I remember this best as the essay in which Gibson compares Singapore to the burbclaves from Snow Crash, which struck me as the literary equivalent of when a band plays the Weird Al spoof of their own song. (Don McLean and Barenaked Ladies are known to have done this.)
Disneyland with Death Penalty
41–50 of 245 posts
Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty
#42Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kind of depends. It's more sterile. Dubai you get the impression they generally care about you having a good time, at least if you're Western. Singapore they care about you looking like you're having a good time. Singapore doesn't have the de facto slavery problem of the Emirates, though. Food is definitely better in Dubai.
I always found phrases like “Food is better in X city than Y”, just silly.
I wish you weren’t being downed and the parent extrapolated.
It’s a very subjective critique… I live in a foodie city and am long tired of overpriced sandwiches splashed with an aioli served for a cool $20, no drink no side.
Went to a no name city for hiking and found a nice hole in the wall shop with great food at a quarter the price and found my kind of foodie.
Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you give some examples of Asian norms?
No chewing gum in public among other things.
that is NOT an asian norm ...
Google "chinese spitting" [1] and then extrapolate form there.
[1] f.x.: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-22184499
Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Singapore doesn't have the de facto slavery problem of the Emirates It kind of does. They import Bangladeshi construction workers to build all the glitzy skyscrapers and infrastructure and shove them in dorms 16 to a room. Im not sure if they confiscate their passports or not like in Dubai but i think they still do those contracts where they have to pay an agent and work off their debts. A fair number die because of…
Bangladeshis are low-status migrant workers all over Asia and the Middle East, and deal with the poor working conditions that come with that. And they're often targets of racism, because racism isn't as taboo outside the western world. But the situation in the Emirates/Qatar/etc is completely different than Singapore. Unless you're taking the tack that "all capitalism is de facto slavery" or something like that, the…
It's not completely different. The whole thing where they put them in debt, stuff them in dormitories, keep them on a tight leash, work them half to death, neglect health and safety and neglect them medically when theyre injured is the same in both countries.
In dubai/qatar they just do it more and worse and also like to confiscate their passports (although technically thats illegal now...).
Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty
#46These kinds of places are way too creepy/cringey for me. Grew up in such a culture, putting authority on a pedestal and doing as you're told is childish behavior and frankly boring. It also leads to people having tons of pent up/stored ego that makes it impossible to rationally deal with them when they just expect you to do as you're told or accept their bad ideas.
I much prefer being somewhere that has everything- grimey to super nice and flashy. Makes life more interesting and there are more opportunities.
Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
I don't think the example you gave holds. This is how I would characterize that: Blocking someone = not buying Wired magazine so you can't read it yourself Banning someone from the internet = banning Wired magazine so no one can ever read it
Maybe my example was poorly done, but I think it shares the same reasoning flaw that OP had in the original - the belief that a very strong denial is somehow evidence of guilt. I saw similar logic in a COVID thread recently, with someone saying essentially that the lab leak theory must be true, because China is denying it so hard. Well, that's what innocent people do too when they're wrongly accused of something.
Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty
#48Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty
#49As someone from Bangladesh, I read this and think "who cares?" In 1960 Singapore was a poor third world country. Today it's as rich as the US. You cannot understand how significant such a change is to the people of the country unless you've lived in a third world country and really seen what it's like. Whatever draconian measures it took to get there, they were worth it. Fareed Zakaria's interview with Lee Kuan Yew,…
>multiculturalism
unfortunately that word more and more means "your universal human rights don't apply here". Many cultures across the world are decades and even centuries behind when it comes to human rights. The naturally authoritarian regimes there are usually don't care that much about the culture and only using that word to protect their power as the societal move forward to progress threatens that power. Among the most glaring examples these days - traditionalist/conservative Russia using tremendous violence trying to reign in the Ukrainian people's move to progress with Russia being one of the leaders today in the use of "multiculturalism" as a guise to cover its violence.
Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
No chewing gum in public among other things.
that is NOT an asian norm ... Google "chinese spitting" [1] and then extrapolate form there. [1] f.x.: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-22184499