7 ms·

Genuinely asking. Do most of the population believe Singapore’s authoritarian government would stay benevolent??

irjustin 7y ago
As an US expat living in SG, I would say yes. Singapore is the first place where I actually began to question whether democracy was the absolute way. Democracy was how I was raised. Overall, I still believe it is the way long term, but what can you do when you have a single, unified government that cares for its people is simply amazing. Safest in the world, hands down. This can be felt in every day life. I hold tables while I get my lunch with my cell phone. I've even dared it in public "hawker centers" a number of times. My friends have had stuff stolen, but that was in the bathroom where there's no "watchful eye". My kid can run/play freely and I only worry about her running into traffic. A about 1-2 years ago, someone was stabbed to death in the central business district. It was the biggest headline for ages - murder of passion from father-in-law. That's it... nothing else. I don't think/worry about guns - ever. "Hawker Centers" are basically food for the people. Each meal can be had for US$2-4. I live in public housing, HDB, and while that sounds weird - 70%+ is public housing. i.e. only PR or citizens may purchase (I can rent as an expat). This keeps the price of homes at a relatively reasonable amount. US$250k - US$600k. Housing is not perfect but it is way better than stateside problems. There are dark sides, do not get me wrong (built on the backs of migrant workers who can never gain status - is just one. Black and Chinese built US but gained status eventually... migrants can never gain status here and continue to build this country), but they're not nearly as dark as others. Is it worth it? I say if you are willing to submit yourself, it completely is.
- distances 7y ago
  Is the safety and honesty embedded in the culture now? That's how Nordic countries keep things straight -- not by police force, and they're indeed some of the leanest police forces in the world. I'm basically wondering if you could change Singapore to a Nordic style democracy and keep the upsides you speak of just by the force of culture?
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
    Singapore has lot more underlying tensions than a Nordic country: massive wealth inequality, different races with different languages and religions, a huge barely-human migrant worker underclass, etc. The ruling party uses this as an convenient excuse to justify everything they do, but there's a grain of truth to it as well. That said, yes, I think safety and honesty are fairly embedded. Yesterday, the case of somebody trying to bribe a condo rentacop to overlook their (illegal) AirBnB guest made the news: the guard refused the $50, reported the bribery attempt to the police, and the offender was sent to jail for a week: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/pacific-mansion-condo-tenant-jailed-bribe-security-guard-airbnb-12133824 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/pacific-mansi... In most neighboring countries, if this kind of thing made headlines, the news would have nothing else.
    - matt4077 7y ago
      I do hope the “barely-human underclass” is supposed to be a characterization of the government’s beliefs, and not your own.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    What are the real, practical differences between Nordic style democracy and parliamentary democracy that is in central European countries?
    - garmaine 7y ago
      He is talking about culture, not governance.
      - distances 7y ago
        Exactly -- Nordic countries are among the safest, most honest places, but by culture instead of by control. I was wondering if long enough control would turn into a culture, and the dictatorian control could be eventually abolished.
  - 7y ago
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  > My kid can run/play freely and I only worry about her running into traffic. To be fair, that is possible in a lot of countries, I would have doubts to do that in America though. And not only because of crime. > I actually began to question whether democracy was the absolute way. There are several democratic countries that beat Singapore in regards to safety. So I believe this to be flawed reasoning. It is a safe country, but not exceptionally so. edit: Disregarding the fact that Singapore is officially a democracy. A benevolent dictatorship would probably look more like the Gadaffi regime. Economic success in such a dictatorship is probably mandatory.
  - OldManAndTheCpp 7y ago
    In the US, you can have your kid run and play outside if you live in a suburb, in fact a better life for their children is what pushes many families to move to the suburbs in the first place.
  - odessacubbage 7y ago
    you could let your kid run free & unsupervised with little worry on probably near 90+ percent of the north american landmass. i spent the vast majority of my childhood with little to no supervision and crime rates have only fallen since then.
    - magduf 7y ago
      You spent your childhood in a time before helicopter parenting became legally mandated. If you let your kid run free and unsupervised today in America, you will probably end up with a visit from CPS and/or the police, and you might get arrested. It has nothing at all to do with crime rates.
- mac01021 7y ago
  All the examples of safety that you provide describe my experience in the US too, FWIW.
  - sethgecko 7y ago
    “I don't think/worry about guns - ever.”
    - mac01021 7y ago
      That too. I never worry about guns in my daily life.
  - fiblye 7y ago
    Public housing in the US is not a place most people want to be and no reasonable person leaves their phone on a table and goes anywhere.
    - SenHeng 7y ago
      Public housing in Singapore is not equivalent to those elsewhere simply due to them being built not for the poor but for population demographic control with arbitrary ethnic quotas per building and rules preventing singles from leasing flats. 70-80% of the population lives in public housing estates which are sold with a 99year lease, you don’t even get to own your own flat.
- bkor 7y ago
  > Safest in the world, hands down. Any figures to back that up? It's said that nothing gets stolen in Singapore, until you speak to Singaporeans. Bikes still get stolen for instance. The city seems super clean, but mainly because low paid workers clean the city really often. If a Singaporean visits another country you'll notice that they're used to the city being cleaned often, not so much that they're behaving differently. Your "Hawker Centers" have people in their 70s bent forward cleaning up tables to some earn money. Those centers are cheap, but why does the benevolent government not care for those people? Further, Singapore is pretty much a city, nothing more. Being isolated from any other country helps a lot too. I think you too easily dismiss the "dark sides". > My kid can run/play freely and I only worry about her running into traffic. This is the same as a lot of other countries. IMO the biggest benefit of Singapore is being a small city on pretty much an island.
  - bufferout 7y ago
    Keeping the elderly working is not an absolute negative.
    - squiggleblaz 7y ago
      Keeping the elderly working is slave labor. Instead, you should make sure that there's always opportunities for them to do meaningful work.
      - Infinitesimus 7y ago
        That's an interesting take. Why do you define it as slave labor?
  - xuki 7y ago
    > Any figures to back that up? A simple Google search will show you Singapore and Tokyo are regarded as the 2 safest cities on Earth, which one is first depends on which report you read.
    - Grue3 7y ago
- v7p1Qbt1im 7y ago
  The „watchful eye“ part sounds disturbing. I‘ve been to Singapore and it‘s a very impressive place. But it‘s also very sterile imo. Sure there is awesome street food and culture in general to a degree. But i kept missing the borderline stuff there. I like to live in a place where people are allowed to make mistakes, even criminal ones in some cases, and not have their live be over Immediately. That sounds weird to some i suppose.
  - sojmq 7y ago
    You like to live in a place with crime, there's plenty of places to choose from. People should also have the right to live in a place where they won't mug you or rape you.
    - garmaine 7y ago
      Or invent Uber.
- PlasticTank 7y ago
  > Is it worth it? None of the positives you described are exclusive to a totalitarian government.
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  Have you ever been to Switzerland? What you describe sounds like Suisse, but without all those dark aspects you mention. Open and just society that does treat people fairly. Super low criminality (compared to most world). Kids playing outside etc. Maybe for US persons this seems like a paradise, but its not a unique place. I know where I want to raise my kids. It sure as hell ain't some artificial bubble like Singapore. Never have been there, plenty of colleagues did (or live there), cool and all but not great for actually settling there. I value true freedom way too high.
  - humanrebar 7y ago
    Most small towns in the U.S. are extremely safe. I used to live in one and I basically never locked my home or car. And people are spread out enough that you still get plenty of freedom... no particular zoning, nobody to be bothered by your noise, etc.
    - magduf 7y ago
      Small towns have no high-paying jobs; that's why they're mostly dying and people are moving to the metro areas.
      - humanrebar 7y ago
        Depends on the town. Some have industries that pay the bills fine. Like tourism or fishing.
        magduf 7y ago
        Those are the towns that will survive. The ones with industries that dried up won't.
  - s3nnyy 7y ago
    You can ping me if you want to find a coding job in Switzerland (iwan@coderfit.com). I am a coder turned recruiter living and working in Zurich. I am active on the local tech job market.
- hellofunk 7y ago
  There are so many extreme problems with racism in Singapore, including abuse of “minor“ ethnicities in the corporate workplace. It’s benevolent for certain people, and the complete opposite for others. Slave labor is the norm in that country, for both manual labor and seemingly corporate desk work. It’s vastly underpaid, overworked, highly restrictive lifestyle if you’re not a native. You are an expat from United States, so your experience is much much different than most people there. Westerners are immediately moved to the top of the culture stack.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
    The median income in Singapore is S$5400/mo, or around US$40k/year. This is a king's ransom compared to neighboring countries and that's why so many people come to Singapore to work. There absolutely are abuses, particularly for maids and manual laborers, but many of the worst (eg advance fees that put them into debt) are explicitly illegal in Singapore, and calling white-collar expats "slave labor" is absurd hyperbole.
    - hellofunk 7y ago
      A skilled graphic designer working for a major international brand, even after several years with the company, will on average earn equivalent of 20k US dollars per year for 60 hour work weeks and limited health benefits, if that individual is from a neighboring company. Compare that to nearly triple the salary for a fresh grad with no experience if the individual is a native or westerner. The ethnic bias is real and extreme, and they take advantage of the employee’s home country disadvantage when setting terms.
archibaldJ 7y ago
Whether a system would stay benevolent (say, to a particular class of people, etc) depends a lot on what's good for the economy. And people under the system have a general grasp of that too. This is why you have things like countercultures. I would say the contemporary West's emphasis on authoritarianism is probably doing more harm than good. First of all the emphasis doesn't make things better - authoritarian would continue to be authoritarian whether you put the emphasis on their authoritarian nature or not. Secondly, it's pretty much a heresy suppression situation [1] here, or a (conscious or subconscious) distraction strategy embedded in the mode of thinking if you will, both of which are ironically what authoritarianism is best at i.e. suppression and distraction. Ultimately there is some form of authoritarianism existing in every system. You just have to look deep enough. Of course, some systems enjoy more democracy and a higher degree of freedom than the others, while some enjoy more achievements in KPI. But by emphasising on a system's authoritarian nature you are painting yourself a much simpler picture about the world here as if it is authoritarian v.s. the people, when things are so much more complicated than that. It's very unfortunate that comment like this one is getting downvotes on HN. [1]: http://paulgraham.com/nov.html http://paulgraham.com/nov.html
bigpumpkin 7y ago
Singapore's biggest challenge isn't whether its political system is "Democratic" or "Authoritarian", because such dichotomies are not terribly revealing about the peculiar situation Singapore is in geopolitically. The biggest challenge, rather, is whether it can continue to thrive in a rules based, international global trade regime.
- buboard 7y ago
  Its a small place so it can adapt fast. In fact, many such miracle places are small, thus government is not some distant entity. If anything it is the big countries that are struggling to adapt to globalisation
SenHeng 7y ago
Sadly, yes. The majority Chinese population has the mindset that economics and security is more important civil rights.
qeng-ho 7y ago
I cannot answer for most of the population, but I can hazard a guess — they do not care to think that far. We have our bread and ciruses, and that makes us complacent that our government will at least maintain benevolence.

As an US expat living in SG, I would say yes. Singapore is the first place where I actually began to question whether democracy was the absolute way. Democracy was how I was raised. Overall, I still believe it is the way long term, but what can you do when you have a single, unified government that cares for its people is simply amazing. Safest in the world, hands down. This can be felt in every day life. I hold tables while I get my lunch with my cell phone. I've even dared it in public "hawker centers" a number of times. My friends have had stuff stolen, but that was in the bathroom where there's no "watchful eye". My kid can run/play freely and I only worry about her running into traffic. A about 1-2 years ago, someone was stabbed to death in the central business district. It was the biggest headline for ages - murder of passion from father-in-law. That's it... nothing else. I don't think/worry about guns - ever. "Hawker Centers" are basically food for the people. Each meal can be had for US$2-4. I live in public housing, HDB, and while that sounds weird - 70%+ is public housing. i.e. only PR or citizens may purchase (I can rent as an expat). This keeps the price of homes at a relatively reasonable amount. US$250k - US$600k. Housing is not perfect but it is way better than stateside problems. There are dark sides, do not get me wrong (built on the backs of migrant workers who can never gain status - is just one. Black and Chinese built US but gained status eventually... migrants can never gain status here and continue to build this country), but they're not nearly as dark as others. Is it worth it? I say if you are willing to submit yourself, it completely is.

distances 7y ago
Is the safety and honesty embedded in the culture now? That's how Nordic countries keep things straight -- not by police force, and they're indeed some of the leanest police forces in the world. I'm basically wondering if you could change Singapore to a Nordic style democracy and keep the upsides you speak of just by the force of culture?
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Singapore has lot more underlying tensions than a Nordic country: massive wealth inequality, different races with different languages and religions, a huge barely-human migrant worker underclass, etc. The ruling party uses this as an convenient excuse to justify everything they do, but there's a grain of truth to it as well. That said, yes, I think safety and honesty are fairly embedded. Yesterday, the case of somebody trying to bribe a condo rentacop to overlook their (illegal) AirBnB guest made the news: the guard refused the $50, reported the bribery attempt to the police, and the offender was sent to jail for a week: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/pacific-mansion-condo-tenant-jailed-bribe-security-guard-airbnb-12133824 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/pacific-mansi... In most neighboring countries, if this kind of thing made headlines, the news would have nothing else.
  - matt4077 7y ago
    I do hope the “barely-human underclass” is supposed to be a characterization of the government’s beliefs, and not your own.
- TomMarius 7y ago
  What are the real, practical differences between Nordic style democracy and parliamentary democracy that is in central European countries?
  - garmaine 7y ago
    He is talking about culture, not governance.
    - distances 7y ago
      Exactly -- Nordic countries are among the safest, most honest places, but by culture instead of by control. I was wondering if long enough control would turn into a culture, and the dictatorian control could be eventually abolished.
- 7y ago
raxxorrax 7y ago
> My kid can run/play freely and I only worry about her running into traffic. To be fair, that is possible in a lot of countries, I would have doubts to do that in America though. And not only because of crime. > I actually began to question whether democracy was the absolute way. There are several democratic countries that beat Singapore in regards to safety. So I believe this to be flawed reasoning. It is a safe country, but not exceptionally so. edit: Disregarding the fact that Singapore is officially a democracy. A benevolent dictatorship would probably look more like the Gadaffi regime. Economic success in such a dictatorship is probably mandatory.
- OldManAndTheCpp 7y ago
  In the US, you can have your kid run and play outside if you live in a suburb, in fact a better life for their children is what pushes many families to move to the suburbs in the first place.
- odessacubbage 7y ago
  you could let your kid run free & unsupervised with little worry on probably near 90+ percent of the north american landmass. i spent the vast majority of my childhood with little to no supervision and crime rates have only fallen since then.
  - magduf 7y ago
    You spent your childhood in a time before helicopter parenting became legally mandated. If you let your kid run free and unsupervised today in America, you will probably end up with a visit from CPS and/or the police, and you might get arrested. It has nothing at all to do with crime rates.
mac01021 7y ago
All the examples of safety that you provide describe my experience in the US too, FWIW.
- sethgecko 7y ago
  “I don't think/worry about guns - ever.”
  - mac01021 7y ago
    That too. I never worry about guns in my daily life.
- fiblye 7y ago
  Public housing in the US is not a place most people want to be and no reasonable person leaves their phone on a table and goes anywhere.
  - SenHeng 7y ago
    Public housing in Singapore is not equivalent to those elsewhere simply due to them being built not for the poor but for population demographic control with arbitrary ethnic quotas per building and rules preventing singles from leasing flats. 70-80% of the population lives in public housing estates which are sold with a 99year lease, you don’t even get to own your own flat.
bkor 7y ago
> Safest in the world, hands down. Any figures to back that up? It's said that nothing gets stolen in Singapore, until you speak to Singaporeans. Bikes still get stolen for instance. The city seems super clean, but mainly because low paid workers clean the city really often. If a Singaporean visits another country you'll notice that they're used to the city being cleaned often, not so much that they're behaving differently. Your "Hawker Centers" have people in their 70s bent forward cleaning up tables to some earn money. Those centers are cheap, but why does the benevolent government not care for those people? Further, Singapore is pretty much a city, nothing more. Being isolated from any other country helps a lot too. I think you too easily dismiss the "dark sides". > My kid can run/play freely and I only worry about her running into traffic. This is the same as a lot of other countries. IMO the biggest benefit of Singapore is being a small city on pretty much an island.
- bufferout 7y ago
  Keeping the elderly working is not an absolute negative.
  - squiggleblaz 7y ago
    Keeping the elderly working is slave labor. Instead, you should make sure that there's always opportunities for them to do meaningful work.
    - Infinitesimus 7y ago
      That's an interesting take. Why do you define it as slave labor?
- xuki 7y ago
  > Any figures to back that up? A simple Google search will show you Singapore and Tokyo are regarded as the 2 safest cities on Earth, which one is first depends on which report you read.
  - Grue3 7y ago
v7p1Qbt1im 7y ago
The „watchful eye“ part sounds disturbing. I‘ve been to Singapore and it‘s a very impressive place. But it‘s also very sterile imo. Sure there is awesome street food and culture in general to a degree. But i kept missing the borderline stuff there. I like to live in a place where people are allowed to make mistakes, even criminal ones in some cases, and not have their live be over Immediately. That sounds weird to some i suppose.
- sojmq 7y ago
  You like to live in a place with crime, there's plenty of places to choose from. People should also have the right to live in a place where they won't mug you or rape you.
  - garmaine 7y ago
    Or invent Uber.
PlasticTank 7y ago
> Is it worth it? None of the positives you described are exclusive to a totalitarian government.
saiya-jin 7y ago
Have you ever been to Switzerland? What you describe sounds like Suisse, but without all those dark aspects you mention. Open and just society that does treat people fairly. Super low criminality (compared to most world). Kids playing outside etc. Maybe for US persons this seems like a paradise, but its not a unique place. I know where I want to raise my kids. It sure as hell ain't some artificial bubble like Singapore. Never have been there, plenty of colleagues did (or live there), cool and all but not great for actually settling there. I value true freedom way too high.
- humanrebar 7y ago
  Most small towns in the U.S. are extremely safe. I used to live in one and I basically never locked my home or car. And people are spread out enough that you still get plenty of freedom... no particular zoning, nobody to be bothered by your noise, etc.
  - magduf 7y ago
    Small towns have no high-paying jobs; that's why they're mostly dying and people are moving to the metro areas.
    - humanrebar 7y ago
      Depends on the town. Some have industries that pay the bills fine. Like tourism or fishing.
      - magduf 7y ago
        Those are the towns that will survive. The ones with industries that dried up won't.
- s3nnyy 7y ago
  You can ping me if you want to find a coding job in Switzerland (iwan@coderfit.com). I am a coder turned recruiter living and working in Zurich. I am active on the local tech job market.
hellofunk 7y ago
There are so many extreme problems with racism in Singapore, including abuse of “minor“ ethnicities in the corporate workplace. It’s benevolent for certain people, and the complete opposite for others. Slave labor is the norm in that country, for both manual labor and seemingly corporate desk work. It’s vastly underpaid, overworked, highly restrictive lifestyle if you’re not a native. You are an expat from United States, so your experience is much much different than most people there. Westerners are immediately moved to the top of the culture stack.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  The median income in Singapore is S$5400/mo, or around US$40k/year. This is a king's ransom compared to neighboring countries and that's why so many people come to Singapore to work. There absolutely are abuses, particularly for maids and manual laborers, but many of the worst (eg advance fees that put them into debt) are explicitly illegal in Singapore, and calling white-collar expats "slave labor" is absurd hyperbole.
  - hellofunk 7y ago
    A skilled graphic designer working for a major international brand, even after several years with the company, will on average earn equivalent of 20k US dollars per year for 60 hour work weeks and limited health benefits, if that individual is from a neighboring company. Compare that to nearly triple the salary for a fresh grad with no experience if the individual is a native or westerner. The ethnic bias is real and extreme, and they take advantage of the employee’s home country disadvantage when setting terms.

archibaldJ 7y ago

Whether a system would stay benevolent (say, to a particular class of people, etc) depends a lot on what's good for the economy. And people under the system have a general grasp of that too. This is why you have things like countercultures. I would say the contemporary West's emphasis on authoritarianism is probably doing more harm than good. First of all the emphasis doesn't make things better - authoritarian would continue to be authoritarian whether you put the emphasis on their authoritarian nature or not. Secondly, it's pretty much a heresy suppression situation [1] here, or a (conscious or subconscious) distraction strategy embedded in the mode of thinking if you will, both of which are ironically what authoritarianism is best at i.e. suppression and distraction. Ultimately there is some form of authoritarianism existing in every system. You just have to look deep enough. Of course, some systems enjoy more democracy and a higher degree of freedom than the others, while some enjoy more achievements in KPI. But by emphasising on a system's authoritarian nature you are painting yourself a much simpler picture about the world here as if it is authoritarian v.s. the people, when things are so much more complicated than that. It's very unfortunate that comment like this one is getting downvotes on HN. [1]: http://paulgraham.com/nov.html http://paulgraham.com/nov.html

bigpumpkin 7y ago

Singapore's biggest challenge isn't whether its political system is "Democratic" or "Authoritarian", because such dichotomies are not terribly revealing about the peculiar situation Singapore is in geopolitically. The biggest challenge, rather, is whether it can continue to thrive in a rules based, international global trade regime.

buboard 7y ago
Its a small place so it can adapt fast. In fact, many such miracle places are small, thus government is not some distant entity. If anything it is the big countries that are struggling to adapt to globalisation

SenHeng 7y ago

Sadly, yes. The majority Chinese population has the mindset that economics and security is more important civil rights.

qeng-ho 7y ago

I cannot answer for most of the population, but I can hazard a guess — they do not care to think that far. We have our bread and ciruses, and that makes us complacent that our government will at least maintain benevolence.