What would Charles Darwin have to say about our government?

(To increase the font on this essay – hold down the Ctrl key and keep pressing +) Maybe I have water in my head (thanks to U-bot commandant Yakoob). Maybe it’s just the way I am hardwired.

But of late have you all noticed while the government of the day in the person of old battle horse Lau Lee doesn’t seem to have any qualms in extolling the benefits of Darwinian theory in all it’s various shapes and forms  – ranging from, “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger” to “competition is mother’s milk!” – and since this ideology has even been elevated in Singapore to the status of scientific theory to color everything from work, life and play – to perhaps justifying why dying standing at work is the best way to say bye bye. Or why we should compete ceaselessly till our sinews snap – do you all notice when it comes to those who make up government, namely ministers – the aphorism, “the survival of fittest” doesn’t seem to apply with the same level of zeal, rigour and consistency.

I wonder why?

For example. Do you all notice whenever a minister screws up and he suddenly finds himself in the hot seat when most of us are pelting him with rotten tomatoes (besides we know those people who can afford to live in Bukit Timah and Opera Estate only throw rotten Lychees, it’s not as if it’s Sengkang Sally or Ah Beng Buangkok who would normally lob deadly durians- so what harm can a bit of heat do?) – what usually happens is this. First, the minister will run around like a headless chicken for a few days – after the public is thoroughly confused and disorientated with a torrent of gibberish and contradictory statements from this confused person – mini me Lee will step right out and try to restore some semblance of order– he fails of course, and that’s really the cue for the old battle horse to don his armor and roll himself out to do the job of keeping the heavenly balance between people and the government.

The remarkable thing about the old war horse is he works like a magic charm – he always manages to settle the frayed nerves and can even be counted on to lower the temperature even when public outrage seems to spills over and still manage to pluck the poor minister out of the jaws of death. But this picture of good winning over evil misleads.

Because if the whole idea of Darwinian theory is premised on the assumption of the survival of the fittest – then how can a minister and the ministry under his remit materialize any tangible benefits if on the slightest sign of stress and pressure – the referee steps in and stops the game – I mean the whole proposition makes a nonsense to me because I was always under the impression, one reason why Darwinian theory is such a robust ideology for inculcating the culture of continuous improvement is (there’s no way to negotiate around it) because it will always push a species to tipping point no matter what the factor conditions and even force it ultimately to confront ONLY two decision alternatives – adapt or perish i.e since the trade off’s and benefits of remaining in the comfort zone is significantly less under a given set of conditions. It pays to venture out into the discomfort zone.

That’s one reason why I harbor serious misgivings about how Singapore is going to survive beyond old battle horse Lau Lee (maybe it is a good idea to vat his brain?) – because if all he seems to do is to stop ministers from looking like a bunch of shambolic no hopers whenever they can’t seem to find their footing and to sort out the mess in the public square – this may suggest, he’s effectively sabotaging the Darwinian wheel from turning. And that in turn means, instead of improving the system; he may be putting up disincentives for future leaders who would otherwise have to migrate from their comfort to the discomfort zone as they should rightly do – then where would the impetus for creativity and innovation come from? How can we possibly guarantee that the people who occupy leadership positions really have the right stuff? What if they crack under pressure? Do you see my point?

So the question boils down to only this: is Lau Lee inadvertently weakening the government of the day or is he actually revivifying it in the way a football coach pushes the limits of the envelop to get the best out of his players to create a world class team?

Think about it. This is jugular!

At this stage, let me just climb to a vantage point (which shouldn’t be too difficult since all my furniture is now superglued to the wall at waist level) and try to reframe this discussion in an understandable model to further explain why it doesn’t pay to play punk with Darwin – as this happens to be the same reason why I believe – one of the greatest travesties of reason ever perpetrated in the history of economics, mathematics and common sense; is when the US government recently decided to bail out dead beat firms and zombie banks with tax payers money (I happen to be one of only a handful of people who know how to prove this mathematically! Along with the others who are currently in the IMH).

The whole idea seems logical ONLY because governments keep on insisting that without such radical stimulus measures; doing nothing would cause more harm to the economy – here I want you to tease our similarities with how corrosive this strategy is when juxtaposed against the idea whenever a minister finds himself pressed someone comes along and cuts him slack – think about it. What are they really doing? What are we really doing when we step in and show the red card?

Well for starters they’re turning Darwinian theory on its head – the idea would only make sense if you didn’t realize that whenever governments sign off on a bail out plan, what they are actually doing is rewarding incompetence and punishing the intelligent folk on an industrial mass production scale –to paraphrase:  hey, we know that you have run your enterprise to the ground with bad decision making and zero entrepreneurial imagination, but guess what? Surprise, surprise, we are now going to give you more money so that you can go out there and compete with those really clever people who didn’t make the same mistakes as you!

How much sense does that idea make? Think about it! Work it through your noodle.

Yet this is exactly what we are witnessing right now in both the EU and US, a revision of not only capitalism but also economics as we have known it in the last 200 years, that proposes to do away with the Darwinian doctrine of natural (market) selection – only to replace it with something which is IMHO closer to post modernist socialist nihilism masquerading as worthy arcanum. When infact, it’s just a blueprint that leads to the hall of mirrors.

That’s one reason why I believe this recession is not over. Not by half. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just a super fly weight. He’s talking through his hat. Because as long as the Darwinian process isn’t allowed to run its course and winnow those who are capable from those who have no business being there in the first place – that can only mean, the super duper losers, deadbeats, good for nothing bums and can talk all day and do fuck all gang is still circulating somewhere within the system. And since they are still within the system; in all probability they will continue riven all prospects of real recovery.  

And if you take the trouble to superimpose this dystopian model that I have just splayed out on how our ministers regularly get the Big Minister comes to the baby minister rescue treatment – it’s fair to say, we should not expect to see anything exceptional or great from them either – I am sorry, in my book entitled the Origins of the Species – the first rule is – no pain; no gain. And that’s something that you can never ever negotiate around – IMHO either a firm, institution or hegemony gets with the idea 100% or you’re simply not with it – or worst still playing the extinction game. In which case you’re headed directly to the dodo hall of fame.

If anything unless the system is continually stressed, trussed and tensioned at the very apex. Leaders know only too well if the kitchen gets too hot, they can always jump right out of window and Big Daddy is always there to catch them and all their problems will melt away like lemon drops. And the rest as they would say in perfidious faced Versailles when the center gives away – Apres moi le deluge!

Welcome to the extinction game…..stand by to play…..program loading.

Darkness 2010  

“There is nothing wrong with an appeal for unity (it should even be encouraged if possible, but it must be done intelligently) – ONLY, it should NEVER be attempted at the expense of the mufflement of the truth; when was harboring a contrarian view divisive? When did silence ever serve any imperative of knowledge creation? Since when did speaking out confidently and asking intelligent questions constitute something less than patriotic?

If you look CLOSELY at most civilizations, they have progressed precisely because they debated and argued vigorously; conflict should NEVER be feared, it should be UNDERSTOOD instead; the Europeans did precisely that during the age of enlightenment with the likes of Martin Luther, Da Vincci, Corpenicus, Newton etc and look how they benefitted mankind with their rich disquisitions in the arts and sciences.

The only ones in EU who resolutely rejected this idea and plumbed for a bla bla black sheep rubber stamp parliament were the Swiss; they were so united; they didnt even bother to do anything when Adolf Hilter was stomping around in Europe; and we all dont need to wonder why their greatest gift to mankind was the cuckoo clock!”

 Singaporedaddy – Internet Liaison Officer of the Brotherhood – captured in a undisclosed thread somewhere in Singapore by an auto-bot crawler – The Brotherhood Press 2010