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Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

marginalrevolution.com

231–240 of 298 posts

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#231
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

> Executing people guilty of serious crimes is good and just. Wrong. It's barbaric and primitive. > execution is no more or less "barbaric" than the alternatives Yes, it is. People make mistakes. People have infinite possibility to grow, change and contribute to society. Snuffing everything someone is out because of an arbitrary society rule that ultimately does less harm than murder is indefensible. > "mercy to the…

Rape, murder, drug smuggling, terrorism are not mistakes you accidentally make. These are serious crimes destroying lives and the offenders do not deserve a second chance.

It’s also a repellent.

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an interesting aspect of fertility rate that most don't know. They also determine the exact age ratios within a society! Imagine a population has a global fertility rate of 1 (and in Singapore it's even lower, though not globally - yet). That means each successive generation is half as large as the one prior. And we can approximate the age of fertility as between 20 and 40. So now let's start with 1 newborn a…

Thankfully there's infinite people from other countries who can migrate freely and replace the aging population, right? (Serious question)

In my observation, there are a lot of unaccounted for and unintended issues that can arise from this.

Where I live, we are going through a lot of this right now (98+% of population growth is from immigration).

Immigrants have more kids than the non-immigrant population, but they do not actually have above replacement rate amounts of kids, so they are going to require more immigrants to take care of them later on. Also, the children of immigrants have non-immigrant level fertility rates. So, it's not a long term, sustainable way to "replace the aging population."

On top of this, immigrants often want to bring their elderly relatives with them when they are possible. I know there are some ways to try to mitigate this (e.g., immigration limits, charging them extra fees on immigration), but at some point there becomes a large enough immigrant voting bloc that this changes. Now you have extra, unaccounted for elderly people that are required to be looked after.

I have no idea what the solutions are, but if we are trying to plug the gap through immigration, it'll require perpetual immigration. Most countries globally are now at below replacement fertility rates, so this opens up a huge can of worms. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but it doesn't seem like anything other than a quick band-aid or a solution that's doing anything other than adding "debt" to the issue.

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#233
post #223
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They don’t execute your kid for smoking pot.

“Any Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident found to have abused drugs overseas will be treated as if he/she had abused drugs within Singapore. Consumption of a controlled drug is an offence and a person may face imprisonment of a minimum of 1 year and up to 10 years, or a fine not exceeding S$20,000 or both.”

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#234
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

> Executing people guilty of serious crimes is good and just. Wrong. It's barbaric and primitive. > execution is no more or less "barbaric" than the alternatives Yes, it is. People make mistakes. People have infinite possibility to grow, change and contribute to society. Snuffing everything someone is out because of an arbitrary society rule that ultimately does less harm than murder is indefensible. > "mercy to the…

> Wrong. It's barbaric and primitive.

Source?

> Yes, it is. People make mistakes. People have infinite possibility to grow, change and contribute to society. Snuffing everything someone is out because of an arbitrary society rule that ultimately does less harm than murder is indefensible.

Putting aside statistics on actual reform instead of fantastical infinite possibility, as I understand this policy mostly serves to deter foreigners from attempting the potentially very lucrative business of smuggling drugs into Singapore. Even if Singapore didn't take the "barbaric" approach of executing them, they would have to either host them as prisoners on their already very limited land, or go through the process of deporting them to their home country, where they might not even face any consequences and just try again. Why should they bear this burden for people who have no ties to Singapore and will never contribute anything to it?

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Does hiding it well make it ok?

It’s not okay but I’m not moving to THEIR country and tell them how to run it. Most people want to live their life and safety and taxes are major factors affecting quality of life

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#237

It was never 'cool'. It's a barbaric totalitarian state that hides it well. It's one of the few countries I truly don't want to ever support by spending money as a tourist there.

It’s still a significantly better place to live than America or Europe though.

> It's a barbaric totalitarian state that hides it well.

The same can be said about the Us which stirs up wars in other countries, kidnaps other countries presidents and has ICE arresting kids.

I’d pick Singapore over the US any day of the week.

Re: Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Executing people guilty of serious crimes is good and just. Wrong. It's barbaric and primitive. > execution is no more or less "barbaric" than the alternatives Yes, it is. People make mistakes. People have infinite possibility to grow, change and contribute to society. Snuffing everything someone is out because of an arbitrary society rule that ultimately does less harm than murder is indefensible. > "mercy to the…

Rape, murder, drug smuggling, terrorism are not mistakes you accidentally make. These are serious crimes destroying lives and the offenders do not deserve a second chance. It’s also a repellent.

Drug smuggling doesn't always destroy lives, sometimes it's just giving people something that shouldn't be illegal in the first place. Rape can very much be a crime of passion and a mistake. Terrorism can be the result of indoctrination. Rape while less likely to be a mistake also doesn't deserve the death penalty.

Yes, all these offenders deserve a second chance. Extreme penalties to set a deterrent are not justice. Just barbarism. Very primitive people.

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