6 ms·

I'm amazed at how many elite-school tech types idolize Singapore for some strange reason. I've heard a number of gushing recommendations for the place from the

by api 14y ago

I'm amazed at how many elite-school tech types idolize Singapore for some strange reason. I've heard a number of gushing recommendations for the place from the MIT/Harvard set. I personally see it as some kind of horrible sci-fi "Stepford Wives" "smile or die" dystopia... like a yuppie latte-sipping upscale version of North Korea. It makes me thankful for ghettoes and dirt and bums, given the alternative.

rdtsc 14y ago
I find that libertarian types love it. Its dystopia is closer to their own dystopia.
- dr_doom 14y ago
  I know it's anecdotal like your own post but I saw an Anthony Bourdain Singapore episode and he said it was one of the worst possible places for libertarians like himself. I know I hate it.
- gph 14y ago
  Are you sure you meant libertarians? I don't see how anything about Singapore would fit in with libertarian ideology...
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    "Libertarian" has just become lingo for "people with political ideologies that I consider fringe". You can find people calling anarchist ideologies "libertarian" while also finding people willing to call those who dream of Singapore libertarians. There is not rhyme nor reason to it.
  - SilasX 14y ago
    Low tax rates, low burden of regulation, market-oriented systems for traditionally government-provided services (tolls for driving, making individuals bear a proportionate amount of the cost of health care), more individual control over government old-age savings system.
    - redthrowaway 14y ago
      Sounds more neoliberal than libertarian.
- yen223 14y ago
  They banned chewing gum for the longest time. Singapore definitely isn't socially libertarian.
  - ValentineC 14y ago
    Most chewing gum is still banned [1]. This, however, is almost never enforced in practice. On the flip side, public drinking and prostitution are legal in Singapore. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore
- chaostheory 14y ago
  I think you're either confusing Singapore or libertarians with something else. Singapore is a surveillance and censorship happy city state that China aspires to become.
NPRTX 14y ago
Lol. At least it's an easy place to start and do business. What would happen if you tried that in North Korea?
- pyre 14y ago
  Obviously the ability to start and do business is the only thing that's important! What? I'm only allowed to eat government-supplied food cubes? Who cares! </sarcasm>
  - jacoblyles 14y ago
    I find it hard to believe that a highly capitalistic culture would not have a large variety of choice in food. I think you are confusing the results of economic freedom with its opposite.
jvm 14y ago
This perspective focusses on our cultural preferences, but there Singapore has very liberal immigration policies relative to other rich countries, providing many from more impoverished neighboring countries a route to advancement. Also note that its human development index is higher than the UK's, so we're talking about a country that, on paper, is extremely good at providing for its residents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Deve... From an American perspective of course, these things are not impressive: we don't need green cards since we are free to work anywhere in a giant, highly-advanced, not-particularly-repressive society. But from the perspective of someone living in, say, Indonesia, where living standards are very low, the possibility of immigrating Singapore could potentially be a godsend. Obviously it's shady what happened to the guy in op's article, but it's not like there is some other magical country where nothing bad every happened to anyone.
- api 14y ago
  I didn't say it was the worst place on Earth. There are obviously a lot of candidates for that, and I can see how people from some surrounding regions would prefer it. But it's definitely not something to idolize unless you really love a micromanaging surveillance state with ridiculously unbalanced penalties for petty and victimless crimes. As this story suggests, it's also an authoritarian oligarchy in which you have no real rights and can be "disappeared." I honestly found it disturbing to see it idolized by smart people. Do they have no appreciation for cultural freedom? Or do they really believe that yuppie upscale boutique fascism is an ideal worth aspiring to? Seriously, watch a film called THX-1138. "Buy, and be happy..." Sometimes I think politicians watch dystopian films and think "wow! that's a great idea! I never thought of that." Learn to appreciate your local ghetto. Like the song says: you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.
  - jchan 14y ago
    And you're not some sort of "intellectual" idolizing ghettos? I have to go in and around one very often, and hearing "learn to appreciate your local ghetto" from some Random Internet Dude is almost farcical.
e3pi 14y ago
Refactor, bless, autovivicate: "...I personally see it as some kind of horrible sci-fi "Stepford Wives" "smile or die" dystopia... like a yuppie latte-sipping upscale version of North Korea. It makes me thankful for ghettoes and dirt and bums, given the alternative...", and encapsulate into a black walnut shell, and let yc help you plant and grow it. Or at least, you've a screenplay kernel.
jacoblyles 14y ago
I'm amazed at how many people romanticize ghettoes, dirt, and bums. Breaking and entering, rape, murder, homelessness, and human feces on the street are pretty common in areas of San Francisco. They aren't common in Singapore. I consider that a win for Singapore. I would love for a young Lee Kwan Yew to run San Francisco for a year or ten. People change their minds when it happens to them. It feels fine to romanticize some abstract ghetto. But when your female friend posts on Facebook how someone tried to rape her in the Mission district when she went out for a night, or when your car is the one with its window smashed in so someone can steal the earbuds you left laying out, then you yearn for a more civilized society. You say that Singapore is an "upscale version of North Korea", but in what ways? First of all, there is no upscale version of North Korea by definition since communism can never produce a high standard of living. Singapore's economy went from the third world to the first world in a single generation while North Korea has languished in squalor. In Singapore, we see a country that is very well run. It has a low burden of regulation and taxation with a great social safety net. And it is very safe and open to the world. In what ways is it similar to North Korea again?
- jchan 14y ago
  I agree with the vast majority of your comment, but please stop saying that North Korea is communist and that "communism can never produce a high standard of living." the former is patently false - North Korea is a Juche (which is not communist) dictatorship that uses communist theory as a carrot to keep its population hopeful. Read the Communist Manifesto if you doubt me. The latter is unknown, as there has never been a true communist country (this isn't a "No True Scotsman fallacy" - a true state of communism is pretty clearly defined in the Manifesto). I don't consider myself a communist (if anything more of a socialist) but reading this sort of FUD about communism is almost as painful as reading about blind hate for socialism in America.
  - jacoblyles 14y ago
    My price for listening to communist apologists is that they explain how their version of the theory will avoid the millions of deaths that happened in Ukraine, China, and Cambodia, among others. 20th century communism was a true horror. You have your work cut out for you. I consider it an indictment of the modern academy that the gross crimes of communism are constantly deemphasized and excused.
mhartl 14y ago
for some strange reason Singapore is a thriving metropolis with negligible crime and essentially no graffiti, has the third-highest per-capita income in the world, and manages to govern four major ethnic groups without devolving into pogroms or race riots. Is it really so strange to idolize such a place? Singapore does have the death penalty for a few too many things, I'll admit, but you're not likely to get the ax for carrying a little weed. (You might get caned, though.) It's also true that it has laws against homosexuality, but (as with the many US states that have anti-sodomy laws on the books) they're essentially never enforced. Singapore also has no meaningful democracy, but this is a feature, not a bug. (I'll fear the worst if the quasi-communist Workers' Party ever wrests control from the ruling People's Action Party.) like a yuppie latte-sipping upscale version of North Korea North Korea is a prison state with the 197th highest income per capita. Singapore lets you leave any time and allows you to become a permanent resident by paying a small fee (~$150) to start a corporation, which then hires you. Singapore and North Korea are alike the way 18th century Prussia and 1930s Germany were alike: ruled, in effect, by a single individual. But Frederick the Great was no Hitler, and the Yews are no Kims. Do you really not see the difference between Lee Kuan Yew and Kim Il Sung, just because neither is Barack Obama? I personally see it Have you personally seen it? Spend an evening strolling around Marina Bay some time (don't miss the Hooters!) and see if it fills you with longing for ghettoes and dirt and bums—or for the famines and death marches of its putative Korean doppelgänger.
- mhartl 14y ago
  N.B. I should have written "Lees" instead of "Yews", as Lee Kuan Yew (born "Harry Lee") uses the Chinese (and Korean) convention of listing the family name first. His successor as Singapore's prime minister is his son Lee Hsien Loong, much as Kim Il Sung's successor was Kim Jong Il.

by api 14y ago

rdtsc 14y ago

I find that libertarian types love it. Its dystopia is closer to their own dystopia.

dr_doom 14y ago
I know it's anecdotal like your own post but I saw an Anthony Bourdain Singapore episode and he said it was one of the worst possible places for libertarians like himself. I know I hate it.
gph 14y ago
Are you sure you meant libertarians? I don't see how anything about Singapore would fit in with libertarian ideology...
- jlgreco 14y ago
  "Libertarian" has just become lingo for "people with political ideologies that I consider fringe". You can find people calling anarchist ideologies "libertarian" while also finding people willing to call those who dream of Singapore libertarians. There is not rhyme nor reason to it.
- SilasX 14y ago
  Low tax rates, low burden of regulation, market-oriented systems for traditionally government-provided services (tolls for driving, making individuals bear a proportionate amount of the cost of health care), more individual control over government old-age savings system.
  - redthrowaway 14y ago
    Sounds more neoliberal than libertarian.
yen223 14y ago
They banned chewing gum for the longest time. Singapore definitely isn't socially libertarian.
- ValentineC 14y ago
  Most chewing gum is still banned [1]. This, however, is almost never enforced in practice. On the flip side, public drinking and prostitution are legal in Singapore. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore
chaostheory 14y ago
I think you're either confusing Singapore or libertarians with something else. Singapore is a surveillance and censorship happy city state that China aspires to become.

NPRTX 14y ago

Lol. At least it's an easy place to start and do business. What would happen if you tried that in North Korea?

pyre 14y ago
Obviously the ability to start and do business is the only thing that's important! What? I'm only allowed to eat government-supplied food cubes? Who cares! </sarcasm>
- jacoblyles 14y ago
  I find it hard to believe that a highly capitalistic culture would not have a large variety of choice in food. I think you are confusing the results of economic freedom with its opposite.

jvm 14y ago

This perspective focusses on our cultural preferences, but there Singapore has very liberal immigration policies relative to other rich countries, providing many from more impoverished neighboring countries a route to advancement. Also note that its human development index is higher than the UK's, so we're talking about a country that, on paper, is extremely good at providing for its residents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Deve... From an American perspective of course, these things are not impressive: we don't need green cards since we are free to work anywhere in a giant, highly-advanced, not-particularly-repressive society. But from the perspective of someone living in, say, Indonesia, where living standards are very low, the possibility of immigrating Singapore could potentially be a godsend. Obviously it's shady what happened to the guy in op's article, but it's not like there is some other magical country where nothing bad every happened to anyone.

api 14y ago
I didn't say it was the worst place on Earth. There are obviously a lot of candidates for that, and I can see how people from some surrounding regions would prefer it. But it's definitely not something to idolize unless you really love a micromanaging surveillance state with ridiculously unbalanced penalties for petty and victimless crimes. As this story suggests, it's also an authoritarian oligarchy in which you have no real rights and can be "disappeared." I honestly found it disturbing to see it idolized by smart people. Do they have no appreciation for cultural freedom? Or do they really believe that yuppie upscale boutique fascism is an ideal worth aspiring to? Seriously, watch a film called THX-1138. "Buy, and be happy..." Sometimes I think politicians watch dystopian films and think "wow! that's a great idea! I never thought of that." Learn to appreciate your local ghetto. Like the song says: you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.
- jchan 14y ago
  And you're not some sort of "intellectual" idolizing ghettos? I have to go in and around one very often, and hearing "learn to appreciate your local ghetto" from some Random Internet Dude is almost farcical.

e3pi 14y ago

Refactor, bless, autovivicate: "...I personally see it as some kind of horrible sci-fi "Stepford Wives" "smile or die" dystopia... like a yuppie latte-sipping upscale version of North Korea. It makes me thankful for ghettoes and dirt and bums, given the alternative...", and encapsulate into a black walnut shell, and let yc help you plant and grow it. Or at least, you've a screenplay kernel.

jacoblyles 14y ago

I'm amazed at how many people romanticize ghettoes, dirt, and bums. Breaking and entering, rape, murder, homelessness, and human feces on the street are pretty common in areas of San Francisco. They aren't common in Singapore. I consider that a win for Singapore. I would love for a young Lee Kwan Yew to run San Francisco for a year or ten. People change their minds when it happens to them. It feels fine to romanticize some abstract ghetto. But when your female friend posts on Facebook how someone tried to rape her in the Mission district when she went out for a night, or when your car is the one with its window smashed in so someone can steal the earbuds you left laying out, then you yearn for a more civilized society. You say that Singapore is an "upscale version of North Korea", but in what ways? First of all, there is no upscale version of North Korea by definition since communism can never produce a high standard of living. Singapore's economy went from the third world to the first world in a single generation while North Korea has languished in squalor. In Singapore, we see a country that is very well run. It has a low burden of regulation and taxation with a great social safety net. And it is very safe and open to the world. In what ways is it similar to North Korea again?

jchan 14y ago
I agree with the vast majority of your comment, but please stop saying that North Korea is communist and that "communism can never produce a high standard of living." the former is patently false - North Korea is a Juche (which is not communist) dictatorship that uses communist theory as a carrot to keep its population hopeful. Read the Communist Manifesto if you doubt me. The latter is unknown, as there has never been a true communist country (this isn't a "No True Scotsman fallacy" - a true state of communism is pretty clearly defined in the Manifesto). I don't consider myself a communist (if anything more of a socialist) but reading this sort of FUD about communism is almost as painful as reading about blind hate for socialism in America.
- jacoblyles 14y ago
  My price for listening to communist apologists is that they explain how their version of the theory will avoid the millions of deaths that happened in Ukraine, China, and Cambodia, among others. 20th century communism was a true horror. You have your work cut out for you. I consider it an indictment of the modern academy that the gross crimes of communism are constantly deemphasized and excused.

mhartl 14y ago

for some strange reason Singapore is a thriving metropolis with negligible crime and essentially no graffiti, has the third-highest per-capita income in the world, and manages to govern four major ethnic groups without devolving into pogroms or race riots. Is it really so strange to idolize such a place? Singapore does have the death penalty for a few too many things, I'll admit, but you're not likely to get the ax for carrying a little weed. (You might get caned, though.) It's also true that it has laws against homosexuality, but (as with the many US states that have anti-sodomy laws on the books) they're essentially never enforced. Singapore also has no meaningful democracy, but this is a feature, not a bug. (I'll fear the worst if the quasi-communist Workers' Party ever wrests control from the ruling People's Action Party.) like a yuppie latte-sipping upscale version of North Korea North Korea is a prison state with the 197th highest income per capita. Singapore lets you leave any time and allows you to become a permanent resident by paying a small fee (~$150) to start a corporation, which then hires you. Singapore and North Korea are alike the way 18th century Prussia and 1930s Germany were alike: ruled, in effect, by a single individual. But Frederick the Great was no Hitler, and the Yews are no Kims. Do you really not see the difference between Lee Kuan Yew and Kim Il Sung, just because neither is Barack Obama? I personally see it Have you personally seen it? Spend an evening strolling around Marina Bay some time (don't miss the Hooters!) and see if it fills you with longing for ghettoes and dirt and bums—or for the famines and death marches of its putative Korean doppelgänger.

mhartl 14y ago
N.B. I should have written "Lees" instead of "Yews", as Lee Kuan Yew (born "Harry Lee") uses the Chinese (and Korean) convention of listing the family name first. His successor as Singapore's prime minister is his son Lee Hsien Loong, much as Kim Il Sung's successor was Kim Jong Il.