It's Aron Ralston!

In 2003, this fearless adventurer amputated his own arm when it got stuck under a bolder while he was hiking. His incredible story became the movie '127 Hours' starring James Franco. Aron will be speaking at #Lesa2019 later today!

Lesa 2019 Is Finally Here!

 

#lesa2019 is finally here! Get ready to rock n roll these next two days!

3 Things About Joker

1. In the film, Gotham was experiencing a strike by sanitation workers. This actually happened in New York City in 1968 when 7000 sanitation workers went on strike after the Mayor thumbed his nose to their demands for better pay. In just a couple of days, New York City was already drowned in garbage. The stench became unbearable and rats could be seen even in the more posh parts of the place. The city then declared a State of Emergency!

The Mayor still held out, but a few days later, with 100,000 tons of trash now uncollected, the sanitation workers finally won. That changed the collective attitude towards garbage men. These people are actually doing an important job. Today, sanitation workers can earn up to USD70,000 annually (with all perks and overtime thrown in). “They keep the city running”, it is said.

Now, think about those days during public holidays, especially when 2 or more holidays coincide with each other and rubbish goes uncollected at YOUR housing area. Is it a pleasant feeling? Yes, it’s a dirty job, but a very important one.

Unfortunately, even after a very serious lesson learnt in NYC, the world is still stuck in a system that rewards bullshit jobs over the ones rendering critical services. (To know more about bullshit jobs, google it). Why are teachers and nurses still low on the pay scale, when agents of capitalism who merely manipulate money and don’t really create anything, get rewarded handsomely? 

What’s stopping us from just saying, from this day on, teachers, nurses, the army etc, will be paid more than these greedy bozos? Because they don’t have degrees and MBAs? Really? That’s more important than teaching our kids to be good, knowledgeable human beings and saving our lives? 

2. Extreme self-bias, lack of empathy and plain ‘ol ignorance will literally kill society. Self-bias in a sense that all I care about is my own perspectives and beliefs, and that’s the end of it. Stuff like mental illness means nothing to you and it’s not really your problem. 

There is no need to find out more about this mumbo jumbo cos really, people should just toughen up and not bother society with it. And of course, it goes just beyond that. What do we really know about the people who live across the street? Are we the ones oppressed or the ones doing the oppressing? 

The badge of self-entitlement comes from this severe lack of perspective, driven by nothing but dogma. I’ll have 10 of these, you can have 2. I don’t really care if you need 5. It’s all about me, really. 

3. Capitalism can’t solve problems that capitalism itself created.

Civil Servants To Lose Their Jobs In The Near Future?

This is such a fascinating topic because the issues are way more complex than the obvious political ones. It's actually a global phenomena that encompasses education, humanity and what is called the Industrial Revolution 4.0. And really, politics should be the least of the worries.

The thing is, if you listen to any futurist talk, they'll give you more or less the same estimates: In about 10 years time, almost half of the jobs we have today (as we know them) will cease to exist. And you know why, right? Robots.

When we say robots, we don't necessarily mean the Twikis and R2D2s of the world, but the AI that we have already begun to depend on, whether we realise it or not. 

Back to that popular prediction of disappearing jobs; the good news is, there will also be in turn, new type of jobs being created. This has already been happening. When we started the new media initiative at Media Prima about a dozen years ago, we also created new jobs that that never existed cos we were digitizing content. Then social media came, and we created more jobs to take on those tasks.

In banking for example, we hardly see a human banker these days. We move money everyday simply through our mobile phones.

And today, more than half of the things I'm doing at my current job, didn't exist when I first started a career in content.

So the question now is; how ready are we for the (near) future?

The hard truth is, the days of having a job for life is OVER. What you're doing now, or the way you're doing it will be obsolete. No matter if you're in the government or private sector, or even freelancing, the "threat" is real. And it covers all sectors; banking, education, manufacturing, media, etc.

Stop thinking that the government or anyone else MUST give you a job. The world is moving from lifelong learning to lifelong employability. We've got to be able to learn and adapt. We will be doomed if we think one piece of paper or skill will get us through the next 20, 30 years. 

Consider this: "According to The World Economic Forum, an estimated 65% of kids enrolling in primary education today will end up working in jobs that haven’t been created yet."

But of course the question now is, do we actually want to ensure our own survival? For example: If we were to put 50,000 people from the civil service into a pilot project to learn all-new skills, what would the take up be? 

The future won't be "comfortable". It won't wait for you, and It certainly won't give a crap about what you feel you're entitled to...

This. Is. Malaysia.

 

The WhatsApp group was talking about nasi Beriyani earlier today, and suddenly I was also terjebak looking for rice. 

Walked down to Brickfields and stopped at Sithique and ordered nasi tomato with kuah campur and ayam goreng. The place was crowded as usual, so people had to sit with random strangers. 

Then I looked around. Different races eating the same food at the same place. We had the young and old. Some dressed the same, some differently. Some more sophisticated than others. Some speaking Malay, some Tamil, some the normal Malaysian English. 

It was busy and chaotic, but it was beautiful. I told a colleague of mine later how we're a peaceful yet complex country. And it's hard for a foreigner to truly understand what makes us all Malaysian. 

We have some rotten apples as well (and I give up hope sometimes), but at the end of the day there's still hope in every day, regular Malaysians.