Hate the army, and more and more the government too
I thought of a cunning plan on the bus today. It's not a plan to take over the world, unfortunately, but it is in some sense more important than that. It is a plan to cut transportation costs.
Basically, a bus trip to school costs $1.28 on the EZlink card. It's 55c if you pay in coins. Well theoretically you are supposed to pay slightly more than $1.28 in coins, but usually no one bothers, and 55c is the cheapest one can go at this young adult age. The bad thing of such a scheme is that you need to have coins in your wallet all the time. But then again, I do have coins in my wallet most of the time.
Am I really so hard up for cash that I need to go to this extent to cheat the system? Not really. Under this scheme I can at most have a cost saving of $29.20 a month, which is a significant sum, but so is the trouble of ensuring I have the coins every time I go to school and back. But the point really is, one can go this way to cheat the system.
And after reading blogs like this, I think one really should. If not to save money, then at least in silent contempt of the government.
But nah, it's probably too troublesome a scheme, though the poor may really want to consider this. Unlike travelling to army camp when I was serving NS, where I can just sneak past the mrt gantries by pretending to tap the EZ link card. I did it because I felt that I was going to camp against my own will, and I don't pay to do things against my own will.
Basically, a bus trip to school costs $1.28 on the EZlink card. It's 55c if you pay in coins. Well theoretically you are supposed to pay slightly more than $1.28 in coins, but usually no one bothers, and 55c is the cheapest one can go at this young adult age. The bad thing of such a scheme is that you need to have coins in your wallet all the time. But then again, I do have coins in my wallet most of the time.
Am I really so hard up for cash that I need to go to this extent to cheat the system? Not really. Under this scheme I can at most have a cost saving of $29.20 a month, which is a significant sum, but so is the trouble of ensuring I have the coins every time I go to school and back. But the point really is, one can go this way to cheat the system.
And after reading blogs like this, I think one really should. If not to save money, then at least in silent contempt of the government.
But nah, it's probably too troublesome a scheme, though the poor may really want to consider this. Unlike travelling to army camp when I was serving NS, where I can just sneak past the mrt gantries by pretending to tap the EZ link card. I did it because I felt that I was going to camp against my own will, and I don't pay to do things against my own will.
17 Comments:
I going to be quite frank, since I don't wish to see something wrong (at least in my view) go unchallenged and uncorrected. I think this is a greatly naive view and action.
Firstly, I don't see how refusing to pay transport fares is anyway a silent contempt of the government. Probably if one is really committed to show contempt he should just avoid taking public transport altogether. Not paying fares just translates to a vicious cycle. The transport companies make less money, and thus raises the fares again. In the end the ones who suffer will be the majority who pay their proper fares. Concurrently, we're talking about a company; the already low wages of transport operators are going to be suppressed by lower revenues. It is naive to think this 'dissent' is anyway productive. Pleasing to oneself perhaps, yes, but this hurts others, and is counter productive. All in all this translates to selfish benefits derived at the expense of others.
Secondly, while transport fares are regulated by the government, it remains that the transport companies are economic entities on their own. ERP gantries and government surpluses have nothing to do with these corporations. What does not paying fares have to do with the government? Its like a demonstration against a government that ransacked, looted and burnt down a factory that just happened to be in their way. In this case, it just happened the bus company was in your way.
Thirdly, fuel prices are REALLY going up. Its not an illusion; its not a conspiracy to get commuters to pay more money. Look around the world. Riots are going on elsewhere over fuel prices. Profits and prices must shift. Yes, companies should digest some of the cost, but not to the point they make losses. Something's got to give.
Yes, there are policies that I disagree with. But it doesn't mean one should do surrender to his emotions and just do as he likes. Consequences follow actions. Logic must be applied to evaluate them.
As to not paying fares for the poor, I'm sure, I hope, they have more dignity than that, lest not in the greatest desperation of circumstances, which we have absolutely no qualification to claim.
Aquila
I'm going to be quite frank. My hatred for the army is irrational and I take it out where I can. I even thought of going berserk and shooting people with the rifle. Luckily I restrained myself during those times.
Actually though, I hope one day someone will.
I've never claimed hatred and revenge is rational. Neither is silent contempt.
Now you know why I love reading Mr Wang.
Moral consciousness.
Junrong, humans are never irrational in the first place. I don't think economics should assume that people always behave rationally.
But its our better developed sense of rationality that separates us from other animals and beasts. Humans have committed countless atrocities under the influence of irrationality, such as racism and murder. Even if we are not, surely we should aspire and strive to be the thinking man rather than beasts of nature? One should place great vigilance in guarding against his irrationality: the packs of wolves that lurk at the bays of our better nature.
Aquila
So says the person who downloads movies and songs illegally off the internet.
Certainly humans do not function solely on rationality. Yes we will strive to be thinking individuals, but that does not mean we'll act upon them. Yes, irrationality is also a greatly naive view, but lets face it, life is full of follies as well, or we might as well be a system that works in a clockwork manner.
Now, there are things which some of us will feel should not be done, but there is also a judicial system to weigh the costs of those actions against those who're caught. No such systems can be perfect, but then, that still does not give us an excuse or right to try bend everybody to follow the same rules all the time.
It's not that I'm a proponent of this though. I do find a silent contempt simply self-fulfilling, and unnecessarily conflicting with my character.
oh dont we all just love being humans?
the horror the horror!
I do not seek self-justification for my wrong doings in a self-deceiving, self-righteous manner. I am not proud of them, and neither should one be of his wrong doings. I certainly am not capable of disguising and glorifying stealing to the equivalent of righteous justifiable acts.
No, my disappointment is not of judicial rules and systems or punishments of any kind, but of whether we can still differentiate the right from the wrong.
If we cannot control our irrationality, we will risk slipping to become beasts of nature, like in Lord of the Flies. Murderers after all, merely abandon their silent contempt.
Aquila
1) I'm not self-justifying my acts in any rational manner.
2) I don't think my acts are right.
3) I am going to persist in my acts as I deem fit just like you very likely are going to continue downloading illegal files and play illegal games.
I don't understand your last sentence. Your high tones of rationality and irrationality, dignity or indignity don't impress me. You seem to imply that I'm trying to sound self-righteous when, looking at your comments, I think it's more obvious that you are the one trying to be self-righteous with all your talk about dignity and rational human beings.
Another take on Lord of the Flies and other dystopian literature, as well as various political treatises, is that humans are innately bad. We are, possibly, all innately beasts. Some people choose to wear the mask of human faces and go about talking about dignity. Others freely admit that they are vultures, wolves, pigs, whathaveyou.
I, for one, freely admit I am a whale in human's clothing. Another viewpoint, as a professor who taught me once said, is that normality is itself a form of neurosis. Alternatively, as gleaned from a postcard on another blog, we are really all just mental patients with keys.Or..think we do..
'I don't think my acts are right.'
That's all I think is necessary. I rest my case.
Aquila
You will still keep your illegal files, even while knowing it's wrong. And then you will talk about dignity and such, which I find very hypocritical.
Basically, we are both law-breakers. Just that one is more hypocritical than the other. I rest my case here.
Hi Aquila,
Fuel prices are indeed rising, but the main point of Mr Wang's post is to highlight the shocking incompetencies of our government, and also how it siphons money unnecessarily from the people by producing 'proofs' that supposedly justify their policies but which only turn out to be gross miscalculations. This extra income usually ends up in the politicians' pockets when they receive pay raises. I call this 'legal corruption'. I am so happy that our leaders are good mathematicians. Suddenly Bush seems like a smart guy.
I enjoyed reading Lord of the Flies too. I agree with SirWhale that Golding's purpose is to illustrate how human nature is inherently ugly and how we are capable of horrifying savagery. I do not think this has anything to do with espousing the value of rationality - in fact, I would say that kindness and altruism are irrational as opposed of pure selfishness. Anyway, the last sentence in Golding's classic is this: "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy." 'The darkness of man's heart' is an obvious reference to Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which Golding used to illuminate his own theme.
Anyway, I'm glad you like that book.
" oh why fear the night, when there are darker things in the human heart."
If irrationality is controlled (considering this sentence is indeed rational itself), are computers more human than us?
http://non-compos-mentis.blogspot.com/2008/06/resistance-and-rebellion.html
The entry in the link above provides a good perspective on what it means to be irrational.
" more human than human/" dum de dum de dumm
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