1. Accounting could be interpreted as a financial compliance job, while ComSec could be interpreted as an all around compliance responsibilities for the entire enterprises.
2. Technically speaking, accounting could even be seen as a part of overall corporate governance.
3. Chief Compliance Officer is the chief post oversee all three main stems of Corporate Governance: Company Secretary, Accounting, as well as Legal issues. That’s way wider than merely a financial nor sales decision.

Having a complete, detailed-oriented mindset is a must for corporate governance, which I believe fit into my caliber quite well. That’s probably the main reason why compliance is my ultimate goal, instead of, say, finance or sales.

Getting all A+s in law related courses back to my college means that legal issues are also my type of interest. A “word” person, so to speak, is a huge plus.

Hoping that I could enrich my technical knowledge first, be them legal issues, accounting issues, board issues, or management issues. Then, build up my career path towards to corporate governance would be my ultimate dream.

Life is quite amazing that you will never know who you meet, what your challenges would be, what are your next difficulties, where are your next stop, when will be your next turn, how and why? But it’s all because of the unknown that made life so wonderful.

Rex

20220509

Rex Lui’s Neuroscience Choice of 2021

“Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the World”
by Nichola Raihani

2021 is an Annus mirabilis for medical advancement and social progression. Indeed, Merriam Webster`s world of the year is "Vaccine". Otherwise, the mortality rate during this grand pandemic epoch would grow exponentially. Science, technology, medicine, and drugs are the superhero of this era.

But all the fascinating and dazzling advancements that saved our life are just technical change if we Homo sapiens are not the one who executes it. That brings a quintessential premise for our humanity: we implement this public health plan because of cooperation.

At the turn of the 21st century, our civilization has entered a new human era: a knowledge based society instead of an identity based society. The decline of the following "brands":

#Racism
#Religionism
#Genderism
#Ageism
#Genderationism
#Ableism
#Nationalism
etc,

is the highlight of the zeitgeist. Indeed, if you live your life and make your health decision base on all those illusive identities, you are way more likely to fail the Covid-19 challenge. And pandemic is just one tiny little episode of humanity. Green, Animal Rights, Abortion Right, LGBT Right, Euthanasia Right, Gender equality, Climate, Brain health, mental health, etc. You name it. For whatever issues we are facing, not making a decision only base on our own false concept on identity is essential for cooperation and compassion.

Sure, survival the compassionate. But the prerequisite is that we put survival as our goal. That is the power and the reason of compassion. Compassion is a highly rational act of Homo sapiens. It makes sure that we won’t go extinct because of some superstitions such as religionism.

Then what next? The 21st century is the century of compassion. But compassion would be achieved if we take it as an innate human nature. Both nature and nurture is equally important. The more educated we are, the more compassionate we are. To just sit here and do nothing and claim the world has became more cooperative won’t work. Compassion with action is called effective altruism. Compassion without action is just passive cynicism.

The bottom line, as always, is education.

Learn. Rigorously. Never live your life with all those fake identities.

Isn’t the evolutionary progression of the 21st century amazing? Welcome to the Epoch of compassion.

RL
20211210

‘anti-electricity cartoon in 1900’

I believe I can offer a concrete example on the entire philosophy of AI and our civilization, including our brains.

Go.

I am a totally new post-AI Go amateur (one and a half year experience) who knew nothing about Go before 2019.

Then entered AI at 2017.

Now, the universe of Go was being 180 degree flipped around. Everybody from a three year old newcomer to a 80 year old ten time champs veteran is learning Go with AI everyday. But we never considered Go done. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. AI has opened a new parallell universe for go after 2017. Which means everything I know about Go I learned from AI.

So as airplane. We won’t say “damn it I will never play a paraglider again” because of the invention of Boeing 737. So as car. We won’t say “I will never run again” because of the invention of car. So as piano. We won’t say “I hate the invention of computer DAW that I will never play piano again.”

When we look back the evolutionary history of human being’s invention, many of them are just naive low-tech inventions. They might be the star of their time, but once it became a household ordinary stuff, the halo disappeared.

We won’t say “Wow, it’s electricity!” when we see a socket on the wall now. Few decades later, we won’t say “ Wow, it’s AI” anymore. While at that time, we will have yet another brand new “Wow, it’s…” moment.

Evolution progresses forward. Human keep evolving. Technology is just a record of the Epoch.

The golden balance on technology, I believe, is to welcome any advancement positively, yet cognitively understanding that we Homo sapiens are still a 350,000 years young animals with a 7,000 years young civilization, no matter how “advanced” the technology is.

So, keep running, keep painting, keep loving, keep inventing, keep playing the piano, keep playing go while embrace technology simultaneously. They all last forever.

Ursula le Guin’s language section of her bookshelf.

Homage to le Guin, my own language section.

On Literature

My favorite class in school era is Chemistry. My best class is nevertheless, Literature. It’s rather lugubrious to overheard that in the 21st century more and more schools are abandoning Lit. Class altogether. Even in college, the Lit. department is shrinking, or is merging with the Language Department.

Surely by Literature alone, we won’t know how to invent vaccine, we won’t save animals, we won’t control climate, we won’t fight for Transgender Rights, we won’t expose the evilness of religionism, we won’t fight for Abortion Rights, we won’t go to Mars, we won’t do sport for wellness, we won’t know how to play piano. But rather than the dealing with the how-to, Literature deal with one section of humanity that no other academia could do it better, Literature dealing with the why-so.

If Science is the knowledge creator, then Literature is the knowledge messenger. Of course there are tons of lousy literature that are not dealing with the truth, but that’s another story. That’s the job of Literature criticism. We ordinary Homo sapiens do not have enough time to swallow an 1,500 pages textbook to know every nuts and bolts of epigenetics. A novel on epigenetics (again, provided that it’s science accurate) would come in handy. Before we can dive into the enormous scientific journals about climate change, a green novel would be a shortcut to understand the topic (however dramatic is yet another question).

Now don’t take me wrong, Literature as an academia encounters its own “Ten-toeism”: genderism, racism, nationalism in the old-school canon is a major problem. But however backward those so-called “canon” was, this should never be used to undermine the neuro-cognitive importance of story, and Literature as large.

We are story animals because no one could possibly read every single scientific journal at this very minute to understand every single truth of the Universe. Story, or Literature at large, would then be a short-cut gate to understand the topic. Using lies to tell the truth is what Literature does. Even Lit. class is no longer a fashionable class, I encourage school students to take it even in the future you won’t do anything close to this subject. It’s way, way, way more than just improving verbal skill. If just for the verbal skills’ sake, a language class could sufficiently handle it. The joy of Literature is exactly the opposite of escapism. It’s the activism of humanity.

RL

20210317

Rex Lui

What would Covid-19 do to us Homo sapiens if this pandemic was not happened in this grand Information Revolution Epoch?

Way worse would be an educated assumption.

Since the turn of the 21st century, we’ve entered a brand new era. The change between the 20th and the 21st century is even biggest than the change from Protohistory to Written History. This highly transparent flow of information fixes and clarifies a lot of myths and anecdote of the past. One of the most important one is our scientific recognition of human nature.

One prominent theory that was once popular but went out of fashion now is the selfish gene assumption. Molecular Scientists, Biochemists, Neuroscientists, and Geneticists have proved that we Homo sapiens survive because of compassion. The power of good nature is that it assures a sustainable and healthy environment for our next generation.

The polar opposite is the emphasis of social constructed identities. Those fake identities such as race, skin color, nation, gender, religion, sexual orientation blinds us from pursuing compassion. That’s why historians predict that the decline of those identity based society such as Religionism is inevitable. The more compassionate we are, the less likely we live our life based on those identities.

Departing our daily life from those identities is like switching from an anthropocentric zeitgeist to a biocentric zeitgeist. Under this altruistic trend, we can see why Green is more than just an environmental friendly lifestyle. The rising concept of Green will replace our outdated ideology of Religion as the main melody of the 21st century. This is also the product of a compassionate society.

Academic-wise, the subject of History has become more and more scientific oriented. Meaning that when we look through our evolutionary past, genes, neurons, endocrines are all central characters even when we are studying human nature. Civilization, by and large, is nothing more than a tiny little snapshot of our evolutionary path. More advanced, sure; genetically superior than the past? No.

Our Information Revolution Epoch is just one prolong period of the Enlightenment Epoch.

Survival the compassionate. It’s the law of evolution. Effective altruism works.

RL

20201210

Mensch fortschritt
Menschlich ist neugierig
Menschheit ist leidenschaftlich
Menschlichkeit liebt
Menschenhaftigkeit entwickelt

Babys wachsen
Kinder lernen
Liebhaber ohne grenzen
Orientierungen ohne limiten
Familien abweichen

Wissenschaft gedeiht
Aberglaube verschwindet
Medizin steigt
Tier erhalt
Astronaut erforscht

Du farbst
Sie trainiert
Er schreibt
Es tanzt
Ihr singt

Gesellschaften diversifizieren
Gesetze starken
Wirtschaft vorantreiben
Waffen aussterben
Institutionen verbessern

Mensch fortschritt
Menschlich ist neugierig
Menschheit ist leidenschaftlich
Menschlichkeit liebt
Menschenhaftigkeit entwickelt

20170309

REX LUI·WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 2019·READING TIME: 2 MINUTES

Four friends gather in a jazz bar. They are Physicist, Neuroscientist, Philosopher and Pianist.

The physicist says: “I’m the greatest scholar on Earth. I study the entire universe(s). Those human invention such as gods, ghosts, and whatnots are outdated as monarchy or feudalism.”

The neuroscientist says: “No matter how objective the universes are, we are still bounded by our own brains’ cognition. The knowledge we could access are limited by as large as our brains’ capacity. And in the age of AI, neuroscientists rewrite the history of epistemology nights and days. Gods, ghosts, and whatnots are meaningless.”

The philosopher says: “Science is the most rigid and successful institution for knowledge acquiring and institution development for human evolution. But we are bounded by our own species (Homo sapiens) and our own place (The Earth). Once we find another species on another planet, philosopher will retake the knowledge discourse. At that time, those alien intelligence for us stupid Homo sapiens will then be our new gods, ghosts, and whatnots inside our mind.”

The pianist says: “with all those gigantic buzzwords of universes, brains, knowledge, species, civilization, evolution, intelligence, learning, folks would rather listen to me playing Mozart. Gods, ghosts, and whatnots is not meaningless. Mozart is indeed the “gods, ghosts, and whatnots.”

The pianist walks towards the piano and start playing K265/300e. The universe(s), the brains, and the folks listen.

RL

20190807

In the 20th century, the pedagogical concept towards Arts Education is all about technical benefits: boosting creativity, aesthetics, relaxation, “side-dish entertainment”, to sum up. It’s about time to shift this concept. Arts is more than just Art for Art’s Sake. From the neurological point of view, arts is an essential cognitive method for learning and knowledge communication.

The saddest thing is, through out the entire educational systems all over the world, regardless of the advancement of the societies, Arts is still not a required subject in school. One best example is IB Diploma, where the group “Arts” can be replaced by any other subjects from other groups.

The solution is easily: make it a required subject for high school graduation, not necessarily be a requirement for college application though. Subjects like:

#1. Literary Art (Literature, Creative Writing, Journalism)
#2. Music (Performance, Composition)
#3. Visual Art (Painting, Photography, Sculpture)
#4. Media Art (Animation, Filmmaking, Comics)
#5. Design (Fashion, Graphic, Interior, Product)
#6. Performing Art (Dancing, Theater)

should be available. By re-establishing the quintessence of Arts Education, Art as an institution will take a more pro-active role instead of merely a follower within the social discourse.

Human evolves society progresses. Art, in the 21st century, will become more a member of “Truth Generator” instead of just a member of “Truth Messenger”. Art will be more a “Common Communication” instead of just a “Self Expression”. Art will be more a “Learning Method” instead of just an “Entertainment Tool”. Art will be more a “We” instead of a “MeP.

But it takes “Education” to execute this action.

RL
20190314

The decline of Ten-Toeism, the ideology that we Homo sapiens live our lives according to our own attributes and discriminating others, like:

#1. Religionism: my religion is superior
#2. Nationalism: my country is superior
#3. Racism: my race is superior
#4. Genderism: my gender is superior
#5. Ableism: my ability is superior

is reflecting perfectly in our public institutions. One of the most symbolic one is the Olympics. We Homo sapiens still have a competitive hunting mind in our primitive brains, yet being trapped in a highly “civilized” and highly “modernized” society. Competitive sports is a naive but effective solution to fulfill our game playing mind and boost our dopamine.

But times flows, knowledge grows. As we became more and more compassionate, Olympics became more and more like a co-operative institution for building bridge instead of a competitive tools for showing off. Therefore, we have Paralympics; as to make a wonderful sport event more inclusive. That tackled ableism.

But how about Nationalism?

Right now, although it’s in huge decline, we stupid Homo sapiens are still taking part of the event as a member of “nation”. The disaster is that in the 20th century, athletes are heavily affected by those technical issues such as politics, laws, and economics. In the 21st century, those nationalistic ideologies is heavily reduced: we start creating independent teams just in case of internal issues of a country. We even created refugee team for those who are without a formal nation flag on their shoulders. That tackled Nationalism.

But how about Genderism?

That’s the worst case scenario right now. We Homo sapiens still compete with only two genders, but biological speaking, we are way way more than just two genders. And we are not even getting into “gender” as a social constructed concept. In the 21st century, just as we created Paralympics and Refugee teams, it’s about time to make it more gender inclusive for other genders, other than just Female and Male. That will tackle genderism.

With the black fists in the black gloves in 1968. We tackled racism. And thanks for human progression, religionism have been so declining that religions have no influence in modern Olympics whatsoever. (Vatican participating in Olympics is actually not a big deal, as long as there is absolutely no monkey business for religionism promotion hijacking the sport event as a tool.) It completes the solution that Olympics as an institution for sport and as a symbol for human co-operation; thus eliminates the horrible Ten-Toeism from our society.

Personally I am a huge fan of Olympics. Not because of any Ten-Toeistic attributes like nations or genders, but because I’m also training in the same disciplines. Competitive sport is one of the most successful institution for Homo sapiens. It reflects the nature of us, a compassionate, cooperative animals progressing to be more healthy, more happy, and even more compassionate in the pathway of evolution. Let’s make it even more so. That tackles Ten-Toeism.

RL
20190312

Rex Lui

I value sleep a lot. Lousy sleeping pattern is worse than smoking or drugs. I don’t think there will be any other book that I will spend my valuable sleeping time just to finish it. This is the one that I can’t put it down. The last time I was that excited to losing sleep was reading Jostein Gaarder’s philosophical young adult fiction “Sophie’s World” when I was a teenager.

Note that this is a social science book. Instead of stating the objective truth like Science Books do, historian Yuval Noah Harari did not attempt to constitute yet another social construct. Rather, he tried to deconstruct many institutions we Homo sapiens currently have. That’s why sometimes I can feel more doubts than optimism in the book that is quite common in the social science universes, as social scientists study the subjective narrative of Homo sapiens more than study the objective scientific truth of Homo sapiens. When our knowledge mindset cannot escape our own narrative discourse, at best we can’t find solution to solve the problems, at worse we will be fell to yet another anthropocentric trap.

So, here comes my eleven thoughts on Homo sapiens “21 lessons” for the next 100 years:

1. We are story animals, but we are also in the extremely primitive in the evolutionary scale. We are toddlers in terms of speciation. In fact, even within our tiny little seven thousand years of civilization, our “stories” keep changing. 500 years ago, it’s OK to use religion as a knowledge guideline. At 2018 you will be a laughing stock if you base your life on religion dogma. Just like you tell others you are living your life because an astrology column told you to do so in the 20th century. This book correctly points out that religionism as an institution is disappearing.

2. I was very surprised that a historian has widely adapted almost all general scientific laws for a historical book, from evolutionary biology to quantum physics, from big bang to genetic code. When I study neuroscience every single day, I might overlook how this field has become so impactful for the world that even the social science terra is gradually leaning towards science. For one second, I thought I was reading E O Wilson (to some extend E O Wilson’s “The Meaning of Human Existence” is the scientific version of this book). When I recognized that Jared Diamond is Harari’s grand master, voila.

3. Since 2017 I coined the word Ten-Toeism to describe all the umbrella human social constructs that are based on our own attributes: nationalism based on a contexture called country; racism based on a contexture called race; religionism based on a contexture called religion; genderism based on a contexture called gender. One of the most serious problem we Homo sapiens encounter in the 21st century is that we are living separately like unlimited separated square grids on paper based on those social constructs. We use race, country, gender city, religion to live our lives instead of objective truth. At best, sure, in the administrative scale, the concept of nation is wonderful to execute social public services, from tax to fire safety, from business regulation to hospitals. But at worst, most of human’s conflicts are just ignorant arguments among those fake attributes. Technically useful doesn’t mean it’s true. Especially there are so many evil actors exploiting humanity applying these ten-toeistic attributes, we should be more cautious than passively agreeing on the “usefulness” of these tools. Harari correctly pointed out all those attributes, but failed to condemn those who apply these attributes.

4. I was glad that Harari admit that free will is just another social construct. And it’s a good thing to understand we Homo sapiens are no different than Chimpanzees or Gorillas. By admitting that we are no different than a chimp is the best response to the arrogant religionism that the universe is based on the images of some mythological creatures. I am so glad that Harari provide a new paradigm to treat those illusive hats that we wear on our heads everyday, multiculturalism. Multiculturalism doesn’t separate Homo sapiens base on countries, races, genders, cities, sexual orientations, etc. Multiculturalism value human being solely based on knowledge and abilities. That’s why we could appreciate Shakespeare even we are not English heterosexual (?) bards in the Renaissance; we could learn Marie Curie even we are not women chemical scientists; we could learn Gwen Jorgensen’s physical talents even we are not double sport professional (triathlon and marathon) women athletes in three different disciplines (swimming, cycling, running). This book correctly mentioned that in this highly transparent 21st century, ten-toeism is a dead-end.

5. I was quite shocked that Harari spend a great amount of words to bashing about religions and praising on secularism. But then, secularism is nothing more than a temporary term because we still fighting against religionism. In the last five years, we don’t even use this term that often anymore. Because, who isn’t secular? All babies are secular humanist until we brainwashed them one by one. As at this very minute, religionism is no longer the norm, we don’t even need the term secularism. There is no term “anti-voodoo”, who isn’t? This is why I value this book so high.

6. One major plot hole that I was quite surprised that Harari barely mentioned is: compassion. Compassion is unarguably the single most influential engine that pushed Homo sapiens evolving forward. That’s why we are becoming more and more calm, and less and less violent. One prominent example is: in the 20th century, no one will argue if you kill a cockroach with your slipper. In the 21st century, we start to say, let them live (at least take it out to the backyard). That missing link about the deep root in our mind: empathy, explains that why social scientists are generally more pessimistic, and why scientists are way more optimistic. If we Homo sapiens are not cooperative animal, we won’t be here today.

7. The one point that I absolutely agree is: Education. Education is the most successful institution of human civilization. In the 21st century, knowledge is recycling so fast that learning became a daily constant. The action of learning should be no different between a fifteen years old or a hundred and fifteen years old. If I have to choose one single aspect to solve the social problem of the next one hundred years, it has to be, learning.

8. The one major point that I argue against is: “if a story is useful, then true or not true is secondary”. That only works in one institution: Art. In fact, we intentionally using lies (hence the name fiction) to tell the truth. The truth should always to the theme of human being. And it can’t be applied to another institution. Do you want your doctor to tell you that “the medical machine doesn’t work, you will die anyway, but as long as you feel happy, I will keep getting your money?” No, I don’t. Therefore, quite the opposite, comparing Harry Potter to those bible creeds not only “not” insulting those dogmas, but you are insulting Harry Potter by saying that Harry Potter is as fake as those bibles (or whatever your fake doctrines you like). That’s why we should bash out as much non-truth as possible using as many methods as possible in this anti-truth era.

9. A riveting perspective Harari mentioned in the book is about sport. Sure, a bunch of folks chasing a ball is technically rather stupid. I would challenge that the action itself is not the most stupid. We are celebrating and rooting for some illusive attributes such as country would be even more stupid. Why not celebrating other attributes like Women, Men, and, Transgender folks? Why not rooting for folks wearing purple and folks wearing orange? Sport as a culture is cheesy. But sport as an institution in the 21st century has a very powerful function: to make human being calmer and happier. Neurologically speaking, sport and exercise are having a major functional shift in the 21st century. Sport celebrities and spectacular sports are not center of the universe anymore. Everyone is exercising every day. The rising of the concept “exercising” would revolutionize the concept “sport”. We no longer need sport to promote Ten-Toeism. Instead, sport is a recreational hobby that leads us toward healthy and meaningful life.

10. When we recognize that we Homo sapiens only have 350,000 years of evolutionary history, within that only 7,000 years are considered advanced (hence the name civilization), we will be humbler to the Earth, to the Universe, and to million other species that co-living with us together. We will not arrogantly be shouting about my country, my race, my gender, my city, my sexual orientation that easily. Harari successfully reprehend the harms of culture-centrism.

11. One major afterthought: history as an academic discipline is quite controversial. Since we were kids, the “History” we were studying is technically nothing more than political history within only about four thousand years. As written language was invented 4,000 years ago. No wonder the epistemological concept “History” is changing in the 21st century. We no longer just study one country or just one period of evolutionary time. “The Big History” is a groundbreaking idea that we Homo sapiens should study ourselves from the big bang. Then even for human history itself we start combing anthropology into history. So that we start to teach human history at 350,000 year point instead of 4,000 year point. History or herstory or zestory or xestory or whatnot, we Homo sapiens love to constitute social constructs so as to compensate our ignorance for what we don’t know. We better admit early that we don’t know almost everything. By only adapting this conceptual ethos, could we be more humble-minded to knowledge of the universe and less ME, ME, ME, ME, ME under this grand Enlightenment Epoch. As Harari mentioned, no matter which century, the only constant is: “Change”.

Learn, adapt, survive. Harari is Darwin. This is a highly recommended book that I think anyone who loves to learn and cares about knowledge of the next one hundred years should read.

RL

20180822