Extinction

On the face of it, we are less likely to poison other species if we cut down the use of toxic chemicals in modern farming. Conceivably, it would help preserving the global ecological system and diversity of life.

(See? I could speak the language of aliens when there is a need.)

But, hold on. What is the most important cause of species extinction in the past 200,000 years, after the appearance of Homo sapiens on earth?

No, not because of the extensive use of lethal chemicals – many species disappeared long before we started using urine and faeces as fertilizer. And it’s not because human beings love to catch big animals for food and for fun. There are good archaeological data showing that many legendary animals did not die of direct hunting – their remnant skeletons have no trace of knife, arrow, or bite marks.

In that case, why should so many species of plants and animals, big or small, disappeared after we established ourselves?

Simple. The very nature of farming implies that we convert pieces of bio-diversed land into monotonous field with only one dominant species. Other plants and animals are whipped off because they have no place to live, to find their favorite food, or to mate. (The proof is straight forward: More species disappear once we passed from the hunter-gatherer to the agricultural stage.)

It really doesn’t matter whether you use organic or inorganic farming.

Organic

During a recent casual discussion, Vivian was surprised to find some vegetables are selling at much higher a price in one shop than the other.

“That’s understandable,” I said, “The more expensive ones are products of organic farming.”

“But it doesn’t mean that they are better,” my wife retorted.

I nodded. Frequent visitors of this site would know very well about my view on organic farming. Not that I am against healthy food, but there is practically no evidence to support a benefit by doing away with pesticide and other toxic substances.

“But, we would do less harm to the environment if we avoid the use of funny chemicals.” You may argue.

Alas, is this statement evidence-based?

Acknowledge

(Some email communications that I recently came across.)

Dear Professor,

One of our very good spiritual health students has done a systematic review on the molecular pathophysiology of trisomy chromosome 24 syndrome. As this is related to your expertise area, I wonder if you would be interested to review this before submitting this to a journal.
Thank you.

S
Professor and Head,
Division of Spiritual Care
**********************

Dear Professor S,

I quickly read through the paper and have the following comments:

(Details omitted.)

I must admit I am not an expert in this area. My contribution is trivial and I would not be able to give more elaborated suggestions. Please  do not add my name to the author list or the acknowledgement.

Sincerely,

Z
Division of Malicious Chromosomal Disorders

M

From what I described in the past two days, you may come to realize our society would inevitably become M-shaped following the advance in technology. The middle class disappears. The wealth of the society as a whole increases, but you either become the crème de a crème  of the rich and get the lion’s share of the benefit, or you fall to the bottom and have to earn you subsistence by repelling jobs or social welfare.

But, there’s more. Once the society segregates into two layers and there’s nothing in between, the model of internal consumption (i.e. retail and service provision) changes accordingly. Expensive brands that make exquisite products prosper because there is a small elite group of people who could afford. At the other end of the spectrum, manufacturers of basic needs (for example, fast food and discount stores) continue to do well. Companies with a mediocre strategy in pricing, however, would not be able to sustain – because their customer group vanishes with time.

PS. Microscopically, another inadvertent problem of technological advance is the loss of opportunities for the young employees (for example, interns of hospitals or business firms) to have hands-on training by practising simple tasks – a problem that I referred to some time ago. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2010/04/technology.html)

Means

If you consider the library a miniature society, in additon to increasing the unemployment rate, the application of technology has other profound effects that may skip your eyes.

To begin with, rather than having a dozen of semi-skilled clerks and librarians, it now needs only one sophisticated computer technician. Magnifying into the scale of a society, a few highly skilled jobs remain – and their pay may actually increase as we are more dependent on these people. On the other hand, manual and semi-skilled positions have the highest risk of being replaced by technology.

(Paradoxically, unpleasant jobs with the least demand on skill tend to remain. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough post of this kind to meet the need of the whole working class.)

The result is obvious: Although the productivity of the society as a whole increases (and so does the average GDP per capita), the productivity is concentrated on a few people who control the resources (land or wealth in any other form) and those who could master sophisticated technology (for example, complicated mathematics that is involved in the construction of collateralized debt oligations). For the rest of the working class, their contribution to the overall productivity is trivial, and many a time they could not even find the appropriate means (I mean a job) to make use of their ability to exchange for their own bread and butter.

Employment

You may consider I was too outdated and there is no point to insist having a flesh-and-blood librarian. After all, our society is moving forward and we expect changes of this kind to happen in every aspect of our life.

Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.

Alas, that is certainly true – and, therefore, I am worried.

Let me put it simply: What would the original librarians become?

No, don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking a question about employment and deployment, which is easily resolved. Librarians may retire or find another job and not being replaced. You don’t have to fire anybody. But, the idea remains: fewer persons are needed to run this place in the long run. Once again, Homo sapiens loses in the competition against computer and technology. When the same change happens in the whole society, the unemployment goes up.

Librarian

Ever since Euterpe passed her third birthday, I visited our local public library weekly to find books for my princesses to read. My usual practice is to borrow five or six books at one go; each week I returned the old ones and get a new lot.

Last week, when I handed my books to the librarian – a polite middle age lady – and asked for my weekly routine, she returned an apologetic smile, “Sir, you’ve got to use the automatic system from next week. You can return the books to that box next to our counter, and, when you borrow new books, just use the computer bar code scanner over the other side…”

I waved to stop her. The gadgets that she was showing have been there for quite some while, and I am sure I know how to use them. Nonetheless, I deliberately neglect them and choose to continue with the good old manual system. In spite of my autistic personality disorder, I’d like to have a human touch when it comes to service.

But, it is beyond my choice now. I left the library with my books, more depressed than ever.

Silence

(Our casual discussion continued.)

“It doesn’t sound fair to consider everyone guilty if only one of them rang up our exemplary teacher.” One of us said.

“Alas, I have not yet mentioned what special treatment these students would have, and you shouldn’t be too excited,” I smiled, “However, I beg to disagree with your argument for fairness, and I believe it is absolutely reasonable to have all students of the group shouldering the responsibility.”

“Why?”

“Let’s consider a group of students sitting around and waiting for their belated teacher. It is exceedingly unlikely that one of them would turn on his mobile phone and ring up the tutor without being noticed by the others. In other words, the most likely scenario is this: One of the students takes out the mobile after waiting for two minutes and says I shall call the teacher; no one says anything. In reality, they are endorsing the suggestion by silence – and I am forced to the conclusion that they should share the blame.”

The event is, I must admit, a rare incident, but the idea is generally applicable: Silence is the accomplice of evil.

PS. You may ask: What special treatment would I recommend if I were having the names of these delinquent students?

Alas, nothing – except I shall arrange them to encounter AK, our professor of endocrinology, in the final examination.

Late

During a casual discussion, my friend KM said with a curious smile, “You know, I just taught a group of remarkable medical students.”

I understand our star teacher very well; he has the experience with so many borderline students that he has a very different set of border. I believe he knows my likes and dislikes equally well, and he deliberately used the word remarkable to suite my palate.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” I raised my eyebrows.

“Nothing. Just that they began paging me when I was two minutes late for their tutorial,” KM sighed, “Remind you, that’s not a scheduled teaching, but an ad hoc extra session that they urged me to give!”

“Very good. Did you jot down their names?” I asked.

“Why! There were nine or ten students, and I have no idea who was calling me.” my friend protested.

“Have you heard of guilty-by-association (連坐法) of the Qin (秦) Dynasty?” I smiled.

Astrologist

Don’t laugh at my suggestion. I do have a reasonably elaborated plan for this very character that I create.

It goes like this: Shao Bowen (邵伯溫) is a famous astrologist and a good friend of Inspector Japp, who encountered difficult criminal cases – mostly murders – every now and then.

And you expect that much. Each time, when Japp confides his case to Shao, the astrologist could – by his obscure non-scientific means – tell immediately who the criminal is. The problem is, the answer is usually so shocking that even Shao finds it difficult to believe his own deduction. As a result, he ends up keeping that information to himself and goes around to gather evidence against whoever he is suspecting – obviously with a theatrical and gratifying result each time.

You may argue my plot is against the rule of the traditional detective story, where you need to deduce the answer from all available evidence. However, I must beg to disagree. Most of the famous detectives in crime fictions actually fix up the suspect from the very beginning.

Unfortunately, the same habit often dominates our behaviour in clinical practice as well as medical research.

PS. Bowen, the name of my fictitious detective, certainly comes from Liu Bowen (劉伯溫), the legendary astrologist of the Ming Empire. I derived Shao, the family name, from Shao Kangjie (邵康節) – a philosopher at the Sung Dynasty, and, in my opinion, the most important astrologist in the history of China.

Amateur

Amateur

My recent leisure reading is Manatsu No Hoteishiki (真夏方程式) of Higashino Keigo (東野圭吾).

Believe it or not, this is the first story where I ever meet Yugawa Manabu (湯川學) – the physicist and amateur detective, nicknamed Galileo, under Keigo.

***************

The story is good. I shall not elaborate on the detail and spoil your appetite for reading it. To me, an interesting side-kick of this series is having a physicist as the detective – an idea akin to that of Baruch Spinoza, who suggested that the purest form of philosophy is mathematics. (In that case, the greatest philosopher in our history should be Bertrand Russell – a highly arguable conclusion.)

But, if I were going to write a detective fiction myself, I have an idea.

How about having an astrologist as the detective?

Expenditure

The obsession of having a continual increase in GDP may, unfortunately, do more harm than good.

The consideration is simple: There are more than one way to calculate GDP. (All of which should, in theory, give rise to the same value.) By the expenditure approach, GDP is the sum of private consumption, gross investment, government expenditure, and net amount of export.  When people spend less money, investment shrinks, and export is poor, there remains a seemingly secure way to boost up the GDP and do away with recession: The government comes out and spends more money.

Em… How could the government square the balance if tax income is not increased? Simple. Let’s borrow money from other people. (His name is Bond – Treasury Bond.)

Alas, in other words, by raising the debt, they call their future income domestic product – in the present tense. How ingenious.

PS. It is often argued that by increasing the government expenditure, one could start the ball rolling and increase private consumption and gross investment. The idea is nothing more or less than absurd - most of the money falls into the black hole of rich men's pocket.

GDP

Although I may not agree with everything he said, LY did give a concise and precise summary on the fiscal cliff and budget deficit of the US government. Alas, it’s not only for what my friend explained; there is something more fundamental that I find it difficult to understand: Why are everyone so worried about a decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (or, in the jargon of economists, recession)?

Let me explain. By the income approach (which I first read from Adam Smith), GDP of a country is the sum of rents, interests, profits, wages, and statistical adjustments (including corporate income tax, dividends, undistributed corporate profits, and so forth). The absolute value of most of these items (i.e. take aside the effect of inflation) reflect the productivity of a country and its people, and should be relatively constant unless there’s something fundamental changed in the country (for example, the discovery of North Sea Oil by the Great Britain). Two of the items (namely, interests and profits) are specifically affected by interest rate and may change in either way.

There is, in other words, little reason to believe in, or to insist on, an unlimited continual increase in the GDP of a country – unless you agree with certain nuclear physicist from the crooked universe. 

Number

Shortly after the New Year holiday, LS invited a few of us to lunch outside.

As usual, LY led the discussion. We were all eager to listen to his view on the financial market, as well as the latest advice on personal investment. A few specific numbers were exchanged across the table, and, in no time, all my friends noted that I was at a lost.

“Although I do have some personal investment on the local stock market, I can hardly remember the number of any stock – not even for LINK or the China Construction Bank, which I had both of them for quite some time.” I explained with a blush.

“Alas, that simply shows that you are not a frequent trader!” The professor of hepatology said with a smile.

I take that as a compliment.

Calligraphy

Euterpe’s class is recently asked by her kindergarten to practice calligraphy so that they could write red banners (揮春) in a function for the Chinese New Year. When I set the table for her, I could not resist the temptation to try and write a few pieces myself. After all, it is more than 30 years since I pick up a writing brush (毛筆) last time.

Rather than describing my experience, let me show you what I wrote instead.

Really need more practice.

Philosopher

My recent leisure reading is I Magnifici Dieci (愛上數學) by Anna Cerasoli.

This is an excellent book on the history of mathematics. Vivian bought it for the benefit of our princesses – although I suspect it will take another 5 or 6 years before Euterpe could understand its content.

Nonetheless, it is an enjoyable reading for me. Notably, a little story of Pythagoras is worthy of re-telling.

********************

One day, Pythagoras met the King of Greece at the Olympus Stadium.

The King asked, “What’s your name? How do you earn your living?”

The famous mathematician looked up and said proudly, “I am a philosopher!”

But the King had not heard of that last word (which was newly invented by Pythagoras that and there), and he asked what it meant.

“Your majesty, pray take a look at all the people in this stadium. Some come here for money, some for glory, a few others use their eyes to observe what had happened and try to gain insight on what’s going to happen. We call the last group philosophers.”

Expensive

(The story continued.)

The messenger was certainly disappointed to have his mission unaccomplished. He went back to the Castle and reported what’s going on to the Count. A few days later, His Highness sent a more experienced messenger – who has a university degree on economics – to call upon the owner of the little house.

After the new messenger explained to the obsessive house owner what the offer was, the latter shook his head, “No, it’s not about money. What good is there for me to have all wealth on earth if I lose my identity and become just another occupant of one of your estates?”

“I agree the price is high to maintain a unique self nowadays. Nonetheless there is a price all the same. May I also remind you, it’s not only about giving up chances to acquire a good fortune, you have to continue to pay for it. Electricity, water supply, and so forth. As I said, it is expensive to have a personality, and it is meant only for rich people.”

“In that case, are you telling me to give up my own house and make myself rich – so that I can afford a unique house of my own later?”

Mass

(Cont'd)

"Why do you want to buy my house?" The middle-aged man asked.

"Sir, this area is very old. We are doing urban renewal and redevelopment. In short, we want to pull down this little house and build some tall buildings - so as to accommodate more people." The messenger said.

"Is it that important to accommodate more people?"

"What a question! For sure it is important."

"Is it? Do you mean that's the price for having too many people? Look around and see what buildings you guys construct. They all look similar, both from outside and inside. If an occupant presses the wrong button on the lift and enters a different apartment, he may not even notice that's not his home!"

The messenger was speechless.

"And, not only does everyone lives in a similar apartment, they have the same decorations - because they buy all furniture and ornament from the same shops, eat the same food, watch the same TV programs, listen to the same songs, and read the same morning paper. To fulfill the basic needs of a large population, we end up with mass production - and we become nothing but numbers on the Count's papers."

Owner

A recent piece of news that made my wife Vivian mad is the way how the Urban Renewal Authority used the media to press on the hardware shop owner in the Pine Street (杉樹街) and Oak Street (橡樹街) project at Tai Kok Tsui (大角咀).

I shall not elaborate on the story, or any hidden agenda behind each party - if there is any. Nonetheless, this little dirty drama brings my memory to a fiction that I seriously planned to write when I was a second year medical student.

Here you go:
**********************
There is a small house in the concrete jungle.

The Count of the Castle wants to acquire this, to him, dingy hut in order to build more apartments on that piece of land. He sends his messenger to visit the owner of their target.

A middle-aged man with dusky eyes answers the door.

"Sir, I represent the Count of the Castle," the well-mannered young messenger begins, "We want to buy your house."

(To be continued.)

Hear

You may say only a few extraterrestrials would ask for others’ opinion despite they have their own idea that is badly in need of support.

(The usual scenarios is, during a group meeting led by a lovely creature of this kind, opinion is dragged from everyone’s mouth. But, all ideas other than the desired one will be put down as inadequate because the entire picture of the whole situation has not been thoroughly considered.)

Yes, very true. It is not common (for us Homo erectus) to ask for others’ suggestion when we have our own opinion in the conscious mind. However, many a time our idea is already there but hibernating in the subcortical white matter, cerebellum, myenteric plexus of the gut, or the autonomic nerves of the heart, and we crave for an extrinsic voice that is in phase with ours in order to create a resonance and bring up the suppressed synaptic activity to our conscious mind.

As the motto of the Pasteur Institute says: You only see what your eyes want to see, and your eyes only want to see things already in your mind.

Same for your ears.

PS. I must say I learnt this motto as a secondary school children and cannot verify its source, or whether the Pasteur Institute really has such a motto. The first part of this statement did become very famous after being adapted by Madonna in her song Frozen.

Support

Although my argument over the past few days for a quick decision sounds simple, there is another reason that may skip your eyes for us not to ask for advice from too many other people.

Why? Let me ask you one question: Under what circumstances would someone (maybe our CE, an extraterrestrial, or you yourself) go around and seek the opinion of many others?

Yes, sometimes we lack the confidence and really want to get advice from every angle.

But, more commonly that’s because we have our own idea (often that very idea is against the opinion of the majority) and wish others to support and shoulder the responsibility. For that reason we keep asking but not following any advice – until we hear a suggestion that comes in line with our own prejudice.

Opinion of this kind, of course, would not help much.

Decision

Some of you may not understand why I was so confident that, in spite of asking for advice from so many people, my friend would hardly make any progress in her career.

Let me explain in a convoluted way by a recent dialogue between JN (one of our trainees) and myself.

****************************

(After morning round.)

“Boy, you have quite some experience now. Put up more confidence and be ready to make decisions yourself.” I suggested.

“Em… Many a time I’m not that comfortable. I always worry I may have missed some important information or there is a major gap in my knowledge.” He explained.

“That’s hardly a reason,” I smiled, “You know, amongst all decisions that we make during clinical practice, around 80% are administrative ones. All that require is a tinge of common sense and no medical knowledge.”

“Yes…?” My friend seemed incredulous.

“And for the remaining 20%, what you decide doesn’t make any difference in over 18%,” I continued, “All you need is a timely decision – whatever you choose doesn’t really matter.”

“But, if there are more experience people around, wouldn’t it a good idea to ask for their opinion before jumping to a conclusion?” He still appeared confused.

“No, it wouldn’t. A prompt decision with a small error is almost always better than a perfect decision that comes late.” I was affirmative. 

Advice

(Cont'd)

After a few days, I met CL - a senior colleague of mine, who also knows MC very well.

And the senior consultant told me the second chapter of this story: As you expect, MC also ask for CL’s advice. Similar to me, the senior consultant spent another hour or two to review the situation, and they came up with another set of plan and action to follow.

I said to myself, “It’s not really a matter of good or bad suggestion. How could MC settle with so many objectives going in all directions?”

But my worry didn’t last long. On the next day, I receive a remarkable email from MC.

Here you go:

************************

Dear CL and Szeto,

Thanks for your inputs. I will think about all these carefully.

MC

************************

My heart sinks. With this, I must say I am convinced my friend would hardly make any progress. 

Counselling

While studying the wisdom of HBR On Strategy, I was asked to do some counselling for MC - a colleague of mine who is recently promoted to a newly created position, and is uncertain about what projects to do to satisfying the new job.

We discussed the matter for nearly an hour. (Quite against my personality, eh?) In fact, much of the time was spent on grumbling - mostly related to inter-personal difficulties encountered by my friend in this new position. For several times, I asked "What actually do you want to do?" and I heard the same problem, with the identical conclusion that hardly anything could be done.

I said to myself, "This is not a good sign."

After considering my position for a brief moment, I decided to continue to play Socrates and kept asking my original question. At the end of the day, I got some concrete answer, so that the two of us could formulate a few short-term targets and decide on things that could be immediately done. From what I learnt from Steven Silbiger and those HBR papers, I also fixed up a time with MC to review the progress and consider the next step to move.

(To be continued.)

HBR

My recent leisure reading is On Strategy, which is a collection of 10 papers published in the Harvard Business Review.

Like most bestsellers you find in our local bookstores, the best part of this book is the first chapter, which is “What is Strategy?” by Michael Porter.

 And the second best is the last one, “Who Has the D? How Clear Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance” by Paul Rogers and Marcia Blenko. As to the rest, they all seem PhD thesis of Gerog Hegel’s students.

*******************

The idea of Michael Porter is simple: To thrive and excel, a company (and, in fact, a person) should choose a strategic position (or, in layman term, develop an edge). This choice inevitably involves some trade-off; rather than doing everything good, we’d better do one thing brilliant – and that means doing other things not that good.

The immediate implication is we should not extensively monitor the performance of a company by benchmarking or KPI (key performance index). Not only are these audit activity a poor spent of our effort, but, more importantly, when everyone in the field use the same benchmarks and KPIs, we all lose the edge and would have to compete by operational effectiveness – a battle that no one really wins.

Remains

After Les Misérables (the movie) was released, many of our local columnists talked about rebellion and revolution.

Of course the original novel is much more complicated than a simple story against tyranny. Unlike most other popular stories, in which you could easily tell who the bad guy is (for example, Professor Moriarty and Lord Voldemort), there is no real evil character in this masterpiece of Victor Hugo. Jean Valjean, Javert, Fantine, Cosette, Marius, Éponine, Gavroche, Enjolras – they are all unfortunate people, living in wicked place at the time of hell.

Alas, this very difference distinguishes a great story from a good one.

When you come to realize this, you may know why I pay special attention to Thénardier. Most of the characters that I mentioned died in the story. Cosette and Marius survived, but could hardly be considered as happy ever after. On the other hand, as a trivial existence with all the weaknesses of an ordinary man, Thénardier remains – and not in bad shape at all. (In the original novel, he left Paris and became a slave trader in New York.)

And that’s why it is a truly season of Darkness and winter of despair: Not when everyone is wiped off, but when you find only the scum remains.

Favorite

You may wonder why I pay so much attention to Thénardier the innkeeper.

Let me give you a slightly convoluted answer:

When I first watched Les Misérables (the musical) with Jenny some twenty years ago, the favorite song of mine was Do You Hear The People Sing. (Alas, this song suddenly becomes very famous in our city recently.)

But, not long afterwards, I began to appreciate On My Own of Éponine.

A few years later, when I have the ability to focus on technical details and begin to see the many faces of the same truth, I find One More Day my cup of tea.

And now, as I age, my favorite piece is Master of the House.

After all, it is the only bit of laughter in this miserable story.

Misérables

Watched Les Misérables (the movie) with Vivian during the holiday.

I must say I am fairly familiar with the story and all the songs. When the musical was on the stage in Hong Kong nearly twenty years ago, I watched it with my younger sister Jenny. (That’s actually the first musical that I ever watched live.) The sound track of its 10 Year Anniversary Show is one of the favorite CDs that I listen to in my office during work. Nonetheless, Vivian urged me to watch it in the cinema once again because my wife is a big fan of the original musical.

And Tom Hooper did not let us down. The movie preserves all successful components of the musical – and the setting is much more suitable for telling the original story of Victor Hugo. Although many of the starring are not professional singers, most of them (notably Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway) perform rather well.

The major exception is (I suppose most of the audience agree) Russell Crowe – especially if you have ever heard Philip Quast as Javert.

Well, in my biased opinion, the more of a disappointment comes from Sacha Baron Cohen. Since Thénardier is nothing but a supporting character in the drama, I see no reason why Tom Hooper should insist on popularity of the cast and give up others who could sing well.

Change

For those who are interested in numbers or details, you may like to know a bit more the items that I bought and sold.

In short, I sold the followings in the past 12 months – in this sequence, generally in a pulsatile manner:

• Midland Holdings: I was slightly pessimistic about the property market, and there are concerns about the office politics of this company.
• Sunlight REIT: It is just not a good idea to hold two REITs at the same time.
• Link: The price has risen, in my opinion, to a very attractive one for selling. With a dividend rate of 3%, there are many other good companies with a better potential.
• XinHua WinShare: I did it for an entirely administrative reason – I keep no more than 15 different stocks in my portfolio.

I shall not elaborate on why I bought those new items, but I must say I have some confidence on the ones that I continued to hold, so much so that I actually increased the amount of holding of each and every one of them - except PetroChina.

Performance

What actually happened to my portfolio during this time?

Let’s start with some basic figures: By the end of 2011, Hang Seng Index closed at 18434. Twelve months later, it becomes 22656 – rose by about 23%, with another 3% or so from dividend not counted.

And, if I did nothing with my portfolio in this period, the value would have increased by about 33%.

How about now? Well, to put it simply, with all the hassles, the actual return this year was 30%.

I would hardly call it successful.

PS. It is difficult to give you the exact figure of the performance because the size of the portfolio changed. To begin with I have regular savings added in. Moreover, I cut down quite a bit the percentage of free cash that I keep, from 20% one year ago to 10% now.

Update

While preparing for the new year, maybe it is worthwhile reviewing how well one is doing in the past twelve months.

And, following what I did last year, let me show you my latest portfolio: