191–200 of 251 posts
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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.
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It's interesting to see people in the west often lauding Singapore for that and vilifying China if they do the same.
You statement seems like whataboutism, a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit someone else by making an false accusation of hypocrisy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism In truth a common Western position is that China and Singapore are not equivalent because despite its problems, Singapore still commits fewer human rights violations than China. This position is based on extensive research and observati…
Not everyone has political motives! I am also not picking sides for or against anyone, unlike what you seem to want to do and what you are trying to paint me as doing. The world isn't black or white.
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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 tabl…
> 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 diffe…
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.
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 anot…
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?
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> And as for the organs, much of the west ( especially in europe ) take people's organs without their explicit consent (it's called opt-out organ "donation". I feel like equating the forcible harvesting of organs to opt out organ donation is extremely disingenuous.
I have a feeling that "forcible havesting of organs" is just propaganda. I remember hearing about "forcible harvesting of organs" of the falun gong 20 years ago when the west and china were going through a difficult period of china's ascension to the WTO. And once the "difficulties" were overcome, nothing about falun gong and the "organ harvesting". I also remember the propaganda about iraqi soldiers killing babies i…
I have no doubt these countries have done horrible things, but they do not deserve to be invaded and subjected to millions of civilian deaths.
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Not needing to exercise one's power =/= not being in control of things.
In Singapore, it's the prime minister who calls the shots. Period.
But hey, I said what had to be said, and see no point arguing about the formalities. I'll let HN users decide for themselves.
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> And as for the organs, much of the west ( especially in europe ) take people's organs without their explicit consent (it's called opt-out organ "donation". I feel like equating the forcible harvesting of organs to opt out organ donation is extremely disingenuous.
I have a feeling that "forcible havesting of organs" is just propaganda. I remember hearing about "forcible harvesting of organs" of the falun gong 20 years ago when the west and china were going through a difficult period of china's ascension to the WTO. And once the "difficulties" were overcome, nothing about falun gong and the "organ harvesting". I also remember the propaganda about iraqi soldiers killing babies i…
If the PRC wants to be respected, they could publish information and allow journalists in instead of lying.
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yeah, putting people in concentration camp because of their religion does not seem to buy them much credit. Weird.
Most Chinese Muslims are not Uyghur. The Chinese government doesn't care about its citizens being Muslim per se. The issues are actually quite different - separatism and a string terrorist attacks that caused a government crackdown.
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In Singapore, it's the prime minister who calls the shots. Period.
Who's been in charge for 16 years, and who just happens to be a military general and the eldest son of the previous prime minister. But hey, I said what had to be said, and see no point arguing about the formalities. I'll let HN users decide for themselves.
That actually weakens the claim that it's a military dictatorship. If the army is controlled by civilians, its not a military dictatorship. If a person becomes leader of the military due to civilian connections, then it's not a military dictatorship.
A military dictatorship is when a person becomes civilian leader by virtue of their military leadership. If the son of the civilian prime minister first gets to take over the army, it doesn't change the fact that he's fundamentally a civilian and the civilians are controlling - inside and out - the military. It reinforces it. He led the army and the country because of his civilian credentials.
This sounds more like rule by and for a family or a small group of elites.
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> 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.
japan also has something like a 99 percent conviction rate, not sure how that aligns with being anti authoritarian.