Dear Malysians,

Your society is a good one!

Warga Malaysia,

Masyarakat anda adalah masyarakat yang baik!

Sayangnya, saya tidak mampu menulis dalam Bahasa Malaysia, dan artikel ini terlalu panjang untuk saya sertakan terjemahan di halaman ini. Tambahan pula, memandangkan Kecerdasan Buatan semakin baik dari jam ke jam, ketepatan terjemahan anda boleh bertambah baik dalam jangka masa antara saya menerbitkan artikel ini dengan masa anda membacanya. Untuk menterjemahkan halaman ini di telefon anda, ketik tiga titik (Android) atau aA (iPhone), kemudian "Terjemah". Di komputer, klik kanan di mana-mana sahaja pada halaman, kemudian "Terjemah".

I am unfortunately unable to write in Malay, and the article is too long for me to include a translation on the page. Furthermore, as Artificial Intelligence gets better by the hour, the accuracy of your translation can improve literally between the time I publish this and the time you read it. To translate this page on your phone, click the three dots (Android) or the aA (iPhone), then "Translate". On a desktop, right-click anywhere on the page, then "Translate".

Part 1: Who am I? How do I know?

I spend a lot of time critiquing humankind so, having had a few positive experiences here of note, I think they're worth sharing.

My social critiques apply everywhere I have been, including here. Each and every one of us is damaged by the fact that we see homeless people whom we can not adequately help. That's true in every city I have been in, except in places where homeless people are preemptively imprisoned.

Humans are kind at heart and godly in soul. We are each responsible for each other, and we are irrevocably damaged every time reality requires us to ignore the human pain evident in someone else's body and face, even when it's because there's literally nothing we can do about it.

Furthermore, we all live in societies enraptured by competitive capitalism, where there are bosses and hierarchies. All of which are blatantly classified as criminal in the Bible and Koran - and more importantly - in our own minds and hearts.

But none of that is the fault of the players, all of whom inherited these systems from previous generations. We have simply yet to find the way for us all to abandon these problematic inheritances at once. Abandoning them piecemeal - such as if Malaysia decided to go full-blown humanist - would not work, because a few individuals, either soullelss or just born yesterday, would find ways to involve outsiders or internet mobs in exploitative opportunities, and the country would be overtaken.

Because Capitalism works. Not for us, but for itself.

Communism meanwhile, as it’s been tried in the 20th Century, was never the sort of communal living and care that Gandhi or Jesus advised, but simply another hierarchial system of enslavement employed, like all other systems, via threats of imprisonment or death.

Naturally humane edenesque living was never one of its goals. It viewed our spiritual makeup as evil, and freedom therefore as something that would inherently lead to exploitation. It was with these priors, principles, and presumptions that all known communistic systems were enacted.

The Biblical Truth is that freedom leads to good things.

All of us freed (freeing each other, really) at the same time, we will quickly find ourselves living in a world better than anything currently imaginable. But it can't be done at the barrel of a gun or without intelligence. It must be done through society-wide comprehension and agreement - on the individual level - of how this would benefit each of us.

So long as individuals wrongly believe that they personally will benefit more by acting inhumanely, it would not, and should not, work. As Thomas Paine explained, no genuine social contract can be inherited or imposed. It must be entered into by all of the currently living.

All of this was discussed in my conversation with the world's greatest living expert in the field of Game Theory —the man who, in fact, literally won the Nobel Prize for spelling it all out.

Looking, as an Israeli, at the horrible situation around him, he rightly concluded that in today's world Israelis must be known as terrifying warriors. Ditto for Iranians, Palestinians and - much more importantly - YOU and ME.

In today's world, if you are not a predator you are prey.

But does it need to be that way?

We must discuss this question, as I have (before a South African wealthy woman, trying and failing to buy my soul, sufficed with stealing my stage), publicly and without any presumptive moral need to arrive at any particular “right answer”.

My conclusion, to date, is that it need not be - and my certitude is that the great Abrahamic religions say that it is both stupid and harmful for us to assume that it does.

The Hebrew Bible was regarded as true and authoritative by Mohammed and the Koran. The Koran accurately calls The Torah's claimed adherents hypocrites who are reading things in the Bible out of context. Subsequently, generations after the death of Mohammed, political necessities caused some Muslim scholars to claim that Mohammed's rightful call against hypocrisy and motivated readings meant that the original words of the Torah had been changed. But this is not the case. And the Koran does not say otherwise. All books suffer the in-creep of errors through the process of transmission, but Holy Books are treated as such by their recipients and copiers, and therefore do not tend to accrue substantive errors.

Proving my point, the misreadings of God’s intentions by people who claim to be faithful to them fill the majority of both the Jewish and Christian Bibles.

The Christian Bible is in fact a collection of Jewish works, almost exclusively reiterating the same message. Unfortunately however, the last Jews who had original-language copies of the books containing information about the life and works of Jesus died over a thousand years ago. Fortunately, it appears that Mohammed met and learned from them before they vanished, which is why The Koran is so insistent upon the fact that there is Only One immaterial God, while at the same time rightly crediting Jesus as a godly human being.

What matters for our purposes, as it applies to The Divine Belief that a freed humanity would live in a beautiful world rather than in an anarchistic and evil one, exists throughout all holy books. And it was stated in the clearest possible manner in the words spoken, and is still read, on The Highest Holy Day in the calendar.

I am attempting, once again, to reach humankind to enable us all to discuss this matter with 100% freedom of expression. If you can help me do so, that would be appreciated.

Not only by me, but by every living soul.

For our purposes today, however, I would like to tell you how, even in our broken and selfish world, Malaysia is doing very well.

I mentioned recently how Kota Kinabalu appears to have been fortunate to have been influenced by Islam, as opposed to Manila whose primary influence was a form of modern Christianity.

Filipinos are wonderful people - as I believe everybody everywhere knows! - but the country’s society-wide structural belief system hasn't allowed them to express it quite as fully as Malaysia’s system has.

But I want to go further than that.

My impetus for writing now is due to two recent experiences, and because I have encountered such thoughtfulness among Malaysians, I believe that further conversation and understanding of our society would do us much good and very quickly.

Quoting Judaism as an American citizen, I know that many will wonder as to my view of the war currently raging in the Middle East. The answer has already been expressed clearly and repeatedly with tremendous nuance in over a thousand articles and videos — nearly all of which are addressed primarily to either Jews or Americans. Nonetheless, I’ll reiterate here in the shortest possible form that my unique position allows:

I oppose bloodshed. I even oppose the idea that we aren't each responsible for each other’s life, wellbeing, and happiness.

Israel, Iran, the United States (and who-knows-who-else!) are fighting and killing because they live in a world where strength is all that matters. I condemn them all! But individually I don't condemn any of them. I don't even condemn murderers or massacrists. They are each doing their best within a system with a horrible incentive structure.

I have no part in them and therefore no side. I neither condemn nor support, except while addressing individuals. And, despite contacting them, neither Trump, Khamenei, nor Netanyahu have gotten back to me. If any of them would, the war, and indeed all wars, would end — forever. I am an American by my passport and a Jew by parentage so, to the degree that either of the powers accurately represent and support me, I am appreciative. But that degree is zero, except inasmuch as either of them rolling over and playing dead would certainly cause me harm. Because that is the world that we are living in. I do not support their actions, but if the lack of action on their part would inspire hostile actions by others, well, what the hell is any individual able to say?

I oppose force being used by anyone against anyone. Everywhere and always. For my part, and in demonstration of the fact that I have the courage of my convictions, I am not currently in either America or in Israel, but here, in a country whose primary religion and culture is Muslim.

And because I oppose no one, nor seek to take anything from anyone, nor believe that my welfare benefits from the use of force by those who claim to be doing so on my account, I am no more concerned about being here than anywhere else.

Nevertheless, precisely because non-human memetic global systems so dehumanize and reduce us from individual sons and daughters of God into names, numbers and nationalities, I most definitely run the risk of some system-enslaved fool acting unkindly towards me by believing that he is, “opposing the war against Iran”. There is nothing that I can do about that except to reach the world, and if humanity agrees, to unshackle and free us all to live again, as in Eden, as individual beloved sons of God, who recognize, enjoy and appreciate each other’s unique individuality and personality, Amen.

On that day we will speedily overcome each and every problem inherited from prior generations, and we will each experience life better than has hitherto been possible.

Fear and want will soon be absent from the earth.

Part 2: The Malaysian People

Now let's dig in to Malaysian society - in the current world. The one in which I am still an observer rather than a global moderator.

Writ large:

Nobody here has tried to give me the wrong change.

I don't mean to be funny, and I’m certainly not being silly. I’m telling you something positively HUGE within the tiniest possible anecdote. People are honest, and kind, and friendly.

Does that mean everybody? I am no naif. Look at my recent publications and you’ll see that I am aware that, like every place else in the year 2026, even Malaysia needs its Good Samaritan.

Because that's just how the world is.

Everywhere, and at all times, the priests and levites pass on by, crossing the street and averting their eyes, so as not to be either forced into acting, nor into emotionally engaging with the startling fact of how degraded a human being they themselves must be to allow such acute suffering to happen without acting!

But overall, compared to many other places - yes - people here are good, feel good, and act good.

I shall suffice with just 2 anecdotes to convey my point regarding the innocent loveliness that dwells in the Malaysian Soul.

The first is an anecdote regarding just one individual.

His name is Mohammed and he is a nearly toothless fellow who was super duper double-plus very insistent upon buying me dinner.

He is a worker and salesman for many hours of each day during which he undoubtedly looks out primarily for his own self-interest in the manner that society at present requires as payment for anybody who wants to live.

But, recognizing me as someone mainly motivated by the joy of sharing happiness with other people, he instantly delighted at the opportunity to do likewise.

And with no thought at all to getting anything in return. I couldn't even find him to thank him!

As I immediately recounted into the following video, this Malaysian Muslim Mohammed lifted my increasingly despairing view of whether humanity could, or even deserved, to be rescued from its generational folly.

The second example, and the primary impetus for this letter, was my experience among Malaysians whose history and circumstances have crafted them into the least open community in the country - indeed, into one of the least open communities in the world.

Most of its denizens are as “uncontacted” as any people in the world today. Their sole contact with the world is through those individuals who work in Kota, which is why knowing about them is instructive, both with regard to considering what human beings are like by nature, and in judging the minor mimetics of the tribe, which come exclusively from contact with the mainstream Malaysian one.

The community I’m talking about is not the community I livestreamed visiting in the following video, about halfway through.

That nearby community was certainly shocked to see a white man suddenly appear among them, but they are not considered isolated or counted as dangerous in the way that the community I will now tell you about is.

It was Saturday and - having left my phone behind - to the stunned confusion of captain and passengers alike, I tightwalked on a ledge and stepped down onto a miniscule makeshift motorboat.

Where are you going?

Wherever you're going!

Which is how I came to travel to, and alight at, the most secluded and wary community in the country.

Legally they are all refugees from the early-1970s Moro Conflict in the Philippines, but in heart, spirit, religion, language, location and life they are all Malaysians, born, living and influenced only by Malaysia.

The paranoia of this community is understandable, but the people didn't show it to the degree that they held it.

I perceived how strong it was because it was only the second time in 5 decades of traveling that I encountered a people where the toddlers stare down foreigners before waddling away in anger.

I’ve interacted with hundreds of thousands of people in many countries and this is only the second time that I ever encountered babies so conditioned against outsiders that their innate curiosity had been replaced with antipathy.

Of course we all understand the reasons for such things (which I had only ever encountered priorly among the newly-arrived Gitanos of Cadiz, Spain).

People regarded as dangerous or scary by others do not have the option of encouraging openness among their little ones. Those Westerners who are fortunate enough to have been born into wealth are (in their communities and homes anyway) among the nicest and least paranoid people on Earth.

For everybody else, to varying degrees, such societal and emotional luxuries are dangerous. Wariness is easier than thoughtfulness, and babies can't be thoughtful. The more outsider any community is considered, the more paranoia is deemed necessary for survival.

Here however is the shocking - and wonderful - truth.

I could not communicate one single word with anyone but precisely two out of hundreds of people in this particular stilt village, hovering over the open waters. In this habitation, even the kids didn't seem to know the alphabet beyond the letter F.

NONETHELESS, everybody I encountered, bar none, once they realized I wanted nothing from them and meant them no harm — likewise wanted nothing from me and meant me no harm either.

That, I believe, is the resting human condition. But, speaking locally, I can at least say that it is the resting Malysian condition.

The wild monkeys and Komodo dragons were glorious to come across in their natural jungle habitat after I traversed the stilt village unto dry land, but it was these isolated island people whose company I enjoyed the most.

Recounting hundreds of common-language-free encounters is impossible.

I can not communicate in words what we communicated through sound, song, movement, and expression, so I will default again to the dull but large fact that no one in any of the tiny stores fronting ramshackle family abodes returned the wrong change, or charged me any more than they charge their own cousins and neighbors.

From the children, to the men, to the women, to the elderly. From the religious, to the less-religious. From the settled to the unsettled. From the leaders to the outcasts. As soon as they comprehended that I was a peaceful and sincere visitor - and the fact that I didn't have a phone on me was an instant clincher - each individual was honest and friendly and caring in return.

Nobody is ever more iffy for an outsider to be around than individual hothead showoffs heading a gaggle of boys between the ages of 9 and 19. Yet I met dozens upon dozens of such kids. Some were even armed with small explosive bottle rockets. Nobody pointed them in my direction. Kids offered to swim with me (I declined), guide me (I accepted) and, most touchingly, they all expressed genuine and repeated consternation at my interest in exploring the jungle on my own.

As social media has made sadly evident to us all, that is not the way that “civilized” young men behave. The opportunity to see some foreign-speaking adult outsider get in trouble or possibly hurt would often be encouraged - and videoed.

I say this not from hindsight, but from my thoughts at the time. It positively astonished me that not a single kid, even the show-off leaders, appeared to even consider the fun that might be had in seeing me make a mistake.

I mean, I really pushed it. I attempted to argue with them and to walk off on my own, etc. The same older kids who were making some local-language jokes for clout earlier, were now wholly and truly concerned for my wellbeing as they begged me not to walk into the jungle, for no reason but that of my welfare.

They said a lot of things in languages I do not comprehend.

Communicating in English they were armed with naught but the word “no” accompanied by the worldwide recognizable motion used in carnivorous societies everywhere for slaughter, indicated via the movement of an index finger slicing across one’s own throat.

I lack the practiced novelist’s ability to convey the tender emotion they were desperately trying to impart as they made what’s generally considered a quite famously aggressive motion.

I can only say that having explored and engaged with every kind of individual and clique deep inside societies around the globe - including in Culiacan, Ramallah, East New York, and numerous desert and mountain habitations with no name - and lived to tell the tale, I understand human communication quite well and those 15 minutes of me playing Idiota Americanus to see if any of them would even give up and let me walk into the jungle unprotested were incredibly revealing and touching.

The fact that western society has lost that, as evidenced by the daily deluge of videos recorded and shared for the pleasure of laughing at people caught appearing foolish is enormously tragic.

The adults were kind and friendly too. But adults know how to lie. Kids don't. At least not convincingly. So the evidence for what these people are like can best be evidenced via recounting my interactions with the children.

The same toddlers raised to be wary of outsiders, once they gained the ability to think and judge people for themselves, understood who I was and were therefore insistently worried about me, lest I get myself lost or stumble into a pit of reticulated pythons.

Subsequently, after I did traverse a small patch of safe and legal jungle trail, I alighted upon a secluded beach where I encountered an expensive-as-hell bungalow resort for foreigners who want to visit Malaysia without seeing any Malaysians.

The foreigners I saw, of whom there were only two, were far less impressive.

Both were lounging on beach chairs at the pool and neither even looked up from their ipads to behold the curious phenomenon of a white man emerging out of the jungle in Borneo!

I pity whatever happened to their souls in the course of incessant capital accrual that they could possibly have been rendered so disinterested in the world around them.

I did have the good fortune however of meeting the manager of the resort.

He was a local man (I mean from Kota, not the stilt village of course) only recently descended from literal headhunters, and he was by far the most sophisticated individual I’ve thus far met in country.

My curiosity about parsing apart the effects of genes and memes was answered by the level of friendliness, knowledge, intuition and analysis of a fellow whose grandparents were born in longhouses graced with the skulls of their enemies.

So - having been here long enough to save a life and to have others concerned with saving mine; to have met the most and least educated individuals in society; to have spoken under interesting and worthwhile circumstances with people of every local tribe, including those comprised of folk who arrived within the past 200 years from the Philippines, Brunei, China and Great Britain (of which Borneo was a protectorate and colony until just 50 years ago), I can conclude, my dear Malaysian friends, that your society is a good one. It is filled with nice, honest, sincere and friendly people, and you are closer than most to taking the final blessed step toward the beautiful life that awaits us all on the other side of a single global conversation about what we each really want out of our mortal time on Earth.