric" - that was what I was thinking too. About Chee's critique.

To be fair, I agree that the recommendations are disappointing. However, what is Chee suggesting or proposing "to tackle the problems that confront Singapore? This:

"He also said the political scene and mass media have to be freed up as the present situation stifles debate, creativity and the development of questioning minds."

And that is what I mean by "long on rhetoric" -- the usual cliched political "talking points" that comes from the opposition, with barely any attempt to hide their political agenda.

Alternative Energy

[Another draft from some time back. This post was began in 2015. And languished in my "Draft" folder for the last few years. I have some new thoughts on it.]

Every now and again, someone somewhere in sunny Singapore will ask, "why are we not using solar power? It's so freaking sunny here all year round!"

And some may even go as far as to ask if we can't harness other clean energy.

Here is the official position:

Climate Change and the battle for your mind

Climate Change.

A.K.A. Global Warming.

Is it REAL?



This first video challenges "conventional, accepted wisdom" that there is scientific consensus that it is Anthopogenic Global Warming (AGW) - see from about 4 minutes into the video. And the "smoking gun" is that about 2/3 of the almost 12,000 scientific papers on climate change had no position on AGW. The "consensus" is based on those papers that had a position on AGW. And in those papers 97% of those papers backed AGW.

But is this science or politics or politically-motivated science?

Singapore's Landfill Island

Pulau Semakau is Singapore's sole landfill. But it takes only... "processed" waste or refuse. And by "processed", I mean incinerated.

Singapore has land constraints. A problem Japan also shares. And not surprisingly, their solution is the one we also settled on.

And also Sweden's "Waste to Energy". Which they consider to be "recycling" because the rubbish is being "recycled" into energy.

[Note that the two links above on Japan and Sweden are from Australian TV and they may have a bias for recycling things... the conventional way. The host of the second link in his story on Sweden's waste management seemed more keen to critique incineration, and to equate the high temperature incineration with simple burning and his interview with Prof Goran Finnveden seemed to be for the purpose of drawing out a critique of "burning plastic". The video's host presented him as someone "who has studied waste-to-energy for many years". You can compare his profile with the claims of his experience. I am not saying he is not qualified or experienced, but I believe (and I may be wrong as I have NO Evidence) that the interview was tightly edited to present a sceptical view of incineration as "recycling" and as a true solution for Australia.]

Thoughts on the US 4th of July Parade

Did you see this news?

With tanks and flyovers, Trump celebrates military in July 4 salute

05 July, 2019

WASHINGTON — With US fighter jets flying overhead, United States President Donald Trump praised the military and reveled in a show of pomp and patriotism on Thursday (July 4) in a celebration of Independence Day that critics accused him of turning into a political event...

Perspective from The Little Red Dot: the HK Protests 2019, and the future of Hong Kong

In June 2019, HK had a series of protest over the HK Govt's proposal to pass a law allowing people in HK to be extradited to China.

This is reminiscent of the 2014 Umbrella protests.

Here are two news reports (links may be broken after some time), which I have extracted just the first few lines which suggests that the protests are having some effect. I have also extracted a few additional lines from the second report which I feel makes a pertinent point.

Fig leaf and False Premises (and a false tsunami of hope? Or perhaps a tsunami of false hopes?)

[This was first drafted in Oct 2018, when some Singaporeans met Mahathir to invite him "take a leading role in promoting democracy and freedom of expression in South East Asia", by speaking at a yet unnamed "democracy conference" in 2019.

There were at least 5 players named in this fiasco, but leading the group are Thum Ping Tjin and Tan Wah Piow. In one new report, Dr Thum was reported to describe Malaysia as a “beacon of hope for democracy in Southeast Asia” and said he “expressed to Dr Mahathir the hope that many of us feel”.

Soaring words. Which made for some sore points with our Party in Power (PAP). 

They had responses along the usual reactionary lines. Not very... original.]

As usual PAP misses the point and the opportunity.