Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by Beastboy

Where to get Buddhist car stickers?

Beastboy — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:40:59 +0800

Can anyone tell me where I can get those plastic stickers that Buddhist devotees stick on their car windshields, with wordings like Amituofo (老實念佛)? Went to 3 temples in over Wesak day but failed to find one. KL/PJ area please. Thanks!

Is the world growing stupider?

Beastboy — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:54:12 +0800

"... in modern society, natural selection has become indifferent toward intelligence, so that in a society in which intelligence is systematically debased, stupid people easily out-breed the intelligent, creating, over the course of five centuries, an irredeemably dysfunctional society. Consequently, the children of the educated elites are drowned in a sea of sexually promiscuous, illiterate, alcoholic, degenerate peers." Source.

As far as I know, Stephen Hawking doesn't have any kids. Neither did Einstein, Newton, Alan Turing, Dawkins and a bunch of other intellectual notables. The average middle class westerner probably has 2 kids max, in contrast to goat herders, slash-and-burn cultivators and dictators from the other parts of the world where some can have up to 14 children. Yup, the dumb ones are outbreeding the smart ones by as much as 10 to 1.

If you've been to the UK, you'll know that the best selling newspaper is The Sun. To put it bluntly, its a paper that smart intellectuals don't usually buy.

Do you think over time, we will become a planet of idiots as the smart ones die out and don't reproduce?

(Btw you guys put up some new topics lar... boring leh, not many topics to discuss.)

Does life have a purpose?

Beastboy — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:23:04 +0800

I scanned the PhD section for this question but didn't see it fielded anywhere. Since most philosophers are concerned about our place in the universe, Greek ancients included, I thought I'd pose it here.

Do you think life is a random occurrence, we came to the top of the food chain by some fluke accident and there is no such thing as a purpose?

Do you think we are two-legged lab rats and there's something out there that's observing how we play it out?

Do you think because of our intellectual limitations, we are incapable of knowing our purpose in life?

I know its hard not to drag in beliefs in a question like this (which shows how little things have changed since Descartes days) but do try and be as belief-neutral and logical as you can. Looking forward to your views.

How to talk to prospective employers

Beastboy — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:42:01 +0800

I took a taxi in KL once and had a conversation with the uncle who drove it. He's around late 50's, spoke intelligently in perfect English so I asked him how long he had been driving a taxi. He said 3 years. Many years ago he was a manager in a firm up north but the factory closed down. After that he tried to find a job but no one would hire him becoz he was already 50+. He couldn't start a business becoz all his money went to support a large extended family. He was the sole breadwinner.

After sizing him up, I concluded that this is one sharp guy who will do well in marketing or similar. I spoke to some headhunters who told me there's an unwritten rule that for middle management positions, candidates above 45 is considered 'expired goods.' And to hire a senior manager with 3 years experience driving a taxi...lagi worse.

Companies always complain about shortage of talent but oddly, when talent and experience shows up, they turn it away because too young or too old for them. This is after losing young managers who stay only for 2-3 years before they jump.

If you were considered outside the age range of the employer, how would you talk them into disregarding the age factor?

Plastic

Beastboy — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:15:47 +0800

Some local studies have been done on plastic bag usage (The Sun 22 April 2010) in the environmental context but I've been unable to find a local study on whether our heavy reliance on plastic utensils - bowls, plates, chopsticks - has a correlation to ailments like cancer in Malaysians. Has anyone come across such a study?

The concern is bisphenol A (BPA) and other compounds that are released from plastics when they come into contact with hot water. A related question is whether there are manufacturing standards within the local plastics industry to reduce this danger.

My own father is a cancer patient and it was during his treatment that I notice how cancer sufferers tend to be Chinese. I wonder if its just a coincidence that this segment also has a lifestyle of eating out... at hawkers who routinely serve you boiling hot soup in cheap plastic bowls, give you plastic chopsticks & plastic soup spoons. Has anyone seen a proven link between a habitual use of these implements and cancer?

p/s I know we humans will die of anything we eat if we eat enough of it but I'd like to confine the discussion to the effect of plastics on our mortality.

Solar energy as an alternative source

Beastboy — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:29:10 +0800

I'm no expert in this topic but would like to hear from you if you are. Its year 2010, everyone's worried we're running out of oil so why haven't we seen solar energy factories dotting our landscape?

Solar heat is probably our biggest source of free energy as a tropical country. The heat is unbearable. Isn't it possible, at the minimum, to use that heat to turn water to steam, use that steam to turn a motor that charges a large battery, and use that battery to run light bulbs and fans?

What are the issues that are preventing such a thing?

The human killing machine

Beastboy — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:58:27 +0800

The total number of people killed in imperial China, including during the 3 kingdoms era plus the two world wars is about 300 million. Its like killing every man, woman and child in the USA. If you count other wars, revolutions and genocides throughout recorded history, the casualty number is probably many times higher.

Today we've made mass killing easier. U can fight a war by pushing buttons from a bunker like a video game.

IMHO, the only reason why we haven't gone extinct is because we're breeding faster than we can self destruct.

One thing immediately jumps out in this scenario. Our tech progress very moves fast but our mental progress is very slow. In fact, I don't think minds have evolved much since Emperor Qing's time. We've only developed the means to kill each other more efficiently.

This gap between tech progress and personal/social development progress widens with every new scientific discovery. I suspect that as long as this gap exist, humans will continue to kill each other. When they are at par, maybe we've progressed so far mentally that we lost all desire to kill each other. Maybe.

If you agree that our tech progress is moving much faster than our social capability to cope with it, the question I pose is, does this lag have an evolutionary value? If yes, what do you think such a lag would serve, since evolution is supposed to enhance survival rather than extinction?

Will the Terminator-style doomsday ever happen?

Beastboy — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:56:29 +0800

Do you think its possible for machines to control human life one day?

We are already surrendering control of our lives to machines bit by bit, from the ECU in your car to autopilot software to the health support machines in the hospital.

Isaac Asimov wrote the 3 laws of robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

But that's sci-fi. In real life, there are no such rules. You can develop AI, robotics and internet computing to anything you fancy, unlike cloning. Nothing stops you from developing a monster robot or software that takes down everything connected to the internet, and probably a few countries along with it.

So should developers be subject to strict ethical rules? Who's going to police it and stop rogue developers from unleashing bots that create havoc in other people's lives?

More importantly, do you think the tipping point will happen? As in the day when machines and software lock out humans and start doing their own thing, out of control, and even impose control over us for our own good - the Terminator scenario? (actually self-replicating viruses and worms are already going out of control, causing economic damage...)

Reasons to get a PhD?

Beastboy — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:51:57 +0800

If anyone here has a PhD, can you share with us what made you decide to get a PhD?

Was it because

- better salary
- prestige
- job promotion
- genuine academic interest
- you didn't know what to do with life & you had a sponsor
- your father told you to

I did ask a couple of PhD's in real life. One said prestige, the other said better salary... which she now regrets becoz a lecturer's salary really sucks.

Does anyone really go for a PhD because they were truly interested in the knowledge?

Does the law protect you from unreasonable bonds?

Beastboy — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:51:30 +0800

An employment contract (for permanent job, not contract job) states that if you accept this job offer, you agree to stay for 2 years minimum. If you leave, you have to pay back the balance. The bond is not for training or whatever. Its just to save the company from some hassle of looking for replacement. It is a high stress job.

Can such a contract be enforced under Malaysian law?

My friend who's stuck in that position did ask a lawyer and the lawyer said since you signed it, you cannot escape it.

I thought that's strange because what's to stop anyone from signing away 10 years of his life in a dead-end job where the salary is frozen and work conditions are unfit for humans? Especially if the job was low-level and the person can't even read English? Wouldn't that be a legalized form of slavery?

Is there is a law anywhere that makes certain clauses illegal and therefore unenforceable, even if one did sign it in his desperation to escape unemployment?

Why people believe in lucky numbers?

Beastboy — Fri, 07 May 2010 12:02:47 +0800

Do superstition affect you? It did to me. Recently I bought a car and had to pay some money to buy a number plate. Its not becoz I like the number. Its becoz I want to avoid certain numbers that will make it hard for me to sell my car later (I oredi kena with my previous car which had two digit '4' on the plate, cilaka.) So I did it for financial reasons.

Yes many of us don't believe in lucky numbers but we still choose to avoid it because its seems nobody want to buy anything with a "bad" digit on it. So indirectly a disbeliever oso encourage the practice of lucky numbers.

The question: Do lucky numbers work?

Before you say no, let me give this scenario. Lets say you were shopping for a house and you got two to choose from on the same street. One is no. 44, the other is 68. Price same, both are equal in all other respects. Which would you buy? Why? If you avoided no. 44 and you say lucky numbers don't work, isn't that a contradiction?

If sea levels rise by 3 inches...

Beastboy — Fri, 07 May 2010 11:26:00 +0800

Some say the water level is rising by 0.05mm a year, some say 3mm a year. I've seen estimates up to 6mm a year in some areas, all caused by melting ice in the north. Whichever number u pick, the water is rising and there's nothing much you can do about it. If you have property by the sea, finish lar your land value.

When water rises, our swamps and low lying areas go underwater. Our territorial boundaries in the sea will shift. The land mass will get smaller. We might even have some new islands as high tide cuts off some land. The map of Malaysia will change. Btw this has already happened in some island nations in the South Pacific.

Does anyone know if there is a map simulator that shows how our map might look like when the water rises?

There's another side question to this.

As land gets scarce, landed property prices shoot up thru the roof. People run to high rise living. Why hasn't humans thought of moving the other way - underground or under the sea? What is stopping them... cost? Because 20 years from now, we could be paying RM2 million for a simple apartment. Would carving a hole in the hillside cost even half of that, or a plexiglass undersea 'aquarium apartment' off Pulau Ketam really cost that much?

In fact, why do you think people anywhere are reluctant to live anywhere but the surface?

Can the six degrees of separation be disproved?

Beastboy — Fri, 07 May 2010 10:14:03 +0800

Do you believe in the six degrees of separation?

The theory is that 2 people are only 6 steps or less away from each other via a friend-of-a-friend chain.

To prove that Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus or David Beckham are just 6 friend away from you, you just have to find a friend who knows someone who knows someone, 6 times or less, until they reach one of these celebrities. Using the same way, you can also prove a personal connection to anyone from a Papua New Guinea tribesman to Queen Elizabeth.

What I am interested in is whether anyone can think of a case to disprove this theory of six degrees. Anyone?

How do you determine what is real and what is not?

Beastboy — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:14:39 +0800

The most common test of reality for the last thousand years is I'll believe it when I see it.

Here are some basic facts that we know:

1. Humans have 5 senses - sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. 6 if you like to include mind.

2. Our senses are unreliable. We hear things that aren't there and we can't remember where we put our keys.

3. Our 6 senses are insufficent to 'see' reality so we build equipment like x-ray telescopes to see things outside our natural capabilities.

4. We are inventing new methods & equipment all the time, to 'see' more and more things we never knew existed before.

5. There is no way to tell how many more attractions we haven't seen in the universe because we haven't invented the technology to see everything yet.

That last point also means tha quite possibly, our current & limited view of 'reality' is nothing like true reality. We only think we've seen everything and we brush aside anything that we doesn't match with our present knowledge.

Why this is important?

Because we base our truths on verifiable information, that we'll believe it when we see it. Some scientists in Copernicus time were sentenced to death because they could 'see' things others can't, things that are obvious to a 16 year old student nowadays.

Yet, as of this century, we may have only seen very little of what is out there. Last time, there was no dark matter. Recently, got. Last time, there were no invisible particles called neutrinos. Now, got. Who knows what we'll discover next year and so on. Our truth changes everytime we invent a new sensing instrument and every so often, we discover something new and force ourselves to revise the definition of 'truth.' Truth that would have turned us into a laughing stock a few years ago.

So given all that, can we be so confident about what is true and what is not, what exist and what doesn't exist, or that our view of truth is any more valid than another person's view of truth?

Do we need our problems to be happy?

Beastboy — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:58:40 +0800

Some people say you can't know happiness until you know sadness. You can't know wealth until you've known poverty. I think there is some truth to it from my observation of rich people. Got big house, big car, women, lots of money, and still not happy liao.

I started thinking about it when I saw people playing video games. If someone took your game away, you will be mad. The question is why, Your real-life survival doesn't depend on the game. Some say it is a time-waster becoz you burn 40-50 hours and got nothing but red eyes but it is so important in your life that you cannot let it go. Shouldn't you be thanking the guy who takes it away because he's relieving you of a problem? No game, no need to worry about high score, right?

A video game is an imaginary challenge. So is skydiving, street racing, learning music, etc. We don't actually need to do these things to survive but we do it anyway. We actually spend a staggering the amount of energy and money trying to solve imaginary problems, to score an imaginary goal. If we succeed, we feel good about ourselves. We get self esteem and confidence, something to brag about. If we don't, we try again.

Everybody says they hate problems but guess what we do when we have no problems. We start looking for a problem to solve. A hobby, a sport, a project, something that can make us declare, "Yes!! I did it!!"

That's why I think we need our problems to be happy. What do you think?

This might help with the question.

In your opinion, what is happiness? Is it a) the absence of problems? or b) our ability to conquer them?

If (a) then techincally you are happiest when you are dead. If (b), if we could remove all the challenges in our lives, then we also remove any possibility for us to be happy because without challenges there is nothing more to conquer. This is another way of saying we need pain and problems to be happy. (Yup it sounds kinda s&m twisted but I don't know how else to put it.)

Next time you start wishing oh, if only all my problems would disappear, I would be so happy, be careful of your wish. Because if what I think is right, you'll be more miserable than happy if all your problems disappear.

What do you think?