The Humanist Society (Singapore) is shocked to read that a 16-year-old Singaporean was detained under ISA after plotting to commit acts of terrorism against Muslims in Singapore.

The Humanism Workshop held on 24 Jan 2021 has the following theme: “Applying Humanism to our Daily Lives”.

At this virtual workshop (due Covid), we looked at the problem of ‘toxic algorithms’ that often flood individuals with similar content after just one click, sucking people rapidly into echo chambers like a whirlpool, facilitating the spread of misinformation. We shared methods to combat this problem, such as cleaning up and re-diversifying social media accounts, learning to find good sources, confining addictive apps to PCs-only.

This virtual workshop also:

• Introduced the main principles of secular humanism, recapping a brief history of humanism
• demonstrated actionable steps that can apply to the everyday lives of non-religious individuals, facilitating their search for meaning and happiness.

Combating ‘toxic algorithms’

Why is combating toxic algorithms important?

A 16-year-old boy was detained in Dec 2020 under Singapore’s Internal Security Act after making detailed plans and preparations to conduct terrorist attacks against two mosques in the northern part of Singapore.

 (Spoilers Alert)

「 Dear Tenant 」is a social-awakening movie, about Taiwan’s, and perhaps Asia’s societal mistreatment of gay males. The story revolves around the protagonist Jianyi, a gay person, who lives under the tenancy of his male partner/lover’s mother (Grandma Wang) who knows of the relationship. Jianyi cares for the partner’s nine-year-old son Wang Youyu from the previous (heterosexual) marriage, and for landlord Grandma Wang, who suffers from septic diabetes. 

The Humanist Society (Singapore) has conducted some research into non-religious perspectives on palliative care for non-religious individuals.

We would like to bring up two articles below, and have provided a summary. 

• An introduction to spiritual care for non-religious patients

• Death without God: Nonreligious Perspectives on End-of-Life Care  

Hello all! My name is Lionel, or as my internship supervisor Dan Thio will call me, Chonky. I was an operations intern at the Humanist Society from September to October 2020.