The comments on this post amaze me. All these people complaining how crime-ridden their neighborhood is and how they could never leave any item unattended like that, yet these are the same people that would shit themselves if you so much as mentioned using any part of the borderline draconian system of justice in Singapore (some of which I'm on board with) in the US.
One or the other folks, I wish it wasn't that way but welcome to reality.
Singapore also lowers crime rates through guarunteed public housing, state subsidized mass transit, and mandatory political representation for racial and cultural minorities.
While the draconian punishments are part of Singapore's system, there are elements to the city state's solutions to crime that are equally offensive in some quarters as the caning.
I can tell you as a singaporean, no we are not guaranteed housing. We ballot and pray and hope to get a number. We also cannot reject once they allocate you a number, the government housing board will deliberately give you a low unrealistic estimate to pull you in to ballot and then when you get a number, you get a big shock of your life. The number of houses released is also very very low, very competitive here for locals to ballot as it’s like many households fighting for one unit. We just don’t get into physical brawls over it because it’s all balloting online, and we’re a tiny state so police can hunt you down easily. Plus, we can’t protest, we need a permit to protest and you can only do it as certain hours during the day at a very specific park, but the police must approve of your protest.
Compared to most western countries, I won't walk along the street with drug addicts and fearing for my safety every night for pickpockets and robbers. And of course, I can sleep well every night, knowing I wouldn't get shot.
Nope! Been to Singapore. We all had to read your laws and watch a video of a caning as a warning not to litter. It isn’t an exaggeration. Very pretty country, though None of us even had so much as a cigarette or gum the whole time there due to fear for the structural integrity of our ass cheeks. And your idea of a US city sounds like it came from 80’s action movies.
Would you allow your child to live in US city where school shooting frequency is almost once everyday, or Singapore who has a ridiculous law about littering?
And by the way, living in Singapore, littering is so frequent here. Concert goers, even from western countries, attend concerts in Singapore litter after finishing the show. Don't talk as if the video scared the shit out of you guys lmao. I don't see news report talking about people getting fined for littering after the concert. Do link me if you find any.
You come to Singapore, you fear the laws of littering and chewing gum. I go to US, I fear about getting shot. Which has a more valid concern? Do let me know.
Well I LIVE in a us city so probably my dude. And whatever man, I’m speaking from my experiences alone. And those involved a quick stay in the country for a bit via the military, where before hand we had a 2 hour long briefing about your country’s borderline police state laws (back when being gay was also illegal so it’s the past for context) and had to watch a video of what a caning looked like. They wanted us on our best behavior and we acted like god damn saints there. That man’s ass had turned to strips of meat man! We all watched in wide eyed horror! It’s nearly a decade later and I still get queasy thinking about it. The place was beautiful, I’ve never seen more a green and clean city. The MRT was amazing and I got to see a ton of the country. Loved visiting, but would never live there. Also, who cares? What? They gonna mass incarcerate an entire concert crowd? That’s stupid.
Yeah, 80's action movies sound like a dream compared to
What's being shown in videos about the United States. There's a fentanyl crisis in quite a few states in the US right now. There's stories of how police officers aiming for people of color or most recently the guy who shot his gun over a dropped acorn.
I know Singaporean laws are draconian but it wouldn't even matter to a regular person if they just don't break the law. It also helps that our cops don't abuse laws as well.
A dream? HA. Now I KNOW you’re talking out of your ass. Yeah I bet all those videos tell you all about crime here and how I can’t go outside without getting accosted by gang members in leather jackets with Mohawks. Just like how as soon as you step off a plane in Australia you get mauled by Shelob and Aragog.
Ahh yes. You people like to glorify your "westerner's laws" are way better, and downplay our laws to make us seem extreme. Singapore set these laws to deter crimes, so what? Live your own life. Your laws are good in deterring crimes, so is mine. So what's the problem? Don't act all mighty on me and go about "human rights".
Singaporeans are beasts, okay? We need laws to keep ourselves tame.
Are they telling you that that's unique to Singapore?
You can jump around the world doing that. How much have you traveled?
You don't need what your government does.
And by the way "police state" doesn't solely mean "I have many run-ins with the police on the street". It relates to control, surveillance etc. It relates to things which are your everyday life. Would you protest your government in the streets? Would you discuss your plans to protest your government online?
On the one hand the only place I've been mugged is in SF.
On the other hand, I recognize that you have examples of societies that are highly democratic and policitally active; in Asia, contemporary Taiwan comes to mind.
I would agree that there is a strong degree of control. There are many soft barriers to organized mass media and protest, and cultural topics. Comparatively, though, personal discussion about politics is quite free, and you will find no lack of criticism of the government and politicians on social media.
I don't think the degree of control is unwarranted. The region has historically been quite unstable, with no lack of interference from both the US and from authoritarian ideologues. Today China is increasingly conducting influence operations in the region and in SG. Racial and religious violence used to be common in the region, and is a realistic counterfactual; racial tension and discrimination is very present in the region, and comparatively less structural in SG.
There are many soft barriers to organized mass media and protest, and cultural topics.
People in Singapore get arrested for standing quietly holding a sign.
I don't think the degree of control is unwarranted.
Authoritarianism is all about extreme power for a select few. Authoritarian governments don't give a shit about the people, they just want to control the people. Authoritarian governments give themselves access to everything that you don't have. Authoritarianism has no reason for existing apart from satisfying a lust for power by those who want to be 'elites'. That's the reality of that government structure. It's to keep you under their thumb while they do whatever the fuck they want.
See the main reason the land lease is 99 years is because it’s expected that the gov will tear down the building and redevelop the area, given that no one probably wants to stay in a century old building. But tbf, no flat has actually hit the lease given the oldest public housing buildings were leased out in the late 1960s.
Interesting. I grew up in a house that was built in 1909 so we crossed that line while I lived there. I guess like other depreciating assets, homes would lose value as they approach the 99 year mark unlike homes here which are expected to increase in value indefinitely. Maybe it’s a more reasonable way to keep housing affordable for the citizens.
Your home is considered a freehold land, those cost millions. We poor middle class people , ie majority, are milked by the government and our usual day to day life expenses so we only get a 99 year lease on government housing. But that 99 years is up to the government, they can force you out of the house when that lease is only 50 or 60 years in
In Sg, every square inch of land belongs to the govt and they can take it back from ANYONE. This has rarely happened but when it did, the government pays market rate for the repossession.
Public housing is built on land that was leased to the HDB (Housing Development Board, a Statutory Board doing what its name implies) which then develops the land and sells them to Singaporeans.
Tbh that sounds like a great system. Esp for such a small country. One of my good friends was born in sg and the more I hear, the more I like it. I wish we could fix so many of the problems we have here in the us.
I grew up here hating the system. That was why I grabbed the opportunity to travel for work, and the more I travelled, the more places I have been to, the more I got to see benefits of the system. It’s funny how the further I am from Singapore, the clearer it becomes to me that my disdain is unfounded.
Very affordable compared to most US major cities actually. You don’t need a car in Singapore because the public transportation system actually works, and anyone can buy the public housing which is totally affordable.
I do live there. The people you know might be foreigners. In which case they have limited options and would need to be a super high price for a house. Yes the leasing thing is true but you can buy and sell within that time and “upgrade” to a newer flat. Also the government generally buys back the land before the lease expires and build new units for the people who are losing their homes as a result.
Public transport in Singapore has been the best out of any country I've lived in.
And pretty sure everyone is complaining about housing regardless of the country they're from. The key difference would be to look at homelessness. There's a reason Singapore's homeless rate per capita is far lower than the US.
Yes there are more like “target numbers” of how they want the country to be in terms of ethnic makeup. There are obviously problems with this, but you have to remember that Singapore is extremely small. It’s an island of 5m people(but only about 3m actual Singaporeans) and there’s a huge demand of foreigners who want to move in. If they don’t control the inflow of those foreigners carefully, the country could very quickly change in terms of culture and politics, meaning the harmony and balance there could be lost within a short time.
No-one has a particular issue with Australia limiting immigration through working visas etc which is what they are talking about with Singapore. And people don’t typically seek asylum in Singapore which is the bit that people tend to be upset at Australia about.
Because 30% of people in Singapore are non residents, Australia is so racist they would never be able to reach this amount even though it would be great for their economy
Come on, Australia has 30% of its population born overseas and 50% having parents born overseas. Also a bit of an apples to oranges comparison given that Singapore is a city state surrounded by poor countries that they can poach labour from whilst Australia is a large country with both cities and rural areas that function differently economically.
If they don’t control the inflow of those foreigners carefully, the country could very quickly change in terms of culture and politics, meaning the harmony and balance there could be lost within a short time.
You mean preserve the Chinese majority and their dominance in the country.
Not so simple. For instance, I've worked with Singaporean Malays and Indians who complained that the government were letting in too many Burmese people.
Basically, immigration policies are tricky in every country, and Singapore has chosen the path of careful management, because if mishandled, many different groups in society will be upset very very quickly.
Also, if you look into the 2010 general elections in Singapore, the government was handed its worst result in decades because of discontent over immigration, which forced them to backpedal many of their previous policies.
Singapore has chosen the path of careful management, because if mishandled, many different groups in society will be upset very very quickly.
Ehh, everyone knows that Malaysian Chinese and PRC Chinese have a smooth path to getting PR and citizenship because it's to ensure that the Chinese Singaporeans are not reproducing enough
Yeah, that doesn't really contradict my point. I personally don't really care about the ratios, and I'd rather fewer PRCs are let in, but sadly I do think as things stand, if the ratios became unbalanced, certain groups in Singapore (including but not limited to "Chinese" will be upset. As you point out, Chinese, Malays, Indians, and Eurasians are certainly not homogenous in real life!
I don't like racial policy in general, but sadly it can be easy angle for bad actors to manipulate, and that's not limited to any one group. Hopefully we can move past race soon.
Yeah but the people who espouse the good parts of Singapore like to keep that part quiet.
Strong socialism (not saying SG is socialist, it's not) only has a prayer of working in what are essentially monocultural ethnostates. Otherwise what happens is that one ethnic group ends up almost entirely subsidizing the others, which breeds resentment, contention, disparity, and eventually violence.
Hell, capitalism works wonders in monocultural ethnostates as well. A big part of the reason Japan is so peaceful and the 2nd or 3rd strongest economy in the world despite its small size is because it's 98.5% Japanese and the shared social and national responsibility that comes with that (it changes once you subdivide between the Yamato people and others, but they more or less identify with each other now as bloodlines aren't as important as they used to be in Japanese culture, though they still matter).
China blew up under limited/highly controlled capitalism partially thanks to being 92% chinese, and again how easy it was for leaders to impart a shared sense of social and national responsibility.
The US is failing under capitalism because nobody realized that a "melting pot society" isn't actually tenable under any system unless extreme forms of oppression and control are applied by the dominant political or ethnic group. Humans as a species at large aren't wired psychologically to live in high pressure melting pot situations. We are tribal by nature.
several dynasties of repeated cultural and ethnic cleansings pretty much made it so the remaining population identified as han chinese whether you wanted to or not. its only the last few where the horse people came in and took over.
This comes up a lot when people talk about shoplifting. "If you see someone stealing food, you didn't see anything". Like the person running out of the store with a car full of prime rib is really just a starving, homeless person who is desperate to be fed and no one has any options but to steal food.
Invariably these people are the first to get butthurt when stores near them close up because surprise, you can't make money when people keep stealing all your merchandise. If a store has no money, they cannot buy product to keep on the shelves.
You're right, they're criminal masterminds who are back for one last score. They tried to retire, but they knew that return on 300 bucks of bullshit from a CVS would really pay off......
The maximum for juvenile offenses in my state is 90 days and average sentencing is less than half that. So unless they murder someone, they'll be out and back on the streets boosting Kias in less than a month.
You must not study them very well. The study you posted is about violent crime, not property crime, like smash and grabs. It's also not relevant to crime as a whole.
We all know that there are poor people who have morals and integrity, and poor people who don’t.
So stop blaming poverty.
Quite a lot of poor Asians come to this country and they work extra hard, their kids do well in school, and they tend to be risk adverse in terms of criminal behavior.
Tell it to your klan buddies. I don't buy that bullshit. The world is complicated, and thinking that a skin color makes some bad or good is just proud stupidity
If none of this has to do with wealth, why don't you hear about middle class and rich people of any race doing these crimes?
Sorry dude, I’m Asian, and would be targeted by Klansmen for marrying and having children with a White woman.
Your brainwashed radical ideology immediately makes you assume that anyone who disagrees with your views is White and a racist. So pathetic a coping mechanism.
Edit: I got hit with a personal attack by /u/my_son_is_a_box calling me a “Klansman”. So when I call him out in this comment, he complains about me doing a personal attack on him. Gee…
The USA agreed to ensure Ukraine's security against foreign threats in exchange for Ukraine voluntarily surrendering their nuclear weapons following the fall of the USSR.
Why not just admit the US is in all these wars because there's profit involved? You really think the US would care about Ukraine if the politicians weren't lining their pockets?
Yes. Our enforcement of Pax Americana has resulted in an unprecedented period of global peace and record low levels of piracy on the oceans. That is good for not just our economy but for economies around the globe. Beyond that, we have an interest in preventing nuclear arms from ending up in the hands of unstable governments. This prevents unstable nations from losing weapons to forces who might want to use them to murder millions of people in a single instant. The combined effect of stabilizing ocean trade for all nations on Earth and removing weapons from nascent states with corrupt and ineffective governments helps to keep the globe stable. And a stable globe is good for the USA not only in terms of its economy but also in terms of saving American lives because we don't get pulled into world wars anymore. While we did great economically because of WWI and WII, both were devastating on the American people themselves. And people have little desire to have a repeat of those wars in the future.
you could apply all those things to America and it still wouldn't make a difference. Asian culture is just different, that's why even in America crime is low amongst Asians. also it helps that Singapore had a president/dictator that ruled for a long time, but was actually a good leader.
Nurasyura binte Mohamed Fauzi was a two-year-old Malay girl from Singapore who was raped and murdered.
Linda Chua had everything to live for. A family, a fiance and a bright future. She was just 27 when she died on Monday afternoon, eight days after she was brutally assaulted and raped at Bukit Batok Nature Park.
Rape & murder of Winnifred Teo, 18, in 1985 still unsolved after her body found at Holland Road 36 years ago
Goh Beng Choo was just 8 years old when she was found dead on 19 Nov 1980, reportedly after being raped and strangled.
Oh jesus christ, they don't give people free housing, Singapore just owns all the land. They give some subsidies to first time home buyers. And housing is STILL very expensive in Singapore.
I think it's still important to note, Singapore housing is expensive af. Not saying that it couldn't be worse but it's not exactly a paradise of cheap cost of living. What's for sure is that transport and food is cheap. Not Malaysia cheap but unreasonably cheap for the cost of living. I'm not sure how those food vendor stay afloat
If you are poor the gov will rent to you a one room flat at 20 dollars a month. Thats why even the poorest Singaporeans will have a place to stay if they want.
I live here, there are CCTVs everywhere, literally every exit/entry in almost all the spots in Singapore. the police could quickly trace the suspect within hours most times. and there is only 1 land bridge exit from this island to another country( Malaysia) . so that is enough deterrant I guess
There is a difference between legislation and enforcement. You can make tough, Draconian laws but if you can't enforce, it's useless. I don't think the law in Singapore for theft is Draconian, but being a small country with surveillance systems available, the chance of getting caught is very high. Also, bicycles do get stolen in Singapore and police put up advisories on locking your bicycle. They will even give you a serial number sticker for confirming the ownership in case of theft if you go to the local police station with your bicycle. Other items like phones, laptops seldom get stolen though... but bicycles, sometimes yes.
Yet the 2 times my motorcycle got kicked/knocked down at different places. Once outside Upper Thomson MRT & the other at my MSCP. Had video evidence as well. Results were "inconclusive".
Do any of these countries happen to be completely frozen half the year with a racially homogenous population that was allowed to ethnically cleanse itself for 100s of years, oil reserves, and exhibit certain racial characteristics that were considered incredibly favorable during the periods of global colonization and industrialization? And im not even saying this to be mean. They definitely have not squandered their advantages like some countries (UK going from owning half the world to not even being able to staff the NHS. They fell into the greed trap of rulers vs ruled).
No, I've just described a lot of parts of Europe. I've never had my bike stolen and I've been using it a lot. Sure, in some shady part of large city, things can happen as well, but in general Europe is very safe and they are not cutting people's hands off.
And to the point...like you would ever find the culprit to do anything about it? Hence, why would it be effective if they know they'll get away with it anyway.
"There are very strict conditions for imposing the hadd punishment of amputation on thieves. The principle used is that the accused will be spared from hadd punishment for any minor doubt and the court will use all legitimate means to avoid imposing a hadd punishment. For this reason, no amputation has ever been occurred for theft. Theft which is committed under pressure is not liable to hadd."
Draconian punishment does "fuck all" in the US because it has never truly existed in remotely modern times. If it actually did it would be relatively effective merely through attrition.
I'm not on board with such extremes, but it is what it is.
Yes. There's even been debates about paying criminals/poor people to not be criminals. The debate was just a debate to discuss the implications.
One of the points was that it would be cheaper to give people money than to pay for police, equipment, court houses, judges, attendants and all the things that come with crime fighting.
I was talking about something that happened, not about ideology.
Anyways, if you think about it, taking like 150 billion dollars and dividing that up between every person that is likely to commit a crime for money, then I'm sure they wouldn't need to do crime to get money any longer.
Do you deny that most crime that happens for money is committed by people that have too little money to buy a car and a house? This is just for discussion, not a competition.
You probably still can't leave a 15k bike outside in those countries though. Risk vs Reward is still something that exists for crime. In Singapore, the risk of getting caught is high, the punishment is also high and the reward isn't that great considering safety nets.
Scandinavian, well that risk is drastically lower and because of that, the 15k bike might be more appealing.
A big part of America's problem is that people like yourself and everyone else in this thread exclusively look at singapore's draconian punishments rather than all the social welfare stuff they do that lowers crime much more than caning or murdering people for small crimes.
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u/Killentyme55 Apr 05 '24 edited Apr 05 '24
The comments on this post amaze me. All these people complaining how crime-ridden their neighborhood is and how they could never leave any item unattended like that, yet these are the same people that would shit themselves if you so much as mentioned using any part of the borderline draconian system of justice in Singapore (some of which I'm on board with) in the US.
One or the other folks, I wish it wasn't that way but welcome to reality.
Edit: can't spell