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Disneyland with Death Penalty

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Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#181

Post by systemvoltage »

foodslave wrote: post #43
systemvoltage wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I wish you weren’t being downed and the parent extrapolated. It’s a very subjective critique… I live in a foodie city and am long tired of overpriced sandwiches splashed with an aioli served for a cool $20, no drink no side. Went to a no name city for hiking and found a nice hole in the wall shop with great food at a quarter the price and found my kind of foodie.

Well, the problem with these sweeping statements is that there zero objectivity. There is no way to discuss or learn anything about it. There is no way to falsify it.

I could make the most easiest case that Singapore has better food than Dubai. Just because I said so.

I find them silly and not very useful.

Similarly, "I had the best ramen at this place" or "For authentic X food, you have to visit X" or "City X has the worst drivers" (Literally everyone says that about their city).

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#182

Post by babypuncher »

bergenty wrote: post #168
deltree7 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So your argument is authoritarianism is better than abject poverty? A lot of the world lives there but when people get to a certain standard of living everyone still wants the basics that America offers.

Every government is authoritarian to some extent. The question is how much liberty are you willing to give up in exchange for long-term stability and comfort?

To me, absolute liberty seems to be just as wrong of an answer as absolute authoritarianism.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#183

Post by vkou »

abigail95 wrote: post #116

I would live in Singapore full time if it wasn't so fucking hot. How can they have such prosperity with such a low tax rate and no natural resources?

> How can they have such prosperity with such a low tax rate and no natural resources?

Cheap foreign labour, long work hours, and a strategically important location.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#184

Post by s1artibartfast »

12many wrote: post #108
s1artibartfast wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I read this and think "who cares?" I'm not sure what you were expecting or what what angle you were approaching this article from. There's more to life than economics and politics. I thought it was an interesting piece of history (especially as a Gibson fan) and also thought provoking aesthetic critique.

If you read his comment a little further you'll see his point... "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"... to spell it out for you, he's saying no one from the once third world cares what Gibson thinks of Singapore because if you haven't lived 3rd world you don't understand the greatness that com…

But I don't think the criticism was ever about economic development, or hell, even general happiness in Singapore.

Gibson even said "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."

It was a commentary on culture and human behavior, an orthogonal topic.

He wasn't suggesting Singapore sacrifice economics for culture, or as far as I can tell, making any suggestion at all.

It is weird that so many people conflate the topics, as if art, history, and as Gibson would put it "weirdness" are inherently in conflict with material prosperity.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#185

Post by inopinatus »

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…

Sorry, this crass and trivially rebutted generalisation wasn't quite sweeping or divisive enough. Would you mind turning up the gratuitous dogma next time? Parochial culture warriors of all creeds will feed gratefully on the hyperbole.

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#186

Post by poundtown »

asiachick wrote: post #73

I find this to be some of the most racist shit I've ever read. Gees I can't believe the comments here. Singapore is one of the safest countries in the world. When I've brought up how much I like Singapore someone always retorts "Oh, that place where you get arrested for walking down the sidewalk and chewing gum" to which I also respond "Well, I could be in the USA where I get walk down the sidewalk and get mugged" Si…

thank you

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#188

Post by 8bitsrule »

projectazorian wrote: post #141
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…

> I can't help but think there's an underlying prejudice in the way he and others think countries should develop, where as they get richer they should be more like rich countries he's used to (ironically enough, the problem for many seems to be that Singapore _isn't_ the same as the other developed nations they're used to). Gibson didn't look hard enough; there was definitely counterculture in Singapore at the time h…

I've personally noticed that multiple US cities have (conveniently?) removed 'room for the arts'/counterculture slowly and almost imperceptibly since the 1980s. Easily-affordable housing (for creatives and low-income students) and storefronts (for their works, performances, and socializing) have been (carelessly? carefully?) shoved aside for more gentrified concerns. Individualized 'cafes' have been 'Starbucked'. The 'unifying conformancy' is never matched by unified rights or incomes.

Non-journalist Gibson smelled the 'trend' early. It is also visible in videos which wander 'developed' world city streets. Space for inscrutable (nothing to say) welded sculptures/'child-like' murals always seems to be found. And space for 'approved' historic cultures. But not for an underground press, nor for non-violent protest, nor for authentic graffiti. Not nearly as total, then, but somewhat like North Korea, the land of identical choices.

Edit: "Through the policing of all these scales, moral geographies contribute to the construction of desired "Singaporean" identities."

( Singapore Lily on "Music and moral geographies: Constructions of "nation" and identity in Singapore" [https://www.jstor.org/stable/41148026])

Re: Disneyland with Death Penalty

#190

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]
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