[12many]

If you read his comment a little further you'll see his point... "You cannot understand how significant such a change is to the people of the country unless you've lived in a third world country and really seen what it's like"... to spell it out for you, he's saying no one from the once third world cares what Gibson thinks of Singapore because if you haven't lived 3rd world you don't understand the greatness that comes from Singapore now. Although I don't agree with the draconian measures taken, I can support that they're happier now than before, something most people from first world countries fail to see, because you have no idea what it's like living in a third world.

[s1artibartfast]

But I don't think the criticism was ever about economic development, or hell, even general happiness in Singapore.

Gibson even said "Singapore's destiny will be to become nothing more than a smug, neo-Swiss enclave of order and prosperity, amid a sea of unthinkable... weirdness."

It was a commentary on culture and human behavior, an orthogonal topic.

He wasn't suggesting Singapore sacrifice economics for culture, or as far as I can tell, making any suggestion at all.

It is weird that so many people conflate the topics, as if art, history, and as Gibson would put it "weirdness" are inherently in conflict with material prosperity.