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Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

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Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#181

Post by Aperocky »

sam_lynx wrote: post #114
leafboi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the world is a super simple place with super simple answers to seemingly complex questions. When I asked my friend which is better authoritarianism or democracy he told me the answer is complicated. I told him to look at the evidence: Almost Every civilization in history: egyptians, romans, greeks, China was more or less some form of authoritarian government. They all failed. Basically every single civiliza…

I think "failed" is subjective, what we should really be looking at is whether they provide for their citizens the best -- which democracy does.

Looking at India/China from 1950 on, it doesn't seem democracy has any game in this.

It's all about economic policy.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#182

Post by pitterpatter »

ZephyrP wrote: post #174
CyberDildonics wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore is not a democracy. They have sham elections where the opposition party is only allowed to have media coverage by the single state run media channel for three weeks before the election. If your neighborhood votes for the opposition party you lose funding for things like public transportation. Lee Kuan Yew lives in a giant, gated, guarded compound in the middle of the most valuable real estate in the city. A…

>> Lee Kuan Yew lives in a giant, gated, guarded compound in the middle of the most valuable real estate in the city Didn't he die the better part of a decade ago?

I wonder if they meant his son, Lee Hsien Loong, the current prime minister.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#183

Post by ValentineC »

sfifs wrote: post #46

0ne of the pieces many articles discussing Singapore miss is actually the quality of the people in the Government officer corps. This i think makes a massive amount of difference in that a lot of what's planned in infrastructure and processes is much better thought out and executed than in other countries. It's the equivalent of the 10X programmer philosophy. This is achieved largely by the government sponsoring the…

> 0ne of the pieces many articles discussing Singapore miss is actually the quality of the people in the Government officer corps. This i think makes a massive amount of difference in that a lot of what's planned in infrastructure and processes is much better thought out and executed than in other countries. It's the equivalent of the 10X programmer philosophy.

> This is achieved largely by the government sponsoring the most promising/brilliant students to study in top Western universities and offering them quite competitive pay packages to join the government.

Some of the scholars, yes. I interacted with some scholars during my university time, and I thought that some of them were, in my opinion, not very smart outside of academics.

There are many in the civil service that perform the bare minimum for their position — it's not easy to get fired from the civil service, and they're content with minimal career progression.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#184

Post by srtjstjsj »

jimmyvalmer wrote: post #72

TL;DR: Gist: Described as SG's "original sin," Lee's detainment without trial of pro-Communist opposition in 1963 paves the way for one-man rule. Lee applies scientific rigor to backwater of Southeast Asia. Theory 1: SG's small geography is uniquely tailored for Lee's centralism. Abstractions collapse and errors get magnified over larger distances (USSR, China, Brazil). Lee and Chinese premiere Jiang Zemin apply SG's…

What appears notable there is that Singapore's leaders used detention not mass murder for political control, unlike most dictators and Communist countries.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#185

Post by ponker »

refurb wrote: post #151
sudosysgen wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US institutions have a huge issue with regulatory capture

Regulatory capture is profiteering off something other that value added. Which US institutions are profiting?

Boeing was, making profits selling unsafe planes.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#186

Post by ValentineC »

fareesh wrote: post #95

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

> It's too bad that it's so expensive though - especially housing, else I'd seriously consider living there.

Housing isn't too bad. My friends are paying around $600 USD for a room, and I think the market rate is around $800 USD for en-suite.

It's even cheaper if you live in one of the newer estates, which don't yet have a major shopping mall within walking distance.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#187

Post by Aunche »

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…

Only more authoritarian leaders can get away with pure pragmatism. Singapore easily destroy an old low density housing, and replace it with high density housing. In construction gets postponed can get delayed for years because a renter refuses to leave.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#188

Post by finolex1 »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #170
nicholasluimy wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if that's a fair judgement - It seems particularly endemic that it's almost a meme/stereotype in itself in Singapore; that all cab drivers are discontent with the government

Singapore is not a democracy. They have sham elections where the opposition party is only allowed to have media coverage by the single state run media channel for three weeks before the election. If your neighborhood votes for the opposition party you lose funding for things like public transportation. Lee Kuan Yew lives in a giant, gated, guarded compound in the middle of the most valuable real estate in the city. A…

As always, the truth is somewhere in between what you say and what the government portrays. 38 Oxley Road was owned by the Lees since the 1940s, well before any of them came into power, and well before property prices in Singapore exploded to the level they have now. It is also a stretch to call it "giant" or the "most valuable" piece of real estate, when there are hundreds of bigger houses in the nation. The number of "guards" is also comparable to the state leaders of any other European country, and certainly pales in comparison to the US or some dictatorial nations.

There is some bias in state media coverage, but that is fast becoming irrelevant when the main source of news for people nowadays is social media. Criticizing the government is not a crime, and people regularly do it - one only has to go to the Facebook comments section of the state newspaper to take a look. Making a factually false statement and then gaining significant fame could get a lawsuit filed against you - so tread lightly when making big claims that you have no proof for.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#189

Post by ekianjo »

dav43 wrote: post #74
ekianjo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of non-residents are actually going there for a better pay in the first place.

I guess it raises the question - in the instance of say FDW (Foreign domestic workers, who live with a number of families in Singapore) - just because it’s legal, does it make it right? I don’t know. Majority of maids live in 1.5m x 1.7m rooms, get paid ~450USD a month (anecdotal guess), are female and see their own kids for maybe two weeks a year, work 6 if not 7 days a week. Is that a society we should aspire to?

> Is that a society we should aspire to?

Let people decide for themselves what is best for themselves. We are not in the position to judge what is good/appropriate for everyone.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#190

Post by ekianjo »

objektif wrote: post #80
postingawayonhn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's lots of low hanging fruit in terms of infrastructure, education, technology, etc. You don't really need to innovate, you can just copy other successful countries.

Tell that to like almost all the countries in the world.

Many countries in the world are growing at a fast pace right now - there's less poverty that there was ever been.
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