TR EMERITUS

By Lee Chong Meng This is not an article to debate the rights and wrongs of PAP and its policies. Neither is this an article to decide whether opposition is better for Singapore. Whether democracy or paternalism is better, whether there are too many foreigners, whether HDB flats are affordable, whether cost of living is too high, whether new citizens will dilute votes, etc. are not the subjects of this article. However, we shall prove mathematically that PAP will be voted out one day by using simple probability theorem that secondary students in Singapore are learning, hence the title of this article. Still remember Yaacob Ibrahim, who popularized the term "freak event"- a once in 50 years incident? The "freak event" he is referring to can be summarized by Murphy's Law "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong" or a proper definition -a mathematical idea that, given a sufficiently long time, an event which is possible (non-zero probability) will almost surely take place. Unfortunately for Yaacob, who was trained in civil engineering and has a PhD from Stanford University, forgot to use mathematics to defend himself. To borrow from Sherlock Holmes, "It's elementary, my dear Singaporeans" According to probability calculations, if there's a 10% probability that something will happen in a year, there's a 99.5% probability that it will happen in 50 years. If you get that probability of "black swan event" down to 3%, you still will get a 78% probability of that event happening in 50 years. Even if that probability is further reduced to 1%, there's still 40% probability that the event will happen in 50 years. (For those curious about the proof, please read the footnotes at the end of article) What does it mean for an event like PAP being voted out? It can be defined as a once in a blue moon event like lightning strike on Merlion, massive volcanic eruption, massive tsunami, massive earthquake, Soviet Union/Roman empire collapse, Chernobyl incident, end of China's imperial dynastic reign, appearance of geniuses like Einstein and Newton, emergence of Google and Microsoft monopolies, first black man as US President,etc,etc,etc. (sorry for the Yul Brynner's "The King and I" impersonation) Thus, if the probability of PAP being voted out at an election is 10%, then probability of that happening in 50 elections is 99.5%. Likewise, if the probability of PAP being voted out at an election is 3%, then probability of that happening in 50 elections is 78%. Similarly, if the probability of PAP being voted out at an election is 1%, then probability of that happening in 50 elections is 40%. The upcoming election will be the 12th Parliamentary election since independence. (PAP first came to power in 1959, so that can't be counted in probability calculation as they were first time in power). The more elections that PAP holds, the more closer to 50 elections, the more likely that it will be voted out in one of them. (hope they don't extend their term of office). Anyway so long there is a non-zero probability that PAP will be voted out in an election, time is the friend of opposition and enemy of PAP. So,to all opposition supporters or members, don't despair, lightning (coincidentally the logo of PAP) does strike twice, if PAP can do it in 1959 despite all odds, you can do it too, just remember time is on your side. Footnote: Mathematical proof Let's define a once in blue moon event as Y. P stands for probability. P(Y will not occur in 50 years) = P(Y not occur in 1st year) X P(Y not occur in 2nd year) X P(Y not occur in 3rd year) X ...P(Y not occur in 50th year) P(Y will occur in 50 years) = 1- P(Y will not occur in 50 years) Assume that P(Y not occur in 1st year) = P(Y not occur in 2nd year) = P(Y not occur in 3rd year) = ... = P(Y not occur in 50th year) for simplicity of calculation. Note though P(Y) happening in different years may vary due to various factors, as we are talking of a long time of 50 years and the probability Y occurring is low enough, we can accept the above assumption. e.g. Plugging in data like P(Y occur in nth year) = 0.1 (ie.10% probability), thus P(Y not occur in nth year) = 1-P(Y occur in nth year) =1-0.1 =0.9 P(Y will not occur in 50 years) = 0.9 to the power of 50 = 0.00515 Therefore, P(Y will occur in 50 years) = 1-0.00515 = 0.99485 or 95% (round-up to nearest number) Similarly, you can do the same calculation for P(Y occur in nth year) = 0.03 (3%) or 0.01 (1%) and you will get the answer in the article above. If you like, you can stretch it further to 100 years. As PAP doesn't hold election every year, thus just change definition of Y to PAP being voted out in an election and amend 50 years to 50 elections. The numerical results still hold.  Read More →

By an anonymous cartoonist Source: Embrace religious harmony Facebook  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has exhorted Singaporeans to make more babies in the Year of the Tiger. Though he did not state explicitly, he must be worried about the dismal "performance" of the ethnic Chinese in Singapore which makes up about 75 per cent of Singapore's population. Singaore's total fertility rate is only 1.23 last year, with the Chinese at 1.09, far below the replacement rate of 2.1. The reluctance of Singapore Chinese to have more children may be a reason why the ruling party is mass importing Chinese from mainland China to make up for the shortfall. In a recent interview with National Geographic magazine, PM Lee's father, the Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew admitted that the ruling party is conscientiously getting Chinese immigrants. He said it is a "good thing" that Singapore is welcoming so many Chinese immigrants as they are more "hard driving" and "hard striving" than Singaporeans. PM Lee's predicament is caused partly by his father's "Stop at Two" policy in the 1970s discouraging Singapore women from having more than two children, especially non-graduates: “We must encourage those who earn less than $200 per month and cannot afford to nurture and educate many children never to have more than two… We will regret the time lost if we do not now take the first tentative steps towards correcting a trend which can leave our society with a large number of the physically, intellectually and culturally anaemic," he said in 1967. During the 1983 National Day Rally, Lee introduced the highly unpopular graduates mother scheme: “If you don’t include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society…So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That’s a problem.” Now it seems that the Lees are so desperate for babies that they won't care less if the women are graduates or not. It is an irony that Singapore is now getting many mainland Chinese women who are not graduates when it had previously publicly discouraged its own non graduate citizens from having more children. PM Lee also opined that the recession last year is a key reason behind couples not having more babies, but he chose to ignore the fact sky-rocketing HDB flat prices may play a part as well. The prices of HDB flats have doubled in the last few years thereby forcing many young couples out of the market. Some have to live together with their parents or rent a place to stay, hardly ideal conditions for starting a family. With HDB flat prices set to continue rising in the year of the Tiger, it is likely that Singapore's fertility rate will reach a new low this year.  Read More →