kungfuzu
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Post by kungfuzu on Jul 20, 2019 19:04:48 GMT -8
August 9th is the date on which Singapore officially separated from the Federation of Malay States, the country we generally call Malaysia.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 21, 2019 9:35:49 GMT -8
62 Singapore FactsOne of the factoids mentions their Gardens by the Bay which includes 50 meter high solar-powered trees. Singaporeans have a bizarre aesthetic. And yet that Gardens by the Bay seems a logical extension of some of the space-age art found at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair such as the arches at what is now called the Pacific Science Center:   I admit, I like this factoid as well: And then you have the Singapore Flyer. It’s as if when they flew off in the elevator at the end of the movie, Willy Wonka started up again in Singapore. And how do you beat this factoid at #15? New York could learn a thing to two: I imagine they don’t have quite the “homeless” problem that either Seattle or San Francisco do. It ought to be. HortPark also sounds interesting. Singapore sounds like a micro-managed quasi-utopian state without the goofiness and dishonesty of the Democratic Party which makes similar promises but gets too caught up in grievance in ever to promote utopia. The Singaporeans, for better or for worse, seem to have a better handle on it. And it sounds like the 156-year-old Singapore Botanic Gardens is world-class.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 21, 2019 9:44:51 GMT -8
Whatever Singapore has, it seems some others (at least in 1965) didn’t want it:
Another interesting factoid:
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Post by timothylane on Jul 21, 2019 9:48:43 GMT -8
You may recall that there was a caning incident back in the 1990s when some American kid found out that they took their ban on graffiti a lot more seriously than American cities do. It even got mentioned in a Weird Al Yankovic song, though not one that I have now.
I assume the ban on urinating in elevators (and probably in other public situations) is (like the graffiti ban) a reflection of their determination to get rid of vandalism. There might be a lot of people in Left Coast cities who would support that now. (Things could get especially interesting if bubonic plague breaks out in the City of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels. And even more so if they get pneumonic plague.)
Singapore seems to be a very pragmatic city. They have only a limited use for personal freedom, but are happy to encourage business in general.
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Post by timothylane on Jul 21, 2019 9:58:27 GMT -8
Monaco is basically an overgrown tourist (especially gambling) trap and the Vatican City is an overgrown church. I think they don't have a full square mile between them. Singapore is a genuine nation state with a much larger population than many countries, and even more area than a few (San Marino, Liechtenstein, and some island nations). It also has a real (and significant) economy. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 21, 2019 10:10:06 GMT -8
Utopia has always been associated with great public spaces and architecture, whether talking Logan’s Run or Amazon’s Spheres.   If only going by the superficial looks and fine-grained laws against a Slobocracy, it seems more likely that Singapore would be the home of the headquarters for the United Federation of Planets or for Star Fleet, not San Francisco which, by 2161, will be buried in three feet of discarded needles and human feces. Only Singapore on a much larger scale begins to resemble the utopia of Earth talked about (rarely shown) in the Star Trek universe. There’s no way you can logical have anything near a utopia when “civil liberties” means the right to defecate in the street. Utopia has always been clean and ordered. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 21, 2019 11:10:19 GMT -8
The interesting question of Singapore is whether utopia can ever extend beyond a very small and mostly homogenous group of people. It’s doubtful. But without question, there is no paradise without laws and thus coercion. From what little I understand of Singapore, I would rather live there than in San Francisco or New York. According to this list, Singapore trails only Switzerland in having the lowest crime rate. What similarities might there be between Switzerland and Singapore? I would imagine both stress the basics: Order and cleanliness. And there must be instilled in the attitudes of the people (put there by stiff laws and/or other influences) to want to live in a clean and ordered society rather than a pigsty of violence, filth, and degradation. Every science fiction novel I ever read that included a utopia looked more like Singapore than today’s San Francisco or even New York. By whatever means it was achieved, violence and crime had been mostly banished and man could spend his energy and money in nobler pursuits. Given that race alone seems to be a real factor in crime, utopia on earth is an unlikely option. But I would gladly live with a few restrictions in order to enjoy the benefits of a place like Singapore. In fact, there is at least a small, perhaps growing, amount of people in America who want anarchy cleaned up. But I suspect we are so entirely confused now in terms of ethics and morals that this is not possible. In short, you can’t have clean streets without fining or even jailing those who litter them. But we have so come to believe in the touchy-feely approach, we can’t face that fact. Coercion need not be Draconian. But it needs to be. |
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Post by timothylane on Jul 21, 2019 11:11:58 GMT -8
Singapore as (in effect) a world HQ -- interesting idea. It would be very much in line with the multicultural notions of Roddenberry and his crew. In 1965 San Francisco sounded like a good idea, especially with the UN having been founded at a meeting there. Today it's a literally crappy idea. Perhaps Star Fleet HQ could be built with dried dung as a building material. By then nothing else may be allowed in Babylon on the Bay.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 21, 2019 11:20:26 GMT -8
Let us then fix up that United Federation of Planets Flag:  |
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Post by timothylane on Jul 21, 2019 11:25:27 GMT -8
Back in 1967, after reading 1984 and Brave New World, we had to write a theme for English class on utopias. I pointed to Brave New World as a utopia because the people are happy, which seems to be the point of utopias. Of course, you can't have any society in which everyone on balance is happy most of the time. But a clean, low-crime society probably is essential. No one wants to wade through crap, not even leftists. And no one wants to be a crime victim, though a small number of people want to be criminals.
Another possible fictional utopia (which I read long after that class) would be the society in Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. That one again is clean with low crime -- and relies on corporal punishment to enforce it. Incidentally, Frederik Pohl in one of his books (probably one of the ones he co-authored with C. M. Kornbluth) showed the problem of relying on corporate punishment. As Mr. Rogers might put it, "Can you say sadomasochism, boys and girls?"
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Post by timothylane on Jul 21, 2019 11:33:30 GMT -8
I see. Combining the color and design of the flag of Singapore with the outer part of the design of the UFP banner. (My thanks to wikipedia for the information. No doubt that was your source as well.) Well, I can think of worse ideas. It looks a bit too Muslim for my taste, but at least it doesn't have a hammer and sickle.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 21, 2019 12:40:21 GMT -8
Considering I'd rather live under Putin than Islam, let's fix that:  |
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Post by timothylane on Jul 21, 2019 12:54:28 GMT -8
Then how come the Enterprise only has a single Russian, and he didn't show up until second season? Or does that mean Russia runs the bureaucracy and the US runs the fleet? The historical implications of that flag are certainly interesting. I believe this would indicate that the timelines in the various references are a bit inaccurate. Maybe we could work up a timeline explaining that flag.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 21, 2019 14:13:48 GMT -8
If we're going to tackle this with the depth of real political correctness (or "Woke"-ness) we should point out that Chekov was not a real Russian. Walter Koenig was simply "identifying" as a Russian. This makes it both okay (it's surely okay to choose your cinematic race, gender, nationality, whatever) and not okay (he could be said to have engaged in cultural appropriation).
I'm not "woke" enough (read: ideologically zealous and with a chip on my shoulder the size of Gibraltar) to decide which way this falls.
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Post by timothylane on Jul 21, 2019 15:35:28 GMT -8
This is quite elementary, really. Are Russians a Demagogue-voting identity group? If they are, then Koenig was guilty of cultural appropriation. If (as I think is the case) they aren't, then it's perfectly reasonable for him to pretend to be Russian. Actual identification as a Russian would be another matter, but as far as I know only race, sex, and sexual preference are fluid. Ethnic identity isn't. I'm sure this makes perfect sense to a leftist.
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kungfuzu
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Post by kungfuzu on Jul 21, 2019 15:45:23 GMT -8
I just read the flood of comment which Bard and Tim have made. It will take me some time to respond to them, but let me first say that most of that modernistic stuff was built after I left Singapore, although the government did have a plan in place and had started implementing it while I still lived there. The majority of these strange-looking buildings are around Marina Bay which has been damned to desalinate the water so that there is a large fresh-water reservoir for the country.
As to safety, I have lived in Switzerland, Singapore and Japan. I would put them all on about an equal footing as to personal safety. I often told people that I would not worry for my wife's safety in either Singapore or Tokyo, regardless the time of day or night. I suppose the same could be said for Zurich and Luzern, but those cities are a fraction of the size of Singapore or Tokyo, and neither Swiss city has the pulsating humanity which is ever present in Asian cities. Swiss cities are quite dead at night, at least they used to be. The same cannot be said for large Asian ones.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jul 21, 2019 16:08:21 GMT -8
I think I should elaborate a bit. The majority of Singaporeans have a very plebeian aesthetic. The vast majority of them are from trader or coolie stock. What's old is bad and what's new is good. I have know Singaporeans comment about the crummy old houses in Europe and the age of antiques. Most Singaporeans wouldn't know high art from grade-school drawings. Of course, things might have changed since I moved away two decades ago, but I have been back several times.
I would guess that the "art" you see in those sites which you have linked to is purely government planned. There has been a long-term plan for the development of Singapore for decades and it is still being carried out. The good thing from an efficiency point of view is that if some part of this plan does not work out as foreseen, the government has the ability to change course very quickly. This is due to the size of the country and the "structured democracy" which in place.
The Singapore Government is made up of elites who are vetted first by the public schools they attended. Raffles Institution has been a major supplier of these elites. In the old days, the better students then went to the U.K. for their university degrees. Today, I suppose many attend the National University of Singapore, but then go overseas for post-graduate degrees. Even when I lived there, the U.S. had become the destination of choice and I suppose it is even more the case today.
Once these people return they go into their professions of choice and those who are very successful are vetted for government service. The military is a well known supplier of future political leaders. Successful lawyers and bureaucrats are also co-opted into the People's Action Party which is the party which has ruled Singapore since before its separation from Malaysia. Interestingly, I don't recall many businessmen being brought into the government. This may be because they built their own companies and thus are anything but bureaucratic in outlook.
The Lee family, starting with one of the original founders of modern Singapore Lee Kwan Yew (aka Harry Lee) have been the major political force in the city state. I believe this is changing somewhat.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jul 21, 2019 16:51:27 GMT -8
It is true. They started installing these devices in the so-called HDB flats while I lived in S'pore, as I like to abbreviate it. HDB stands for Housing Development Board, which is a government department responsible for building the subsidized housing where the majority of Singaporeans reside. The HDB flats started out very basic, but these days some of them are very up-scale.
Most of these flats are built in groups which create small towns. One area known as Ang Mo Kio, had over 100,000 residence in an early HDB settlement. As you might imagine, such a concentration of people can lead to some problems.
One such problem was the fact that the Chinese coolie type has, historically, not been too concerned about his or her environment. One of the results of this was that people were peeing in HDB elevators on a regular basis. Given the fact that S'pore is in the tropics such cavalier behavior was even more disgusting than had it been in the arctic.
The government got fed up and installed the urine-detection devices out of frustration. The fact that this was being done was, like all such government initiatives, widely publicized in "The Straits Times" as well as in other papers. Everyone was warned. There would be consequences for peeing in elevators if you were caught.
Shortly thereafter, as one who knew Singaporeans would expect, a urine-detection devise sounded the alarm and the elevator in an HDB building stopped, thereby trapping the occupant/culprit, if not in the act, just thereafter.
The authorities were called to greet and arrest the guilty party upon the opening of the sealed elevator. Along with the authorities were the cameras of the press. Shame is a very powerful motivator in Asian society and the government was going to make full use of it in this case.
As they opened the door, there stood a Chinese woman. She had been going up in the elevator and was only a couple of minutes from her apartment, yet she still peed on the tiles. Her name and face was broadcast to all of Singapore soon thereafter.
And if anyone believes this story is out of the ordinary, I have a friend who was in an elevator in China with one other occupant, a Chinese fellow. As they ascended the building, the Chinese pulled it out and started peeing in the corner as my friend moved closer to the other side of the elevator.
On the subject of the caning of the American kid, I will have something to say shortly.
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Post by timothylane on Jul 21, 2019 17:00:26 GMT -8
Some cultures just don't seem to have much toilet training. Some are primitive enough to have no idea what a toilet is or how (and why) to use it. John Brunner used that in a scene in The Squares of the City.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 21, 2019 21:06:15 GMT -8
It’s hard to fathom that people could be so degenerate that you’d have to go to excessive lengths to keep people from urinating in an elevator. I admit, I don’t get that.
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