Thang Nguyen 555

As 2018 comes to an end, it’s time to look back on the whole decade. A time when institutions not individuals that got bailed out, machine-learning not man-enlightening and Communist countries grew faster than Capitalist counterparts.

A time when globalization ran out of steam ( what NAFTA) and got replaced by the “sharing” economy. Sears closed down, and Amazon opens up. GE got delisted and Uber will soon get listed.

Government (US) as of this writing, got shut down i.e. park services closed, Southern border might be closed and if possible, please have your mind closed.

Some time ago, government took care of its people. When there was a recession, Presidents would come up with infrastructure projects like the Erie Canal, the Hoover Dam etc… to create jobs. Today, it’s up to motorists to chip in, “brothers, can you spare a dime”.

Homeless people just shit on the streets, and eat out of garbage cans. Walmart and McDonalds train shoppers to be cashiers at self-check outs. Minimum wages even after the New Year can hardly keep up with inflation. We will soon reach an inflection point, where it’s those robots who earn their keeps, not just in the back room, but also out front.

The quants have had their day and their say. But rest assured, there won’t be another round of bail-outs for institutions. It will be foreign acquisition (back in the 80’s, it’s the Japanese who bought up most of the buildings in Los Angeles, now it’s Google at Westside Pavillion).

Occupy Wall Street could only camp out at nearby park for so long. Are we better off than 10 years ago? The wall will be built by Chinese, the machines run by Indians, foods picked by Mexicans and delivered by Uber. Just the facts of life – a status quo that needs to be sustained until the next round of machine learning and perfecting.

Then, we don’t need to raise the minimum wages, for machines, unlike man, need not to join an union or take breaks. They are on course to creep and cram in to territories and fabrics of our lives (IoT). Next decade will be the decade of sensors, big data and AI. No turning back.

Meanwhile, 2008-2018 is the same old story, of human nature rationalizes to further its own self interests. We have made progress, but at everyone’s expenses. In fact, we are worse off now than our post-Nixon world. At least, back then, college students questioned and took action. Today, everyone rides a scooter, reads the screen and is scared to death of future prospects. No wall is going to protect them since the crisis is manufactured and imagined. Fear resides within and cannot be walled off from without. Tax payers will keep on paying, bailing and praying that there will be justice carried out by machine in case man failed. Breathe and think. Hard.

First, I want to credit the late Tom Wolfe for his mash-up word – sexiled.

Second, the group The Guess Who, for providing the sound track “These Eyes” on 8-track format.

Third and last, to Penn State Student Housing for providing me with temporary housing (mezzanine floor of a dorm lounge), so I could have a balcony view of my two La Crosse team roommates, who played These Eyes over and over and over again during Winter 76.

On weekends, Student Council took over the lounge to party, inviting the opposite sex over. So I was sexiled. This was on top of my being exiled a few months back, a long trek: Saigon – Subic Bay – Wake Island – Indian Town Gap – State College – University Park, PA.

It was cold, snowing and fun. Main campus at University Park was where the action was: frats rushing while off-campus non-frats fucking.

No more wars to protest, classes to cut and only grass to smoke.

Baby, “born to run”, run. Rabbit was not yet at rest. So the whole campus was restless. Sperms were in the air. And I was caught up in second-hand (weed) smoke from Spring break. Girls were out in dresses. And guys, all hair. “Here comes the sun” the opening act sings. For three days, Main campus (Old Main) just “chilled”. Along the “wall”, one would find many who just sat around while others trying to duck those flying frisbees. We debated and discussed the war aftermath over mini Rolling Rocks.

I chose energy conservation for my TV production final.

Others just wanted to finish up their Ph. D.’s to work for Defense contractors. Penn State in the second half of the 70’s found a handful of Chinese students, who had no place to go during Winter break. So they found strength in number by mixing up with Taiwanese, Vietnamese and assortment of colored students in International Building. (They are now those Civil Engineers building bridges in East Africa and God forbid, hackers and rocket builders)

I, on the other hand, found myself on the bus, with stops in York and Hershey (before it turned out to be a theme park with Disney-like attractions) to Washington D.C., my sister’s home whose couch was available hence, no more sexile.

The hot food (sticky rice and Chinese sausage) tasted good (PSU cafeteria was closed anyway). The only tiny Chinese grocery store across from Arlington Skyline was open for business selling soy sauce and instant noodle. China wasn’t even on the radar ” what the hell was Toys R Us”. Only “these Eyes” still reverberated in my head. Couldn’t get rid off it, just like the sense of who I am and where I was coming from .

My subsequent roommates at Penn State were sincere when peppering me with questions: were you a VC? had you seen “action”? what’s like to grow up during the war? were there a lot of whore houses?

Those questions came at me as frequent as the stares I got while moving about on campus. No, I was not a VC. Yes, plenty of action: in 1963, I eye-witnessed the “burning monk” at the corner of Le van Duyet and Phan dinh Phung, near my house. It’s a mixed feeling trying to describe one’s growing up in war time: you couldn’t sit like a man behind a scooter (police feared that if one was allowed to sit steady behind a scooter driver, not cross-legging like a lady, one might be able to stand up and toss a grenade), and you were forced to stay home for months on end during Tet (68).

Still, we learned to extract the best that life had to offer: I played the guitar, sang those Peace songs ( the answer was blowing in the wind) and started dating. From zero to 60 miles in 5 secs: girls would kiss too in war time since in the back of our minds, we were aware that it could very well be our last dance. And the last dance it was: Saigon was spent, having used up its supplies of respirators. The war finally reached its appointed end. Big Minh’s final words ” I have been waiting for you guys – NVA – since this morning.” He couldn’t wait to go hit some (tennis) balls at Circle. Curtain falls. Finale. Flags down. Eyes lids closed. These Eyes. Playing over and over again, on the 8-track player. Exiled. Exhumed (bodies).

If any one asked me those questions again, like, “are you glad you are here”, I would punch him or her in the ears (where it hurts most but not injuring).

Don’t you know the price one has to pay to play? Exile hurts more than sexile. A few hours hugging a date whose name you barely remember to keep both warm, bidding time for your roommates to party, seem like a drop in the bucket in compare to a forced life time away from home, country, friends, families, food and fun.

For now, I don’t wish it on anyone. Don’t leave home, unless you have to, or are forced to. A hut or a house is still a home. It warms your heart even in the coldest of Winters. Your identity and yourself is lost, in a hurry and on the cheap, in exchange for a number albeit Social Security or Credit Card. Then you are anyone, everyone and no one.

You have become …..oh well, the guess who with those eyes that “cry every night”.

but let me tell you this.

What I posted stays forever in the Cloud. All my hopes, fears and dreams (likes) got stored up, analyzed and applied. They are translated into banner ads and relevant ads.

You can unfriend me, but still the ads speak accurately about me, and paint the sum total of my likes (choices).

I spend my days correcting auto-filled texts and helping Alexa to learn her chores.

Before unfriending me, let me tell you this: man and machine will have to get along, or else. Machines are helping young and old people (especially old Japanese people – or taking a Japanese drummer to the moon – and hopefully back)

Don’t unplug them just yet, the same with your unfriending me. I promise to contribute, to bring values and to optimize network effect (to amuse ourselves to death).

The same with other unpaid two billions on facebook who spend our days playing content curators, content contributors and content critics.

We want to make our marks, leave our legacy and prove our worth as human being while being replaced by machines (and algorithms).

When it’s time for you to unfriend me, let me say this: I am imperfect, but I am self-conscious about it, and am trying to “auto-correct”. I know about karma. My replacement does not. You can’t equate me with the machine.

Machine will pretend to say ” I know how you feel”. But it does not and cannot.

I , on the other hand, know how you feel. So go ahead, unfriend me. And while at it, I dare you to unplug it too. And see if you can live with what comes after the blip, you- social network addicts, screen addicts and self-worshipping addicts. BTW, I reserve the right to unfriend you too. But only after I give you your say, same way as I do just now before you unfriend me.

The Centennial Man can’t cry. He just lives on, doing the work of ten men efficiently: shooting the Tylenol capsules down the missiles, or dropping the A-bomb on the millions. It’s the age of technological gods, whom “behind you, I can see the millions”. In place of “soulful” “see me, feel me, touch me, heal me”, we found pure efficiency. Instead of The Who, we have the What; instead of melancholic Turk, we have Mechanical Turk. Or to compromise, we invent collaborative robots, working side by side with human: the cobots.

Jeff Bezos was born in 1964 and legend had it that he, as a toddler, unscrewed his crib just to see how things work. Later, he said he enjoyed reading “the Remains of the Day”, among the many books Amazon ship out. Amazon recently. announced its 2nd US HQ (NE to load-balance out NW). Strategic and again efficient (for AWS and follow-the-sun Prime shipping).

What’s in those packages? books? music? movies? disks? Are they “soulful”, engaging and relevant? Do they move you? Already news and boobs are fake. How can we be sure that next generation will ever see the likes of Marvin Gaye, Todd Rundgren and Neil Young ( “I’ve been to Hollywood, I’ve been to Redwood… looking for a heart of gold, and I am gettin old”).

Instead of serenading the moon, we are into Moonshots, and in place of arts, asteroids.

Cry, my beloved co-opters. It’s time to leave: the house for Airbnb, the car for Uber and the computer for AWS. When someone or something can do it better, it’s time to leave.

Well, except the crying part, the facial expressions (until emoticons catch on). I often admire old and elegant actors and survivors of Hollywood, Anthony Hopkins for one, who take their time after someone yells “action” to step into someone else’s shoes.

Modernity has cast the die and written the script. That script is to scale, to move the mass and to organize the world, efficiently. Google took off its early days’ motto “Do no evil”. In its place, we found a void on android. Someday Amazon might end up shipping a box of tears, from human to human, the same way Netflix founder tested the USPS to see if his mail-delivered DVD would arrive as anticipated. It will be our digital “message in the bottle”.

See me, feel me, touch me, heal me. I am glad Tina Turner said what she said ” I have done this song – Proud Mary – a thousand times. But each time, it’s different”. It’s not only content – which machine can learn –  but that “strange vibration”  which stirs and moves us, collectively.

Behind you, I can see the millions.

Being human, we possess both intuition and inhibition. The later is more for survival instinct, while the former propels us toward risks and change.  I’d rather exercise more intuition. It is often said women are endowed with stronger intuition than men. Women are good judges of character, of situation especially of danger. Having elected into the House of Representatives, now is the time for this privileged group to exercise their power with no inhibition and all intuition.

I always write about the intersection of technology, cultures and commerce.

And this time, it feels like High Noon: technology-aided power-shift and power-sharing.

We have come a long way (100 years) since WWI which took millions of  lives to pave the way for yet one more WW.

Isn’t it time for consensus and coalition building? Who holds on to what and how much of it. Yemen kids are dying by the thousands whose pictures I could not bear looking at.

It is hard to imagine the State we are in, given the struggles and strives our fathers have endured – in the hope that our future be better. That future is now. Ours. Yet the shovels keep digging 6-feet deep to bury bodies, in Pittsburg, in Thousand Oaks and KY. How many more Facebook accounts need to be deleted before our collective intuition kicks in. So much for inhibition.

It would be an interesting Ph-D thesis to study the links between Housing Crisis and the opioid Crisis or the rise of automation and the decline of American jobs. The net result: white men’s helplessness (and homelessness).

By intuition, you and I know that it’s a confluence of challenges, a perfect storm that hit the lower middle class: families that lost their houses, people their jobs, and kids their friends. When Amazon raises its minimum wages ( in anticipation of the Holidays Sales)  at Whole Foods and seniors applying for jobs at fast foods, I think it’s time we turn off our intuition and inhibition. What have God brought!

Ingenious America, bell-bottom blues and creator of the Blues, from shipping news to fake news, Fender (guitars) to fences at the border (Texas and Arizona). Could we still stand tall? Can our Statue of Liberty? Let’s shed our inhibition and exercise our intuition.

We can and will do better, much better. Last century was just a dress rehearsal. Our America will not be constricted or defined by barbed wires (WWI learned all those lessons having used all those tactics). Instead, it will be defined by people of courage and clear conviction, standing at the intersection of great technologies, international commerce, taking Armstrong steps, like first responders, running toward and not away from danger. Heroes of a different kind for a different time.

It’s been 100 years, yet each day is still 24 hours and the work still needs to be done, machine-aided or not. Intuition counts.

I was with my daughter strolling through the Texas Book Festival when I heard about the shooting in Pittsburg. Heart-broken. I just had a glimpse of hope, that there might be a place for me – like Ng and other published writers of late, to add to the American experience. ( I was also observing that White American population started to dwindle, hence newly arrived immigrants both contribute to the coffer and the richness of this  ideal called America.)

Maybe this showdown will force a dialogue, a debate and a decision (personal and collective) to root out violence as an easy solution to a complex evolution. An evolution from Hamilton to Trump, Ben Franklin to Ben Bernanke: America, land of the free, but not idle. We invent things, fix things and sell things. We publish newspapers, sell newspapers and send them over the wire “Mr Watson, come here! I need you” said Alexander Graham Bell.

America just wants to make a buck. A penny saved is a penny earned.

Everyone is a customer, a friend and a neighbor. We all came from somewhere else. Know any Native American? See. We need translators and transistors.

We are not going to crawl back into the cave, or back to any original country.

We are here to pursue happiness and help others do the same.

Dreams do come true (ask the South Carolinian who bought Mega Million last week).

Dreams do come true for Obama ( for Sugar Land, it was bitter not sweet given its sad history, but together we shall overcome). American problems have mostly been good problems. If you looked at them from other lens. Other continents and countries all have their dark days. We were once nomads in search of meals and meaning. Yes, we will be placed to rest. All things shall pass. But before then, let’s see if we can move civilization forward, and not back.

I missed that Thanksgiving meal in Pittsburg. Carol Jean Hawk invited us ( Penn State roommates) to her home. Her dad was an engineer and I still remembered his well wishing words to me, to us. “Through it all” we are going to learn to rely on one another. To get through this weekend, this year, this life. In pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

It’s not the place. It’s the people who make or break things. Let’s embrace the goodness in man (and woman). We are here to build, to thrive and maybe to soar if we are not in each other’s way.

Sure, White’s population is dwindling. But in its place, new hope and new colors are giving birth, enriching the American experience with new texture and tone.

It’s been well-worth the journey and all those dreaming. Hell Yes, I will go, again and again. To Penn State, to Pittsburg and beyond.  Fall foliage are beautiful and reminders of life’s changing  hues and tapestry. Today, 11 leaves fell in Pittsburg, and it saddened my heart.

Paul Allen died. Age 65. In his post-Microsoft life, he generously gave away at the tune of 2 Billion to museum and art charity. I have yet seen anyone being so true to himself, to his passion and compassion. In contrast to Paul Allen, Paul Getty bought arts and donated for accounting principles, not moral principles ( per “All the Money in the World”).

Structurally, 3 top food exporting countries: India, China and Pakistan see more people in their own country starve to death. “The poor shall always be with you”.

For the lack of will more than lack of ways.

I have combed through tech literature quite often, and what I found missing was the link between the 60’s and the rise of Apple and Amazon (which broke the Trillion-Dollar barrier). It might have been an unintended consequence that the spirit of sharing propels the engine of tech, which in turn enriches only a few. Share the Whole Earth Catalog but not Whole Foods Menu.

Paul Getty held off on bailing out his grandson until the very last “ear”, and couldn’t  bring all the art pieces with him to the grave. So did Paul Allen. But the difference is quite striking when you take all things into consideration: Paul Allen still remains, as a force for good, a strong influence on Bill Gates, of late a philanthropist himself. Allen, the Idea Man, who had his share of interstate commute in his early days, helped give us easy access to the world of computing.  He who receives (library computer access) gives – generously.

Whether the incident was personal or professional, the past – our past – will show up to haunt us. One mistake is all it takes. In 8th grade, I took up Hapkido ( a cross-over from Aikido and Tai Kwan Do): a lot of arm twisting and jumping/kicking. I was just following a trend which my classmates started: some were into Judo, others Tai Kwan Do.

A month into my Hapkido practice, a visiting Red-belt stopped by the studio. He held up high a piece of wood and had all the students – white-belts like myself included – line up to run, jump and kick it. When it was my turn, he – for some reason – moved the target in mid-flight. I was aiming for it high, just to find myself landed flat on my arm.

That whole summer, I suffered ( people even wanted to sign on it to further my shame). Those of you who had ever broken a bone, know how painful the experience was. I could not ride the motorcycle anywhere. Homebound, I turned reflective and retrospective. I picked up an English phrase book and worked on it from cover to cover. Most importantly, I had a chance to quiet down (all the youthful energy subsided – no guitar of course) and saw ahead of the curve. I knew then and I know now, each of us is the sum of our choices.

Some will always be risk-averse. Others, risk-driven.

The former will work in a bank, the later with a cash-trap start-up. For instance, one of my classmates was already on a plane out of Saigon on its last day. He wasn’t sure it could take off, given its over-capacity due to the evacuation chaos. He then made a fateful choice to jump off it.

Years later, he saw an iron gate about to fall on some children. Once again, he reflexively ran to it just to end up paralyzed from the waist down. The end of the story was that he finally got to San Diego – 43 years since that plane trip he could have taken had he closed his eyes and said a Hail Mary.

One of the most fateful choices we have ever made would be that of choosing a mate.

How it turns out – will we be rejected etc.. Professionally, being in Sales is one of the most frightening undertakings: to have that internal dialogue to face each day, filled with rejections.

Yet it’s the most rewarding of careers, since life and work are full of risks. Scott Peck began his book ( The Road Less Traveled) with “Life is difficult”. Always a fork on the road with unseen potentials and problems. Yet we have made it thus far, albeit broken bones but not spirit.

Those who lived through a divorce or a death in the family learn to cope and move on.

Life is difficult. A sum of all our choices and circumstances. A propensity for risk-taking might not be all that bad. Bitter-taste life yet lived in full. Not missing a beat. I missed that one kick and learned since not to miss any opportunity.  I ended up working out on that left arm during therapy and working on my English phrasing. One of my favorites: In crisis, there is opportunity. Wait a minute, it’s Chinese, isn’t it.

History sometimes comes in full circle. 1968 gave us the battle at Hue, but also at the picket line in Chicago. It’s been 50 years and it might as well be yesterday. My class 68 marked a rough and interrupted start – hell, the US Embassy in Saigon couldn’t even get themselves together for a work day, much less school children like ourselves. Then when my classmates were about to graduate in 1975, the US called it quit. Just like that: choppers ferrying Ambassador Martin and the US flag out while defense contractor’s barges pulling up their anchors. “Where are you going?”. “Out of here” was the reply.

Back to 68. VC’s in black pajamas and sandals trying to outrun the local police.

I saw two of them outside my window. Bang, bang.

Heads down! (but I could not help looking up and out)

Later, when B/W documentary showed the defense of the Embassy, we watched the US Marines guarding it, flak jackets and M-16’s, clearing inch by inch of the US sovereign ground (the VC’s were charging in and climbing over the high walls in a suicide mission). Meanwhile, protesters charging the Chicago convention center, at about the same time the Five-o-clock follies reports kept churning out optimistic assessment of the war.

Until Walter Cronkite decided to step out of his anchor desk to see for himself.

Johnson later said, “If I lost Cronkite, I have lost America”.

Stalemate. Decent interval. Peace with honor. Resignation not without shame.

Peace-signs farewell from Air Force One helicopter (Nixon).

Number 3 Ford stepped up to the plate, sworn on the Bible to uphold the Law.

America finally woke up from a long nightmare (Watergate) but mine had just begun. So were a few hundred thousand refugees. My sister’s kids fared pretty well, since they did not carry the burden of guilt and shame.

But we should, for all the lies we have told, the shameful acts we have committed (My Lai).

Until recently, the nation honored John McCain who was “guest” at Hanoi Hilton.

Jane Fonda herself expressed guilt over her younger years. And the John Kerry of the world turn their backs on history, selling memoirs and memorabilia. We were young once, in 1968.

A year in delay is a year one too many. There was a dent, a rift and a hole in that calendar. As if the gods have rifted it out of our human timeline. President Johnson decided not to seek reelection – and grew his hair instead.

Lady Bird tended her Austin garden while Jackie accepted a millionaire’s proposal.

Life went on for some, but for others, whose lives were lost, hopes dimmed, 68 was quite a scar. What were we doing back then and there, at the Capital of South VN and Chicago?

I can still smell the tear gas. Moist eyes and fainted hearts. Optimism crushed and dead bodies exhumed and exposed (a few thousand were buried in Hue). The propaganda TV kept playing its underlying sound track (Exodus) while its 16mm camera slowly panned across Hue’s mass graves. May they rest in peace and God shed some light on the situation, 50 years on. I did not know better, then or now.