The unrealistic expectations of modern dating

A parent had a casual chat with me and mentioned their adult son who has decided to forego dating as he feels it is "not worth it". This attitude seems to be a recent development in dating dynamics overseas, but to hear that young men here are of a similar mind, it's worrying. If we are trying to encourage breeding among our young couples, perhaps incentivizing already married couples to procreate is too little too late. After all, if young people aren't dating in the first place, nobody's getting married.

Of course, I'm speculating and overgeneralizing here, but it seems that dating, marriage, and babies require more money than people are willing to spend on them, hence the PM's Budget proposal. But we need to examine the problem at the root. PM Wong isn't allocating any budget to encourage dating, the first link in the ball-and-chain of marriage and family, but I doubt throwing money at this problem will solve anything, anyway.

What I think has gone wrong with dating today is not the money per se, but the expectation that young men have been priced out of the dating market. In the past, couples knowingly believed in the romantic fantasies of 'love at first sight' and 'love conquers all', meaning that even if we were broke, the couple would still find something to do without breaking the bank. That was how it was with me and the wife in our early days, especially in the year she had an income, and I was living off my rapidly diminishing savings. Today, dating has transformed into a transaction. No more 'love at first sight', aspiration has mutated into the expectation of 's_x on first date'. There seems to be an understanding that the man will pay for an expensive date, but if he doesn't get to round the bases after that, he feels cheated, having been used for a free meal, drinks and entertainment. Meanwhile the ladies invest in themselves to look their best on the date, hoping to entice their partner to become so smitten by their stunning appearance that wallets gape open, spewing money everywhere. "If a man can spend so much money on me, it must be love", but because of the transactional nature of the date, it's like the more money he spends, the less she feels cheap and the more she feels like a princess when it's time to seal the deal.

Young men, of course, don't earn enough to pay for many extravagant dates, so they don't even bother approaching women, while young women get asked out by older gentlemen who have built up enough resources to lavish their dates with the level of luxury expected. But once the old, rich guy has had (and paid) for their fun, they'll take their business elsewhere. No commitment, no baggage, just the endless thrill of "love 'em and leave 'em". Women are left bewildered and frustrated, being ghosted by the man who demonstrated love by showering them with material blessings the night before, and now they no longer believe that love is forever. Everybody playing this game eventually develops trust issues, it seems. Not exactly a solid foundation to build family on.

If it is true that the dating pool today is messed up by everybody's unrealistic expectations of what the dating ritual is supposed to accomplish, then it's going to take an attitude reset, and not necessarily mo' money, that will get the human population back on track.

China ascendant? Pt 2

The second trend has been the most spiteful non-violent protest a people has raised against a government policy that could result in an outcome that could be inadvertently wonderful. With the impending US decision to ban Tiktok in the US, hundreds of thousands of American "tiktok refugees" have jumped ship to xiaohongshu, or Red Note. Ostensibly, the Tiktok ban is motivated by national security concerns over China's ease of access to American users' data, so instead of returning to US-based social media apps as expected, users have maliciously migrated to mainland China's own social media platform, voluntarily handing over to China their personal data on a platter. US Gen-Z's (mostly) collective raised middle finger to their own government is unhinged, inspired and hilarious.

The unintended consequence of this overnight mass migration is unprecedented. Ordinary people who have been told to be suspicious of each other by their respective governments are now meeting each other in a common space en masse and discovering that they have more in common than not. These past few days, people from two different gated communities have engaged on friendly terms and are fully experiencing a grand scale cultural exchange driven by genuine curiosity about each other. So far, the general consensus has been that while their governments are creating tension between each other's countries, the people themselves have no issue with one another.

Of course, no one knows how long such cordial exchanges will last. The Internet usually starts out promising friendship and understanding, but human nature will eventually attract trolls and spoilers that will ruin it for everyone. But in the meantime, people are learning each other's languages and cultures... and lifestyles. American users have been shown how their Chinese hosts live -- not in squalor or poverty as the common stereotypes portray but in better circumstances than most Americans. Chinese people's cost of living is comparative low: they own their own houses or rent at much lower rates than their US counterparts, and utilities, groceries and healthcare are enviably affordable compared to what Americans pay for the same. Some American commenters even compared the USA to a third world state in response to such eye-widening revelations.

These events remind me of the fall of the Berlin Wall in '89 which marked the end of the Communist grand social experiment. Pure Communism did not work, and once the people who lived under that regime decided that they didn't have to and shouldn't live under government restrictions and material privations, previously Communist states reshaped their economies to embrace some level of private entrepreneurship, and freedom of expression, while keeping a firm grip on public order and a commitment to providing essential social services. Something similar is happening now in the USA in that it has become almost a total Capitalist state. Every citizen has to foot their own bill for everything that they need, while (simplistically) the profit motive keeps prices high. Inflation is running rampant, and wages have been unable to keep up. The American Dream is now run by an Oligarchy with a disreputable businessman being sworn into its highest office in a couple of days. Could 2025 be the turning point when the American people themselves decide they don't have to and shouldn't continue living under government restrictions and material privation? When pure Communism fell with the Berlin Wall, could pure Capitalism also fall with the great firewall?

It's still early, but I, and I guess many other people too, are hoping that ordinary people inadvertently bridging the communication gap via the banning of a social media app can pave the way to a more peaceful, understanding, and united world moving forward. If not, at least this week has provided a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy outlook over the near future.

China ascendant?

Two trends have pinged for me recently. The first is the massive uptick of players of video games made by Chinese developers corresponding with the equally massive decline of players of American-made games. "Black Myth Wukong" (BMW), based on Chinese mythology featuring the Monkey God as the protagonist captured hundreds of thousand players on the Steam platform compared to American releases which were struggling to get tens of thousands of regular players. Big budget multi-player game, "Concord", even shut down after a few weeks of launch due to lack of player interest. Game Science, the Chinese developer of BMW certainly seems to have made monkeys out of its Western competitors.

Recently (and ironically) another Chinese developer, NetEase Games, has captured much of the gaming market with its release of "Marvel Rivals" making use of American publisher, Marvel's, widely renowned characters like Captain America, Hulk, Thor and a host of other household superheroes with more promised every new season.

One simplistic factor for the popularity of non-American video entertainment is that foreign developers are not hamstrung by activists insisting that diversity, equity, inclusion, or DEI, has to feature in popular entertainment so as to not exclude people who do not conform to mainstream stereotypes. Now, although I believe that DEI is a noble agenda, the numbers are telling us that people who qualify as DEI do not represent the market that buys and plays video games. The vast majority of gamers tend to be vanilla mainstream people who like their game characters to be identifiably mainstream with few but very clear distinctions that help us tell one character apart from another. For example a clear male-female dichotomy with males exhibiting a more angular body shape, and females with softer, rounder curves. Easy. There's no need to delve into any character's sexuality or preferences which is of little relevance to a game in which people are shooting each other for fun. Besides, if I were to be shooting at your character who is exhibiting identifiable DEI characteristics, wouldn't my intentions be even more actively discriminatory?

Anyway, insisting on a DEI agenda in video games is ultimately self-defeating from a marketing standpoint. People who identify as DEI, are identifying themselves apart from the mainstream. It makes little sense to push non-mainstreamers into the mainstream. It's confusing for everybody. DEI individuals pride themselves on embodying very unique characteristics that distinguish them from everyone else. Distilling character types from such a wide range of unique qualities creates character designs that at best only partially represent a person, so a DEI person is unlikely to see themself fully reflected therein. But the stereotypical male-female body shape is a silhouette that anybody, DEI or not can see themself in as it is the lowest possible common denominator. So there is little to gain from fragmenting the market and chasing after the smallest demographic that may not even exist. And then be shocked and outraged when games that target the widest possible audience do so much better at attracting players.

But depending on the game, character design may not even be a key issue for a game's success or failure. I'm not playing "Rivals", I'm playing "Path of Exile II" developed by NZ-based Grinding Gear Games. POE2 is an isometric ARPG in which my avatar is relatively tiny in comparison to the playing field and is constantly lost in explosions, fog, and other environmental effects. My current character is a female witch (player classes have no gender options), but her body shape is not of any prime concern as the idea is to layer her up in protective armour so it really doesn't matter what she looks like. As long as she can kill things fast, keep a forward progression, and find gear upgrades, that's all I care about. Is the game fun to play? Yes. That's it.

So, now the Chinese know how to make video games fun and pleasing to play, are targeting the people who actually play games and are doing well as a result. In contrast, corporate America has bogged down American games with unnecessary encumbrances, pulling down the fun factor in their greedy and misguided attempt to appeal to every potential niche customer, but pleasing essentially no one. American gamers are rejecting such games and have no qualms jumping ship to Chinese games that actually offer them what they want. Ironically, the capitalists have forgotten that in a free market the customer is king.

This one has gone on for much longer than I intended. I'll cover the second trend in my next post. Stay tuned!

Don't wanna go back to school!

To Liu who wrote:

Globalisation could negate efforts in skills upgrading

From Liu Rijing -

October 6

I refer to The Big Read article “Despite being vulnerable, few PMETs heed call to learn new skills” (Oct 1) and wish to raise a few points.

First, threats to jobs come not only from technological change but also globalisation.

So how can we be sure that learning new skills will ensure we do not lose out to global competition when companies relocate owing to cost considerations?

Second is whether a new skill one picks up would still be in demand after one has spent time and money to complete the training.

Third, when companies can choose to outsource professional work to a worker based in a foreign country with a lower salary, how can skills upgrading help then? (Today Online)

If you are looking for assurances, there are none. Sorry. But if you don't want to undergo skills upgrading, that's fine. When enough of us refuse to do so, there will be more opportunities for overseas companies to outsource their crappy, low-skilled, underpaid, exploitative, dangerous jobs to us. That should put your overarching fear of unemployment to rest.

10 cents for career counselling, thanks!

The baseball-equity cartoon

No, no, no. The above cartoon attempts to explain how equality does not necessarily mean fairness. Actually, what our three friends are demonstrating is criminal activity -- watching a game without paying for a ticket. How are these three moochers being fair to those people in the stands who paid for entry?

In the right panel, all barriers to accessing the game have collapsed. And because nobody needs to buy a ticket, the sport has no more money to maintain a nice, fancy stadium any longer; all the pros have lost their jobs. Goodness knows what our three friends are still watching. Happy now?

Unless... the transparent fence represents a TV screen? It doesn't cost as much to watch a televised game, and every viewer has clear line-of-sight to the action, regardless of how vertically-challenged they may be. The stadium still functions and the professional players are still employed.

All the tweaks we might make meddling with human political systems for the sake of 'fairness' will always leave some party or another dissatisfied. It is perhaps technology that is the greatest leveler in the end.

Footnote: Located the original artist of the graphic. Craig Froehle is now tracking in fascinating detail the meme he created. Click here for an interesting read into how it has spread in its many permutations since its conception in 2012.

Elitism is only half the story

Interesting that retired PM Goh is reminding the privileged people to guard against elitism.

I'll open a can of worms by suggesting that in creating a social divide, it takes two hands to clap. While we would like the privileged to not act like jerks who have too much money to know what to do with, the rest of us not-so-privileged folks should likewise not let the income gap cause us to despair and pigeonhole ourselves into thinking we've stagnated, and blame the 'elites' for keeping us down.

Our economic system still offers opportunity for everyone who seeks it. For us starting at the bottom of the pile, if we set our sights high, there are ways to get there -- but not through the safe, secure office job we've been promised as a child for studying our brains out and passing exams.

We're only stagnated if we swallowed that promise hook, line and sinker. The way up is tough; fraught with failure and dead ends. At times, our progress is so slow that it may look like we'll never get there, but we keep moving forward with our dreams, our plans and our goals anyway. People will kindly 'advise' us with the best of intentions to be sensible and get back on the 'safe' path again, and many times, we'll be tempted to quit. And if we listen to them, that too is stagnation.

I'm not saying that we should gamble blindly, but rather to have a dream we can articulate and have a plan we can put in action. We learn from our failures, pick ourselves up and keep climbing. And even at the end if we don't 'make it' the way we had originally defined 'make it', we're still further along ahead of where we were when we started our journey, and much happier for it.

Or just be content with what we have and live within our means, even if we have to forego the luxuries we see other people enjoying. After all, on first impression, there's no way to tell if they are up to their necks in hock in order to luxuriate in their finery.

Elitism means to keep things from people. Envy seeks to take things away from people. Both forces at work in society cause irreparable rifts between people, making them think that the existing system does not work when in fact it does. It works on the principle of Generosity: to put things in people's hands. Give.

Too late to regret

Wow. And now we have a father of three who writes to the press about his regrets for having children. He says of his kids that when he and his spouse "chose to have more than two children... [they, i.e., Mr and Mrs] were young and reckless". Interesting word, "reckless", suggesting making significant decisions without factoring in the costs.

Read: Dollars and sense

But as much as I am a penny-pinching miser when it comes to thinking about raising kids, I have to tell Mr Law that since he already has kids he does not have the time or the luxury to regret his decision. Now his "decision" has become a Responsibility that he can not run away from. His problem has moved to a different scale altogether. Although he wails over how current population boosting policies have "hoodwinked" him into thinking he can continue to depend on government handouts forever, the reality is that they are his kids and not the government's.

You can't have your cake and eat it. More dependents sharing your slice of economic pie means taking a crimp in your lifestyle aspirations. The more dependents, the smaller a slice everyone gets. It's mathematics.

Ok, I may sound callous and heartless and indifferent to Mr Law's plight. I would be more sympathetic if he had asked for help with employment, or something practical; but to ask for a major public housing policy change? Based on factoring his own difficulties? Overnight? Hello, let's deal with what we CAN control rather than wring hands over things that we can't.

The bottom-line of Mr Lam's argument is that he wants mo' money; and who doesn't want that? But all I'm saying is, you can't expect to get any more than you already have. Singapore is trying to operate on a budget based on what it can earn balanced against what is needs to spend on in the coming year. Mr Law should try to be more realistic and do likewise.

Whose Internet is it?

I am watching some watershed events unfolding now that may have long term repercussions on the Internet and how it is to be used to share information.Where once the online community freely traded, bartered and "appropriated" information, what we are looking at today is that suddenly the market has dropped in to regulate the chaos.

Although SOPA and PIPA were bloodied by an online revolt last week, they have in effect taken a time-out to regroup and figure out how to come out swinging again. But while we were distracted with the rhetoric, big business and the feds acted and took down Megaupload -- hardware, software, wetware and all. And, as the online rebels predicted would happen, similar file-sharing sites have opted to self-censor in order to evade the copyright avengers' threat radar.

The message is clear. Henceforth, no one will transact information with anyone else without the exchange of hard currency. The market has come to the 'net and, whether directly or indirectly, we will pay for what we wish to share and for what we wish to take. It may not have gone that far yet, but if the free users of the 'net don't make their voices heard, that will be the direction it'll go once we accept this incident as a legal precedent.

Here's the thing: who owns the interwebs and can hence act with impunity on it? Can we free users continue to flout legally established copyrights and enjoy others' works without paying them their due; or can big business take away what we claim is our right to share any kind of information as we please?

Sad to say, it is the latter to whom our digital playground belongs. Unless we have been able to build our Internet access infrastructure ourselves from scratch, our computers, operating systems, browsers and even our networks are store-bought (or subscribed to) from big business. While it served them to let us in and play for free, or at least cheap, they've decided that now we can't get enough of what we have, it's time to start making us pay for the privilege. Oldest marketing trick in the book.

'Revenge!' scream the hacks of Anonymous, who activate their LOIC to down the websites of the Authorities like the DOJ, MPAA and RIAA with DDoS attacks. Juvenile, and hurts no one that matters. No one visits those websites voluntarily, anyway. It's all just vandalism and venting.

There's one way we free users can take back the 'net, though. Last week's revolt showed us the way. But I doubt many of us would like it. If a 24-hour Internet strike worked well enough to make the legislative body rethink we'd sheepishly accept their hare-brained scheme to take away our freedom; think of what a whole summer's boycott of Hollywood blockbusters would do to make the moguls see what our freedom is worth.

Yes, I'm saying the heck with all the delicious, to salivate over, fanboy-orgasmic blockbusters! Though we may once have been frothing at the mouth downloading their trailers while waiting for opening day, now we won't even buy their pathetic 3D high-def Blu-Ray DVD releases after they bomb at the box-office.

But what will we do for entertainment then, you ask? I say, support all indie productions, all low-budget, freely-distributed online content made by amateurs who don't expect to be paid for their work but are happy enough just to be watched or heard. Lots of that around, since the Internet can make us media producers in one way or another. A few stalwarts still even blog text. Ahem.

So, Hollywood blockbuster boycott that will bankrupt the greedy major studios in 2012 and show them who the Internet really belongs to? Anyone?

Caveat emptor

The issue of high ministerial salaries for our government representatives is bound to hit a sour note among the electorate, but it seems to me that answering one bad argument with another does not help make the debate any more constructive.

'Chye tow kway' is a common breakfast dish sold cheaply in hawker centres in S'pore. The question is, what does it represent in the above cartoon? I think it stands for peace, prosperity, opportunities for all regardless of background and heritage, and a strong international standing in the global community. I don't know if it's because of high salaries for ministers that's how these enviable national qualities have come to be, but I do know that they are worth a lot more than a mere plate of chye tow kway, whether it costs $1.50 or $10.00.

But if the cartoonist is willing to consider what we have as cheaply obtainable, he's taking his life, comforts and freedoms for granted. What we have today, many people are still deprived of; many are still fighting and shedding blood for it; while some -- like us -- are finding it a constant struggle to maintain. I know of someone who gave away his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup. Don't give yours away for a plate of chye tow kway.

'This R2 unit has a bad motivator'

We're all familiar with the carrot-and-stick approach as our primary motivation tool. We reward someone for doing good work and punish them for delivering something that isn't up to standard or not doing what we wanted of them.

In school, our rewards tend to be good grades, a glowing testimonial and maybe the occasional citation or cash incentive for exceptional performance. Undesirable behaviour, on the other hand, is punished with personal audiences with increasing levels of the campus heierarchy, discussions with parents, Corrective Work Orders, threats of repeating a year or a 'recommendation to seek educational instruction at an alternative institution'.

Daniel Pink, in Drive, calls this practice Motivation 2.0. Much of our workflow systems and even our economy itself is largely based on this model, and it's been very successful so far in moving us along. Motivation 2.0 is an excellent tool for mechanical, routine tasks. Nobody wants to do them, so offering people a decent exchange for their time and effort is the only way we can shoehorn human resources into our assembly-line industries.

Problem is that our economy no longer relies on routine mass-order jobs. Our employment opportunities are now shifting towards knowledge, service and creative 'products' where we have an edge over our more labour-intensive neighbouring economies. Good as 2.0 is in replicating a compliant, narrow-skilled workforce for the industrial economy, for tasks involving thinking and complex problem-solving, 2.0 doesn't work. Throwing in more money isn't going to make solving problems easier or faster. Pink even suggests that these material rewards might even be a de-motivational factor because it raises the pressure to get the task done (reward conditional to successful delivery) and it makes people work towards what the money's worth and no further. If this sounds like what schools are like today, that's because we are still following the 2.0 model, and yet are supposed to be grooming capable workers for the new economy.

Drive advocates an upgrade to Motivation 3.0, detailing scientific and behavioral studies; and case studies of successful corporations that have adopted this new approach. One of Pink's best examples is that Microsoft Encarta (an attempt at creating and maintaining a pay-to-use online encyclopaedia) which had a huge financial backing and lots of talented employees closed down after a few years of operation, whereas a loose organization with the same goals but having no paid management, no paid employees and no for-profit motive has become Wikipedia, one of the most-referred to and relied upon websites today.

The 3.0 model emphasizes autonomy, mastery and purpose as the prime movers of human achievement. Autonomy being the divestment of superfluous supervision over the worker and the work; mastery as in putting in time and effort to get good at a skill or skill-set; and purpose as in having a sustainable, believable and realistic rationale for doing the work in the first place.

I'm looking at my students past and future. Most of them came from 2.0 schools, and even when they arrive at our doorstep we still keep them suppressed under 2.0 principles. We complain about how unmotivated they are, how slow they are to absorb new ideas and concepts, how frustrated we are that they keep making the same mistakes even though we've corrected them time and time again. We run our education like a factory churning out neatly packaged mass products but we also realize that each student is an individual with individual learning needs and hence requires a personally customized instructional programme in order to develop each potential, like we promise to. That's quite the dilemma, isn't it, trying to meet 3.0 demands with 2.0 structures?

Our biggest problem with 3.0 is in the first pillar: autonomy. I'm not talking about staff autonomy because one of the reasons why I enjoy my work on campus is that I have loads of autonomy to run my classes and other programmes the way I want. I'm talking about the kids and how we have to monitor them, guide them, discipline them, safeguard them, and sic their parents on them (if necessary) their whole two years with us. I'm talking about not trusting them to do the right thing, and likewise them not trusting themselves, coming from environments that didn't trust them either. It's going to be difficult if I apply 3.0 while the rest of their subject tutors still manage them with 2.0, the way they're used to. The kids are so conditioned under survival 2.0 they don't see the higher purpose of 3.0 as a necessary or even a worthwhile aim. Avoiding a shelling will always win out over reaching for higher goals.

I'm absolutely sure 3.0 works. The kids in Drama Club grow and develop so many skills so quickly because they have the autonomy to do what they need to do to get their show on the road. They dedicate themselves to mastering stagecraft, turning in long rehearsals above and beyond their regular scheduled schoolwork and working with a true master of the craft like Tina or Rods. And they have a purpose to turn in a performance they can be proud of for our annual Drama Night or national competition. But these same kids are often in trouble in class because 2.0 just isn't adequate to motivate them to do as well in their academic obligations.

Working in an organization so firmly entrenched in 2.0, can there be a transitional step, a 2.5 that I can at least start on? Or have I been stuck on 2.5 all along? Whatever it is, it's time to throw a bigger rock into the pond. Our collective futures could well depend on it.

Less than average

Edit 01:
Think I've been reading the figures wrong. What Credit Suisse is referring to is not the average income per person per year. Rather it's the average value of all the stuff we own individually. But considering that at least 50% of what I own is co-owned by June, my net worth is still nowhere near that estimate. Our rich-poor gap must be huge to hike up our expectation of what 'average' means around here.
-----

Waaaait a second...! I thought I was average, but Credit Suisse has completely ended my delusion. S'pore is the second richest nation in Asia, fourth richest in the world. Average personal wealth per adult is USD255,488 (S$333,462). If this is true, I calculate that I'm just slightly above the poverty line.

Small-time solutions for big-time poverty

Because we think of poverty in developing nations as a huge problem, we tend to leave the thinking of solutions up to international aid, government and non-government agencies and big business. We have this assumption that because they are much bigger, smarter, and richer than us, they have the responsibility to fix the problem. Who are we, after all, to even comprehend the scale of the problem, let alone contribute to solving the problem?

But here's a radical idea: since the people suffering in poverty are so short of many necessities, why don't we (as in 'normal' people) invent some kind of technology they can use to maximize what resources they do have, and sell it to them at a low cost? Notice I said 'sell' and not 'give', because resources can only be acquired at a cost; and if we don't recover our costs our Christmas Tree would run dry very fast.

And why should we even bother helping these poor folk whom we have almost zero contact with in our day-to-day lives? Simple: there are millions of people living under the poverty line in the world today, let's say on about US$1.25 a day. They may not have a lot of money in their pockets, but they do have SOME money they would be ready to part with IF we can sell them a product that is both good and useful to them.

If a few million people would give us a portion of their US1.25 a day, what's in it for us is a huge market with lots of further growth potential... or in other words, there's a lot of money to be made selling them a product they would be willing to buy. But we're so not selling them junk. As David Wolman says, "The poor may be poor, but they're not stupid."

So, if we're going to save people from poverty, perhaps the best ones to do it would be us, the small-time entrepreneur with an innovative idea that would benefit millions for a low, low price. Wait, why does this sound like PW all over again?

Gambling on a dream

Goodness! My old boss is in the news today. Should have known he was the one behind it all 'cos he was already talking about it way back then. So glad to know that his dreams have come true, especially since they said he was just living in a fantasy world. Major hospitality resort (check), on Sentosa (check), US franchised theme park operation (check), superstar concerts on a regular basis (check), casino (um, he never actually discussed this in my presence -- maybe I wasn't in his inner-circle of trust, but check). Article says it took him 35 years. I say if anyone was going to get it to work, he would.

Congrats, Ron! You've proven your critics wrong, and I'm really happy for you! Now comes the really tough part -- keeping it all alive! You the man!

Universally within our means

Jim Simon takes issue with Universal Studios Singapore for charging its unlimited all-year pass with special privileges at an exorbitant S$1098. That's much like someone craving a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost when he can only afford a Kia Picanto. For most of us, a Picanto's good enough. It's cheap, gets us to places we wanna go, and most of all, it's available to anyone who wants one.

Dude, open your eyes. There's a S$66 option for those of us who can't afford better and are prepared to rough it just for a day in our lives. The 'Annual Superstar Pass' is meant for people who can hang out and live at Universal Studios the whole year 'round. That kinda' assumes they don't work for a living. And if they don't work for a living, then they probably are the sort who think S$1098 is a mere frivolity to their daily expenses.

In the free market, there's things affordable to the workaday masses like us, and there's the luxuries for the few who aren't us. Let's learn to live within our means and not be in such a huff that we can't exercise our sense of entitlement if we aren't willing to pay for it.

COMFORT goes co-op

We generally revile taxi drivers as a profession. They drive too fast, they drive too slow, they cut other drivers off abruptly and slam on their brakes at the last second to pick up a fare.

Must be a cut-throat business with so many cab drivers plying the streets competing for a dwindling number of potential passengers. With so many strange fare surcharges these days, people are starting to consider owning their own vehicles as a cheaper option for getting around town.

But look! In order to obtain a bigger slice of pie per cab driver, instead of competing each other off the roads, they're building a communication network to share information with each other.

Expanding market share by killing competition: Bad. Expanding market opportunities by sharing information: Good. Cooperation is the name of the game, people! Sesame Street may have had it right all along.

Loss leader

Where in this economy of rising prices can we find any product or service the price of which has reduced? Believe it or not, my usual $4.80 haircut cost me $2.80 when I went for my quarterly shearing yesterday. Where the place? Snip Avenue, 418 Yishun.

Service was brusque but that's the way I like it. I was there for a haircut, not chit-chat. I got what I asked for, and for what I paid that was more than satisfactory.

Chances are, they're using this pricing model as a loss leader. It'll entice clients who want more than just a haircut and from there they'll start the real commercial negotiations. But they're happy to take in cheapos like me too because at least I represent a bum on a seat in between the real customers. Win already!

When 100% is not enough

If we accept the theory of evolution as true, then S'poreans deserve to be the first species to go extinct.

Look at the fuss and furore over this year's PSLE math paper. Kids are crying, and parents of kids who are crying are "up in arms" and threatening to storm Castle FrankenMOE with torches and pitchforks. What monstrosity has arisen out of the beleaguered castle this time? Only the hideous spectre of an exam that was difficult to score 100% in.

And why do I assess the local citizenry to be deserving of extinction? It's because we've proven yet again (as we did two years ago) that we're too easily satisfied, too complacent in thinking that 100% = everything. That kind of thinking is what's going to kill us all.

There are certain assumptions that go with a score of 100% in a written exam. 1) It means having studied all there is to learn of the subject. 2) It means all conditions played out to one's best advantage in order for every problem to be solved within the time limit.

The first assumption cannot be true because knowledge is too infinite to confine within the limited scope of a curriculum of study. 100% therefore means we're satisfied with what we know, and there's nothing more to learn.

As for the second assumption, perfect results means perfect conditions, and perfect conditions seldom occur in real life. In truth, perfect conditions usually occur when we lower the bar of our expectations and accept fudged standards as "good enough".

Always gunning for 100% is dangerously closed-minded, especially for kids aspiring to pursue further education in Math and the Sciences. 100% is good enough for lab techs and test-tube washers (do what you're told -- get 100% every time!), but unacceptable to leading edge researchers who are constantly working to devise new methods to learn more about our universe. Trial and Error. The journey, not the destination.

We cannot afford to breed a generation of children who think 100% is an end in itself. Going by their response, parents aren't helping here. This fixation is a mental rot that will translate into their children's lives, making them unable to cope with the need to think and read beyond their curriculum, the need to sometimes reach beyond our perceptions of "necessary" and "possible" in order to create and maintain this "knowledge economy" we are struggling to remake ourselves into.

It's not the kids who aren't scoring 100% anyway that I'm worried about, but the ones that are and are now viewing themselves as failures because for them only 100% will do. Unfortunately, they're to ones who represent our best and brightest, and if their minds remain trapped in the 100% box, I shudder for the rest of us who will fall under their leadership one day. Most likely, it'll be their parents who will be making their decisions and wiping their noses for them at the same time. A recipe for disaster, if I ever saw one.

Please, don't be content with a hundred per cent. Rather, score below and work for mo' (or MOE! Heh.)

As fatigued as my wallet

Labour Day holiday. An opportunity to goof off without guilt because we are celebrating our being employed. These days, having a job is not to be taken for granted so today has some particular significance for us waged and working people.

And looking back on how I've been spending on big ticket items in the past few months, I am so gonna need to depend on a regular paycheck to stay afloat. From acquiring, renovating and furnishing a new home and new wheels, it's a pretty deep hole I've sunk myself in. I had better begin clawing my way up and out, or be buried under the dumptruck load of debt poised directly overhead. 

The marginal utility I derive from spending money has finally reached the point of diminishing returns. I am now as fatigued as my moth-eaten wallet. I've done all I can to boost the economy, so now I declare that it's high time other people took their turn.

No more unnecessary spending from this household. That is, we're not likely to become complete misers overnight, but we're not going to be shopping around for any more trouble either.

Bonus debacle

Have we overreacted to AIG's top executives' bonus payout debacle? $165 million looks like an awesome amount of money to waste on people's bonuses, but compared to the $170 billion AIG received for its bailout loan, it works out to about 1/1000 of the total package. As I understand it, the loan was intended to get the company on its feet again, running like a normal, functioning company should. And company bonuses are a normal, even expected, part of corporate function.

Let's make a comparison. An F22-A fighter jet like the one that crashed in California costs $150 million for the US government to write off outright -- almost the total sum of AIG's bonus package itself! For $170 billion, the US government could buy well over a thousand F-22s to replace the crashed one. So, really, there's a lot of bailout money left to deal with the company's problems, even after the bonus payouts. Keeping staff morale high in these bad times is one way to do it.

Of course when I myself am facing a no-bonus scenario at the end of this year, hearing about other people getting bonus amounts I could never even dream of does leave a bad taste in the mouth. But at the same time, there's no reason to get all irrational about it.

A pile of croc

We must be in serious denial. Here, we're getting news to expect industry-wide pay cuts, and we're still spending money anyway. We got 50% storewide off Crocs through an "inside source" so although the chunky, rubbery footwear was never on our shopping list before, today we bought a couple of pairs each, and for the in-laws too.

While we had an exclusive discount source, the other shoppers were paying normal store prices and they just kept coming towards the cashier with their own selections. I guess recession or not, life and shopping must still go on.