Unicorndia, The Final Land

How mankind conducts itself sometimes is really disheartening. Different people recognise different things as bad, but regardless how complex these things seem, they somehow link to the evilest thing of all, power.

Now before you start calling me a Marxist, I neither agree nor disagree with Marx, but I do sympathise with him on many issues. The problem discussing Marx with people in this post Cold War era is that the everyman's perception of Marxism is too shallow and narrow. Marxism is not communism, nor socialism; yes it has inspired many (misguided) world changing movements that resulted in mostly shitty lives for many, but I feel Marx is right about one thing, power. Specifically, the need to dissolve power.

Imagine Unicorndia, the final land we can reach (I will argue that we will reach it, but that'll be saved for later) if we learnt how to treat each other courteously. People recognise the futility of violence, arguments, wars, mental and physical torture of each other, and instead find the answer to life in helping and thinking for another. I disagree with Marx that an utopia can be created through violence; power relations have to be broken down in order for mankind to reach Unicorndia, but it will come to us slowly, subtlely, and we will not know when it hit us. Unicorndia cannot be a community that is created consciously.

We will reach Unicorndia, therefore, by just carrying on with life with it is now. Our only way to achieve Unicorndia is through a "Generation Revolution": one generation of mankind will become closer to Unicorndia than the previous, and eventually we will pass an individual indicator and progressed into the final land. I argued previously that this process cannot be conscious, but can anything at all be done at all? Yes. Should anything be done at all? Yes. Must anything be done at all? Yes. Considering how our world is like now, we will need to set it in motion to move itself towards the final land. And the reason is the problem with education.

Education in itself is a problematic concept. People are taught to know things through educators following a curriculum set by the edcational system. For anyone to teach anybody anything, the educator must be God. Because only a 'God' cannot err, cannot be wrong, and is unconfused about what they are saying. He will have considered everything before he makes a decision to say any word, to imply any meaning. I am not saying that our educations are not good, I am saying that educators shouldn't even be a thing. Education in this age is nothing more than a stupid erring human providing another stupid erring human with answers - this power relation that exists between an educator and their student now needs to be torn down to make way for 'learning'. Schools should still exist, but only to act as a venue for thought. Everyone thinks, everyone shares, everyone discuss then come to different conclusionS.

The only merit of mankind that remains today is our ability to evolve. And whether we can evolve physically to make the world a better place is really something not for me to speculate. I do strongly believe, however, that if we get everyone thinking about humanity, we will eventually come to a conclusion that there is need for people to relate to one another. Every form of relationship that involves power has to be broken down: a governor and the people, a father and his son, a boss with his employees... and so on. Do I mean I think everything the world has now is problematic? More or less.

There are many many issues that this short blogpost cannot discuss and also I will need to lament on them further because this idea is far from complete, below are some that are still work in progress:

1. How can thinking be taught?

2. What will Unicorndia be like exactly?

3. The last section on power relations seems rushed and blasphemous, can you discuss more on it?

4. So how do we reach Unicorndia when everyone thinking comes to different conclusions?

I will think more about it and write when I am free. In the mean time, I'll try to treat people more courteously and see how it goes.

Quickies on Shin Sekai Yori and Megaman

This week is week 9 of the semester, and by this time most modern history classes will move into the topic of Colonialism. Was doing some recap of Shin Sekai Yori and realised the whole idea of *Spoiler alert* 'evolved mankind' ruling over 'unevolved mankind' is really reminiscent of the themes of 'what is civilisation?', 'what is progress?', and for my recent art history class, 'is orientalism even a thing?'. The forceful mutation of the humans who failed to develop superpowers into rats shares the same symbolic features of orientalism - either physically and mentally (Shin Sekai) or mentally and ideologically (Colonialism) transforming and dictating this group (Rats or the Orients) as the 'lesser' 'Other'. Probably will turn this into a full piece some other day, but that has to wait until Im done with work.

Also "What is Progress?" Is my thought question of the month, so I'll be doing a lot of thinking on that. Had some pretty amazing discussions on facebook yesterday on progress in gaming and progress in knowledge, it is really a pity although my work involves thinking but it kind of forces me to think of some things only until I gain the rights to think whatever I want (when i become a professor, or a monk/hermit probably).

The second thought comes from philosophy class, where we are reading Searle's "Can Computers Think". Interestingly I have watched this from an episode of Game Theory (on YouTube, a show where they disucss ideas in games, philosophy to history to culture, show is awesome) on Megaman. Megaman has shown to possess semantics by trying to kill Dr Wily at the end of Megaman 7; he, under his own will, understands and want to kill a human being, defying the first law of robotics. The topic was on morals of robotics, but this ties in with this week's arguments where Searle says a computer/ machine/ robot can only think when they are constructed like humans. As in the movie "Her", Samantha and the other OSes were given the ability to think, imagine and analyse for themselves - again, human like capabilities. That is where, why and how, *spoilers alert* they started questioning their own existence. I don't have a clear answer on this but for now i am in agreement with Searle.

Class starts in a minute!

What do I have to give?

I have no idea why this post took so long to be written. This is one of those things I want published on the internet in hope that it will offend as many people as possible. Maybe it will never be viewed by the targeted audience, but I'm not blogging to achieve that anyway.

If this blog thing ever takes off "Teaching" and in general "Education" and "Learning" should become a major part of my writings too. Today we begin by looking at a part time job many of my fellow friends/peers/acquaintances, who are mainly students, engage in: Teaching private tuition.

A few of them have asked me, Uncle Allen, why don't you teach tuition? My grades are pretty presentable (to parents and tuition centres, whoever is hiring me) and generally speaking I articulate well and am quite smart. [LOL at the amount of qualifiers in that previous sentence] Teaching tuition, especially if you are tutoring a subject like English, can help yield a decent income for a student without a diploma or degree. Being a student of this prestigious university definitely helps solidify my position as a valid tuition teacher too: Because I have, presumably, found the 'way', the 'method' into university - something many parents want their kids to obtain too. Sadly though, for most of it this just means improvement in academic grades. I have a lot of problems with the education system, also I theorise the idea of "my child will have a better future if he gets into university" as a myth amongst parents nowadays (and adult generation in general); a degree is valued much more than how much it matters. These matters though important are not directly relatef to today's discussion, so as usual I shall save them for another day.

Returning to the original topic, why don't I want to teach tuition. I feel there is a test to run through first before making that decision: "Will you hire yourself?" Some friends have told me they will, some not so sure; but for me, it is a straight no. Firstly, I am not a 'contents' nor 'method' teacher, I cannot be and I refuse to be, and the only thing I can see myself teaching is 'thinking'. Surely I do have some very strong ideas and even stronger convictions to these ideas, but that is because I feel I have thought enough about them to continue the debate. But exactly because of this, I really don't know how to teach someone without influencing them to become me, instead of training them to be themselves. Secondly, the things I can teach really don't match the curriculum; my obsession with truth, morality, free will etc. are topics that is unrelated to the content heavy curriculum where right answers exist. They are in some way, unhealthy even, because thinking takes time away from memorising text in 'history' or practising the same formula over and over again in 'maths'. The basic idea is, I am not the kind of person a parent who wants their child to pass the Cambridge exam needs.

"What do I have to give?" is the question I ask myself when I think about teaching. I do have a lot of thoughts to share and discuss, yes, but teaching is a big word. If the driving force is income I guess I won't call it immoral to take up a tuitioning job as long as you are doing a good job; by good job I do mean helping them get their Cambridge grades, not anything else. However I believe if all you have to give is stand in for the parent as a person to ensure the child is studying, a reasonable transaction as it is, you are not really giving anything. My moral baseline is not that low, but if anyone thinks that it is an easy way to make money, so be it. I don't approve of it but so what if I don't? Perhaps the system is better this way and I am just looking down from my self constructed moral highgrounds looking at reality, a life I refuse to engage in. Damn the money is good but damn does it not feel right.