> In Singapore, policing does not have the dystopian surveillance thing attached to it, because a large number of police are civilian conscripts.

I would not have guessed in a million years that someone would argue that country's surveillance doesn't have a dystopian vibe because the country conscripts people into service.

fyi Finland has the same conscription rates, I don't see them being criticized for conscription? Maybe they are too white, or maybe people who injected too much rugged individualism into their veins have rotted views of society

A system that has brought security and cohesion, and thus wealth, is accused of being dystopic

Conscripts policing their own society will almost certainly produce better outcomes than people attracted to power volunteering to do so instead.

Especially if that society is fairly homogenous. (I'm well aware that Singapore is a fusion of cultures, but it's nothing like an empire that can shuffle its conscripts around, so that they always end up policing and brutalizing an ethnic group that's different from theirs.