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I had the privilege of getting a working gig in Singapore for a small AI startup: such a well run country! There is a sense of community for helping by employing people who need jobs, the police were friendly and I felt very safe there (I like to take long walks either early in the morning or late at night and I felt very secure.)

Amazing what the people and government have achieved since the end of WW2. 100% respect for them.

A side comment: I enjoy listening to English language news from many countries around the world to get different viewpoints. News media from Singapore is very interesting, indeed!

4 comments

I worked with a guy from sg. He gave me tips for when I went to visit. He hooked me up with a family member that showed me the backend a bit.

The country effectively runs on a slave class. You must drive a new vehicle under 5 years old, and the license just to buy a car was $90,000 or so. This means an entire class of people that will be taking the bus to do your laundry and clean your house for the rest of their lives and likely their kids lives.

The guy took me around to construction sites. The Indonesian and Malaysian workers were some of the most brave or stupid workers I’ve ever seen. I saw a guy install a window in a three story building by effectively free climbing from the outside half a flight up starting on the third floor, from the outside of the building. No harness, no ropes, just him out there hanging and pushing against a nook with his work boots. The SG contractor had helmet, hi-vis, steel toed, carhart, radio, clipboards etc.

Singapore is an amazing place. It’s like, a rorschach test kind of. Like everyone sees something different there.

I noticed things that trip. However… I was able to enjoy the botanical gardens and Marina Bay Sands rooftop like the other tourists… fond memories, but they have a backdrop that reality is only thinly hidden there.

I agree with you that the migrant workers are effectively a serf class. However, I think it's fine that the SG government severely discourages owning a car. It's a small island with lots of people, there would be gridlock if everyone wanted their own car. The public transportation system is amazing and works well.

I promise you do not need to explain scarcity to me :) the issue is that the disparity between I can’t afford a car, and I will never be able to afford a car is vast.

The slave class exist to do nothing but serve (be on the street at 2300, it’s poor people running power washers everywhere you go).

The entire country runs on Chinese goods in shipping containers going to the US. It’s a tax state.

Don’t get me wrong, unique place, I loved it. But ya, not what it seems, lah.

> disparity between I can’t afford a car, and I will never be able to afford a car is vast

There's no disparity. Either way you're not going to own a car any time soon.

You're not freer when the legal system prevents you to do something because you don't have enough money than when the legal system prevents you from doing that thing for other reasons.

> The entire country runs on Chinese goods in shipping containers going to the US. It’s a tax state.

If that's true: tell me, why do people in the US or China pay for an expensive transit in Singapore?

> (be on the street at 2300, it’s poor people running power washers everywhere you go).

What?

If you go out into the street at 11pm you'll see poor people running power washers everywhere you go

> I agree with you that the migrant workers are effectively a serf class.

Sounds like the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics? Or 'out of sight, out of mind'?

not everyone has the same ethics or even subscribes to that

Exactly, some people think 'out of sight, out of mind' is great ethics! See https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QXpxioWSQcNuNnNTy/...

Exactly this.

The country's progress and management is extremely good, however it's enabled mostly by exploitation of migrant workers and various kind of white collar crimes (ie, facilitating business for illegal or sanctionned entities - cf Nvidia chips for China for example)

I think specifically for example of getting Nvidia chips to China, many Singaporeans would say that that is only illegal because the US deems it so. There is no moral reason.

Agree, the word crime was too strong. It's more of a grey zone.

What's exploitation?

I guess you prefer poor people stay in their poor countries where you don't have to look at them? Allowing migrant workers is a win-win arrangement, and I wish we'd do more of that.

With the MRT not having a car is not bad. Paying 100K SGD for a Certificate of Entitlement (10 year car registration) is definitely a rich person move. Good point on the underclass and labor conditions.

Btw, that price for the Certificate of Entitlement is set by auction. The government only sets the total volume of CoE.

"Indonesian and Malaysian workers". Sounds like you never actually visited construction sites. Most of the workers ive come accross are from Bangladesh, India and China. Malaysian and indonesian immigrants tend to be better off than them.

> The country effectively runs on a slave class.

I really wish people would not throw this word around so casually, it is disrespectful to the many millions of people over the course of human history (and today!) who were forced under threat of violence or death to labour without remuneration.

Of course Singapore's migrant worker system is open to criticism, but every single one of those workers can resign tomorrow and get a free plane ticket home, and the same applies to domestic helpers as well.

Migrant workers work in Singapore because it's their most rational economic choice. They pay no income tax, room and board is provided and the wages are sufficient to house, feed and educate their family back home, almost certainly to a better standard than would otherwise be possible had they remained in their home country.

tl;dr migrant workers have agency!

The comment about cars is unintentionally hilarious. “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation.” and the public transportation in Singapore is very good indeed.

The argument against allowing migrant workers seems to boil down mostly to 'out of sight, out of mind'. Or in more sophisticated terms: The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics.

See https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QXpxioWSQcNuNnNTy/...

Interesting article, and thanks for the introduction to "philosophy bro". I think the Copenhagen interpretation of Ethics is really a misnomer. In quantum physics, a particle can exist in a superposition of states until you observe it. The ethical equivalent would be "a problem can be viewed as moral or amoral until you observe it", which is not really what the author is explaining. Additionally, I think the problem the author describes mostly boils down to how one interprets the intention behind each example. For instance: paying a homeless person $20 a day (plus donations) can be viewed as charitable (a homeless person gets to earn money and be treated as a human being) or exploitative (you underpay a worker). Same with the price surging: you can view it as a incentive for drivers to compensate for demands or price gouging. I'm not saying either is right or wrong, but that these are the opposed views are coexisting in different people's head. For this, it would make more sense to call this scenario a "Reverse Copenhagen interpretation" where one observation lead to two coexisting interpretations.

There are different degrees and institutions of slavery, and Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and former chattel slave himself, had this to say[1] about that sentiment:

> The abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass initially declared "now I am my own master", upon taking a paying job. However, later in life he concluded to the contrary, saying "experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery#History

Slave class? What?

> You must drive a new vehicle under 5 years old, [..]

No? And no one is forced to drive anything. I don't own a car.

> no one is forced to drive anything. I don't own a car.

Cut him some slack, it is hard for an American to imagine anybody living without a car.

In NYC it's hard to imagine owning a car. Everywhere else it's hard to imagine not owning one.

> You must drive a new vehicle under 5 years old, and the license just to buy a car was $90,000 or so.

I don't understand this. At all. Are people forced to buy cars every 5 years?

No, the majority of people use something a lot of Americans struggle with "Public transport".

The MRT and bus system in Singapore is great for getting around to the point that you don't need a car, but if you Want one it must be new and you have to pay for a license as road space and parking space are physically limited.

Ah, then that comment is just silly.

Singapore is a small and dense island, poor people fare better without cars there. Cars are very expensive, even old, beat up cars. They're either expensive for the owner or for society or both.

I spent years in Singapore and loved it there. Never had to face road rage (which so many of us experience daily several times driving in Texas! NextDoor is full of these stories) or aggressive behavior by anyone in authority including police and immigration officers. I know many people find Singapore boring after a while but it didn't bother me much. On the flip side, the cost of living is high as a foreigner and traveling to the US is very tiring due to the long distance.

Some of that can be solved without leaving the US. Texas is very different from, say, the PNW. Road rage and aggressive police are not in any way a regular occurrence up here.

Yes, indeed. My family is seriously considering moving out of TX soon.

Boring is good for business.

I agree. Predictability is underrated.

It's underrated in popular discourse. Businesses are extremely aware of it. Hence their love for Switzerland, Singapore, the Netherlands, or even the US which despite political drama has a fairly predictable business environment (especially in regards to lots of precedents for legal cases).

Singapore is an effective slave/permanent underclass state with few personal freedoms that is ethnically and culturally homogeneous (in each class). Not trying to do a "who's the bad/good country" but nothing about it really applies to the US or should.

Ethnically homogeneous? Do you know anything about Singapore?

> Singapore is an effective slave/permanent underclass state with few personal freedoms that is ethnically and culturally homogeneous (in each class).

Can you expand on this? Which ethnicity/culture is in which class?

It appears you've never visited Singapore let alone lived there. While you cannot protest or call the government a bad name, you're free to live your life, people in Singapore do not feel caged in anyway, or underclassed, nor do they feel like they lack any personal freedoms. Cheap to travel around most of Asia. Food and cost of living is cheap. Super safe.

Listening to political speeches from Singapore are so refreshing compared to the juvenile garbage that we have to endure in the US from US politicians.

Singapore is a dictatorship wearing a democracy's outfit.

One party has been ruling continuously since its formation and you can't go against its ideas.

There is no real competition for ideas like we have in the US.

So, yeah, the "discussion/debates" will be high quality when it is one sided. Just like North Korea is free from low quality debates, Singapore too is free from that.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/sou...

> In June, university students and alumni delivered letters opposing a new racial harmony bill to the Ministry of Home Affairs, arguing that it provided the government with further powers to clampdown on dissent. The authors were later investigated by the police. In the same month, police charged three activists – Annamalai Kokila Parvathi, Siti Amirah Mohamed Asrori and Mossammad Sobikun Nahar – with organizing a procession in a prohibited area under the Public Order Act. These charges came after they led a march to the Presidential Palace to deliver a letter of concern about the Gaza conflict. If found guilty, they could be fined up to SDG 10,000 (USD 7,360) or face six months’ imprisonment.

https://freedomhouse.org/country/singapore/freedom-world/202...

Have you not been observing what is happening in the US right now? Any dissension is labeled as "domestic terrorism" - this is coming from the highest levels in US government.

So is the facade of democracy much different from a dictatorship?

I'm not here saying that Singapore is doing everything right. I'm just noting that public political presentations from Singapore seem vastly better than watching Trump, Leavitt, Noem, Bondi, Patel, or virtually any other "leaders" speak. The quality of communication - message aside - is utter garbage. It's a very sad state of affairs. What we see here is dumbed down language that caters to the least educated, most easily misled masses. And this illustrates where democracy fails: democracy assumes a reasonable level of education and comprehension. We don't have there here, especially when psyops tactics have been employed by some news networks for two decades now.

> Any dissension is labeled as "domestic terrorism

They can do all the labeling they want, but their actions are limited.

Are you in the US? Have you not seen the amount of protests? Something of that scale is not possible in Singapore.

Can you protest for undocumented immigrants like that in Singapore or in, say, Norway?

Domestic terrorism has been labeled as domestic terrorism.

Tell me what you would consider dissent that's been incorrectly labeled as terrorism?

It really doesn't matter what I say or what evidence I present to you.

There is ample... overwhelming numbers of on the ground video of non-violent protestors being assaulted by armed, masked men who are jacked up on false authority. They harm people, they even shoot people, and they lie about it.

The upper administration responds to these events within minutes, naming the harmed citizens as "domestic terrorists". Later, when bodycam and bystander videos are released, this is disproven. Time and time again.

To be very, very clear: anyone not physically attacking an authority figure but who may be protesting, making videos, or yelling, is not a terrorist. That is an observer or a protester.

That’s true across much of the world. It’s also true past vs present. Listen to US politicians even as recently as the 1980s vs now. Our political class today is justifiably a pathetic laughing stock.

I saw an interview with Trump in the 80s. He was remarkably clear and articulate. He stayed on topic, he used multi-syllable words, and he generally sounded like someone worth listening to.

The comparison of today vs then is frankly shocking.

Simpler, but more powerful words.

I think the "nerd" stereotypes that HN is full of could learn from him in that respect.

Listen to Eisenhower, JFK, even Reagan. Are we children?

Obama seems like this great orator because he was just… okay. Like he could speak and sound like a coherent adult. That should be the bar.

What are we doing?

Learn from him in what way? He communicated articulately in grammatically correct, full sentences in the past. Now he rambles nearly incoherently.

What are we to learn from this? That his mental state has deteriorated? That much is obvious. Even ignoring all other evidence, it is utterly clear that he is a fraction of the communicator that he once was.