What About True Democracy? 講到真普選

Duh... So? What has it got to do with True Democracy?

要講服一個聰明人挺困難。但要說服一個蠢人簡直不可能！

I’m a traditionalist. I think revolutionaries should have a nominal understanding of what they fight for. I have therefore enclosed two articles (excerpts and links at the end) for the information of Hong Kong’s Democracy Revolutionaries. There are plenty more information about their Cause, but I shouldn't overload.

The first article explains the super complicated phenomenon of “super delegates” or “unbound delegates” in the US. If you can’t fully understand the mechanism, don’t feel bad. Not even ordinary party fans (US political parties have mostly fans, not members) do. It’s designed to obfuscate. Suffice to say that each super delegate is equivalent to thousands of ordinary party members in terms of voting power — a condensed form of selective democracy I suppose. 

The second article is a Harvard study which shows American election to be the most unfair among Western Democracies. If and when Hong Kong Revolutionaries have successfully discovered “True Democracy” between happy hours and weekend protests, they should export it to their sponsors to repay their generous support.

Since many Freedom Fighters a la Hong Kong are functional illiterates in English and modern Chinese, I’ve prepared a short summary in traditional script for their benefit.

在香港喊破喉嚨爭取「真普選」的民主鬥士們，懂英語的幾位可以自己閱讀以下鏈接的兩篇文章 ：第一篇有關「超級委託人」。第二篇是哈佛的專家調查報告：有系統地比較所有西方民主國家的選舉工程後，專家們認為美國選舉的公平性倒數第一。這類資料很多，港式「革命家」應該負荷不了。但能夠咬緊牙關略讀一兩篇，稍微認識民主偶像大美超級金主共和國的「真普選」實況，對他們的革命事業會有幫助。假如有朝一日他們在香港成功爭取到「真普選」的話，說不定可以輸出回灌通通沒有實現「真普選」的英美贊助國，也算投桃報李。

為了照顧英語有限，看不懂原文的港式革命家，我特別用繁體中文粗略歸納了一下，以供參考。

Tuning into Man's Last Song

I’ve never managed to give a talk according to script. 

But this is a reasonably close approximation of my presentation at 

the University of Hong Kong Main Library on 31 March 2016. 

I discussed the problems of our world today (oh dear) and 

how simulated hindsight had led me to writing Man’s Last Song 

鏈接到中文版：笙歌的世界

First I’d like to thank the HKU Library for the invitation and excellent organisation. When giving a talk on campus, one never knows who’s in the audience. There could be a specialist present on everything I pretend to know something about. It’s therefore safe to declare my ignorance from the onset. 

I don’t read newspapers, and haven’t had a TV since 1982. These days, I rely mostly on books for attitude reinforcement, and the internet for a selective glimpse of current affairs, avoiding distortions and misdirections by the mainstream media as much as possible. That’s why I won’t protest when someone tells me I don’t know what’s going on. I know they’re right. Just that they often don’t know they also don’t know what’s going on. 

According to my non-mainstream impression, the world has become dangerously disoriented for quite some time now. Nearly everyone, regardless of race, cultural background, nationality, religious affiliation, intelligence, degree of sanity and political persuasion seems to agree on one thing: There’s something wrong with the way things are headed. They just can’t agree on what, why, and how to rectify. Incumbent “universal values” seem to promote perpetual procrastination over major and pressing issues of enormous consequences, and endless debates over petty and abstract ones. Even without any knowledge in anthropology, I suspect that wasn’t how Homo sapiens climbed to the top of the food chain.

Anyways, it’s impossible to list all the problems. Just that some of them will eventually affect the planet, or, more precisely, the suitability of this planet for human habitation at current population level and rate of consumption. 

“笙歌” 的世界

這是我2016年3月31日在香港大學圖書館的演講的中文譯本

細節跟現場所述雖然有分別，但希望基本上能反映當晚很有意思的探討和交流答問

Link to English version: Tuning into Man's Last Song

首先我要感謝港大圖書館的邀請和安排。我知道在大學校園演說要特別小心。座上臥虎藏龍，所有我平時裝懂的課題，都可能有專家在場。為保險計，我想首先來個自白。

自1982年到今天，我家裡都沒有電視。最近十多年我更戒絕了報紙。今天我對世情的模糊印象，主要來自書本和篩選過的互聯網消息，盡量避免了主流傳媒的誤導和污染。所以每當有人指穿我不知所謂，我例不反駁。因為我心知是事實，只不過他們不知自己也是一無所知的迷道中人而已。

根據我的非主流印象，今天的世界一塌糊塗，程度史無前例。這不是由於我個人悲觀，或神經衰弱。全球人士不論背景，唯一的共識是世界不對版了。至於如何走樣，則看法很多，無法一致，更莫論應對方法了。當今流行的 「普世價值」，最顯著的效果似乎是瑣碎事爭辯不休，大談原則；與人類未來有關鍵性影響的巨大事情，則猶疑不決，一拖再拖。我雖然不懂人類學，但夠膽打賭：我們的祖先當初肯定不是光靠嘴巴當上了動物霸主的。

當今人類面對的問題多不勝數，繼續惡化的話，其中不少會影響地球繼續負荷現時的人口水平和資源需求的能力，可以說事關重大。