I sleep very well at night, these days. I make my ablutions, I commit to my prayers. I seek His guidance and His mercy. I take a bath – I slough off the detritus of the day’s struggles. Into bed, and into a book – the words and pages and chapters are a benediction. My evening meditation against the defeats and disappointments of a human existence. Then the words lull me into a welcome embrace – it’s alright. Everything is alright.
Tentang Penjajahan
Ini bukan daerah milikmu lagi. Tanah pamah ini, yang dahulunya kau pijak dan injak – kau tiada berhak lagi. Desir pasir yang kau belai, rerumputan yang kau harung, denyut sungai yang dahulunya kau mudik – kini sudah asing buatmu. Tak lagi memikul beban kehilangan. Tak lagi menzikirkan kepiluan.
Di sini dahulunya kau tanam benih gelisah, maka mekarlah ia, dibajai derita wasangka. Dan seperti setiap sesuatu yang kau tanam – ia menjadi suatu janin yang mati direnggut masa. Tewas tanpa nafas. Kini cuma tinggal nesan yang tersudut sepi – hanya suatu mercu kehampaan yang telah lama aku tinggalkan, telah lama aku kuburkan.
Jangan sangka aku masih terjajah. Aku sudah lama merdeka dari semua sesal lara.
On Artificial Intelligence
The public debut of ChatGPT will, one day, be a fixture of our history books, much like Edison’s light bulb moment, or that first step for mankind on the moon, or Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad Gita as he presided over that first atomic bomb explosion at New Mexico. Seminal moments in human technology and ingenuity that have transformed modern lives beyond what our forefathers could have barely imagined.
No doubt, the ripple waves from this transformation will cascade into our lives, and in unexpected ways. Professors asking their students to quote their ChatGPT prompts in their assignments. Microsoft finally breaking into Google’s effective monopoly for Internet search with chat functionalities. Entire professions – advertising, public relations, accounting, lawyering – which were once the preserve of credentialed white-collar professionals will have to contend with artificial intelligence.
But I think the sense of alarm – watch out, ChatGPT is out to take our jobs! – is exaggerated. Yes, artificial intelligence will change the way we work and live. Yes, the capabilities will undoubtedly improve even more over time.
But have we not seen this before? Didn’t the steam locomotive transform the way we travel, the way we received news? Didn’t the telegraph muster a radical transformation in business, government, in military affairs? Keynes predicted in 1930 that the advent of new technologies would mean that one day we would only need to work for 15 hours a week, at most. (I can almost hear the bitter laughter from my millenial readers.)
The truth is, technology almost always proves the adage that the more things change, the more things stay the same. The white heat of technological advancement in the past century may indeed be transformative, but for as long as those technologies intersect with humans – with human fears and desires and wants – then we will always find some modus vivendi with the new innovations in our lives, however painful that transition process might become.
And if anything, the rise of AI must always remind us to treasure what is most unique about the human experience – our ingenuity, our curiosity, our tenacity, our wilfulness. These technologies will always serve as tools for those very human aspects of our existence.
As we contemplate how AI will change our lives, we cannot be complacent, but neither should we give in to panic. Like all waves of change, they demand that we dig deeper into what it means to be human, and to bring to bear our own unique individual Fitrah in absorbing and adapting to change. Keep calm and carry on – history and technology marches ever onwards, and we will always need to be ready to meet them.
On The State of the Union
For as long as I can remember, I have been an Americophile (yes, apparently it’s a real word!) No surprises there, I suppose – having been born in the United States (both my parents were studying in Louisiana at the time), I have always had sentimental attachment to the USA, even if my own personal memories of my time there as a child was limited to a handful of photographs of my being a toddler.
Growing up in the Reagan era of the 1980s, it was very difficult not to look at America with a sense of admiration. Coca Cola and McDonald’s and Superman were icons that loomed large in our childhood, and the idea of the American Dream was not yet besmirched by the grime of cynicism and disappointment that has been the American legacy of the post-9/11 era.
I grew up reading Spiderman, watching Batman and Superman on the silver screen, and I remember spending my mornings doing my homework while CNN was playing on the morning television broadcast, watching the entire might of the mighty American military being brought down like a sledgehammer onto Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after the latter’s invasion of Kuwait. America was the almighty behemoth of the world, and once the Berlin Wall had fallen, the USA bestrode the globe as an unchallenged colossus – the one and only superpower of the late 20th century.
Going to college, I fell into student politics, and political biographies became my preferred vein of reading material ever since. I came to know FDR and Truman and Eisenhower and Kennedy through McCullough and Schlesinger and many other scholars of American politics. And when Barack Obama ran for the presidency, my abiding interest for American politics kicked up another notch: I started watching Meet The Press on the weekends, trawled through RealClearPolitics and the New York Times and other news portals to read the tea leaves of the unfolding campaign. Obama becoming President will probably be the high watermark of American esteem and prestige in my lifetime, and I soaked every moment of his time in office. His speeches at Selma and Berlin and Egypt. His announcement of the capture of Osama bin Laden. Those speeches at the White House Correspondents’ Dinners.
And, of course, the State of the Union – that spectacle of American power and pageantry. Ostensibly a report card to be laid open for the American people, but really an annual statement of intent – a manifesto of a president in office and in power.
Biden might not have that same soaring oratory that marked Obama’s time as President. But for this State of the Union address, you will find me eager as always, watching and learning, basking in the theatre of American politics – still, so far, the hub and core of global power in my lifetime.
On New Beginnings
We often celebrate pivotal moments in our lives – birthdays, holidays, new year’s days – as hinges in history, natural moments in which one page of life ends and another opens anew. Sometimes we are seduced into thinking that change can only happen when such hinges unfold themselves. Not quite realising, of course, that Change can happen at any moment of our choosing – as long as we are ready for that Transformation to sweep in and take us off into new and unexpected adventures.
Today’s 3 Things III – Tech Layoffs, Employer Spyware, Private Market Valuations
- Tech companies doing mass layoffs is no longer surprising, but it is jarring to see employers resort to the axe when there is so much evidence out that that points to massive erosion in goodwill, trust and morale when employees are summarily dismissed. And the human cost of it, is so painful and unnecessary. There is always a better way to do this – but too many employers are too scared, or too lazy, to do the right thing.
- So… there’s this thing called employer spyware now, where employers would install software of company computers that would monitor your work activities, figure out if you’ve been spending too much time on Twitter (or, like in my case right now, blogging haha), even monitor your keystrokes. You can even get dismissed from work, with Big Brother software bearing witness against you and lazy-ass ways. Creepy. Should we all be worried now?
- In Warren Buffett’s memorable phrasing, when the tide finally goes out is when you know who has been swimming naked. This has certainly been the case in the past few months, as central banks ratchet up interest rates and companies find it increasingly harder to raise funds. More scrutiny is now being brought to bear in private markets, especially when it comes to asset valuations in PE and VC portfolios. This is not new, of course, but the “funding winter” is certainly shining a light on how real the purported overperformance in private markets really is.
Today’s 3 Things II – Population Decline, Slow Productivity, and Political Financing
- China’s population on the decline! India might overtake China as most populous country! – one could worry about implications of declining populations on national productivity, pension liabilities, and whatnot. But maybe, just maybe, it might simply be a lagging indicator to show that things are… good?
- “Slow productivity” is a thing, now. The past 20 years have been a whirlwind of emails and SMS and BBM pings and Slack and Whatsapp and Zoom calls – and it’s all getting a bit too much. The revolution is nigh.
- For as long as we don’t solve the problem of political financing and lobbying transparency in Malaysia, we will never truly fix the dysfunctionality of our contemporary politics. Some might say, eleh US pun sama je. Yes, lobbying and jockeying for influence will always be there – indeed, it is a core function of the political process! But the American approach of making political financing more transparent has its benefits – it makes public policy-making more transparent and more accountable, and reduces the likelihood of corrupt behaviour in doing under-the-table deals for private advantage.
Today’s 3 Things – SingTel, Nurul Izzah, Zahid Hamidi
- I was reading this news report about SingTel being recently majority-controlled by private equity firms, and thought, oh wow, a positive piece on PE ownership that does not demonise private equity ownership as heartless asset-stripping capitalists! Then I realised – oh, it’s a news report from a stock investing app. Figures hahah.
- So, prominent economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram says, on the issue of Anwar’s daughter being appointed as an advisor to the Finance Minister: “I am also not keen on the prime minister being the finance minister. I am also not keen on this (Nurul Izzah’s) appointment. But all things considered the reaction to her appointment is unwarranted.” And then goes on to enumerate the ways in which appointed the PM’s daughter as an advisor might bring advantages. Fair enough. Nuanced, right? But then, you will notice that the headline simply says: “Jomo: Nurul Izzah’s new appointment not a liability”. Nice.
- “Saya mesti berusaha bukan saya benci, tidak ada satu zarah, satu molekul rasa benci kepada mana-mana individu, tetapi parti mesti diselamatkan,” kata seorang Presiden parti politik yang memalitkan najis rasuah pada wajah partinya sendiri, mencantas pemimpin tempatan yang membawa kepada kekalahan partinya dalam negeri-negeri yang sebelum ini menjadi kubu kuat partinya, menjadi bebanan utama bagi para pemimpin muda parti beliau sendiri, membelakangkan keputusan partinya sendiri untuk tidak bersama pemimpin dan parti lawan tertentu, dan menyanggupi parti tunjang negara menjadi pelakon tambahan dalam pentas politik tanahair. Siapa yang perlu diselamatkan, ya?
Book Review I (2023): Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
I’ve been on a Cormac McCarthy binge in the past few months, having read Blood Meridian (his most celebrated work, and probably his best), and also having finished his most recently-published books, the literary duet of The Passenger and Stella Maris. These books, like the rest of Cormac McCarthy’s oeuvre, carry within them a heady concoction of stoic characters, cinematic vistas, Faulknerian complexity, biblical cadences, and elemental violence. So, I suppose it was natural that I would move on next to reading Suttree.
Some of his fans think of Suttree as his best work. I would probably beg to differ, but Suttree is certainly McCarthy’s funniest book that I have read so far, and probably the most merciless in the way that McCarthy puts his main character through the most harrowing episodes: that bit with typhoid fever had me shaking my head in pity and disbelief.
Suttree tells of the adventures and travails of Cornelius Suttree, who makes a living as a fisherman on the outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee. Throughout the novel, Suttree makes his way through life amidst poverty and squalor, as we meet the vagabonds, ne’er-do-wells and po’ folk that make up his community. The writer hints at an educated man who chooses this hard life, descending down into the Hades of the American South to swim with the flotsam and jetsam of humanity. He makes many bad choices, but is ultimately saved by the constancy with which he keeps faith with the friends that he surrounds himself with, and the wry amusement with which he views the world and its happenings .
As always with McCarthy, the joy is in his inimitable style of writing: frequently cinematic, sometimes ethereal, often garrulous, and never shrinking from the bare-knuckled truths of human existence.
It is often said that Suttree is the most autobiographical of his novels, and I can only surmise, after having read Suttree, that most of this book must have been written from personal experience, for it to be so searing and achingly painful. The violence and drama is often leavened by humour – mainly from the capers of the memorable Harrogate – but for the most part, this is not a book to be read while you are holidaying by the beach.
I would give this book a 4-star rating: the writing is muscular and also beautiful in the way that only Cormac McCarthy can make it, but also painfully merciless, that by the end, the reader is almost glad that Suttree’s suffering would hopefully come to an end.
Today’s Read XV – Personal Branding, Open Tenders, and Global Conflict
- “To reduce ourselves to brands… is to do violence to our personhood.” – another reminder of why we must resist this current madness for “influencing” and performative broadcasting: our very Humanity is at stake.
- An Umno politician waxing lyrical about the advantages of open tender for public projects – will wonders never cease?
- Our own Andrew Sheng co-writes an intriguing analysis of East/West and North/South divides in contemporary international affairs, and points out the obvious: “everyone loses In a fractured world.” And yet – surely we are headed nowhere but towards increasing conflict and probably even outright war, soon enough.