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> significantly racially charged Could you cite some evidence for this? I don't see anything to that degree in wikipedia. > class-entrenched society What doe

> significantly racially charged Could you cite some evidence for this? I don't see anything to that degree in wikipedia. > class-entrenched society What does that mean? Is it significantly different than the US? I can see people using the terms "racially charged, class-entrenched society" to increasingly describe us as well. > It's disgusting that the US props it up. I had never heard that the US props up Singapore before. Care to provide some evidence?

contingencies 9y ago
significantly racially charged ... could you cite some evidence for this? All the lowest rung jobs in Singapore are done by Indian/Indonesian/Philippino migrant workers who are allowed in to the country under significantly restricted rights. class-entrenched ... what does that mean? It means wealth runs deep between generations, and the society is significantly stratified. the US props up Singapore In exchange for looking the other way on Singapore's fascist dictatorship and history of large scale regional money laundering, the US receives the right to use the island as a strategic military base and regional signals intelligence collection point.
- sho 9y ago
  > migrant workers who are allowed in to the country under significantly restricted rights How is this anything other than a straightforward win/win trade? The country gets work done for cheaper than hiring locals; the migrant workers make more than they could in their home countries. Mistreatment is of course illegal and they are in general free to leave at any time. Exactly how is this bad, unless you are against trade itself? > wealth runs deep between generations, and the society is significantly stratified Like every other country on earth, you mean? Except there's no real old money, because the country was only founded in the 1960s. > looking the other way on Singapore's fascist dictatorship Now you're just talking nonsense. Yeah, the fascist dictatorship with the single best passport on earth, that millions of people move to for work. Uh-huh. Your opinions are so wilfully and aggressively ignorant that I actually wonder if you're trolling.
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    "How is this anything other than a straightforward win/win trade? The country gets work done for cheaper than hiring locals; the migrant workers make more than they could in their home countries." You could say the same thing about impoverished minorities in the U.S. whose ancestors came from poor countries. It would still be racism to pay them or allow them less due to race. It's more amusing given the Singaporeans that show up in comments talking about how racist America is. Turns out Singapore is pretty racist and classist, too.
    - sho 9y ago
      I don't understand how you are drawing these conclusions. I don't see any similarity at all to U.S. race relations. If country A has a lot of money but a labour shortage, and country B is poor but has a labour excess, then it is of mutual benefit for country A to hire people from country B to perform needed labour. Country B's workers are not being paid less because of their race, but because they come from a relatively poorer country. The workers come to do a job in which they will be paid more (much more) than comparable work at home, they do it, they get paid, the work gets done, everyone is happy, they go home. How is this racist, or even generally bad? This basic economic principle is also, of course, the reason why companies locate manufacturing in countries with large available labour pools and lower comparative wages. So is Apple racist for manufacturing in China?
      - nickpsecurity 9y ago
        "Country B's workers are not being paid less because of their race, but because they come from a relatively poorer country." Then the discrimination is based on source country instead of race. Either way, it's systematic discrimination. Singapore could just as easily pay based on position and prior experience across the board. Immigrants could move up in pay over time. Those there a certain amount of time could participate in the political process. And so on. Whereas the current situation is pure exploitation that contradicts some of the morality claims I see in discussions on Singapore. Especially how some in the comments will say they're pro immigrants, not racists, etc.
- bjshepard 9y ago
  Thank you for saying truth.
  - contingencies 9y ago
    Hehe. I was reading https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154898 recently and it included this pithy Hamlet quotation. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
CyberDildonics 9y ago
> Could you cite some evidence for this? I don't see anything to that degree in wikipedia. Maybe you should ask people who live there instead of thinking a wikipedia article is going to give you any insight.
aaron-lebo 9y ago
Singapore is pretty commonly cited in political science for being a single-party authoritarian government which subsidizes its popularity. See Acemoglu and Robinson. South Korea's success was driven through similar means but that government has liberalized much more than Singapore at this point.
hellofunk 9y ago
There is indeed a strong race gap in the Singapore workforce, worse than the well-known gender gap in American pay equality. If you are on a work permit from the Philippines, for example, you will get paid far less than another in your department doing the same work from Western nations or a Singaporean local. This is a fact of life there that runs through all the industries. It is also quite common to see job postings in Singapore that only allow certain races to apply; these are more blue-collar jobs.
- kranner 9y ago
  > It is also quite common to see job postings in Singapore that only allow certain races to apply; these are more blue-collar jobs. There are also white-collar jobs which will code this as "fluency in Mandarin required", which means you'd better be ethnic Chinese if you want to be considered.
  - hellofunk 9y ago
    If it's because the job genuinely requires the language skills, you'll find that all around the world. But if they're using that to mask a desire for particular race, that's different. However, most Singaporeans are not qualified for this job since most are not actually fluent in Chinese.
    - kranner 9y ago
      I meant the latter. It's used to signal that an employer will prefer to hire an ethnic Chinese person. Another phrase used is "Chinese working environment". There's some discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/3bp5ql/the_stupidity_of_hiring_companies_never_fails_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/3bp5ql/the_stupi...
      - HKs81e0 9y ago
        and what a discussion, it's a well known that the r/Singapore is one of the most toxic expat communities in the entire reddit, full of spite and jaded cynicism toward anything, from the government, to the city and even signs of blatantly racism toward Singaporeans. a truly horribly sub.

contingencies 9y ago

significantly racially charged ... could you cite some evidence for this? All the lowest rung jobs in Singapore are done by Indian/Indonesian/Philippino migrant workers who are allowed in to the country under significantly restricted rights. class-entrenched ... what does that mean? It means wealth runs deep between generations, and the society is significantly stratified. the US props up Singapore In exchange for looking the other way on Singapore's fascist dictatorship and history of large scale regional money laundering, the US receives the right to use the island as a strategic military base and regional signals intelligence collection point.

sho 9y ago
> migrant workers who are allowed in to the country under significantly restricted rights How is this anything other than a straightforward win/win trade? The country gets work done for cheaper than hiring locals; the migrant workers make more than they could in their home countries. Mistreatment is of course illegal and they are in general free to leave at any time. Exactly how is this bad, unless you are against trade itself? > wealth runs deep between generations, and the society is significantly stratified Like every other country on earth, you mean? Except there's no real old money, because the country was only founded in the 1960s. > looking the other way on Singapore's fascist dictatorship Now you're just talking nonsense. Yeah, the fascist dictatorship with the single best passport on earth, that millions of people move to for work. Uh-huh. Your opinions are so wilfully and aggressively ignorant that I actually wonder if you're trolling.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  "How is this anything other than a straightforward win/win trade? The country gets work done for cheaper than hiring locals; the migrant workers make more than they could in their home countries." You could say the same thing about impoverished minorities in the U.S. whose ancestors came from poor countries. It would still be racism to pay them or allow them less due to race. It's more amusing given the Singaporeans that show up in comments talking about how racist America is. Turns out Singapore is pretty racist and classist, too.
  - sho 9y ago
    I don't understand how you are drawing these conclusions. I don't see any similarity at all to U.S. race relations. If country A has a lot of money but a labour shortage, and country B is poor but has a labour excess, then it is of mutual benefit for country A to hire people from country B to perform needed labour. Country B's workers are not being paid less because of their race, but because they come from a relatively poorer country. The workers come to do a job in which they will be paid more (much more) than comparable work at home, they do it, they get paid, the work gets done, everyone is happy, they go home. How is this racist, or even generally bad? This basic economic principle is also, of course, the reason why companies locate manufacturing in countries with large available labour pools and lower comparative wages. So is Apple racist for manufacturing in China?
    - nickpsecurity 9y ago
      "Country B's workers are not being paid less because of their race, but because they come from a relatively poorer country." Then the discrimination is based on source country instead of race. Either way, it's systematic discrimination. Singapore could just as easily pay based on position and prior experience across the board. Immigrants could move up in pay over time. Those there a certain amount of time could participate in the political process. And so on. Whereas the current situation is pure exploitation that contradicts some of the morality claims I see in discussions on Singapore. Especially how some in the comments will say they're pro immigrants, not racists, etc.
bjshepard 9y ago
Thank you for saying truth.
- contingencies 9y ago
  Hehe. I was reading https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154898 recently and it included this pithy Hamlet quotation. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

CyberDildonics 9y ago

> Could you cite some evidence for this? I don't see anything to that degree in wikipedia. Maybe you should ask people who live there instead of thinking a wikipedia article is going to give you any insight.

aaron-lebo 9y ago

Singapore is pretty commonly cited in political science for being a single-party authoritarian government which subsidizes its popularity. See Acemoglu and Robinson. South Korea's success was driven through similar means but that government has liberalized much more than Singapore at this point.

hellofunk 9y ago

There is indeed a strong race gap in the Singapore workforce, worse than the well-known gender gap in American pay equality. If you are on a work permit from the Philippines, for example, you will get paid far less than another in your department doing the same work from Western nations or a Singaporean local. This is a fact of life there that runs through all the industries. It is also quite common to see job postings in Singapore that only allow certain races to apply; these are more blue-collar jobs.

kranner 9y ago
> It is also quite common to see job postings in Singapore that only allow certain races to apply; these are more blue-collar jobs. There are also white-collar jobs which will code this as "fluency in Mandarin required", which means you'd better be ethnic Chinese if you want to be considered.
- hellofunk 9y ago
  If it's because the job genuinely requires the language skills, you'll find that all around the world. But if they're using that to mask a desire for particular race, that's different. However, most Singaporeans are not qualified for this job since most are not actually fluent in Chinese.
  - kranner 9y ago
    I meant the latter. It's used to signal that an employer will prefer to hire an ethnic Chinese person. Another phrase used is "Chinese working environment". There's some discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/3bp5ql/the_stupidity_of_hiring_companies_never_fails_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/3bp5ql/the_stupi...
    - HKs81e0 9y ago
      and what a discussion, it's a well known that the r/Singapore is one of the most toxic expat communities in the entire reddit, full of spite and jaded cynicism toward anything, from the government, to the city and even signs of blatantly racism toward Singaporeans. a truly horribly sub.