‘Marriage is no longer relevant in today’s world.’ Do you agree?

Love is an emotion of a strong affection and personal attachment between the two parties. It is like a burning fire that binds both parties together. However, it seems that this so-called love does not seems to be the same as before- from love between opposite sex to love formed between the same sex - and this has turned the normal way of belief to change. It is said that it is because of true love that will lead to marriage; a binding of two into one. From recent survey done, it is believed that the word " Marriage" is no longer the main focus by both genders since they lived in a democratic nation that follows the capitalistic system. Money has instead replaced the mind sets of most people and that the traditionalists' school of thought has already changed. Many young adults this days have placed their emphasis on building their career instead of forming their families. This raises numerous speculations that is being marries still applicable in today's context. In my point of view, I still feel that it is still relevant in today's world due to four reasons - social benefits, economic benefits , they still fight for their happiness and due to religious reasons -  and because the pros will outweigh the cons, their mind sets will not cause them to be too far away from the ideas of being married to the opposite sex. Hence the idea of being in united as one will help make the young adults nowadays to thirst for an union.

Capitalism has caused many people to want to acquire more and more real income, leading to the high relevance of marriage in today's world as the economic benefits has helped “lure” the people towards making their vows during their marriage. In most families in capitalistic nations, income generation comes from both parents and with both parents working, the financial security for the women and the males will increase as there is a pooling of resources and money that is especially useful in families that reside in modern and developed cities like Great Britain, France and United States of America where the cost of living is very high. Both husband and wife need to work to contribute to household income in order to sustain and overcome the problem of high cost of living. Tax reliefs and economic incentives are also a reason why people still chose marriage. As stated above, the high of living is a worrying issue that need to be focused on and through these grants and  this concern will be better dealt with. For example, the existing housing policies favour married couples – only married couples are allowed to apply for grants and can apply for a HDB flat, but singles are only allowed to buy houses after they turned 35 years old. Yes, indeed as more and more females climbing up the social ladder, the economic benefits may seems less attractive but capitalism makes them want to marriage in order to have the economic benefits a married women will to received, hence marriage is still relevant in today’s context.

Are population problems to be feared?

Living in a capitalistic city, most of the people rank their career above all the other aspects - starting up a family, forming strong bonds with friends and maintaining good relations with their neighbours. Yes indeed, earning money is important but isn't it a bit myopic of them to do so? Being myopic is not something to be proud of, it only seems to the people around you that your awareness to the main concern of everyone is very little. The main concern of everyone is of course the country's replacement rate that we faced at the moment. In some countries, they faced ageing population, while others either faced overpopulation or under population. In these countries, their government had been constantly thinking of strategies to solve these problems. To a limited extent, these issues would be feared, but in my point of view, this phobia would be greatly reduced as more and more policies were being implemented. What I mean is that with these policies, the problem will be better dealt with. In order to consider whether it is something to fear, we need to look at four groups of nations - the developed countries, just developed nations, developing nations and the underdeveloped - as they will give us a guide on how this predicament will be resolved, leading to us not supposed to panic over this situation.

To what extent will influx of foreigners in Singapore in 5 Years

Influx of foreigners into Singapore will cause a change needed in National Education.

National Education commonly known as NE in short means to change in a way such that the students studying in Singapore will have to learn that these people that the government invited into our countries, be it to do the labour intensified or to inject creativity into our shrunk workforce. These foreigners should not be viewed by the students as an eye sore but instead they should learn that because of their entrance into Singapore, we as Singaporeans can have a fair competitive, helping the economy of Singapore to remain competitive in the world economy.

Through NE, the students will be more appreciative of the point that these foreigners have come to help us not to steal our jobs. Hence it is beneficial for us to have these influx of foreigners in to Singapore.

Foreigners coming to Singapore

Benefits: Foreigners do the jobs that we Singaporeans do not want to do. Example cleaners, bus drivers, road sweepers. These jobs are usually considered lowly jobs and many Singaporeans viewed themselves as high and mighty and thus they do not want to do such jobs.  Hence with these foreigners, Singapore can retain its title as the Garden City.

Cons: Raise the possibilities of having a riot. The locals would see the migrants as one who is coming to "steal" their jobs and that this feeling of mistrust will cause tension between them to rise and once distrust sets in, it will need a long time and a lot of effort to let these hostilities go away. Hence It would affect the peace in our countries.

Conclusion: We should welcome them as they can help solve our population problem and also allows us to do the jobs that is important to protect our image as the garden city. Even though there is possibility that a riot may break out, the locals will need some time to get used to it and as time passed, all the hostilities will be gone

To what extent is migration an effective solution to population problem

  In the world we lived today, many countries in this world faced a common population problem - ageing population. This worries many leaders from the capitalistic nations as they feared that their economy will be affected. Hence one solution to solve such problem is via migration. However, in my opinion, migration is an effective solution to a limited extent. Other factors like giving the married couples monetary incentives and increment of the retirement age also contributed to help Singapore solve ageing population.

  Migration is an effective way to solve the problem of ageing population as it can help inject dynamism into our workforce and also help increase our population in Singapore. Till today, around 800,000 foreigners, be it foreign talents or just foreign workers, had come to Singapore to work and they formed up to a quarter of our Singapore's workforce. The government viewed them as a cornerstone for them to implement their policy that aims to help increase our population. One policy made by the government is the White Paper that was led to the protest at Hong Lim Park on 16 February 2013.  The White Paper aims to increase the population of Singapore to 6.9 million by 2050 and this could be done via migration of foreigners into our countries.
 
  However, in my point of view, migration is not an effective solution as it would lead to some other side effect like the foreign migrants will face social discrimination as the locals would see themselves as more superior than the migrants and this would increase the tension between the locals and the migrants. Moreover, the locals would also see the migrants as one who is coming to "steal" their jobs and that this feeling of mistrust will cause tension between them to rise and once distrust sets in, it will need a long time and a lot of effort to let these hostilities go away.

  There are other ways in which the government had used in order to promote growth rate.

  One way is to give monetary incentives to the young married couples. For example the baby bonus that is being given to the family for each child they gave birth. Moreover, for the subsequent child given birth, the family will more to ensure that the family is able to groom the child up healthy and able to provide him or her with the basic needs. This helps to encourage the young couples to reconsider their intention to bear child as most parents fear the high cost of living and it is this reason that deters many to bear children. Thus with the baby bonus being given out, the young couples will be more willing to bear children as their initial fear have been removed. Hence it is a way to solve population problems.

  The other way to deal with population problems is to increase the retirement age of the workers so that the countries can remain competitive in the economic sphere. This is very important as the economy of the country will determine the standard of living of the people in the country. With the help of these experienced workers, companies will be better capable to produced better results as the older generation will be there to guide the younger generations with their experience and this will be essential to help the country stay competitive in the world. Currently, the retirement age of Singapore's workers have increased to beyond 62 years old. Thus with a more dynamic workforce, the population problems will affect the country less significantly.

  In conclusion, migration is an effective way to solve population problems only to a limited extent as it can only solve the problems in a short run.

Is SRJC still lousy??

SRJC has always be viewed by many people that we only take in students with poor L1R5, but things have changed for the better in the past 3 years. Hence our standard in terms of academic results, we are not lousy anymore. Moreover, we encourage students to persevere till the end and thus the students that we groom after 2 years will be one with values. This shows that SRJC is no longer lousy.

Ideals that shaped the world we lived in today

The ideals of environmentalism,egalitarianism,capitalism, democracy and consumerism has shaped the world we lived today. Environmentalism occurs Because of human selfish acts, we tend to think about our ourselves instead of caring about what could be the possible effects of the acts that we do. During the industrial revolution from about 1760 to some time between 1820 and 1840, mankind only thought about the possible amount of profits they could earn after everything, not bothering the effects on the environment they lived in. If they would have cared about the environment, they will face a reduction in their production rate. Hence, they do not care about the effect as they know that the consequences of their actions will not happened on themselves. But have anyone at that time realized the terrible effects of their actions that their descendents have to face.Consumerism is the reason for the devastating effects of environmentalism. Because of our unlimited wants, man had to make some "compromises" to remove the natural resources so that more goods, be it consumers good or capital goods, can be produced. This in turn allows us to be become better and better due to Capitalism which is the way a democratic nation actually adopt in order to make the people work to feed themselves. Democracy may have the pros and cons but in the world context today, apparently it has done more harm than good for us as the income gap between the rich and the poor becomes wider and wider each day. In conclusion, lets break the cycle of it and spare a thought for others as it ,ay affects not only others but your loved ones too.

“The world I live in: what you and I can do to make our lives better.”

In modernized society like Singapore, we tend to be criticizing about anything we see, thinking that everything in this world has numerous flaws. Yes, everything men create would bound to have flaws,irregardless whether the problem is distinct or not, but how we look at these flaws will determine at which level we are thinking.Most of the Singaporeans are Grade 2 thinkers and that they only focused on criticizing the flaws they see and did not attempt even to think about why such flaws are created. So how to "upgrade" ourselves from a Grade 2 thinker to become a Grade 1 thinker? All we have to do is to pause for a moment when we detect any flaws we see in an object or in a person and think. Think about why this is being created in such a matter and how we can do to improve the flaws and make the thing become better. The magic word for us to make our lives better is to "THINK".

Are Draconian laws always effective solving population problems?

TS 1: First and foremost, Draconian Law is effective in solving population problems like overpopulation for a short period of time.

TS 2: However, Draconian Law is ineffective in solving population problems in a long run, thus by giving monetary benefits and allowing the couples to enjoy tax rebates would be another way in solving with the problem regarding population.

 TS 3: Another way to solve population problems is by educating the public about the population problems that the country is facing at that point of time.

TS 4: Last but not least, population problems can be solved via a change in the retirement age. Commented on Jolene's and Jeremy TS.