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Disneyland with Death Penalty

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Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#191

Post by notahacker »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #153
deltree7 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I once knew a penpal who grew up in Singapore. They shared with me how frustrating the repressive cultural norms and strict speech / sexuality laws were. It interfered with basic social trust... Like they couldn't be sure if their friends were gonna out them intentionally or unintentionally for something. I got the feeling they felt safe to vent to me and took the chance to do so. None of this is to say the US doesn'…

I think one also has to be wary about conflating fear of the government and fear of reaction from their family in a socially conservative society (and Singapore is, whilst certainly less conservative than much of Asia and rarely overt in its homophobia like large minorities in much of the West, a country where more than half the population disapprove of homosexuality). I certainly heard no shortage of worries about outing from people growing up in certain parts of the USA.

The Singaporean government's position is illiberal and weirdly contorted on homosexuality (the longstanding and repeatedly reaffirmed policy has been don't remove or enforce the old colonial ban on it, and permit pride events in specific areas) but ironically the reason it hasn't liberalised it yet is because it's afraid of public backlash rather than out of desire to impose behavioural rules on the population.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#192

Post by Fatnino »

babypuncher wrote: post #176

> Singapore, Gibson details, is lacking any sense of creativity or authenticity, absent of any indication of its history or underground culture. Gibson ascribes this to the fairly authoritarian nature of the Singapore government, but I think a much bigger contributor to this feeling is simply the age of everything there. I think the "culprit" is the fact that they experienced a tremendous amount of growth and socio-e…

It's the same with the tract housing that sprouted up all over the bay area in the 50s. It's basically all the same crap but it's had 70 years to get a little bit of variety sprinkled on top, so not quite as eyesearingly identical as more recent cookie cutter neighborhoods.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#193

Post by rayiner »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #175
rayiner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not an assumption, but a conclusion based on the evidence. I’m not aware of any Asian, African, or middle eastern country where freedom and democracy led to prosperity. There’s lots of democracies in these places that haven’t been able to translate that into prosperity. On the flip side, China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore are all examples where authoritarian rule has led to prosperity. I’d include Bangladesh the…

Authoritarianism led Japan into a war which utterly destroyed its economy. I'm not sure you can count that as a win for the jackboot.

The barriers to development is not how much wealth the society has currently, but the the absence of the underlying social and economic infrastructure that makes growth possible. Germany was ability to rebound from two wars that destroyed its economy while numerous other countries languish.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#194

Post by ncmncm »

yieldcrv wrote: post #94
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I take it you've never been to Boston. A friend of a friend often quips that the best way to get good Mexican in Boston is to go to Logan and fly almost anywhere else.

I love to dunk on Boston. Mediocre place with such an inflated sense of relevance. I feel like nobody would notice or care if so many aspects of Boston and people from there didn't think people cared.

It has more colleges and hospital systems than other places.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#195

Post by ncmncm »

pydry wrote: post #26
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’…

3 years was about how long it took me to really loathe the place. There was an excessive deference towards authority (derived from confucianism, i think) that rubbed me up the wrong way and a definite streak of selfishness/uncaringness that permeated the culture. Also that shallow vapid wealth-worshipping thing that "crazy rich asians" captured so accurately. I remember the way foreign workers were treated was just b…

Little America.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#196

Post by mbg721 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #81
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".

"Switzerland - it's like Singapore, but with mountains, guns, and lots and lots of cheese!"

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#197

Post by hnick »

deltree7 wrote: post #137
bnralt wrote: post #82

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, So…

Singapore's criticism will always come from 'White Educated Liberals'. If you are earning a comfortable 6 figure salary in a developed nation, living in an extremely safe neighborhood with access to great education and healthcare, you kind assume all those things are easy and the only thing that matters is food/music diversity and counter-culture. For the rest of 7,950,000,000 people on earth, any country that provid…

That's a bit much. I know more than a few Singaporeans who left for Australia for university and never went back. Some started families here and didn't consider taking their kids back for schooling.

I wouldn't say freedom was high on any of their lists explicitly, but they talk about things like the casual culture and work life balance that are all related to it. The arts also aren't high on their list, but a few of them had some things to say when Singapore Idol was being advertised back in the day. They didn't think they'd find a single decent singer due to their country's lack of investment or respect for the arts which was ingrained in them from their schooling. It was a running joke for a while.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#198

Post by rayiner »

zenogantner wrote: post #178
rayiner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not an assumption, but a conclusion based on the evidence. I’m not aware of any Asian, African, or middle eastern country where freedom and democracy led to prosperity. There’s lots of democracies in these places that haven’t been able to translate that into prosperity. On the flip side, China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore are all examples where authoritarian rule has led to prosperity. I’d include Bangladesh the…

Hong Kong had what one could call a starting position comparable to Singapore after WWII and managed to become prosperous with arguably more liberal policies -- until the handover to the PRC -- and came out prosperous, too. Is Hong Kong now more prosperous, after it moved to authoritarian rule? What are your criteria for "authoritarian", that you count Japan among authoritarian countries? What is your evidence that t…

Hong Kong was a colony where all significant decisions were made by a European power. (Which imposed economic, legal, and political systems that it developed during a monarchy.)

Yeah people had personal freedom, but they couldn’t do anything with it.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#199

Post by hnick »

pydry wrote: post #16
causi wrote: post #11

Earlier 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.

>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…

Even if it's non-slavery, the maids do not get paid a lot and have to work quite a bit depending where they end up. No real private space and your "room" is a sleeping mat on the floor in the laundry next to the kitchen so you can be easily found. And they aren't expensive - if you can feed them and have a spare room, their pay is only around $600 per month. If that was the reality in Australia nearly every middle class family could afford one.

A couple more things I've noticed on my visits. Trucks and work vans allow people to ride in the back unsecured. They'd never let real citizens do that in their safer cars.

The airport had an entire separate processing line for the plane from Bangladesh one time when I visited.

I once arrived late at night when the newer terminal was being finished, and leaving the carpark saw rows and rows of shoes. The workers were all sleeping under the carpark exit ramp in the open air.

Those dorms mentioned caused some issues when COVID ripped through recently too.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#200

Post by JetAlone »

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.

I wouldn't call that "working" multi-culturalism. Equally enforced norms amount to a monoculture, a new culture spackled over the peoples' former culture. It'll inconvenience different groups and individuals unequally, and over time it will stamp out their unique identities because in practice, everything you think and believe and then actually follow comes from the governmental authority.
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