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Comment by kablamo | Hacker News Reader

Singapore. English speaking. Modern clean safe beautiful city. Mostly banking and finance here. Something like 2% unemployment, 15% economic growth this year. Lots of Westerners (and Indians, Chinese, Malay, Phillipinos, Indonesians, etc hugely diverse). Little India, Chinatown. Very easy to get a work visa. Low taxes. Tropical island. Can be as cheap as $50 to fly to Bali and a weekend of surfing. All of Southeast Asia a few hours flight away.

On the bad side:

* Freaking hot. You will get used to it after about 8 months.

* Expensive apartments. Not as bad as SF or NYC, but getting up there.

* Despite being a decent size city, it often has a conservative, small town atmosphere.

* Asia loves status and brand names and leans towards Java and .Net and industrial programming and tends to look down on scripting languages

Hong kong is probably good to look at too. Bigger more interesting city but like everywhere, has its drawbacks too of course.

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Singapore is also a police state, if you care about such things. Some choice quotes from the US Department of State:

Singapore has a mandatory death penalty for many narcotics offenses.

Singapore police have the authority to compel both residents and non-residents to submit to random drug analysis.

There are no jury trials in Singapore. Judges hear cases and decide sentencing.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1017.html#c...

Its true there is not as much political freedom in Singapore as there is in the West. Its also true there is not as much economic freedom in the West as there is in Singapore.

Singapore's judicial system is consistently ranked in the top 2 in Asia and usually in the top 10 globally, often ahead of places like the US and Germany. http://app.subcourts.gov.sg/Data/Files/File/Research/issue29...

I'm an American who has lived in Singapore almost 2 years. The Singapore government delivers good, fair, cost efficient government, a high standard of living, and is responsive to citizens. This is incomprehensible to Westerners who have been taught to believe that democracy is the only system that works. Western democracy is great and does a decent job. I believe Singapore's government is better in many or most cases. Here is a list of ways that Singapore's government is better than most or all Western governments:

- easier to start a business

- lower unemployment

- higher economic growth

- less corruption (private and government)

- lower, simpler taxes

- less paperwork (everything is online)

- less crime

The People's Action Party has a long history of suing political opponents for defamation and bankrupting them with judgements handed down by the courts. This contradicts your claims that (1) Singapore has a good judicial system and (2) Singapore's government has less corruption. To be frank I don't think you have the correct picture of Singapore's government at all and you've been taken in like so many others. Order and peace in Singapore is bought by corruption and intimidation behind the scenes.

The following essay on the subject is worth your time: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v006/6.3br....

I accept Singapore is not a democracy and has less political free speech than the West. That doesn't make it corrupt. Singapore is ranked the 5th least corrupt country in the world. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/gov_cor-government-corrupt....

The PAP sues its opponents for defamation. Has your government ever done anything worse?

You mention one small piece of the pie of justice: political free speech. What about property rights, banking law, business law, immigration law, tax law, criminal law, etc? I think you need to show a much broader pattern of abuse to say the judicial system isn't fair.

I'm actually a libertarian. Its taken some time for me to reconcile that with my support of Singapore. Basically, I believe Singapore is more free than most Western countries although sometimes in different ways.

You can quibble about minor issues, but in my experience the government delivers good service, safe streets, a growing economy, and opportunity to the vast majority of Singaporeans.

I'm not sure how you think anyone could take you seriously when you call the systemic suppression of political opponents a "minor issue".

I assume you feel the suppression of political opponents is a major issue because it causes a government to become corrupt, abusive, and make bad decisions without the accountability that comes from criticism and competition. I agree.

But Singapore has made good decisions and hasn't been abusive or corrupt. (No government is without sin or without mistakes, so I mean Singapore isn't abusive or corrupt compared to the US and Europe.) Their economy has boomed, their standard of living has risen dramatically in a short period of time. Aren't you curious about how they did it?

Political systems have evolved and improved throughout history and will continue to do so. Western democracy is not the best government that will ever exist on Earth.

The 2005 Quality of Life Index from The Economist

1. Ireland

2. Switzerland

3. Norway

...

11. Singapore

...

13. US

...

17. Japan

...

26. Germany

...

29. UK

...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-Life_Index

I think their preferred term is "managed democracy".

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