Bastardisation of the East: Emails about emails about emails.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Emails about emails about emails.

Despite the fact that I live in a country where the birth of everything that is wrong started, I have to say there is one thing I love about the UK that I would not find anywhere else. It is the fact that you will ocassionally meet british people who share the same despise for their own culture and openly admit this place is really a cesspool. We have one thing in common. We wanna get the fuck out of here.

It's a vicious cycle of brits wanting to fuck off and foreigners wanting to fuck their way in (Reminds me of a time when a dumb blonde mentioned that the government should relocate the entire UK to Mongolia or something). So you can really see what a predicament I am in. Essentially, it all boils down to money...because it literally does make the world go round.

Every Monday morning, I have a lecture by Professor Alder who lectures us on Experimental Design & Laboratory Management. He's the type of professor who's pretty much been around forever Having been the PhD mentors for two other very respectable, senior lecturers in my department, yes he is quite old school. He's a big plump man and his frazzled white hair tells me that he's too old to care about what anyone thinks of his looks anymore. What we really talk about in class has nothing to do with science. Instead we discuss financial and legal aspects of laboratory management. Inevitably, we talk about how western laws and policies are so retarded. If he hadn't been my lecturer, I'd say he was a fellow cesspit-hater.

We talk about how the government is really out to screw us over in the UK. With up to 40% income tax, that is really daylight robbery. And worst of all, your hard earned money goes to a war you don't support, and to stupid couples sitting on their lardy asses all day popping out their genetic products to get more government stipends that inevitably comes out of your salary. Every bloody day someone is suing someone else because they're too stupid to operate the pavement on the street. And when a REAL legal issue arises, some people find it's not worth it because going to court is too expensive. Suing somebody else is almost a passtime hobby here that's probably second to drinking.

We also discuss the downside of technology. Being old school, Professor Alder was the type who never really liked the idea of computers, particularly when the university went "electronic" and every staff member was required to have one. He tells that back in the day when they did everything by post, it would normally be ocassional to send someone a letter. But with the ease and convenience of email technology today, he spends the first 1.5hrs a day just checking his email. Why do people start flooding your inbox? Because they can. It is amazing at the kind of crap you get these days, even from people that you actually know. People send you stuff of worthless information. People send you chain mail in hopes you are stupid enough to believe Bill Gates will give you $5 for every person you forward it to. Then there are the people who send you stuff trying to sell you cock-size enhancers. In my professor's own words, people send you emails about emails about emails...and then they send you emails that are 5 words long. So why do we keep passing along digital useless crap? Is it in our blood to forward forwarded emails about forwarded emails? And most importantly, why is everyone so fucking stupid to believe they will find their true love if they forward something to 10 people in the next 5 minutes? If life were that easy, what would be the point of living huh.

The message taken home is that while technology has very much enhanced productivity of a working population, we have sacrificed our privacy in some way or another. Globalisation has made things such as communication and travelling informal. I remember when I first flew between Singapore and the UK. How exciting it was...like Neil Armstrong's first mission to Mars. But now whenever I fly home, it's just feels like sitting on a big piece of aluminium with two wings and several tonnes of jet fuel at 30,000ft to get a bowl of laksa back home.

PS: My favourite philosopher writes again about how bloody inert we are in the east when it comes to any serious conversations. Yes, people back home only talk because they can talk.

¶ posted by Jon at 11:35 AM

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