Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype • Hacker News Board

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#181

Post by chillacy » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 11:34 AM UTC

angled wrote: post #45

My main interest in this article was not about Singapore, but at what point does an online gathering cross the boundary to the physical world where limits are placed on the size of the gathering, or if and when it crosses countries' borders. What's not to say the HKer was the host and the Singaporeans were individually the guests? Obviously that isn't what the court decided in this instance but perhaps that is what c…

From what I’ve read about Sg’s government, they won’t care. If they want to do something they won’t let a legal technicality stop them.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#182

Post by chillacy » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 11:36 AM UTC

mempko wrote: post #135

mikeash wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is awful in all sorts of ways. Its one major advantage is non-violent succession, something other systems really struggle with. Dictatorships can be great for a whole, but eventually you get a mad dictator or two people who both think they should be the dictator and it all falls apart.

Dictatorships are never great. Using economic arguments to support dictatorship is just being lazy, stupid, or both.

Even though I think you’re right, you haven’t actually made an argument at all except repeating the mantra that “dictatorships aren’t great”.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#183

Post by mango7283 » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 2:56 AM UTC

hkt wrote: post #154

mango7283 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be more a function of a robust Constitution and institutions than democracy...

The UK, where I am from, has no constitution in the sense you might understand it. We do really quite well, though.

The UK is the archetypal constitutional monarchy though! The UK may have no Constitution as such but it arguably has strong institutions and laws...

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#184

Post by ahje » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 9:03 AM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #159

ahje wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"“The law says that any event which is open to the public, and is ’cause related’, requires a permit when a foreigner speaks." There was a foreign speaker participating over Skype. As idiotic as the law seems to be, I do believe the case is rather clear. The foreigner did indeed speak at the conference, which was public. The fact that Skype was used as a medium to facilitate that doesn't really change anything.

He did not. Some electrons were converted into photons of different frequencies mostly in the human visual spectrum, and some electrons were converted into other frequences in the spectrum that can be converted into a meaning by a human. If I rant against Disney land with the dealt penalty, and the video is later played there, I have not given a speech there.

> Some electrons were converted into photons of different frequencies mostly in the human visual spectrum, and some electrons were converted into other frequences in the spectrum that can be converted into a meaning by a human.

If someone live-streams a keynote and a Q/A session as a part of an event, then the person speaking is obviously participating.

Please note, that I have no problems with remote participation of events. It just happens that our favourite south-east asian police state requires a permit for such events. Our opinions on whether that law is a good one or not has nothing to do with the medium chosen for the event.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#185

Post by kreeWall » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #178

kreeWall wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore once aired a commercial during their National Day Parade about making babies, sponsored by mentos obviously. [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jxU89x78ac

WOW! I never knew this existed. Just sent it to my singaporean friends and they are like "BAHAHAHA OMG I FORGOT ABOUT THIS"

The day they released this was so so funny. and awkward.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#186

Post by ponyfleisch » Tue, Jan 08, 2019, 10:19 AM UTC

cinquemb wrote: post #180

ponyfleisch wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No I worked remote for companies in the US, which was my main willingness to live in SE asia in the first place because salaries here are crap. You can make decent money in Singapore as an expat. But the range of salaries i've seen here is quite a bit larger than in most of the west. As for the rest of your comment - interesting. Thank you for taking the time to write that up. I am no longer a backpacker and i trav…

> But the range of salaries i've seen here is quite a bit larger than in most of the west. I noticed this as well, do you have a college degree? I've noticed companies over here place even more emphasis on having such (even despite paying less than in the US, at least regarding work relating to writing software). > I live in Singapore currently, have been here since 2013. There are things that i miss from my home cou…

I have a bachelor’s degree but i know people without a degree making 130-140k USD anually in software related roles. Not quite SF/Valley rates but it goes a long way here with the low tax rates. And these are relatively young people. (Early thirties)

I visit home about once a year.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#187

Post by uranusjr » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #58

avar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely a de facto dictatorship like this shouldn’t be so wealthy and successful[...] It's also worth noting that the entirety of Singapore just barely exceeds the area enclosed by Washington DC's beltway. Whatever their form of government, small city states are always going to be able to avoid many of the pitfalls of larger countries. There's effectively only one level of government to deal with, and the despot is…

The better comparison for the nation should be Luxembourg, and Andorra, not other Asian countries. > Whatever their form of government, small city states are always going to be able to avoid many of the pitfalls of larger countries. There's effectively only one level of government to deal with, and the despot is always going to live down the road from you and need to use the same public services as you, so you don't…

I can’t say about Kazakhstan, but anecdotally, a lot of Singaporeans I know (not terribly many) are quite satisfied with, even proud of their country, the government, and the Lee family. The activists are the minority, by a wide margin.