2021/12/31
2021/12/22
SE Asia HSR
2021/11/01
Back to the Old Normal?
But there’s a second category of worry here. And this one, arguably, might be worth cultivating: the worry about returning to a global normal we’d rather not come back to. The pandemic broke open public discourse around issues that were either typically sidestepped — mental health struggles, for instance — or accepted with little resistance, like the rigidity of the modern workday. Will returning to normal life mean sweeping these hard conversations back under the rug?
As University of San Diego student Lily Yates told me, “I think people’s increased willingness to intentionally care more for their mental health during the pandemic reveals the problem of just how taboo it is during ‘normal’ times. We shouldn’t need to cite a global pandemic to take extra time for ourselves and set necessary boundaries at work and school. The idea that everyone is ‘okay’ at all times — and that we should pretend we are if we’re not — has been shattered, and it should stay that way.”
2021/09/18
John Berger About the Naked and the Nude
Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. In John Berger's Ways of seeing, he argues that a woman’s social presence is very different from that of a man. Men treat women as objects. Men survey women, and how a woman presents herself determine how she will be treated.
In European oil painting, nude is an ever-recurring subject that particularly manifests how women have been seen as a sight. In today’s discussion, we will take a closer look at some of these paintings and discuss how certain ways of seeing construct women's sense of themselves and the world.
2021/07/30
Crème de la crème: the essence of life
"In French, they have an expression: crème de la crème. ... The cream of the cream. It means the best of the best. The most important essence of life—that’s the crème de la crème. Get it? The rest is just boring and worthless." -- First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami
Crème de la crème is quoted from Haruki Murakami's short novel First Person Singular. The full story drags one into Murakami's typically weird weird (in a good sense) world: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/28/cream
However, today we are not going to talk about the story. We will be delving into the topic of the essence of life, that is, or as Murakami called it, the crème de la crème.
Here is an overview of today's discussion:
- What would you say is the essence of life or 'the cream of the cream'?
- Is it the 'cream of the cream' really the thing that makes our life good?
- What constitutes a good life? What are the elements?
- How does one approach creating a good life? Does it take time to learn? How do you learn it and where do you learn from?
2021/06/09
Rethinking Our Identity
2021/05/16
The Pleasure of Ownership
Here is the format:
1) Please evaluate your pleasure in owning it
How often do you use this item? Do you take special care of it? How? How often?
If it wears out, what will you feel?
Are you likely to purchase it again?
2) Share your habits or rules of purchasing
2021/03/29
Rethink under the Pandemic: Who are meritocratic "winners" and "losers" and how are they created?
Meritocracy deepens the conflict and divide between "winners" and "losers". According to Sandel, we have to rethink three aspects of our civic life: The role of college, the dignity of work and the meaning of success.
Here's some questions we'll discuss:
1. The dignity of work: "What you learn makes what you earn." "The money people make is the measure of their contribution to the common good." Do you agree or disagree?
2. The meaning of success: How is success defined in a meritocracy? Do we live in a meritocracy? What is a better system? What's the meaning of success to you?
3. What is the heart of Meritocratic Ideal?
4. What does Sandel mean by "The hubris of merit"?
5. According to Sandel, meritocracy is corrosive to the common good. What common good may it be? How have definitions of 'common good' possibly changed during the Pandemic?
6. The role of college: Nearly two-third of Americans don't have a four-year college degree. Is a four-year college degree necessary? What is the role of university? What's the problem of creating an economy that makes a university diploma a necessary condition of dignified work and a decent life?
7. Why do you think Michael Sandel calls it "the tyranny of merit"? Why 'tyranny'?
2021/02/22
The Moral Dilemma for Self-driving cars: Who should be protected?
Moral Machine is a moral test designed by MIT Media Lab to gather human perspective on scenarios that self-driving cars will encounter. Go ahead and do it. As you play, make a note of your feelings. Are you uncomfortable? Are you satisfied? Are you convinced? Or are you confused? It will be useful in our discussion this week.
2021/01/23
Why are we free yet unhappy?
Warm up:
Today we're going to talk about freedom.
- Three words to describe freedom
- When was the last time you felt like you were free?
- Do you think you are free now? How about compared to your younger self?
- Do you think a child has more freedom?
- Do you feel like you have more freedom living in Taiwan rather than somewhere else?
2020/10/20
Our Malady
Congressional Inquiry into Health Insurance
Rep. Katie Porter: What I'd like to do now, Mr. Bradway, is I'd like for you to please explain to the American public why you and four other executives deserve to pay yourselves tens of million dollars each year. I've got an empty whiteboard ready to take down your justifications.
Amgen CEO Robert Bradway: I recognize that that's a considerable sum of money. I would, of course, point out that I don't have any direct input to my compensation: that's derived by the board, and it’s the board to a vote of the shareholders who overwhelmingly supported the compensation package for me and the other main executive officers–
Rep. Katie Porter: Reclaiming my time, sir. Do you not know why you're getting hundreds of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars a year? What is the justification? I'd like to show the American people.
Amgen CEO Robert Bradway: Our compensation is consistent with competitive positions at other companies-
Rep. Katie Porter: Mr. Bradway, reclaiming my time. “The other guy gets paid too much too” isn't a justification. I'd like to hear what you do to deserve $124 million in salary–you and your top five executives–over a three year period?
Amgen CEO Robert Bradway: Well, more than 90%- Speaker: Gentlelady’s time has expired. The gentleman may respond to her question.
Amgen CEO Robert Bradway: More than 90% of my compensation is based on performance measures that include how our shares perform relative to the market, and our compensation program is aligned with that of our owners, our share owners. So, a large part of my compensation reflects the fact that we've been creating value for our share owners by advancing innovative medicines like those that we have on the marketplace today.
Rep. Katie Porter: I wish you would focus on creating value for sick patients, Mr. Bradway, not just your shareholders. I yield back.
Pain
Tim Snyder: The bit of book that you're talking about, I'm starting from my own problems with pain, basically. By a problem with pain, I don't mean that I have a lot of physical pain. That's true. But, what I meant is my inability to talk about it.
In the story of my illness, a lot of things go wrong and a lot of them weren’t the fault of individual doctors or nurses. I think generally, they were the fault of a system which makes it impossible for doctors and nurses to work, and maybe we'll go into some of those details and some of that structure. But some of the problem was that repeatedly, I was unable to tell people that I hurt a lot.