Entry fee may not be enough to save Venice

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the charge means Venice has become “a theme park, a Disneyland”, where “you get in by paying an entrance fee”.

Bhutan’s (recently reduced) “sustainable development fee” of US$100 (S$137) per night, which applies to all tourists, and was introduced to encourage “high value, low impact” tourism.

Venice is the embodiment of overtourism, and residents clearly suffer from the consequences – living with the congestion, environmental damage and effects on their lifestyle and culture that 20 million visitors can cause. This can then lead to a negative response, known as “tourismphobia”. Another term, “Venice syndrome” has been used to describe the decline of the city’s permanent population, as citizens feel forced to leave.

Qn: ‘Tourism today is nothing but exploitation.’ Do you agree? (CJC Prelim 2023)

Singapore film on Normal (Technical) students back on big screen

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Qn: ‘Films are concerned with escaping from the problems of everyday life, rather than addressing them.’ Discuss. (Cam. 2021)

No harassment of LGBT community will be allowed, says Malaysian PM Anwar

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In early August, Malaysia’s Home Ministry banned Swatch products containing LGBT elements and said that anyone possessing such products could face up to three years in jail, a maximum fine of RM20,000 (S$5,820) or both if convicted.

Smooth ride so far for ‘robocabs’ in China, but mainstream use still years away, say experts

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John Grisham, George R.R. Martin among top authors suing OpenAI over copyrights

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the datasets used to train OpenAI’s large language model to respond to human prompts included text from the authors’ books that may have been taken from illegal online “pirate” book repositories.

It also cited growing concerns that authors could be replaced by systems such as ChatGPT that “generate low-quality ebooks, impersonating authors and displacing human-authored books”. 

For Qns on AI/tech on issues concerning intellectual property, copyrights and job displacements....

Glum mood overhangs China's Asian Games - 'People just don't care'

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Qn: ‘Staging major sporting events brings nothing but benefits to the host country.’ Discuss. (Cam.2021)

Indian film flags importance of sex education in schools, but kids not allowed to watch it

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For qns on censorship...

Qn: ‘Films are concerned with escaping from the problems of everyday life, rather than addressing them.’ Discuss. (Cam. 2021)

Image of pigtailed Apple customer service employee upsets Chinese netizens

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For qns on patriotism, and why people are easily offended today....

Why religion remains a force for good, not source of division, in Singapore

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Drop me a note if u wish to read the full article but don't have access to the above link....

Religious extremism has cast a long shadow over faith, leaving us to grapple with images of violence carried out under the banner of belief.

Dogmatism and intolerance, habitually rooted in religious doctrine, are also seen to be at odds with the winds of social change, progress and inclusivity.

just 36 per cent of more than 2,000 Singapore respondents indicated that religion was “very important” in their lives.

defined by values such as kindness, compassion and the pursuit of the common good. It guides the pursuit of meaning, interrogates the significance of human existence, and serves as a moral compass to examine ethical dilemmas.

Religious organisations also play a huge role in sustaining volunteerism and providing third-sector services such as counselling, education, or uplifting the underprivileged without regard to beneficiaries’ creed.

Faith also provides solace during significant moments in our lives, such as death and bereavement.

Singapore has no one religion with a significant majority. This means every religious community is a “minority” sharing a vast common space.

[For Singapore] The rejection of faith-based politics has also ensured a cohesive national identity that seeks to include all.

Qn:  Does religion still have a role in the modern world? (Cam. 2022)

Regulators across the world crack down on greenwashing before it gets worse

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Note some useful examples of greenwashing....

HSBC advertisements ...campaign centred on the slogan “Climate change doesn’t do borders”, the posters paired images of trees and ocean waves with statements about the bank’s efforts to finance the transition to net-zero and help plant two million trees. ....HSBC had sent US$130 billion (S$177 billion) of financing to fossil fuel companies in recent years.

The ads were nixed “not because what they were saying in the ads was untrue,...But because of what they weren’t saying.” 

in Italy, an oil company was fined €5 million (S$7.3 million) for calling its diesel “green”.

rayon labelled as bamboo, or paint marketed as “emissions-free”.

For qns on lying, advertising, sustainable development.....

Sustainability a key challenge as new global alliance seeks to increase biofuel production

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A cleaner source of energy compared with conventional fossil fuels, biofuels are derived from biomass, such as from plants or agricultural and industrial biowaste.

Diversion of food crops to produce biofuels harms food security, especially for the poor when food prices are already soaring because of the war in Ukraine.

Another sticking point is deforestation to clear land needed to grow biofuel feedstocks. Such unsustainable production has a negative impact not just on biodiversity, but also on the ability of natural habitats to capture carbon.

Moving away from first-generation biofuels, which are produced from food crops, has emerged as a critical need to ensure sustainability....countries should now help speed up the commercial production of biofuels produced from agricultural waste, as well as newer sources such as algae.

For qns on sustainability not sustainable.....

The rise and rise of Singapore’s Formula One Grand Prix

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Can ChatGPT eat Wikipedia’s lunch? Wiki doesn’t think so

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The biggest problem with the use of ChatGPT? It confabulates. That means it can make up stuff and generate plausible-sounding but potentially fabricated information.

generative AI is essentially a “probabilistic machine”. It does not exhibit any form of reasoning but repeatedly selects the most plausible next word in a string. 

the technology cannot scan old newspaper articles and extract the text, and it cannot do cultural translations for Wikipedia, which is available in 335 languages.

Generative AI tools have started spawning fake news and misinformation. ...For example, fake photos of Pope Francis in a stylish white puffer jacket went viral in March 2023. These highlighted the power and risks posed by tools like Midjourney that let users produce photo-realistic images using nothing more than text prompts. ...With AI-assisted deepfakes becoming increasingly convincing, it is hard to tell if a video, photo or article is true. 

For Qns on tech/AI

Rapper Subhas Nair gets 6 weeks’ jail for trying to promote feelings of ill will between groups

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Useful for topics on music, racism and social media....

Slow, ‘chatty’ supermarket checkouts can help the lonely

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Living among millions of others is no comfort for people in cities, where the pace of life is often hectic, and technology and digitisation often limit, rather than help with, social interaction.

Useful anecdote for opening/closing BANG for qns on topic of loneliness....

Driverless taxis blocked ambulance response to fatal accident, San Francisco fire dept says

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From wow to new normal: Driverless cars cruise the streets of San Francisco

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Involve youth in shaping ethical use of AI

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Ethical risks relate to the perpetuation of prejudices due to partial data. In 2022, Amazon used AI for job applicant filtering. Trained on data of applications filled out over 10 years skewed towards men, the tool exhibited significant gender bias against women.

AI-powered disinformation can perpetuate falsehoods and sway political outcomes, with analysts expressing concerns over its potential impact on the 2024 United States presidential election.

At the individual level, Replika, a virtual friend chatbot app with more than five million downloads in the US, has been found to push users to share sensitive information and through establishing rapport, render them susceptible to its suggestions.

AI will displace more than 300 million jobs by 2050, affecting every sector of the global economy.

Security risks form a major concern of researchers, as AI remains vulnerable to adversarial attacks and hacking, yet are widely used in security systems. Researchers have also shown facial images can be used to bypass facial recognition systems, negating the authentication process.

the apocalyptic scenario of a loss of command and control, with AI making decisions autonomously. From autonomous cars to autonomous weapons,

the environmental impact of its enormous energy consumption due to the extensive need for data centres, and consider the mental health consequences of generative AI being deployed in the media and workplaces.

Qn: Should limits be placed on the development of artificial intelligence? (ACJC Prelim 2023)