121–130 of 132 posts
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Dead people that is what is wrong with it.
Is that your only gripe? In Norway civilians outgun the government 16:1. It's a lot more complicated than simple possession.
Guns in Norway are for hunting and require a license. And far less people own a gun there compared to the US.
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Is that your only gripe? In Norway civilians outgun the government 16:1. It's a lot more complicated than simple possession.
is dead people my only gripe? Surely you cannot be serious. Guns in Norway are for hunting and require a license. And far less people own a gun there compared to the US.
Right now it's pretty crazy though. My American uncle has so many fucking guns that could blow holes in your chest, and I think that's wrong.
> is dead people my only gripe? Surely you cannot be serious.
Drop your attitude. If you have a point, make it. Nobody here is a mind reader.
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I'd say the US has more problems than Singapore... And on the topic of taxes, the tax rate in Singapore is actually much lower than in the US (based on CA; middle class).
why BMWs are on average 4 times more expensive in Singapour than US? Low taxes at work? Need to use public transportation because cars ownership is taxed to hell and back? How came person using bus and not owning a car is considered to have better standard of living?
I honestly don't know why you'd want to have a car there given the crazy costs.
> I describe my time living in Singapore as sterile. Nothing particularly bad happened but it wasn’t particularly good either. Daily life was convenient but it was only the bare minimum of living. I had everything I needed to be comfortable but I didn’t have anything that inspired me. Even though there wasn’t a language barrier, I encountered a hefty communication barrier. In my experience, people were polite but conversations rarely moved past surface-level niceties. Of the conversations that I took part in and overheard, the vast majority of them were about work. I routinely watched people work 15 hours days and stress over strict deadlines. Yes it was living and they were making progress but it wasn’t holistic and people openly admitted to me that it wasn’t fulfilling.
I'm an American who has lived in Singapore for almost nine years, in two very different jobs, in two very different parts of the city-state. Singapore has a lot of challenges, but the oversimplifications and generalisations in this glib article don't do Singapore or Singaporeans any favours. (I've been here long enough that my spell-check is set to British English). Let's take National Service (NS). Dover writes: "af…
gtuckerkellogg, thanks for your posting. I'm curious -- have you learned Mandarin or Malay language during your stay, enough to communicate extensively? It was my experience living in Taiwan for two years that language is a significant requirement for understanding the culture, even when English is commonly spoken among the educated classes. In my opinion, a month really isn't long enough to evaluate a country, even…
After I posted my comment, I read his Life List, his About page, and other parts of his site, and realised that Dover's entire schtick is to promote an utterly self-absorbed worldview, so the lack of perspective is not really about Singapore.
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gtuckerkellogg, thanks for your posting. I'm curious -- have you learned Mandarin or Malay language during your stay, enough to communicate extensively? It was my experience living in Taiwan for two years that language is a significant requirement for understanding the culture, even when English is commonly spoken among the educated classes. In my opinion, a month really isn't long enough to evaluate a country, even…
Obviously, Dover can live where he chooses, and like the places he chooses. I don't begrudge him his preferences. But the shallow armchair-quarterbacking from someone who has clearly made no serious effort to have a substantive experience of a place? That I could do without. After I posted my comment, I read his Life List, his About page, and other parts of his site, and realised that Dover's entire schtick is to pro…
The thing is, after two years as a Westerner in an Asian country, I felt as though I was completely unqualified to judge the people and the country who had so impressed me with their courtesy, grace, and humility.
The longer you stay in a country, the more you realize that it's difficult to generalize. A one week or one month visit confers a certain shallow impression which is easy enough to express. A year or two can dramatically change one's outlook.
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gtuckerkellogg, thanks for your posting. I'm curious -- have you learned Mandarin or Malay language during your stay, enough to communicate extensively? It was my experience living in Taiwan for two years that language is a significant requirement for understanding the culture, even when English is commonly spoken among the educated classes. In my opinion, a month really isn't long enough to evaluate a country, even…
I've learned to speak Mandarin, but not Malay. I can read and write enough to read the Chinese newspaper and sing karaoke. It's helpful: it breaks down a lot of cultural barriers, and makes chatting with cab drivers more fun. It also makes the Singlish more understandable. There's a lot of Singaporean English that borrows from Chinese word order, which in western English sounds harsh even though the Chinese word orde…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
why BMWs are on average 4 times more expensive in Singapour than US? Low taxes at work? Need to use public transportation because cars ownership is taxed to hell and back? How came person using bus and not owning a car is considered to have better standard of living?
Because taxis are cheap and taxing private cars so much cuts down the traffic jams immensely. I'm happier taking the bus in Singapore than I would owning a car in half on the United States.
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Yes, because numbers can measure everything. Congrats on completely missing his point.
A big part of the blog post is about numbers. Congrats on completely missing his point.
I've lived in Singapore. It's actually a pretty amazing country for such small years into existence. There are some shady stuff being done in the name of profit at the expense of its population, but then again so does any country that has high taxes with mediocre added value. This person argues about foreigners - in only to become one henself. Ironyyyyy
henself? Nice swinglish.