why is your language so difficult to understand when I speak Indonesian for example well the short answer for the first time I say it in public is that I don't want to insult your intelligence by dumbing down my message and so you know you could pause the video and I want you to watch it so that you get something out of it you can watch it go to Google come back there again you know what I mean so for all these content creators you know just expose yourself to difficult topics and that's how you learn welcome back to what is up Indonesia podcast my name is is andov Lopez I'm abig Li Mora and M I was waiting for your que but anyway and finally we we we we podcast on our third podcast we have a guest yay we have a guest uh Bagus thank you so much for coming thankk you so much for being here great pleasure to be here thank you so I call you your full name is Bagus muadi but we're going to call you Bagus yes okay so for those of you who are like okay so what's this episode going to be about what are we going to talk about first we get to know we we need to want to know our guest first yep so buus can you please explain or tell the crowd who you are what you do hi everyone uh buus M here I'm an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham in the UK um yeah that's about it what do you what do you study there what do you study there okay so I'm a I'm I'm a lecturer at the department of chemical and environmental engineering I'm a mathematician by formation Loosely applied mathematician so I do research chch I teach um undergraduate postgraduate PhD students and um I'm Indonesian so I'm really looking forward to disseminate whatever I know uh in the UK and elsewhere back home I think okay that's great great can I just know a bit more of your past so did you go to school here how did you get to Nottingham like your whole life's journey I want I want to know right so it's going to be a bit a while but uh it's okay we have all time right I'm jakar I was born in Jakarta not specifically in one place because you keep moving around my parents didn't really have a permanent place to stay I studied throughout my undergraduate study in bandong in it oh it okay and I was a mechanical engineering student okay and then I continued my postgraduate that would include master and PhD in Taiwan in Taiwan in Taiwan oh taking what mechanical engineering also or Applied Physics Applied Physics okay right so that's a slight change of discipline and then my academic career has consist has been consisted of uh a postdoc stint at Institute the mathematic the tulus in France okay um and then at Imperial College London at Earth Science and department so my my tenure position is at the University of Nottingham now in chemical engineering department so it's been uh widely varied I think nice and can you tell us a little bit on why you're currently here in Indonesia yeah um partly because I have parents still in Jakarta yeah right yeah so that I always look forward to coming back to Indonesia but growingly I think in the last two years or so I started to spearhead knowledge exchange activities on behalf of the University with Indonesian stakeholders in general so we built collaborations with universities in Indonesia and then we built collaborations with provincial governments with Central governments and try to be that bridge that facilitates knowledge exchange and knowledge exchange includes advising policym and then facilitating mobility of staffs and students from universities that we have network with um and then I I have this uh new Endeavor let's say with some of like-minded people and that is to to spread the the I wouldn't call it but yeah I would call it anyway like a scientific thinking okay to Indonesian people I think Indonesian people have a lot of potentials and I think to lock those potentials and to make Indonesia can project itself positively in a postcolonial world people need science and one of the things that I'm trying to Champion is a new narrative and that is uh Indonesia as the global labor laboratory Indonesia as the global laboratory laboratory for for new Sciences to emerge for new Sciences to Emer okay this is very interesting yeah um we have narratives obviously we have we have phrases like Indonesia as a mar so this is just a new narrative and I think Indonesia has mostly been um unaware of its own potential not as a country where natural resources can be excavated and then sold as raw materials but as places where if you were to look for new solutions to the climate change problems that you you look uh to Indonesia to find Solutions because we are at the place where more than 50% of global geothermal reserves is actually beneath in our beneath our feet but to unlock those potentials and geothermal is just one of those vast potential you need science right um I think there's a lot of homeworks needs to be uh solved when it comes to translating the science into policies um I think there's a lot of homework when it comes to trans ating academic um ways of working in the policym I think um yeah for all of those reasons I think I'm here okay I see and you you did mention a little bit about scientific thinking and how we and in Indonesia we needed more like a new Narrative of in regards to Scientific thinking right so when you say scientific thinking I bet a lot of people immediately think about like oh studying biology or studying study physicist chemistry what do you what do you mean exactly by scienic thinking I think the the most popular dichotomy that I heard that uses the word science is science versus mysticism and then the antidote to mysticism is scientific thinking but Loosely just science usually and one needs to understand that mysticism for example is a world view science is a tool yes science isn't a world view science science doesn't operate in the domain of art science operating the domain of is or how how things are meant to be done um mysticism is a world view um that is to say that uh anything that is mysterious are not to be believed as true um if you were to compare these World Views you will have to then compare mysticism and scient ISM yes yes this scientism as a as a word is used um is sometimes confused with scientific thinking so this is just a common philosophy terminology that I need to to make clear scientism or naturalism is a world view that says only those facts or claims that are to be proven in the laboratory setting that are to be believed in or that to be uh Hold Us true uh but that's problematic you see that's that's problematic scientific thinking is supposed to be the way of thinking that has the same principles as the principle use in doing science altoe right such as it those are scientific thinking is new scientific thinking is probably can be traced back to the age of Francis Bacon for example that is to say say that you got a deductive way of thinking inductive way of thinking um you probably could trace back to Aristotle but at the time there was no FAL viability and and so forth so if you think scientifically it means that you uphold this logical way of thinking right if you deduce facts from uh deductive reasoning it means you believe in the premises that upholds that conclusion right right and the conclusion were to be believed as true and binding regardless you like it or not if the premises were true and if you came to a conclusion using inductive reasoning then you also understand that the conclusion is not to be binding it's just probable right all right right so these are the the main principle of scientific thinking and it cannot stand alone it has to be underg guarded by ethics it has to be underg guarded by Integrity right um that's overall the ecosystem from which scientific thinking can grow right right and so to think scientifically means to uphold all of these ways of working to come up with your conclusions so that's Loosely what I think of okay this is very interesting because um I'm curious to how you okay cuz you clearly grew up in the Indonesian education system you said you were in Jakarta you move to it of course itbe right one of the best universities in Indonesia especially when it comes to Scientific thinking and their discipline yeah but I'm curious to how you when you were in middle school or high school which middle school or high school did you go toar I was in smok PAB I was yeah okay I went to PAB too did which one the same for me oh near the jail no near no never mind Millennial joke never mind the reason why I'm asking this is one of the things that we want to put out in this what is up Indonesia podcast is if you could be this person if you could be what you are today there must have been a system or a progress since you were a child in the Indonesian education system that got you here was it was it the Indonesian education system was it you yourself was it your parents was your family like cuz I'm curious cuz clearly look I know personally many many smart Indonesians many but I feel like they're the exception that was born despite of the system okay not because of the system all right that's a good point of view right and that's why I'm curious for people like you who clearly you you got this was it because of the system or or in spite of the system well I'm pretty untraditional in terms of the ways that I went through to become why am today right now because usually Indonesian professors in the anglo-american world they are usually a product of very successful formal education systems okay and they're usually scholarship recipients yeah okay I'm neither of those too so you were neither a scholarship recipient you weren't okay and I was always you know back in the days we used to do ranking systems in and then just to just to rub that pain inside of of you you know I was always um have my grades Laden with red ink and then so remember y I'm always at the the near the bottom of the the hierarchy of the education system so not traditional in that case so I wouldn't call myself smart either I think um throughout my education system although I go to one of I went to one of those Elite School in in in for my high school but I'm still the bottom student there um and that trajectory continues when I was in ITB as well I was um I graduated with very low GPA okay so all of the things that make me Hawai am right now is quite a coincidence basically so I couldn't get a scholar ship um so I went to cheap countries like Taiwan so I could continue my education while working part-time so I become for a brief period in my time a distributor for a small company in Taiwan okay it's a pump making factories a pump making pump making Factor pneumatic pumps pumps and then so these are pumps for high viscosity fluids they usually use it for ship building okay and then I say well we got a big ship making factory in Indonesia can I sell your pumps for a percentage of commission and then so I got uh some of funding to to finish my PhD okay yeah and then one thing leads to another I met um my wife then my girlfriend uh who happened to be a European Citizen and then I said well sorry is she is she Indonesian she's German oh she's German okay got it right so I met a German girl at the time and then in Taiwan in Taiwan interesting okay it was it was quite interesting because that open up the dream to continue my career in the west I've never been to the West before and I thought in order to do that successfully I better have a PhD so I finished my degree and then that brought me to France and then at nothingham where I ended so that was quite not traditional and also amongst professors in the UK they usually either UK graduates or American graduates because it's very competitive to get a kind of position in the UK so I'm just one of the few that actually came from lower rank universities in my formative years okay and also from the East um so I wouldn't say that my life story is one to be taken an example of I wouldn't suggest people to be at the bottom of the formal education system and hope that they will become a professor in the UK so wasn't really proud about it but that just I think it says something about the marginalized community in the formal education system Indonesia it it goes on to say that just because you're in the bottom of the hierarchy in a formal education landscape in Indonesia does not mean you cannot have a career in Academia right okay right that's interesting uh but okay so that that is the path that got you into like your current career I would say right but I think there's the more like deeper question about that is the way you think like where does the the appreciation of scientific thinking comes from that's interesting yeah because obviously like a lot of people grew up going through the same education system as you and not appreciating the scientific thinking right as much at least or all right I'm going to be I think you I don't like to put blame on other people rather than myself but I iame I love it right but okay here here it goes okay I think those who are successful I noticed this from some of the characters of people that were successful in my in my class um um if you're good with Conformity you're likely to be successful in India if you're good at rehearsing very difficult mathematical problems that you'll end up with good grades um but it doesn't it doesn't seem to be serving you well when it comes to very wild thinking very antithetical thinking love and so the question is what makes me appreciative of all of the scientific thinking that I bring forward to this conversation now is because of the fact that I was forced to change discipline several times because I was never successful in one so like I said before I wasn't successful during my high school and so that forces me to scramble to find new discipline so I I did my undergrad I wasn't in mechanical engineering I wasn't successful in mechanical engineering I had really low GPA and the only opportunities that came to my table was to do a postgraduate study in applied physics and that wasn't because of my Merit it was I never tell this anywhere else but I'll tell you what the story was that got me there people think well how did you then end up in Elite University in Taiwan so here's what happens so I gr I was about to graduate in ITB right and my GPA was 2.69 or something which is way below the average at the time so I know I couldn't rely on my grades to get scholarship or to get a job in multinational companies because they would just the hrd would be just brush your application aside right and then so at the time I used just Google and then I just you know type with some keywords um Master Stu uh study Taiwan computational fluid dynamics because that was just my thesis during my my time in ITB and you know a couple of professors came up right and I just shotgun every one of them with a letter code lettering so with a letter I'm really good with words by the way so I'm really good at writing okay and then in that letter I still have that letter actually one day I'll conceal it to people um so um I said in that letter my who my name is and the projects that I'm doing uh during my undergrad and how good I am in the things that I do uh under the assumption that they wouldn't know what that GPA correlates to even if I tell them right so so just basically selling myself and one Professor got convinced okay and his name name was Professor y cha and he he's now passed away but he was a professor in Taiwan and then he was surprised and then he replied to my email within an hour and he said okay I'm surprised to get your email um these seems to be the things that we are doing here as well how can I help you do you want to come here we don't have scholarship though we have a little bit of research money is just translate to €100 or so a month which is barely enough to get by uh but what I can do is to try to convince the admission body to get you in and so I got into National Taiwan University which is taiwan's best university without them even checking my GPA oh wow that was the remarkable story wow right so I got there as the only foreign student in that institution in the hardest Department in N huh with them not knowing what my grades correlates to is the good bed or average simply because that Professor I sent an email to convinced the admission body to take me hm wow so for those looking for scholarship just to seg great question I love this I love this it's not just because your grades are good it's because you look relentlessly for opportunities you know that that actually is quite my unusual way of getting there and I forgot what your main question was so where does your appreciation towards scientific right so so okay so so there goes my first tint in app PL physics right and then that open up the way towards going to the European institution so again yeah I got a job in France after I graduated simply because of those letters again that I write upon my graduation from Taiwan I said you literally bypass like the academic the things you can get just by writing good and writing good and writing good yeah right right right which is what I think Indonesian students are not well versed in especially science students they they have absolutely no idea how to write wow okay yeah right and I do this I I I understand this because I received email from many Indonesian students right want to seek opportunities in the UK and when it comes to receiving emails from Indonesian students and Iranian students or even Chinese students quality is very they have absolutely no idea how to sell themselves how do we even begin with with convincing people to receive them or to even look at the emails have no idea this is very interesting but but anyway and then so so I I got to um the mathematics Department in tulus because I wrote emails and because I explained to them what my Works correlates to and then I get there and similarly to Imperial College so I got all of these interdisciplinary portfolios wow and so that shapes my of thinking into assessing a certain problems from very different point of view that to me constitutes critical thinking like let me give you a concrete example so for example what got me the job in Imperial College for example which is at the I think one of the world's finest earth science department you know this is Royal School of Minds you call it anything royal royal School of Minds anyway so I had a stint period I have brief period in tulus where the problem that was faced and given to me was to solve dispersion of pollutants in the city okay so in 2002 there was a fertilizer plant that exploded in the city of tulus and it contaminated the whole city and then they have health problems there and then the government was scrambling Tred to prevent the same scenario from happening again so they go to the universi Paul sabattier University in France and say can we have a numerical modeling tool so that when things like this happen again we can evacuate people in real time right so mathematicians were scratching their heads okay here's the problem of the city this is the most Layman way I've ever explained this problem so if you look at the city for example from a bird's eye perspective right and then you want to solve pollution problem you have to take away all the Bild bus because pollution cannot go through the building right they can only go through the the streets because the buildings are assumed as opaque okay all right now the problem is this if you want to solve accurately this problem in a city domain well the city is kilometer length scale right right and the smallest object in the city might be your glass or whatever is probably centimeter scale from centimeters to kilometers that's six orders of magnitude yep uh big difference right so you cannot bottom line even the most advanced computer cannot solve that in real time yeah so that's the problem we can solve this but it will take a week people die then right all right so mathematicians will come up with this idea of multiscale model so that's what I was doing okay now at the same time Earth Science in London have the same problems try to get oil and hydrocarbons out from the underground from from the from the pores of rocks okay engineers in oil field have the same problems look okay these oil fields are between the grains and inside the pores how do we get them out because the reservoir is of kilometer length scale ah and the pores are centimeter millimeter even nanoscopic right how do we do this and then I say look we got this new method in France man uh if you look at it from the bird's eye perspective it kind of looked like a rock and this guy in Imperial was like yeah that sounds brilliant that sounds brilliant I don't know what it is cuz we're not mathematician but that sounds convincing and vo I got the job because it was a unique perspective on a different on another right right so so then I learned that the same problem assessed from very different perspectives gets you more Nuance understanding of of that problem and therefore progress in that field got it right similarly with Indonesia when you when you look at the same problem from very different discipline and if you are used to thinking in very different perspective which requires tolerance by the way yes then you'll end up with better understanding and that's very very difficult to articulate at a popular level yeah that's very this is the first time in the podcast I explained about I think you did a really good job and the thing about what you just explained is how you approach that problem that is the scientific way of thinking right the way you approach and assess the problem and then connect the dot between multi-disciplinary Fields like here and there that requires like that is the scientific approach the tool that you use and the critical thinking and problem solving skill as well that's one of them yeah that that that's one of them let me give you how that translate to practical Indonesian problems right okay right when when it comes to trying to understand whether one thing is scientific or not um people don't seem to have the tool to understand that yet you so they would put under the blanket statement that anything Mystic or sounds Mystic are to be brush aside but you could actually approach that problem with scientific thinking okay what about belief in God is that mysticism well it's certainly mysterious right can you apply scientific thinking there to assess well I I spoke of deductive reasoning and okay let's use that for example what are the arguments for the existence of God well you could try and philosophers have been trying to do this with scientific thinking right one is the algaz Alan way of um proving God exists with Cam cosmological argument let's say the first premise goes whatever begins to exist has a cause yeah doesn't say God and the second premise goes the universe began to exist the conclusion goes therefore the UN there must be a cause must be a cause all right now the scientific bit is not just that you can deduce that with theism the scientific bit is that every single premise in that argument is false fiable yeah that's the thing what that's what I mean every every theory in mathematics in earth scientists are falsifiable that's the key which means you can prove it wrong right like for example the second premise goes the universe began to exist you certainly can prove it wrong yes right and then the reason why premise to up uh is popular is because the recent theory of big bangh right and which says that the Universe cannot be pulled infinitely to the past there is a a space-time boundary in the past so it began to exist yeah Loosely speaking and therefore the conclusion holds well can you then use the same deductive argument for atheism of course you can of course you can yeah right the problem of evil for example premise one goes if God exists there cannot be needless suffering premise two goes there is a needless suffering therefore and therefore God does not exis MH but you see if you apply scientific thinking it opens the way for conversation and radicalism okay so right uh talking about radicalism uh mysticism mysticism Tolerance on different viewpoints like you said Indonesia as a as a culture it's still very much very fun of mysticism like the culture itself yes like the people uh I think we we yeah still very much very fun of mysticism there's even like still a lot of like Mystic based policy that the government make based on like certain dates until now every single big event we have Bara doing the whole rain thing yeah yeah exactly exactly one of the dumbest things I've ever seen sorry so a lot of people some of them are dumb yes yeah yeah and you mentioned a little bit that uh some people assume that we just need to replace that with science and it's something that can be replaceable like mysticism needs to go down scientific thinking up but it seems to me that what you're saying it's not as simple as that yes and it maybe it's a false dichotomy maybe between like mysticism or maybe I don't know so maybe you can comment further on that it's a very it's a long explanation on this in my view but I think people confuse these three terms science scientism scientific thinking they use this interchangeably I think they think they understand they're not the same science is a tool scientism is a worldview yes scientism says that only those that can be proven in a laboratory setting yeah are those to be yes yes like you said before true and mysticism is also a worldview right right mysticism is a world viw you want to compare Apple with apple both have shortcomings okay scientism is problematic itself because the very sentence that says only those proven in a lab can be deemed true itself cannot be proven by science right yep y it's right in order to do science at all self defeating right that it's a self-defeating argument so um to do science at all you have to believe that doing science is Noble that Integrity in doing science is important to underg the whole apparatus of Science and that the world are to be comprehended with reason all of this statements are not to be proven by by close control environment in a laboratory so would you say the the example that you said about like investigating the existence of God for example is that like a an example of how scientific thinking as a tool can exist within a Mystic mysticism filed worldview or scientific thinking as a tool to investigate Mystic like things that are within the framework of mysticism world view that's right no no here's the thing what's mysticism what constitutes mysterious things okay I mean disbelief in pet mysticism in my view yeah I mean it is cu cu it's Myst mysticism is Mystery right there's there's no definite answer to it you just right believe it what about belief in God is that mysticism as well that we're going to go a big rabbit hole in that yeah but you see that that's my point when you when you talk about a definition it better have a close boundary I understand right and Albert Einstein actually said that the fairest things to do is to contend with the mysterious yeah the the most the fairest the most beautiful thing you could do with art and Sciences is to contend with the with the mysterious well does does that mean Albert Einstein is Mystical in his approach no so so so that's um problematic um well what about Mysteries that is not falsifiable maybe yes you could you could you you could see whether a particular mystical claim has scientific grounding yep using this deductive lmos test called falsifiability like what I said so um if you got a if you got a a shaman say that if you put this thing in your body and you believe with all your heart you're going to be healthy you got to be healthy all right so is that falsifiable well let's see in a week right you don't get healthy the shaman goes to back to you says that's because you don't believe y you see there's nothing that you can do to prove that wrong that is not falsifiable that is not falsifiable and therefore not scientific right is that wrong though maybe not there's a there's a SC because science the real scientists are actually quite modest in saying things are like this is wrong this is right yep PE people are very are very uh clamy in their in in their in their approach if you look at Journal papers in mathematics or in physics or in biology all the way from the very hard math to the to the engineering vid very seldom people even dare to say the word wrong that paper by that guy is wrong they don't say that you don't do that in scientific publishing I've never I don't remember ever writing a word wrong or right in all my papers m you don't do that in science you know what I mean you cannot call something wrong with 100% certainty especially if your methodology reaching to that conclusion is inductive right yep all right but at the popular level all right people just say oh that's wrong that's not to be believed just hang on a minute scientists are very careful in using these terms right the best they can say is that we don't know if that's provable yet all right yes now does that mean that that thing is is silly and therefore to be believ not necessarily but the worst thing you can do is to confuse the boundary of science as a competing Paradigm with those mysticism because some of this so-called mysticism like the way people believe in yokul uh as being the the goddess of the uh South Sea examp M all right like I mentioned this in several podcasts before right so people in jjak Carta believe that there is a relationship between the goddess of South Sea and the occupier of gapi for example right the the the the the occupier the god of gum marapi they have a relationship so when one is angry it will be followed by the other one responding to it all right and in 1960s the Expedition company Edition ship scientific ship from the US luciad and Monsoon then brought their gravy meters and then um look at the South uh sea up all the way to Australia and they found that there's a tectonic root underneath the south sea sea that says that when there is an earthquake in the south sea it means it will be followed soon by a volcanic activity okay right so isid mysticism of course it is does it mean it's not useful hang on a minute yeah no yeah yeah yeah yeah okay it's an epistemology right right it's an epistemology and if you you better be knowled ible about what it's meant for people back in the days to be able to live with uncertainties or in the middle of uncertainties they believe in these things and the duches Indies when they first understand about volcanic activities they follow the roots of all of the Sagen right these are the places where are very strategic to find samples of rocks samples of tectonic activities they found those roots and it was in the journal papers of the dutches Indies you talk about volcanic activities in the West for example they don't have anything High enthalpic which means above 600° right right this in Iceland for example the geothermal activities probably just enough to warm your water that's it right but in Indonesia you have insane High manifestation of volcanic activities where do you think the world study volcanic activities from all Indonesia it's in Indonesia indes and who guided these scientists the S these people so again so before we brush aside all of this mysticism because some of them are indistinguishable with our identity we better think and appreciate our ancestors first and and so could go on forever but yeah no I love it I love it it's it's not a competing Paradigm I I love that sentence where you said science science and not always a comp always no but but I I got to be clear here yeah if you come tomorrow wake up in the morning right and then say like had a dream in my dream you know you have to drink this turmeric water um to be healthy and then you'll live forever yeah all right and then I say oh hang on a minute I have to prove that scientifically no no some stupid are stupid the the the difference between so how do you differentiate exactly now the difference between that and the other claims about nayid is that that nayid story has been here for forever has been there forever forever right there is this called Lindy effects for common terms in the um in the finance world right something that has been there forever has the higher chance of existing in the same period of time take pencil for example okay it has survived all it has survived for a long time and therefore has greater chance of surviving the very exact time frame like pencil has been with us forever okay right even in the Advent of I don't know pen or mouse or whatever because it has last for that long it has greater chance for surviving what was the effect called you say Lindy L effect Lindy effects right the more you know the Jewish tradition you you you study probably the the Bible for example uh if you were to touch dead bodies you were to you're supposed to wash your hands cuz that's njis that's uh that's that's dirty well that saved the people from being contaminated by germs and back then they didn't know it was about germs and they didn't know about now I'm not saying again that everything Mystic are to be believed but some of them is worth pursuing deeper yeah I think what you're trying to say is don't just overgeneralize everything that is within the Mystic category as something that is worthless and something that needs to be brushed aside but sometimes there is an ancient wisdom that we can derive from that especially if it has been there for ages there has to be something that makes it survive all these times right and also there as long from what I'm I'm getting from you as long as when it is scientifically tested it has been proven to improve the survivability of for example human and it has a function for example in terms of like human survivability or civilization that's why I guess that's why it survives too like people preserve that practice or that belief two things about this um not everybody get access to Scientific thinking we are privileged you know we go to university you go to the classroom you get first class education yes almost all of us right if not all of are products of Western universities right most people aren't like that most people base their actions on narratives and stories and their ancestors wisdom and that had guide them them for ages right okay so just before we brush that aside think about it just for a minute you know um if you're conservative right it's better to to to follow the the herd it's better that gives you the greater chance of surviving that has been the way people survive those who are privileged like us able to enjoy higher education are to find solid grounding for those ancestral beliefs you know to see whether one is scientifically sound and which one is not for example and then the the world supposed to have that standard so that people who even have no access to journal papers can then see people like you and I who graduated from reputable universities and say well this this guy sounds sensible I don't exactly understand what he's talking about but maybe I should believe him because that gives me the greater chance of surviving the problem Indonesia I'm segueing a little bit but the problem in Indonesia is that the university fails to serve as that standard yes right because you see these full professors got humiliated having their full professorship revoked because of silly idea of plagiarisms and the university gets down into now danger because sooner or later soon people to realize that there is absolutely no way nor Merit within this institution I shouldn't look at them at all whatsoever and when the society uh renders University useless you're in a big trouble yeah in big trouble where do you think Indonesia is at in that very silly very problematic and people think about it as funny right this 11 full Professor from lambu Murat University get the professorship revoked because they published about panchas Sila in a fishery journal for example something silly like that I don't know if that's true that needs to be corroborated but if it were true uh that would make people very very disappointed and when you lose that standard and then critical events like pandemic takes place where do you think these people will resort to to base their actions well they're tribals their shamans their um their religious Authority and then no wonder we're in such a mess and in in very fragile uh State uh because you have no standards at all and well I could go on and saying how that happens but but that's that's the reality in Indonesia right you see another thing is this this University style meritocratic system y yeah is not the default condition of humankind we only have meritocracy we're very new to that very new to meritocracy yeah right throughout the ages we are hereditarian y right why why should we have equal rights you're not sons of Kings you're not Daughters of it's a very fairly relatively New Concept very new and therefore can be deprived of us very quickly right you know so okay I'm going to I'm going to shift a bit cuz go for it in what is up Indonesia we always talk about cuz most of our audience here are diaspora International raised Indonesians C kids yeah um this going to maybe sound a bit normative or maybe it's a question I want to ask you uh personally how so you've been in the UK for how long now in the UK for 10 years including my post do right I'm I'm assuming my assumption is you're living a good life out of all you know I'm not Liv okay life in the UK so my okay outside of family outside of your personal family mom and Dan Jakarta your whatever look this might seem such a such a broad question do you have hope for this country or not cuz to be honest a lot of we we a lot of what is up Indonesia viewers and followers yes they're losing hope they're losing hope okay on all sector on all sector especially there's a saying that ignorance is bliss right there's a saying ignorance is and clearly for people who know yeah the the opposite of ignorance is bliss is oh my holy [ __ ] I am I it's all this [ __ ] is [ __ ] up forgive my language yeah clearly you know lalum about the [ __ ] upness of Indonesia so with all that being said right do you feel that there's hope in Indonesia and if you do what is your strategy or what is your plan or what I know this is a very big broad question yes but I got to ask you this question I could share my Global Perspective looking at Indonesia from a from from a people outside Indonesia is that well two things among forces that are very dominant in determining people's actions one that I think will be growingly important is geopolitical forces for two reasons I think theity of Natural Resources is going to play a big role in the international geopolitics Indonesia has that natural resources and therefore it will become significantly important yeah all right that's what China wants us that's what America wants us certainly you talk about energy there you go I just mentioned about 50% of geothermal power in our on our feet another thing is that I don't believe there's a binding morality at International stage it's only binding in so far as it coincides with national interest right but if it coin if it doesn't coincide with national interest well Russia will start you know invading people because it doesn't adhere with their National interest so in the absence of absolute morality there is nothing that would prohibit China or the other big countries for not interfering with Indonesia now I don't think they're going to bombard us with missiles no right it's a different world now they don't do that anymore right they don't do that anymore because whatever reasons right and so we cannot help but keep becoming significant so we hold the key I don't know whether or not you use that key to become somebody's Superior at a global stage or you become just users of new technology that Force Feit down your throat it's another matter so hope is there particularly because of the potential alone okay the potential is undeniably so the hope is there but the key word is the potential are we going to use that potential we're we're a potential country potential will we ever realize that potential but the potential has been there forever exact and okay and then segueing to the second part of your question is what what we should do about it now I think what Indonesia really is lacking is a convincing narrative okay okay narrative is something to be brushed aside as something less important than the scientific rigor for example narrative is very important narrative based people's actions can can you explain more what you mean by narrative yeah well what's China's narrative uh China China's narrative is it's in their names yeah it's you one China wants everything that's why they're building one built Road they just want yes exactly that's why they're building the one built road to Pakistan to Africa I mean they want exactly unity and China controls everything I'm paraphrasing it very bad paraphrasing cuz it's in their name we're in the center of the world center of the world that's why they won the whole thing right we're the center of the world all right and even Japan has Japan sort of has a narrative where okay let's think what China then cuz Japan is okay some some are more explicit obviously where the US probably sees as the bear of democracy and liberal values we bring democracy to all of you okay fine that's narrative okay okay I got it so it's kind of like the story We Tell ourselves the story you tell ourselves does does that mean China believe in mysticism they don't believe that the earth round of course they believe is round but you know we're the center you see that's not a scientific claim isn't it that's a story that is underg guarded by their local identity okay all right that's shapes the geopolitics of China and that of Russia and that of USA now let me ask you a question like what what's ours I to be honest right now I have no idea all we know now is Indonesia like there's no there's no strong narrative the closest the closest is I guess the panasil like unity and diversity things like that I think that's the closest that I guess we're trying to tell ourselves a lot of people yeah and even poros maritim is like one of the you're right we don't have I we don't have look I mean let's get technical here what what's a narrative narrative in in literary science means that two or more events either real or fictive or factual uh in a Time sequence yeah in a mathematical scene it means like something that you can extrapolate so you know where you're going to end up one day right so these words like Indonesia M 2045 it's not a narrative we can't do anything about it it doesn't specify how we're going to get there indes as just one event yeah what in the future where is that Indonesia is a big country well so what so what yeah what is it going to do about it the Chinese even though very simple we're the center of the world it Bears an implicit understanding that all roads lead to China lead to China like Rome got it yeah right and therefore it shapes our way of doing geopolitic we're going to invest heavily on infrastructures Etc you get the point yeah right Indonesia have that narrative now my thesis is that that narrative are not to be just invented overnight you know the central government cannot just say okay guys here's our narrative no no narrative is binding it's the the basis of the imagin communities Ben Anderson says that it's it's that thing that makes you cry when federick and gregoria got the medals medals for Olympics that narrative makes you want to die for the country right all right now my thesis is that that narrative is already here but at the local level the minang kaban had their own narrative about how they supposed to operate in the world the buis people has their own narrative it's in their one and a half times longer literary U uh magnum opus bigger than longer than mahabarata oh wow I did not know this I not Bo had this but but thank you for telling me yeah it's called lag galigo it's a story about the hero of Ila galigo son of sading it tells you about the creation of the world is that Mystic of course yeah of course that's not the point the point is that it Bears the ethos of Bugis people it tells you what the perfect boogies people supposed to act right and how they should navigate in the world this is very interesting right are we the steward of the Earth are we to to see people as equal are we supposed to see people beyond their social status and geographical places what are we to the world oh [ __ ] you you see that's that's narrative wait it's opening my wait sorry to cut you off but it's opening my brain because we kind of sort of have that in like the MAA I mean the ma Pai era we we sort of had this sorry the stewards of the world right I that's a very when you said that it hit something I don't know why hit with me but sure it kind of like especially because of our natural resources it's always been there in Indonesia that we are the stewards of the world yeah sort of but sorry to cut you off but you said the minan kabo has it the bugus has it so if I were to ask you now do we extrapolate from the minan Cabo and buis I don't think so okay so what do we do now so so what do we do then no do we do we yet extract it out of the minab I don't think so at the national level okay got it got it we should be listening to them okay we should extract out of those local wisdoms so what that is so interesting because when you think about it Indonesia as a country is unique in the sense that we are made out of different tribes different culture that probably have different narratives that resonates with different people so how do we find one unifying narrative that hits all of Indonesian is it even possible right right here's here's my my thesis I've never mentioned this elsewhere I think for Indonesia to succeed it has to embody that what I would call a wal Garden sorry A W Garden ideology all right strong liberal values inside and strong nationalistic outside all right okay please elaborate here's the thing where does meritocracy come from from strong liberal value that's why in in the universities they call it liberal arts because it has liberal values there that is to say that human are not to be humans as an individual are not able to agree with each other and they need states to um arbitrate arbitrate yeah problems in between them and then the way you do that is by introducing that notion of Rights and therefore private property and to instill quality that people can climb up the hierarchy of socioeconomic values regardless of who their father mother are right and then so those are strong core liberal values and implicit in between those pillars is meritocracy obviously because you're supposed to go to the top regardless of you who your ancestors is right yeah now that breeds meritocracy and therefore economic success there is not one country in this world that can get through economic success without some degree of liberal values in even China even China even a very nationalistic authoritarian regime like China carve within China a little bit of liberal values at least at the economic domain right y y y [ __ ] all with all that other domains but you know but this one excuse my language it's okay it's okay yeah okay I don't care about the social Val but there's always that Garden in the Walt buildings all right okay but at the international level nationalism Reigns Supreme okay all right at the international level because of the absence of binding morality you got to be very nationalistic and that's what the United States has been doing so far which backfires eventually but they have been very nationalistic in their Doctrine the Monro Doctrine for example nobody's going to build power at the East coast of of the United States for example we're going to spread democracy of the world we are exceptional these are nationalistic values right and that's what make us to some degree successful because that veneer of nationalism is underg guarded by competence that breed out of that liberal values inside United States okay right what do you have if you have a country that is so nationalistic without liberal value inside you got North Korea yeah okay okay okay all right it's not functioning well it's the other side of the spectrum yeah right why do you have a country that has strong liberal values and no nationalism at all well nobody agree on anything because individuality by definition will make people go in each Direction they couldn't agree with other they couldn't have a binding narrative so Indonesia must have that the problem with us is that now the question is why can't we do that for so long Indonesia has diversity which is its own blessing but also burden y to get that strong liberal value within Indonesia you have to make sure that people's rights are respected and that includes Fair representation of all ethnic group and languages in Indonesia which is now not the case one culture is a lot more dominant than others and therefore looking purely as seeing things as a landscape of power one tends to dominate the others so the others don't feel like they are needed they don't feel like their rights are respected right so unless and until we respect everybody inside the boundary of the country and that includes the buisan the minank kaban the papuan we will not have that meritocracy okay inside Indonesia you have to make sure that a fair representation what did Singapore do right cuz they're also diverse yeah right they use Draconian measure was crazy back in the day right in public housing in Singapore I want 25% 25% 25% occupancy of all ethnic groups Draconian very Draconian but then they flip their diversity as strength because of that everybody in Singapore feel like they are part of the Singaporean yeah that's true right and they the mocy come from there even though I'm Tamil or I'm I'm Chinese I'm respected there now the problem with Indonesia that's the internal problem the external is even more worrisome if you look at the way our uh foreign diplomacy and our diplomats they preach nationalism inward not outward outward I mean if I if I go to one of the colleges in Oxford right it's always a courtyard surrounded by buildings that's what I meant by Court uh wal Garden there's a little bit of nature inside order that human created that's that's the thing so there's this fertile ground from which life emerges which is a I think metaphorically a liberal value okay under or surrounded by order nationalistic uniform approach like that um and no wonder the university has always been the microcosm of the world and therefore that structure in the colleges in Oxford University really epitomize how United Kingdom or England actually behaves at a microscopic level oh I love that so so there there's always and that also segueing into what university is supposed to to be serve in a country it's supposed to become a microcosm of the country from which new ideas emerge and therefore you got a tenear professor so they can they they can say stupid stuff without fearing losing their job something like that so so that's my idea of a wal Garden um yeah yeah so when you say Walt Garden I don't know if you if this is intentional or not but the one thing that came to my mind is that a garden consists of different types of plants and ecosystem right okay yeah like there's grass there's trees there's flowers there different and I I feel like that's a really good way of cap encapsulating Indonesia's diversity as well like Garden yeah there's a different types of plants and living things inside of it but it's not cannibalizing or going against each other it's it's helping another as an ecosystem to thrive we got to find the Indonesian uh the translation to W Garden what is [Music] it I'm very bad at this I think if you if you treat this carefully um Indonesia can have hell of a garden because we have one of the nicest flowers everything else but it depends on whether the soil is fertile or not right right who it and who ERS it yeah who's watering the gardens speaking metaphorically here of course and who's putting up the wall okay right and who gets to choose which which seat are dispersed or not yeah yeah yeah okay no I love this world Gard I'm going to read more into it I'm going to I'm honestly going to read more into it is there it's his idea right yeah um it's is it your original coin the terms obviously in in the context of what we talking about but if you want to understand a little bit about nationalism and its interplay with liberalism you can refer to the likes of John M shimer or other colleagues like Francis fukuyama and others but I think in in so far as the recipe that I would like to offer to Indonesia that would be something like that okay wow guys listen that we' I'm talking about very very so we're now we would like to now transition to the more that was fun no yeah I love I love that you know you got to do it for the algorithm and the and the and the the Instagram and the Tik Tok so I want to ask you like like this like questions all right uh we're going to play a game we're going to we're going to review memes yeah but before that I want to know what book are you reading right now and what books do you recommend young Indonesian students to read oh definitely fundamentals of fluid mechanics okay wow so let's all read fundament mechanics oh wow thank you wow let's just okay let me just read that he didn't even hesitate he didn't hesitate fundamentals on fluidic quantum physics for newbies for no that's that's okay um are okay so are you reading anything fictional right now um are you read anything fictional I mean I know yes yes okay well okay so uh so my wife is German so I've been reading um some of the books my wife read to my my kids these are Pipi langstrom these ideas l yeah kka no the Beet metamorphosis Kafka no the gulak okay that's a bit heavy mom um um okay stories I think Indonesia has a lot of stories that are not um I think Indonesian Youngs nowadays are not exposed to the the the very good stories of Malin kundang which is a lot of people don't know Mal which is um which is a very common philosophical story yeah um a lot of our um stories like I mentioned to you about lagalo yeah you couldn't find the manuscript in Indonesia you could have to find it in the west so even the lag of the Bois people the lagalo you find it in the west you find it in the west they even make a whole theatrical play there really yeah in the in the Netherlands wow I mean thank you Netherlands for that well thank you very much we still need a visa to go there yeah yeah yeah why do we need a hello hello the D I don't need a any questions from you ABA before we go to the meme review like books movies like me yeah for for to him like what do you mean like like fun questions like what movies you want cuz cuz I'm I'm I'm interested what okay I'm interested what you are are consuming cuz you can tell a lot by people from what they consume yeah what what Netflix show are you currently watching if any or doesn't have to be Netflix what what TV show what movie Attack on Titan oh my god wow okay okay I could go we we boo that's the what is up Indonesia Community we did we did a whole like IG life about that oh that is fantastic yeah I got to convince my wife why I spent the entire five years of my life work uh but that's fascinating dude oh my gosh okay no we can we can go to tent if you go we can go to tent no okay no but on serious note guys we need great literary works and it we do I agree I agree and such a great L fantastic and it's not even ancient right so no it's not it's not maybe we should have another episode where we just talk about attack on time I would love it I would I would be that okay anyway uh so I have this idea I don't know if this will be fun or not I guess we'll see we'll I'm going to show you some memes that might be related a little bitsh to the current topic that we're talking about you'll be disappointed that for sure just to look at your screen okay all right just comment on it just comment it and you can even comment seriously on it cuz it's a not this I haven't all right okay all right this is the first one I can see your browsing history thanks Indonesian seen this I Haven I so I'm reacting to that oh well okay well that's a pessimistic view I can relate to that yeah what do you think yeah sadly yeah sadly sadly yeah let you would be like well we have no Nobel Prize winners for that for one you know almost all advancement in stem are not we used to be the country from which new spectacular scientist even Nobel Prize worthy findings were experimented on was here you know at the time when Wallace together with Darwin laid the foundation of evolutionary biology for example they did it in the wallacea region in Indonesia for example we used to be that ber ber as a disease for example was first studied Indonesia tropical diseases we we have all the potentials but then it's just potential yeah yeah and I think what's interesting here is Indonesian stem achievement from local institution because I think a lot of Indonesians that are studying stem made great achievement outside outside this is problems you know because if you go outside especially if you go on government scholarship you have to immediately come back right right open up a problem yes yes right you cannot grow your wings outside and no wonder all right okay next that was the first meme if you call this Pim mytic wait till you see wait till you see all the memes this is how gen Alpa uh need a bit to digest be okay all right yeah do you look I um I have a lot of uh Professor friends in Indonesia so I can really relate to this they're heavily Laden with administrative Works they have known um human resources to help them with their research um I mean I'm I'm a benefactor of um a good environment here for example I have a post do I have PhD students I have a great team everybody wants to work in the UK and I benefited from that human capital but you're right yeah so would you say this is like a an accurate well look at that horse for example right it's it's barely surviving it even lost its horn yeah yep and this is like the usual like government um uh propaganda propaganda hey guys come on come here blah BL scientist and then they they really and then they become a scientist and one thing that I want to com comment on that is you know science don't just shine in itself by one person doing great science it's the whole ecosystem that counts it's an ecosystem yeah yep right yep exactly it's it's kind of like your um Walt Garden thing like you cannot expect the flowers and the trees and the grass if the soil is not fertile right right or if you protect it from external threats which is what the wall supposed to serve as mhm okay next that guy looks familiar Indonesians moving abroad inovative research skills and scientific expertise do you get I get it but let's see cuz he's he's he's the your this is him okay no no I'm kidding I'm kidding I'm kid so it's bringing a big bag of innovation research skill and okay like a brain drain it's okay this is a gen Z gen ala way of communicating and information all right cuz you're you're I think you're the first millennial generation I would count myself as a millennial no you were born 19 83 8384 1984 is was the first Millennial above I okay the cut off of the thanks for reminding that uh okay no I don't I don't believe in brain drain oh okay okay elaborate elaborate here's the thing I think the Chinese had that same problems when they were sending millions of people to study abroad and only hundreds of thousands come back and at a time in the' 70s they think of it as brain drain but look at where these you know magnificent Chinese now in the in the global multinational company right they're they're occupying strategic places yeah and therefore bringing the Indians for example are everywhere so it's just a matter of um long-term Investments but that is as long as they are still connected with like a unifying Narrative of that nationalism right exactly as long as they don't cut ties it's the the diaspora nationalism that we talked about previously also but without that this is true or can I can I say a paragraph on this for example the lpdp slogan is to which means to enslave yourself of the country right that's a strong word you cannot say those words in the UK you're like Ching scholarship enslave yourself of the country you be out of the window right now I don't say I don't mean that serving the country is something negative but one should understand that you are Indonesia By the Way Andi and abigel you are Indonesia you are the the sprinkle of Indonesia in you serving the country means serving you to become the most competent person if I were to rehearse all of those uh slogan I would say just you know here's the scholarship be the best yep wherever you are right right right the country benefit from you being the best your family benefited from you being the best the community being the best you come back home and you're nobody even though you have the strongest will to help the country you're not going to help much yep only if you're powerful that's very philosophical actually because we are Indonesians and if we serve ourselves we are serving IND we implicitly serve our country if we serve our it's not a zero sum game where did you find all these memes I this is we made it we made it you made it what is up Indonesia the Discord Community is amazing a big Discord community and they made this Indo government to the scientist that's not how now this is this is true I mean some of my friends have problems some of my well I wouldn't call them friends some of my colleagues have friends conducting research Indonesia because of the problems they would find in the custom for example when it comes to um uh conducting experiments here for example sending samples into and out from Indonesia you need a lot of justification as to why that is not coinciding with the national interest yeah like scientific research here kind of needs to align itself with national interests okay that's why that's not how research here works I got I got to I got to say one thing um the homework is also for the Indonesian academics to struggle I know they're they're struggling but to struggle even more to make the policies underg guarded by science they have to fill the public spheres okay with scientific thinking so it's not just I mean who is the government government is just people like you and me it's us all right you're blaming them you probably get into the government one day you wouldn't know then you will become part of the system right so institutions have no responsibility people have responsibility right the government is just the building you and I have responsibility so what you say we need more scientists with scientific thinking to go into you go out there you got use your voice nowadays you can just go to Tik Tok and make memes like this well let's let's work together let's go okay next last one last one do you know this do but do you know this video a very famous video yeah I think I know know it's a very rich cleric or [Applause] something so what do you think about this our spending for research and Innovation is one of the smallest not in the world but even in Asia even in Southeast Asia oh wow both in terms of percentage and heart value so I sympathize with Indonesian researchers unable to do first class Sciences because because there's just no money I must say that the big four University or big five okay because uh ITB for example is ranked 280 in the world not saying that university ranking is sole criteria for performance but they actually punch above their weight right when it comes to some British universities they charges you 10 times the tuition fee right but they are ranked above 1,000 in the world so you got to have a little bit respect of Indonesian institutions they are performing well above of their weight yeah so but yeah money is Money Talks right yep yep absolutely well that that was the last meme last meme you get yep um first of all thank you we really appreciate you um coming in and talking to us about this um I'm very glad that I talk to you um I did watch your interview with uh pag thank you and it really opened up my eyes as well about like here's my tidbit here's my tid yeah we have a lot of podcasts in Indonesia but I think these podcasts focus on of course the ctions artists musicians content creators like myself I really think that um they should be more focus on people like you not just like you but everybody else because please yes I want all the attention please why because in I'm I'm going to give an examp in the US right in the US one of my most favorite podcasts ever is Andrew huberman I see okay Andrew is an optomologist and neuroscientists where he he makes science actionable and late and he gives it straight to laymen like me who are not into science and Pita and and a few others are are trying to start that yep where stop talking about all this stupid drama and all this all this stupid [ __ ] but it it it's it's a reflection of the country the reason why Andrew hubben works in in the western Society is because people watch that he gets millions of views and I I love watching Andrew HEB like all of his protocols really like cold water whatever Sunshine whatever like I learned from a science science-based podcast and I just wish like more people like you get interviewed in the Indonesian entertainment industry that that's from from my perspective and but actually if you if I I saw your interview to with pag right and the view is almost 1 million by the way which means it's great which means which means I I feel like you know how like uh popular uh mainstream mainstream shows and podcasts or yeah show just in general they always say like oh yeah we can't give people like uh shows or topics that are too heavy people like no one's going to watch blah blah blah I feel like that's a that's an assumption but in reality actually when you do provide them with heart with content they are not watered down they're unashamed of talking about the big questions people watch it people watch it there there's a hunger for that in this country too I believe you asked me earlier if I was optimist and some of the uh viewers of my podcast or even the one that we produce ourselves has been why is your language so difficult to understand when I speak Indonesian for example well the short answer for the first time I say it in public is that I don't want to insult your intelligence by dumbing down my message and so you know you could pause the video and I want you to watch it so that you get something out of it you can watch it go to Google come back there again you know what I mean so for all these content creators you know just expose yourself to difficult topics and that's how you learn that's how that's how you learn so don't just and I think public likes that you know they've been fed with infantilization for too long so good thank you yeah last last last last last who do you recommend we interview oh yeah like cuz cuz the people in the comments always right but I want you like like hey andovi AB why not this guy and it doesn't have someone known maybe some Indonesian that you know is BU abroad and who you know who knows I don't know I I wouldn't say name because if I say names then the other people who didn't get named would be like why didn't you name me no but I want you to interview people who have um not not of uh very high public stature for example the people who understand where Chris come from who understands B right who understand who understand Indonesian core values you have to unearth these people so that they get more exposure a lot more Brilliant Minds in Indonesia I'm not talking only in the academic settings don't get the attention that they deserve got it I like that right right so comment below who knows the we boos out there if you know people who know about the story of the chis the btics and experts and that I get it right my father no I'm kidding all right well thank you so much thank you so much see you on our next see you in the next episode bye cheers pleasure thank you I really