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Singapore’s tech-utopia and surveillance state

155 points by imartin2k 5y ago

neonate 5y ago
http://web.archive.org/web/20211117075722/https://restofworld.org/2021/singapores-tech-utopia-dream-is-turning-into-a-surveillance-state-nightmare/ http://web.archive.org/web/20211117075722/https://restofworl...
mark_l_watson 5y ago
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.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    >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 5y ago
      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 5y ago
      Well Canada is the apex of civilization once they disbar "evil chinese billionaires" from buying all real estate in Toronto :-)
    - deleted 5y ago
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- pydry 5y ago
  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-employers-mother-law-claimed-she-was-abused 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 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57563235 (the pinnacle of maid abuse) * https://archive.md/RCAI2 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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        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.
- ff317 5y ago
  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.
  - skywal_l 5y ago
    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_ 5y ago
      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
  - jollybean 5y ago
    " 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.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    >(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...
- howinteresting 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
- outside1234 5y ago
  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.
  - geodel 5y ago
    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 5y ago
    As opposed to migrant Mexican workers in the US, for example?
    - outside1234 5y ago
      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.
    - refurb 5y ago
      As compared? Absolutely! A migrant Mexican worker has full access to the US courts, labor laws protect them, etc. Migrant workers in Singapore are simply discarded if troublesome. Even though the population of 90%+ vaccinated (for months), migrant workers in Singapore have been confined to their dormitories (when not working) for almost 2 years now. Pretty regularly trucks with workers in the back with get into accidents and a number will die. Government says “to expensive to make companies transport them in buses”. There are literally two different systems for Singaporeans and foreigners.
- refurb 5y ago
  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”.
  - justicezyx 5y ago
    > 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 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        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.
- ashconnor 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    > 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.
    - stackbutterflow 5y ago
      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 5y ago
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      - ashconnor 5y ago
        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.
    - ashconnor 5y ago
      It's a trade-off voters believe. It's not my own opinion. Singapore would function perfectly well without the authoritarianism I'm sure.
- geodel 5y ago
  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.
- coldtea 5y ago
  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.
  - GDC7 5y ago
    > 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 5y ago
      You've convinced me, I'm booking a plane to some hell-hole to 'capitalize on my competence' and achieve big-feelings...
    - AutumnCurtain 5y ago
      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 5y ago
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  > 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.
- godelski 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
  > 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.
- deleted 5y ago
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- bluepoint 5y ago
  I also lived there. I agree with the sentiment of this comment. People do complain about the lack of art and the occasional censorship and there are problems, such as the invisible poor and the worker-slaves, but overall it is a well governed place and the best governed country in the region by a wide margin (they call it the “red dot”).
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  I suppose it also attracts people that value such things.. Safety at the expense of individual liberties, orderly lives and streets etc. I could never bear it myself. I'm from the Netherlands and I hate the way most areas there are so boring and designed by committee. I'm more attracted to cities where not every brick has to be the prescribed colour. It makes a place so much organic and interesting IMO. And I value individualism much more than an orderly society. I prefer the laissez-faire attitude in Spain over rigid policing. This is why I'd never consider Singapore and choose to live in Spain. But this works both ways, I would imagine a lot of people live in Singapore precisely because things work that way there. Of course not everyone has that choice but I'd say most people that are reasonably well-off do. And Singapore seems to be full of those :)
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photochemsyn 5y ago
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-of-immigrants/ 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 5y ago
  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...?)
  - sct202 5y ago
    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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.
api 5y ago
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.
- goboronshka 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    No, he's being downvoted because many here actually WOULD want that.
  - Der_Einzige 5y ago
    "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.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >at the cost of human rights. What human rights exactly?
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
CornCobs 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    > 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 5y ago
      > 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 5y ago
        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.
z303 5y ago
Disneyland With the Death Penalty [1] and revisited [2] [1] https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/ https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/ [2] https://www.wired.com/2012/04/opinion-jeyaretnam-disneyland-death-penalty/ https://www.wired.com/2012/04/opinion-jeyaretnam-disneyland-...
- not1ofU 5y ago
  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.
eranima 5y ago
I guess I shouldn't be surprised the Hacker News comment section is praising an authoritarian surveillance state.
kubb 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    Sure, but are they brave new world dystopia or farming societies. One has to decide.
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      Not clear at all. What takes the label of a BNW, what of a farming society, whether the dichotomy is descriptive or theoretical...
- jollybean 5y ago
mrtri 5y ago
remember George Orwell book Animal Farm.
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
we are heading in to a world that favors the paranoid delusional mind state of Billionaires like Munger and Thiel.
danny_codes 5y ago
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 5y ago
  > . 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
  - danny_codes 5y ago
    I assume you're being contrarian. It's hard to imagine a sane person who opposes effective enforcement of reckless driving laws.
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      What's excessive speeding? There is fairly robust evidence that prevailing natural speed of traffic is safest and limits that aren't appropriate for the road often reduce safety, as it is the speed differential that's dangerous, not so much the absolute number. If you set limits too low for driving conditions, you in fact endanger people by policy, instead of helping. It's a valid and commonly raised defence against speeding in many states. Reckless driving is distinct from excessive speeding all, probably best not to mix up two very different things. Reckless charge can happen at any speed, even 1km/hr, but it does require proof of intent, and is a strict liability offence. speeding is an absolute liability offence without the mens rhea element.

155 points by imartin2k 5y ago

http://web.archive.org/web/20211117075722/https://restofworld.org/2021/singapores-tech-utopia-dream-is-turning-into-a-surveillance-state-nightmare/ http://web.archive.org/web/20211117075722/https://restofworl...

mark_l_watson 5y ago

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.

rootusrootus 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  >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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
    Well Canada is the apex of civilization once they disbar "evil chinese billionaires" from buying all real estate in Toronto :-)
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pydry 5y ago
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-employers-mother-law-claimed-she-was-abused 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 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57563235 (the pinnacle of maid abuse) * https://archive.md/RCAI2 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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.
ff317 5y ago
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.
- skywal_l 5y ago
  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_ 5y ago
    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
- jollybean 5y ago
  " 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.
SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  >(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...
howinteresting 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.
outside1234 5y ago
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.
- geodel 5y ago
  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 5y ago
  As opposed to migrant Mexican workers in the US, for example?
  - outside1234 5y ago
    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.
  - refurb 5y ago
    As compared? Absolutely! A migrant Mexican worker has full access to the US courts, labor laws protect them, etc. Migrant workers in Singapore are simply discarded if troublesome. Even though the population of 90%+ vaccinated (for months), migrant workers in Singapore have been confined to their dormitories (when not working) for almost 2 years now. Pretty regularly trucks with workers in the back with get into accidents and a number will die. Government says “to expensive to make companies transport them in buses”. There are literally two different systems for Singaporeans and foreigners.
refurb 5y ago
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”.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.
ashconnor 5y ago
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 5y ago
  > 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.
  - stackbutterflow 5y ago
    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 5y ago
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    - ashconnor 5y ago
      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.
  - ashconnor 5y ago
    It's a trade-off voters believe. It's not my own opinion. Singapore would function perfectly well without the authoritarianism I'm sure.
geodel 5y ago
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.
coldtea 5y ago
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.
- GDC7 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    You've convinced me, I'm booking a plane to some hell-hole to 'capitalize on my competence' and achieve big-feelings...
  - AutumnCurtain 5y ago
    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 5y ago
systemvoltage 5y ago
> 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.
godelski 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
> 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.
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bluepoint 5y ago
I also lived there. I agree with the sentiment of this comment. People do complain about the lack of art and the occasional censorship and there are problems, such as the invisible poor and the worker-slaves, but overall it is a well governed place and the best governed country in the region by a wide margin (they call it the “red dot”).
GekkePrutser 5y ago
I suppose it also attracts people that value such things.. Safety at the expense of individual liberties, orderly lives and streets etc. I could never bear it myself. I'm from the Netherlands and I hate the way most areas there are so boring and designed by committee. I'm more attracted to cities where not every brick has to be the prescribed colour. It makes a place so much organic and interesting IMO. And I value individualism much more than an orderly society. I prefer the laissez-faire attitude in Spain over rigid policing. This is why I'd never consider Singapore and choose to live in Spain. But this works both ways, I would imagine a lot of people live in Singapore precisely because things work that way there. Of course not everyone has that choice but I'd say most people that are reasonably well-off do. And Singapore seems to be full of those :)

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photochemsyn 5y ago

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-of-immigrants/ 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 5y ago
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...?)
- sct202 5y ago
  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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.

api 5y ago

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.

goboronshka 5y ago
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 5y ago
  No, he's being downvoted because many here actually WOULD want that.
- Der_Einzige 5y ago
  "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.
coldtea 5y ago
>at the cost of human rights. What human rights exactly?
- systemvoltage 5y ago

CornCobs 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    > 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 5y ago
      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.

z303 5y ago

Disneyland With the Death Penalty [1] and revisited [2] [1] https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/ https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/ [2] https://www.wired.com/2012/04/opinion-jeyaretnam-disneyland-death-penalty/ https://www.wired.com/2012/04/opinion-jeyaretnam-disneyland-...

not1ofU 5y ago
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.

eranima 5y ago

I guess I shouldn't be surprised the Hacker News comment section is praising an authoritarian surveillance state.

kubb 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  Sure, but are they brave new world dystopia or farming societies. One has to decide.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    Not clear at all. What takes the label of a BNW, what of a farming society, whether the dichotomy is descriptive or theoretical...
jollybean 5y ago

mrtri 5y ago

remember George Orwell book Animal Farm.

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

we are heading in to a world that favors the paranoid delusional mind state of Billionaires like Munger and Thiel.

danny_codes 5y ago

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 5y ago
> . 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
- danny_codes 5y ago
  I assume you're being contrarian. It's hard to imagine a sane person who opposes effective enforcement of reckless driving laws.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    What's excessive speeding? There is fairly robust evidence that prevailing natural speed of traffic is safest and limits that aren't appropriate for the road often reduce safety, as it is the speed differential that's dangerous, not so much the absolute number. If you set limits too low for driving conditions, you in fact endanger people by policy, instead of helping. It's a valid and commonly raised defence against speeding in many states. Reckless driving is distinct from excessive speeding all, probably best not to mix up two very different things. Reckless charge can happen at any speed, even 1km/hr, but it does require proof of intent, and is a strict liability offence. speeding is an absolute liability offence without the mens rhea element.