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Disneyland with Death Penalty

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Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#81

Post by s1artibartfast »

nireyal wrote: post #18

There’s much to love about Singapore if you understand, or are willing to learn, Asian culture. It’s more collectivist than individualistic and while that certainly comes with trade offs, it has many benefits. I’ve lived here for almost 3 years and it feels like living in the future. No where is perfect but the quality of life here is amazing. The people I know who don’t like it are almost always white folks who don’…

I think it really depends on what you like in a location. Like Gibson stated:

>Singapore's destiny will be to become nothing more than a smug, neo-Swiss enclave of order and prosperity, amid a sea of unthinkable ... weirdness.

There is a lot to like in a "neo-Swiss enclave of order and prosperity".

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#82

Post by bnralt »

I personally found Singapore charming when I was there. It's a fascinating mix of several different cultures who all seem to retained many of their traditional customs. I never understood the sterile critique myself, the city never struck me as such.

Gibson's main critique, from what I can tell, is the lack of much of a counterculture similar to what you'd find in the U.S. allied-bloc (Europe, U.S., Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand), combined with wealth and modernity that you would find in such countries. He compares it to America in the 1950's. I can't help but think there's an underlying prejudice in the way he and others think countries should develop, where as they get richer they should be more like rich countries he's used to (ironically enough, the problem for many seems to be that Singapore _isn't_ the same as the other developed nations they're used to).

Though he does praise the food at the hawker centers, which I can at least agree with (and which are far away from any idea of sterile and boring).

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#83

Post by CobrastanJorji »

googlryas wrote: post #31
jonathaneunice wrote: post #14

The government banning _Wired_ because it contained a critical article immediately confirms so much of the criticism.

Quoted post unavailable.

The difference, of course, is that in your metaphor the reaction is not related to the critique.

If I created a website called "Singapore Loves Shooting Critics" and Singapore responded by shooting me, that would be seen as confirmation of the critique.

If I created a website called "Singapore Loves Square Dancing" and Singapore responded by shooting me, that would be an overreaction but not one that related to the criticism.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#84

Post by wizofaus »

function_seven wrote: post #64
_dain_ wrote: post #17

The real Disneyland also has the death penalty, since it is located in the state of California. Disneyworld likewise, since it is in Florida.

Technically, yeah. But not really. In the last 30 years, Singapore has executed more than 400 people (Wikipedia has stats for 470, but is also missing the counts for many years.) Most for drug offenses. In the same time-frame, California has executed 13 people. And none in the last 16 years, and none for drug offenses.

California also has 7 times the population of Singapore. None of which invalidates the fact that California does, in fact, have the death penalty, in marked contrast to most of the Western world.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#85

Post by rayiner »

pydry wrote: post #56
rayiner wrote: post #27

As 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,…

The key features that made it fantastically rich were sitting on one of the world's most strategically located ports, building a lot of soviet style housing and a leader with nowhere to run. Being a city state means it's hard to hide when things get ugly. Having capitals far away from citizenry, on the other hand - like in myanmar or brazil, makes it easy to be corrupt. This is a well studied phenomenon. Lee Kuan Yew…

Ascribing Singapore’s wealth to its location as a strategic port is more than a bit odd, considering its always been where it is, but hasn’t been rich this whole time. In classical times Chittagong, the port city where my dad went to college, was one of the most important ports in the world. But that didn’t prevent Bangladesh from being one of the poorest countries in the world in modern times. Clearly there is more at work.

The geography of Singapore gets thrown around a lot to detract from how much Lee Kuan Yew’s deliberate decisions made Singapore what it is today. Which is a shame because that makes it hard for other developing countries to learn from Singapore’s example.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#87

Post by wizofaus »

olah_1 wrote: post #25

Ive heard Singapore cited as the one instance where multi-culturalism actually works. The catch being that you need a police state to enforce the norms on everyone. And you enforce it equally.

Define "works"? I'd suggest the vast majority of those in my own city (a state capital in Australia) would agree that multi-culturalism is a positive and key feature. We briefly experienced something close to a police state during the covid lockdowns of the previous two years but you could hardly call it that normally.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#89

Post by notahacker »

sigstoat wrote: post #63
zugi wrote: post #51

I don't have word count tool on my phone, but does it strike others as strange that there's a 1000+ word wikipedia page about a 4,500-word article?

the declaration of independence is ~1300 words. a half-assed attempt at counting the words in the article (minus of the copy of the declaration that it contains) comes up with about ~10900 words. is that strange? what ratio isn't strange?

tbf the Declaration of Independence was a nation-defining historical event, a collaboration involving a lot of people, and text which has shaped a couple of centuries of American law.

Disneyland with the Death Penalty is a pretty self-explanatory magazine article which has somehow ended up with a more detailed summary than many of Gibson's novels. Only on Wikipedia would that sort of prioritisation be normal.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#90

Post by pydry »

rayiner wrote: post #85
pydry wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key features that made it fantastically rich were sitting on one of the world's most strategically located ports, building a lot of soviet style housing and a leader with nowhere to run. Being a city state means it's hard to hide when things get ugly. Having capitals far away from citizenry, on the other hand - like in myanmar or brazil, makes it easy to be corrupt. This is a well studied phenomenon. Lee Kuan Yew…

Ascribing Singapore’s wealth to its location as a strategic port is more than a bit odd, considering its always been where it is, but hasn’t been rich this whole time. In classical times Chittagong, the port city where my dad went to college, was one of the most important ports in the world. But that didn’t prevent Bangladesh from being one of the poorest countries in the world in modern times. Clearly there is more…

It was rich while the British ran the place and they founded the city coz its a good place for a port. The locals just didnt see much of that wealth.

I find the geography doesnt really get thrown around a lot. Lee Kuan Yew's boasts that the city became rich despite "no natural resources" does though, which i find to be misleading.

There is obviously more to the story than just the port but it's important to understand the inbuilt advantages the city did have given the obvious incentive to "replicate" what happened, especially when the story told by the island's cult of personality was so keen to downplay them in favor of his genius leadership and the grit and determination of the people.

(I say cult of personality because I queued up to see his dead body lying in state... and the experience with him, mao, kim jong il and kim il sung wasnt all that different)

Most of the economic development was critically dependent upon the port and its status as a transshipment hub at a global crossroads. Getting Shell to build a refinery in cape town or bhutan would have been a lot harder.

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