Very Sad...God bless !!
Death in Singapore
181–190 of 248 posts
Re: Death in Singapore
#182Very Sad...God bless !!
Re: Death in Singapore
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd describe Singapore strict laws just as effective and strict but in exchange you get a very safe and clean country, no drugs, no garbage, no theft. That's ok with me if (and only if) those laws are not exploited by the government. i don't think this is really the case in Singapore, at least not more then in the U.S. or european countries. Compared to the surrounding countries Singapore is like _the_ safe place and…
You only need draconian laws like that to enforce the things you mentioned if the local population is naturally so uncivilized that they need to be intimated and/or treated like cattle in order to behave. I'm not saying that's what the Singaporeans are like, but it sure seems like their government thinks that's the case. Seriously, if you need some crazy draconian law to make sure people aren't littering everywhere,…
>Seriously, if you need some crazy draconian law to make sure people aren't littering everywhere, then something is very wrong with your people's culture and level of civilization.
And how you change people culture and "level of civilization", by magic?
>In Japan there aren't any laws like that, yet it's safe to say that it is the most civilized country on the planet
Beter to compare to Malaysia (which is way closer to Singapore). Just cross the border and you see the difference.
Re: Death in Singapore
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 don't see how NY is relevant at all. Perhaps this is relevant, though: "With a population of 5 million, Singapore has one of the world's highest per capita execution rates. While official figures are not produced, according to Amnesty International there have been at least 400 executions over the past two decades." - The Guardian , 2010-11-16, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/...
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Re: Death in Singapore
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 don't see how NY is relevant at all. Perhaps this is relevant, though: "With a population of 5 million, Singapore has one of the world's highest per capita execution rates. While official figures are not produced, according to Amnesty International there have been at least 400 executions over the past two decades." - The Guardian , 2010-11-16, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/...
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Re: Death in Singapore
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
The family didn't help either by withholding evidence. They should have created a mirror of the external drive, then handed the original to the police (instead of offering to do it the other way around). This is ridiculous. The Todds lost their son. The police did a desultory job of investigating his death, and the family have the drive only because of how poorly the police secured the scene. On what planet do the To…
Randomly, I got curious on what drive it was, and it may have been a Seagate GoFlex Pro Ultraportable: http://www.seagate.com/sg/en/external-hard-drives/portable-h... (look under the Performance tab) I'm not sure what powers the Singapore police may have, especially since the Todds may already be out of the country, but they certainly didn't have any problems persuading a filmmaker to turn over her phone, laptop and…
Haha, I had just assumed it was one of the thousands of no-brand devices available cheap at Sim Lim Square. It wouldn't be odd not to recognize a drive in whatever cheap plastic case was available: it might actually be a case molded originally for a speaker!
Thanks for the Spuddings link; that is fascinating. I especially appreciated the complaint about non-uniformed vs uniformed police. Due to a quirk of technology adoption around the time I lived in Singapore (i.e. everyone else was already on mobile phones), you could be reasonably certain that every Chinese man in his 40s-50s with sensible shoes and a pager on his belt was plainclothes police. It was amusing to watch them watching, and I can confirm the complaint that they paid more attention to Asian residents on labor visas than to anyone else. You would never see a clutch of skinny Indian guys walking around, without one of the plainclothes guys trailing them by twenty yards.
Re: Death in Singapore
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are exhibiting some insane cognitive dissonance there. Your post is internally inconsistent. Singapore is Disneyland with a death penalty.
It's hard to understand, isn't it? However, I feel the same about where I live... Fiji. We're run by a dictator at present, but you wouldn't know it unless you got involved in anti-government "activities".
Or unless you were a New Zealander who funded the new constitution only to have it thrown away at a cost of millions.
Re: Death in Singapore
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Working in any industry in Pakistan or Nigeria (both #139 on the Corruptions Perceptions Index) is probably going to be more life-threatening than working for the Danish, Finnish, or Kiwi (tied for #1) defence establishments.
Being higher in the corruption perceptions index really means people in that country are consistently better at hiding it, so outsiders perceive it less.
I live in New Zealand and notice corruption here, and way more of it when I go overseas. It is less corrupt here.
Re: Death in Singapore
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've visited Singapore just for a few days, but based on that experiment, the western media is overdoing this Singapore-bashing. I'd strongly suggest to visit the country, or at least get familiar with its history, its surrounding neighbors, theirs relationships, theirs relative cultural and economical differences. After that you will understand them better, and you will realize that its not that black-and-white as t…
You start off by telling us that you've been to Singapore just a few days and go on claiming superior insight into the country's cultural and political landscape. Then you wind up with a trite statement that contains a bunch of vague terms, is free of any meaning, and condescending to boot. You're free to stay in your bubble, too.
After visiting Singapore I've bought Lee Kuan Yew's books and it is really hard to describe his thoughts and point of view in just a few sentences, but at least I have a feel of what and why they did. Since then, I'm following the media coverage of Singapore in the western world, have friends living in Singapore, and based on various observation, I can make my judgment call about what to believe and what not to.
It is not perfect, but if you don't do any of these, and you just rely on the western media, how is it better? If you see the parent of my original post, I don't think it is better in any way.
Re: Death in Singapore
#190I'm amazed at how many elite-school tech types idolize Singapore for some strange reason. I've heard a number of gushing recommendations for the place from the MIT/Harvard set. I personally see it as some kind of horrible sci-fi "Stepford Wives" "smile or die" dystopia... like a yuppie latte-sipping upscale version of North Korea. It makes me thankful for ghettoes and dirt and bums, given the alternative.
This perspective focusses on our cultural preferences, but there Singapore has very liberal immigration policies relative to other rich countries, providing many from more impoverished neighboring countries a route to advancement.
Also note that its human development index is higher than the UK's, so we're talking about a country that, on paper, is extremely good at providing for its residents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Deve...
From an American perspective of course, these things are not impressive: we don't need green cards since we are free to work anywhere in a giant, highly-advanced, not-particularly-repressive society. But from the perspective of someone living in, say, Indonesia, where living standards are very low, the possibility of immigrating Singapore could potentially be a godsend.
Obviously it's shady what happened to the guy in op's article, but it's not like there is some other magical country where nothing bad every happened to anyone.