GST and trader price adjustment debates:
.
"The question returns to a different law than GST, it is the law regarding how often, under what circumstances, and by how much, a trader may or may not move their prices.
.
In a freer (capitalist lah) market, the trader does whatever the trader wants, and the customers vote with their feet. In a more regulated (communist lah) market, the trader cannot adjust prices (ostensibly to avoid margin erosion) when costs go up, or when volume of sales drops.
.
That is the real policy debate at hand: it is not about GST, except for Harapan's campaign-fulfillment rhetoric. :)"
/
"All moral compasses are subject to the preferences of owner. The owner simply decides to participate, or not, in certain conventions and/or empathic relations with their society - if you assume that the owner has free will; but of course, owners of moral compasses are typically pre-determined by their genetics, development in a specific environment, and thereafter their sensitivities to stimulus from future environments. 😂"
- So, now we've reduced the argument to the good old determinism-versus-freewill consideration. Are you a compatiblist?
/
"the rights to be consulted, to encourage, and to warn,"
.
Sounds like every boss's dream job, eh? Well those are the rights of the Queen of England, by convention. Right now in Malaysia we're having a little debate on whether it is constitutional or not for the YDPA to reject the PM's advice on whom to appoint as AG.
.
Some say that it is in the Malaysian constitution that the YDPA _must_ submit to the PM's advice. Actually, not exactly, in the constitution. The UK's constitution consists of multiple documents glued together in practice by a number of conventions. Whereas the MY constitution codified many of these conventions in a single document. So in a sense the letter of the MY constitution is more explicit on certain affairs, such as the appointment of the PM, AG, etc. It turns out that the explicit clause is worded, explicitly vaguely, and that's where the fun starts.
.
The letter of the MY constitution states certain criteria for the appointment of the debated roles. The letter of the UK constitution does not. It is really in neither constitution, stated explicitly that the monarch _must_ follow the advice of the PM, for example.
.
However in the UK there are some conventions written as guides for practice in other documents. A text called Halsbury's laws states, in the UK, that the queen is "obliged in the last resort to accept the formal advice tendered to her." (Citing a legal blog, cakeofcustom.) Now there is a version of Halsbury's laws for Malaysia, and presumes that the judiciary have had a say in how it differs from the UK version. We could go see... http://www.lexisnexis.com.my/en-my/products/halsburys-laws-of-malaysia.page
.
In any event, often we choose to interpret Malaysia's implementation of its constitution by how they do theirs in the UK. Some may argue instead that the Council of Rulers of Malaysia are free to challenge that convention, and to forge new conventions of their own. (The letters of the two laws, are after all, different. The states are sovereign, and said to be constitutional monarchies, not democracies.) Whichever way this ends up, the CoR can only retain its powers by a mandate of the people. In a possible scenario, the CoR would appeal to a form of direct democracy via referendum, and argue from a majority vote against the appointment of a non-Malay-non-Muslim AG, that they are offering a check against the power of the PM.
.
The CoR's wariness of Articles 183 keeps coming back to me. As much as it would be fun to see an activist monarch wreck havoc in Malaysian government (a la Trump? the American irony...), in order for us to have an AG who is willing to wield the 183rd article effectively, the CoR must work a bit harder to form a consensus with the PM... how, has yet to be determined.
/
"You know, in my mind, it would still have been more interesting to have Wan as PM."
"You're biased lah."
"Of course - I'm a ladies' man. I prefer when the woman is in charge."
/
How much of Tommy Thomas' work have you personally reviewed, you noisy fuckwads? You really trust your reps, eh. :)
/
/
Note that Tommy's strength would be as a PP, and the CoR just wants a Muslim AG. However, it doesn't show much prudence that they associate the religion on the NRIC of a person, with that person's ability to provide formal and informal advice on Syariah law. With all due respect to their majesties as an afterthought...
/
My comment elsewhere: Oh, I totally agree with him. I'm still not convinced to shack up with the Harapan coalition. I appreciate what they are doing, the same way I appreciate neighbours who pick up trash, and park in the right place. Doesn't mean I'm jumping into bed with you. Go Harapan, go Rafizi, you are doing well. But that does not mean we have to support you. Haha.
/
I wonder if Thiel regrets backing Trump for being a good wrench to throw into the works. Because, I kinda feel the same way about backing our Council of Rulers right now (and I don't regret it yet).
/
Enforced waking.
Enforced feeding.
To get more work done...
/
Awake. Business as usual in the world. I am on an off day, but that just means housekeeping both at the factory and at home. Laundry, for starters.
/
Istana Negara needs an official Facebook page :p
/
Best chit-chat idea today: the Council of Rulers and the rakyat need to engage each other more. A programs office of Rulee Relations should be established. A gameshow called "who wants to be a ruler," and a reality TV show about The CoR's activities would be fantastic. If Britain has The Crown, we could call this, The Vengence*... I am not even kidding, in the long run, say over 25 years, it would be interesting to have a member of Parliament invited to observe CoR meetings. This is how professors, administrators, and students interacted where I went to school.
.
The style of folding a headdress, which is customarily worn during Agong inaugurations, is called the Dendam Tak Sudah. (UMNO co-opted the kris, unfortunately, though that is the ceremonial equivalent to the British crown.)
/
Good caught up on sleep. Not sure if it was last 3 or 6 or 9 weeks ago. Have enough energy to get back to the daily discipline of seeking desensitisation to people in pain. The world has many such people. Can't help them if we join them too much. Sixteen years or so, on we go...
/
1. Someone qualified to be Attorney General should not have to bother with getting elected as a member of Dewan Rakyat, as those are two very different specialisations.
2. The Attorney General's role is practically a Minister of Law ("subject matter expert") and so they should be combined. This means that the Attorney General must first be appointed to Dewan Negara, if he is not already a member of Dewan Rakyat. Then he can be made a Minister.
3. There should be a parallel appointment for Syariah Attorney General, as the Syariah Law system currently doesn't fall under the Attorney General's portfolio. She too should be in either Dewan, and made a Minister.
4. The Public Prosecutor (yet another subject matter expert), should be nominated by the PM, and approved by the Parliament (not the Agong, as this is an operational, not advisory role). The Agong gets to fire the AG, the Parliament gets to fire the PP. As with (3.) above, there should be a parallel appointment for Syariah Public Prosecutor (I'll admit I'm out of my depth here, until I do more studies on the Syariah system in Malaysia).
/
Saw a police motorcade on the SPRINT, and for the first time it actually seems like there's a chance we can ascend to Singapore's level of development! 😍
.
I said Singapore just to piss you off. I was actually thinking about South Korea.
/
I'm not pleased when people crave life over death, and howl, and cringe when someone kills themselves. Death is as natural as birth. Suicide as natural as procreation. Decide, and do it. And I will miss you, but you did what was right by you, and that's what matters most.
/
Discombobulated. Best to sleep, eat, seek a reset.
/
Commented: These are two constructed narratives of what is right and what is wrong, and my narrative, according to my tradition, is better. Because my tradition, is supposed to be both our traditions. 😂
/
Interview questions about stakeholder management: sometimes interviewees miss the point entirely. The questions regard a model of politics. A lot of less peoply people don't realise that ALL paid work supervenes upon political relations - that is to say, has value, or no value, depending on an underlying context of power relations. That is what the question is about - not what you did, but whether it mattered, and how, and did you piss people off, or make them happy, and did you do it the right or wrong way?
/
Sorry bruv nothing on earth matters unless you decide it does.
/
Here's the disconnect: economically valuable work is a performance art, but students of many schools are not tested for competitive performance in their relative fields.
/
"Bukkake puasa," is not possibly politically correct, but now I'm wondering what those amateur producers could possibly have come up with. Nope. Not worth it.
/
If there is a by-election where Anwar is known to be competing, everyone and their mom should go and compete also. It'll be the event of a lifetime. And if you lose, you can say that you lost to Anwar Ibrahim. But what if he doesn't win - would you feel bad?
/
Suicide girl: "You're nicer than many people think you are. Perhaps they have a superficial appreciation."
Me: "No shit, I'm trying very hard to remove dumbasses from my environment!"
/
Some suicide girl: "You inspire me to kill myself."
Me: "Disavowed!"
.
Some suicide girl later: " I can't believe I ate an entire chocolate sundae. I feel better already."
Me: "This is why it was disavowed...."
.
If I had a dime for everyone who's ever said the first line to me, I could probably buy them all out of depression.
/
I just realised a relatively high proportion of my friends are suicide girls*, and it makes me wonder if I assume too much liability upon myself. But since I am quite cavalier on the subjects of life and death, I suppose I am serving my comparative advantage by being available. I receive emails telling me where to find administrative notes, tentative dates of expiry on my calendar, speculatory musings on how one can end by the dozens... I find it all quite amusing. You go, girls. Do you. And if people tell you that you're sick, tell them to fuck off and die.
.
(* Casually undefined, not SuicideGirls, unfortunately - why, Santa, why? Did I miswrite that petition? Was my handwriting awry?)
/
$pecial federal allocations to members of the Dewan Rakyat: we should give (i) equal allocation across party lines, (ii) proportionate to population of constituency, (iii) weighted further by a constituent cost of living index maintained by MEA (?) lol + (iv) other factors.
/
I'm mostly on the other side of this debate. Caring about people is not a necessary component of the human experience or social contract. All cares should be learnable, and unlearnable - that takes much higher priority. Of course, it would be equally difficult for me to explain it to you (but not impossible). We just value different things.
/
If you struggle with jealousy, get a blanket. It could be a cake, or a marriage, or a nation, or a football team, or a race. For everyone else, there's some version of polyamory.
/
I believe in suicides.
.
I spell that with an 's' to highlight the individual's agency. Suicide is the greatest of individual freedoms, and personal liberties. Suicide is the ultimate exit strategy, which consoles all takers of risks, and which provides us with hope that our ambitions are sound.
.
Death in general should not be mourned but celebrated as a component of life in general. Loss is for the living dead. Suicide in particular may often be celebrated as the work of sensible people.
.
Life is competitive by nature; the nature of unregulated competition is suffering. You can be as angry or sad as you want to be; only you get to control that. If you can dance with suffering, dance; if you cannot, end. That is reasonable.
.
In the country I live in, suicide is illegal, and failed suicides are punishable by law. This is foolish, and I oppose it. If ever I were to fail at suicide, I would not want to be in jail. If ever I were to succeed, I would not want to be mourned. (Opponents to this essay, are likely to agree.)
.
I will have to put some of these notes into a longer essay at some point.
/
Advisors: "Tun, we need to stimulate the economy."
Tun: "It's been a while since I've done this, what industries are trending?"
Advisors: "Automation, Tun."
Tun: "I love automation. I once built an automobile company... let's do it again."
Advisors: "Auto... auto... " *screams*
/
Up for a bit. Duty calls. Wake up!
/
I dream of a day when someone can kill themselves, and their relatives and friends just go, like, "oh, did he? Well, it's just nature doing what nature does. Has everything been taken care of?" And the person who finds the body goes, "all done. First responders handled the body just fine, and sanitation was in and out of the premises in two hours; good ol' gov paperwork didn't take twenty to get out of the way - custodial services will probably pick up all his artifacts tomorrow." And the first person can say, "well that's great news. So who'll be filling his shoes now? Heard there were some major clients being worked on." And the second speaker can be all, "ah, the partners will pick it up. Probably had the standard trigger clauses in the contract." Now where do I find the people to build such a culture? Can't find'em? Guess we'll just have to keep working on building these people from scratch. One day, this will be the way. And these people, they will be better than you. 😜 Well, one CAN dream, yes? #suicide
/
One of these days, maybe someone will actually get pissed enough to kill me. But regardless of how I die, I would *appreciate* if the only thing you said about it was, "uhuh, just nature taking out the trash," because that's most of what goes through my mind when I hear that someone else has died. #goldenrule
/
Proton 2: Calling this nao 😝. They realised they had a few silly promises to fulfill. Figured this promise was so absurd that it would garner a big push-back, so they announced progress as the opening move, with the intention on rolling it back or modifying the plan based on public feedback, in order to demonstrate capability to deal with feedback and to pump public empowerment feels. Waiting for the next move: an explicit call for comments.
/
😮: Antisocial personality disorder is a thing.
Me: I love reading the DSM. Do you know how the DSM works?
😮: You should also read the ICD.
Me: Well, my follow-up point is that there is a spectrum of traits in any population. (Sends comment about how it can seem that everyone else has bipolar disorder.)
😮: There is a gradient of severity!
Me: Feel free to score me! You point of view is valuable to society including myself. Bear in mind that personality is both given and crafted. I would like to know if, from your point of view, my disposition counts as ASPD, given that I have chosen to develop skills of detachment, based on my value system which regards people who subject themselves to emotional impulses as inferior civilisations. 😜
/
Offday. Will eat, run errands. Work.
/
Constitutional rights to access the Internet: Isn't this vacuous unless net neutrality is also a Constitutional Right?
/
Don't ask me to start a cult. Such targets are too small to be interesting. (My folks worked as pastors, and I've done much of the practical training for religious leadership, so I'm quite aware of the functions.) But I'd rather be a public intellectual and risk being an outcast. LOL
/
Exhausted. A tired stretch of life. No sign of reduced sentimental fuckwitry in my surroundings, so no reason to reduce viligence. On we go :p
.
As far as days off from work go, this one was pretty productive. But I feel like shit due to the quality of people I must talk to. So I remind myself, their follies are not my responsibility, as much they will suffer their own inadequancies. Ho hum... we can only focus on their eradication or containment.
.
Cognitive processes are slow. This appears to correlate with reduced food and caffeine today. Monitoring.
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Tldr: if we borrow from Japan to pay 1MDB-dll/MoF's creditors, it is more expensive than if we borrow from Bank Negara to do the same. In either case, we move liabilities from 1MDB-dll/MoF's balance sheets to BNM's balance sheet. Did I get that right? There's no giant Malaysia Inc balance sheet that consolidates MoF Inc and BNM's assets is there?
/
I think Saddiq would be hilarious as the
Minister of Higher Education.
Fuck sports...
/
A politically incorrect thought from a few days ago: You know, it's 2018. We need to rename the nation to #Peoplasia.
/
Time to enforce feeding.
/
Log of things to tell dates, who may need more convoluted engagement: if you put certain urgencies on the table, I may peg them as one kind of psychical imbalance, or another. I will help you search for sources of therapy. I may even offer to attend therapy with you. I will not, for the most part, be your therapist. I do enjoy some knowledge of how to be a therapist, but I simply will not afford t... See More
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30-33 hour day, ready, get set... go at 0235 or thereabouts....
/
Emergency shift coverage. 🚨
/
Log of a comment on whether mental health issues are worsening with time: " You can (most easily) get USA domestic stats on depression, suicide, etc. Long book-length subject, but I'd start to consider:
- (a) improved access to information, increases individual's knowledge of available perspectives
- (b) increased competitiveness of media landscape, raises the quantity and quality of emotionally stimulating perspectives. The availability of such perspectives via distribution channels, is not just about (b.i) economic despair, but also about (b.ii) existential despair, and (b.iii) whether or not it is considered normal, and healthy, for example, to (b.iv) kill oneself, or (b.v) talk about despair.
- (c) economic policy in recent decades is moving through an epoch of lower regulations (free markets, more inequality), and thus greater inequality is resulting in lower purchasing power for the bottom 66% of the population (simple super majority)
- (d) culture and education systems designed for past environments have not caught up with (a, b, c) "
/
Comments on the role of empathy in activism (from a discussion on Trump's family separation policy):
.
" Appeals to morals are dead ends. You can always find a person whose morals differ from your own. That is when we impose voting, and it works in the favour of the majority, and against the minority, by definition. If compassion is the grounds for democratic policy change, it only happens as a result of a compassionate majority. In the absence of a compassionate majority, a compassionate minority may lobby for non-compassionate citizens to become compassionate citizens - but that is an ex-judicial political process. I think too often in these campaigns for activism, mixing up the judicial and ex-judicial tracks of achieving a target result... does result instead in some confusion. 😓🙃
.
Activism is warranted along the lines of:
.
(1. raise awareness... E.g. in this group, via your newspaper)
->
(2. increase frequency of compassionate citizens in the population)
->
[3.
(a) pursue charitable ex-judicial solutions,
(b) lobby law-makers / policy-makers
(c) become a law-maker / policy-maker]
.
So the campaign for activism needs to strategically terminate in some end-goal along the lines of 3.a/b/c, otherwise it's just a lot of 2. which is hot air with nowhere to go.
.
I see some success so far in your efforts to go from 1. to 2., but maybe leading the next step 3.a/b/c/d/... is now appropriate? "
/
Shareholders opposed to AMZN sale of a facial recognition tool: Luddites. Just get our of the technology business already. It was always going to be the norm that wars would be fought with arms, despite unequal access to arms. You don't arm them, the next guy will. So at least, offer a discount to "dissidents and civil society groups", Jesus H Fucking Christ, grow a brain... subsidised by the public and private sector customer base...
/
Getting enough rest to dream, is a good benchmark. :)
//
I dreamt that you spoke to me. You were poor again. Dependent on grants to get by. To get by as you did the things you did around the world, helping, meeting, learning. Your health, a cycle of pain. The roads, in need of repair. We filled in a form, you showed me how, but I did not do it before the dream ended. You spoke to me, when I found you, at the picnic table, on the grass, beside the dorm. I raised your knees to my face. Your eyes were watching mine. You once spoke to me, and I loved watching you, with your voice. And that was the dream. But you now live beyond such needs. And I am proudly empty.
/
It's my day off. Should I clean the oven? No, I should probably desk a little more.
/
Maybe I should reclassify myself as an extrovert. Nah, I think the repressed extrovert theory holds true. I would be an extrovert, except that if I acted naively on all my interests, I would probably be in prison. So I am an introvert. Albeit a reluctant one.
/
From time to time, I find it useful to write about being ruthlessly and unabashedly privileged, for the purpose of risk management. I have had:
.
- health, without desire to live;
- wealth, without desire to possess;
- access to scholarship, without appreciation for schooling;
- shamelessness, without conventional morality;
- love, without attachment;
- family, without guilt of obligation;
- joy, without need to do more than imagine it...
.
And, while my friends (definitively: colleagues and lovers) may find themselves subject to one or more inadequancies to which I am not predisposed... I find myself supportive of their individual struggles, but no less opposed to the notion that the weak are meant to expire (tautaulogous). Why then, amid all of this do I still receive the benefits which befall me? Generally, I prefer not to think about it. Only to continue in the convenience of my life, fully aware that at any time it may befall me: sickness, death, torture, intoxication, assault, lobotomy, loneliness, guilt, or other trivial disharmony...
.
I suppose religious folks might call this a prayer of thanks in some sense. Queer, and quaint. What a set of thoughts.
/
While journalism remains an admirable profession, there appears to be limited protocol or convention around when the media is owed an audience with anyone. If it's not a law, then it's a convention, and if it's a convention, it's as good as gone tomorrow. What's so surprising about that? Make better laws.
/
On whether postmodern philosophy has uses beyond mental exercise:
"Erm.
Ok, so first we should map how how the Modern tradition maps to Science ala Standard Theory (professionals should feel free to interrupt me here 😛). The "Modern" tradition basically lays claim to the application of mathematical rigour to language and thought. This naturally includes the concepts of what logic is and how to define it, and how that relates to what we call, space/ time/ sensation/ imagination: the precursors to scientific practice.
So now you want to consider what the "Post Modern" fellows want to talk about, and how it relates to the above. Roughly, it is possible to dichotomise against Modern philosophy's, "claim to undergird science," by phrasing Postmodern philosophy as, "claims to undergird the humanities,": these guys are going to tend towards arguments that [there are non-linear, non-quantitative, non-scientific modes of thought, and epistemologies, which have value].
So for example, if we take the subject of the Trump cage-gate controversy for a discussion of ethics: the Modern philosopher just wants to know if the economics of the policies make sense, and if the laws are internally coherent, and if the needs of the many really do outweigh the needs of the few, and if the policy is generalisable to the whole UN, etc.; the Post Modern philosopher may complain that such an approach is insufficient, and we need to participate in compassion (Bonhoeffer), slanted interpretations of the letter of the law (Derrida), negotiation rhetoric (Foucault), and hidden political agendas (Marx), etc. as equally or more valid modes of thought about the subject.
That's a quick approach. And here's a picture of my dinner to help it go down easy. 😛 "
/
Decent sleep.
/
Time to become a bit less of a noob at AdWords...
/
How many ad groups is too many? I have one per keyword focus ...
/
11 ad groups + 30 ads = too much clicking and copywriting. Where is my robot assistant?
/
You know what I'd like to see? The US get so fed up with conflict south of the border... that the US invades Central America... #talkischeap #yesmine
/
Comment I made on the minister's page: "So if I read this correctly:
- all restaurants without local cooks will be EITHER regulated out of existence OR new subsidies will be introduced to incentivise locals to work as cooks OR there will be a national draft for local cooks 🤔 (frankly, I like the sound of 2, 3, but not 1)
- if 1 happens, we will have fewer restaurants; unless there are other incentives, we expect the demand for restaurants to remain the same; so then we expect the price of restaurant foods to increase
- with the increase in (surviving) restaurant margin, we hope to see improved compensation and benefits for (local) cooks
Is that the plan? I'm looking for a plan from leadership. 😎"
/
Draft GTN post: "Moralising discussions (including some posts in here) refer to 'evil' from time to time. So I was thinking of a poll on THE PROBLEM OF EVIL or "what does the word 'evil' mean to you?" or "what is the the most 'evil' thing, to you personally?" Now here is a post to ask people to debate poll options BEFORE I post the poll itself. Once the poll is posted, there won't be changes to the poll options."🤔
/
There are some dumb Chinese and Indians who support xenophobic propaganda targeting the expulsion of expatriate workers in Malaysia. This is foolish because the same rhetorical campaign is also directed to make Malays afraid of Chinese and Indian Malaysians.
/
If you plot life an N-dimensional space, Pain is the time dimension. #teleology #holyshit (not sure if synonymous or how it's otherwise related to Fear, but whatever)
/
Sigh. Second sad epiphany today. Comment in discussion:
" Thanks for bringing that up.
The USA has an (ecosystem for tech startups) which is basically rooted in trickle-down resourcing from (implementation of top-level government policy that [tech leadership is a matter of national security]). Russia is the same. Israel is the same. Germany... let's not talk about Germany. Japan I am not sure. China, Singapore, and Taiwan USED to focus on the manufacturing tech subset to amass soft power... but of course, CN has moved up a level, SG moved into finance.
In contrast, Malaysia has never had any such policy aspirations. We focus on acquiring soft power without appeal to tech development.
That is why we are not in the same class of tech startup ecosystems as the countries named above.
Just one lens, in reaction to your point. "
/
Offday reflections. Will it be hand to mouth for another 70 years? Will I find more interesting things to do (not much in 15 years past)? Who will be beside me across this time (many in past times)? Will it simply end by accident, along the way? Daily reminders: every day, should be a good day to die.
/
All around the world, every day. But people try not to think about it, and are shocked when it turns up at their doorstep. #refugees
/
I guess I'm going to be drowning in SEM from hereon until other channels of communication offer more opportunities. About time, I guess. But we follow necessity... in policy,of sorts.
/
Forum comment (also applies to how I engage with intimate partners, I suppose):
//
"How I hope to contribute in general, inside and outside the group, is to delineate the structure of arguments. One concern I have about ethical arguments (those of the form "what should we do?") is that quite often we don't begin the argument by stating foundations.
--
For example, I do not necessarily believe, and therefore I will never presume that someone else believes (these or the opposite) those basic tenants of (certain)polite society such as:
- life has incommensurable value
- people are limited to humans
- human people have individual value
- a person's opinion of their own self, is of value to other people
- we are obliged to be compassionate
All of the above are circumstantial, in my view. That's what makes life interesting. They are all true, or false, depending on other states of affairs not contained in the propositions themselves.
We all know that this perspective is not shared by everyone, and that's totally ok. Because everyone has different ethical foundations, and each person's practice is furthermore expected to change from time to time, given internal and environmental changes.
What has to be clear is where each counterparty is coming from. Sometimes you don't even want to expend the resources for engagement in conversation, because you don't believe that the conversation is worth having. But what's important is that everyone who does this also clearly announces their intentions, otherwise we get a lot of hidden grief."
/
Come on Trumpy. Two more years to declare a war.
/
Stop trying to sell the humanities? If you can't sell it, it isn't worth anything to someone. And if it's not worth something to everyone, why would it be worth saving?
/
French butchers demand protection from vegans:
Total war is coming.
I love it.
What did you think I was going to say?
/
What does your name mean? Latest attempt:🙃
Some grey fucker from the mountain (beneath which lives the god of the underworld) is looking up at something ... it could be justice, positivity, alignment, or his fifth day in jail. 华仰正
/
If the notion of loyalty is designed to empower people with abandonment issues, then perhaps the notion of condescension is designed to empower people who don't appreciate being paraphrased without their consent...
/
Cleaning 24-hour eateries: Lol. It is possible to clean in alternate segments such that closure is not necessary. Been there, done that. Go see Texas Chicken - they do it very well. McDonalds is horrible, they actually stop taking orders when they do daily cashier tallies for 30+minutes.
/
Mahathir's press statements these past two weeks have been remarkably weak. Not looking forward to a persistence of policies that were already dated in the 1990s.
/
This body is under a moderate amount of stress today. First guess is disrupted sleep, second is sleeping position, third is lack of nutrition, fourth is lack of kinesthesia, fifth is frequency of encounters with untrustworthy or unreasonable counterparties, sixth is frequency of pedagogy administered to recent counterparties, seventh is (absence of freedom to communicate in primary social circles about my primary occupation - thereby having modified most of my daily waking activities for the past eight months). Ho hum. In good time, adaptations will allow for improved performance, however, in the mean time, this is just a log.
/
Announcement of how to deal with confiscated goods from the ex-PM: Where is the fucking court case, you clowns? Extra-judicial bollocks.
/
Maybe at some point I'll get bored enough to try and design a government campaign and take it to market (your votes, my market).
/
Helping those who deny help is very difficult. It is always best to help those who want it. Time to take a break. :)
/
Suhakam bloke gets public reproach for supporting this case:
malaymail.com
I'm going to take the controversial stance that he deserves a change to argue his case. But you know, I don't think society will bother to hear it. :) Theocracy can be complicated. #heartfeltmoraloutrage
.
On the other hand, I do think he may be liable to step down from the organisational role, as I view secular humanism and Islam as competing RELIGIONS, and I tend to believe that SUHAKAM will stand primarily for the former when there is a disjunct between the two. LOL
.
My comment in a forum: " (insatiable lust?) over to a discussion on sexbots.
But everyone's ignoring the concept that it's possible the two (m41, f11) are in love. Even if it is illegal.
The discussion is potentially enriching if people would bother to get over their #heartfeltmoraloutrage and play a bit more with the ideas on the table. "
/
me: You're a racist.
x: I'm not sure if the definition of racism works that way.
me: Fine, speciest!
x: Unlike you, I don't like to quibble just to draw attention to myself.
me: I just like disturbing people. I don't actually enjoy being associated with the disturbances.
x: Troll!
me: Respectfully, the department of risk management views its role as a defender of public security. People who feel safe are likely to be behaving more stupidererly. 😎
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me: You're a racist.
x: I'm not sure if the definition of racism works that way.
me: Fine, speciest!
x: Unlike you, I don't like to quibble just to draw attention to myself.
me: I just like disturbing people. I don't actually enjoy being associated with the disturbances.
x: Troll!
me: Respectfully, the department of risk management views its role as a defender of public security. People who feel safe are likely to be behaving more stupidererly. 😎
/
Forum comment on whether attitudes towards LGBTQ+ has changed in Malaysia over the years. Kinda turned into a short thesis in sociology:
"(I have) been in KL/PJ 2005-present straight through. Pun not intended lol.
You have to segment by worldview, and of course there are a few distinct clusters. I don't have data for you.
Maybe it's easiest to describe them by who's voting for whom, or what kind of TV they watch. Political conservatism is (by and large) the simplest way to kick off the conversation, in general across the globe.
[1. If a citizen is trusting in primitive leadership styles that exemplify "toxic masculinity" or which value patrilineage, they're then likely to have an irrational fear of queer sexuality. This is highly correlated with literacy rates - if they're not reading/watching other cultures, then they're just going to be all feudal about culture in general. Controversially, I would say this simply goes back to the social psychology of apes. (I'm sure I'm overly-generalising with regards to primates here. 😛)]
[2. As we all know, throughout history, there is a religious reaction to 1., and many of the early backlashes swung the other way, to didatic moral codes.]
Of course, the dominant didactic moral code in Malaysia is still a sexually conservative version of Islam. In Malaysia, group 2. has always governed group 1. Group 2. has always leveraged the volatility of group 1, and channeled it against groups [other than 1. and 2. ]. IINM, it's literally in the public education system - the same Moral Education syllabus and exam style for 17-year-old citizens persists today.
Back to history in general...
[3. Liberal, open-minded, open-hearted, rationalism tends to be the next stage in cultural development. It's just the result of prolonged reflection on contradictions in 2. and how to iron them out efficiently.]
Now, back to Malaysia...
Your group 3.s will be generally supportive of freedoms to express sexuality. But these remain a minority, and are clustered in urban centres, across religions.
GE14 is a good demonstration that group 3.'s social dominance has trended upwards over time. But to brain where we stand on this, I would recommend as a dataset, the GE14 voter analysis: who voted for Barisan, who voted for PAS, who voted for Harapan, and why - including considerations of three(+)-corner fights, and Mahathir's role as an exemplary group 2. leader.
Moving to a perspective on the future:
On the issue of national public education... there was a lot of concern that Maszlee (now Minister of Education) was a group 2. leader, and would strongly push an agenda of conservative Islamisation.
From the get-go, I have disagreed with that view. It is Mahathir who shaped Malaysia from the 70s through till the 90s, through a lens of group 2. values. The momentum was so great that subsequent leaders basically cruised through on it in the 00s, and 10s. (Gosh, I feel old.) Badawi pushed for more group 3. values but didn't manage group 1. well enough. Najib had a more coherent group 1,2. approach to governance, at the expense of group 3. values. Their differing levels of political success illustrate the appreciations of the populations being managed at their respective times. I think little has changed in Malaysia
When people pointed at Maszlee and called him a group 2. threat, I called them morons. Mahathir remains the core liability from the perspective of a group 3. constituency (my perspective). Maszlee's approach to cultural engineering, while religious, is far more dialectical (conversational) in nature than Mahathir's. Maszlee is a group 3. leader. But I remain concerned that Mahathir will stifle him.
Sorry for the long answer. It was a big question :p "
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AFTER reading the key points a few times, I think the thesis is flawed. You could probably not assume a strong linear sequence between 1., 2., 3. because this analysis is not very MECE. It is probably good to reboot this with concern for the roles of empathy and reason: in pre-textual human civilisations, in text-oriented civilisation, and also across religions and cultures across time. I'm almost sure there have been non-text-oriented civilisations that assumed (or didn't assume at all) categories of sexuality and gender that are diverse and fluid. BUT perhaps the thesis then does present a view more specific to Malaysia.
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Tired. On an off day. Should catch up on work. But should also catch up on personal housekeeping. Gah. Feed first.
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buchananomics:
Malaysian would do well to study this.
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[by 1990 ... “40 percent of the U.S. federal judiciary,” ... “had been treated to a Koch-backed curriculum.”]
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To increase inequality:
- hack the constitution
- hack the judiciary
- hack the representstives
- hack the executives
- do it quietly
- use money effectively
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Overextended: trying to cram personal housekeeping chores, work errands, sleep debt recovery, and a date into that one day "off" per week - and then realising that you've under-eaten for the period. 😱
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Hour 5 plan: breakfast, procurement, contracts; wither maintenance, cleaning?
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Does the Dewan Rakyat have a Budgetary Review Committee?🙄
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TIL: Fix a microwave.
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X: Why are you doing this by yourself?
Me: Well, we don't have a lot of money, and we don't have very smart people. So when you put the two together 😀...
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I throw rocks at people who jeopardise civil society.
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As someone with a very simple view of myself, I have a very simple view of most other people. And I don't really care if they disagree.
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RM25 MM /month on immigration detention food bills:
RM120++/detainee/day. Either they eat better than I do, or the gravy train is thick. Please rationalise this before implying that the immigrants are the problem. Again, I want to know if our Dewan Rakyat has something like a Budgetary Review Committee.
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I can't wait to donate to the Najib legal fund.
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(Official Facebook Pages) of (Malaysian Government / Ministries) - I've making some observations on these over the past few weeks. It still looks like these will not be reliable as targets for activism, as administrators may strip off non-congratulatory content from the comments.
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(link to some statement on protection of Malays) : In case there is any doubt that the core mission of PPBM is to fix what UMNO failed to do. :)
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Reminder on the role of religion in the lives of people: particularly anyone who thinks Harapan stands more than a hair's breadth from being overturned by conservatives. Once Jibby is no more, the common threat is extinguished, and either a new threat will be invented, or, and more likely, an old threat will be revived: and already all messaging points at the non-Malay non-Muslims of Malaysia. :)
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Involved theistic people tend to vote with their gonads. It is just they have delivered their gonads unto God. One thing about God is that beliefs about it lie safely beyond your manipulation - this is an article of faith. But the other thing about God is that it is fairly predictable. If you are not a theist, and seek to understand the deeply personal relationship that involved theists have with the Almighty, then you only have to study their traditions, their books, and their mental exercises with regards to their social relationship directly with the Almighty & company. This may seem impossible, but rest assured: if you believe in ordinary human beings, you are already familiar with social exercise of the mind; all that is required then is for you to engage those exercises against an algebraic G defined by the other parameters above. Try it. You'll get it. It's not hard to understand theists.
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() I was thinking about your multifaith dialogues and maybe for the next one, the binary of Muslim-Christian can be expanded a bit to cover a couple of other axes. (Besides perhaps addressing () 's campaign for a less manel panel.)
The political forces at work in Malaysia are not so much defined by racial lines nowadays (personal bias of course: not particularly impressed by the messaging of the MCCBXYZT) simply because over thirty years, the ratio of non-Muslims to Muslims has shrunk dramatically, for reasons known to us from other theses. Consider a panel with representatives (each able to elocute their belief systems from first principles) from each of the following systems, as an mutation from past formats?
1. Muslim: conservative, intolerant of offensive practices among other groups
2. Muslim: conservative, tolerant of offensive practices among other groups
3. Muslim: conservative, encouraging of offensive practices among other groups.
4. Muslim: liberal, moderate
5. Muslim: liberal, unitarian
6. Non-theist: humanist/ empath motivation
7. Non-theist: humanist/ rationalist motivation
8. Non-theist: utilitarian/ legalist approach
9. Non-theist: utilitarian/ libertarian approach
10. Non-theist: agnostic/ freethinker
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I don't know who these people are, but I wish them well and I'll buy them lunch just for putting up with extra-judicial inconveniences.
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It's been a long week. I may be spending too much time sussing out potential threats to business, both internal and external, but well, given precendents, better safe than sorry.
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So far, it looks like the English media are loudly promoting a neutral stance on Numangate, which is a positive development from how these issues would have been treated in the past. Amirite?
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Too tired to function optimally. However, working on improvements. As usual. 😛
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If thousands of people dying in screams from political opposition every day is not enough to get you excited, then don't worry, a lost football team and a small army of rescuers will do the trick. #modernlife
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The way I see, it Numangate can end in one of x ways.
Putting Numan and his people out of the picture for a bit (go read all the other posts from other people already) the ASSETS on the table are:
[the Minister, the Party, the Coalition of Parties]
x
[political equity with right- and left- wing citizens]
So that's three times two, a total of six items, got it? The game is non-zero sum, however, net gains to the whole system will depend on unusual leadership: to both break with tradition, and to ensure the emotional security of traditionalists.
The Minister is probably deep in debate with Party leadership at this time. And the Party leadership may or may not be interacting with Coalition leaders also.
OUTCOMES
A
If the Minister holds with tradition, his star will dim for ten years with the left, while it rises during that time for the right. The Party, being already aligned with the right, will suffer little consequences. The Coalition is aligned with the left, however being in an armistice which guarantees their dominance the Coalition leadership will probably align itself with the Minister and its Party, while allowing junior voices (such as other ministers or MPs or spokespersons), to align themselves with the left in a display of reasonably reflective meditation. We can think of this as "business as usual, in old-new Malaysia."
B
If the Minister breaks with tradition, and appoints Numan to a role, then the Minister's star will be affected in the opposite way. The Party may then play the quiet role, and tolerate attacks on their right wing constituencies (B1), or the Party and the Minister may choose to part ways (B2). [Notice that no consideration is given to the possibility of the Party realigning itself to the left. 😛]
B1
In this event, the Coalition and the Minister gain resonance with the left, and dissonance with the right. This would be consistent with the messaging of reaching for a new-new Malaysia. To defend this is not particularly hard: goodness, just pull a Tim Cook defense. But then the Party may find itself more motivated to break with the Coalition, in inevitably dramatic fashion.
B2
In this event, the Coalition and Party are spared the burden of commentary. The spotlight comes back to the Minister, as he must decide what to do with his future. He may or may not remain a Minister. He may or may not join another Coalition party, otherwise: becoming independent, or forming a new party, or joining an extant party somewhere.
The Minister appears to be a sincere chap, albeit ambitious, and a little rushy. He may sell us the idea that Malaysia can have it all, but in delivery he will find that he has to be slower. This incident will go down in history as his first trial by fire.
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Numan has taken the hit. Community is fuming at SS. So I am waiting to see if this anger persists against him throughout his career on the right. [N steps up, is his own spokesperson, highlights possibility of internal sabotage, says he is leaving the country. MVP :wink: - rest of team, Minister, Party, Coalition, get off scot free.]
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I just want to hear them say they planned the whole thing to position Numan on the left later. But I doubt they're that strategic.
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Part 2 is off to a rough start 😛
"To spend the first third of one’s life getting all the education one can. To spend the next third making all the money one can. "
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I am one with the books, and the books are in me... half asleep doing accounts mantra.
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WTH, IKEA's bottle brush is called the meddle vag?
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One more month down. 😁
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Politics is never about personal convictions. Unless you're nutty enough to run on a platform of personal conviction. In which case, you stand to get called out, I suppose. (Now, optimised for mobile!)
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So Instagram has literally marketed me into starting a page (infrastructure, invite). I'm not sure what a Facebook page for my Instagram posts is good for. But it may be a fun experiment.
Couldn't figure out how to budget resources for it, or to provide with a MECE delineation of brand in my portfolio. Deleted it. Only shared one post there. Resharing here.
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"At such a point in my life, I just needed to hear someone say that they felt the same pain that I do."
"Not everyone will be willing to do that, or pretend to do that, even if they are able to do so."
"That is inhuman."
"Well they may have decided that you are inhuman, so it is a Mexican standoff."
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This unweildy consciousness has returned to the land of the living. Warm ups, a slow start. Too much fatigue.
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"Rhetoric versus civil society"
The last week in Malaysia: well winter is here again, and I can't see my toes for snowflakes. On the table:
(i) appointment of queers to public office
(ii) child marriage
(iii) deportation of religious scholars/ figures based on their theological positions.
Once again the screaming, weeping, liberals have called for elected leaders to disrupt the cultural predilections of the religious right. However, the left forgets or ignores a few things in their public effort.
(1) Our leaders are elected, and the electorate is (for better or for worse) composed of religious conservatives. Therefore what the left asks for is, essentially undemocratic in at least one interpretation of approach. Moreover, even if it is democratic in some interpretation, our elected leaders lack the ability to secure both their mandates from the religious right and left, and have been forced in their decades-long policy of binomial panic to fall to the right.
(2) This isn't to say that the right should be let loose to abscond with universal liberties. Rather, the left again targets the wrong crowd. The road to justice and equality among people of different preferences doesn't lie with the law - laws are often remade or broken. The road lies in diligent persuasion of the masses that their targeted policies* are the right policies. It is to the expensive and thankless proselytisation of the grassroots via slow, daily, programs where focus must return - not from remote locations, but in communities on the ground.
[* (i) having queers in public office,
(ii) unifying the age-of-qualification for the civil liberties of [marriage, voting, vice], and
(iii) the enactment of public policy that explicitly delineates guidelines for the classification of ethical positions (and thereafter their inclusion or exclusion from federal funding or other endorsement)]
Meanwhile the left can proceed to call out the panicked leaders of the federal government, while no one provides an operational solution. This is valid exercise of speech freedoms, but it does not seem to be a effective rhetoric: it is not persuasive.
I'm looking forward to more strategic grassroots efforts. These require some humility and tolerance of hate, as you can't easily persuade a hateful person to analyse their motivations for hate unless you are able to first demonstrate empathy with their outrage. Good luck, high five... on we go, Malaysiana...
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TIL: India has no Romeo'e'Juliet laws. " Because there is no close-in-age exemption in India, it is possible for two individuals both under the age of 18 who willingly engage in intercourse to both be prosecuted for statutory rape, although this is rare. Similarly, no protections are reserved for sexual relations in which one participant is a 17 year old and the second is a 18 or 19 year old. "
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In case you weren't aware, Malaysia is pretty much the same. But our age of consent is 16.
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Spiritual people: Spirits. Lol. Folks really need to get with the quantification program
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Perhaps my greatest professional failing is in the overestimation of competency in my colleagues. But that would be the story of my life.
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On case "child marriage 11-41":
Comment a:
" So the language may be a bit confusing. Let me try describing it as such: the word "marriage" is used to describe relationships in various phase spaces. Some of which are probably:
- secular law
- syariah law
- social consensus at the ex-judicial level within the groom and the bride's nuclear family
- god/religious dimensions appreciable from the point of view of people who acknowledge access to such a space (maybe there exist multiple versions of this, duh)
- physical residence (i believe the bride continues to reside with the nuclear fam)
- sexual relations (i believe that they aren't consummating in the near future)
- various spaces for various cultures' notions of what it means to "be married"
[I don't have complete information and could be mistaken on some of the empirically verifiable things above]
Anyway... the thing is, "marriage", gets thrown around in common discoure on the subject without a studied consideration of who said what, meaning what, at what point in time. Which is why public conversations about it are, pretty close to a world cup fan brawl until we get to more formal tear downs of the language...
... just saying, and nope, not doing much more about it at this point. 😬 "
Comment b:
"16 is the age of legal consent. Yes, I may have read that he said that too.
As for consideration of whether she needs therapy before the big day, or what constitutes grooming and what doesn't, and is it any less valid than children being groomed to love their parents (omg!) - that's what I'm looking for in the public policy implementations... if we ever get to that. 😲😬 "
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A society driven by moral intuitions works. But I don't believe in investing in a future where such modes of operation are perpetuated. #heartfeltmoraloutrage must be eliminated.
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- protein powder
- coffee
- creatine
- Texas
- considering restarting B12 supplementation; cancer risk elevation notwithstanding
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Statements?
WTF does the Ministry of HR have to do with asylum treatments for wanted religious leaders? Is there a shortage in Malaysia, or did we decide to hire Zakir as a consultant?
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