[mingmecca]

This is some truly frightening stuff. There are large groups of people who relish the idea of a surveillance state in order to eliminate uncertainty in all things. And if privacy has to be sacrificed then so be it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd rather be dead than live in a fishbowl.

[sqrt17]

The point here is that Singaporean authorities, while enacting a huge amount of surveillance, still feel accountable to their constituents and try to make the best use of the data they get. The attitude that you're accountable for the data you collected and that you actually have to do something useful with it (as in, disease prevention, prediction of future economic trends) seems alien to the US where limiting yourself to fighting terrorists (but leaving diseases, angry US nationals with guns, or stupid people with SUVs on the side) is seen as something perfectly rational to do. And a central idea of the surveillance state (as we know it through Orwell and others) is that the state (surveillance or otherwise) is not accountable to its constituents, which is a much older idea but should frighten you just as much as living in a fishbowl.

[ghshephard]

How much time have you spent in Singapore?

I've been here on and off for most of the last year. It's a beautiful country. You get a close-to-zero crime rate, almost zero violent crimes, impeccably clean transit system (and country in general). Incredibly civilized people, even in the lower socio-economic environs. And they've taken religious and social harmony to a whole new level.

It's a pretty nice fishbowl life as long as you don't want to carry a gun, or do drugs.

[crdoconnor]

>It's a pretty nice fishbowl life as long as you don't want to carry a gun, or do drugs.

Or look "kind of Bangladeshi".

Or challenge any kind of social order.

Or get involved in domestic politics at all (as a foreigner).

Fwiw, I've been here longer than you. I enjoy the low crime rate, weather, transit system (excluding the erratic bus arrival times) and the privileges a white face affords me too.

I'm careful of what I say online though, because I know that they are listening closely and are likely to respond accordingly (probably listening even closer than the US monitors its citizens).

>And they've taken religious and social harmony to a whole new level.

A whole new level where the possibility of a race riot in Little India is non-existent?

Or a while new level where race riots in Little India happen, but they manage to put a nice enough spin on it to satisfy you?

[nubela]

It is not just you. As a native Singaporean, I had to turn on my VPN to read this article and post this comment. I don't feel free here. It's not a nice feeling, despite the "superficial goodness" foreigners love to talk about.

[frankchn]

As a Singaporean who is now in the US, it is the same thing over here (with a bit more secrecy pre-Snowden).

I will be very surprised if Comcast (my ISP) doesn't have fiber splitters along their backbones feeding my (and other people's) internet traffic to the NSA.

edit: Also, with the recent revelation that NSA targets Tor users, I would not be surprised if by virtue of using a VPN, you are automatically deemed more suspicious.

[toyg]

The thing is, in the US it's a fairly recent development, whereas in Singapore it's intrinsic to how the government works.

Yes, the US have periodic bouts of widespread semi-fascist repression (McCarthy, GWB etc), but they traditionally subside after a few years. TIA eventually generated Snowden, for instance, and in 20 years time it's very much possible that we'll look back at early 2000's paranoia as a dark age of sort. There is no indication of this ever happening in Singapore.

It might be due to issues of scale (repressing 3m people is much easier than doing the same to 400m) or culture (the whole Constitution / Freedom mindset in the US is very different from the "community first" approach more typical of Asian countries), but that's how it is.

[mdda]

You're overstating : I'm sitting in Holland Village (Singapore) reading HN just fine.

[nubela]

See my above post. Most Singaporean's don't care that the big G collects everything about you.

[mdda]

With due respect, "I had to turn on my VPN to read this article and post this comment" is overstating. I understand that you may feel like you should only read/post with the aid of a VPN : However, having lived in the US for quite a while before arriving in SG, I think you're overestimating the reality of American's Freedom of Speech (for non-US persons). Both of us are foreign nationals w.r.t. the USA NSA. So they're legally free (under US law, as I understand it) to monitor, store and correlate all our communications (particularly since we're meeting at an end-point in the USA).

[crdb]

+1, reading this fine on my home Starhub connection.

[lazylizard]

m1 fiber works too

[ghshephard]

The riot in Little India was almost unique in this country's history (which says a lot), and, it's important to note, happened after someone was run over by a bus, was predominantly not involving singaporeans (mostly foreign workers), and involved a lot of alcohol.

They've had (multiple) Riots in Vancouver (though, usually involving Hockey, but also alcohol). I don't find that an indictment on Vancouver.

But, yes, I do agree, it's pretty clear that you don't want to discuss politics, and certainly don't want to get involved in them if you are a foreigner.

[crdoconnor]

>The riot in Little India was almost unique in this country's history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_race_riots_in_Singapore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_race_riots_of_Singapore

You do realize that one of the core reasons the country EXISTS as a separate entity (kicked out of Malaysia) was because of race riots, don't you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_singapore#Racial_te...

I don't even know of any other countries where race riots have played a greater role in the country's history.

Unique indeed.

>it's important to note, happened after someone was run over by a bus, was predominantly not involving singaporeans (mostly foreign workers), and involved a lot of alcohol.

It's important to note that the itinerant foreign workers are treated like shit and the reason they rioted was because the ambulance took forever and the guy who was ran over was dead by the time it came.

Alcohol was simply the fuel for the anger created by that.

But yea, racial harmony and all that.

[seanmcdirmid]

They promote harmony heavily in china (racial but mostly class-based), to the point that it has become somewhat of a joke: are you a harmonious river crab (和谐, 河鞋) or rebellious grass mud horse (...)?

Singapore is famous for the extreme of this, and the scary thing is it is China's main role model.

[disputin]

Grass mud horse - I went to Wikipedia, thought I was going to see an animal: The Grass Mud Horse or Cǎonímǎ (草泥马), is a Chinese Internet meme widely used as a form of symbolic defiance of the widespread Internet censorship in China. It is a play on the Mandarin language words cào nǐ mā (肏你妈), literally, "fuck your mother"

[venus]

The fact that you had to go back to the 60s to find a similar incident helps the GP's point, not yours.

And do you have any supporting evidence for your claim that migrant labourers are any worse off in SG than they would be elsewhere, including their home countries? I had believed they were pretty well treated.

> the ambulance took forever and the guy who was ran over was dead by the time it came

Wonder how long it would have taken in India.

[crdoconnor]

>The fact that you had to go back to the 60s to find a similar incident helps the GP's point, not yours.

Not especially. Those riots were huge, vastly influential in the country's history and, according to the GP, non-existent.

They are the reason why the government hyperfocused on "racial harmony" ever since.

>And do you have any supporting evidence for your claim that migrant labourers are any worse off in SG than they would be elsewhere

Are you saying that because they would be killed by horrendously unsafe working conditions in Qatar that they should consider themselves lucky?

>I had believed they were pretty well treated.

No, they are explicitly third class citizens - kept in dormitories, bussed around on the back of trucks, banned from public places when their appearances there becomes 'unsightly'.

They are only treated well compared to Middle Eastern hellholes like Dubai, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

>Wonder how long it would have taken in India.

This is disturbingly similar to the rhetoric made during segregation in 1950s America: "the blacks have it better here than they would back home in Africa. Shut up.".

[frankchn]

> The fact that you had to go back to the 60s to find a similar incident helps the GP's point, not yours.

The other fact that one of the examples was in 1964 - Singapore only became an independent country in 1965 - probably didn't help either.

[nubela]

It is unique because it is caused by cheap labour who are not integrated, imported by the big G.

[lazylizard]

singapore's idea of '$harmony' is 'lets not go there..' -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OB_marker

[DanBC]

> It's a pretty nice fishbowl life as long as you don't want to carry a gun, or do drugs

Or chew gum?

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

[dbcooper]

It's beautiful if you're a fan of a city-wide shopping mall aesthetic...

[venus]

Ah, that's not totally fair. There's places to go that aren't shopping malls - I miss the hawker centres and food streets, and there's some great walking to be had.

That said, the single best thing about Singapore is that it's a gateway to the rest of SEA. Changi is the best airport in the world, IMO, and you can be in Thailand or Vietnam in an hour for $100. No malls there! (Well not by CapitaMalls, anyway)

[ghshephard]

Changi Airport, both on arrival, and departure, is amazing. If you have a work permit, then the arrival process is 15 seconds to clear immigration - I kid you not. You swipe your passport, and entry gate pops open (quickly), you walk ahead five steps, punch down your thumb, and then a message appears, "Welcome to Singapore, ghshephard" - and then the second gate opens.

I thought YVR (Vancouver) was fast - (You submit your entry form, answer a couple questions on a kiosk, and then present it to an immigration person who makes sure you match the passport - about 2-3 minutes) - but Changi beats it hands down.

Departure is just as good - no long lines at security or worry about missing your flight - everything is done at the departure gate (which also makes a helluva lot more sense from a security perspective as well).

Makes SFO feel like a miserable cast-off of an Airport after spending time in Changi.

[seanmcdirmid]

Schiphol is run the same way and is arguably more plush than changi, though both have nice outdoor areas behind security. Honestly, my layovers in changi seem like a drag, you run out of things to do waiting for that Mumbai or Bangalore connection.

[ulfw]

I'd say every country I've been to has been incredibly efficient when it comes to immigration procedures. Except for the USA and UAE, both of which I wasted 3+ hours queuing.

[hrasyid]

>>> Ah, that's not totally fair. There's places to go that aren't shopping malls - I miss the hawker centres and food streets, and there's some great walking to be had. Those usually get old after a few months/years..

[contingencies]

it's a gateway to the rest of SEA

That title, albeit very amorphous, is definitely Bangkok's by any honest number (eg. flights) or remotely holistic cultural assessment.

[frenchieinsg]

Often said by tourists. Singapore is a lot less online that similarly developed Western nations (in part because professional PR staff game all the ratings and reviews), so it's harder to source the nice places. But it has a thriving "hipster" (for lack of a better word) scene and if you're willing to dig a bit, you can have as much fun as in London or Sydney, without ever stepping into a mall. My advice would be to ask local friends for recommendations.

I also think that MacRitchie Reservoir Park is a lot more fun to walk around (with its giant lizards, multicolored parrots, flying squirrels, hordes of monkeys and general lack of crowds) than Hyde Park or Central Park.

[kazagistar]

Close-to-zero crime rates happen in most places in most developed countries. Depending on the news, the few that do happen can be spun either way. On the other hand, this enforced harmony stuff sounds terrifying as hell, and a government without oversight is a disaster waiting to happen.

[einrealist]

Or as long as the government is not evil.

[l33tbro]

Or chew bubblegum (illegal here, fyi)

[lazylizard]

that is wrong. not actually illegal, since 2004. only that u need a prescription i think.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore