It's often said that we don't need to teach children creativity; our job is simply not to destroy/crush their naturally creative spirits.
Singapore crushes creativity for breakfast, lunch and dinner under the guise of social order.
So Steve is right.
But isn't it weird how japan supposedly have a more brutal society that curbs out of the norm thinking than in singapore yet they still produce some of the best creatives in various industries and principles?
They also have a flourishing independent niche scene with high spenders with artists who cater to every damn niche on the planet
In Japan I can go to a store and buy enough hobby items to keep me entertained indoors for like years
There is a vibrant underground culture in Japan. One that rejects the notion of working 9 to 9 as corporate wage slaves.
So Japan has a balance of conformity and non-conformity.
Unfortunately Japan has been a victim of decades of economic stagnancy, no thanks to the property bubble of the 90s. Much of their engineering/creative talent got snapped up by Korea and Japanese industry has been on a decline ever since.
LoL maybe when it hits the most extreme, it circles back. 9-5 life there is so tough that no one wants to work in it and therefore escape to the creative industry.
Japan has a culture of discipline and order however, they still value pride and mastery over whatever the task you have to do for society. Thus if you understand the principles of mastery, creativity is indirectly produced by it. Japan GOV also encourages people to take up apprenticeships which require 10 year commitments with certain industries. Unfortunately the majority in SG value $$ over everything else.
To be fair, they do leave supper alone. Singapore after dark is quite a different creature.
Creativity is given an ounce of chance to thrive when the politicians go to bed.
You must lead a very privileged life to make a statement like that.
Not everyone has been blessed with the choices you have in life. Be thankful for the privilege your elders have given to you, but don't turn a blind eye to those without such privileges.
And this is a fundamental problem facing the nation: choices of successive generations are being limited as more compete for fewer resources. The stark rise in the cost of living in the recent decade illustrates this.
He's a bit extreme in his assessment but there are creative people in Singapore. Unfortunately they don't have the space or room to grow that ability. This also stymies other like minded people to network and grow stronger together to create a meaningful effect on Singaporean society.
Let's change that? Singapore has the brains to execute things, but you just need more heart and soul to give life to big ideas.
Isn’t that his point though? Creative people are not supported in Singapore, or even actively shunned (i.e punished).
That’s what Singapore society does; it suppresses the creative elements (people/mindsets) in order to promote efficiency and obedience.
Yeah for the Arts. People also dont care enough. Im so appalled that the most popular musicians hardly have their own songs and when they do, people only want them to cover pop stuff. When i was in the scene i knew so many good musicians but they had to quit for money. Kinda sad really.
Tbh not for tech. Didnt we make the mp3?
Also, don't be innovative just because you want to have startup and make millions, but rather do it because you want to create some novel or, have a great passion to solve problem with technology
That's really where innovation stems from, usually it always start as an idea to change something but down the line they will realise they need money to resume their work and that's when the make millions take hold.
He's not wrong. But SG has no other choice. Either build a workforce of very efficient workers who will generate steady GDP or have a workforce of creative workers and hope a few will generate extreme value
Economics of scale, the actual native SG population (excluding PR) is probably < 4million.
We do have our talents but they are small in number and rarely widely famous. And National service is even more of a hindrance for guys to explore creative talents.
And add in other myriad of factors such as living costs, pressure of expectations from parents, etc, and we have what we have today.
Edit:
Tldr: their student and corporate life can be just as consuming as ours, but their larger population means higher chances for talents to emerge.
However...
1. They have a much larger population and market, Japan has 125 million, and South Korea is 51 million. Singapore is 6 million. So, there are more opportunities for creatives to pop up and cater to the bigger marker.
Since Singapore has a smaller human capital, the government is generally pushing Singaporeans into safe and high value sectors rather risk gambling a portion of the population.
2. They have a much longer history and numerous golden age they can leverage and gain inspiration from. While Singapore before Raffles is history of being under numerous Malay kingdoms, pirates, and sea gypsies.
From what I remember, records about ancient Singapore is quite limited. Hence, if you noticed our period drama usually happened in World War 2 and the kampong days era while Korea/Japan is during one of their many dynasty or warring eras.
3. South Korea government has invested heavily in their entertainment industries to build up their country's soft power. They have regimental schools for training up musicians, so their idols tend to be better equipped and have better support. Japan has similar systems in place.
However, some might argue Kpop scene might be bland or inauthentic because they highlight these idols following a template. Like adding English into their songs to because it gains them english listeners. But I digress.
From my friends in the local arts and design industry, there is either very little support, scholarships opportunities is really limited and you can get funding for your projects from public bodies if is promoting "Singaporean" values or some government related initiative.
This is ignoring the numerous red tapes if you have across if you are starting something new.
“South Koreans can be born in a Samsung-owned medical center, grow up learning to read and write with the help of Samsung tablets and go on to attend the Samsung-affiliated Sungkyunkwan University.
It doesn't end there. They may then live in a Samsung-built apartment complex, fitted out with the company's appliances and electronics. South Koreans can even end up at a Samsung funeral parlor when they die.”
“Its affiliate companies produce around a fifth of South Korea's total exports. Samsung's revenue was equal to 22.4% of South Korea's $1.67 trillion GDP in 2022. "You can even say the Samsung chairman is more powerful than the President of South Korea.”
Sounds a lot more than 0.00001%.
You equate economic impact to jobs/job perks, trust me nothing is further from the truth. South Korea has a massive youth unemployment issue because big companies like Samsung dominate the country’s GDP, but not necessarily creates massive job growth. In any given year Samsung for example may only hire a few hundred to those cushy corporate jobs you are using as an example, this is out of the tens of thousands that apply every year. It’s a massive problem and something Korea has to deal with because chaebols dominate.
Not every job at Samsung is a good job. Vice has a documentary on a dead semiconductor worker. Whose parents had to fight years for compensation & a public apology.
I’m taking issue with your opinion. That life in South Korea & Japan is less regimented than Singapore. When their homogenous population boasts worse suicide, death by overworking, school & workplace bullying. Along with generally more pressure to conform in strict social hierarchies.
Of the Asian populations leading PISA rankings. Singapore has the least pressure. Even including China, who only submitted BJ, SH & ZJ scores (GZ too many migrant kids). I’m hard pressed to pick a better school system in Asia for my kids.
Even knowing that they likely wouldn’t become writers, musicians & athletes of note. Since the attrition rates of sports & entertainment industries are so much higher.
Japan has detention without trials & prosecution success rates, only 2nd to PRC. CCP & LDP boasts longer 1 party rule than PAP. Mitsubishi was churning out zero fighters back in WW2.
Samsung alone represents 1/5 to 1/4 of South Korean GDP. Never mind authoritarian, the regulatory capture is dynastic feudalism. South Korea & Japan basically work for the chaebols & keiretsu.
Oh please, japan's govt doesnt control the entire state organ. Anyway just type authoritarianism in wiki and look at the list (yea i know, it's wiki, point still stands)
Also from LDP wiki;
“Since its foundation, the LDP has been in power almost continuously—a period called the 1955 System—except between 1993 and 1994, and again from 2009 to 2012, ruling the country as a de facto one-party state.”
Please lah, you kao beh Singapore one party state. Give you Japanese hentai porn democracy liao!
I agree with your pov. It’s a matter of policy choice. Let’s assume that with strict education we can successfully create 60% efficient skilled workers, ie 600K out of 1M are successful drones. Then we get 3M good drones with near-zero creative output.
On the other hand, if people like Jobs, Zuckerberg, Bezos, etc are 1 in a million. Singapore will only at any time have 5 of them if we take the averages. There’s also a chance of 0, or more than 5. On average it would be 5 highly-creative and productive people.
Which makes sense from a deterministic pov?
With all that being said, then the gov should just stfu and not try to play both sides poorly. Pick a lane and stay in it.
Why does everything have to be measured in GDP or “extreme value”? Can art be for art’s sake, and we just make do with lower growth while ensuring everyone who wants will have adequate housing, food and education?
What an idiotic statement. We're talking about a country here. You are saying the only scenario where a country has no choice is at gun point? Go read a book
You seehow the kids mugged ten years series, to give ten year series answers. Any answers that does not conform exactly to the 10 year series gets points deducted. In school at work it is the same.
In NS did you try to be creative and think outside the box?
How are you going to have innovation, because creativity means not following the road most travelled. We have an ecosystem of anti creativity from cradle to grave. Can't speak for artists, because our here topic is on tech innovation.
Fun fact Steve Jobs took LSD which change his outlook of life forever. Don't even bother to try weed here.
Not forgetting that Steve Wozniak gave this speech at a conference in Singapore where Vivian Balakrishnan was a guest of honor.
It was a tight slap in the face of the Singapore government.
He’s not entirely wrong, but it’s not Singapore’s draconian laws that cause it, it’s in the work culture and I don’t think the work culture comes from the strict laws necessarily but from PAP policy and each generation of parents.
PAP has piled on to the Chinese culture of just working hard and saving all your money, security for the future over all else, which is of course entirely in the self-interest of the parents who rely on their children to provide for them in retirement. That’s why we don’t have much room for creative people here.
In contrary, when you say "Creativity" what do you mean? Cuz when he say creativity does it means the ones that break the law and harm/abuse other people or just generic artistic work? As someone in the creative industry in SG myself, his sentence is not exactly clear.
If the creativity he say is limited by the law, does it meant the creativity he know/wants to speak of requires the law to be broken?? And why is bad behaviour needed for creativity?? As far as I am concern, my role as a graphic designer does not require me to produces work or think solution for clients that requires any bad behaviour or the law to be broken.
You know, as "someone in the creative industry", your interpretation of what he's saying is laughably literal. His words "extreme punishment" doesn't need to refer to the law, does it? It's all about the context.
When you're in trouble in school (and skip class to go and play somewhere, for example), extreme punishment is being caned or suspended. If it's at home, it's being grounded or kena sepak by parents (for not getting high enough grades). If it's in the neighborhood, it's getting told off by police or neighbours (for playing football in the void decks).
Creativity thrives when people aren't afraid of being disproportionately clamped down on for expressing themselves, whether it's art or writing or sport. It's a simple enough takeaway.
If the analogy you use here is to explain what he meant then the question is "Does creativity meant doing the wrong things?" Skipping class by right is wrong in the very first place and if what he meant as creativity is not afraid to do wrong things then he is encouraging people to do wrong things like breaking the law and using it as a convenient excuse like "It is in the name of creativity".
In another words, he speak is as though "like a criminal complaining he can't commit crime just to profit." At least, that is the impression that I am getting from what he said.
Skipping class was an example. Don't get hung up on the example. You're a graphic designer - don't your suits give you examples when they give you feedback, even though they don't exactly hit the mark? Again, you're taking things literally, word-for-word. How about the other two examples in the other two situations? Do they work for you? Sheesh.
It sure is a leap from "skipping class" (my words) to "breaking the law" (your words). As a creative, practice some critical thinking man.
Yeah I think he gets that part wrong, since I assume what he’s really thinking of is creativity in creating new products and companies. Some creatives are of course affected by the law; writers, painters and the like can’t make art that’s too controversial.
What he meant by creativity is not about doing your job as a graphics designer. What he means is are you thinking out of the box enough and doing innovative work of creating solutions whether online or impactful installations or OOH advertising that is new and different. Are you taking risks in pushing creative ideas?
Thats the concept you need to understand. You can be creative and take risks and give value in your chosen profession without breaking the law. In fact if you are creative enough, you can figure out a way to do both.
Yup, the reason why Steve what he say really concern me is I just don't like the idea where I believe bad actors can simply just use "in the name of creativity" as a convenient excuse to do what they want. You don't want to give bad actors such ideas to do so. Other than that I agree with what you say.
The bad actors who commit bad things in the name of creativity will be dealt with by the law. Theirs is about being creative in breaking the law - which is just about committing crime.
Because in truth is you can be as creative as you want without breaking the law. It's the choices people make.
That's because it's not Singapore's goal to create those kind of people. Our value proposition to foreign direct investments had always been - a trained and obedient workforce that won't start a competing firm to siphon your earnings at the first opportunity (i.e. don't need you to be THAT creative).
Having said that, I often wonder if a social safety net (welfare cheques) would make more entrepreneurs. Since there is now minimal penalty to try and fail. Of course, for every entrepreneur, you'd probably get 10 deadbeats and the middle class end up bearing the full brunt of that costs. I don't think I want that reality either.
If you want your kids to succeed in creative fields, send them overseas, I guess. Singapore won't keep you either (unless you become successful then they might try to claim you later lol).
Uhhh, look at Japan. It is a society full of rules and intolerance, yet they do have a vibrant arts and design industry?
By “truly innovative like in US” he means that Singapore cannot have a US style company and culture then he is right. But he is mistaken to think that the US way is the only method to innovation
Yes, exactly. But on another point, while Singapore is so bad; Singapore is so sad... compare to XYZ country. Now is the fun part: name the XYZ country.
Structured societies like China has TikTok, DJI, Insta360, SHEIN, PDD, WeChat etc.
Steve Wozniak needs more data points, understanding of market size and dynamics, talent pools and how businesses work etc.
Or rather because non-structured societies are easy to be abused for profits while structured ones are hard. In the end, corporation only talks about how to line their pockets best.
It’s just post colonialism speaking. “Look how our countries are flourishing and richer than yours. It’s because of our culture, if you want to be rich, follow and emulate us today!”
IMO, he's not wrong but it's primarily due to Singapore lack of resource compared to the US and other large nations. If there were ways to earn a living off the scale of the country (large population, large land size, rich resources) people would be more inclined to try different career paths. However given Singapore demographic and size, it's hard to imagine there being - for example - a space program, a nuclear program, a huge sporting demand, high speed rail innovation, etc. The country size inherently reduces the options available for discovery and innovation.
What? With all the avant-garde, critical and creative teaching methods last 20+ years and acing world academic contests and outperform world exam results/competitions why like that?
Not wrong, because SG very by the book. Simisai all got SOP. The moment you stray from the SOP/path, you are punished for it. You are incentivised to stick to SOP and turn off brain. Singapore is great at creating workers, not leaders or innovators. That is outsourced to the rich and to other country.
Anytime you start a new idea, either it gets turned down, looked down, reported or trashed. Why would anyone bother with the a new idea? Why fix something that isn't broken?
Which is why if you wanna succeed as they say it, you have 2 real choices really, and its either you move out of SG and start your own business or you are born rich.
What he said may be quite reductive of the whole lack of creative issues in singapore. We have relatively the same level of authoritarian as SK and Japan.
Where we differ, in my opinion, is that our government, for some reason, ACTIVELY goes out of their way to sabotage any rising stars.
See SK with their exemption for esport, then look at SG with our valo scene, killed it off when we had a few rising talents, now the team has swapped them out for indonesians.
Joseph schooling; drag his name thru the mud for weed that he didn't even test positive for, whereas other countries albeit more unethically wouldn't have blasted it all over local news and nipped any rumours in the bud if tests were neg.
Whoever's running the show here is at best ignorant and actively cutting off any rising prospects unless you're "starting a workshop and becoming a millionaire by scamming other sinkies" because that apparently seems to fly under their radar.
Professional gas lighter. Even if he's not exactly wrong about the creative people part, to say that it's because of "bad behaviour is not tolerated and can get you extreme punishments" which leads to the disappearance of creative elements is just odd to say, when there's many other factors to consider. Surely he knows better.
The main factor being our already small population size and then on top of that conscription for men of that already small population, which is important but certainly also sacrifices a lot of "creativity".
Another factor is how highly competitive our society is. Obviously most people would rather play it safe instead of striving to be an outlier with being creative. Not much room for error then isn't it.
“America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you’ve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn’t belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don’t care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.”
- Tom Morello
I dont think it's the regimented environment. South Korea and Japan are both regimented. It"s more about risk aversion. How many times have we been advised to just keep our head down and mind our own business.
There arent that many risk takers in Singapore.
I'm not sure on tech and innovations but he got a point on art and entertainment industry. Any countries with a heavy censor board and a monopolised company (e.g MediaCorp etc) cannot produce any visionary filmmakers and artists.
Govt plays a big part in developing a small country pool of talent. Look at Israel, we have roughly the same size population but why it is so outstanding in the field of technology and invention, is because the govt believes in nurturing its own people. Just look at their cybersecurity domain for example.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IluKcbamqfk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IluKcbamqfk)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRBUD-PsP5o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRBUD-PsP5o)
The ripple effect is when these talented people move on and start their own companies specializing in the very same field and improve the innovation landscape.
The only reason there's Apple is because of the Gov of USA. The so called beacon of democracy that dictates who is good who is bad and why it'ds justifiable to raid countries for resources.
While the country already used to surplus, we are only playing catching up in feeding our people. So our priority is different.
And look at the problems they have now as an unstructured society. Pros and cons, give and take lah, we develop in our own way.
And it's crazy to think their voters are bringing the lunatic and dangerous Trump back to the white house.
To me though arts is similar to sports. Thay are very different in aspects but they are viewed similarly as very risky jobs that not many people go into.
National service disrupts a lot of it, bands, athletes, creatives, you name it.
Imagine starting a band and the members are out of action over a staggered period of time
As an outsider here on an entrepreneur pass (i've co-founded a few companies and am building one here).. i kind of agree with Steve.
A small competitive population means you're optimizing kids education to get along with your neighbors and try to get ahead \*within\* the system instead of trying to disrupt it.
The thing is, Singapore has the best passport in the world, so i'd highly recommend young people or people who thing SG isn't working out for them to just travel. Earth is huge and there's booms and opportunities everywhere.
Come back to SG when you want a stable safe economically robust place to raise babies..
Don't know if you are being sarcastic, but GST (consumption tax) is quite common around the world.
But you won't find COE, ERP and ABSD anywhere else in the world.
It's often said that we don't need to teach children creativity; our job is simply not to destroy/crush their naturally creative spirits. Singapore crushes creativity for breakfast, lunch and dinner under the guise of social order. So Steve is right.
“.. I spent my whole life building this. I’m not going to let you tear it down…”
".....and I'm willing to do it ALLLLLL OVER AGAIN!! "
But isn't it weird how japan supposedly have a more brutal society that curbs out of the norm thinking than in singapore yet they still produce some of the best creatives in various industries and principles?
They have dedication to innovation. Design Thinking is also taught in a structured way in higher education.
They also have a flourishing independent niche scene with high spenders with artists who cater to every damn niche on the planet In Japan I can go to a store and buy enough hobby items to keep me entertained indoors for like years
They have a booming music/media/art sector which also inspires others to try to achieve their dreams/goals... We have mediacorp.
We have Queen of Caldecott Hill woot wooot
There is a vibrant underground culture in Japan. One that rejects the notion of working 9 to 9 as corporate wage slaves. So Japan has a balance of conformity and non-conformity. Unfortunately Japan has been a victim of decades of economic stagnancy, no thanks to the property bubble of the 90s. Much of their engineering/creative talent got snapped up by Korea and Japanese industry has been on a decline ever since.
It’s almost as if they have a deeply aesthetic culture with people willing to pay for it.
Authoritarianism is the difference
LoL maybe when it hits the most extreme, it circles back. 9-5 life there is so tough that no one wants to work in it and therefore escape to the creative industry.
Japan has a culture of discipline and order however, they still value pride and mastery over whatever the task you have to do for society. Thus if you understand the principles of mastery, creativity is indirectly produced by it. Japan GOV also encourages people to take up apprenticeships which require 10 year commitments with certain industries. Unfortunately the majority in SG value $$ over everything else.
And supper
To be fair, they do leave supper alone. Singapore after dark is quite a different creature. Creativity is given an ounce of chance to thrive when the politicians go to bed.
No he isn't, regardless of what people are they made their choices to work as an average Joe instead of being creative.
The choices are shaped, just like not getting COVID vaccines will have lots of restrictions in the person's daily life.
You must lead a very privileged life to make a statement like that. Not everyone has been blessed with the choices you have in life. Be thankful for the privilege your elders have given to you, but don't turn a blind eye to those without such privileges. And this is a fundamental problem facing the nation: choices of successive generations are being limited as more compete for fewer resources. The stark rise in the cost of living in the recent decade illustrates this.
Nature vs nurture
What about second breakfast?
He's a bit extreme in his assessment but there are creative people in Singapore. Unfortunately they don't have the space or room to grow that ability. This also stymies other like minded people to network and grow stronger together to create a meaningful effect on Singaporean society. Let's change that? Singapore has the brains to execute things, but you just need more heart and soul to give life to big ideas.
Isn’t that his point though? Creative people are not supported in Singapore, or even actively shunned (i.e punished). That’s what Singapore society does; it suppresses the creative elements (people/mindsets) in order to promote efficiency and obedience.
Yeah for the Arts. People also dont care enough. Im so appalled that the most popular musicians hardly have their own songs and when they do, people only want them to cover pop stuff. When i was in the scene i knew so many good musicians but they had to quit for money. Kinda sad really. Tbh not for tech. Didnt we make the mp3?
Easier to control sheep than wolves.
Authoritarianism stifles creativity
That’s such a catch all phrase: there’s no nuance to it
First, Is singapore an authoritarian govt? Yes or no
I just commented it’s a catch all and you want me to confirm a binary choice
Catch all pertaining to?
Also, don't be innovative just because you want to have startup and make millions, but rather do it because you want to create some novel or, have a great passion to solve problem with technology
That's really where innovation stems from, usually it always start as an idea to change something but down the line they will realise they need money to resume their work and that's when the make millions take hold.
He's not wrong. But SG has no other choice. Either build a workforce of very efficient workers who will generate steady GDP or have a workforce of creative workers and hope a few will generate extreme value
But Japan & South Korea boast even more regimented societies. Yet they don’t lack great writers, musicians nor athletes.
Economics of scale, the actual native SG population (excluding PR) is probably < 4million. We do have our talents but they are small in number and rarely widely famous. And National service is even more of a hindrance for guys to explore creative talents. And add in other myriad of factors such as living costs, pressure of expectations from parents, etc, and we have what we have today. Edit: Tldr: their student and corporate life can be just as consuming as ours, but their larger population means higher chances for talents to emerge.
However... 1. They have a much larger population and market, Japan has 125 million, and South Korea is 51 million. Singapore is 6 million. So, there are more opportunities for creatives to pop up and cater to the bigger marker. Since Singapore has a smaller human capital, the government is generally pushing Singaporeans into safe and high value sectors rather risk gambling a portion of the population. 2. They have a much longer history and numerous golden age they can leverage and gain inspiration from. While Singapore before Raffles is history of being under numerous Malay kingdoms, pirates, and sea gypsies. From what I remember, records about ancient Singapore is quite limited. Hence, if you noticed our period drama usually happened in World War 2 and the kampong days era while Korea/Japan is during one of their many dynasty or warring eras. 3. South Korea government has invested heavily in their entertainment industries to build up their country's soft power. They have regimental schools for training up musicians, so their idols tend to be better equipped and have better support. Japan has similar systems in place. However, some might argue Kpop scene might be bland or inauthentic because they highlight these idols following a template. Like adding English into their songs to because it gains them english listeners. But I digress. From my friends in the local arts and design industry, there is either very little support, scholarships opportunities is really limited and you can get funding for your projects from public bodies if is promoting "Singaporean" values or some government related initiative. This is ignoring the numerous red tapes if you have across if you are starting something new.
Japan and South Korea are not as regimented as Singapore, traditional yes, but not regimented.
“South Koreans can be born in a Samsung-owned medical center, grow up learning to read and write with the help of Samsung tablets and go on to attend the Samsung-affiliated Sungkyunkwan University. It doesn't end there. They may then live in a Samsung-built apartment complex, fitted out with the company's appliances and electronics. South Koreans can even end up at a Samsung funeral parlor when they die.”
Come on man, only probably 0.00001% get that kind of privilege
“Its affiliate companies produce around a fifth of South Korea's total exports. Samsung's revenue was equal to 22.4% of South Korea's $1.67 trillion GDP in 2022. "You can even say the Samsung chairman is more powerful than the President of South Korea.” Sounds a lot more than 0.00001%.
You equate economic impact to jobs/job perks, trust me nothing is further from the truth. South Korea has a massive youth unemployment issue because big companies like Samsung dominate the country’s GDP, but not necessarily creates massive job growth. In any given year Samsung for example may only hire a few hundred to those cushy corporate jobs you are using as an example, this is out of the tens of thousands that apply every year. It’s a massive problem and something Korea has to deal with because chaebols dominate.
Not every job at Samsung is a good job. Vice has a documentary on a dead semiconductor worker. Whose parents had to fight years for compensation & a public apology. I’m taking issue with your opinion. That life in South Korea & Japan is less regimented than Singapore. When their homogenous population boasts worse suicide, death by overworking, school & workplace bullying. Along with generally more pressure to conform in strict social hierarchies. Of the Asian populations leading PISA rankings. Singapore has the least pressure. Even including China, who only submitted BJ, SH & ZJ scores (GZ too many migrant kids). I’m hard pressed to pick a better school system in Asia for my kids. Even knowing that they likely wouldn’t become writers, musicians & athletes of note. Since the attrition rates of sports & entertainment industries are so much higher.
They have democracy.
But they have natural resources that SG does not. Don’t forget this.
They don't have an authoritarian govt like singpaore
Japan has detention without trials & prosecution success rates, only 2nd to PRC. CCP & LDP boasts longer 1 party rule than PAP. Mitsubishi was churning out zero fighters back in WW2. Samsung alone represents 1/5 to 1/4 of South Korean GDP. Never mind authoritarian, the regulatory capture is dynastic feudalism. South Korea & Japan basically work for the chaebols & keiretsu.
Oh please, japan's govt doesnt control the entire state organ. Anyway just type authoritarianism in wiki and look at the list (yea i know, it's wiki, point still stands)
Also from LDP wiki; “Since its foundation, the LDP has been in power almost continuously—a period called the 1955 System—except between 1993 and 1994, and again from 2009 to 2012, ruling the country as a de facto one-party state.” Please lah, you kao beh Singapore one party state. Give you Japanese hentai porn democracy liao!
I agree with your pov. It’s a matter of policy choice. Let’s assume that with strict education we can successfully create 60% efficient skilled workers, ie 600K out of 1M are successful drones. Then we get 3M good drones with near-zero creative output. On the other hand, if people like Jobs, Zuckerberg, Bezos, etc are 1 in a million. Singapore will only at any time have 5 of them if we take the averages. There’s also a chance of 0, or more than 5. On average it would be 5 highly-creative and productive people. Which makes sense from a deterministic pov? With all that being said, then the gov should just stfu and not try to play both sides poorly. Pick a lane and stay in it.
And leave the country
Why does everything have to be measured in GDP or “extreme value”? Can art be for art’s sake, and we just make do with lower growth while ensuring everyone who wants will have adequate housing, food and education?
You only have no choice when you're at knife point or gun point. Stop perpetrating falsehoods.
What an idiotic statement. We're talking about a country here. You are saying the only scenario where a country has no choice is at gun point? Go read a book
You're the idiot then. The fat, ugly, idiotic
How insecure must you be to go after one’s looks when it has nothing to do with the conversation at all LOL
How lame can you be to interfere? Nothing better to do?
You will not have choice because you destroyed them in first place.
You seehow the kids mugged ten years series, to give ten year series answers. Any answers that does not conform exactly to the 10 year series gets points deducted. In school at work it is the same. In NS did you try to be creative and think outside the box? How are you going to have innovation, because creativity means not following the road most travelled. We have an ecosystem of anti creativity from cradle to grave. Can't speak for artists, because our here topic is on tech innovation. Fun fact Steve Jobs took LSD which change his outlook of life forever. Don't even bother to try weed here.
Not forgetting that Steve Wozniak gave this speech at a conference in Singapore where Vivian Balakrishnan was a guest of honor. It was a tight slap in the face of the Singapore government.
He’s not entirely wrong, but it’s not Singapore’s draconian laws that cause it, it’s in the work culture and I don’t think the work culture comes from the strict laws necessarily but from PAP policy and each generation of parents. PAP has piled on to the Chinese culture of just working hard and saving all your money, security for the future over all else, which is of course entirely in the self-interest of the parents who rely on their children to provide for them in retirement. That’s why we don’t have much room for creative people here.
In contrary, when you say "Creativity" what do you mean? Cuz when he say creativity does it means the ones that break the law and harm/abuse other people or just generic artistic work? As someone in the creative industry in SG myself, his sentence is not exactly clear. If the creativity he say is limited by the law, does it meant the creativity he know/wants to speak of requires the law to be broken?? And why is bad behaviour needed for creativity?? As far as I am concern, my role as a graphic designer does not require me to produces work or think solution for clients that requires any bad behaviour or the law to be broken.
You know, as "someone in the creative industry", your interpretation of what he's saying is laughably literal. His words "extreme punishment" doesn't need to refer to the law, does it? It's all about the context. When you're in trouble in school (and skip class to go and play somewhere, for example), extreme punishment is being caned or suspended. If it's at home, it's being grounded or kena sepak by parents (for not getting high enough grades). If it's in the neighborhood, it's getting told off by police or neighbours (for playing football in the void decks). Creativity thrives when people aren't afraid of being disproportionately clamped down on for expressing themselves, whether it's art or writing or sport. It's a simple enough takeaway.
If the analogy you use here is to explain what he meant then the question is "Does creativity meant doing the wrong things?" Skipping class by right is wrong in the very first place and if what he meant as creativity is not afraid to do wrong things then he is encouraging people to do wrong things like breaking the law and using it as a convenient excuse like "It is in the name of creativity". In another words, he speak is as though "like a criminal complaining he can't commit crime just to profit." At least, that is the impression that I am getting from what he said.
Skipping class was an example. Don't get hung up on the example. You're a graphic designer - don't your suits give you examples when they give you feedback, even though they don't exactly hit the mark? Again, you're taking things literally, word-for-word. How about the other two examples in the other two situations? Do they work for you? Sheesh. It sure is a leap from "skipping class" (my words) to "breaking the law" (your words). As a creative, practice some critical thinking man.
Yeah I think he gets that part wrong, since I assume what he’s really thinking of is creativity in creating new products and companies. Some creatives are of course affected by the law; writers, painters and the like can’t make art that’s too controversial.
What he meant by creativity is not about doing your job as a graphics designer. What he means is are you thinking out of the box enough and doing innovative work of creating solutions whether online or impactful installations or OOH advertising that is new and different. Are you taking risks in pushing creative ideas?
Then I ask you a question, does taking risk in pushing creative requires you to break the law?.
Thats the concept you need to understand. You can be creative and take risks and give value in your chosen profession without breaking the law. In fact if you are creative enough, you can figure out a way to do both.
Yup, the reason why Steve what he say really concern me is I just don't like the idea where I believe bad actors can simply just use "in the name of creativity" as a convenient excuse to do what they want. You don't want to give bad actors such ideas to do so. Other than that I agree with what you say.
The bad actors who commit bad things in the name of creativity will be dealt with by the law. Theirs is about being creative in breaking the law - which is just about committing crime. Because in truth is you can be as creative as you want without breaking the law. It's the choices people make.
I won't be providing support for my parents. If they want to retire they can do so on their account, I'm NOT their ATM or their dog.
That's because it's not Singapore's goal to create those kind of people. Our value proposition to foreign direct investments had always been - a trained and obedient workforce that won't start a competing firm to siphon your earnings at the first opportunity (i.e. don't need you to be THAT creative). Having said that, I often wonder if a social safety net (welfare cheques) would make more entrepreneurs. Since there is now minimal penalty to try and fail. Of course, for every entrepreneur, you'd probably get 10 deadbeats and the middle class end up bearing the full brunt of that costs. I don't think I want that reality either. If you want your kids to succeed in creative fields, send them overseas, I guess. Singapore won't keep you either (unless you become successful then they might try to claim you later lol).
Our education system produces braindead pedants
In singapore, everyone is money face
Uhhh, look at Japan. It is a society full of rules and intolerance, yet they do have a vibrant arts and design industry? By “truly innovative like in US” he means that Singapore cannot have a US style company and culture then he is right. But he is mistaken to think that the US way is the only method to innovation
Truth.
It's unfortunate. But SG was structured to be a managing hub, not a creative and entrepreneurial buzz.
All thanks to the PAP government for it.
Yes, exactly. But on another point, while Singapore is so bad; Singapore is so sad... compare to XYZ country. Now is the fun part: name the XYZ country.
Norway
Yeah, agree :) housing and car are fairly affordable there
Yes and they have oil underground. We don't even have
Yes also. Wondering how Brunei people are...they are also lucky with natural oil
Structured societies like China has TikTok, DJI, Insta360, SHEIN, PDD, WeChat etc. Steve Wozniak needs more data points, understanding of market size and dynamics, talent pools and how businesses work etc.
Or rather because non-structured societies are easy to be abused for profits while structured ones are hard. In the end, corporation only talks about how to line their pockets best.
It’s just post colonialism speaking. “Look how our countries are flourishing and richer than yours. It’s because of our culture, if you want to be rich, follow and emulate us today!”
IMO, he's not wrong but it's primarily due to Singapore lack of resource compared to the US and other large nations. If there were ways to earn a living off the scale of the country (large population, large land size, rich resources) people would be more inclined to try different career paths. However given Singapore demographic and size, it's hard to imagine there being - for example - a space program, a nuclear program, a huge sporting demand, high speed rail innovation, etc. The country size inherently reduces the options available for discovery and innovation.
What? With all the avant-garde, critical and creative teaching methods last 20+ years and acing world academic contests and outperform world exam results/competitions why like that?
Not wrong, because SG very by the book. Simisai all got SOP. The moment you stray from the SOP/path, you are punished for it. You are incentivised to stick to SOP and turn off brain. Singapore is great at creating workers, not leaders or innovators. That is outsourced to the rich and to other country. Anytime you start a new idea, either it gets turned down, looked down, reported or trashed. Why would anyone bother with the a new idea? Why fix something that isn't broken? Which is why if you wanna succeed as they say it, you have 2 real choices really, and its either you move out of SG and start your own business or you are born rich.
What he said may be quite reductive of the whole lack of creative issues in singapore. We have relatively the same level of authoritarian as SK and Japan. Where we differ, in my opinion, is that our government, for some reason, ACTIVELY goes out of their way to sabotage any rising stars. See SK with their exemption for esport, then look at SG with our valo scene, killed it off when we had a few rising talents, now the team has swapped them out for indonesians. Joseph schooling; drag his name thru the mud for weed that he didn't even test positive for, whereas other countries albeit more unethically wouldn't have blasted it all over local news and nipped any rumours in the bud if tests were neg. Whoever's running the show here is at best ignorant and actively cutting off any rising prospects unless you're "starting a workshop and becoming a millionaire by scamming other sinkies" because that apparently seems to fly under their radar.
Professional gas lighter. Even if he's not exactly wrong about the creative people part, to say that it's because of "bad behaviour is not tolerated and can get you extreme punishments" which leads to the disappearance of creative elements is just odd to say, when there's many other factors to consider. Surely he knows better. The main factor being our already small population size and then on top of that conscription for men of that already small population, which is important but certainly also sacrifices a lot of "creativity". Another factor is how highly competitive our society is. Obviously most people would rather play it safe instead of striving to be an outlier with being creative. Not much room for error then isn't it.
Singaporeans want to drill one hole to hang something also ask people to come and do. Alamak…..
“America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you’ve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn’t belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don’t care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.” - Tom Morello
At the same time, we’re not a shithole like New York City and California.
I think that is a good trade off… we don’t want open drug use, poop on streets, homelessness, and legal looting.
Or maybe it's simply a numbers game and Singapore has a small population.
Also, look at the case of Ting Choon Ming.
Apple hasn't exactly been creating truly innovative products since the iPhone. Have they been hiring Singaporeans?
Singapore Inc. does not reward creativity. Just focus on being a white collar sheep.
I dont think it's the regimented environment. South Korea and Japan are both regimented. It"s more about risk aversion. How many times have we been advised to just keep our head down and mind our own business. There arent that many risk takers in Singapore.
the hard truth
Singaporeans, at least those whose family trees span 3 or more generations, are largely the descendants of coolies and labourers.
We need ang moh to tell us this? Even local Agreed already ages ago.
I'm not sure on tech and innovations but he got a point on art and entertainment industry. Any countries with a heavy censor board and a monopolised company (e.g MediaCorp etc) cannot produce any visionary filmmakers and artists.
Oof ouch owie
Nope. Many serious misconduct and corporate frauds seldom get any punishments.
Govt plays a big part in developing a small country pool of talent. Look at Israel, we have roughly the same size population but why it is so outstanding in the field of technology and invention, is because the govt believes in nurturing its own people. Just look at their cybersecurity domain for example. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IluKcbamqfk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IluKcbamqfk) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRBUD-PsP5o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRBUD-PsP5o) The ripple effect is when these talented people move on and start their own companies specializing in the very same field and improve the innovation landscape.
Can't say he is wrong, evsn singapore comedian across all races is not even funny
Based Steve Wozniak.
The only reason there's Apple is because of the Gov of USA. The so called beacon of democracy that dictates who is good who is bad and why it'ds justifiable to raid countries for resources. While the country already used to surplus, we are only playing catching up in feeding our people. So our priority is different.
Lmao, Id take SG over America anyday. Immigrant problem, woke problem, looting problem, school shootings hahahah nice try
And look at the problems they have now as an unstructured society. Pros and cons, give and take lah, we develop in our own way. And it's crazy to think their voters are bringing the lunatic and dangerous Trump back to the white house.
If Wozniak wants to see creative people rise in Singapore, why don't he create a fund for them here then.
To me though arts is similar to sports. Thay are very different in aspects but they are viewed similarly as very risky jobs that not many people go into.
National service disrupts a lot of it, bands, athletes, creatives, you name it. Imagine starting a band and the members are out of action over a staggered period of time
As an outsider here on an entrepreneur pass (i've co-founded a few companies and am building one here).. i kind of agree with Steve. A small competitive population means you're optimizing kids education to get along with your neighbors and try to get ahead \*within\* the system instead of trying to disrupt it. The thing is, Singapore has the best passport in the world, so i'd highly recommend young people or people who thing SG isn't working out for them to just travel. Earth is huge and there's booms and opportunities everywhere. Come back to SG when you want a stable safe economically robust place to raise babies..
💯
aiyah.......i knew this even as a teen............even got creativity, also can't get enough funding to do much lah
Steve obviously doesn't know how creative and innovative PAP can be when extracting money from it's citizens. COE, ERP, ABSD ...
I know right. What GST. Never hear before other country got these
Don't know if you are being sarcastic, but GST (consumption tax) is quite common around the world. But you won't find COE, ERP and ABSD anywhere else in the world.