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Comment by kawaiikouhai | Hacker News Reader

These are very broad generalizations you're claiming with no evidence.

> 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

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You have to be careful looking at GDP per capita. That money doesn't always stay within the country, especially with tax havens.

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).

Would Singapore be a genuinely worse place to live if its GDP per capita would be "just" $35,000 instead of $70,000?

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.

This is just moving the goalposts and sophistry at this point. Your initial statement was Taiwan was measurably better per capita than Singapore, though the GDP and economic statistics show otherwise. You can also look at various happiness indices, where Singapore is #1 in Asia, since happiness is correlated with GDP per capita.

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.

This is not moving the goalposts. The goalposts were the unsurpassed wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew. It is still a hipster bullshit if you ask me.

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.

your first two paragraphs, taken together seem like upside down logic to me, or totally illogical. cart before horse kind of thing.

and that "probably" ... :)

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