[bajook]

The specific background of Mr Lee is that he was the Senior Wrangler at Cambridge University (essentially, the top mathematics student in the UK), and was a very promising mathematician who instead chose the family business of running Singapore.

[narrator]

It's not a bad business. Senior ministers in Singapore are paid multi-million dollar salaries. According to Transparency International, Singapore is one of the least corrupt countries. I'd guess that's because there's no need for side hustles because the job pays so well.

[jb1991]

> According to Transparency International, Singapore is one of the least corrupt countries.

This is not a pervasive opinion. The prime minister has directly sued personally anyone who attempts to investigate the state wealth fund and there is a lot of questioning about the motives and conflicts of interest among Singapore's ministers and their families.

The lack of free press, and that it is illegal to investigate these government activities, is worth noting as well.

[logicchains]

> According to Transparency International, Singapore is one of the least corrupt countries.

Note this ranking is based on "perception of corruption". Given that Singapore is a one-party state with extremely little press independence (https://theindependent.sg/singapore-in-bottom-20-countries-i...), citizens would be less likely to hear of any major corruption that occurred as the media wouldn't report it.

As an example, PM Lee's wife was CEO of Temasek, the national investment company, for many years. Consider, of all the five million plus people in Singapore, what is the probability that the prime minister's wife just happens to be the most qualified of anybody in the country to manage the country's money?

[ValentineC]

> Consider, of all the five million plus people in Singapore, what is the probability that the prime minister's wife just happens to be the most qualified of anybody in the country to manage the country's money?

She somehow also finds the time to make hundreds of Facebook posts a day: https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/g33rvv/how_is_ho...

[refurb]

Yup.

I spent some time there and I honestly believe that corruption is probably on par or better than other developed countries. They take it very seriously.

However, as you mentioned, if there was corruption, you’d probably never know. With the libel laws and control of the media, I doubt many would be willing to speak out.

Singapore’s system has worked so far, but all it takes is some corruption within for the whole system to rot to its core. It’s not setup to self-correct. It seems like a well oiled machine on the surface but that’s just because you’re not allowed to see all the warts.

[lelag]

He probably married within his social circle of the Singapore intellectual elite whose members certainly have a much higher chance to reach such a position than the average joe in the country. I don't know anything about this gentleman but I don't think it's enough of an argument to accuse him of corruption.

[ValentineC]

> He probably married within his social circle of the Singapore intellectual elite whose members certainly have a much higher chance to reach such a position than the average joe in the country.

Probably irrelevant, but I wanted to add that Ho Ching is his second wife. The first Mrs Lee died three weeks after giving birth to his first son [1].

[1] https://wiki.sg/index.php?title=Death_of_Wong_Ming_Yang_(198...

[twelvechairs]

For all of its many other issues, one thing clear is that Singapore is one of the few countries where being a public servant is a reputable and highly regarded career. It was described to me that Singapore inherited both from both the British public service and the imperial Chinese civil service systems - which have diminished or fallen apart in both of those countries and others which inherited them.

[ValentineC]

> For all of its many other issues, one thing clear is that Singapore is one of the few countries where being a public servant is a reputable and highly regarded career.

Singaporean here. It's mostly "reputable and highly regarded" if one gets a top-tier government scholarship [1], since that leads to civil service postings with more exposure and chances to take credit.

Everyone else is just a "farmer" [2][3]. :)

[1] https://www.quora.com/Are-scholarship-holders-more-likely-to...

[2] https://www.mycarforum.com/forums/topic/2675951-lousy-schola...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/7p5unh/degree_ho...

[throwaway2037]

What other countries inherited the Chinese civil service system?

Does Taiwan count? I would hardly say it has diminished or fallen apart. Of course, that is only my humble opinion.

[samatman]

Taiwan is an interesting case!

It's known that the ruling power in Taiwan is descended from the Nationalist government, it's perhaps less well-known that Sun Yat-Sen was a serious political thinker who designed that government, effectively singlehandedly.

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

There's a visible mix of Western (by way of America and Britain) and Chinese thought in how the Yuans are structured.

Taiwan also inherited a large and functional civil service from the Japanese occupation, this is less immediately obvious in the structure of Taiwanese government, but you can find small traces everywhere if you know what to look for.

[baybal2]

UK civil service was actually modelled after Chinese one after missionaries brought news of how powerful, and well oiled Chinese bureaucratic machine was in comparison to contemporary British one.

[laumars]

That doesn’t stop many western CEOs from being corrupt.

From what I’ve experienced, the lack of corruption in Singapore is partly cultural and partly due to their heavy penalties for crime.

[rogual]

I'm gobsmacked that Senior Wrangler is an actual thing. I thought Terry Pratchett made it up!

[dcminter]

Part of his great talent was that of weaving together factual minutiae with fictional minutiae such that the boundaries are impossible to spot without prior knowledge!

Even if you know you have to keep your eye open for it. E.g. my personal favourite is that I 100% did not spot until it was pointed out to me that the printing dwarfs in The Truth are all named after fonts...

[Symbiote]

The Annotated Pratchett File lists many similar references Pratchett included in his novels. In this case, it's marked as p35 of Reaper Man:

https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/reaper-man.html

[richardwhiuk]

He also did a diploma in CS, which is now regarded as a masters degree (when he did it, there was no taught masters in CS offered by Cambridge).

[Laforet]

His youngest son is a programmer and prominent member of the Scala community.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/haoyi-li-3b3291182?originalSubdo...

[ValentineC]

And his middle one is ex-Google, and is now in the Singapore equivalent of US Digital Service/Government Digital Service:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hongyi-li-16183230