Comment by qeng-ho | Hacker News Reader

Comment by qeng-ho | Hacker News Reader

I'm Singaporean, and completely not surprised to see this appear on HN.

As with many places, the situation in my country is a bit more nuanced than a simple "the ruling party has ruled the country since 1965". Civilisation is the surrender of varying degrees of civil liberty for security and safety, and over here we definitely surrender more degrees of civil liberty for the safety and security of our streets. As another user put it, essentially a benevolent dictatorship, emphasis on the benevolent. For the most part, the ruling party has done a good job with the administration of the government. Things are fast and efficient. Is it worth the trade? It depends on your perspective. Even as a liberal, I agree that the paternalism of the government is not without its merits.

There were quite a lot of push-back on the POFMA (what the fake news law is called) among the people, though our politicians, no doubt because of their same-party membership, barely discussed anything concrete in our parliamentary debates. In the end, the law was passed because of course it would be.

>> Civilisation is the surrender of varying degrees of civil liberty for security and safety.

That's a pretty reductivist way to define civilisation...

From this definition; It sounds to me like there is a certain character/type of people who are redeemed as Civilized based on Govt definition. Thus justifies heavy control over society.

"As a liberal", wouldn't it be more favourable to design the system around liberty of choice for the individual rather than control of a central power?

> That's a pretty reductivist way to define civilisation...

Agreed. I would consider banning slavery as more civilized, but it is an expansion of civil liberties.

Same with having general freedom of expression. Any thug can ban "lies" he doesn't like. Kings used to declare themselves gods and execute dissenters.

>I would consider banning slavery as more civilized, but it is an expansion of civil liberties.

It's an expansion of civil liberties for one group (the enslaved), at the cost of limiting the civil liberties of another group (the former slave owners): you're preventing the slave owners from exercising their freedom to enslave people and force them to work.

>Same with having general freedom of expression. Any thug can ban "lies" he doesn't like.

Same here. Even a law that bans yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater is infringing on the civil liberties of people to speak freely and cause chaos.

Personally, I'm perfectly happy with these infringements of civil liberty. It's better for society to avoid needless chaos from people shouting "fire!" and to prevent people from being enslaved. But they are limiting absolute freedom.

It is deliberately reductive because I was hoping not to get into a debate about personal freedoms.

If you disagree, try telling the police that they have no right to infringe on your personal freedom when they stop you for drink-driving. Or theft. Or even jay-walking. To be in a society, any kind of society, involves giving up personal freedoms in exchange for something, usually safety or stability. We just have a different idea of what's an acceptable loss of personal freedom.

I agree that it'd be favourable to design the system about personal freedom, but that system comes with its own inefficiencies and disadvantages that by large my country deem unacceptable. Unfortunately, Singapore is still largely a pragmatic and conservative society that min-maxes for economic stability, and it'd be long before this changes.

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

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.

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?

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-mansi...

In most neighboring countries, if this kind of thing made headlines, the news would have nothing else.

I do hope the “barely-human underclass” is supposed to be a characterization of the government’s beliefs, and not your own.

What are the real, practical differences between Nordic style democracy and parliamentary democracy that is in central European countries?

He is talking about culture, not governance.

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.

What you describe is Japan.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

All the examples of safety that you provide describe my experience in the US too, FWIW.

“I don't think/worry about guns - ever.”

That too. I never worry about guns in my daily life.

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.

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.

> 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.

Keeping the elderly working is not an absolute negative.

Keeping the elderly working is slave labor. Instead, you should make sure that there's always opportunities for them to do meaningful work.

That's an interesting take. Why do you define it as slave labor?

> 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.

And Tokyo happens to be quite democratic and non-authoritarian. So an argument that people necessarily need Big Brother to behave falls flat on its face.

> So an argument that people necessarily need Big Brother to behave falls flat on its face.

Japanese culture is very different from pretty much any other culture. They respect each other and their country and environment. (except whales) They are raised from a young age to look after each other and respect each other. Something the rest of the world could learn from.

Japanese culture did not spring up out of the innate goodness of ancient Japanese. Culture is nurtured.

Japanese culture is largely a product of developing on an island archipelago where there's not much livable space (much of the land is mountains) and there's almost no natural resources. Add to that the various contacts with Western culture they had, and you get what they have now. The bit about respecting the environment (which isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than many other countries) is an example of this: when you don't have much space, you have to work harder at keeping your environment good because you don't have the option of just moving west when it gets too crowded, like they did in the US. Of course, they tried emulating the Europeans and doing the colonization thing a while back, and that didn't work out too well.

Culture is a product of your environment.

>democratic and non-authoritarian

japan also has something like a 99 percent conviction rate, not sure how that aligns with being anti authoritarian.

It means that they don't prosecute people unless they have a perfect open-and-shut case.

21 days to be arraigned is nothing to be proud of, however.

>The city seems super clean, but mainly because low paid workers clean the city really often.

As opposed to, say, cleaners in the West, which are paid more than engineers,

> It's said that nothing gets stolen in Singapore, until you speak to Singaporeans.

A friend of mine left her cellphone in a mall bathroom once, on the bench when she washed her hands. Went all the way home and realised she forgot it.

After ~4 hours when she reached the mall. It was still sitting where she left it.

> Your "Hawker Centers" have people in their 70s bent forward cleaning up tables to some earn money.

There is no social safety net in Singapore. So once you get old, there's no benefit or dole, or any government funded programs to give you a comfy life where tax payers pay for you. The idea is you life off your CPF. Because there are people who have no savings. The government subsidizes their salaries. If a company hires them then the government will pay a portion of the salary, this gives incentive to businesses to hire them.

You could raise taxes for businesses and individuals, but then who would move their business or come work in Singapore?

> Safest in the world, hands down. Any figures to back that up?

Googling it seems ranked about no 5 to 7 in the world eg https://safearound.com/danger-rankings/

Democratic Iceland seems to be #1 mostly. Fun Iceland fact:

>It [has] the oldest surviving parliament in the world, a claim shared by Tynwald. The Althing was founded in 930 at Þingvellir ("thing fields" or "assembly fields"), situated approximately 45 kilometres (28 mi) east of what later became the country's capital, Reykjavík.

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.

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.

Or invent Uber.

> Is it worth it? None of the positives you described are exclusive to a totalitarian government.

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.

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.

Small towns have no high-paying jobs; that's why they're mostly dying and people are moving to the metro areas.

Depends on the town. Some have industries that pay the bills fine. Like tourism or fishing.

Those are the towns that will survive. The ones with industries that dried up won't.

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.

Thank you, I already live and work here for 10 years, otherwise I wouldn't dare to comment about stuff I have no first hand experience with. Good luck to you

All cities are artificial

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

> over here we definitely surrender more degrees of civil liberty for the safety and security of our streets

It seems to me that you don't have to surrender so much, but I am totally unaware of your situation. And maybe I am desensitized to the lack of safety.

I want to ask, what are the threats, and what is your exposure to them?

I’ve lived in Singapore and agree with your post but I also have an uneasy feeling that it won’t last much longer. This government have and continue to make some big (IMO) mistakes especially in the areas of planning and mobility. Hopefully this is managed better by the next government.

I agree, especially with the uneasy feeling that it wouldn't last much longer; the challenge of the first 50 years of Singapore was economical, and the heavy-handedness of the government was a result of that. The challenge of the next 50, in contrast, is cultural and about her people, and I don't think the government as it is, is capable of shifting gears.

>>I'm Singaporean, and completely not surprised to see this appear on HN....Civilisation is the surrender of varying degrees of civil liberty for security and safety

...We're just debating the word "varying" and might not agree with your conclusion.

To quote what I replied to another user:

If you disagree, try telling the police that they have no right to infringe on your personal freedom when they stop you for drink-driving. Or theft. Or even jay-walking. To be in a society, any kind of society, involves giving up personal freedoms in exchange for something, usually safety or stability. We just have a different idea of what's an acceptable loss of personal freedom.

Ideally we d be able to switch citizenships, and let the best government win us. Unfortunately its not possible, though i would like the idea of an airbnb for citizenships

I’m an ex Singaporean and I remember the good old ‘politics is for politicians and civilians should stay out’ days in the 90s.

This _ruling party_ is benevolent when it suits them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com