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Singapore Is Taking the ‘Smart City’ to a New Level
- mark_l_watson 10y agoI just got back from a 2 week business trip to Singapore, and I loved it there. Everyone was friendly and helpful (if they spoke English) and the vibe of the place was good. People seemed really proud of their country and they should be given how far they have come since their area was horribly affected by the Second World War. Public data like that for mass transit is available for use so perhaps some of this new data will also be publicly available? My impression of Singapore was so positive that I could easily live there.
- kifler 10y agoMany are likely to hail this as some sort of ushering in of a new age while simultaneously preach about the FBI cracking an iPhone - interesting to see where this ends up.
- omk 10y ago>> Singapore is deploying an undetermined number of sensors and cameras across the island city-state that will allow the government to monitor everything from the cleanliness of public spaces to the density of crowds and the precise movement of every locally registered vehicle. >> It is a sweeping effort that will likely touch the lives of every single resident in the country, in ways that aren’t completely clear since many potential applications may not be known until the system is fully implemented. Wow. Will be good to see where this goes with so much uncertainty with what they will do with the data.
- pythondz 10y ago>> The government also plans to share data, in some cases, with the private sector. Ouch! We're in 2016 and Ghost in the shell story take place around 2030. Sound like Masamune Shirow's book will be the George Orwell's book of our generation...
- discordance 10y agoThis type of system reinforces what William Gibson so vividly described in his essay, 'Disneyland with a Death Sentence' [1], published in Wired more than 20 years ago [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_with_the_Death_Penalty https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_with_the_Death_Pe...
- Gigablah 10y agoWhenever Singapore is mentioned, most commentators can only come up with the same three responses: 1. Chewing gum 2. Caning 3. William Gibson Frankly, if I wanted Disneyland with the death sentence, I'd go to California.
- Cyph0n 10y agoI noticed the same type of response when Dubai is mentioned as well.
- jamesrcole 10y agoWhat responses would you like to see?
- jfoster 10y agoRecognition of merits that SG has, perhaps? Maybe there are some interesting differences about their approach. Does everywhere in the world have to have the same style of government?
- shade23 10y ago>The centerpiece of Singapore’s effort is a kind of digital crystal ball that acts as a superpowered, X-ray version of Google Maps. Does this not remind you of Sauron's Eye?
- dragonbonheur 10y agoIt only reminds me of Monaco, which does essentially the same thing while no Westerners are bothered by its level of surveillance. But when it's about Asians though, everybody goes bonkers.
- koenigdavidmj 10y agoMonaco doesn't hang you for a bit of weed.
- rfreytag 10y ago> “The big, big elephant in the room is protection of privacy and ensuring security,” says Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s foreign affairs minister and minister-in-charge of Smart Nation. The idea that Singapore will protect the privacy of its citizens (or their access to information) is not credible in light of: * http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2013/06/regulating-singapores-internet http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2013/06/regulating-sin... and * https://sg.news.yahoo.com/-smart-nation--singapore-will-be-watching-you-105712193.html https://sg.news.yahoo.com/-smart-nation--singapore-will-be-w... The ruling party uses power to eliminate opposition: * http://www.csmonitor.com/1990/0731/eross.html http://www.csmonitor.com/1990/0731/eross.html and * https://www.questia.com/newspaper/1P2-33363045/suppression-in-singapore-the-government-restricts https://www.questia.com/newspaper/1P2-33363045/suppression-i... Many, many other examples can be found with minimal searching.
- hackerboos 10y agoIt baffles me that media-tech companies such as Ghost want to relocate there: https://blog.ghost.org/moving-to-singapore/ https://blog.ghost.org/moving-to-singapore/
- philliphaydon 10y agoWhat is wrong with Singapore? It's a start up heven.
- philliphaydon 10y agoLol such typical HN users, lets not provide a valid argument, lets just downvote because we have no argument.
- hackerboos 10y agoYou made a point on your own Twitter account of what is wrong with Singapore https://twitter.com/philliphaydon/status/720811398025109504 https://twitter.com/philliphaydon/status/720811398025109504
- okket 10y agoTo put things in perspective. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Singapore
- pavs 10y agoI don't think this article is about how perfect Singapore is, if you try hard enough I am sure you will find ridiculous rules, laws and human rights violations any country has.
- hellofunk 10y agoYou are right, however Singapore is a special case. It has grown from third-word status to extraordinary economic impact in just 50 years, a trajectory not seen by nearly any other society in history, but its growth has been very unbalanced. It's primary growing pain has been a disconnect between its economic success and old-world policies that are no better than many other still-developing countries and failed to grow alongside its economy. It caught up quickly to the rest of the developed world in economic ways, but still lags deeply far behind in many other ways.
- scholia 10y agoIt's also a special case in being a Chinese enclave surrounded by much lager Muslim countries: Malaysia and Indonesia. How do you think it compares with those?
- gerbilly 10y ago> It caught up quickly to the rest of the developed world in economic ways I think this is the only reason people praise Singapore. It's not how clean or orderly it is, it's how rich it is. If it was dirt poor and still horse-whipping people for farting or whatever they do, it would have few people arguing in its favour.
- valvar 10y agoThis is a very culturally biased statement. Our current western culture is very 'progressive' (in the ideological sense), and we generally view such an approach as a sign of 'lagging behind'. If you ask a Singaporean, though, their priors are likely to be different and they may disagree - and probably not because they have failed to comprehend or 'catch up with' our western mindset and its underpinnings. I don't generally consider myself a relativist, but I find this sort of approach to these issues to be overly simplistic.
- finalight 10y agoeven though i'm a singaporean here, i have no comments about that article it's just...meh
- philliphaydon 10y agoI'm not singaporean, but do live in Singapore. If I was in any other country I would probably be bothered, but in Singapore I just don't care. I feel safe here, love this country. But I have noticed over the last 4 years, a lot more tourists are littering, so if this helps prevent it, I'm all for it.
- mapleoin 10y ago> a lot more tourists are littering, so if this helps prevent it, I'm all for it. This sounds like a great beginning to a dystopian novel. We who gave up our privacy and control over our life to the All Seeing All Knowing State to stop tourists from littering.
- philliphaydon 10y agoYou ever been to Singapore?
- scholia 10y agoHe's probably not been to Singapore, or not very often. Like most people, he's probably not been to Singapore's close neighbors -- such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand -- and doesn't realize how much more corrupt things could be ;-)
- EliRivers 10y agoI have. A beer was really expensive, but a return flight to Manila for a weekend drinking bender was cheaper overall than staying in Singapore to drink. I was a little disturbed by how prevalent domestic servants were, but they were almost entirely not Singaporean citizens. I suppose it's more a mark of how poor the surrounding countries are rather than anything wrong with Singapore.
- 20andup 10y agoI can think of a Ghost in a Shell future in Singapore.
- islon 10y agoAlternate title/tl;dr: "Singapore Is Taking the ‘Smart City’ to a Whole New Orwellian Level"
- jfoster 10y agoThere's plenty of places that are more private. What's wrong with having a few where you trade privacy for some potential upsides? So long as people are free to leave if they please, I think it's good to have varied options.
- mapleoin 10y agoThis sounds like a solution in search of a problem, just with the budget and resources of an entire government. It sounds like someone made a contract for some new surveillance devices and are now looking for ways to deploy them. Yet the government also says it isn’t certain what kinds of applications might be possible once the system is built, and hasn’t decided where all the sensors will be located So they're building something and then they're going to find a use for it.
- jfoster 10y agoOr there is a use in mind, but announcing it all at once would yield more backlash than they're aiming for. I'm supportive of high levels of surveillance in public areas, but recognise that introducing it more gradually makes it more palatable.
- hellofunk 10y ago>allows the government to monitor ... the precise movement of every locally registered vehicle. Okay, wow. But.. >The project appears to be popular in Singapore, where faith in the government is high and citizens have accepted limits on behavior, including restrictions on public speech and the press, in return for a more efficient state. Now it is clear that this article is deeply biased, or maybe just ignorant. I lived in Singapore for several years and am still closely in touch with my community there. I have never heard a single Singaporean show strong confidence or trust in their government, and the lack of free speech is not insignificant to many. I'm sure several Singaporeans will show up here to tell me I'm mistaken, but the reality is that there is strong suspicion among many as to the motives of the government, but most can't say too much about it publicly because of the punishment imposed.
- jfoster 10y ago"Punishment" seems a bit of a stretch. My understanding is that you're referring to civil defamation suits brought to court by SG prime ministers, acting as individuals. Perhaps that's a bit of legal smoke and mirrors, but it still seems far more above board than what goes on in plenty of other countries.
- hellofunk 10y agoI would consider bankrupting a college kid because the PM doesn't approve of the questions he raises in his blog, to most definitely be "punishment."
- philliphaydon 10y agoI assume you're referring to Roy. Well Roy posted a few articles trying to say Singapore is expensive in comparison to England. It was so factually incorrect that I have no doubt that the stuff he wrote about PM Lee was also incorrect.
- mediumdeviation 10y agoRoy Ngerng? He wasn't posting 'questions' to his blog - he was posting cringeworthy conspiracy theories that were provably false. Granted I don't think he should have been sued - that just legitimizes him and made him out to be a martyr, but he's most certainly guilty of the crimes he was charged with. If you don't trust the official media, even independent blogs whom don't typically side with the government don't report on him favorably - eg. http://mothership.sg/2015/07/this-was-how-senior-counsel-davinder-singh-tore-blogger-roy-ngerng-a-new-one-in-3-hour-cross-examination/ http://mothership.sg/2015/07/this-was-how-senior-counsel-dav...
- known 10y agoHow Singapore prevented the formation of racial enclaves and promote ethnic integration? http://qz.com/436056/singapores-forced-housing-integration-fueled-its-economic-success/ http://qz.com/436056/singapores-forced-housing-integration-f...
- 3dk 10y agoSingapore had race riots in the 70s due to the formation of ghettos. I think their housing policy is a reasonable response. I like how they don't care about being political correct to conform to western ideals, but do what works.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- BatFastard 10y agoLooks like the perfect setup for big brother. Not that they are not already on that road. I am all for benevolent dictatorships, it's when they turn non-benevolent that I am worried about.
- valvar 10y agoOf course it's frightening. But it's frightening in an exhilarating sort of way. I am sure that most of us would love to get our hands on that type of data, and the tools to work with it. And the benefits can't be denied - it's not mainly for security, which is the main argument for selling surveillance to us here in the west, but optimization. Of everything (security, too, of course, as mentioned in the article- but terrorists are only tangential). And it's a trade-off - if it's worth it remains to be seen, and the answer will probably always depend on who you ask. Personally I haven't really made up my mind yet.
- nxzero 10y agoSingapore's Open Data Portal: http://data.gov.sg/ http://data.gov.sg/
- codeplay 10y agoNo more electronic road pricing gantries, every car's position will be tracked via gps
- codeplay 10y agoNo more electronic road pricing gantries, every car's position will be tracked via gps in real time
- kapture12 10y agoSingapore is best city i would lovr to there, http://www.kapturecrm.com http://www.kapturecrm.com
- visakanv 10y agoSingaporean here. Some thoughts: 1. The people I talk to don't really care about privacy in the abstract sense. I mean, nobody wants to be filmed or recorded, but I think we all assume that the metadata is everywhere. We more or less assume that even the American NSA probably has data about everything we do. Eh. It's a small, tiny cramped city. You can't hide anything. 2. In my opinion, it's totally possible to criticize the Governement and its policies. I've done this multiple times, and have friends who have done the same. (My Facebook cover photo is still a picture of me onstage at a protest, lol: http://www.facebook.com/visakanv/ http://www.facebook.com/visakanv/) It doesn't get a lot of attention from the international public because we take the trouble to be nuanced about the points that we make (rather than accuse the Government of being corrupt, which is typically gets what people sued.) Singapore's satire muscle is still a little weak, I'll give you that. Give us some time, we've only been a nation for 50 years. (You know who it DOES get attention from, though? The Government! The civil service! They're actually serious about making Singapore a better place for their grandkids, and they're eager to listen to our perspectives.) 3. Re "Singapore is ridiculously expensive" – eh. I'm an average marketing guy at a software company. I earn enough to pay for the HDB that I own, support my wife and two cats, and have some nice things on top of that. It's not that ridiculous. I'm pretty comfortable. 4. Neuromancer was a pretty nice read. Disneyland with the Death Penalty, on the other hand, is an odd bit of fetishizing. I wish we could read American authors write about how dystopian AMERICA is, where the tree of liberty has to be watered from time to time with the blood of innocent children, and where black parents have to teach their children to be afraid of the police. (Neither of those things would be tolerated in Singapore– and I'm not talking about the State, I'm talking about the PEOPLE.) 5. The state is made up of people. Of civil servants, who are our brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles. Singapore is a tiny-ass place. In that regard, I get the sense that Singapore can't ever be as 'dystopian' as the US or China. I'm not being very articulate here, but consider Nassim Taleb's argument in Antifragile about cities vs countries. Singapore is a city. 6. Fun fact: The PM's sister made a bunch of accusations a while ago. She wasn't suppressed or arrested or anything of the sort. People joked that "only when your sister accuses you of abusing your power do you realize that there's a way of solving conflicts without suing for defamation" – http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/lee-wei-ling-s/2683042.html http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/lee-wei-ling-s... Singaporeans aren't glassy-eyed automatons who tremble with feat under the subjugation of their state. We're people who laugh and cry and joke and bitch and get by. We have things that we're proud of, and things that we're critical of. Somehow that never seems to come through in the comments sections discussing these articles. It's either "Singapore is horribly oppressive" or "Singapore is pristine and clean, tho kinda sterile" or some shit like that. JFC. Sigh.
- grillvogel 10y agosure as long as you dont mind total government censorship of all media
- jerryhuang100 10y agoit's 1984 in the disguise of "smart city". it's much easier for the gov of Singapore to collect fines by ticketing smoking violations (smoke detector) or littering (motion detector), with cross-referencing your mobile phone meta-data. This could even be done by a bot, without a policeman even presented. it's much easier for the Sg gov to monitor opposition parties for illegal assembly of more than five people under its penal code. if someone tried to argue that giving away partial freedom to feel safe at night, try solitary confinement.
- ripitrust 10y agoOut of all the criticisms of Singapore, the most mentioned is the lack of free speech/media. But if you have lived in Singapore for a while you will probably find that this is not the case. It does not even affect most people's life in a tiny bit (unless you are into politics). And certainly Singapore is not 1984 stuff. People are really happy here. Based on my reading of some books from Lee Kuan Yew, the reason he did not allow total free media and speech was that he was very much concerned about the stability of the nation, and as such a small country, Singapore really can't afford any civil conflicts (it had suffered one before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_race_riots_of_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_race_riots_of_Singapore and recently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Little_India_riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Little_India_riot) Besides that, some of the "free speech" online are actually either falsified or in very explicit languages specifically targeted at raising culture hatred, and hatred towards foreign immigrants. They are not targeted at solving problems Somehow, the reason that keeps people leaving Singapore is not the lack of free speech, but something else. Most of my foreign friends from University had left Singapore, either to US or China. For them, the biggest problem seems to be high living cost, no space for personal development and no job satisfaction. How to retain these talents may be a bigger issue here
- ameen 10y agoOne of the things I've noticed are the various tiers in how people migrate (those with the wherewithal to do so). Village -> Urban location -> Metropolitan City. Those unhappy in well developed Metropolitan cities are usually due to government policies, political trends, CoL, etc. They are likely to move across the country or to an entirely different developed nation (US, EU, etc). Some return on seeing how policies are stacked against migrants, many endure to see the same cycle go on – They move for better education, kids move out for college, etc. Humans are inherently migratory, meaningless borders keep us stuck at a particular place.
- ripitrust 10y agovery good insight indeed
- 10y ago
- Animats 10y agoSo what is all that data good for? The article even says it's a "build it and they will come" project. It would be interesting to have a "smart city" project which simply mounted a camera ring on city vehicles and inspected the visible infrastructure daily. Pothole? Missing sign? Puddle that doesn't drain? Street light out? Graffiti? Recognize those and generate trouble tickets for them.
- perseusprime11 10y agoSingapore is a country. Why is not taking a 'Smart Country' approach?
- tehabe 10y agoSingapore is weird to me. It is fostering a multiethnic society and put this even above the freedom of speech and the ruling party officially rejects the idea of a liberal democracy, with quotes from its leaders which sounds like libel for the people of Singapore. Also, the PAP is ruling the country for almost 60 years now, the first prime minister was in office from 1957 to 1991. Usually this goes with corruption, maybe not the open and direct one but basically if you want to change anything in the country you have to talk with the PAP. You could call it a monopoly or corruption or both. Especially since there is no real opposition. I think one president got elected simply because no other candidate was considered eligible for the office. (I'm still wondering how he could have become president, if he agreed to this system) And I don't even have the space to talk about the capital punishment in Singapore, which seemed to me like that life is worthless there. And such a regime gets access to a vast array of sensors throughout the country. With nothing stopping or controlling it. For example, what could such a system do if you start a public protest or a strike or a rally for something.
- NurAzhar 10y agoI'm a malay native and the government discriminate us or atleast feel discriminated or perhaps under represented.. And I'm using my real name
- orsenthil 10y agoFarenheit 451 anyone? Information about "you" is collected 24/7 at all times. That is you are watching a TV, reading a book, going to toilet, masturbating or having sex with your partner. If the government decides certain actions are "illegal", say masturbation, they readily have data to rabbit hole you and punish you. Do you consent to this policy and this data collection? It seems like an important question. More over, Singapore, when the smart nation policy is implemented, Congrats! you are signed up already!.
- kbart 10y agoG. Orwell must be proud..