Rich Snail

I am in a sci-fi kind of mood in recent weeks. So I decided to catch up with the classics. I can now happily tick Brave New World (BNW) off my list.

Written in 1931 by Aldous Huxley, BNW is often compared to Orwell’s 1984. Being a big fan of Orwell’s work, I had to check it out. While I still prefer the author of 1984, I very much enjoyed Huxley’s book.

BNW takes place on a future Earth where developments in reproductive technology, psychological manipulation, and conditioning enables society to offer its citizens a life  devoid of pain and unhappy emotions. As the story progresses, we learn some of the disturbing secrets that lie underneath the bright, shiny facade of this highly-ordered world.

BNW is a book that inspires a lot of thinking about our lives today. I personally can’t shake the uneasiness that we are moving closer to Huxley’s dystopian vision as years go by. I hope the future will prove me wrong.

• Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

The results percolated all night long, but the end result is the expected one : BN wins another term.

A few important points to note:

• BN retain a simple majority with 133 seats, PR gains seven seats to reach 88
• 80% of Malaysia’s 13 million registered voters got their fingers inked
• BN polled 5.220 million votes to PR’s 5.489 million

What I take away from all this

• The BN “multi-culturalism” mantra is shattered. MCA, Gerakan and MIC are now irrelevant. The policies BN pursued in recent years made it impossible for the coalition partners to perform well this time around.
• But I wouldn’t qualify this trend based on racial terms. Urban communities are a lot more mixed than rural ones. BN’s shortcoming in most urban areas are mainly the result of their ignoring the plight of urban dwellers (security, housing cost, etc.).
• The blue ink, vote stuffing and phantom voters are secondary to the gerrymandering that enables BN to win 60% of the seats with less than 50% of the votes.
• PAS will not be able to make hudud a reality – either at the state or federal level. Its more moderate and liberal wing has an opportunity to re-invent the old party.

1. Do not lie to yourself.
2. Do not lie to other people unless they are exercising tyranny.
3. When you think it is your duty to inflict pain, scrutinize your reasons closely.
4. When you desire power, examine yourself closely as to why you deserve it.
5. When you have power, use it to build up people, not to constrict them.
6. Do not attempt to live without vanity, since this is impossible, but choose the right audience from which to seek admiration.
7. Do not think of yourself as a wholly self-contained unit.
8. Be reliable.
9. Be just.
10. Be good-natured.

Bertrand Russell – 1930

Childhood’s End is one of the best science fiction novel I’ve read in a long time. That it was written in 1953 by the Arthur C. Clarke (2001 – A Space Odyssey anyone ?) is just mind boggling to me. It is so far-sighted and thought-provoking that it stayed with me for many days after I turned the last page.

The story follows the peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival ends all war, helps form a world government, and turns the planet into a near-utopia. There is so much meat in the following 224 pages that it is near impossible to sum it all up in a few lines.

The narrative can be off-putting at times as it switches between different characters and fast-forward in time at a very fast pace. But this enables Clark to take us on an intellectual journey that is well worth the afternoon it takes to read this book.

Clarke just joined Orwell as one of my all time favorite sci-fi writer.

• Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke

I’ve been watching a lot more documentaries lately. The last two made me think quite a bit about what I eat. They are Fork over Knives and Vegucated. The first one was quite interesting, but a bit bland (not a good thing for a movie hoping to make you change your culinary habits…). Very scholar. The second was more entertaining and a lot more convincing in my views. The documentary follows three New Yorkers on their discovery of Vegan-ism. While sometimes a bit preachy, it still hits home on a number of issues.

I never really considered going vegan or vegetarian. I love my butter, eggs and nice piece of beef. But since moving to Asia, I am more and more concerned about the quality of the poultry and meat I eat here.

French love their food and love to know where it comes from. My high school was surrounded by farms. I could see first hand where the potatoes, beef and eggs were coming from. So much so that I took it for granted. When I moved to Asia, I gorged myself on Chicken Satays and Beef rendang for years without thinking twice about it. But since moving to Singapore, I started thinking about it more and more. As a small island, Singapore imports most of its food from nearby countries. Maybe this fact got me thinking, maybe it was our 22 months old starting to eat everything under the sun, in any case, I started asking myself more and more about the provenance of some of the products I buy.

For example, the chicken or beef on display at the local Fair-price does not look appetizing to me. I doubt they were raised in similar condition to the ones I used to eat in France. Same goes for some of the vegetables, which are not as flavourful as the ones I used to buy back in KL. A notable exception are the fruits, which are as remarkable as the ones in Malaysia.

Last but not least, I am more and more concerned about the lack of sustainability inherent to the factory-farming system.

As a result, I try to buy products that seem more sustainable to me. Eating more vegetables is one way to do that. So I will eat even more vegetables from now. I won’t give up on dairy, eggs or a nice piece of meat from time to time, but will try to only buy quality products, from co-op like Devondale (Australian co-op that has pretty good butter and milk) for example. Not earth shattering changes, but hopefully they will make a small difference.

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
- Albert Einstein