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Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

I looked into living there almost a decade ago (doing remote work, software work is still not valued highly locally, afaik) but after a few visits and talking to tech people there I realized I probably wouldn't enjoy living there.

I think Singapore is the number one indication that the corruption indices are bogus.

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Freedom of speech is obviously an issue in Singapore, and I think the government using legislation to “fact-check” the media is quite troubling, but…

I really don’t think Singapore is very corrupt. I’ve lived and worked there, and every interaction I’ve ever had with the government reinforced my perception that they would always deal with me fairly. I trust them more in that sense than I have trusted the governments in western countries that I’ve lived in (many of which have recently started to abandon the free-speech advantage they’ve previously held over places like Singapore).

Singapore is one of the few places I’ve been where the government is both highly competent and is predominantly focused on the best interests of its people rather than itself. POFMA is an issue. It’s a socially conservative country, but the government is a little more liberal than its people; I get the impression the government leans more conservative than it would like to, just to keep the pioneer generation happy.

This is basically true. Liberal cosmopolitan types are the government, may be not the MPs although they are being pulled anyway from their younger technocratic underlings. The older folks, religious folks, etc are the reason for the social conservatism, it's essentially done to appease them. I don't think government cares, just like most global businesses, they've found doing the corporate-rainbow capitalism stuff is good for business, which is a mixed bag for progressives in general but is what it is. I think in with a different public the same technocrats in the PAP would end up being as rainbow capitalist as the rest of the world, with it's benefits and issues.

Having lived and worked in a number of Asian countries, Singapore remains as one of the countries with very low levels of corruption.

I work for a FAANG in Singapore. The above statement about remote work and software work being not valued are not based on facts/reality. My manager is the least bothered if I come to work or WFH, as long as I delver results/work assigned.

Historically engineers (including software) are considered blue collar - that’s what I heard multiple times from the locals. That’s what I experienced myself while living and working there. FAANG is not a good example, try working outside of the FAANG bubble and see for yourself.

I think this would help put this topic in context: http://elijames.org/the-two-tiers-of-singapores-tech-compani...

Can you briefly summarize this wall of text?

The point of providing a link here is to outsource the explanation to someone who does it better. If you take issue with that, you could always get chatGPT to summarize for you.

I thought you had a point to discuss and linked the article to illustrate that point. That would have been interesting.

If this link was purely informational - I’m sorry, I’m not interested.

Singapore isn't really corrupt, it's just that the rich are allowed to play and everyone else is allowed to suffer.

Hyperbole aside, I actually really enjoy my life here. It's just really expensive (that's the "rich are allowed to play" bit). People are very friendly and down to earth which is something I don't usually experience in the other big, dense cities I've visited (San fran, LA, NYC, DC, Paris, etc).

What kinds of corruption have you observed?

Can you explain a bit? Why is Singapore corrupt?

Most of the problems I was made aware of had to do with international trade, not domestic trade.

One guy I met said he privately imported (some of) the goods needed to build his home by containers from Europe because buying them locally was like double the price, because that meant buying them from essentially government-party-appointed resellers.

I obviously have no way of verifying the truth of that statement but you did ask.

> One guy I met said he privately imported (some of) the goods needed to build his home

Someone having their own home built in Singapore would have to be extremely wealthy. And the fact that shipping goods from Europe made any kind of economic sense suggests these were luxury goods.

So, yeah. I'm going to entirely discount this anecdote.

Singaporean here. Singapore has always be a free port. Anyone can setup a business and legally import items. There are no such thing as “government-party-appointed resellers”.

Best to entirely disregard this anecdote.

i mean thats gotta be a huge home because no way that economically makes sense if you think about it

> I think Singapore is the number one indication that the corruption indices are bogus.

You haven't even come close to supplying any real evidence to back this claim.

so that was what you meant by corruption? like corruption not in the governmental and bribery sense but corruption by evading loosely-regulated law?

FWIW. https://www.academia.sg/academic-views/singapore-crony-capit...

It’s the Corruption Perceptions Index. Not the Actual or Measured Corruption Index.

Exactly.

It's a sad state of affairs when even the corruption indexes have fallen prey to corruption. But then again, what financial center around the world isn't corrupt? Where money congregates, corruption is the rule.

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