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Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

marginalrevolution.com

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Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#221

Post by lazide »

JCattheATM wrote: post #206
shell0x wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, for most part. SG has a zero tolerance policy. I do think the death penalty for drugs is reasonable. Drug dealers destroy families and communities for their own profit. The arrival card in Singapore literally states that smuggling drugs is punishable by death. If you still attempt, that sounds like a “you” problem. Also the punishment for vandalism or rape sounds reasonable. The treatment of foreign construction…

> I do think the death penalty for drugs is reasonable. Well, it's not. It's barbaric and primitive. A warning is no justification.

Ah, ‘tolerance’.

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#223

Post by allarm »

acoard wrote: post #212
JCattheATM wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think the death penalty for drugs is reasonable. Well, it's not. It's barbaric and primitive. A warning is no justification.

Executing people guilty of serious crimes is good and just. They should have a proper trial, and the crimes should be sufficiently serious, but execution is no more or less "barbaric" than the alternatives. As Adam Smith said, "mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."

> execution is no more or less "barbaric" than the alternatives.

You'll need to put more thought into it. Imagine your kid traveling somewhere, smoking pot, flying back to Singapore, getting randomly checked and facing consequences.

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#224

Post by JCattheATM »

lazide wrote: post #221
JCattheATM wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think the death penalty for drugs is reasonable. Well, it's not. It's barbaric and primitive. A warning is no justification.

Ah, ‘tolerance’.

I have no tolerance for blatantly unethical activities, things or people.

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#227

Post by huhkerrf »

shell0x wrote: post #180
huhkerrf wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange that you mention the religious part of UAE making you uneasy, and not the modern day slavery.

Because the religious part affects me, the slavery I don’t really notice because they do a good job hiding it?

This really does describe the expat in Dubai mindset pretty well, sadly.

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#228

Post by tsoukase »

somenameforme wrote: post #28

There's an extremely low fertility rate paired with a rapidly aging population. When I visited there were endless advertisements for geriatric type care / end-of-life type planning / etc, and a notably older population working quite low wage jobs in a place where everything was crazy expensive, especially relative to its northern neighbor. It felt depressing. It seems like one of those places that is probably quite n…

Singapore is the greatest example of failure of public family policies. A whole "Flirting" department (1) was setup since the 80's to push births, starting from a marginally racist approach only to educated women. This only had modest results until now, despite the billions that costed.

Every single such policy in the developed world has failed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Development_Network

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#229

Post by czl »

pydry wrote: post #154
cess11 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they get to vote? Also in general elections? Are they typically organised in unions?

The ruling party has perfected the art of using legal and social pressures to fracture any competing parties if they get too big. They have a jealously guarded media monopoly and viciously crack down on opposition bloggers by suing them into bankruptcy using absurdly strict libel laws. As a last resort they steal any policies which make the opposition popular. This is actually an underrated means by which Singaporean…

Sound like Singapore's system rewards competence + stability, and that makes it hard for opposition to scale, because the incumbents can absorb popular ideas while keeping institutional advantages.

That’s demoralizing if you’re doing party-building. But the flip side is: it means citizens do have leverage, just not always in the form of “replace the government.”

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