Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Disneyland with Death Penalty

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 245 posts

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#111

Post by aidenn0 »

paulpauper wrote: post #76
picodguyo wrote: post #57

Some of you may be too young to remember the context of this. In 1993, an American was sentenced to be caned for what would be considered minor offenses in America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_P._Fay There was a huge media frenzy in the run-up to the punishment. Then he got caned, had a sore bottom, and life went on.

It sounds bad, and it is, until you realize that he was stealing street signs, which is a crime in probably any country, not just Singapore. TBH, who decides to steal street signs in a foreign country? Under the 1966 Vandalism Act, originally passed to curb the spread of political graffiti and which specifically penalized vandalism of government property,[1] Fay was sentenced on March 3, 1994, to four months in jail,…

> It sounds bad, and it is, until you realize that he was stealing street signs, which is a crime in probably any country, not just Singapore. TBH, who decides to steal street signs in a foreign country?

He was living with his mother in Singapore, so while he was a US citizen, he was stealing street signs "at home."

Also vandalism and theft of street signs is certainly quite common in St Louis, where he lived before moving to Singapore.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#112

Post by micromacrofoot »

_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.

In this analogy Disney is the Singaporean government. Disney can not directly enforce the death penalty, Singapore can. So the author wants you to image Singapore as a Disneyland that could directly carry out execution. There is little justice system in-between.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#113

Post by sammalloy »

mc32 wrote: post #59
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 is a benevolent "dictator(ship)". A benevolent dictator, from a most utility PoV is better than random search for good government via imperfect democracy. There is little question that a few countries in Asia benefitted from authoritarianism, some were more kid glovish than others, and obviously some were more violent than others in suppressing dissent. However, they achieved economic success for their people…

> The Philippines are an example where corruption as well as high pop growth dragged down progress. China too, initially was too authoritarian and too ideological

One aspect about this topic that I’ve never seen discussed anywhere, is the bidirectional relationship between countries, such as how authoritarian and corrupt countries export their authoritarianism and corruption to other countries in the same way that the US exports their weapons, capitalism, entertainment, and soft power, but very rarely, if ever, their "freedom", as if that’s the one thing, in spite of the excessive rhetoric, that isn’t fungible.

For an example of what I’m talking about, much of the political chaos and tendency towards authoritarianism in the US that we’ve seen in the post-9/11 era, has been imported from autocratic and authoritarian regimes. From what I’ve read, the first reports of massive online political trolling operations outside of Russia and China were first observed and reported on from the Philippines at the beginning of the Obama admin in the US.

Interviews with regional human rights groups at the time noted that the trolling operations in the Philippines were being used in the same way as repressive regimes in the Middle East had previously used them—to deliberately spread conspiracy theories so as to destabilize the information held by the electorate and to shift the power from independent media sources that provide checks and balances on power to authoritarian regimes which relied on the conspiracy theories to foment confusion and consolidate hegemony.

We saw the same thing occur in the US beginning in 2016, with the rise of Trumpism and its associated conspiracy theories known as QAnon. Was it just a coincidence that their origin point was also the Philippines?

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#114

Post by odiroot »

causi wrote: post #3

Singapore, Gibson details, is lacking any sense of creativity or authenticity, I find it interesting the impression I personally formed of Singapore exactly matches the one Gibson did over a decade earlier. I understand how a particular kind of person could see it as a paradise, but personally I found it the most depressing place on earth.

To me, it would be a true paradise, if it was feasible to rent a (whole) flat as a foreigner.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#115

Post by function_seven »

googlryas wrote: post #47
aemreunal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the example you gave holds. This is how I would characterize that: Blocking someone = not buying Wired magazine so you can't read it yourself Banning someone from the internet = banning Wired magazine so no one can ever read it

Maybe my example was poorly done, but I think it shares the same reasoning flaw that OP had in the original - the belief that a very strong denial is somehow evidence of guilt. I saw similar logic in a COVID thread recently, with someone saying essentially that the lab leak theory must be true, because China is denying it so hard. Well, that's what innocent people do too when they're wrongly accused of something.

> the belief that a very strong denial is somehow evidence of guilt.

That's not the evidence of guilt. They can deny it as often and as strongly as they want. When they instead ban the article in their country, then it's doing the thing they deny they do.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#117

Post by quesera »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #52
systemvoltage wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found phrases like “Food is better in X city than Y”, just silly.

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 truly believe that there should be an exchange program between San Francisco and Boston.

Boston needs a proper taqueria, and San Francisco needs a proper pizzeria.

Boston needs proper Thai food, and San Francisco needs proper ice cream.

Etc.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#118

Post by russellbeattie »

oxfeed65261 wrote: post #2

The 1993 Wired article, by William Gibson: https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/ or https://archive.ph/twY5Y

I wanted to see the original magazine print, but surprisingly, I can't find a single download of any of the 1990s issues anywhere. Archive.org's earliest is from 2000 (below). Seems amazing no one has scanned and shared back issues. If anyone has a link, please share!

https://archive.org/details/wired-2001_02/page/n65/mode/2up

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#120

Post by beisner »

rayiner wrote: post #69
beisner wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, the child didn't consent to being born, and indirectly any suffering a child endures can be traced back to a parent's decision to bring them into the world.

Focusing on the choice of the individual child is a very American way of looking at things. Nobody chooses to be born. So what? The obligation arises out of the relationship between parents, as a category, and children, as a category. Individual choice doesn’t carry nearly as much weight in Asian culture as it does in American culture. Likewise, the notion that obligations can only arise from voluntary and consenting…

Sure; my point is that both perspectives are equally arbitrary. Neither drive me nuts.
Post reply on HN