I think we succeeded on both of these fronts, specifically, during the transition from zero COVID to co existence with Omicron.
Using the Delta playbook on Omicron.
Also, change the algorithms based on the frontline responses.
The mask is an interesting case. It's not just about shortage, which we solved pretty quickly by ramping up the production, but it's about uneven distribution.
Initially, we thought that our pharmacies align perfectly with population centers on average. We can prove that each individual in Taiwan has a pretty much the same distance to the next available mask through pharmacies, and we're pretty happy about this.
Very quickly, because we publish this real time transparency open API, people from the opposition party, whenever opposition party could prove that because not everyone own a helicopter, the same distance on the map does not translate to the same opportunity cost.
In other liberal democracies, this would be a political showdown between the algorithm of the state, and the opposition party's observation. We publish all the raw data upon collection. Minister Tsai Ching hsiang asked MP Kao Hung an, saying, "MP Kao, you were the VP of data analytics at Foxconn. Teach us, how should we do better?"
She has the same data as we do, she can't simply say, "I don't have the data." She suggested better ways to do the distribution, which took effect 24 hours after that. It turns opposition into co creation. That's the main success.
Very cute dog, and very cute...
The Shiba Inu as spokesdog. The idea, very simply put, is to make the clarifications even more viral than the conspiracy theories. We do that by piggybacking on the popular Internet memes. Piggybacking self deprecating humor so that people see this information repackage like an mRNA strand by analogy.
Repack through a different spike protein so that we manufacture through memetic engineering of viral vaccine. That when people get infected by the viral vaccine, they get antibodies against the disinformation.
There's a lot of comedians who are very much into making memes. Whether they make memes out of conspiracy theories or out of the spokesdog is their choice.
What we're doing is just to make sure that they investigative journalists, have the real time access to what's going on because if you do have access to what's going on, it's easier to make new shows, new memes based on what's actually there. It's only when a state is non transparent and close to the journalists and comedians, do they start wildly speculating.
I think transparency, like sunshine, is the best disinfectant. Radical transparency works best for those journalists and comedians.
By increasing the R value. [laughs] The basic transmission rate of science.
Public mental health.
Not just the pandemic but infodemic.
...of the infodemic. It's not my invention. Infodemic is the WHO invention. WHO define infodemic as not just the miss in this information but a sheer information overload that people experience during a pandemic.
To some, it's even more dangerous than the biological virus itself because it could lead to decisions, to actions that runs counter to the counter pandemic efforts.
That's one. A lot of the elderly people at the time bought into those rumors and discounted the efficacy of AstraZeneca vaccines. We countered that, again, through radical transparency by showing exactly how many people young or old are interested in getting an easy shot.
Then, publishing on every arrival of the AZ batch. Now the 50 years old are getting them, the 35 years old are getting them. The elderly people can see that there's just so many actual demands and if they do not register their willingness the younger people are going to get the shots first. They seem to be doing fine. [laughs]
If they still say, "Oh, I want to get only Moderna." Or later only BNT Pfizer. That's fine. Entirely their choice. It just a distribution of masks. We published the preference of population to the four different brands of vaccines.
That not just informs the people, but it turns this entirely anti vax sentiment into something that's mild, like just anti AstraZeneca [laughs] or anti medicine or anti other brands.
Just like we can't fight a biological virus with full lockdowns, this fits some jurisdictions. Could do. We can't fight the infodemic through takedowns. There are jurisdictions that use takedowns the same as they used lockdowns. Your words, brutal, casually. [laughs]
We can't do that because we're a liberal democracy. Instead of takedowns, we work through notice and the public notice.
Humour over rumour to make sure that people understand this is maybe they have sentiments against one particular brand vaccine, but it's not all different types of vaccines share the same characteristics. It's entirely fine if they don't like mRNA. If they don't like AstraZeneca, they have other choices.
Yeah. It was two years ago. That's another interesting example because toilet paper is not about manufacturing. It's about uneven distribution, about panic buy essentially. Then the panic buy was fueled by the rumor sighing, the toilet paper material is being confiscated to make masks. Because we're renting a mask, everybody know about that.
It means that the supply will dwindle because all the source material is being repurposed. The meme simply says that they're completely different products come from different jurisdictions to South American materials versus domestic materials. Through this self memefying humor. [laughs]
That's right. It traveled very quickly, and everybody who see this can't unsee it. [laughs] The panic just went down I think over a weekend.
It's piggybacking on in earlier meme 我們只有一個地球 or we only have one earth. It's a very popular environmental protection slogan. We only have one earth. We don't have Plan B. Things like that.
The parody goes, we only have a pair of bottoms. We don't have other pairs of bottoms, which means that the actual usage is limited. [laughs] You don't have to stockpile basically. It's a wordplay because stockpile is a homonym to bottoms.
All this is the Premier's team pre cleared the use of this humor with the Premier because if it takes an entire day to get the approval, then it will lose its efficacy. At the time, then the conspiracy theory will win.
It has to be quick.
It has to be quicker than two hours. Two hours was the deadline, when we detect a viral conspiracy theory, the countermeasure need to be rolled out within a box.
That's another one. It's actually from a movie.
It's not a drone shot. There are many examples.
I could also say I'm a spiritual Taoist, but then, if I say that for many Western listeners, who mean that I perform certain rituals. [laughs] It's not like that. I'm not a religious Taoist. To me, what matters is that the conservative part is the traditions, the existing institutions. There are there two to exist for a reason. We need to honor the relations that's already there.
Then the anarchist part says they do not have a monopoly on the possible configuration of institutions. New kinds of processes, communities, networks should be able to form without taking orders or giving orders to existing institutions.
Basically, it's a way to say live and let live with existing institutions. Repurposing them, if you will, instead of disrupting them or taking them down because if I say I'm an anarchist, people associate that with bomb throwing. I'm not bomb-throwing...
I emphasize the parts that anarchism shares with early Taoism in not taking the orders and giving the orders, preferring instead voluntary association, and things like that. If we overemphasize that part, people say some individualistic. Meaning that each person should be able to disrupt whatever institutions they don't feel like. I'm like, "No."
I'm actually saying that indigenous traditions, Taiwan's 20 national languages. They all exist in a plural way. It's transcultural conservatism instead of a single culture monopoly that conserve that culture to the detriment to the other 19 different languages.
Radical means at the root. Radical transparency means it should take more effort to censor something by default, than publishing that by default.
For example, we're on the record here, and if you feel that there is a need to edit, like if you mistakenly talk about something that's not clear for publication. Like an anecdote from one of your friends, that you're not clearing for a publication.
You can actually go back in the next 10 days to edit that out, but that takes effort. If you don't do anything, then it goes out by default. Transparency at the root means that transparency should be the default. For very honorable purposes, like respecting privacy, trade secret. That's one, but that should take effort.
According to surveys to experts. Yes.
I think a couple of reasons. First, there is something to be won if the information operators disrupt people's faith and trust to each other and to the democratic process because that's less expensive than a full assault, the traditional assault.
If they can influence such that people do not, for example, believe the result of their votes, or do not believe the democratic possibility of reaching an innovation that everybody can live with. If the polarization goes to such an extreme that people do not even want to be a part of the democracy anymore, then they would have succeeded without much more expensive invasion.
There's a real incentive here to do this kind of information manipulation. That is...
That's the first, the reason, I believe. The second reason, I believe, is that a lot of people in Taiwan are seeing that this kind of cybersecurity attacks, and so on, as a way, not just politically motivated, but also economically motivated.
If through cybersecurity intrusions, other outside actors can learn about the trade secrets of the semiconductor layouts, and so on, there's something real to be gained by that. They could save a lot of independent research and development time, and so on, so there's also economic motive.
