Singapore Government Tech Stack • Hacker News Board

Re: Singapore Government Tech Stack

#41

Post by daqhris » Sat, May 07, 2022, 8:21 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #24

We have something similar to this in Antwerp, Belgium. Most of our solutions are built on top of a kubernetes-powered microservices platform, with an API-first design approach. It is called the Antwerp City Platform as a Service ( https://acpaas.digipolis.be ). To ensure technological consistency we have a Digipolis Antwerp Application Stack, which is the technological foundation for new projects. https://docs.google…

Hey Joeri, thank you! I've previously lived in the Antwerp province.

The whole time of my stay, I was in love with the city's visual identity (posters, website,..) and the effectiveness of digital services across the administration offices, public institutions and media centers. It's the one city in Belgium taking advantage, in the best way, of digital infrastructure and modern tech.

Nowadays I'm living in the Ardennes (Bastogne) where I can see a huge gap (compared to Antwerp) in Internet services and tech investments. I'm grateful to the people at Digipolis and the city offices taking visionary steps in fostering the local tech scene and building beautiful interfaces/apps.

Re: Singapore Government Tech Stack

#42

Post by jolux » Sat, May 07, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #38

xeromal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite comment. Let's ignore any valid criticism and complain about something else instead.

The unfortunate reality is a lot of people post comments like GP but do so reflexively to deride non-US governments then play defense for posts critical of the US. Some do it for China, and so on. It would help in general if people are reasonably (emphasis on reasonably) skeptical of all states.

Let’s not pretend that China’s laws and norms are comparable to those of the US here, though. Yes, it’s reasonable to be skeptical of all states, but there’s definitely a difference of degree in state overreach.

Re: Singapore Government Tech Stack

#43

Post by mxuribe » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

vira28 wrote: post #8

Is there something similar to US Government.

I'm sure there might be because several years ago the U.S. created the U.S. Digital Service with the premise being recruiting professionals (yeah mostly from corporate but not only) to spend time in the government and help modernize many of its aspects and offerings...for the benefit of the citizens, etc. Here's one example of their playbooks: https://playbook.cio.gov/

...While not exactly like the Singapore page linked in this post, alot of the intent with the USDS - as i understand it - is alos to be quite transparent with the hope of any other government agencies/orgs such as state/province level, city level, etc. benefiting from their ideas and hopefully broadening the benefit at all levels. Here is the main site, but of course (as the above playbook link denotes), there are plenty of other related sites that might help better answer your question: https://www.usds.gov/mission

Re: Singapore Government Tech Stack

#44

Post by whimsicalism » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

2143 wrote: post #35

djtango wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer to think of it as what politics and society gained. It was pretty clear that most politicians, let alone leaders, didn't know what "exponential" meant over the pandemic. At a time where technological advance has vastly outpaced politics (Joe Biden was around 65 when the first iphone came out) I think it's quite remarkable to have a Maths-CS major heading up a (small) nation.

> most politicians, let alone leaders, didn't know what "exponential" meant over the pandemic. Maybe they did and chose to ignore it. Lots of countries (including but not limited to the USA) have people with high credentials at the helm. Or they have advisors with high credentials close by. > I think it's quite remarkable to have a Maths-CS Math never gets old. > a (small) nation They may be small, but they definitel…

The qualifications of most people in politics are not nearly as good in the US.

In the US, the private sector eats the public sector and leaves very few high quality candidates behind.

Re: Singapore Government Tech Stack

#45

Post by theteapot » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #38

xeromal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite comment. Let's ignore any valid criticism and complain about something else instead.

The unfortunate reality is a lot of people post comments like GP but do so reflexively to deride non-US governments then play defense for posts critical of the US. Some do it for China, and so on. It would help in general if people are reasonably (emphasis on reasonably) skeptical of all states.

I think the point was, we can't use the fact US (or China, or state X) is a corrupt basket case to lazily dismiss any valid criticism here. That's like dismissing the teachers criticism of an A grade student's English Literature exam question by saying "Yeah well, Ralph's answer was 'boobs'". Ralph exists. The A grade student wants to improve. These are separate concerns.

Re: Singapore Government Tech Stack

#46

Post by javajosh » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

davesque wrote: post #28

javajosh wrote: post #7

This looks impressive, and something we (America) should copy. Man, I can't help wishing that if we had to have a dictator why couldn't it be someone (mostly) reasonable like Lee Kwan Yew.

I understand the sentiment, and I don't think you were probably being serious, but, for the sake of conversation, I think the issue with dictatorships is eventually with stability. The allure of that much power in a single position leads to the wrong kind of people talking it. Actually, when we frame things that way, it almost makes me feel like democracy is primarily designed to provide a certain amount of slowness…

It's nice to get the benefit of the doubt, and I'm tempted to let it remain, but let me clarify: I'm serious. I was impressed with Lee Kwan Yew's "From Third World to First" and it seemed to me he wasn't bashful about talking about the times he made an illiberal, dictator move. Both from the outcome and his telling, he made these moves as rarely as possible and didn't relish them. And he did smart things like rewarding government officials extremely well so that they would be (relatively) immune to bribery. I'm sure there are other examples of good leadership from the seat of absolute monarchy, even if we mainly focus on the bad ones in history class. FDR's wartime leadership comes to mind (people seem to forget how illiberal American government was during the war - and it was surely effective).

In all cases, the key to success with illiberal government seems to be self-restraint. When the war ends, you give up power. Or in general, when the object is achieved, you give up power. I've not followed Singapore's timeline since I read the book, so maybe they've backslid? Maybe its a psuedo monarchy run my Yew's ancestors? If so, that's a failure. Hopefully they can figure out how to pick leaders in a rational way - like an aptitude test.

Re: Singapore Government Tech Stack

#47

Post by javajosh » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:03 PM UTC

dontreact wrote: post #15

decafninja wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel dictators/autocrats come in two flavors. The first genuinely feel they know what is best for the country and how to best govern it. They might still enrich themselves and their cronies in the process of course. The second are primarily out to enrich themselves and their cronies. The country exists to support this selfish goal. Of course this is not black and white, but rather a spectrum but various historical…

And history repeatedly shows that even if you get a dictator of the first kind, it’s an unstable equilibrium of a system that eventually leads to a dictator of the second kind.

Yes, but it's not always true - see cousin comment. There are examples of actually good dictators in history - but my back of the envelope estimate is that its like 1 in 20.

Re: Singapore Government Tech Stack

#48

Post by pphysch » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:05 PM UTC

jolux wrote: post #42

noobermin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfortunate reality is a lot of people post comments like GP but do so reflexively to deride non-US governments then play defense for posts critical of the US. Some do it for China, and so on. It would help in general if people are reasonably (emphasis on reasonably) skeptical of all states.

Let’s not pretend that China’s laws and norms are comparable to those of the US here, though. Yes, it’s reasonable to be skeptical of all states, but there’s definitely a difference of degree in state overreach.

Simply not true. For every (actual, not just FLG disinfo) overreach of Beijing you can find one for Washington

You are more likely to be permanently incarcerated in America than China

Re: Singapore Government Tech Stack

#49

Post by skissane » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #7

This looks impressive, and something we (America) should copy. Man, I can't help wishing that if we had to have a dictator why couldn't it be someone (mostly) reasonable like Lee Kwan Yew.

Just over a week ago, Singapore executed by hanging an intellectually disabled Malaysian man (of Indian descent), Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam. His crime? He was caught trying to import heroin – I think it very likely the traffickers exploited his intellectual disability in order to talk him into becoming a drug mule.

In this regard, Singapore is a rather extreme outlier among developed countries – few of which retain the death penalty, and those which do largely restrict it in practice to murder. William Gibson's famous phrase, "Disneyland with the Death Penalty", is as true as it ever was.

So yeah, Lee Hsien Loong seems like a cool guy – wow, a Prime Minister who can write C++. But, remember Nagaenthran, and realise he's not actually cool at all, he's actually a rather terrible human being. Whatever the Prime Minister's formal role in decisions about executions, I don't think anyone doubts that he had the political influence (even if quietly, behind the scenes) to stop it going ahead, if he had wanted to.

Re: Singapore Government Tech Stack

#50

Post by srazzaque » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:47 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #44

2143 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most politicians, let alone leaders, didn't know what "exponential" meant over the pandemic. Maybe they did and chose to ignore it. Lots of countries (including but not limited to the USA) have people with high credentials at the helm. Or they have advisors with high credentials close by. > I think it's quite remarkable to have a Maths-CS Math never gets old. > a (small) nation They may be small, but they definitel…

The qualifications of most people in politics are not nearly as good in the US. In the US, the private sector eats the public sector and leaves very few high quality candidates behind.

I believe that's precisely why the SG government choose to pay extremely well. They gain candidates with great credentials that otherwise will have gone to the private sector.

Also, having well compensated staff makes the ranks less susceptible to corruption and bribery.