let's all waste time with haiti

So, after reading about Singapore's bravado in the YOG soccer quarterfinals, demolishing Montogeremy(howtospell) 3-0, and how we have some influential playmaker who connects very well with the striker because they have been playing since young, obviously I did get a little hyped about the whole soccer thing.

So at 8.40PM i plonked in front of my TV and supported the bunch of young boys kicking the ball; OUR bunch of young boys kicking the ball around, expecting to see some wizardry.

The first half was quite entertaining, with some BRILLIANT chances for Singapore.. who promptly missed about 3 OPEN goals. Yes, wide open goal but the receiving player could not head the ball down properly. Maybe it was too high.. maybe he is not used to headers.. maybe because he's only 14? -shrugs.
Whatever the case, I, as the couch soccer critic, is always correct right?

Anyway, in the last 5 minutes of the half, 2 dumb things occured.

Dumb Thing Number 1) For no real reason, after a slight collision in midair between the Singapore goalie and a Haitian striker, the goalie appears riled and steps up into the face of the Haitian to challenge him.
Could have easily been a yellow card for the goalie, but the referee just gives him a warning. Furthermore the goalie's face super cockyarrogant type, so makes him look more dumb and annoying.

Dumb Thing Number 2) After a Singapore substitution, a Haitian player turns past a Singaporean defender and fires a weak shot towards the goalie. Instead of catching it comfortably, he chooses to deflect the ball, even though it was flying straight at him. The ball flew into the oncoming path of a Haitian striker who wasted no time to drill the ball into the goal with his head.

Haiti 1, Singapore 0

Ok so that wasn't what made me make this blog post. It was the second half.
Before we go to that, here is what I believe the Haitian coach told his players in the dressing room during half time:

"Ok guys, good job grabbing that fluke goal despite Singapore dominating most of the first half. Now we have to do what we do best, WASTE TIME. I want every single one of you to waste as much time as possible. Fall to the ground and stay down longer, fake every possible injury as you can from head to toe, be creative!
I want all of you to clock at least 60 seconds each lying on the ground! And you better not let me see any of you run for a throwin/goalkick that is ours. Take your time!
And goalie, if you can do 10 stepovers on the ball before getting carded, I'll treat you to lunch tomorrow!"

So with that motivational speech, the Haitian players went out and DID JUST THAT.

To say the second half was painful to watch is an understatement. It was probably the most frustrating 40 minutes (YOG is only 40 mins a side) of soccer I've watched?

The Haitians were doing everything in the book to waste every second of time possible. Their players started rolling around on the floor after any slight challenge, grabbing random parts of their body and asking for a stretcher... DAMN ANNOYING. Like seriously if i was the paramedics carrying the stretcher i'll just 'oops' -drops player-
they kept this up for the whole entire 40 minutes. I was surprised the referee waited about 20+ minutes before starting to take out the yellow cards.

And the Haitian goalie.. oh wow. It started off with some casual strolling to retrieve a ball for a goalkick. Then on another possession he added a stepover when he was retrieving the ball for a goalkick. Then the last straw was on one occasion when he just casually strolled to get the ball, then on the way back he did multiple stepovers and casually pulled the ball around.

LIKE SERIOUSLY??!?

For that last instance the referee wasted no time running over to show him a yellow card - AND HE SARCASTICALLY APPLAUDED THE REFEREE - wtf??? isn't this an automatic second yellow card and a red? I know in NBA players will get a technical (or a 2nd one) if they applaud in mockery like that.

SRSLY. just book the whole damn haitian team so they will all be ineligible for the finals match and Singapore will go and take their place.

Super ridiculous man. Twitter is ablaze with hateful mean comments towards the Haitians and some are really quite bad.(as you can guess, many are related to the earthquake of course) I am tempted to throw in a couple of my own but.. I shall maintain my niceness. rawr.

K i better get to sleep, 10 hour day tomorrow. nite.

Major Air Pollution Day

Hey everybody! Today is Major Air Pollution Day! Do your part in polluting the environment!

Whether be it just smoking a few extra sticks of cigarettes, having a few more BBQs, or simply joining the throngs of people who are engaging in the most productive activity - burning paper in big brown cans all over the country - you can do your part!

Yes, this is all in the bid to increase the air pollution levels because the PSI is far too low! Haven't you heard of the saying 'too much of a good thing'? We need to raise the levels so that there will be some nation-wide unity of concern and dispute such as when terrible food was served to YOG volunteers!

This will also make the climate better to live in! I know everybody is complaining about how COLD Singapore is, so to make it much more warmer and more comfortable to live in, let's burn more paper! All the excess smoke will help to trap heat which will explain today's soaring temperatures! Isn't that such a major relief?

Do your part today! Burn more paper!


p.s. on a side note, a similar post can be found here. Beware, it is extremely angsty! xD

philosophical

sorry for not posting much! just nothing much to blog lately, been busy with school and all. Uni is no joke, at least for arts faculty. So much reading to do! just know already spent 3 hours on one chapter of psych.

Anyway, just gonna leave you with my first forum post on the Philosophy forums.. because for NUS for each module you take there's a forum. Then in the philo forum there were already alot of posts so I didn't want to be left out :p haha.
Not sure how much you're going to understand since it's a little out of context.. oh well.

The brown text is the original post of the person I replied to. The black text following it is my reply. Enjoy!


Philo Guy #1

following from Pelzar's lecture today, in my head came an idea to disprove determinism, and im not sure if its watertight, so u guys help me check it out?

assuming determinism to be true, it states (from lecture) that theorectically with enough information we can predict the future to 100% accuracy. either that or something like laplace's demon can know the future, with 100% accuracy.

also with determinism it follows that we make the choices we made because of forces we cannot control, that make us want and choose to, for example, eat an apple instead of a banana. now we are unable to change the fact that we will want to eat the apple, and that there will be nothing stopping us from eating that apple.

now if with enough technical data one can predict the future, that you will want to eat the apple and that you eat it eventually. but because one is informed, he lets say, chooses to inform you that youre gonna end up eating that apple. you are now presented with foreknowledge, and if you dont believe in determinism, you would want to disprove it by eating the banana instead.

because you choose to be rebellious, in that sense, and assuming you are continually informed of your next predicted move, you are now capable of disproving that prediction, aka becoming unpredictable, so to speak. this i think becomes a paradox, as if you choose the apple, u will then know of it and choose the banana, and then back to the apple. i think it implies a shifting future, which to me is kinda indeterministic.

im not sure if this summarizes it but, with foreknowledge of events through study of atoms in the universe (theorectical, of course), it therefore implies that the casuality of events no longer follow a chronological order, that our future will affect our present. it also means determinisn does not hold true.

thats all ive got,

cheers

My reply:

Alright, decided to start posting here since there are so many posts already. :) If I sound blunt or aggressive please forgive me, I'm just joining in the spirit of debate :)

Actually I was confused about the way Prof Mike defined 'determinism', when he kept including the mention of 'forces, of which we have no control, making us want to do something' when in actual fact determinism is simply "the philosophical view that every event, including human cognition, behaviour, decision, and action is causally determined by previous events"

I think this original definition, with the exclusion of the subject of 'forces' are clearer to explain what it is, when it simply is just a world of cause->effect.
The introduction of 'forces' make it seem like there's a divine being who maps out the plan for us, or that there is 'something' that we are trying to go against, when in actual fact, it is just a very simple model of cause->effect.

That aside, the theory of being able to acquire sufficient technical knowledge to 'predict outcomes' is more all-encompassing then you think. If you could actually ever acquire sufficient technical knowledge (which we all know is just a hypothesized point as it is impossible), this knowledge should be able to predict your rebellious nature as well.

I.e. The cause of you wanting to disprove determinism is because of taking PH1102E and disagreeing with the concept.
The cause of you disagreeing with the concept is because of how your mental faculties have been equipped and developed.
etcetc (leads back to your genetic state, blabla)

Thus, there is no way that you can 'fool' the system, because if you could, it would mean such a system isn't 'sufficient technical knowledge' already as it has failed to predict that. So if you want to argue for your point, you have to assume that it is a perfect system that can predict your decision, and hence you can never 'fool' it.

So to summarize, if you want to assume the hypothesis that we can attain sufficient technical knowledge to predict future occurences, this very hypothesis will automatically refute any arguments you put forth against determinism due to its circular nature.

And just a concluding point, I feel determinism is quite hard to argue against, and the only contender i can see is from the theory of quantum mechanics, which implies that things may spontaneously occur, like mini Big Bangs. (this is my shallow understanding of the concept, my apologies if I totally misrepresented quantum mechanics) and hence evade the irrefutable logic of determinism.