Definite Optimism as Human Capital

This was a fantastic 20-minute read on getting it’s readers to re-think the importance of manufacturing and industry, optimism as fuel for innovation driven by movies, and perhaps how a recession has more detrimental effects on the economy than one driven by debt-fuelled stimulus policies to avoid a recession (see: China).

I definitely recommend reading it for it has also sparked meaningful takeaway with an internal conversation I’ve been having with myself for months with regards to Singapore’s future as a nation attempting to build intellectual capital for technological innovation.

For long, while unpopular, I’ve always held the belief we should stop attempting to raise the floor of education with diminishing returns. If we want to be more than just an operations hub but also one with potential to become a hub for innovation, we need to start getting people to think outside of traditional models of thought and society’s ‘mold’.

We do great in various forms of standardised testing, and that is good, because it sets the floor very high for the average child. This is important if we’re in the business of selling a workforce (which we’re very much good at doing so). However, there is a risk from the stifling of the high floor but setting of a low ceiling. Like government bonds, you will not lose money, but you won’t make much.

This isn’t one of those posts where its rhetoric is against the necessity of education, but a thesis that creativity and culture is of extreme necessity to propel a mature society into the next stage of meaningful growth.

Change requires disruptors, cantankerous zealots with a thirst for turning the impossible into the “previously impossible”, with a vivid imagination fuelled by optimism.

The promotion of creativity and culture are merely just the first steps in the right direction.