Yea, I'd prefer living in Malta to Singapore every day. Though I'd probably prefer today's Singapore to the one before Yew's times.
Big city but you can go anywhere at any time and feel extremely safe. Impressive public transport. Amazing food, probably the best among countries I've visited. Everyone speaks English but you can enjoy a mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian cultures. The people tend to be quite nice. Good economy. Feeling of growth, rather than decadence like in much of the West, every time I go there seem to be several new MRT lines. Sane politics (see public housing, etc.) Plenty of places to visit, activities and things to do.
It's not perfect, maybe a bit too hot and I don't like their long working hours and exploiting of maids, but in my view it's top notch. On March I'll go to Malta, let's see how I compares, but I doubt I'll like it more (no offense to Malta, as I said, the think is that I really have a good concept of Singapore).
I think this is very overstated, people break laws and talk shit all the time. Just don't do drugs and be an asshole and you should be fine, many laws are not enforced
Just recently they made unilateral (clearly, because PAP controls Parliament and has since the country's founding) changes to the law that police don't need a warrant to search someone if there is a "reasonable suspicion the person may destroy evidence prior to a warrant". Not to mention there is no "right to remain silent" or "right to lawyer" (before making a statement), etc, etc.
But what really caught my notice was the quote from the Minister of Justice - “There is no downside to this amendment because if they search and they find the evidence, or if they do not find the evidence, no one is worse off."
To me that is wild. Invasion of privacy of an innocent individual and "no one is worse off". There isn't even an attempt to talk about trade offs - "yes, this is in invasion of privacy, but we're carefully balancing it against the need for an effective police force". Just straight up "searching the private space of an innocent individual is insignificant".
That said, there is overwhelming support for this kind of law in Singapore. There was a recent poll that asked something like "Do you agree with this statement: It is better that there is stability than democratic rights." and 70-80% of Singaporeans said "yes".
So "meh?". I may recoil at the very premise of the system, but Singaporeans seem to like it.
I think you'll find similar opinions in all of the east asian countries like south korea, taiwan, japan, china. Lived in singapore for a few years, I think it's great to visit but don't know if I'd want to live there; one party state, strict laws etc. Taxes are low though, so that's pretty nice.
The working culture is also toxic af and there is a strict racial hierarchy (enforced by violence when challenged) that made me deeply uncomfortable living there.
Great weather, housing, food, city planning and public transport though.
I wish my government tried to clone their fantastic commieblocks and not their oppressive, oligarchic style of government but alas they do the opposite.
Oh, for f*ck's sake.
Hacker News and unbridled exaggeration, name a better combination.
Look, I get that Singapore's leaders are especially litigious, and they are rightly criticised for it by a plurality of the population.
However, a defamation lawsuit is a far cry from a death sentence.
Somehow I get the feeling most commenters who criticise Singapore for its 'draconian authoritarian totalitarian xyz-itarian oligarchic police state laws' have never set foot in the place.
I mean a guy was arrested for holding up a piece of cardboard with a smiley face drawn on it for a few seconds while someone took a picture of it. This was deemed "unlawful assembly without a permit". He had already spent time in prison for prior protests in support of Hong Kong.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/24/singapore-smil...
Dunno why you put it in quotes: it's in Singapore law[1].
[1]: Public Order Act 2009: https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/POA2009
Rather ironically, if the original comment about "dissident blogger is a capital crime" is literally true, your observation basically confirms it due to survival bias, because nobody could criticize Singapore's government while being physically there. :)
That said, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Defamation lawsuits in Singapore are far worse than in the west. They are both rigged and designed to bankrupt you. Being a target wont mean you get killed but it will ruin your life.
>Somehow I get the feeling most commenters who criticise Singapore for its 'draconian authoritarian totalitarian xyz-itarian oligarchic police state laws' have never set foot in the place.
I lived there. I was there for the riots and I was there for the bus drivers strike where the police violently brutalized the foreign strikers for having the temerity to object to racial pay scales.
Hacker news opinion mostly comes from people who went to Singapore on holiday once and now thinks theyre an expert on it or white people who lived there liked being near the top of the racial hierarchy.
They're not much worse than in what goes on in England[1], it would appear. Anyway, I said as much myself, but I was pointing out your ridiculous hyperbole. I'll say it again—a defamation lawsuit, however heavy the penalty, is nowhere close to a death sentence.
This is all the more confusing, since Singapore actually has the capital penalty for certain crimes. Funny you choose to call out defamation lawsuits, of all things.
> I lived there. I was there for the riots and I was there for the bus drivers strike where the police violently brutalized the foreign strikers for having the temerity to object to racial pay scales
There is so much wrong with this statement I don't even know where to start. Firstly, I'm guessing you did not 'live there': you lived in an expat bubble taking home six-plus digits with your family taken care of, chauffeured between work and your Holland Village/Bukit Timah/River Valley condo in a taxi or car that your expat package paid for.
Next, the bus riots started because of drunk and disorderly behaviour. The police never brutalised anyone, and there was widespread commentary amongst locals about just how many policemen were needed to control the situation, and how meek they were (which makes sense, given the civil defence and the police in Singapore are largely conscripts aged 19 – 22).
Finally, nothing 'brutal' happened even in the bus strikes the year before. They were arrested, and deported. Full stop.
It exasperates me to no end when foreigners nitpick on some so-called affront to freedom in Singapore (that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things), when there are more serious and insidious issues that deeply affect the local (and even migrant populace) like male-only conscription, the skyrocketing cost of living, the car-first urban planning despite Singapore's government supposedly despising cars, and the classism and racism going on. Notice both you and someone else who pointed this out in this thread, which I upvoted—because it is fact, and not rage-baiting hyperbole.
I am inclined to take anyone less seriously if they complain about 'police brutality' in Singapore. The Singapore police are amongst the meekest and friendliest lot I've ever seen.
[1]: https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/01/britains-scariest-...
I've never heard of anybody ever having their life ruined because they wrote something in a blog about the UK prime minister. People write a lot of band things about him, some of it lies even. The UK's libel laws are definitely broken but Singapore's libel laws are just a weapon of the autocracy to crush dissent.
>This is all the more confusing, since Singapore actually has the capital penalty for certain crimes.
Yes, that's why it's called Disneyland with the Death Penalty. An article so accurate that the prime minister decided to ban Wired magazine in a fit of pique.
>There is so much wrong with this statement I don't even know where to start. Firstly, I'm guessing you did not 'live there': you lived in an expat bubble taking home six-plus digits with your family taken care of, chauffeured between work and your Holland Village/Bukit Timah
False. I shared a room in an HDB. I took the bus to work. I ate at food courts.
>Next, the bus riots started because of drunk and disorderly behaviour.
The riots in little india started because it took an ambulance an hour to arrive when somebody low on the racial totem pole got hit by a vehicle. I think they might have died.
>The police never brutalised anyone
There was an excellent article written in the WSJ that detailed exactly what happened to the imprisoned bus drivers during the bus strike. Yes, they were beaten in jail. Singapore does not tolerate labour power. Capital rules supreme. NTUC is an arm of the government.
>It exasperates me to no end when foreigners nitpick on some so-called affront to freedom in Singapore (that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things), when there are more serious and insidious issues that deeply affect the local (and even migrant populace) like male-only conscription, the skyrocketing cost of living, the car-first urban planning despite Singapore's government supposedly despising cars, and the classism and racism going on.
Freedom of speech and labour power is necessary in order to fix these things.
>I am inclined to take anyone less seriously if they complain about 'police brutality' in Singapore. The Singapore police are amongst the meekest and friendliest
Oh they're fine provided you're not a migrant worker, which you clearly aren't. I'm guessing you're probably local Chinese.
Apart from the food, what specifically about these cultures is enjoyable?
This is an Anglicisation through and through. In Mandarin Chinese and most Chinese dialects (and Korean, for the record), the surname comes first.
XI Jinping
MAO Tse-tung
LEE Kuan Yew
TSAI Ying-Wen
HUANG Jen-Hsun
KIM Jong-un
BAN Ki-moon
If the person has a European first name, then it comes before the surname—Lisa Su, for instance. Lee Kuan Yew himself went by 'Harry Lee Kuan Yew' before he went into politics and he dropped the 'Harry'.
My own tldr is that we severely lacked in a number of areas:land mass, natural resources, a defensible position, a meaningful economy.
Geography was pretty much the only thing we had going for us. That and amazing leadership.
Singapore is exactly where it should be, given its culture, legacy, location, and the fact that it is a city-state. It would still be Singapore under your average ruler (of Chinese culture, not African). It has awesome hand so it does not take much skill to play it.
I could not repeat enough the argument of city-states being different, and usually very rich, so that's what I'm going to do. You should never compare Singapore's GDP growth with any country which has, well, countryside. Still, Taiwan will give Singapore a run on its money while not even being a recognized country.
> Most of countries are more or less on the development level that their culture and geographic location permits.
So, given this assertion, no developing country should ever hope to join the ranks of a developed nation? Unless they change cultural variables or conquer new lands. Yet we see this playing out in Europe and East Asia and now Africa and India.
> Taiwan will give Singapore a run on its money
Singapore's GDP per capita is $70,000 while Taiwan's capital city sits at $35,000.
Please cite your sources
It would probably have slighly smaller population, less economic regulation and more sustainability. So the difference between Yew and "number two" is the difference between "Excellent" and "Great".
Come on, is that so important? I'd rather read on about a leader who turned "mediocre" into "pretty good".
Because most countries are not Singapore, they don't have what it takes to be even Taiwan.
"When a Rhino looks at the moon, he wastes the flowers of his spleen", as neither Japanese nor Chinese say.
and If you really believe $70,000 is no different from $35,000, I urge you to donate all your income excess of $35,000 to me. I take Venmo, Cashapp.
Taiwan was 1.5x worse GDP-wise in 1960 and now the difference is 2.0x. That's not that much. Especially as I have said about city states and whatnot.
I donate significant amount of my income, just not to you obviously.
and that "probably" ... :)
Look at Ireland's GDP per capita - it's on par with Singapore! But a lot of that is due to the tax strategies of companies like Google that park their IP in Ireland, then "sell" it to countries in Europe. That's all GDP for Ireland. But what happens to the money? It gets pumped back to the US.
It's similar with Singapore. There are huge refineries, and pharmaceutical manufacturing on the island. The country makes these product (often of high value), which contributes to the GDP. But that money exits the country (save for the workers in Singapore) back to the HQ country.
If you look at median wages in Singapore, you'll get a much better sense of the wealth. But do note that the number the Singaporean government quotes doesn't include the 40% of the population that is migrant workers - it's only Singaporean citizens and PRs. So it ignores the bottom ~40% of workers (save for the highly skill people on work passes).
Sure, cities have higher per capita GDP than their associated agricultural regions, but Singapore's GDP in 1963 was low relative to the agricultural regions of many countries it's since overtaken, its institutions were the colonial power's and much of its population consisted of uneducated coolies performing manual labour and living in squalid conditions. And it initially chose not to be a city state!
The only thing inevitable about Singapore's growth path is that if its first government had bankrupted the country and begged to be British or Malaysian subjects again by 1970, people would have said this wasn't at all surprising given its Asian culture (not so highly rated for business acumen in the 1960s!) and geographical disadvantages...
Make no mistake—Singapore's prosperity today is no accident.
Your claim is essentially that cities, and therefore city-states, will naturally fall into wealth and prosperity. I wonder what happened to Athens, Venice, Genoa, and all the other merchant city-states, the equivalents of Singapore on the ancient, mediaeval, and early-modern world.
The point is that cities don't accumulate wealth 'just because'. Wealth comes and goes. And this goes all the more for city-states with no hinterland nor strategic depth.
Compare Venice with Monaco in that respect. Or Hong Kong, which is waning because of that lost sovereignity but is still very rich. Or Luxembourg. Or Qatar. It's just great to be a small self-contained free port.
And Venice is not the worst place to be.
Now, we actually do not know what will be of Singapore in 50 years. May be many things.
Singapore did stagnate without good leadership for a couple of 100 years there, didn't it? Until it suddenly (over the course of a couple of decades) didn't.
> Its contemporary era began in 1819, when Stamford Raffles established Singapore as an entrepôt trading post of the British Empire. In 1867, the colonies in Southeast Asia were reorganised, and Singapore came under the direct control of Britain as part of the Straits Settlements.
> Later, in the 1890s, when the rubber industry became established in Malaya and Singapore, the island became a global centre for rubber sorting and export.
It was very new and fared very well all along, world wars excluded. Maybe it was mismanaged 1945 to 1960, that I cannot confirm.
I guess by your definition Indonesia and The Philippines where doing great as Dutch and Spanish colonies as well?
Sure, Singapore was doing great during that time (for the British), but if you look at measures such as % of the population living in extreme poverty, education, housing, healthcare, GDP, slavery, serfdom, etc it must be quite hard to deny that Singapore hasn't stagnated for centuries only to explode (positively) within decades.
The biggest asset, aside from being a port on a great location, was the right alliances, and foreign countries being the island being let mostly alone, and you not having valuable resources, plus the desire of the rich in countries around the area to use the island as a tax haven of sorts (and later, as their comfy home away from home).
Yew would have been thrown out of office in a week and some "coup" would have been organized if some big foreign power has special interests in the area and wanted him gone.
And if the island had resources like oil or such, it would have been invaded, occupied, "liberated" by some new traiting politician friendly to the outside, every second year.
There was significant interest from foreign powers doing just that, look up Operation Coldstore and the history of communist insurgency in Singapore.
And of course the right wingers not only had "heavy foreign influence and support" on their side too (the whole country was established under heavy western influence and at its "benevolence"), but they also crushed them, undemocratically with the help of that foreign influence and support.
Doesn't work if you're just a land with resources to plunder and they have no interests in seeing you thrive, but the contrary.
Works even less if you have other ideas about your governance, trade, and allies that suit you, to what powerful countries taking an interest in your area want you to have because it suits them.
But if you don't have resources for them to covet, your existence fits a purpose in their plans, and you don't get too independent but always keep their preferences in mind, yeah, you can then apply leadership to make things better.
It's just leadership in much easier circumstances than elsewhere.
Amazing leadership according to the leadership that controls the news media and holds sham elections where other parties get no media coverage until a few weeks before the election.
Don't forget, it was a poor country at independence. Malaysia and Indonesia also face the Strait of Malacca, and I'd rather live under Singapore's government than either of those.
But given all that could have happened, I do stand by that assessment.
Geography is important but so was singapore's chinese connections. Singapore's rise is tied to china's opening and economic rise. Singapore and Hong kong's ability to leverage their chinese ties and serve as imtermediaries between china and their colonial masters allowed them to get wealthy. The singaporean leadership was able to win the trust of the chinese and their 'former' colonial masters. Given the animus between China and the US, it was quite the achievement.
Are people this dumb and ignorant? Animus between China and the US dates back centuries to the opium wars of the early 1800s. And animus between China and the US has been the norm ever since. Your comment was flat earther level stupid. Crack open a history before commenting.
I did. That's why I quoted your entire comment in my response : "Animus between China and US is a recent thing, like post 2015."
> Nixon visited China just a few years after Singapore became independent.
You mean the anti-china warhawk nixon who made his name railing against china in the 50s and 60s? Are you talking about that nixon?
> Post 2015 is when animosity starts and now US is encouraging divestment from China.
Except US investment in china INCREASED under trump... Also how stupid do you have to be to bring nixon into this and claim the animus started post 2015?