111–120 of 248 posts
Wow... that is beyond weird. From what I've read I always thought Singapore was quite the corrupt-free police state.
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> If the men in power decided the death needs to be covered up, that is exactly evidence of corruption - it's just high-level corruption and not low-level. Not if the high-level law permits this kind of thing.
Are you suggesting its legal for corporate intersts to kill people in Singapore (or anywhere)? Think we'll need a citation for that...
What I suggest is that the legal structure of a state might give it the option to approve and perform those things. You'd be surprised how many western countries have also invaded places or killed people for specific corporate interests that coincide with those of the state.
It's not as if they do it for the benefit of some small company. We're talking corporations with the level of influence and budget that's bigger than a lot of countries.
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Absolutely chilling. What are the odds of being hit by a car in Singapore? One would think that, given so few people have them and that there are so few roads large enough to speed down, with the culture being so conservative, drugs near-absent and surveillance omnipresent, that it would be rare indeed; further, it would be trivial to catch the perpetrator. Were they caught in this case? Not, I suppose. It feels as i…
Let's see what the statistics have to say, first for Singapore: "Total pedestrian fatalities dropped from 49 in 2011 to 44 in 2012" [1] Singapores' population is ~5 million[wikipedia], so the odds of being killed by a car for the total population is ~0.00088% For a comparison let's look at NYC, which has roughly double the population within City Limits (~8 million for NYC): "From 2002 to 2006, 843 pedestrians were ki…
I find it odd that the Todd family did not invoke the attention of US gov earlier. They argue that Shane Todd had been anxious and feared for his life for some time before his death. Had that been the case, and Shane Todd was unable to leave Singapore due to his situation, surely the US gov should've been informed of the situation and help transfer Shane back to the US. The US gov would also have had an interest in doing so since Shane Todd had reported to his mother that he was possibly compromising the security of his home land due to his research in Singapore.
Quote2 [“He said he felt he was being asked to compromise American security.”]
Quote1 indicates Shane means to dedicate his life to 'God'(phrased Father) if he survives. I assume that any parent hearing their child stating this would immediately take action as to save the life of their child and thus contact some instance of US gov.
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Does anybody else wonder how an external hard drive could be mistaken as a speaker ? Seems quite improbable to me that police would remove the laptop but not the external hard drive attached to it. Also, once the owner died, how could the laptop continued to make backup of the files inside, enough for them to know that there was an 'attacker' who accessed those files? This suggests that there's some form of automatic…
There's a picture in the article - it's in a dock, almost vertical but leaning back at a slight angle, which makes it look a bit like a speaker. Direct link to the image: http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/bb2e144a-7653-11e2-8e...
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> This is the difference between the west and the east. It is a chasm in philosophy that will never be bridged. The US kills its own citizens without trial using hellfire missiles in drone strikes. So what's the difference?
If you're looking for me to defend the U.S., you're going to be looking for a very, very, very long time. I'm as anti-drone, anti-police state as you will ever find a US citizen. BUUUUUT, I will bite on one thing. How many Americans have been killed by drones? A handful? How many of those were actively fighting for terrorist organizations? All of them. Now I do think it's only a matter of time before the US turns tha…
No, I'm pretty sure he never said that, and I'm almost as sure he doesn't.
Your political opponents are not evil.
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Not trying to invoke Godwin's law, but AFAIK both Stalin and Hitler had police states with rather little corruption; certainly far less corruption than nowadays Russia or mid-Africa.
But those aren't police states at all, Russia and Central Africa. They are very poorly organized and great parts of the countries are lawless. They may have authoritarian governments but those governments have limited authority to enact things. And with Stalin/Hitler, you'd also have to look at the neighboring historical eras. For all you know Germany historically was also very non-corrupt. (not a challenge, if you d…
Doesn't matter, this still refutes the original statement.
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Counter perspective: I used to work in robotics and really the majority of the jobs are in defense or defense related. There are a handful (less now that willow garage is closing down) of robotics companies that do civilian work. Sometimes it is not just about the money.
I don't work in the field I have a degree in. You have to judge these things against your own morals and ethics and decide whether working in your field is actually even a good thing.
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I don't think their laws are necessarily brutal, but their enforcement of those laws is. They view people who break the taboo of law as people who should be handled with the full force of the state. And personally I like drugs.
Ah well, just because you like the "freedom" of doing illegal things and the reassurance that if you're caught there will be virtually no consequences, doesn't make it right. There are people out there that say "And personally i like to beat my wife and kids" and there are societies where this is accepted behaviour. After being in Malaysia and Indonesia i felt very safe in Singapore and had not the impression of a st…
Don't equate smoking marijuana to beating another human being. I've never even tried it, for the record, but I don't see anything wrong with getting high if you want to, as long as you don't cause harm to others.