Democracy – My Opportunity, My Voice

In 221 BC, a unified China was born after 500 years of fighting between warring states. This new dynasty would be called Chin and its emperor, the first in China, had conquered 6 neighbouring feudal states in 10 short years.

Having unified the country by war, he gained absolute power and unleashed a slew of ambitious initiatives, unifying China’s measurement units, currency, culture, and language. Unification was codified in laws that severely punished anyone who didn’t obey. Old literature was burned and philosophers were executed to suppress dissents. Hundreds of thousands of citizens were forced to leave their homes and travel for months by foot in freezing weather to construct the Great Wall. Many young and able men died on the journey. Citizens were tired by years of war, the assiduous uprooting of their local cultures, and the separation between loved ones. But it didn’t matter, for the emperor had the only vote in the country that counted. So people revolted, ending a dynasty 15 years after its inception, plunging a newly unified China into chaos for 5 years. This was life under dictatorship – where people could only listen. When they want to be heard, chaos and revolt would often follow.

About 3 centuries earlier in another part of the world, the city state of Athens showed a different model of government. One of its prominent features was an assembly (Ecclesia) that occurred around 40 times a year, where every ordinary citizen could gather to listen to proposed laws, and vote to pass, reject, or return them for amendment. The assembly is also a place to elect officials. It was in Athens that the word “democracy” came into being. In Greek, it means “rule of the people”.

Democracy is a political system in which the people choose how and who will govern them. All citizens are given the freedom to voice their own view, with each voice having equal weight. Through voting, democracy allows the change of government and policies to occur without violence, and every citizen has an opportunity to be heard. In democracy, people have a voice and the government cannot silence them simply for its pleasure.

To me, democracy is the opportunity to have an impact on the country through my voice. It gives me a sense of satisfaction to know that if I form a point view through learning, and vote to help bring it to reality, then I am no longer an indifferent observer but an activist making a change. I become part owner of this country. It means I participate in a community of people with whom I share much in common to craft a future we deem beautiful, and that others’ lives could be better because of my contribution. I could help a friend’s parents pay less for home care, or help to fund the education for a child from a low income family, or help to attract foreign investment in green technology that creates more jobs for my neighbours. Democracy gives me the opportunity to change my world through my voice.

Democracy also gives me the opportunity to build a legacy. My family immigrated to Canada in 1997 and I have received for free what previous generations of Canadians have built through democracy – a safe and prosperous society, a high quality education system, universal health care, and more importantly, the laws and policies that value respect for minorities, compassion for the less fortunate in society, and appreciation for diverse points of view. These are qualities I admire, aspire to, and feel compelled to protect and pass on to the generations of Canadians after me so they may learn the values that the country has stood for. Democracy is the opportunity to shape the legacy I will be proud to call my own and pass it onto others as it had been passed to me.

There is a sequel to the Chin dynasty story. Even though the dynasty survived for only 15 years, the Chin emperor managed to leave an infrastructure for national unification and a centralized government system with emperor having absolute power. For more than 2000 years since Chin, China would remain largely a unified country with dictatorial rule.* Many succeeding emperors found no incentive to educate the public, and in some dynasties intellectuals were actively persecuted. I often wondered how different China’s history would have been had its people been allowed to demand for more education. Could China have led the industrial revolution? We might never find out for sure.

Chin dynasty left a legacy in building its nation, but it stemmed from the emperor’s choices. The impact of this legacy was felt by many generations after Chin, yet Chin’s own people had no opportunity to choose that legacy. I could only imagine what that must have felt like, to live in someone else’s aspirations.

Canada faces many challenges today, ranging from youth unemployment to global warming. Democracy means these problems are opportunities for ordinary Canadians like me to be nation builders. With democracy we can shape a legacy for generations of Canadians to enjoy, a legacy we can proudly call our own.

* Apr 4, 2012.  Correction: Dr. Yu mentioned that China actually spent more of its years as a divided nation than unified, if starting the count from the the dynasties before Chin.

Videos: Celebration of Steve Jobs’s life

Jonathan Ive’s tribute to Jobs:

“The Crazy Ones” as read by Steve Jobs:

Book: The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

Score: 4.5/5

This book is about the internet as a medium, and its effect on the brain to make concentration and deep thinking difficult.  Below is what I got from the book.

Through research findings, Carr shows that the human brain is ever flexible, constantly changing to adapt to the tools used and experiences received.  As we make and shape our tools, so do our tools shape us.

A modern day book is a tool that collected centuries of innovation.  Before them, writings were done on costly scrolls, requiring great hand-eye coordination and dexterity when reading.  Words were written in the fashion of spoken syllables – with no standard spelling, no standard word orders (grammar), no punctuation, and no spaces in between words. 

Reading and deciphering text in those days was a mentally taxing activity that often required sounding out the words, reading over the text multiple times to entertain possible interpretations and selecting the most possible one, all the while moving the scroll with both hands.

Reading was thus reserved for the rich, who usually hired a slave with dexterity to sound out the syllables on the scroll for a group of social elites who then discuss the meaning of the material.  Reading was public and social.

Things changed after the book.  Books are light weight, portable, have no back lighting (easy on the eyes), high resolution, and are very easy to handle and navigate with page numbers, chapters, and sections.  The introduction of standard grammar, punctuation, and spaces made clear the start and end of a complete thought and deciphering text could be feasible without sounding out the syllables.  Then the printing press came along to automate the craft of book making, dramatically bringing down the cost of book ownership.

All these innovations made reading low cost and user friendly to the the ordinary individuals, and widespread literacy soon followed.  More importantly, reading became a private exercise.  The book is a technology optimized for transmitting complex ideas and focused on creating an environment free of physical and mental distraction.  This is the “rabbit hole effect” where the book disappears during reading and each reader can engage in a tranquil and private conversation with the author while forming ideas and exercise deep, abstract thinking.

The internet, by comparison, has very different characteristics.  It lowered the cost of producing content further and every net user can become a contributor of content of all types – text, sound, and videos.  The web is also driven by monetization models by clicks, and web pages are filled with hyperlinks and advertisements all vying for attention.

The net is also dynamic – one can be constantly notified of emails and web site updates that ceaselessly demand immediate attention.  The internet is fraught with interruption.

Whereas information is abundant, attention is scarce.  We handle the net information deluge by skimming and skipping, chopping our attention and taxing our mind to make decisions constantly on the links to click and where to navigate next.  Many choose to “outsource” memorization to the net, not wanting to remember the information and trusting Google to help us find back what we had found.

All these have consequences.  Not only are we more distracted on the net, but as our brain gets into the habit of distraction, we are more distracted all the time.  Distraction, on top of making one tense and anxious, is the enemy of memorization and the formation, storage, and retrieval of complex thoughts and insights associated with intelligence.  Studies show that for the same material, readers scored higher in comprehension and memorization reading off of the book than from the net.  An experienced net user remembers and “sees” less from reading, making them shallower readers.

Just like the intellectual mind benefits from the lack of distraction, the qualities considered as human, such as empathy and compassion, also requires a calm mind.  Contrary to the computer memory, the human memory and mind (and therefore the self) constantly inform and shape one another.  A mind trained to be distracted and obsessed with speed could risk losing not just intellect, but some humanness as well.

Carr sees the internet as a great technology for betterment and admits to not having all the answers to the effect of the medium.  He encourages new exploration and debates on the subject and urges the readers to be vigil on the effect of the internet on our lives.

I have found Carr’s argument eloquent, compelling, rich with historical context, and I highly recommend this book. 

(Book image from Amazon.ca)

Video: f8 keynote from Facebook

I am sharing this video for two reasons:

• For all, there’s a pretty good anecdote at ‘37:45 of the video.  What gives you the “kick” to do what you do?
• For technical folks, I think the Open Graph/Graph feature is an important step.  Maybe this is another way of approaching the semantic web that Tim Berners-Lee envisioned.

Watch live streaming video from f8conference at livestream.com

Article: Sean Parker: Agent of Disruption (from Forbes.com)

A great article with a more realistic view about the former President of Facebook – so we’re not stuck with the theatrical view from the movie The Social Network.

Thanks Albert for sharing this article.

Economist.com article on Taiwanese film “Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale” (賽德克·巴萊)

From Economist.com – happy to see a film so focused on Taiwanese aboriginal history gain some spotlight.

Video: An ECG for the iPhone (from Technology Review)

A doctor invented an ECG attachment to the iPhone.