One month left

As of today I have one month left in Taiwan. I’m clearly beginning to get a bit homesick, with some uncharacteristically mushy posts about friends and readers of mine in the states, and I’m excited to be coming back soon.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Taiwan. Over the next several weeks I hope to post more about my experiences here and spend some time reflecting on the trip and what I learned. That being said, its been difficult to employ my normal strategy of dealing with the long distance move, (cut all roots and put down new ones) when I know ahead of time I’ll only be gone a few months.

So the last few months I have lived in between the timezones, somewhere over the pacific ocean, and its been an unusual experience. Again, I’ll certainly post more about it later, but I just wanted to take note of it now, and mark the one month left occasion.

Just Posting

So, i’m waiting on a reply from one of my co-workers so I can get down to the serious business of crafting a press release. As I have exhausted my feed reader, I figured I would jump on to outwardlyfoolish.

Today I am actually exhausted. I was up fairly late last night talking to a friend of mine. The time zone difference between me and the people who I find the most interesting is a real tax on my productivity here in Taipei. Anyway, I had updated him on an ongoing situation I find myself in. He had started to tell me his opinions on how i should approach the situation when I responded,  “don’t give me the textbook answer,” and then we both started laughing at my description of what he was telling me as “textbook.”

This post is not intended to describe that situation, or the specific contents of said textbook. Clues about both of those things can be found throughout this blog and I really am too exhausted to grapple with them here. This is a post about the textbook itself, and what it means to me.  He agreed that his advice was a response right out of a text, though he noted, and I acknowledge, it is a text used only by the two of us.

Of course there is no real textbook; none of this material has ever been written down. In reality, the textbook describes a body of thought built up over countless conversations in which I am allowed to really roam unbounded through the mental spaces. These liquid concepts flow under the surface of my behavior and my expression, leaking onto the pages of this blog and into the lives of any with whom I come in contact.  It rejects existing value measures, ignores common sense, and advocates modes of thinking and behavior which, through my dutiful cultivation, have lead many to comment with concern on my increasing detachment from reality. I see this as progress.

People are always telling me I’m being stupid, or they just refuse to believe that I am honestly doing what I say I am doing. I’m regularly accused of falsifying my motives, or just rationalizing failure, laziness, greed, apathy, or some other thing which really and truly (and you’ll just have to take my word for it) doesn’t have any application to what I’m doing or thinking about. I’ve even been accused of being a sociopath, but really my strategies and perspectives are mostly by-the-book.

This is a textbook for the two of us, not because we keep it a secret or bar our other friends from participating, and certainly not because we are smarter or more well read than they are, but only because he and I are playing a completely different game than them. It is a game we are winning, and our textbook records our winning strategies. In order to understand whats happening, imagine everyone in the world is in a golf tournament, only he and I are playing to get the highest score. At that point, we aren’t even really playing golf, but we like the game we’re winning.

The important thing here is to recognize that just because you were put on a golf course with balls and clubs, and everyone is trying to teach you how to play golf, does not mean you have to play. Seriously, it just doesn’t mean that. I’ll tell a story.

When I was young we had a jacuzzi in our backyard. After any time in it, on the way back to the house, my brother would get closer to the house, then declare a race to our room. Of course, with his lead, he would always beat me and then dance and brag about his win. This used to make me furious. I called on my dad to back me up, “tell him that’s not fair, make him play by the rules!”

He told me each time, “Just don’t race him, Shane.”

I guess, now that I have reached the bottom of this post, I realize what it is about; someone else is playing the game I am playing. I’m always looking for others, always looking. It’s lonely to play by yourself. I guess I just can’t really describe what it means to know that there is at least somebody else. Glad to know you man.

Note: If this post is not about you, it does not mean that we are not friends. No hard feelings, all my other friends.

Taipei MRT

Wow,  posting an article on facebook generates a bit of traffic, and, though i didn’t recieve too many comments on the page itself, the feedback i have recieved on “A little bit about morning in Taiwan” has been pretty positive.  In light of this, and because I have been waiting to write about this for a little while, here’s a post about my daily commute. 1 hour each way.

The Taipei MRT is supposedly the best light rail system in the world. I can believe this. The trains run at least once every 15 minutes even at the slowest times of the day. During peak hours, they come as often as once every 4. Not only do they come often, but they run 18 hours a day every day. Its incredibly convenient.

To ride the trains you need a MRT card or you can buy tokens at the stations. Tokens are worth different amounts, depending on how far you are going. You swipe the token, or card, to get into the train system, and swipe it again to leave. The  fare is automatically deducted from your card.

When I first arrived in Taipei, and knew nothing, one time i got on the wrong train and went to the wrong place. I had to backtrack and try again. But, this only happened once, as I learned during that adventure that next to each door is a row of colored lights corresponding with the color of the line the train will be operating on. Thats right, master your colors, and you too can master Tapei rail.

Perhaps i was distracted by what i consider a miracle of engineering. When you stand at the door of certain stations, you can feel air rushing past you into the station from the outside. At other stations, the air flows the other way. Most of the time you are underground, there is a constant, noticeable breeze.  The same is true in the trains themselves. There is an air conditioner, but not one powerful enough to generate the breeze you can feel. This mystified me, so i started paying attention.

Now, this explanation maybe totally mislead, as i have asked people and no one knows to confirm or deny it, but it seems to me that the MRT uses the natural airflow of the island to supplement its ventilation system. Yes, the system seems to be designed so that the prevailing winds, the movement of the trains, and the differences in temperature above and below ground work with the fans to keep the air in the station fresh. That’s some Asian ingenuity right there. Seriously, think about that for a moment. The place is ventilated by the fucking wind!!

Perhaps this is why in April 2009, the MRT recieved an average daily ridership of 1.2 million. And these riders take this shit seriously. As tourist friendly as the buildings, trains, and signage may be, the people of Taipei are unforgiving. They have come to the station to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and all other concerns (courtesy, personal space, anyone else but themselves) seem to take a back seat.

When the doors open, people start to get off the train, and they have about 5 seconds to complete this task before people begin to push their way on. This leads to a sort of turbulence as the traffic is trying to flow in both directions at once. There is almost never any violence or shouting, but if you are caught in this vortex, expect to be bumped forcefully.

Once on the train, everyone wants to stand by the door, and will stay as close to is as the crowd allows them. Then, remarkably, as the train moves to a stop, they will push even closer to the doors, preparing to blast off. And blast off they do, when the doors open, hundreds of people move at just short of a run for the stairs and escalators, hoping to be first so they will not have to wait behind anyone slower than themselves.

Its really one hell of a spectacle, and anyone who thinks that Asians always put the group before themselves as individuals should, first, stop generalizing (for shame) and second, watch a middle aged woman cut off an octogenarian on the way to the escalator, pushing him aside and not even looking back. The facial expressions are without joy or mercy, the eyes are fierce.

Every day i get to enjoy this marvel of human engineering and spectacle of human self-service. If you ever come to Taipei, make sure to spend a little time on the MRT.

A little bit about morning in Taiwan

Every morning, assuming the bright light of the tropical sun doesn’t get me first, I wake up to a song. Is it the bright, cheerful voices of birds, or some personally chosen motivational track to rouse me from my sleep and get me ready to start the day? No. The song is Yankee Doodle.

Actually, I guess its a stretch to call it Yankee Doodle, as it is in Chinese, sung in the horrible high pitch nasal tones that is customary of what might be the equivalent of adult contemporary here in Taiwan. The tune though, Yankee Doodle through and through, complete with the rat-a-tat-tat of what i can only assume are revolutionary era drums.

You see, every morning, right outside my window, a group of women assembles. Each morning they arrive around 7:00, and usually within 2  minutes or so, they begin their routine. This routine starts with the play button on a portable CD player not meant for the volume at which it is played, but that doesn’t stop them. They have come to excercise, and excercise requires loud music.

Some might get bored of the same songs played in the same order morning after morning, but not these fitness enthusiasts. They seem completely comfortable with a routine so regular that i can actually use it to check my progress through my own daily ritual.

Yankee Doodle means its 7:05, time to wake up. Its time for me to hurry up and finish brushing my teeth if i can hear what sounds like another shrill chinese woman rapping over a toy piano rendition of the “Ode to Joy,” breathtaking i assure you. I know I am late if, before I lay eyes on the assembly itself, I can catch their worst audio indecency, a tune which, miraculously, mercy has withheld from my permanent memory. I would guess it is playing on loop in hell, if you’re interested in hearing it for yourself.

This brings me to the activities of the women themselves. What are they doing that requires such a soundtrack? Who compels them to do it?

I have identfied their leader as a woman with a stiff hairdo, kept short and up away from the head in the style of old women. Her face is painted on meticulously, highlighting a fat, backward sloping face, which manages to arrange itself into a sort of scowl even as she is clearly smiling.  She leads them all in their excercises.

When the music starts, they begin shaking their hands. Now to the left, now to the right, the way you do to flick off excess water before using the auto-dryer in the public bathroom, only they do it to the rythm (or try). This is not a warmup. This is the excercise itself. Sometimes they will take a step forward as they do it, then step back. Sometimes they will make sideward steps. Sometimes they will even twist their torsos as much as their aging bodies allow, but never will their hands stop flicking imaginary droplets, never will they dry.

Right Right, left left, up, down, up, down, the pattern varies, and our fearless (or is it fearsome) leader coordinates it all. This is how I start my morning here in Taiwan. Every day i am given a stark reminder that no matter where my day takes me, at least I am not in a park somewhere, listening to Chinese Yankee Doodle and shaking my hands.

An interesting observation

So an interesting observation has been made by one of my regular readers: I don’t really write much about Taiwan. Having been here now for the better part of three months, you might think there would have been something to say about my day to day doings in a foreign nation. Yet i have been, for the most part, silent about this place, its people, and my perspective on it all.

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, I have to be somewhat cautious about the specific comments I might make, and the political implications they may carry. As a contractor for the American Institute in Taiwan, I was strongly advised to keep my opinions to myself, lest my words be misinterpreted. Needless to say, upon my return I will be much more open to share what I have noticed here. Yet, it would be something of a cop out to suggest that this is the whole reason why Taiwan doesn’t figure in to my posts. In fact, there is very little by way of anecdote on this blog at all.

This is actually a subject i’m interested in. Anyone who has spent time with me personally knows that i very much enjoy recounting, with emphasis and exaggeration added for dramatic effect, even the minor details of my day. I can certainly talk at great length about the happenings in my every day life, and i do enjoy telling stories. Certainly, my time in Taiwan, in a totally unique setting with a whole new cast of characters, provides ample material for my tendency towards narration. Yet again, for some reason, not only Taiwan, but most of the things happening in my life do not actually get mentioned here.

I have noticed before that in certain circumstances, or with certain people, I have no desire to tell these stories about what happened to me. If asked about my day, I will reply “Oh you know, nothing really,” which in my opinion is an honest assesment of the importance, to me, of the days events. If i think something will interest a certain person, or if I believe it is related to something they have said, I will offer up my own little narrative, describing something that happened to me, or that I am aware happened to someone. However, if pressed to pick for myself, I can rarely think of anything I consider worth talking about without prompting.

I am not sure what that all means, and i’m not sure how well i’ve looked at it here, but i will pose the question to the crowd. Do you think I tell stories often? Would you like me to tell more? Fewer? Is this the right mixture of personal narration and idle mental wandering? I’ll probably be moving in a more narrative direction without being told not to. Its a muscle i’d like to excercise a little more.

Individuals and the Community

So i had an interesting thought on the way home today. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about population dynamics, social structures, emergent properties, webs, liberty, evolution, ethics, you know, the usual commuter musings. Today I had a fairly stunning idea.

Ordinarily we think of communalist societies who limit individual behavior according to strict community rules as being more focused on the well being of the community than they individual. Likewise, those societies that value individual freedom at the expense of a well ordered society are considered to hold a higher regard for the individual than the community.

Today I thought about this problem in terms of the survivability of individual agents versus that of the group, and i realized that from such a perspective, those may both be mistaken notions.

Clearly, in a communalistic society, individual freedoms are sacrified to the norms of the society. What the individual does is what the society has determined is best. In all discussions i have ever had on the subject, it was assumed that the individual was of low importance relative to the society, since his aims were subjected to its rules. There is some sense to this. Yet, as i have come to understand the value of diversity, and the mechanisms by which populations evolve and are successful, i see clearly that this brand of homogenization actually works against the group in the long run. By limiting the behavior of all members of the group to the known best practices, the group is unable to generate potential responses to new environments before those responses are needed. The very structure that allows all the members of a group to be successful under a given set of conditions makes all those same members equally vulnerable when conditions change.

This structure increases, rather than decreases risk for the community as a whole. It does, however, increase the likelihood of success for any one individual under known circumstances. Thus, the communalist society uses the best models of future environments available to it and limits the behavior of its members to those activities which will allow them to be successful in that environment. This is a strategy for protecting the individual, not the group, by forcing each and every agent to pursue the best known strategy, the security of each agent is maximized, but the overall fitness of the group suffers.

In the individualistic society, on the other hand, freedom of action for individuals leads to conflict between agents, self destructive behavior, and ultimately a challenge to peaceful society that can never be completely overcome. However, by ensuring that all agents will be able to pursue whatever strategies appear most useful to them, the system as a whole benefits greatly. Individuals may destory themselves in mass, taking outrageous, stupid risks. They may destroy each other. In our current situation, they may even attempt to destroy the entire population, yet the very systemic freedom that allows such harmful individual acts, protects the population from them. You see, with enough agents trying different strategies, the probability is much greater that when the environment changes rapidly, at least a few of those agents will already be doing what it takes to be successful. Here, at the expense of masses of failed individuals, the community is quick and healthy. It adapts to change, learns and remembers. It grows.

This is the force that makes markets vibrant and democracies robust, it is the engine behind the evolution of species, the emergence of consciousness, and the magic of the internet. It is necessary only to align your agents and give them the freedom to pursue their own ends without concern for their well being, and the power of the network, the web, will allow the community a robust existence.

Of course, I would be leaving myself wide open to Tim’s attacks if i didn’t state that individual power need not be unlimited, only individual freedom. In fact, it would be beneficial to install your agents with a healthy dislike for other agents who became disproportionately powerful. Perhaps something like jealousy?

An Ode to my only fan

So i look at the stats of this page on a fairly regular basis. They tell me how many people have looked at my page, where they came from to get here (only if they linked in) and what it was they looked at.

I have noticed that when i post more stuff, more people come. When I post less stuff, fewer people come. I have also noticed that I am most likely to stop posting stuff for a while when something more important comes up and occupies my mind, or when i start to think its not important to keep writing if no one cares to read.  So, I can look back and see when I’ve been focused inward, thinking and not writing and not getting visitors, and focused outward, writing and getting visitors. (I am always thinking, only sometimes I get overwhelmed by it).

One thing i have noticed though, is that through all my variability in posting frequency (and quality), I have one true fan. Every day for months now I have had at least one visitor. Every day, my stats tell me, someone cares what I have to say enough to click the words that will take them to a place where i am talking about things that are important to me. This post, then, is to express my sincere gratitude to that one fan. Here is my ode to my only fan.

Though my fan may not comment,

my fan reads.

Though i may provide my fan with nothing new for days in a row,

my fan keeps coming back each day,

just to be sure.

Though my fan will never say my posts are good or bad,

through the act of repetition, each new click, my fan confirms for me the worth of my endeavor.

It is for this fan that I fret when i have gone ten days without a word,

for this fan that I hope my posts are valuable in some small way.

This fan is the audience I seek.

And if my only fan remains my only one,

it would be enough for me.

Thank you, fan, for taking the time to pay attention.

Ordinarily i shy away from verse, but hey. What the hell. Thanks for reading everybody. And thank you.

Damnit, must post about Swine Flu

OK, its getting to be a really hot issue, and it practically begs for a comment. Here i go, my thoughts on swine flu.

We have been hearing alot about this new H1N1 variant of the flu virus, how its supposed to be a super deadly variant how its spreading wildy through the population. We’ve also been seeing a number of extreme reposnses to this. School districts all over America are closing, Mexico seems to have shut down completely for a few weeks, and China has quarantined an entire hotel where a man was suspected to have the dreaded swine flu.

Here’s my take on the news out of Mexico. They were reporting something like 100 deaths out of about 1600 cases. Does anyone notice that those numbers sound strange? At first glance we think, oh shit, thats 1 out of 16 dead, very serious. A more careful inspection may cause you to wonder, why has such a seriously infectious virus only affected 1600 people in Mexico? I mean, its Mexico, only 1600? Mexico city has like 17 million people in it.

More likely there are something like hundreds of thousands if not several million cases in mexico. Now how do those numbers look. 100/100,000,000. Oh, 1 in 100,000? Suddenly i like my odds alot better. Now lets get more skeptical. We’ll put on our Mexico-has-terrible-infrastructure-for-identifying-and-reporting-illness hats for a moment. (Disclosure: I am not able to accurately comment on the ability of the Mexican health community to identify and report swine flu deaths, this is an assumption for argument’s sake).

Lets assume that they underreported by a factor of 100. That is to say, for every swine flu death they reported, they missed 99. I find this to be incredibly unlikely, but we’ll just take it as a given for argument’s sake. This puts the number of swine flu dead at about 10,000 as opposed to the 100 we are hearing about. 10,000 is certainly a scary number. If we take it into account as a percentage of population (about 100,000,000 in Mexico) that would be like 36,000 dead in the US. Jesus thats horrible. 36,000 dead from flu would be an epic disaster, except, thats right, thats how many people die from flu EVERY YEAR in the US.

OK everyone, go ahead and pick apart that statistical excercise. Of course i left out some things, of course i failed to recognize some important facts. This isn’t an academic paper. I don’t work for the CDC. The main thing i wanted to point out is that, when placed in context, these numbers are not nearly as terrible as we are hearing.

I’ve actually picked up on rumors that the actual flu is somehow worse than is being reported, and that the government is trying to keep us in the dark to prevent a panic. I’ve got news for you foil-hat enthusiasts out there on the internet. The idea that Govt hides the truth to prevent panic is silly.  I have worked for the government before. Hell, I work for a government agency now.Govt agencies are huge, dumb, and anything but leak proof. Seriously, ask yourself, could a network of thousands of individuals know something like “swine flu is super infectious and deadly” without telling anyone? Could you keep a secret like that? Could every one of your facebook friends keep that secret. Multiply the number of your facebook friends by 50-100 (depending on your social butterfly factor) and you’ll have an idea of how many sets of lips would need to be sealed. Does this seem like a likely scenario to you?

Media on the other hand makes money when people are terrified enough to buy their papers and watch the news. They are not only incentivized to over-report a crisis, they have a long history of it. How many epidemics or global disasters that didn’t happen in the last ten years can you name of the top of your head? Avian flu? SARS? Y2K? Is this an institution you’re prepared to take seriously on swine flu?  Massive conspiracy to keep you in the dark about health, or yet another case of fear mongering by the media, which do you find more likely?

Of course, H1N1 is a bit different. It isn’t just the elderly and children dying from this variant (at least not in Mexico, supposedly), We should all, of course, take some basic flu season precautions. Get plenty of rest, drink plenty of water, try to avoid tiny crowded rooms, don’t put shit in your mouth, and wash your fucking hands. Beyond that, lets be reasonable people. Did you stockpile food for Y2K, Did you self-quarantine for SARS? Just go on with your business everybody, and let’s try and keep herd panic to a minimum. Christ.

Teenagers Not Guilty in Fatal Beating – NYTimes.com

Teenagers Not Guilty in Fatal Beating – NYTimes.com. This is a story i saw today looking through my reader. I encourage you to read it, but it goes like this.

Some members of the local football team were headed home from a party, when they came across a 25 year old immigrant and his girlfriend. The boys harrassed the girl and shouted ethnic slurs at the pair, prompting the man to shout back and dial friends on his phone. This quickly escalated into a fight in which the man was beaten to death by the group of boys.

Today the boys were found guilty of simple assualt, and cleared of third degree murder, aggravated assault, and ethnic intimidation. With an all white jury in a backwards pennsylvania town, this is not too hard to believe, but its still absolutely reprehensible.

The idea that they might be cleared of ethnic intimidation i can see. Perhaps it was only accidental that they shouted a number of racial slurs before launching an ultimately deadly attack. I guess when you get angry you use the insults you know. I can let that slide, but when you fight someone and they die, how do you avoid the murder charge? I mean, they killed a man, that is not disputed. In the united states, when you kill someone, it is called murder, and you go to jail for it.

This is really a travesty. Pottsville PA, shame on you.