Emergence

This is a brief note directed at some friends who have made queries about specific procedures in specific Atlantean institutions.

Essentially, Article 14 of the Constitution of the specified institution says that no member of staff may be dismissed without the following steps: a) recommendation submitted to Board, b) committee of inquiry appointed, c) committee to report to Board with their own recommendation if any.

However, it is clear that this is not a transparent process, and should the member of staff wish to say anything, there is actually no guarantee that a) he will get to say it, b) he will not face further disciplinary internal action because of saying it, c) that the public will come to know of any irregularities in said process. In fact, there is no guarantee that he will even know anything about the process which decides his fate, nor that he will get to defend himself at all.

In other words, if this kind of proceeding were to be held in other realms, it would constitute a lack of due process. But as we have seen before, Atlantis is a different place — there is a doctrine of Atlantean exceptionalism, and sadly, its institutions are not exceptional in that regard.

My advice to those who are advised to leave or be dismissed is that you should leave as quickly as possible. Transplanting yourself from a big pond to the sea is a wrenching step and a disorienting one, but it can be done. "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well / It were done quickly" as the Scottish play says.

There is another consequence. If you save your ammunition, you can use it later with less constraint. The a posteriori (or as some might call it with humour, ex post facto) defence is a safer one, because you can easily construct theory that fits prior facts, and reveal those facts as necessary. They have fired their ammunition and remain constrained by the institution. You, on the other hand, have a choice of lawyers and courts (including that of public opinion), and you need hold nothing back except for the personal restraint engendered by being a scholar and a gentleman.

To stand and fight merely impugns the honour of the institution, which is certainly a different thing from the honour of its executive officers. So my humble recommendation to those under threat, at whom irrational attacks have been launched with the flimsiest of reasons, is to pack up and go. Be like Abraham, and not like his nephew's wife.

And (as military reports are wont to conclude), that is all I have to say.

Public Housing in Atlantis

In Atlantis, there are all kinds of pyramid games. These aren't your usual distributed sales or Ponzi scheme pyramid games, but games that have to do with the distribution of wealth.

I'm a poor boy, and my little apartment in the outskirts of the Swamp was cheap. In fact, I paid for it entirely with the government-backed savings plan. I never touched any of my own liquidity. The price of that apartment has gone up about 70% recently.

Does it mean that people are getting wealthier? No, I'm afraid to think what I think, but I think that it's because the upper middle class are thinking twice about expensive property and are starting to encroach on the cheaper stuff. This is raising the price of the cheaper stuff.

It's the same with education. Education ought to be a public good. But it's become stratified by class to a very measurable extent, both in terms of money as well as in attitudes. It has led to an odd equilibrium similar to that found in schools founded some time in the 19th and early 20th centuries all over the world.

The equilibrium is multipolar. It goes like this. Consider an hypothetical school A.

School A has average teachers but the scions of rich families go there. The senior members of those families sit on the board. They give the school a sense of importance, of national-level destiny. They allow the school to create expensive programmes with (as is the case with many social phenomena) difficult-to-measure outcomes. We don't know if these programmes would work for everyone, or only for the scions of rich families who have too much spare time and energy on their hands.

The 'scion' students in this school would not dream of going to 'real' publicly-funded schools, as you won't find such networks there, or such a brand name. In fact, they look down on other students who do, although they will not admit it (and indeed, it might be subconscious). These scions even look down on students in their own school who haven't the multiple swimming pools, horse-riding lessons, or holiday ranches. However, there is some grudging admiration for brains, since after all this is supposed to be a school.

Actually, most of these scions have been hothoused, so they themselves are pretty smart compared to the national average. And if not. there's always private tuition, paid for at about $150 per hour or more, which is a pittance to their parents (or even, to them). Eventually, none of them actually needs good teachers, and for the price of one good teacher, you can hire maybe two not-so-good teachers. What do you think happens?

Well, as some people once told me, you can get about three new recruits for one 15-year teacher. Quality can be developed and your ROI is better if you invest in new recruits. After all, a good teacher can only be improved a tiny bit, while a new one can be improved by adding rims, spoilers, and a flashy paint job training and development. The absolute quality does not matter. And you can plough the extra cash into aesthetics like pagan statuary.

Eventually, the school is taking in 'students with lives' (as in 'come on, get a life'), who have some brains. You might call their philosophy of education, 'brands and brains'. The school will then label this 'holistic education', since it's quite obvious that these students 'have a life' and 'live it to the full'.

But this is an unfair caricature. Most of the students aren't really like that (although they would be if they could). The school isn't really like that (it could be worse). And the teachers aren't really like that (actually, it's hard to tell what the teachers are like).

And so, the cost of public schooling goes up on the side. Fortunately, public housing and schooling are both reasonably good in Atlantis. But sometimes I think they're a bit too expensive for what they're supposed to deliver.

This thought is a Bad One. It is an Ungrateful Thought. The correct response to such a thought is, "Why are you complaining, after all, your nett value goes up because of all these things, since you are from School A and you also have an apartment that has gone up 70% in value?"

Well, I just hope that people will be able to afford more of the good stuff and that there are more good years ahead for everyone. It's kind of hard to see how this can be when money is buying less and less in terms of real value.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

卧虎藏龙 is a classic of Chinese mythmaking at the cinematic level. At another level, however, as a certain scholar has pointed out, it makes a great way to summarize the shenanigans in and around Southeast Asia.

Actually, it's a great way to look at Atlantis as well. The hidden forces that create a vortex around the sinkhole of destiny roil violently in the island. Two dragons fight, a white one and a red one; the red one is slain and the white one lives on — surely this is the stuff of epic legend. Some people prefer the lion and the tiger in mortal combat. But whatever it is, what survives is the very material of myth.

Right now, I am looking at schools as instruments of public policy dissemination and execution. In a city-state, as in not many other kinds of states, the relationship between education and public policy is very intimate. You propagandise the students, you elevate the schools to the status of the temples you have sidelined, and in a generation, 90% of the populace is primed for the policy you want.

Reduce the population? Reinvent the biotech wheel? Apotheosize gifted education and then fling it into the outer darkness? All these things can be done and have been done (and presumably, similar things will continue to be done). All you have to do is make sure that all drink deep of the Pierian spring.

Actually, it's more like Mimir's well. You drink deep to quench the deepest desire, and the price is one eye and there goes your depth of vision. Atlantis is successful at what it wants to do, and unsuccessful at what it should have done. It is more the former than the latter, but it is very bad at admitting the latter. If the High Priest takes your money in huge amounts to avert the destruction of the land by tsunami, but the tsunami does not yet come and you lose the money instead, that's bad. If your enemies then take the money you lost and make more money, it's not only bad but painful.

But life goes on, with a crouching tiger at every corner and a hidden dragon in every shadow. It is marvelous to see what a Mandarin movie can teach you about the making of public policy. You can read it in the book; the local university press printed it three years ago.

Watch His Lips

My friend the Moustache said yesterday that the Sabbath was sacrosanct. He elaborated on this by saying that if some people wanted other people to work on Saturdays, this should be limited to four Saturdays a year. He further elaborated on this by saying that if some people wanted all the other people to come down and work on Saturday, they should ask nicely first.

I laughed when I heard this. I told the Moustache that some people had used up two (well, maybe at least one) Saturdays in January, one Saturday in February, and one Saturday in March. This would leave them no space to summon the people anymore, in theory. The Moustache nodded, but you could see that his intelligence was already grappling with the consequences. "Ye-es," he said, "I can see that there are still loopholes though. Some people might call some of you back, but not all. They might even have a roster of departments coming back to work or having meetings.

"But I also told some people that you shouldn't have the same people come down every weekend. If they did, why on earth should we give them an award for staff welfare? Going against the spirit of the thing is very old-style, very Soviet Union. Some people do it a lot."

Well, far be it from me to intervene in matters between the Powers, but I did promise I'd keep in touch with the Moustache, whose former guru is my direct male ancestor. Somehow, despite his history, we've remained in friendly contact. He's quite amazed at the fact that I continue to work where I work, despite his predecessor having asked me three times to switch sides. He laughs at me sometimes, and says, "When you want to speak of professional careers, give me a call."

I am tempted once in roughly every 18 months. But I have not succumbed yet. It is hard to read lips when they are hidden by facial hair.