TOTD: The Failure of PAP's Scholar-System

Thought of the Day

No matter how smart, intelligent or brilliant you were in your teens, scoring As and A stars in your exams, once you are being "anointed" with the label "scholars", you may just find yourself entrenched and kept in a environment which will not be conducive to your proper development of mental and social faculties.

That label of "scholars" along with the mindset of "Natural Aristocracy" will destroy your common sense and empathy towards the people you were supposed to lead.

It has proven in history, the best leaders come not from the group of "elites" but rather the intelligent people from the streets.

In our Singapore's system, the PAP government tries very hard to "monopolize" all the talents we have in our system by installing the elitist streaming in our education system. They will give scholarships to those identified "early talents" and bond them to civil service or statutory boards. It is one way to monopolize talents and keep them for PAP's selection so to prolong its monopolistic rule over Singapore.

However, just look at the numerous scholar-Generals, or rather, what we call "Paper Generals" we have today.

These scholars were holed up in SAF and lack the exposure of the "REAL WORLD" out there. They have wasted their time in SAF without exposures to the REAL world outside their war gaming computers. Their administration of the SAF is based on simple top-down military command hierarchy without the need of more sophisticated management skills.

Thus, it is no wonder that when they were treated like some Elitist Gods and sent to the various GLCs or statutory boards, they screwed up badly. No matter how intelligent or smart you are, as long as you are not groomed in a proper way, in the most appropriate way but only the SAF way, you will be made redundant and useless outside of SAF in the end, regardless of your rank. This is the sad state of affairs for Singapore. We have wasted so much money and most importantly, these "once potential talents" by keeping them in the worse place for development, so much so that they are causing harm to our whole country as a whole.

These Paper General cannot survive beyond SAF. Even when they were posted to the GLCs and private entities, they expected to be in top management positions, even though they have no REAL WORLD Corporate experience whatsoever, and know NUTs about running the companies, worse, the country! However, they have this "Scholar-Entitlement" mindset. They were "helicopter" into such positions and eventually, they would find that they cannot manage such corporate unless they get their own KAKIs from SAF who knows the exact "military style" of management! This is exactly what happened in SMRT and PAP leadership!

I would not mind if these "retired" Paper Generals were willing to start from middle management to learn the corporate way and work their way up but no, they were expected to be able to "plug and play" which is quite ridiculous! It can only happen in Singapore because PAP government has created a web of GLCs to allocate these paper generals nice management positions to stroke their ego of "natural aristocracy"!

Singapore will definitely decline in the coming decades basically because SAF or the civil service is not exactly the best or right place to nurture our talents for running corporations and the country.

And all these, are the wrong doings and mismanagement by PAP.

Goh Meng Seng

TOTD: EZ-Link and Cash Card Redundancy

Thought of the Day

I was driving a friend's car the other day and found the car braked suddenly while I was cruising, my foot wasn't pressing on any pedal. It nearly gave me a heart attack and a RED LED indicator popped up CTBA... and I got worried when the "Temperature indicator" jumped from the usual 34 degree to 37.

I asked my friend why was this so, was the car having some problem. I got a smacking that I am just too OLD generation and didn't know "NEW (CAR) Technology" at all. I was using "old driving method" to drive a NEW HIGH Tech car!

Cruising is a method I learned from my late father to save petrol and this works especially well for manual gear car.

But I learn from Google (yes, please check Google before asking "High Tech" question, else, will get another suaning... :D ) that the "High Tech Car" nowadays will put brake on if it detected no contact of either the brake or accelerator pedal! Or that when the car was travelling at low speed and there is potential accident, it will apply brake on its own! This is to prevent drivers who are too tired from getting accident when they fall asleep with their feet off the pedal!

Wah, I say... but seriously, that's too "intrusive" for my "Old Method - Petrol saving driving"! And that temperature indicator is not about the car temperature but the surrounding temperature! Well, I told my friend I didn't know the street temperature can get as high as 37 and why do we need to know the "outside temperature" when we should be more concerned about the overheating of the car itself?

My friend scolded me, don't use "Old Method" to deal with "New Technology"!

Actually, this makes me thinking for the day. My friend has a point. When New Technology is evolving, we should be mindful to use new methods of operation to deal with it.

One fine example was the bloody redundancy of "Cash Card" and "Ez-link" card. Why would we need TWO cards when we actually could combine them into one-for-all usage Cashless card?

Cash card can be used for purchases but very few people use it because it was cumbersome. It came up with two types, one with Sim the other "Flash" card.. But some carpark can only use one of them! Such redundancy is caused by the "Old Method Mindset" using "New Technology"!

On the other hand, we have a handy EZ-Link card which we could just Tap away but it could not be used for purchases at 7 Eleven or supermarket! And it can only be topped up at the MRT/Bus stations or ATM machines.

Same for Cash Card. When you go to petrol station, they can't just top up the cash card for you but required you to top up at the ATM machine!

What the Heck! What's wrong with these people at LTA and those in charge of "Cashless cards"?

In Hong Kong, one Octopus Card, can do it all! Carparks, Supermarkets, 7 Eleven, Bakery Shops, Bus, MTR... and you can top it up at any 7 eleven shops or OK shops!

Apparently, these High End Natural Aristocrat Scholars sitting up there are only concerned about their "turf" instead of consumers' convenience and services! In fact, both cards evolved because of transportation needs, be it ERP gantries or public transport. LTA should have combined them all in the first place by setting the protocol and standards!

This is the "Old Methods" using "New Technology" stupidity we are seeing in Singapore... and we still want to pride ourselves as "First World High Tech Cashless City"?