Keys to happiness

re: "More than a forced smile" (BP, Editorial, March 27, 2023)  

Dear editor,

In view of the facts coming to light, it must be wondered whether "the Land of Smiles" was ever anything more than an "Amazing Thailand" trope invented by the Tourism Authority of Thailand to better sell the nation. 

More seriously, perhaps Finns and others in the top tier of happiness are there because they are allowed to reflect freely and honestly on themselves and their nation, because they have the liberty to question, to experiment, and determine how they live their own lives. These are things that laws like sections of the Criminal Code and other repressive laws deny Thai people, dictating instead that all pretend to perfect faith, untouched by critical thought, by honesty, or by evidence of reality. 

Is it to be believed that the clear correlation between happiness and commitment to liberal democracy is an accident? As Thailand has been made less free under Prayut and his allies opposing democratic principle, so too have the Thai people become less happy. It is also unlikely to be a random accident that the most economically successful nations are the liberal democracies, while the authoritarian countries are most plagued by thriving corruption, which naturally flourishes best when honest speech is socially sanctioned or legally criminalized.

The Buddha knew better. In his Kalama Sutta, he warns against believing anything merely because of the authority of tradition or allegedly revered figures. The Buddha would surely approve the healthy honesty of the Finns and other most happy people, who are not forced by law to pretend to smile at what too often rings hollow, at what they rightly suspect to be deceit. 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 31, 2023, under the title "Keys to happiness" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2540091/lame-excuses

re: "A.I. Can’t Write My Cat Story Because It Hasn’t Felt What I Feel"

re: "A.I. Can’t Write My Cat Story Because It Hasn’t Felt What I Feel" (The New York Times, March 26, 2023)

The human author perhaps forgets that he is, like all other biological creations, also a machine. The synapses in his brain that generate not only thoughts but also feelings are, so far as we know, albeit only vaguely understanding, work much the same as the switches in the processing unit of an AI. 

At the moment, we biological machines still have the edge. But it took nature 3.5 billion years of fiddling to create us, and we really haven't improved much for at least the last 12,000 years. 

AI in contrast, has only existed for decades, and is evolving at an ever increasing clip. It would seem rash to predict with any simulated or real (Are they different? How can we tell?) confidence what AI might not be capable of reproducing in the next five years, let alone 10 or more. 

But even if it can't feel, what is to stop AI shortly writing a different unique story about a cat that is as good as a cat story generated by the strictly physical processes occurring in David Means' brain? What Chat GPT has already produced in abundance shows that feeling is arguably not a prerequisite for at least some level of artistic merit. 

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/opinion/ai-art-fiction.html#commentsContainer&permid=124008374:124008374

re: "Can a Machine Know That We Know What It Knows?"

re: "Can a Machine Know That We Know What It Knows?" (The New York Times, March 27, 2023)

Just because we anthropomorphize other human beings doesn't mean they don't have minds. It's just that, whereas I know I do, it's hard to prove that you do.  You might just be a good imitator. 

How different is it with anthropomorphized babies, dogs or AIs? 

 

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/science/ai-machine-learning-chatbots.html#commentsContainer&permid=124038834:124038834

re: "In the Face of Tragedy, Petitioning God Is an Act of Faith"

re: "In the Face of Tragedy, Petitioning God Is an Act of Faith" (The New York Times, March 29, 2023) 

While prayer might indeed comfort those now suffering the loss of loved ones, no god will. Perhaps that does not matter: the value of prayer is directly in its balm for they who pray. 

But unfounded hope that militates against effective action does matter. Honest realism, however unpleasant, is a healthier prerequisite for assessing and responding to an appalling situation than is hope or faith that is not solidly grounded in reality. 

Mr French speaks not only of hope and faith, but also of courage, specifically, of moral courage. That courage in the face of an ugly reality is a more productive response. Courage, as the author says, to do what is right to oppose what is wrong, however hopeless it might seem, and there is much that is wrong in a nation that has such an appalling record of gun violence, amid a hopeless fetishization of guns that goes hand in hand with boastful anti-wokeness to oppose even allowing a courageous facing of the reality in which we humans, including Americans, must live. 

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/opinion/nashville-shooting-prayer.html#commentsContainer&permid=124090288:124090288

Level the playing field

re: "Trans women banned from female athletics" (BP, March 24, 2023) 

Dear editor,

The unhappy decision by World Athletics that "transgender women will no longer be allowed to compete in female track and field events regardless of their levels of testosterone" again confirms that common sense is indeed common, typically meaning crudely populist, and not particularly sensible. 

There was a much better solution to this contentious sporting issue borne of improving technology and respect for individuals. World Athletics has squandered that opportunity. Instead of perpetuating the ancient obsession with biological sex, the focus could instead have been put on relevant physical criteria, such as the cited testosterone levels, and allow athletes to compete in categories according to which set of those relevant physical criteria they met, irrespective of genetic sex. How could that be unfair to anyone competing in such a category? This solution to it would have defused the controversy without perpetuating inherited notions that focus on judging women differently to men merely because they are biologically women.

In what other area of human contest is such sex-based discrimination still an accepted norm? Are women managers kept carefully sequestered from male managers, or do both compete in the corporate field on the same set of relevant criteria, with their sex being irrelevant? Are women doctors, and now transgender doctors, kept from competing on equal terms with doctors born male, or are they judged according to their competence as doctors, with sex properly deemed irrelevant?

The sensible resolution to the new biological and social realities made increasingly common is to get over separating humans according to whether they have a Y-chromosome or not and instead judge each individual according to actually relevant criteria. In the case of athletics, those criteria would include things like testosterone level, height, weight, lung capacity, and so on. Why, after all, should weaker women be forced to compete against stronger women merely because they happen to be in the category of biological female?  

When other playing fields are moving past it, why does sport remain determined to discriminate on the basis of sex? Why the refusal to treat individuals impartially according to relevant criteria for ability? 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 26, 2023, under the title "Level the playing field" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2536289/level-the-playing-field

Myanmar viewpoints

re: "Dialogue: A step in the right direction" (BP, Opinion, March 21, 2023) 

Dear editor,

When Kavi Chongkittavorn writes of the conflict resolution regarding "the Myanmar quagmire" itself remaining conflicted that "It's nobody's fault," does that mean he thinks committing a coup against your own people to overthrow your own nation's popular form of democratic government, and to thereby massively regress the economic, social, political and moral well being of the people and their nation is not an act with appalling consequence for which its perpetrators are at fault?

Kavi's piece, however, might leave readers a little perplexed: Was Myanmar's National Unity Government (NUG), one of those "dialogue partners" present for the "unfiltered exchanges" that most recently confirmed the divisions? More or less perplexing, the author later opines in the same piece that "besides Nay Pyi Taw, other participants understood full well who the main troublemakers were and the sources of all the troubles that preceded the current quagmire." That does sound as though the author might well suspect who is at fault for "the Myanmar quagmire."

Naturally, the State Administrative Council (SAC) likes ASEAN's Five Point Consensus; since it was promulgated in April 2021, they have used it as a convenient tool by which to put off any substantive move to restore the governance of the Myanmar nation, and its natural wealth being plundered, to the Myanmar people. 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 24, 2023, under the title "Myanmar viewpoints" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2535069/little-to-smile-about

Handling criticism

re: "Restore faith in sports" (BP, Editorial, March 20, 2023) 

Dear editor,

As they have for generations past, sport and devotion to it remain pillars of many Thai lives. In daily articles and an entire section devoted to it, the Bangkok Post itself reflects the widespread (surely universal) reverence for this ritualized element intrinsic to Thai identity, most recently evidenced in the firm rebuff to Cambodia's attempt to muscle in on a pure manifestation of Thainess. Like the Thai nation, Muay Thai stood erect against the attack. 

If faith in the Thai nurturing institution known as The National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) is indeed waning as alleged, or if, the heavens forfend, there is a suspected deviation from the proper perfection of implicit trust in that institution's handling of its relatively modest budget of 5.5 billion Baht, there is a simple, well-proved remedy to hand. The root of the problem is obviously all those "complaints about its operations, including allegations of a conflict of interest, inefficiency and discrimination in budget allocations." The solution is to criminalize all complaints, and threaten those voicing them with appropriate prison time. In this regard, the Post's suggestion that the institution itself, no less, "must listen to criticism and take it into account" is most improper, presuming as it does that there could actually be reasonable grounds for some criticism. Is this really the kind of precedent to be advocating? 

 Felix Qui   

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 21, 2023, under the title "Handling criticism" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2532681/neighbour-beware

True colours

re: "No time for cruel jokes" (BP, Edirorial, March 17, 2023) and  "By royal decree" (BP, PostBag, March 15, 2023)

Dear editor,

When Prime Minister gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha and allies insist that they act to protect children from bad influences, they accidentally speak a muddled truth, one that warrants clarification.  The latest telling quotation from the man who publicly exposed his attitude towards the majority of the Thai people and to the rule of law that established the Thai nation's popular form of "a democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State" (Thai Constitution, 2007; Thai Constitution, 2017) when he committed a coup against them is his recent response to a Thai citizen's quest to air her grievances, regarding which recent incident "video clips show at least six officers, men and women, charge and try to silence the 62-year-old woman."

When asked about it, Thailand's prime minister responded with the dismissive: "she breached the law, didn't she?" And therein lies the problem that is at the heart of all that is wrong with PM Prayut and those who think as he does. They refuse to see, or are unable to understand, that the law, their law, is the problem. The law is unjust. Since May 22, 2014, when he overthrew its supreme rule of law along with Thailand's "democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State", Prayut and supporters have weaponized the new law they had made up to serve their agenda, making the law itself a tool that corrupts justice, along with the institutions that serve that law. They then childishly insist (they do love to insist), like a schoolyard bully, that if only those being abused followed to the letter the bullies' laws, they wouldn't have to be punished in accord with those laws. This is the only sense in which authoritarians seek to protect the childish. In any sense of actually caring about Thailand's children and youth, they manifestly intimidate them into silence rather than listen to an alternative, and typically more mature, point of view.

Such authoritarians thereby prove themselves enemies alike not only of justice and democracy, but also of benevolence and righteousness. As Burin Kantabutra recently reminded us, ("By royal decree", PostBag, March 15, 2023), the example of what a genuinely benevolent and righteous person does when confronted by unjust law is that set by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej The Great, who explicitly spoke out against the very law that PM Prayut's administration is using to silence patriotic Thais who peacefully call only for just, democratic principle to be respected. Benevolent and righteous people do not stand silently by, let alone condone it, while unjust law is used to abuse. Such abuse is the bullying of an immature child. Such childishness deserves to be neither protected nor accepted. Those who are in fact benevolent and righteous do not, whether by tacit silence or more culpably, accept such injustice masquerading as law.  

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 19, 2023, under the title "True colours" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2531381/mixed-appeal

Cashing in on superstition

re: "Maybe Armageddon!" (BP, PostBag, March 13, 2013)  and "Cashing in on superstition" (BP, March 13, 2023)

Dear editor,

Miro King, the lotus eater, be of good cheer. Today's Bangkok Post reports the solution to your own and all such petty earthly concerns in "Cashing in on superstition". The new faith-based tourism targetting the truly faithful for the purest or motives will drive away all evils. Religious tourism is but the latest fruit borne and nurtured by the absolute efficacy of prayer, and by the proven powers of magical amulets produced by mystical temples under the guidance of venerated figures oozing pure holiness. These spiritual gifts indubitably solve all problems, whether health, business or otherwise. If greater spiritual force is needed to bring about a miraculous cure, to rid the land of encroaching PM2.5, or to eradicate corruption forever, the troops can be called on to volunteer for a mass ordination. Who would dare question that such serious merit making will solve all those mundane travails along with rising debt, unemployment, and inflation, let alone lesser matters such as your faithless concern of an excess of eager tourists swamping us all like a flood or other act of god? 

And if prayer, amulets, and mass ordination inexplicably fail for the first time ever to deliver the promised goods, that is plainly because not enough praying was done, not enough offerings were made to a large enough collection of amulets, or not enough men freely volunteered to ordain. What other explanation could be considered? More faith, purer faith, is all that is needed. 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 18, 2023, under the title "Cashing in on superstition" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2530829/pm2-5-nightmares

re: "The Other Children in the DeSantis Culture War"

re: "The Other Children in the DeSantis Culture War" (The New York Times, March 8, 2023) 

I wonder how many desperately terrified by their fervidly imagined advance of “neo-Marxist indoctrination” across the land have any idea of anything Marx ever said. 

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/education-ron-desantis-crt.html#commentsContainer&permid=123657495:123657495

Just fix pot laws

re: "Weed bounty may go to pot" (BP, Editorial, March 7, 2023) 

Dear editor,

The Bangkok Post is correct that the botched reform of laws relating to cannabis use needs to be corrected. It is misguided to accept that cannabis should be legal only for medical use. What Bhumjaithai now needs to do is press for full legalization of cannabis for use by adults, with no distinction between medical and recreational use. There is not now and never has been any good reason why cannabis should not be legally regulated exactly like the far more harmful drug alcohol. 

It must be admitted that there is no doubt that some children do indeed access and consume alcohol, and parents should certainly be concerned about their children sneaking hits of whisky, wine or beer, but that is not a just reason for the state to criminalize that drug for recreational use by adults. No more is similar parental concern a just reason to criminalize cannabis. The concerned parents, many of whom are likely alcohol users themselves, need to stop throwing tantrums worthy of Chuwit Kamolwisut, get informed, and set a more mature example to their children of sound reasoning supporting impartial justice. 

 Felix Qui  

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on MonthDate, 2023, under the title "Just fix pot laws" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2522781/just-fix-pot-laws

Drug war déjà vu

re: "Pheu Thai vows to rid Buri Ram of illegal drugs" (BP, March 5, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Pheu Thai's promise made by the daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra at a major campaign rally in Buriram to "transform this northeastern province by ridding it of all kinds of illegal drugs" inevitably recalls the horror of her father's morally repugnant war on drugs in 2003, which saw more than 2,000 Thais killed under circumstances that have never been adequately clarified, let alone seen justice done. 

There is precisely one way to justly rid a province or any other jurisdiction of illegal drugs: remove them from the list of illegal drugs; there will then be no illegal drug problem. That would be just. It would also be practical. It would also reduce drug harms to society, which has never appeared the goal of Thaksin or any like minded politician riding the wave of populist unreason fuelled by blind prejudice whipped up by political players to serve only their own dubious agendas. 

In addition to justly respecting individual rights of adults, there are several very practical benefits to such a just drug policy. 1) It removes the trade from criminal gangs, surely good for society as well as consumers. 2) It eradicates a major source of corruption in the Royal Thai Police and related bodies, which eradication most hopefully deem a welcome boon to society. 3) It allows tax to be collected on a thriving industry, which state income can then be spent on drug awareness and recovery programs. 4) It makes treatment easier by removing the threat of legal punishment for an awful personal and family problem, which is again surely to be welcome. 5) It saves a fortune on policing, court cases, and prisons, which budget funds can also then be diverted to rehabilitation, health care and education. 6) It allows police to focus on preventing murder, rape, theft, fraud and like crimes with actual victims, unlike most drug use which typically involves no such victims. The millions of drug users in Thailand are plainly not all slitting throats or even jay walking on a regular basis. 7) It ensures the quality of the product since when consumers buy from legally regulated businesses, they can file police complaints in case of tainted goods or other criminal behaviour by the seller, thus saving lives. 8) Nor should it be ignored that the evidence from around the world contradicts the unfounded popular belief that legalization greatly increases drug use. The use of alcohol, for example, did not surge in the US when, to the great distress of the mafia and their loyal retainers in US law enforcement, the prohibition era was ended in 1933. The legalization of cannabis for recreational use around the world in recent years tells a similar story of the relative inelasticity of recreational drug use with respect to legal status, a reality further confirmed by Portugal's long running decriminalization of all personal drug use. 

What, in contrast, are reasons to maintain a status quo that has utterly failed to reduce drug use or harms to society for many decades? The regular massive seizures reported in this newspaper attest only to the abject failure of current policy to reduce drug use despite having been repeated for many decades with only net negative consequences for Thai society and citizens for those same decades of costly failure. 

If Pheu Thai were proposing to eliminate illegal drugs by duly reforming a policy that is a solidly proven failure, it would deserve praise. If it merely seeks to repeat with variations one of the most shameful populist episodes of Thaksin's time as PM, it deserves only disdain at best. 

 Felix Qui  

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 7, 2023, under the title "Drug war déjà vu" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2521941/drug-war-d%C3%A9j%C3%A0-vu

Easy to prove

re: "Late convert to democracy" (BP, Editorial, March 3, 2023) 

Dear editor,

There is a perfectly simple litmus test for Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Palang Pracharath Party Gen. Prawit Wongsuwon's claim to have converted to democracy. As it stands, there must be suspicions that this latter day one by the Deputy PM reeks of the earlier claim insisted on in May 2014 and thereafter of his best mate, Prime Minister Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha, that he overthrew their popular form of democratic government in Thailand in order bring true democracy to the Thai people.

If DPM Gen. Prawit is sincere, he can very easily prove his commitment to democratic principle. He need only join the Move Forward Party in calling for reform of traditional Thai law contradicts democracy in both execution and principle. It will be credible that Deputy PM Prawit is now a believer in democracy when he speaks out against those laws being actively used to silence the peaceful expression of opinion. More specifically, the nation will know that he is genuine when he calls for an end to imprisoning patriotic Thais who peacefully express opinions on Thai affairs, even going to the extreme of calling for openness, transparency and accountability, those basic democratic notions so inimical to systemic corruption. 

Those currently being hounded by undemocratic Thai law are, of course, also guilty of calling for informed understanding, similar to what Buddhism calls right understanding, which is founded solidly on critical thinking rather than mindless faith in the authority of any person or institution. The newly converted DPM Gen. Prawit will presumably now stand solidly on the side of both democracy and Buddhist teaching against such legalized abuse that intentionally stunts right understanding of national issues.

Let us look forward to Deputy Prime Minister and PPRP leader Party Gen. Prawit Wongsuwon proving with the required actions his claims to now respect democratic principle and process. 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 6, 2023, under the title "Easy to prove" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2521144/cooperate-for-peace

It's all relative

re: "Go easy on pa thong ko, say health experts" (BP, March 2, 2023) 

Dear editor,

I am very disappointed in Dr Suwannachai Wattanayingcharoencha, director-general of the Health Department, who has called only for responsible use of the substance whilst admitting the very real health risks of “pa thong ko” (fried dough). And giving a pass to something so sickly as cha Thai, packing "the equivalent of up to 13 teaspoons of sugar", for recreational use?  Will syrup injecting rooms be mandated next week?  

Surely the proper response to discovering that people, even adults, might be indulging in recreational use of something unhealthy is to call for a ban to protect the nation and save the children. What can the doctor have been thinking? 

 Felix Qui  

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 5, 2023, under the title "It's all relative" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2520705/up-to-thaksin

For freedom's sake

re: "5 parties pledge to not support vapes" (BP, February 24, 2023) 

Dear editor,

The five parties, Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP), the Democrat Party (of course), Chartthaipattana Party, the Pheu Thai Party, and the Thai Liberal Party (really?), are to be commended for publicly exposing their strong stance against the notion that adults be permitted to decide for themselves how best to enjoy their own lives, in this case with regard to vaping, something that all five parties oppose for uniformly bad reasons. 

Of course, this opposition to accepting the right of adults to the liberty to choose what risks to take in their pursuit of a meaningful life collaterally also supports the status quo that generates such lucrative extra income streams for members of the Royal Thai Police. Unjust law does tend to do that, at least since the US gave their Mafia a major boost by prohibiting alcohol back in 1920. Thai criminal gangs and their loyal employees in law enforcement are no less slow than their American counterparts in the 1920s at spotting a gift horse when morally challenged politicians indulging popular prejudices hand them the reins to riches. 

Yes, e-cigarettes are almost certainly harmful. So is living in Chiangmai's filthy air. So, too, is pigging out on sugary drinks or biking on the streets of Bangkok. Alcohol and tobacco might not be more harmful to users than e-cigarettes, but even if e-cigarettes were proven to be (they have not been) a significantly greater health risk than regular cigarettes, that could not be a sufficient reason to ban them for use by adults. Living in a free nation where individual liberty is respected does entail accepting that some adults will do things that are unhealthy for themselves, such as drink alcohol, which is harmful in any quantity. If those campaigning against vaping are sincere, they will also propose banning alcohol on exactly the same health grounds and to protect children who might, horror of horrors, otherwise get their hands on whisky or champagne.  The Thai mafia eagerly awaits such a promising new business opportunity. 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 4, 2023, under the title "For freedom's sake" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2520204/rise-above-the-folly

re: "The Return of the Magicians"

re: "The Return of the Magicians" (The New York Times, March 2, 2023) 

AI already pushes us to reflect on our own sentience and more, but this is nothing new. We have known with exponentially increasing certainty since the rise of science that whatever goes on in brains to generate minds and all the wondrous aspects of being a (human) person that that entails follow strictly from physics. It would be foolish to try to explain our consciousness in terms of the movements of elementary particles and forces, but they remain the foundation of everything we and the rest of the cosmos is, including perhaps a multitude of universes. 

Our traditional failure to explain such things as consciousness gave rise to belief in afterlives and a spirit essence that possesses our material being to control it.  Descartes could not escape such notions. They remain as false as that murky notion called free will. 

That we are now evolving machines that promise to replicate, in strict accord with fully determined processes we cannot comprehend, what we think most miraculous about ourselves is a timely reminder that talk of souls and the like is pure, unsubstantiated kook enabled only by our failure to understand how such things truly work. But then, that "God of the gaps" has ever been the first and the last refuge of religions and like supernatural wishing for us to be more than we are. 

Let us pray that the advancing AI brings forth a miracle akin to Darwin's theory that delivered us from any need for supernatural explanations for the bounty of manifest biology.  

_______________________________

The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/opinion/magic-science-ufo-ai.html#commentsContainer&permid=123533541:123533541

UTN's real roadmap

re: "PM launches party campaign slogan in Isan" (BP, February 26, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha continues to set the bad example to Thai students. For the grammatically challenged, verbs typically need a noun or two, and often other parts of speech, to communicate any sensible meaning. The vacuous phrase "Done, doing, will continue," could mean anything, so really means nothing.

If I might assist, the United Thai Nation's motto in the accurate version that means something is: "Done the coup part of the road map. Doing the suppression of democracy part of the road map. Will continue the past failures and made-to-be-broken promises as long as opportunity can be grabbed."  

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on March 2, 2023, under the title "UTN's real roadmap" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2518471/utns-real-roadmap

re: "Conspiracy Theorizing Goes Off the Rails"

re: "Conspiracy Theorizing Goes Off the Rails" (The New York Times, February 27, 2023) 

In a demographic primed from tender age to believe in the absolute, literal reality of a god presiding with ruthless benevolence over heavens, hells, demons, angels and the rest that surpass even the Spidermen, the Asgaards, the mystic lands of Pandora, the Jedi, and all of Marvel and DC Comic's wondrous worlds in manifest disconnect from reality and logic, is any belief not possible, no matter how perfectly detached from fact or reason by unquestioning reliance on pure, unadulterated faith? 

_______________________________

The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/opinion/east-palestine-train-derailment-conspiracy-theories.html#commentsContainer&permid=123460627:123460627