Singapore: The Last City State in the World

Comments · 2.3K

• GE

  @geographicstravel · 6 years ago · pinned

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• SI

  @simon47yt · 6 years ago

  I live in Singapore, my name is Simon, I&apos;m British, bald and have a beard... The multiverse is real

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• LU

  @lukeyppersona9763 · 6 years ago

  “Most boring place in Asia” probably said by numerous backpacker types. I’m British and live in Singapore - if you know where to go and what to do, it’s a fantastic place. Not to mention the travel opportunities.

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• MI

  @MikhailKalashnikovMiG · 5 years ago (edited)

  I&apos;d say Singapore is something like a Utilitarian country, but is run like a corporation.<br>Singaporeans value their personal freedoms and liberties, but not in the same way as that of Americans. What may be seen as a willingness to give up person freedoms to Americans, is simply a matter of pragmatism to Singaporeans. For example, the Singaporean government had little problems instituting mandatory mask wearing in the country, because the people understood that a minor incovenience for each individual benefitted their society as a whole. This would be completely unacceptable in America, where stay home orders or even mask wearing would be seen as a violation of freedoms.<br>Law enforcement in the country is also remarkable, due to the high amount of public accountability they have. Abuse of power is rare, given the active social media presence of Singaporeans and Corporate mentality of the government.<br>It&apos;s also worth noting that Singapore was the country that influenced Deng Xiaoping into introducing a free market economy into China. You don&apos;t often see such tiny countries having such major impacts on a global scale.

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• AN

  @anchored555 · 5 years ago (edited)

  I am a third generation born and bred Singaporean. Having travelled widely over the last 4 decades, and studied and lived in the US, China and Australia, I value greatly the security, peace, stability, law and order, excellent world class healthcare, transportation, education system, high standards of living and governance, etc. that we are blessed to enjoy in Singapore. If that’s boring, I’m happy to be bored. Singapore may be small, but it’s a great base for travelling around the region and beyond. Other countries may be fun and interesting for a visit, but I’m glad to be able to come home to Singapore. I am proud of Singapore and proud to be Singaporean. Majulah Singapura!

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• TH

  @theseeker8074 · 6 years ago

  ”Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. Or give it up. This is not a game of cards! This is your life and mine! I&apos;ve spent a whole lifetime building this and as long as I&apos;m in charge, nobody is going to knock it down.”<br>- Lee Kuan Yew

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• BR

  @brentgranger7856 · 6 years ago

  I visited Singapore in 2000, and I was most impressed by how clean the city is. I could walk down clean sidewalks with no cigarette butts on the ground and ride a public vehicle without worrying about someone else&apos;s chewing gum. Singapore, be proud of your nation&apos;s cleanliness.

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• FI

  @FireFlight13 · 6 years ago (edited)

  Singaporean here. I think the statement &quot;openly despised personal freedoms&quot; is quite an exaggeration. It is more nuanced than us simply wanting to give up all our personal freedoms, and for that reason I would caution people who aren&apos;t too familiar with Singaporeans&apos; culture and paradigms on life to properly understand before making such a statement. These claims are often made on how the west views the idea of &quot;freedom&quot;. The reality is that we do, in fact, value our personal freedom very much. But we also recognise that personal freedom isn&apos;t the highest good there is. It is not inconceivable that the giving up of some personal freedoms can benefit the society at large.<br>Case in point, we &quot;give up&quot; what westerners perceive as the &quot;right to bear arms&quot; (i.e. the Second Amendment in the USA) - though truth be told there really aren&apos;t that many of us that want guns in the first place. In exchange for that, the last well-known gunman case we have had was literally about 15 years ago.<br>Another case in point, we &quot;give up&quot; drugs and take a very strict stance on drug abuse and smuggling - this is often cited in support of the statement that Singapore is &quot;draconian&quot;. In exchange for that, the abuse of drugs in Singapore is relatively low. By &quot;relatively low&quot;, I mean that it&apos;s so low that the average Singaporean would hardly hear about drug abuse at all in Singapore. Maybe once or twice a year on average, if at all. Most of the laws that are seen as &quot;draconian&quot; really don&apos;t affect most Singaporeans on a day-to-day basis.<br>Lastly, on the idea that Singapore clamps down on free speech, I would say that&apos;s quite untrue. It may be true in a sense that you cannot say &quot;whatever you want, whenever you want&quot; 100% of the time. That is reasonable; we should be accountable for the things that we say. We do have some laws in place that rule out certain kinds of expression, for example &quot;promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race&quot;. These make sense; why in the world would a society allow someone to express something with the sole intent of sowing discord between two people groups? This doesn&apos;t mean that we cannot express disagreement, but rather that we need to separate the &quot;heat&quot; from the discourse. In other words, our expressions must be tampered with self-control and not merely blast whenever we want. This allows for much better engagement in dialogue rather than simply devolving into a war of who has the louder voice. In reality, again on a day-to-day basis, there really isn&apos;t any sense of not being able to say stuff.<br>On that last point, I would also add this: so much emphasis is often given to &quot;freedom of speech&quot;. Everyone wants to make it a priority to &quot;be heard&quot;, but few ever make it a priority to listen. We would all be much better off if we chose to listen first - properly listen and understand - before we speak.

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• HA

  @havolei · 6 years ago

  Wikipedia has this to say about city states:<br>&quot;Singapore, in particular, is considered the only truly sovereign city-state in the world as it has the full right and power to govern itself and its citizens, without any interference from outside governments. It also has its own currency, a technologically advanced military and a significant population of 5.6 million&quot;.

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• LO

  @lovelessissimo · 6 years ago

  If only the British had used Nord VPN, the japanese would have never been able to get access to the country.

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• HA

  @HackMinstrel · 5 years ago (edited)

  I don&apos;t really think Raffles did much. I&apos;m just shocked that William Farquhar wasn&apos;t even mentioned. He was the actual guy who did something to transform Singapore while Raffles was busy getting knighted in Britain.

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• SO

  @southpawhammer8644 · 5 years ago (edited)

  &quot;clearly you&apos;ve never been to Singapore&quot; - Captain Jack Sparrow

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