Rich Dude, Poor Dude

This is a round-up of the week’s most exciting movie (in three glorious formats!) that will not make it to the Oscars.

By the way, because this is the Kwoskar Awards, everyone’s a winner! All of you who have acted in this play, give yourself a pat on your back and a trophy too (you know who).

Back to the point.

In the first Act where Poor Dude (P) was begging for shoes (and trousers too, for one class), the Rich Dude (R) typically ignored him and walked away. Some of the reasons are that (1) R feels P doesn’t deserve the item, (2) P needs more pertinent aid than something that isn’t deemed to be an immediate necessity, (3) there is no benefit to R, (4) R will end up with nothing if he gives away something of limited quantity in his possession, but will give it if he has more of it. R also might have felt that (5) it was none of his business, (6) “if you feed one monkey, the others will come”–note the connotations, and (7) it depends on whether the object of affection is limited in availability or not–pricelessness.

Of course the R who gave once to P but stopped giving also has his own legitimate reasons: R stopped giving because (8) the item is a necessity and he has immediate need for it which prevented him from giving it away. If it is going to put you in a dire situation, it is a bad decision. Shoes, give. Trousers, no.

(There are in fact three scenes, and in one class we’d seen two scenes for this first Act, but I shall not reveal what the last item is!)

Thus although the reasons given are the same in general, the value-system of the act of giving is different. While some feel that shoes are immediate necessities, others may feel that shoes are something they can still do without–but certainly not the trousers! What you see as a dispensible necessity (an oxymoron), others may see it as an absolute necessity.

The point is, there is always at least a reason for any needs. And we want to also look at country, company or community-specific evidence to prove your thesis statement.

Note (3) above. Marginal benefits must outweigh the marginal cost before the individual takes an action, eg: giving and sharing (hope I have not mangle the concept). That’s Economics. So let me translate it to GP. That is not to say that “marginal benefit” cannot be understood in simple English. An individual will take an action if it doesn’t compromise his position, eg: well-being, reputation, character. Which is why it is awkward to say that one can give and give without losing much and you’d still have enough. The situation is just too hypothetical and you’d need to tell me if there is any country who would be in such a position to give without worrying about their financial well-being and budget deficits. Thus the marginal benefit gained from helping outweighs the cost.

Maybe this set of articles would lend you some credibility (in GP, not Econs! [But at this moment, I wonder why people tend to hyper-correct themselves when they say “Maths” is the wrong abbrevation for “Mathematics” and “Math” is correct but we don’t really bother if it is “Econ” or “Econs”.]) Special thanks to TIME.

In the second Act (the one after the “Happy Prince”), some of you found that (i) there is no strong reason to convince you (R) to give or lend away the item, or (ii) it depends on whether R believes P needs it. And because the act is that of lending, some felt it would be (iii) troublesome to get the borrower to pay up the loan. This brings to discussion the difference between giving and lending. If it is a gift, it is expected that you don’t get it back, but if it is a loan, it is expected that you get the loan sum back (plus interest, maybe). There is a difference in expectation, which is why certain countries might have trouble coming to terms with writing off debts. Then, is it selfish of them if they do not write off the debts? Is it selfish of them if they do not give but they lend to the needy?

When you think about these questions, be careful not to fall down the slippery slope. Of course some of you have heard about it in lecture already; you might also have heard of the conditional reasoning. Here’s a clarification, using Maths no less.

Conditional reasoning isn’t saying “If X, then Y.”

It is: “If X, then Y. We see X happening, therefore we claim Y.”

Seriously, it isn’t important at this stage to remember what the terms are (because there are many and can be very confusing). Just remember to back up your claims with evidence.

The Current Current Affairs Quiz

There are some amendments to the answers to the current Current Affairs Quiz, and it will actually affected the Kwoskar-nominated actors for Wed and Thu’s performances, but I wonder who would have seen this post before then. Here are the corrections:

Q3) Certainly Benazir Bhutto.

Q12) PAS is also an acceptable answer, by the way.

Q15) Constitution (that was indeed blatant).

That’s it. But if there are any more mistakes spotted, feel free to raise them here.

At least the mistake isn’t as bad as this!

Just a piece of current affairs in the college context. The fish in the pond that we saw being killed were killed for a legitimate reason. They were suffering from a bacteria infection, which was deemed to be contagious. Thus the ‘genocide’.

Fried Day the 13th

Sometimes the heat makes one weak, but I am proud of my class for their strength: mental and physical. And this is a class with only one boy for this CIP. The other 11 were all girls.

The scene at about 11.30am kind of resembled the one in Saving Private Ryan (hmmm maybe there wasn’t a scene like this in the movie). We received a call for reinforcement and were despatched promptly over to comb the second of the two additional blocks after completing the four designated blocks. Most of the Juniors had been on task and were helpful in this entire mission. But when they had to leave amidst helping out at the last block, the remainder of the reinforcement saw themselves fighting their own battle while the main troops “ROC-ed” (no relation to the original context of the acronym in the Singapore Armed Forces, but commonly used to stand for “relax one corner”).

Well, the use of military references is intended, since it was an event to mark Total Defence Day anyway!

15 ploughed on.

Such team spirit which they denied afterwards. I found it interesting that actually they had the spirit, they did what they had to do (by my instruction, which they might have hated it) and that was a picture-perfect scene where the college values and TD values all blend in nicely yet they explicated that they didn’t feel these values. (TD, by the way, isn’t Temporary Disability or Total Disability like what is written on insurance forms or health declaration forms.)

This actually serves a case in point: that anything viewed as structuralistic can be pretty hard to swallow. Actions speak loud. Perhaps this is the Way for things like National Education (actually many people have been airing this same view for the past years), maybe more suitably so for students of this age-group. If you try to measure it for precision and accuracy, you might well be using a metre rule to measure the weight of resilience.

“All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

(It’s a Fried-day!)