Tham Cheng-E's Blog

How Hard is the Work?

Forbessaid that the 'jobless future' is a myth.Martin Fordsaid it isn't. I think both are right for two reasons: (1) we aren't likely to embrace computers just as a patient wouldn't want a tin-can on wheels for a caregiver, (2) automation increases efficiency so much that we'd end up needing only one to tango. Think about it: these days we're requiring more skills than ever to make a living. Hard work alone goes nowhere because there simply aren't enough low-skilled jobs to go around. For street sweepers there's the sweeper buggy. For dishwashers there's the...well, dishwasher. Construction surges towards pre-fab.Pneumatic garbage collectionis expected to reduce 70% of manpower needs. The world pays hard work far less than it does to sparks of genius. Geniuses are rare, but when one comes along we reward them entire pies and we forget the multitudes of decent, hardworking folks out there. A moral obligation to moderate automation? We'd soon need it.

The Missing Missing Link

Joachim Neander was a devoted 17th century Calvinist theologian who spent so much of his life in a valley ruminating over the marvels of God’s creation that we named the valley after him. In 1856 we discovered a fossil in the Neander Valley, named it the Neanderthal Man, claimed it was a missing link between apes and humans and used it against Creationism.How ironic was that?Now areportclaims Neanderthals were also, well—humans! Evolution appears to be a theory that’s slowly casting doubts upon itself. Discoveries previously thought to be missing links now have to be reconsidered.An open mind simply isn’t enough, it has to be discerning also. If you find it absurd to have your parents blood-tested for evidence of kinship, that's faith at work, not empiricism.Perhaps this is what makes faith more precious than hard evidence. Perhaps the act of faith is the very element that makes us human—a missing link worth pondering.

It Is Well

Horatio Spafford was prosperous until he lost most of his property to the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Undaunted he laboured on and made enough money to sail with his family to Europe for a vacation with friends. But business beckoned at the last hour and his family had to sail on ahead. In a tragic twist a vessel struck the ocean liner and sank it within minutes. His wife was rescued but their four daughters drowned. Assailed by grief, Horatio resolved to renounce God. On his way to meet his wife, he sailed over the very waters that took his daughters. Over their watery grave he wept. He wrestled with grief, with God. Until finally he emerged and penned the stirring words that would become one of the most beloved hymns of all time.When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,When sorrows like sea billows roll;Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,It is well, it is well with my soul.Bad stuff happens to all. What counts is how we deal with it.

Progression

In this day and age it's really hard to be progressive. But in any day and age it's always a good thing. When you think of progress it's easy to think of something worthy of a toast. Or you'd think that all that could be done has been done and then the bubble pops. Perhaps progression is about paying attention to what matters and doing something that people care about. You seize opportunities and build upon them; doesn't matter if they're large or puny. You start improving yourself and the world around you; word by word, line by line, deed by deed, and you don't have to make a big thing out of it. By inches though we dally on, we progress. The world fills quickly, but there's always room.Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?- David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Count The Little Stuff

If you don't already know, 2016 is a leap year fraught with unsettling world events. But what most of us don't see are the little sparks of warmth and jubilation amidst the quadrillions of occurrences over the year that's about to end - billions more over the seconds you've taken to read this. A policeman stopped a black teen walking two hours daily to and from work and bought him a bicycle. A comatose 1 year-old awoke just days after doctors decided to shutdown her life support systems. An 80 year-old lost his wife to cancer, his savings to her medical bills and had to sell bags of kindling by the road for a living, until the public donated $100K to him. A Syrian refugee who's also a master tailor, risked exposure by fixing up a neighbour's wedding gown that split just minutes before her wedding. A 5 month-old baby received a new liver in the nick of time and lives.All these in 2016...and more.

The Gift Of Receiving

If you disapprove of Nazis and the holocaust you’re disapproving something they stood for. It’s called eugenics, and in a nutshell it’s about annihilating anyone who falls behind because they aren’t deserving of life. Nasty? Well, you don’t need the Nazis to make that happen. Someone else is already doing that.Us.The measure of ability is relative to perception, to tolerance. So we criticise, we judge. Anyone falling short of our yardstick falls out of our favour. Take it and further and we’d end up thinking the world would be better off without them.We want to exterminate them. And we're doing precisely that.Read more...

The Power...And Dangers Of Fiction

First there was Battle Royale. Then the Hunger Games. And now...Game2: Winter.It's a Russian reality game show that pitches thirty men and women in a fight for a cash prize of 1.6 million US dollars. Rule number 1? We do not talk about rules. Rule number 2? Wedo not- talk about rules. You've heard right. In this reality game show you can fight, rmurder, rape, anything it takes to win.Anything.Sounds depraved? Needless for me to say more. The web is cluttered with comments more scathing than I can conjure. What does it have to do with the three items mentioned in my opening line?You decide.Fiction are ideas, and they could be powerful ones, We'd have to be real careful over what kind of reality they become.

When's Our Turn?

As we sleep...while we snuggle under cosy duvets women and children fleeing the Syrian city of Aleppo are being gunned down on the streets in cold blood. Their belongings spilling; a soft toy sits forlorn, suddenly bereaved of its owner. Soldiers set fire to a building that houses civilians displaced in the fighting, and amongst them over a hundred children. Somewhere in China a truck’s tire mashes up a cyclist on his way back to his family. In Palmyra a man sees his children’s faces before the executor cuts his throat.All these as we sleep. And more...

Let's Grab Some Air

Wondered how someone could pull off something in the likes of a sarin gas attack and get away with it? The recent smog in Xi’an, with an air quality index of 296, offers a grim platform, and so does the antibiotic-resistant smog in Beijing. Remember reading about a sci-fi dystopian world where fresh air comes in cans and at a price. Well, now it’s real. Earlier this year, Australian and Canadian entrepreneurs were selling cans of fresh air to China. And just yesterday a shopping mall in Xi’an sold bags of fresh air at 1 yuan apiece. There are instances when fiction mirrors fact. Given enough time most fiction would probably become fact.And sometimes it isn’t cause to celebrate.Let's go grab some air. It's now on sale.

Speculative Or Science Fiction?

I still get people asking what speculative fiction is. Wiki puts it as a collective term for the fantastical genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror...works of unrestrained imagination. But I disagree because there's a more congruous meaning to it. The speculative fiction writer Margaret Atwood describes it as "a work that employs the means already to hand and that takes place on Planet Earth."In other words it is based on something real and speculates what could become of it. It is closer to reality than your typical sci-fi and fantasy. It is harmony between the fantastic and the plausible. Best of all it doesn't pigeonhole the writer into genres he or she can't get out of. In a way it's a sort of scenario planning, a lot of "what ifs", and I think plenty of good stuff is going to come out of it.