Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore • Hacker News Board

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#91

Post by andi999 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

xuki wrote: post #88

not_a_moth wrote: post #17

Singapore's population is very conservative, e.g. live with parents until marry, homosexuality is illegal, a lot of pressure against interracial couples (my experience), and essentially a single, dominant media voice. There is a militant approach to education which produces nice test results, but it doesn't produce young entrepreneurs, just conservative careers, helped by statutory hiring quotas. I don't think the Si…

> live with parents until marry This is a culture thing, nothing to do with being conservative/liberal. Renting in Singapore is expensive, therefore people prefer to stay with parents until they can afford to buy their own HDB.

Actually you are not allowed to buy HDB (apart from very special exceptions) if you are not married. So one joke goes how to propose (marriage): you, ... you want to apply for HDB?

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#92

Post by Barrin92 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

accurrent wrote: post #3

Disagree on calling Suzhou Industrial Park a failure. I grew up there and can say that while it may not have attracted the desired profit levels it certainly did have miraculous effect on the people of Suzhou. Wages have sky rocketed (as has property price). It may not have been profitable within 5 years, more than 400 fortune 500 companies had their factories located there in 2014. Suzhou went from a city with two b…

>Disagree on calling Suzhou Industrial Park a failure

Yes. The article also calls out Chandigarh as a 'failed city', but it's one of the highest income regions in India, and one with the cleanest urban environmental footprint. Far from being a failure it seems to have been quite successful.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#93

Post by wenc » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

Wow. This article is one of the most compelling I've read in a while. There's even a bit in there about models and reality with respect to (authoritarian) governance and size, and why simplistic schemata suffer from large errors in larger states:

"Decision-makers must rely on simplified models to make their decisions. All schemata are by nature imperfect representations of reality. Indeed, a scheme that reflected reality perfectly would be cluttered and uninterpretable. The reality is always more complex than the plan. In large countries, the planner is further from ground reality than in tiny city-states. Abstractions and errors inevitably compound as the distance increases."

and on first-principles:

"Ironically, Lee Kuan Yew himself had no patience for other people’s models. In his words, “I am not following any prescription given to me by any theoretician on democracy or whatever. I work from first principles: what will get me there?” If there is a lesson from Singapore’s development it is this: forget grand ideologies and others’ models. There is no replacement for experimentation, independent thought, and ruthless pragmatism."

In that sense, Singapore is like a startup at a country-level.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#94

Post by nickff » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

wenc wrote: post #93

Wow. This article is one of the most compelling I've read in a while. There's even a bit in there about models and reality with respect to (authoritarian) governance and size, and why simplistic schemata suffer from large errors in larger states: "Decision-makers must rely on simplified models to make their decisions. All schemata are by nature imperfect representations of reality. Indeed, a scheme that reflected rea…

You may be interested James C. Scott’s “Seeing Like a State”, which is an excellent book that focuses on these issues.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#95

Post by fareesh » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

I've been all over the world, Singapore is my all-time favourite place to visit. It's too bad that it's so expensive though - especially housing, else I'd seriously consider living there.

If you haven't been, you're missing out

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#96

Post by pydry » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

sugarpile wrote: post #81

baybal2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LKY built an incorruptible government Google Temasik Holdings

Anything specific about it? The PM's wife being CEO is obviously a bit suspect but it would be far more notable if the family was siphoning off money which there are unsaid said things about but never anything explicit which is... frustrating. So many untalked about things with regards to sg.

If Putin's wife ran the largest investment fund in Russia would you consider that only a bit suspect?

If she were siphoning off money she would not be doing it an obvious way and we likely wouldn't hear about it. They have a habit of bankrupting wannabe woodward and Bernsteins and taking large sums of money from foreign news organizations that say the "wrong" thing:

https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/asia/in-singapore-the-economi...

Singapore is definitely good at rooting out low level corruption though.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#97

Post by sunstone » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

xuki wrote: post #19

The article failed to mention 1 important thing: LKY built an incorruptible government. With all the power he had, he could have done so much better for his family if he just tried, but that wouldn't necessarily be good for the country. A lot of countries want to be Singapore, but few have a leader of his caliber.

I once worked with a Malaysian guy who had worked in the Singaporean broadcast company. They managed all radio equipment. He told me the story of one time the radio gear salesman gave the manager a box of chocolates at Christmas. The manager was so nervous about accepting a gift that he insisted that everyone on staff eat at least one of the chocolates.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#98

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #73

hitekker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And there are counterexamples, very big ones at that. Countries where civil service is poorly paid What are the successful countries where civil servants are not compensated fairly?

USA, a big one. Much of Europe for the second place? As for Asia, Taiwanese are quite low despite high bar, South Korean, and Japanese were more or less equal to average white collar job. Malaysia can be though of as a mid income country, and their local government salaries lag behind white collar jobs. China... is a special case

I don't think anyone considers the American civil service to be much of a model for anything.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#99

Post by jjcc » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

xuki wrote: post #19

The article failed to mention 1 important thing: LKY built an incorruptible government. With all the power he had, he could have done so much better for his family if he just tried, but that wouldn't necessarily be good for the country. A lot of countries want to be Singapore, but few have a leader of his caliber.

That's because LKY himself is an incorrptible person. Here you can have an insight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=142FbTYeK7k

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#100

Post by ergocoder » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

wenc wrote: post #93

Wow. This article is one of the most compelling I've read in a while. There's even a bit in there about models and reality with respect to (authoritarian) governance and size, and why simplistic schemata suffer from large errors in larger states: "Decision-makers must rely on simplified models to make their decisions. All schemata are by nature imperfect representations of reality. Indeed, a scheme that reflected rea…

Yes. It's one flaw of democracy.

In a dictatorship, if the leader is great, it will grow like crazy... It's like a startup with great founders.

On the other hand, the problem will come when a hand-off needs to happen.

Singapore is clever enough to keep the democratic process, so it has some decent hand-off process.