| ▲ | laybak 3 hours ago |
| the Singaporean government is often described as having a "parental" approach. I guess this move would be on brand |
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| ▲ | vovavili 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's also known as being one of the very few countries actually capable of using state capacity to overcome serious social and economic problems. Godspeed. |
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| ▲ | oatmeal1 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's basically a benevolent dictatorship due to one party being in charge for the last 67 years. | | |
| ▲ | Der_Einzige 5 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Hardly benevolent. I'll take every social problem America has 10x to avoid being an extremely boring "utopia" like Singapore. It's literally the antithesis of "cool", whatever your definition. The most square people on earth. | |
| ▲ | jb1991 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not just one party, but one family. | | |
| ▲ | motionlessveloc an hour ago | parent [-] | | The current prime minister is unrelated to the Lee family, and none of the third generation Lees seem particularly interested in politics. |
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| ▲ | vovavili 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. | | | |
| ▲ | PorciiVorbesc 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sometimes a benevolent dictatorship is better than a perverted and corrupt democracy. Democracy isn't the perfect be-all and end-all form of governance that will work well for everyone, a fact even ancient greeks recognized. Letting the masses decide the future of a country just because they're the majority is like letting the passengers fly the plane because they outnumber the crew. While many countries in the west have a two or multi party system due to historical reasons, on certain issues they often just function as controlled opposition, making your vote worthless anyway, with political battles between parties now being mostly and ideological circus to keep the unwashed masses distracted and divided while they get robbed blind, rather than focused on actually fixing things for the working class. If Singapore can skip this expensive time consuming circus and just get shit done, then good for them, but I don't want our western leaders to take the wrong lesson and move us to a dictatorship as the promised solution to fix things, which is what I feel they're trying. | | |
| ▲ | missedthecue an hour ago | parent [-] | | Benevolent dictatorship is probably always the best form of government. I would even say a benevolent dictatorship is superior to a functioning democracy. The main (and unsolvable) issue is that there is no reliable mechanism to ensure they are and that they stay benevolent. |
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| ▲ | bijowo1676 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Singapore is the case when you can just rely on your government to do its job and they will do the job properly!!!! Can't remember when it was last time you could rely on western government to do the right thing |
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| ▲ | jb1991 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's also known as being one of the very few first-world countries actually without basic freedoms, like free speech, freedom of the press, etc. | | |
| ▲ | broodbucket 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Australia doesn't have those either, despite many people assuming we do (including most people who live here). | | |
| ▲ | Der_Einzige 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Australia, New Zealand, and the UK are all competing with each other on who can be the most authoritarian anglo nation. "Oi, you got a loicense for that opinion M8?" |
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| ▲ | rahimnathwani 12 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | UK?
France?
Germany? | | |
| ▲ | jb1991 8 minutes ago | parent [-] | | France has a constitutional right to free speech since at least the 18th century, not sure what you mean. There is a Declaration of the Rights of Man, which is still part of France's constitution. France is also bound by the EU Convention on Human Rights. Why would you compare France to Singapore in this regard? That's strange. |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > basic freedoms, like free speech, freedom of the press, etc. How is that going for us in the west? Like, I believe in these rights. But I also think we should be open to questioning them when we’ve got anti-vaxxers and Holocaust deniers finding popular purchase among an increasingly and proudly illiterate population. | | |
| ▲ | alex43578 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The stupidity of some shouldn't be an argument against the rights of everyone. | |
| ▲ | jb1991 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The net effect is ultimately positive. Societies are healthier in many ways when people are free to speak their mind. | |
| ▲ | jb1991 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Humans are messy but long-term nothing good has ever come from repression. |
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| ▲ | Barrin92 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | the kind of issues that Singapore has been fairly effective at, getting people to speak the same tongue or not spitting on the street, what you could put into a bucket of 'public discipline' measures I think is over-romanticized. The country has been effective at it but so was Prussia or England. Singapore has increasingly complex social issues you aren't going to solve with a cane, and government organized marriage likely will go as well as government cheese | | |
| ▲ | vovavili an hour ago | parent [-] | | It has achieved the highest global GDP per capita is just a couple dozen of years, starting as a small bit of swamp forcibly kicked out Malaysia. I think it's unfair to say that people are over-romanticizing these sorts of accomplishments. | | |
| ▲ | motionlessveloc an hour ago | parent [-] | | Starting out at the second richest city in Asia after Shanghai, you mean. The PAP likes its "fishing village in a swamp" trope, and post-war Singapore certainly had its share of problems, but it was already a wealthy trading entrepot long before Lee Kuan Yew came along. |
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| ▲ | blater an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Correct - this isn't new, it's how it works there. Single new grads in the 80's & 90's were being offered government funded beach holidays on graduation where they were paired with selected dating partners. |
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| ▲ | chaostheory 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Before Xi, Singapore is what China aspired to become. Totally onbrand |
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| ▲ | doctorpangloss 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Makes little sense. China is a cultural and diaspora behemoth. Completely apples to oranges comparison. What about countries similar to Singapore's size and wealth? An interesting thing to look at: how many US electeds are Singapore, Israel, Hong Kong or Taiwan 1st-generation heritage or born? I like this number because you cannot fake it (unlike so many things, like statistics reported by countries that are not free), you cannot buy an election or run a PR campaign to pretend you had a successful election, and it measures a real notion of power (something the CCP aspires to have): Singapore 0, China 9, Taiwan 11, Hong Kong 4, Israel 7. Anyway I don't really buy into this line of thinking but it is interesting to me to look at a place that isn't really free, like Singapore, and figure out how it affects me. | | |
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