OPINION

Chip off the old block

Re: "Paetongtarn slammed for HK trip plan", (BP, April 11).

News that Paetongtarn Shinawatra, leader of the Pheu Thai Party and deputy chair of the National Soft Power Strategy Committee, plans to spend her Songkran holiday in Hong Kong instead of Thailand -- this despite her committee's plan to organise and celebrate Songkran as having been listed an intangible cultural heritage item by Unesco -- doesn't seem surprising to me. Why?

Firstly, in Thailand, leadership doesn't mean you must lead by example. It serves your purpose better to remind people who you are and what family you are from regardless of everything else. Secondly, the old saying is still potent here: "Like father, like daughter".

Let's go fishing

Re: "Wallet handout date set", (BP, April 11).

PM Srettha Thavisin should follow Lao Tze's wisdom to stimulate our economy: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Farmers are about 30% of our labour force, yet the pittances that they earn accounted for only 8.81% of our 2022 GDP.

Almost two-thirds of youth and adults, including many farmers, can barely read and understand short texts to solve a simple problem such as following medical instructions. Three-quarters cannot perform simple tasks, such as finding the correct price of a product on an online shopping website.

Instead of scattering taxpayers' hard-earned 500 billion baht to the four winds nationwide in a handout, the PM should focus on the lowest income groups above, "teaching them how to fish", increasing their productivity and income for generations to come.

For example, use the B172.3 billion BAAC loan to sell farmers high-yielding seeds or agricultural machinery at subsidised prices, or send their children to vocational school/university. Srettha, teach how to fish.

No debauchery

Re: "Fallen idyll", (PostBag, April 8) and "Phuket court responds to surge in tourist-related cases", (BP, April 4).

Well said, Chang Louie. I echoed similar sentiments a few years back in this column and things have gotten worse since then in pursuit of the mighty tourist dollar, rouble, pound, hub, whatever. So sad. Don't remember Phuket ever being raunchy at all but my experiences were well before yours.

More than enough

Re: "No comment", (PostBag, April 13).

Reading Fred Prager's letter brought to mind a documentary that I watched recently on the English version of Germany's DW TV channel.

The documentary discussed how the Amish religious group living in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana in the US have no electricity in their homes nor use any form of social media.

Rather than seeing this as a liability, they saw this as a sense of liberation, of freedom from not being tied down answering messages on the internet.

Another group called the Mennonites lives a similiar lifestyle in Kitchener, Canada. As is the case with the Amish, they also do not drive cars, but rather travel primarily by horse and buggy.

It should be pointed out that some Thais living "upcountry" in highly rural areas also lack electricity at home; but rather than being by choice as in North America, they are living this way due to poverty.

The religious groups above survive independently without government help, primarily by operating small businesses.

I think someone such as Mr Prager should perhaps bear these things in mind when posting such comments online. By his own admission, he's already made at least 6,000 posts here for heaven's sake!

He should consider how many more really are necessary, and whether quantity should be valued over quality.

Ponder this

Re: Will AI create more fake news than it exposes?" (Opinion, April 8).

Thumbing through an old notebook that I've kept over many years, I came across some words from Albert Einstein: "I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots."

In many cities around the world, roads have been blocked by followers of an organisation to "Stop Oil".

They lie on the road to stop traffic, risking serious accidents, and sometimes glue themselves to the road. They have also defaced valuable works of art and buildings and gatecrashed sporting events.

These ardent protesters reach their protests in motor vehicles. Almost everything they use or wear is made from oil.

Without the electricity largely generated using oil, their smart phones would not work. Above all, our very civilisation is where it is due to oil.

Against this, people are still using calculus to solve otherwise insurmountable problems. So, has Einstein's fear partially arrived or will AI make it complete?