discussions on the matters of 2020
July 4th is a good time to think about what happened in US this year:
Pandemic: this pandemic is caused by human’s stupidities and self-interest; as a result, many people died, suffered, and at the modest have to stay “in prison”.
Race and equality:
- When I firstly arrived in US, I was very shocked by how important “race” is in US. It’s almost like a person who has a psychology problem.
- I met many people from different races in the past years. I met intelligent, responsible, nice, black people, and I also met stupid, arrogant white people. It is certainly wrong to label e.g., stupid/lazy to a race and mistreat a person because of his/her race.
- However, I am not sure how to judge “racism”. I had occasions where I was mistreated by strangers and acquaintances. Some of these people are well-educated and even always talk about equality. Is this a racism or I did something that offended them? I am not sure. In science, causality is not easily to be proved. So we need to discuss cases by cases, not simplify/generalize things.
- I have been avoiding the research topics of “fairness”, as I think “fairness” is subjective, dependent on who interprets it. Is it fair we should give today’s black people opportunities and resources that other equally-qualified people cannot have because of the slavery history or it is fair to provide everybody equal opportunities and resources in dependent of their races? I think both has their perspectives.
- While all the people this year talk about equality, I think another trait is also very important for a society, that is “excellence”. I don’t think I would be interested in living in a society where we just evenly distribute wealth and opportunities to everybody in dependent of their contributions to the society.
Free speech: Suppress is a very scary thing, meaning “if you don’t agree with me, you go hell” (considering Christianity and political correctness). In China, there is government’s censorship. In US, you still cannot talk anything freely in public. You need to talk aligned with your bosses/clients even off work. I think a more healthy environment should be “at work, you follow bosses/clients requirement” and “off work, you should have any private life unless there is evidence that your attitude negatively impacted your work and clients”. Writing/speech has to be free in dependent of title, time, format, content … but aiming to deliver the best of the work. For this reason, I refused to work for Chinese medium although that can bring in both money and fame. Even when I am writing my blog, I pursue bravery and freedom. That requires the trust from my readers that in dependent of my skills on words, at least I have a good intention towards people (when I am not insane :D)