[HN Gopher] Singapore's tech-utopia and surveillance state
___________________________________________________________________
Singapore's tech-utopia and surveillance state
Author : imartin2k
Score : 132 points
Date : 2021-11-17 12:16 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (restofworld.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (restofworld.org)
| api wrote:
| I consider Singapore to be the most dangerous dystopia in the
| world.
|
| It's not even close to the worst place to live. That's not the
| point.
|
| The thing that makes it the worst is that it is superficially
| desirable. It's like refined sugar, a poison that rots your teeth
| and causes dozens of health problems but tastes fantastic and is
| marketed heavily to children.
|
| Only a lunatic or an idiot would want to emulate North Korea but
| many sane intelligent and well-meaning people want to emulate
| Singapore. That's what makes it so horrible. It's a shining
| beacon of totalitarianism that advertises that wonderful things
| can be purchased at the cost of human rights.
|
| I would rather live, pragmatically, in Singapore than many other
| countries, but if I were there I'd be fully aware that it's a
| road to hell.
|
| The runner up for this designation is probably Dubai, which is
| even more of a two-tier Neo-feudal slave state with third world
| style corruption and only a superficial rule of law.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| A bit hyperbolic, but I think you're on the right track. Here's
| why, as unintentionally revealed by plain-spoken Charlie
| Munger:
|
| > "In a democracy, everyone takes turns. But if you really want
| a lot of wisdom, it's better to concentrate decisions and
| process in _one person_. It's no accident that Singapore has a
| much better record, given where it started, than the United
| States. There, power was concentrated in an enormously talented
| person, Lee Kuan Yew, ..."
|
| https://fs.blog/charlie-munger-wisdom/
|
| In short, "what you don't want", according to the Munger social
| vision, is ... democracy. A benevolant dictator it seems, is
| the only way. But how many aspiring dictators in the long
| history of this world have proven out as benevolent? The track
| record of dictators selected by political struggle I would
| argue is, by any measure of mass welfare, even worse than that
| of hereditary monarchs.
| hogFeast wrote:
| I am a reasonably large Charlie Munger fan (read all the bios
| of him and Buffett, read the Bevelin books, read Poor
| Charlie's) but the guy has the most phenomenal blind spots of
| any person alive because, bluntly, he isn't that well-read.
| He has read very deeply in one area (if you look at his book
| recommendations, it is like the Amazon best sellers for rich
| elderly people who went to college in the US, studied
| sciences but never really thought about anything else) but he
| appears unaware of the limits of knowledge, and is
| exceptionally superficial about stuff like politics (the
| stuff with the UCLA dorm also highlights this, he has written
| a lot of sensible stuff, and a lot of stuff that would do
| well in standup).
|
| Plato wrote about all of this stuff, he was of the same
| opinion (philosopher kings), and then spent most of life
| finding out why that didn't work (and was, as a result, sold
| into slavery towards the end of his life). This came up again
| in the Enlightenment. The perceived fault of democracy is the
| strength: it is strong because "everyone takes turns". You
| significantly reduce your upside, but you significantly
| reduce your downside too. The US has benefitted hugely from
| founders who not only understood democracy well, but
| understood the problems with dictatorship.
|
| Also, it is worth saying that LKY's son now runs the country.
| It isn't a democracy, are we seriously saying that the
| country was scoured for the best people and it just turned
| out the best guy was the son of the last guy? Seriously?
| LKY's achievements were great, he was a great leader but
| there is a lot wrong with the country (it runs on slave
| labour) and has the highest level of political weakness
| possible (China is a perfect parallel: Deng was a great
| leader, but he didn't solve any of political issues and
| assumed the CCP would always lead by consensus, Xi has made
| himself permanent leader...this is why you have a balance of
| powers/strong constitution, this is exactly why).
| pphysch wrote:
| Why is it a bad place to live, for someone who isn't part of
| the _1984_ fandom?
| goboronshka wrote:
| You're getting downvoted because your post is incredibly
| disrespectful to countries where the main demographics are
| historically oppressed groups. Obviously North Koreans love
| North Korea, or else it wouldn't exist.
| eranima wrote:
| No, he's being downvoted because many here actually WOULD
| want that.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| "Obviously North Koreans love North Korea, or else it
| wouldn't exist."
|
| Do you seriously believe this crap? The OP didn't deserve
| those downvotes, you did.
| areoform wrote:
| People are down-voting you. But to them, I'd like to say, how
| can you read this and not be shocked?
|
| > To illustrate how Better.sg tries to diffuse tensions,
| Keerthi recounted how a dark-skinned, ethnically South Asian
| member of the group had proposed a project after an interaction
| that she considered racist. She'd gone to an ethnically Chinese
| doctor with a dermatological complaint, but he refused to
| accept her as a patient, saying he couldn't confidently
| diagnose conditions on dark skin. She wanted to build a map
| that collated reports of similar incidents with medical
| professionals. Keerthi said that he suggested an alternative
| product: why not build an image library of how skin conditions
| present on different skin tones, to help doctors out?
|
| It feels like they're unwilling to accept, at a very
| fundamental level, that the issue wasn't that the doctor "can't
| diagnose X", but rather that they would prefer _not to_
| diagnose X.
|
| > A digital education plan for the pandemic assumed that all
| children had access to devices, and that all households had one
| parent spare to supervise them, he added. That simply wasn't
| the case, and lower income families suffered
| disproportionately. "You can map these dysfunctions and
| asymmetries onto certain socioeconomic statuses," Kuah said.
|
| This is again one of the more paternalistic aspects of the
| system at play, they're unwilling to accept anything that falls
| outside of their "norm," where they -- a small subset of
| powerful people -- get to define what is the norm -- not the
| people who live there.
|
| > In a country that's notoriously obsessed with safety, where
| jaywalking and failing to wear a seatbelt can be punished with
| jail time, migrant workers can be transported on the
| expressways in the back of goods vehicles. Calls for change
| after a series of fatal accidents this year were rejected, on
| the grounds it would be too expensive for their employers.
|
| I find this to be insanely inhuman, anyone who falls outside
| their preferred norm is the subhuman, or the untermensch. Their
| existence does not matter. Their concerns don't matter.
|
| > The coronavirus burned through the close-packed migrant
| dormitories. By the end of 2020, more than 150,000 migrant
| workers, nearly half of them, had been infected, compared to
| just 4,000 in the general population.
|
| > Inside the dorms, the systems seemed calibrated to trigger
| near-constant lockdowns; each time a positive case is found in
| a dormitory, its residents are isolated. Eighteen months on,
| migrants are still largely shut in. They're only allowed to
| leave their dormitories to work, or, once a week, for a few
| hours at a designated recreation centre.
|
| > That time [went] very fast... but on the other hand, very
| slow," he told Rest of World. "All day we stay in the
| dormitory, [in the] same room. We cannot go out, [we were] only
| allowed to go to the toilet and shower. Even cannot go [into
| the] corridor." Nights were the worst. Having spent most of the
| day sitting on his bed, watching movies on his phone, he found
| it hard to sleep. "This was a very, very bad time," he said.
|
| They've put a group of people, whom they consider to be the
| untermensch, within group housing where their movement is
| restricted and they are locked in.
|
| There will be some who will make the parallel to lockdowns in
| the US and the rest of the developed world, but fundamentally,
| those lockdowns were about sheltering in place at home, applied
| equally across the population, and gave people autonomy to go
| out for essential needs etc.
|
| This targets a specific sub-population. They are forced to live
| together in dorms. And they can only access recreation for a
| few hours every week.
|
| That's a prison in all but name.
|
| > People have to trust that there are limits to this organizing
| principle. If the government changed its mind about enforcing
| the law on homosexuality, for example, "it would be able to
| subpoena the location data of every queer person in Singapore
| to see who they're meeting," Rajeswari said. "There are jokes
| in our community about the government having files on us... but
| they're morbid jokes."
|
| > In 2020, he was jailed for 10 days for hosting a live
| discussion via Skype with the Hong Kong pro-democracy
| figurehead Joshua Wong.
|
| It's a "utopia" for sociopaths.
| api wrote:
| I don't believe in utopia, and any time I see a supposed
| utopia that is too good to be true I cringe a little.
|
| This isn't rooted in cynicism but in what I think is an
| accurate understanding of life.
|
| Life exists in a perpetual state of war against entropy.
| There are always massive problems. Your body spends anywhere
| from 20% to 50% (depending on how you count it) of its
| metabolic energy just not falling apart. If your body stopped
| doing this you would turn into mush in a few days... almost
| literally.
|
| So if you look at a place and it looks like utopia, there are
| a few possibilities:
|
| (1) Everyone is paying through the nose in the form of taxes
| or other fees to pay other people to fix things.
|
| (2) The problems are being hidden through a campaign of
| propaganda and cosmetics. The extreme of this is known as a
| "Potemkin village."
|
| (3) There is a system of slavery or near-slavery in which an
| underclass is handling all the dirty work.
|
| (4) There are massive problems you are just not seeing yet
| because you are not looking closely enough. This often
| happens when people visit somewhere or live there briefly but
| do not stay long enough to really get to know the place
| deeply.
|
| Singapore has low taxes. Their situation seems to be a mix of
| options 2-4.
|
| Oh, and on lockdowns:
|
| > There will be some who will make the parallel to lockdowns
| in the US and the rest of the developed world, but
| fundamentally, those lockdowns were about sheltering in place
| at home, applied equally across the population, and gave
| people autonomy to go out for essential needs etc.
|
| I would argue that the US barely even had true "lockdowns."
| There were few places in the US where anyone actually got in
| _real trouble_ for going out, not wearing a mask, etc. There
| were places of business and public buildings who would turn
| you away, sure, but that 's about as soft of a glove as you
| can get here. I see tons and tons of people completely
| ignoring COVID orders and nothing happened to them.
|
| I don't think I want it different. I will call people stupid
| for ignoring COVID orders and not getting vaccinated, but if
| I saw people getting arrested I don't think I would be okay
| with that.
| areoform wrote:
| I realize that it might not be clear from my tone, but I
| deeply agree with you.
|
| This reminds me of the HK story. I'm happy to provide more
| color elsewhere (feel free to reach out via twitter or
| email), but essentially the no-tax government was deeply
| involved with the triads and the construction industry.
| There was a tax system alright, except one that was
| enforced with gangs and shady deals rather than lawyers.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _at the cost of human rights._
|
| What human rights exactly?
| systemvoltage wrote:
| https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-
| huma...
| jedimind wrote:
| That was a rhetorical question I suppose, in the sense of
| "whose definition is supposedly the universal one": Jonas
| Ceika has philosophical deep dive [0] into the topic of
| human rights worth watching.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/AhRBsJYWR8Q
| neonate wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20211117075722/https://restofworl...
| danny_codes wrote:
| As with all things, there are pros and cons to Singapore's
| approach.
|
| Having better surveillance is a tool which can be used for good
| and bad, contingent on circumstance.
|
| For example, I live in the SF Bay Area. One highway near me (880)
| suffers from a very large amount of excessive speeding. A system
| capable of identifying speeders and charging them for their
| actions would be a boon for public safety. So surveillance here
| would be a net benefit to society.
|
| However, surveillance being used to prevent alternative ideas
| from being discussed (alternative solutions to problems or
| alternative philosophies) is less clearly positive. On the one
| hand, being able to prevent bold-face misinformation (see a Trump
| speech for an example) could be beneficial. Preventing reasoned
| debate, however, detracts from society.
|
| I don't think luddite responses to surveillance technology are
| effective. The technology is here. Pragmatically, its growing use
| in society cannot be prevented. We should instead focus on trying
| to maximize the good aspects of surveillance while minimizing the
| bad.
|
| As an aside, I find one-sided pieces like this one off-putting. I
| understand the desire to spin a narrative, but in focusing
| exclusively on the negatives of the Singaporean approach we (the
| readers) are left wondering about the other side to the story.
| deepnotderp wrote:
| > . A system capable of identifying speeders and charging them
| for their actions would be a boon for public safety. So
| surveillance here would be a net benefit to society.
|
| Then you will be back complaining that "the traffic is much
| worse now" ;)
|
| Chesterton's fence and all
| z303 wrote:
| Disneyland With the Death Penalty [1] and revisited [2]
|
| [1] https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/ [2]
| https://www.wired.com/2012/04/opinion-jeyaretnam-disneyland-...
| not1ofU wrote:
| Read both - The 2nd one, gave me Deja Vu overload, the writter
| keeps repeating bits and pieces a couple of times through out.
| Pretty wierd. Interesting reads, none the less.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| we are heading in to a world that favors the paranoid delusional
| mind state of Billionaires like Munger and Thiel.
| CornCobs wrote:
| Wow. While any author would clearly have some opinion which would
| show in their writing, this author definitely feels too eager to
| paint Singapore into some kind of bleak dystopian society. My
| favorite part - randomly putting many pictures of security
| cameras throughout the article. As if office buildings anywhere
| in the world do not have security cameras.
| okal wrote:
| One does feel _very_ watched in Singapore, though. I remember
| finding it interesting that there were cameras even inside the
| buses for public transport.
| com2kid wrote:
| > One does feel very watched in Singapore, though. I remember
| finding it interesting that there were cameras even inside
| the buses for public transport.
|
| Same thing in America, this has been the case for a long
| time.
|
| Helps two fold, with lawsuits against the bus company/
| accusations against drivers, and of course with catching
| criminals.
| handrous wrote:
| > Helps two fold, with lawsuits against the bus company
|
| I think the most succinct way to describe the US to an
| outsider, in a way that will help them understand or
| explain most of the behaviors that may seem odd, is that
| everyone's #1 goal all the time is to avoid ever taking the
| blame for anything, supported by a #2 goal of finding
| someone else to blame. In an ideal situation, things are
| arranged such that _no one_ may be blamed.
| com2kid wrote:
| My mother was a school bus driver for years, parents
| constantly accused her of things. The camera kept her
| safe. "My son wasn't hitting people, the bus driver was
| yelling at him for no reason!"
|
| No, your son was in fact hitting people, and the bus
| driver kindly asked him to stop, which is all she is
| allowed to do.
|
| She would have been fired multiple times over if it
| wasn't for the camera disproving wild allegations from
| parents who want to lay responsibility on anyone but
| their kid.
| handrous wrote:
| I'm not even saying it's irrational, due to priority #2.
| We _love_ to find someone to blame, then hammer them
| _hard_. Best is if we ruin someone 's entire life over
| whatever we've found that we can blame them for.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Hmm, the example that jumped to my mind was instead those
| Russian dashcams...
| nebula8804 wrote:
| That is what you get when you have a nation run by
| lawyers and bureaucrats with a sprinkling of corporate
| corruption on top.
| bdamm wrote:
| There are cameras inside the buses in San Francisco too.
|
| I certainly agree with your assessment, cameras are obscenely
| obvious in Singapore, which leads to the feeling of being
| watched. The difference, I suspect, is that more money is
| spent to make the cameras an obvious fixture, and you can be
| _sure_ that the well-connected government is tracking you
| through them. In Singapore, little brother and big brother
| are one and the same.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Doesn't tesla put cameras watching the inside of its cars
| now?
| brabel wrote:
| Pretty much any country rich enough to have cameras in busses
| does that... because it's common to have crimes on public
| transport and cameras help a lot with that. Do you expect
| privacy while on *public* transport?!
| handrous wrote:
| US busses are full of cameras. School busses, public transit
| busses. Basically all busses. I wouldn't be surprised if most
| charter busses have them, even.
| coldtea wrote:
| I've never felt particularly watched in Singapore. Perhaps
| more so in London.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Between this and the other article from the same site about
| Arabic moderation of Facebook that just made the front page,
| I'll leave it your judgement on what's going on.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| While I don't argue with the article, as someone who worked for a
| while in Singapore I have a different take: I travel extensively
| and it seemed to me that people in Singapore were happy,
| productive, going about their work and leisure. I really loved it
| there, but I did spend about 15 minutes reading stuff on the web
| about their laws before going there.
|
| I live in the USA, and it seems like culturally we tend to think
| that our country is the best place in all dimensions. I love
| traveling and enjoying the differences in different places. I
| think that it is a slippery slope downwards criticizing different
| cultures and legal systems.
| godelski wrote:
| > I think that it is a slippery slope downwards criticizing
| different cultures and legal systems.
|
| On the contrary, I think this is essential. As an American,
| I'll note that criticizing our government is a national past-
| time. One that even extends beyond our country and others join
| in. It's important to remember we live in a democracy (don't
| detract by saying we live in a democratically elected
| republic). We perform checks and balances on our government.
| The government is flexible. We can learn from the good and bad
| from other countries and ourselves (specifically what works in
| states run by different parties and economies). This is great.
|
| We also need to criticize governments and societies that are
| violating human rights. This cannot be ignored just because
| they are not seen as culturally okay by someone else.
|
| What I think is the problem is the comparison. The "America is
| the greatest at everything." But also the other countries that
| criticize America but then ignore their own similar issues,
| just shifting focus. We have to criticize ourselves, but use it
| as a means to move forward. It can't ever be "x is bad and
| that's the end of the conversation." It's about a "more perfect
| union" than "a perfect union" because we have to constantly be
| improving and adapting to the changes in the world. The danger
| is being static and thinking what worked before or what works
| somewhere else automatically works else{when,where}.
|
| The whole problem is that now we just complain and the
| conversations lack nuance. I'm not sure if they ever had
| nuance, but I do know that it is important if we're to progress
| from where we are now.
| oytis wrote:
| > I think that it is a slippery slope downwards criticizing
| different cultures and legal systems.
|
| Considering all legal systems equal is a slippery slope to
| saying that only inhabitants of the "first world" deserve human
| and civil rights.
| outside1234 wrote:
| As a previous Singaporean resident, you had the upper class
| experience. The dystopia is when you are worker class (usually
| Malay or Indian) and have to live in a shipping container to
| tear down and replace the 5 year old apartment complex down the
| street. Or when you are the prostitute that was imported from
| Vietnam to serve the local upper class population.
|
| These people have no rights and any protesting ends them up in
| Changi or shipped back somewhere else.
| coldtea wrote:
| As opposed to migrant Mexican workers in the US, for example?
| outside1234 wrote:
| I'm not comparing and contrasting countries.
|
| Just pointing out that he was an upper class non-citizen
| and his experience is very different from a lower class
| non-citizen because of that.
| ff317 wrote:
| I think this is pretty valid, but I'd couch this in terms of
| citizens vs non-citizens. I knew and/or interacted with a lot
| of working-class/poor _citizens_ and life seemed better for
| them there than in many countries. There are policies and
| universal safety nets that make it happen, with regard to
| housing, jobs, medical care, etc. For poor or working-class
| non-citizens, it 's probably much bleaker.
| geodel wrote:
| Well lower class experience is terrible in its own unique
| ways whether in India/US/Singapore or any place else.
|
| > These people have no rights and any protesting ends them up
| in Changi or shipped back somewhere else.
|
| Presumably they would have rights in their own countries.
| Since they left those should tell something about practical
| value of rights when one is just trying to survive while
| being poor.
| coldtea wrote:
| I've never feared being out in Singapore, even at 4am at night,
| in any part of the city.
|
| I also never feared police or the state for that matter in
| Singapore, if I didn't do anything illegal.
|
| I cannot say the same for the USA, where there are "no go"
| areas in all major cities (and many smaller ones), crime stats
| are way higher, and an encounter with a cop can turn sour way
| more easily.
|
| Not to mention I had an accident (in Singapore) and my friend
| called the ambulance there, and had to spend the night on a
| hospital, where they did several tests, and the cost was like
| $100 for first rate care in ultra-modern facilities.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| A fairer comparison would be the failure of San Francisco and
| success of Singapore. I think comparing a city essentially
| that is Singapore to a giant landmass of 330M people that is
| USA - is sort of meaningless IMO.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| San Francisco has many more creatives per capita than
| Singapore... you can see the effects of a police state
| without freedom of speech in film and literature (or even a
| comparison with Hong Kong until very recently).
|
| San Francisco has some very obvious problems, but there's
| no way I'd rather be in Singapore as someone who has worked
| at social media startups, crypto, and dabbling in
| biotech/longevity... the early opportunities aren't there
| because the imagination and freedom to pursue it isn't
| there.
|
| It's a systems problem because allowing serious dissent and
| dissatisfaction can inspire innovation.
| justicezyx wrote:
| > San Francisco has many more creatives per capita than
| Singapore
|
| This is out of scope.
|
| The comparison is about city management. Not creativity.
|
| When you talk about creativity, SF is at the forfront a
| giant nation of 300M people, 2 orders of magnitude larger
| population and market size. That naturally support more
| creativity and innovation.
|
| As for how much the market contribute to your claimed
| advantage, it's hard to measure. It might be that indeed
| SF per capita creativity, excluding market impact, is
| better than SG. I have no reason to doubt that, but I see
| not proof.
|
| Not mentioning other aspects when you are a central cit
| in a superpower.
| dron57 wrote:
| > When you talk about creativity, SF is at the forfront a
| giant nation of 300M people, 2 orders of magnitude larger
| population and market size. That naturally support more
| creativity and innovation.
|
| If we're talking about the Bay Area tech startup founders
| then roughly half of those are born outside of the US.
| Singapore could have just as easily attracted those
| immigrants, but they went to SF instead.
| justicezyx wrote:
| You are repeating my point. More creative people move to
| SF because there offer better chance of success, which is
| fundamentally determined by the market size (and capital
| etc). That's not because SF is managed better. Swap SF
| mayor and SG primer minister, you still have the same SF
| and SG (very likely, let's not be mirred in hypothetical
| assumption).
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| >I've never feared being out in Singapore, even at 4am at
| night, in any part of the city.
|
| >I also never feared police or the state for that matter in
| Singapore, if I didn't do anything illegal.
|
| Japan, Korea and Taiwan achieve the same level of safety
| while not being dictatorships. No need to compare it to the
| US.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Taiwan was autocratic until merely a generation ago (and
| holds the questionable achievement for the longest
| sustained period of martial law by any government), in
| South Korea half of its democratic elected heads of state
| are in prison, and Japan has been governed virtually by the
| same party since the post-war era.
|
| They have the rule of law, they have elections, all of
| those countries are characterized by, in reality, a very
| monocultural, depolitized, bureaucratic system of
| government. Live in Singapore in reality is no more or less
| 'democratic' than live in Japan or Taiwan or SK.
| mediumdeviation wrote:
| > Live in Singapore in reality is no more or less
| 'democratic' than live in Japan or Taiwan or SK.
|
| You absolutely will not be arrested for holding up signs
| outside government buildings[1], or questioned by the
| police for reading a book on the train as a protest[2].
| You would not be sued to bankruptcy for making what would
| be considered political speech in these other countries.
| Or just about anything on this list https://twitter.com/k
| ixes/status/1174024357443600384?s=21.
|
| Singapore is absolutely less democratic - there's no need
| for scare quotes.
|
| [1]:
| https://twitter.com/kixes/status/1353999081287245824?s=19
|
| [2]: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/police-
| question-one-ma...
| teachrdan wrote:
| > Live in Singapore in reality is no more or less
| 'democratic' than live in Japan or Taiwan or SK.
|
| I think this is a false equivalence. TFA mentions a
| democracy activist who was imprisoned for 21 days because
| of a small, non violent protest on a subway. He had been
| previously arrested for criticizing the judiciary in
| Singapore.
|
| Unless I'm mistaken, you would not be arrested for either
| of these acts in South Korea or Japan. They are both
| imperfect, but in some important ways more free.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| activist arrests happen in South Korea as well. The
| country has a national security law that gives the
| government rights to take action against anything
| perceived as 'anti-government' action. Advocacy of
| communism or voicing recognition of the North is illegal
| and every so often lands people in jail
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30808950
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > half of its democratically-elected heads of state are
| in prison
|
| Are they the Illinois of SE Asia? For that matter, if the
| US laws on insider trading applied to congresspeople,
| half of our elected representatives would rightfully be
| behind bars, too.
| coldtea wrote:
| On the other hand, Taiwan and Korea were dictatorships or
| semi-dictatorships after the war, and for a long time
| (until the 80s or so). Even today elections there are
| charade-ish...
| another_story wrote:
| Taiwan elections are charade-ish? Can you back that up
| with anything?
| someperson wrote:
| I can't find any indication that Taiwan's elections
| aren't free or fair? Can YOU back up your claim with
| anything?
|
| https://freedomhouse.org/country/taiwan/freedom-
| world/2021
| jollybean wrote:
| 95% of the USA is the same. There's no danger at 4 am most
| places, and you don't have to be worried unless you are
| breaking the law.
| GDC7 wrote:
| > I've never feared being out in Singapore, even at 4am at
| night, in any part of the city.
|
| You might have never been in fear, but were you ever stoked?
| And I mean genuinely socially stoked, not the monetary
| excitement after winning at the casino.
|
| Violence is a big predictor of strong sentiments among the
| populace.
|
| If you don't risk taking punches and kicks, you'll hardly get
| the reward of hugs and kisses.
|
| Social volatilty gives socially competent people a good
| opportunity to capitalize on their competence. Nowhere is
| this ever more clear than places like Brazil, Nigeria, South
| Africa, Mexico...
|
| A socially competent person will make friends and romantic
| relationships as soon as they get off the plane.
|
| A socially incompetent person will get robbed and risk
| mugging, again as soon as they get off the plane.
|
| The so called dangerous places are also the fun places.
| coldtea wrote:
| You've convinced me, I'm booking a plane to some hell-hole
| to 'capitalize on my competence' and achieve big-
| feelings...
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| This strikes me as a very naive sort of romanticism, as
| someone who grew up in alternately a very safe and very
| dangerous locale.
| GDC7 wrote:
| What? If you are a socially competent person (say a
| rapper with > 500k followers) you can go in the most
| dangerous areas of Lagos and people will maybe beat and
| shot each other....but to host you for the night...I know
| this for a fact!
|
| Of course if you are loaded but socially incompetent (say
| many of the billionaires in Silicon Valley or Wall
| Street) then your 50B net worth won't be enough for
| people to restrain themselves from beating you
| unconscious and taking you Rolex or Phatek Philippe (that
| your socially incompetent brain decided to sport there
| even though you are nobody but a walking wallet with no
| street cred)
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| You have the most intriguing, Kanye-esque definition of
| social competence.
| dathinab wrote:
| I don't think the US is a good comparison.
|
| The amount of "mindbending messed up"/"distropian" stuff the
| US has from a European point of view is absurd.
| LogonType10 wrote:
| >from a European point of view
|
| 99% of Europeans haven't been to America and only know what
| Hollywood movies tell them. The kind of person who thinks
| you can visit New York City and the Grand Canyon in the
| same day and have to worry about mass shooters everywhere
| all the time.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _a European point of view_
|
| Well, the slogan <<'No Way To Prevent This', Says Only
| Nation Where This Regularly Happens>> is from The Onion
| (<<America's Finest News Source>>)...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > culturally we tend to think that our country is the best
| place in all dimensions
|
| I think that is a stereotype itself, and at this point held
| more by non-Americans than Americans. Aside from a minority of
| hard core believers, what I mostly hear is complaining about
| the country. _Especially_ online.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _at this point held more by non-Americans than Americans_
|
| I've seldom met Americans who didn't think so, even leftists
| seem to have this mental wart (well, some of them might think
| Canada is the apex of civilization). Manifest destiny, and
| everything.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Only 29% of Americans actually think the country is headed
| in the right direction. Everyone else thinks Civil War
| Redux is close at hand, because The Other Side is evil and
| destroying the country.
|
| I can't remember the last person I met who thought the US
| was the best place in all regards. We're mostly aware of
| the problems, but completely opposed on how to fix them.
| The current political climate is born from that intense
| frustration with the status quo.
| geodel wrote:
| Well Canada is the apex of civilization once they disbar
| "evil chinese billionaires" from buying all real estate in
| Toronto :-)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| When I lived there a while back the shock to me was the "What
| nationality are you?" when trying to find a place to rent.
| Discrimination was commonplace and even explained away by the
| majority.
|
| I will say that the "law and order" aspect is way overblown.
| Residents will break laws and take shortcuts just as they do in
| the West. The difference is the government will not hesitate to
| make an example out of you (doubly if a foreigner).
|
| It is very impressive what Singapore has accomplished but there
| are a lot of problems under the surface that rich expats never
| see.
|
| Oh and the deference to authority is prevalent. Their Covid
| contract tracing app went from "for Covid only" to "general law
| enforcement" right quick with barely a peep from the voters
| before the govt passed a law making it all "legal".
| [deleted]
| neither_color wrote:
| That's common throughout Asia, also bookings getting canceled
| when they realize you're not "that" kind of American. As a
| non-white American who's traveled extensively throughout Asia
| and Europe I'm very confident when I say that the US is one
| of the least racist places in the world. Not saying it's
| perfect, dont want to hear your thoughts on the "the system."
| The kind of candid in your face "I dont like your skin color"
| that you read about in school actually is more prolific
| outside of the US than in it. We've overcome a lot and
| America is great for that. Thank you civil rights movement.
| sjwalter wrote:
| You know, I've thought this same thing for a while now. I'm
| an immigrant to the USA and I've traveled extensively. All
| these woke folks that try to make it seem like America is
| the world's most racist hellhole crack me up. They're
| clearly the kinds of Americans who never got passports.
| rajin444 wrote:
| > When I lived there a while back the shock to me was the
| "What nationality are you?"
|
| Why do they feel the need to ask that question? Are issues
| with people of specific nationality more prevalent?
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| Racial quotas also exist to my knowledge for some residence
| communities.
|
| Someone correct me if I am wrong.
| quantumwannabe wrote:
| Singapore has racial quotas for public housing (where
| most of the population lives) and the reason is to
| prevent ethnic enclaves from forming.
| https://www.gov.sg/article/hdbs-ethnic-integration-
| policy-wh...
| tubby12345 wrote:
| you're very far down for someone that has absolutely the
| most precise reason...
| mistrial9 wrote:
| from my short experience living in Hong Kong and travelling
| the region a bit.. there is a common, daily practice of
| identifying people by race and language, that is explicitly
| discouraged or illegal in the USA
| PakistaniDenzel wrote:
| Anecdote from when I lived there: Some landlords would
| prefer not to have Indian tenants to avoid them stinking
| the kitchen out as they often cook very aromatic food.
| pelasaco wrote:
| I was renting an apartment in Portugal, and the landlord
| said me the same thing. I love curry, It didn't bother
| me, but sounds like an issue.
| justicezyx wrote:
| Nothing different than what I encountered who don't like
| Chinese students tenants because we like to cook ourself,
| and Chinese cooking uses stir frying a lot which causes a
| lot of smell...
| another_story wrote:
| Most kitchens are not equipped to deal with it. Over time
| the oil particles build up and coat everything in a near
| impenetrable layer.
| justicezyx wrote:
| > Discrimination was commonplace and even explained away by
| the majority.
|
| Could you name a few example? I have college friend who live
| and work there, and they never mentioned discrimination.
| Although we are both Chinese mainlander, might be treated as
| part of majority.
| mediumdeviation wrote:
| I'm surprised - China's recent foreign policy certainly has
| not endeared it to South East Asian countries, but even
| before then mainland Chinese were not exactly treated with
| open arms in Singapore. You probably won't find it said to
| your face, but xenophobia against foreigners from China and
| India is definitely not uncommon.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Discrimination against Chinese goes back 500 years.
|
| There are several reasons: Chinese are rich. Nobody likes
| the rich. Chinese are foreigners. Nobody likes
| foreigners. Chinese are heretics and infidels. Nobody
| likes those. Another cause is the, admittedly brilliant,
| tactic of divide and conquer that Western colonial powers
| used. Set the natives up against the Chinese merchants
| instead of white government officials. The Chinese
| conveniently lacked the firearms and navy guns that the
| whites had access to.
|
| There have been many downright genocidal riots against
| the Chinese across the region. The Chinese government was
| too weak to do anything about it.
| mediumdeviation wrote:
| That's not the case here - Singapore is majority Chinese.
| The sentiments you see are more run of the mill
| xenophobia - Chinese mainlanders are here to take our
| jobs, they're loud and unhygienic, they can't speak
| English, their Chinese has a different accent, etc. You
| won't hear it being said to your face, but these are not
| uncommon views.
| xhevahir wrote:
| The comment was about mainland Chinese specifically, not
| ethnic Chinese, who in Singapore form the majority of the
| population. In countries like Indonesia--where riots like
| ones you mentioned have taken place--they are a small
| minority.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _When I lived there a while back the shock to me was the
| "What nationality are you?" when trying to find a place to
| rent. Discrimination was commonplace and even explained away
| by the majority._
|
| So, like the US, but with less hypocrisy about it?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining#Current_issues
| [deleted]
| nwiswell wrote:
| I'm not interested in defending redlining, but you _cannot_
| ask the question at issue in the US.
| searchableguy wrote:
| One thing I find fascinating about Singapore is their
| healthcare system. It is one of the most efficient system in
| the world if you look at it by outcomes. They spend around 4.5%
| of their GDP on healthcare, just half most OCED countries and
| 3x less than US, Switzerland, etc.
|
| They have a system which takes personal responsibility into
| account so you cannot use medisave or medishield to fully pay
| hospital bills no matter how much money you contribute in it
| (it's mandatory to contribute in it) so hospitals cannot charge
| people unsavory prices and have insurance pay for it. There is
| another fund called medifund which is used by government to pay
| for people who cannot afford medical care using the other two
| system after approval so abuse by hospital is limited.
|
| This is in contrast to countries where you have either free
| public healthcare or have insurance covering most of their
| bill.
|
| https://youtu.be/sKjHvpiHk3s
| ashconnor wrote:
| I have mixed feelings about Singapore. On one hand it stands
| out in the region for being clean, safe and nothing short of an
| economic miracle.
|
| On the other it's an authoritarian one party system posing as a
| democracy where the government owns/runs more of the economy
| than most so-called socialist states.
|
| It's a great example of the trade-off between personal freedoms
| and economic security.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > It's a great example of the trade-off between personal
| freedoms and economic security.
|
| Umm, no this isn't a trade-off you need to make. Look at
| Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. In Sweden, we have
| complete economic security and personal freedoms. I don't
| know why you'd think authoritarianism is a necessary trade
| off for even less economic security than here.
| ashconnor wrote:
| It's a trade-off voters believe. It's not my own opinion.
| Singapore would function perfectly well without the
| authoritarianism I'm sure.
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| Parent can also look at Japan, Korea and Taiwan. People who
| make it a western democracies vs Singapore's ideal
| authoritarianism conveniently forget about those three
| asian countries.
| [deleted]
| ashconnor wrote:
| You're comparing three mono-ethnic countries to
| Singapore's multi-ethnic, multi-religious society.
|
| South Korea and Taiwan were military dictatorships for
| much of their economic rise.
| pydry wrote:
| I got the same impression for those living the condo lifestyle
| but while safe, I don't think it's much fun for those eking out
| an existence hawking or working as a checkout assistant at Cold
| Storage.
|
| And being a Bangladeshi migrant worker is fucking awful and not
| particularly safe.
|
| There's an undercurrent of really horrible shit going on
| underneath the shiny surface:
|
| * https://tnp.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/maid-who-
| killed-... (she probably was abused a lot, it is very
| common...)
|
| * https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57563235 (the pinnacle of
| maid abuse)
|
| * https://archive.md/RCAI2 (tl;dr don't try to protest being
| paid less to drive a bus because of your race. they will toss
| you in prison and beat the shit out of you before deporting
| you)
| petre wrote:
| You get better working conditions in Eastern Europe. No one
| will try to murder or abuse you (other than financially), yet
| passive aggresive racism exists at every corner.
| bluecalm wrote:
| I live in Poland and have immigrant friends. Rest assured
| there is very real physical violence towards migrants from
| both former Soviet Union countries as well as Western
| countries.
|
| You have to watch out for your safety all the time. Just a
| few weeks ago my friend's bf was beaten up along with
| several of his friends in Warsaw. The police has done
| nothing, the embassy has done nothing (they are from on the
| biggest Western EU countries). You won't read about it in
| the newspaper either.
| petre wrote:
| Not surprised at Poland being unsafe for migrants, having
| an elected conservative government that recently banned
| abortion and is currently also having a row with the EU
| over who's laws they should enforce first.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Singapore is a real Omelas situation, where the little boy is
| all the migrant workers that underpin society. (Of course, the
| same criticism can be leveled at the US as well.)
| handrous wrote:
| _Every_ country is a real Omelas situation--I don 't think
| we're meant to read it and go "man, sucks to have to make
| that choice," but, "oh, it's an allegory for the society I
| actually live in".
|
| The entire _global economy_ is one, too, in fact. Not to
| spoil it, but that 's something The Good Place ends up
| wrestling with by the end.
| ff317 wrote:
| I have a similar take. I lived in SG for ~5 years, many years
| ago (90s). There's a lot I would _like_ to criticize on
| abstract principles about the politics, the surveillance state,
| the lack of freedoms, some very draconian laws and social
| norms. However, that instinct is always tempered by the fact
| that, in practice, Singapore 's society seems to work
| phenomenally better than most other countries for most of its
| citizens, even for the working class and poor, which is quite
| an achievement in such a high-income/standard-of-living
| country.
|
| It's a unique place in every sense: social and cultural issues,
| economy, geography, history, leadership, etc. It's a very
| interesting country to study, but the most important thing in
| any analysis of Singapore is that lessons from Singapore almost
| certainly don't extrapolate well to anywhere else; don't draw
| conclusions about how some other country should be run based on
| what works there.
| jollybean wrote:
| " Singapore's society seems to work phenomenally better than
| most other countries for most of its citizens, "
|
| Singapore is a safe banking haven in a sea of legal risk and
| chaos.
|
| Singapore was effectively an (almost) empty plot of land when
| it was established, and it was designed to be an
| 'banking/commercial haven'.
|
| What makes Singpore 'rich' is the foundation established by
| the UK as having 'rule of law' and 'peace and order'.
|
| As long as Singpore remains peaceful and orderly, where the
| commercial law is respected and foreign entities trust that
| their money is safe and they will get a fair deal, and that
| ability is not available in surrounding nations (which it
| isn't, even today), they they will do well.
|
| If you're a Western company looking for a 'gateway to Asia',
| then Singapore is a good choice. It was literally built to be
| that.
|
| It's a little bit how Swiss standard of living is
| supplemented by the fact that 1/3 of the world's offshore
| money is parked there, and that surplus benefits the locals.
|
| Like a more complicated version of having 'Oil Wealth'.
|
| It is what it is, and we have to be careful about criticism
| from afar, but that doesn't mean we can't be critical.
| skywal_l wrote:
| Well it helps to be a tax haven I'm sure. Look at Luxembourg,
| Jersey, Cayman Islands. When you are a small country able to
| suck in other countries taxes, it makes everything easier.
|
| If you remove that from the equation, what makes SG, or any
| of the aforementioned places, so special?
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| SG have the one most use port in the world(state company)
| for example, the most skill labor index(surpass silicon
| valley), strong manufacture sector
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > seemed to me that people in Singapore were happy, productive,
| going about their work and leisure.
|
| Upper and middle class? I agree. The lower class and the
| Indonesian and Malay below them? I saw slightly more
| discontent.
|
| I have mixed feelings about my time in Singapore. If you've
| never been there the only way I can accurately describe it is
| it's like if Disney built a real city. I believe you would get
| very different results of a survey during the day vs after
| about 2200 or 2300, when the shoppers are all home and the
| street cleaners come out.
|
| I think it absolutely earns its name as "the air conditioned
| city". But... I will say that for the most part it works well,
| I just couldn't do it. I did see people litter here and there,
| mostly lower class workers stuffing cigarette butts in
| nonobvious places. But I would send my older mom there without
| a care in the world for her safety.
|
| As to safety... for a country with strict laws, all police
| still had body armor, I saw patrols of 4-5 guys all with
| handguns and usually two with MP5 submachine guns walking
| around different places, and thought it was interesting to see
| posters along the stations that warned you should be prepared
| for terrorism including where to go and how to cut off
| bleeding.
|
| The whole time I was there I felt like there was an underground
| I couldn't get to. That for as beautiful as the city was on the
| surface (it really is), that there had to be an equal but
| opposite underground, wether true or not.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _(As to safety... for a country with strict laws, all
| police still had body armor, I saw patrols of 4-5 guys all
| with handguns and usually two with MP5 submachine guns
| walking around different places, and thought it was
| interesting to see posters along the stations that warned you
| should be prepared for terrorism including where to go and
| how to cut off bleeding._
|
| They did had issues with terrorism in the past, from islamic
| extremists...
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > I live in the USA, and it seems like culturally we tend to
| think that our country is the best place in all dimensions.
|
| I think you're talking about 1960's. Today, this is completely
| opposite. In fact, I see European exceptionalism on HN which
| rarely gets challenged.
| geodel wrote:
| Great points. Another thing I see with lot of
| reporting/editorializing these days that even when it is true
| in narrow technical sense overall it sounds dishonest.
|
| One reason is it kind of insinuates that people can exist
| beyond time and space. So they can have all good things cherry-
| picked and be made available.
|
| Like I see here people drooling over cheap mobile internet in
| India without thinking about so many good things in life are
| simply not available or far too costly by local purchasing
| power when compared to US.
| mrtri wrote:
| remember George Orwell book Animal Farm.
| kubb wrote:
| It seems to be a very common theme in Western journalism to
| describe Asian countries as dystopias or dystopias in the making.
| Often this is based on the idea of a dystopia floating around in
| Western pop culture, influenced by books like Big Brother or
| Brave New World.
|
| This comes with a habit of putting these societies in contrast
| with the western societies, and claiming the obvious superiority
| of the latter. This sentiment could be paraphrased as "these
| people are surely living in hell, and that's because they don't
| know how to preserve their freedom".
|
| It's also phrased as a warning to their own people: "be careful
| about all those new political ideas, or we'll end up like those
| Asians (or Africans)".
|
| This to me seems very much like a mixture of arrogance and
| ignorance which leads Westerners to believe that things are the
| best where they live, and it's so because they're just so smart
| that they could set things up this way, and they have the best
| culture.
|
| It's bizarre if you take a step back and think about it, as if
| they're collectively patting themselves on the back, and at the
| same time are trying to convince themselves that the issues that
| they're having are nothing in comparison to the issues that
| others have.
| carapace wrote:
| Not to put too fine a point on it but by a lot of measures
| thing _were_ better in Western societies for the last couple of
| centuries, eh? Arguably things still are better. It 's evening
| out, but only really in the last few decades.
|
| I mean, science and the Industrial Revolution? The
| Enlightenment and humanitarian values?
| secondaryacct wrote:
| Sure, but are they brave new world dystopia or farming
| societies. One has to decide.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Not clear at all. What takes the label of a BNW, what of a
| farming society, whether the dichotomy is descriptive or
| theoretical...
| jollybean wrote:
| Nobody is calling Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia or frankly S.
| Korea a 'Surveillance State'. Not Japan either really.
|
| China is being referred to as a 'Surveillance State' because it
| is.
|
| Singapore has been a planned/authoritarian since the
| 'revolution', so it's not a stretch either.
| geodel wrote:
| > China is being referred to as a 'Surveillance State'
| because it is.
|
| No, I think it is called because China is rich/powerful
| enough to put technology in place for surveillance where as
| many others want to but can't afford. It also has developed a
| kind of adversarial relationship due to its economic impact
| on west. So more reason look negatives one can find.
| jollybean wrote:
| No, many nations have the wealth to put Orwell Tech in
| place, they don't because it's wrong on every level.
|
| China controls it's citizens through absolute control of
| information. Every email, every text.
|
| The 'VPN' bypass is 1) still controlled and China can shut
| those down as they please and 2) not hugely relevant if 99%
| of the population believes the facts the CCP wants them to
| believe.
|
| Orwell (well, Blair) himself could not have conceived of
| the level of control because the tech simply didn't exist.
|
| That said, I think you're right to hint that maybe other
| states have not been able to do this, but that some will.
|
| I believe China will become a major exporter of
| surveillance tech in the coming decades.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| "Want to but can't afford" is quite... uncharitable ? (What
| is happening in, say, Japan or South Korea - surely they
| _are_ rich enough ?
| babelfish wrote:
| Absolutely. The author of the article lives in London, which is
| notorious for police surveillance (1 camera per 13 people!),
| but there's no way they'd write a similar article about a
| Western country.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Have you checked ? I have the opposite expectation...
| Jedd wrote:
| > Absolutely. The author of the article lives in London,
| which is notorious for police surveillance (1 camera per 13
| people!), but there's no way they'd write a similar article
| about a Western country.
|
| Are you asserting this because you've researched all the
| articles that Peter Guest has written, or because you just
| don't think he would?
|
| A starting point on RestOfWorld - the site's name kind of
| gives away the focus for their reporting, so it's probably a
| skewed subset:
|
| https://restofworld.org/author/peter-guest/
| secondaryacct wrote:
| And they re not closed, you can live in them and see for
| yourself. I m a Hong Kong permanent resident now and I agree
| with you: these societies seem more like traditional family
| oriented societies than western sci fi dystopia. In effect, for
| most people here, the dystopia is Sweden lol
| stanislavb wrote:
| Why Sweden exactly? What's special about it?
| kubb wrote:
| Could be LGBT rights and migrants with brown skin. Racism
| and homophobia tend to do well in traditional family-
| oriented societies.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > Why Sweden exactly? What's special about it?
|
| Taxes
| joconde wrote:
| Out of all western countries, who would chose a
| _Scandinavian_ one to qualify as a dystopia? They probably
| have among the highest standards of living in all of Europe.
| That sounds like the same prejudices the OP said westerners
| have.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| What would be dystopic about Sweden, to someone from one of
| these places?
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| If we gave aliens pictures of Baltimore and Singapore which
| would they pick as the dystopia?
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Neither. To an alien they would look the same.
|
| We can't differentiate an anthill in Boston Mass. from an
| anthill in Gerona Cuba. They look the same to us.
|
| I only pointed that out to show how little space there is
| between what we call "dystopia" in Asia, and what we call the
| legal order our own societies. I doubt a completely
| uninformed but intelligent 3rd party could sus out the
| systemic differences between the two.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| "Aliens" is so poorly defined that the question is
| meaningless.
| chuckee wrote:
| Yes, Western journalism is famous for uncritically praising the
| West, holding it up as the realization of a perfect, flawless
| ideal, to which all other societies can only aspire to. But
| when it comes to those other societies, the headlines are
| filled with dire warnings that they will taint our perfect
| system with their backwards or dystopian ways if we allow them
| to immigrate.
|
| > It seems to be a very common theme in Western journalism to
| describe Asian countries as dystopias or dystopias in the
| making.
|
| Whereas they would _never_ describe their own countries this
| way. Just look at the praise heaped upon Britain:
|
| _The Guardian view on surveillance: Big Brother is not the
| only watcher now_ -
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/13/the-gu...
|
| _Welcome to London, the city that never sleeps because it's
| too busy watching you._ -
| https://www.inverse.com/article/22198-london-surveillance-th...
|
| _' We are hurtling towards a surveillance state': the rise of
| facial recognition technology_ -
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/05/facial-re...
|
| _London's police department said on Friday that it would begin
| using facial recognition to spot criminal suspects with video
| cameras as they walk the streets, adopting a level of
| surveillance that is rare outside China._ -
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/business/london-police-fa...
|
| _Britain is at risk of becoming a surveillance state more
| intrusive than the Oceania of George Orwell's 1984, a
| government watchdog has warned._ -
| https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/surveillance-state-becomi...
|
| _For several years now, the British media have been telling us
| that theirs is a surveillance society. "It could be the 4
| million closed-circuit television cameras, or maybe the spy
| drones hovering overhead, but one way or another Britons know
| they are being watched. All the time. Everywhere," Luke Baker
| wrote in a representative Reuters article published in 2007,
| going on to note that "Britain is now the most intensely
| monitored country in the world, according to surveillance
| experts, with 4.2 million CCTV cameras installed, equivalent to
| one for every 14 people."_ -
| https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/londo...
| echelon wrote:
| Since the advent of worldwide social media, a cacophony of
| voices have come out to shame western countries.
| "How dare you! Look at your awful selves first, Americans /
| Europeans / Cowboys!"
|
| I'm making a caricature here, but you get my point.
|
| We're constantly being accused of being xenophobic, racist,
| imperialist, etc. Our prideful "Western thought" is arrogant.
|
| These accusals are a constant assault on our nationalistic
| sense of shared identity and worth. The idea that no matter
| where we came from, that this is a melting pot. One where we
| admire rugged individualism and freedoms, and have a sense that
| if we work smart and hard and try our luck enough times, we
| will succeed.
|
| There's an endless barrage of voices telling us we're horrible.
| It's starting to seep into the youth and shape their worldview.
| Most of this is coming from the outside.
|
| The thing is, we know that there are a lot of broken things.
| We're working on it. Democracy is a work in progress. To quote
| Snowden, it's "a direction". Every new year is better.
|
| America was never going to have a monopoly on power. Globalism
| accelerated Asia's rise to our level within just a generation,
| and now we have to work much harder to stay at par. When we
| praise our system and decry others, know that we're not angry
| about this situation.
|
| Other countries are more appealing now as a result of this
| great averaging out of wealth and productivity. But the rapid
| increase in quality of life will taper off and begin to look
| just like America. We're not in decline - the world is catching
| up.
|
| But even amongst equals, we Americans have a pretty good idea
| of the shape of the world we want. We want liberty, freedom of
| speech, and a subservient government. We want the opportunity
| to beat anyone. To not have our government stand in the way as
| a cabal. We want to swear at our leaders and draw funny
| cartoons of them without having to worry about our safety. We
| want to vote them in and out and investigate them when they do
| wrong. Because sometimes we think we know better, but even if
| not, it's what we think we deserve.
|
| And before you raise Singapore on a pedestal above us, please
| realize that they kill people for minor drug possession [1].
| I'm incredibly glad we don't emulate this model. It's not for
| us. (We do bad enough already...)
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_Drugs_Act_(Singapore...
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Sorry, but this sounds like a "someone else would have robbed
| you anyway, and probably even killed you" bandit "defense".
| While it is somewhat compelling from a birds eye view of
| bandit sociology and figuring out better anti-bandit
| countermeasures, it is terrrrible as an ethical defense.
| bllguo wrote:
| you lump the western world together, but the vast majority of
| the derision is directed at the US. Worth considering why
| that is?
|
| "Not angry about this situation" describes European foreign
| policy, not American
| kubb wrote:
| From your comment, I'm getting the sense that you live in a
| besieged fortress. It doesn't have to be so extreme though.
|
| Singapore is no dystopia, and neither is London (in fact, I'd
| prefer living in the latter than the former if only because
| of the weather). They just make different tradeoffs in how
| they're organized. And they deal with different (though
| overlapping) sets of issues.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Singapore sounds like a seriously two-tiered society of
| aristocrats and serfs:
|
| > "Lacking in natural resources, Singapore's government has long
| stressed that its most important resource is its people. However,
| with declining birth rates and low population growth, the country
| increasingly relies on immigrants to help shoulder the economic
| burden. In 2020, Singapore's foreign workforce stood at just
| under 1.23 million, out of which about 351 thousand were
| classified as skilled labor. Most of the foreign workforce were
| employed in sectors that were deemed unappealing to Singaporeans,
| such as in construction and the service industry, or as domestic
| help." [1]
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/698035/singapore-number-...
|
| The power structure looks like a kind of 'walled city'. The
| position of Singapore at the east end of the Straits of Malacca,
| a key transit route from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean, made it
| a trading hub and Singapore's wealth is due to extraction of a
| percentage of the wealth flowing through it.
| toyg wrote:
| They also refine a bunch of the Indonesian oil, which I always
| found funny (refining is where the real money is, so why don't
| Indonesians do it themselves...?)
| smnrchrds wrote:
| > _refining is where the real money is, so why don 't
| Indonesians do it themselves...?_
|
| The economics of oil industry is more complicated than that.
| Canada does not refine most of its oil either. It's not
| because we don't have the technology or the money to build
| more refineries. It's because refining any more than the
| current amount does not make economic sense.
| sct202 wrote:
| Indonesia nationalized all the assets of Royal Dutch Shell
| after independence, so there was probably some hesitation
| from companies to build refineries there versus Singapore.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Finished goods are where all the money is in capitalism, so
| why do any of the poor countries that export raw materials
| not just stop doing that and make finished goods?
| coldtea wrote:
| Because post-colonial powers ensure that friendly (to them)
| people are in power that doesn't even dream of attempting
| it. And if that fails, they can also bomb or bring in a
| dictatorship.
| [deleted]
| eranima wrote:
| I guess I shouldn't be surprised the Hacker News comment section
| is praising an authoritarian surveillance state.
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