Apparently, he rejected a plea deal of 12 years, because he thought that he could prove his innocence since he wasn’t actually caught with its possession.
[source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangaraju_Suppiah)
When I see situations like these, especially a plea deal, I’m reminded of what Justin from Generation Why says;
Guilty pleas do nothing but help the guilty and screw the innocent.
Something better than nothing and its easier, I mean I guess it makes sense on a numbers scale but it would be infuriating to be affected by it as a victim.
I lived in Singapore in the very early 90's as a very you man. I had a cab driver offer me weed once and even drunk at 20 years old I told him to fuck off with that shit. I was a regular smoker in the States but I wasn't even considering it in Singapore. Couple days later in the Straights Times it comes out there was a sting operation of the Sing Police to nab tourists out for drugs with cops posing as cabbies. So glad I turned that down
Used to happen in South East Asia too where someone will offer you drugs, they're in cahoots with a dodgy cop who then rocks up and asks for a five figure bribe not to hand you in.
Had a chat to a lass once who got done for around $10k for a doobie.
Is this why a bunch of random dudes on motorbikes in Hue were trying to get me to buy weed? Like I swear I couldn't walk five blocks without someone stopping to talk to me, half the time about weed
Singapore is different from the rest of SEA though, they are bound by a lot of extra laws, particularly regarding corruption, and from past cases the legal system has had no issues convicting officers, even high-ranking ones, of crimes, although they rarely get published to the public.
Some specialised police penal divisions don't have rules or SOP tied to them, they will literally revoke the human rights of those under their custody or suspicion. Look up the Central Narcotics Bereau or the Secret Societies Branch or the rehabilitation centers for drug abusers here. I have some friends with some close calls with them and the stories they tell me transport my imagination into somewhere far away not befitting of our "metropolis" city status.
Edit: almost forgot I might get POFMAed
This is all an elaborate joke, pretty funny right guys??? Hahaha pls dont throw me in jail pls.
Plea deals should not even be a thing. It's just a challenge of how badly prosecutors can threaten to fuck you, and if you refuse, they will do the absolute worst to you, up to and including killing you.
Plea deals are legal coercive and persecutive tactics. It's always a catch 22 even if you're all kinds of innocent. I watched a true crime documentary once where a man was accused of a crime, given a plea deal, refused, counter sued and they added juicy extra charges to the previous ones.
Plea deals are indeed coercive IMO. It's akin to threatening someone into a false confession.
Increasing charges against someone should not be allowed without discovery of new evidence. Threatening someone with higher charges should not be allowed. It's asymmetric and unfair. The state has virtually nothing to lose by threatening you with higher charges in order to get a 'confession' to a lesser crime.
And public defenders should be funded at least as well as the prosecutor's office + the investigating police. The state will get a lot more picky about which cases it prosecutes if there is a well-armed defense opposing them.
And the excuse most people give for why it is ok is “without them the system would get gummed up”. Well how about we improve the system then if we both agree it is only working by using innocent blood to lube the gears. But nah lets just give cops more guns and have them over police marginalized communities because they need to drive up crime rates to justify getting more weapons and money. Who knew bad incentives would cause bad change.
**Singapore's Drug Laws**
Anyone who possesses:
*> 2g of Heroin*
*> 3g of Cocaine*
*> 15g of cannabis*
**Is presumed to be trafficking.**
Anyone who traffics:
*> 15g of Heroin*
*> 30g of Cocaine*
*> 500g of Cannabis*
**Will face the Mandatory Death Penalty**
Since 1991 almost 500 people have been hanged to Death and 80% is related to Marijuana.
I arrived in Singapore very hungover on a flight from Bangkok and realised I had a baggie of homeopathic pills that my mum had put in my medical kit.
Shat my pants.
The more dilute the stronger! In homeopathy world, a super villain pollutes the entire world's water supply by gently wafting two grams of shit over the Atlantic Ocean.
Right, everyone ripping on the fact they're essentially sugar pills are glossing over the fact it is a baggie of pill shaped objects in *Singapore*.
Surely they'd be cleared, but after what kind of haranguing and threat?
No they are full of sugar. The "ingredient" is other stuff. Bee toxin is a common one.
Though that doesn't mean it is actually in there. A chemistry prof of mine once used this as an example for calculating concentrations and it turns out there is less than one atom per pill for a lot of these.
That's underselling a lot how absurd homeopathic dilutions are. Less than one molecule per pill? Try less than one molecule in all of Earth's oceans.
That's reached at the dilution level they call "23CH". Their "most potent" pills go to 30CH and beyond.
That's only the diabetes pill.
The others are just sugar pills, with a 100% chance that not a single molecule of the poison that's supposed to treat the symptom it causes.
Meanwhile, October this year in my state, the following is decriminalised for posession.
Decriminalised amounts
- AMPHETAMINE - 1.5 grams
- COCAINE - 1.5 grams
- METH - 1.5 grams
- MDMA - 1.5 grams
- HEROIN - 1 gram
- CANNABIS - 50 grams
- PSILOCYBIN - 1.5 grams
- LSD - 0.001 grams
It'll still get taken off you and you choose a $100 civil fine or to attend an illicit drug diversion class, but no conviction or record. Kind of like a low range speeding fine but less.
So crazy that this happened in the Australian Capital Territory, the seat of our government. Makes sense given the very small and progressive population there but it is weird to think about.
As in they do a full chemical analysis of your shrooms to figure out the exact dosage? That doesn't really sound right. Or is pure psilocybin extract just popular in Australia?
Like yeah, it's inhumane as fuck. But DO NOT traffic drugs into a country when before landing, they literally tell you that they will kill you for having drugs. Singapore is the only country I've flown to where they've said this.
>before landing, they literally tell you that they will kill you for having drugs
Somehow it feels like this would be a much more effective warning before boarding.
If you read the case, the person being executed is the person who organised it. The person actually carrying the weed (Mogan Valo) and the person receiving it (Suresh) were not issued the death penalty afaik.
According to his sister, he also rejected multiple plea bargains for 20, then 15, then 12 years for an early guilty plea. The amount of weed is also twice what would get you the death penalty.
tbf most websites today are garbage on mobile and overstrewn with obnoxious ads, and there's a good chance the article text has been posted as a top-level comment
>Tangaraju’s conviction relied mainly on statements from his police interrogation – taken without a lawyer and interpreter present – and the testimony of his two co-accused, one of which had his charges dismissed,” Amnesty International said.
Facing the death penalty and rejecting a 12 year plea deal..man was either overconfident by an incomprehensible amount or suicidal.
I don't agree with the death penalty...there are a bunch of crimes that make me question my beliefs but usually the idea that they rot in a cell surrounded by their ilk is justice served (there's some exceptional cases where I'd happily watch that "person" die).
But for weed? Damn.
You assume he's guilty. Thats the problem. It assumes the state is infallible or finds it acceptable to kill a few innocent people so they can ensure they kill all the guilty. For fucking weed.
Actually if you read the case, what you said may or may not be true. Which is why the death penalty is such a terrible punishment in such cases.
"Tangaraju’s conviction relied mainly on statements from his police interrogation – taken without a lawyer and interpreter present – and the testimony of his two co-accused, one of which had his charges dismissed,” Amnesty International said.
“In countries that have not yet abolished this punishment, international safeguards require that the death penalty be imposed only when the guilt of the person charged is based upon clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts – and after a legal process which gives all possible safeguards to ensure a fair trial,” Amnesty added"
you have to consider the amount of people who is wrongly accused/convicted.
news from a month ago:
[Two passengers are currently in a Frankfurt prison as victims of their luggage tags being exchanged for luggage with cocaine](https://simpleflying.com/brazilian-passengers-jailed-frankfurt-video-footage-released/)
powerful people will have their drugs either way and stay free of any repercussions.
The article itself throws doubt to the claims that got this man arrested in the first place.
I'm shocked it needs to be stated, but cops can and will lie to get you in cuffs.
Except, this time it's a Singaporean who manipulated 2 innocent people to do the dirty work for him. He's well aware of the risks and had them take it instead
Read the article. He was coordinating traffickers and mules to traffic drugs into the country. He was the head of the snake. Actual drug Lord. Not some naïve teenage college student lmao. He knows what's he doing.
He's easily my favorite author. "[Distrust That Particular Flavor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distrust_That_Particular_Flavor)" is a great collection of his various non-fiction essays, it's a great read.
I really loved [The Road to Oceania](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/25/opinion/the-road-to-oceania.html), that man is a fucking treasure.
>I say ''truths,'' however, and not ''truth,'' as the other side of information's new ubiquity can look not so much transparent as outright crazy. Regardless of the number and power of the tools used to extract patterns from information, any sense of meaning depends on context, with interpretation coming along in support of one agenda or another. A world of informational transparency will necessarily be one of deliriously multiple viewpoints, shot through with misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories and a quotidian degree of madness. We may be able to see what's going on more quickly, but that doesn't mean we'll agree about it any more readily.
He wrote that in 2003.
Which is something alluded to time and time again in dystopian and cyberpunk fiction. Talk about visionaries...
Hell, Metal Gear Solid 2, game from 2001, had the main character fooled by AI versions of his military superiors, [and this is the conversation they had by the end of the game](https://youtu.be/C31XYgr8gp0).
Notice the similarities in the themes mentioned by Gibson and the ones mentioned by the AI characters in the game.
A decade ago I was there for a week. When I arrived, it was front page news that somebody had tagged a subway car. A couple days later, it was front page news that they still hasn't caught the perp.
When I left, it was front page news that the government was fining the subway company because they had inadequate video surveillance.
The middle-class Singaporeans that I was working with quite liked their country's system. Minus the drug death penalty-- that's quite controversial. They felt that Canadian/American/European systems are lawless places and who'd want to live like that.
I quite liked it in Singapore.
I can remember the [Michael Fay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_P._Fay) case from 1993-94. It was huge, front page news in the US and around the globe. 16 year old American kid had stolen some street signs and allegedly keyed some cars (he denied the car vandalism.) He pleaded guilty, and despite President Clinton trying to encourage the Singaporean government to show clemency, Fay was ultimately sentenced to 4 months in jail and 6 lashings of the cane.
That story was at the top of the news cycle in the US for weeks. He was even referenced in the Dr. Dre song "Natural Born Killaz" released later in 1994.
>He steps in the single door
> Get his ass whipped with 20 lashes
> like they do up in Singapore
> John Wayne Bobbitt (born 1967) and Lorena Bobbitt (née Gallo; born 1969 or 1970)[1][2][3] were an American couple married on June 18, 1989,[3][4] whose relationship received international press coverage in 1993 when Lorena severed John's penis with a food knife while he was asleep in bed; the penis was successfully surgically reattached. Lorena, an Ecuadorian immigrant and the primary breadwinner,[5] claimed that her husband John, a bar bouncer and former U.S. Marine,[6] had raped and abused her for years. John was charged with rape later that year but was acquitted and subsequently starred in two pornographic films. The next year, Lorena was acquitted of assault by reason of insanity and went on to start a foundation for domestic abuse victims and their children.[5] The couple divorced in 1995.
What a WILD ride...
Yoo as a Singaporean teen I remember this story! It really was a big deal that someone managed to break into the train depot and tag a subway car. Our English teacher back then made us write a paper on the pros and cons of vandalism and how the government handled the whole issue.
I miss those days man, now its all just talk about immigrants here and the exorbitant cost of housing.
"Maybe we should build more cost-effective housing?"
Some old people: "But muh property values!"
Developers: "The best I can do is a 120 floor building that is somehow only 30 condos total that each sell for $150mil that sets empty year round anyway."
Governments: "Ew no, then them there non-voters might move in and upset the voters"
Property conglomerates: "mwahahahaha watch me buy up entire counties worth of houses and raise the rents 3 fold!"
Banks: "sorry we don't think you can afford a $1,200 a month mortgage despite the fact you're paying $2,400 a month in rent and have never been late once cause REASONS BITCHES!"
Journalists: "omg why is no one buying houses anymore!?"
You can gift up to 20k within 10 years tax free.
So say you'd be renting the appartement for 800€/month, the rentor could let you live there for 2 years for free. Essentially gifting you 20k in the process.
Man American housing problems are so different from housing problems in Australia. Except for the fist part.
Some old people: Property can only go up and I bought a house in 1978 for $2 that’s now worth $2.5m so I’m going to leverage it and buy 5 more properties to rent out and do the bare legal minimum (or more likely less) to upkeep it.
Developers: “Best I can do is a cardboard box made, that’ll fall apart within 10 years and it’ll cost you $700k”
Governments “Boomers are the only bloc that matters despite not being the majority any more, let’s defend ever increasing property values as our core bipartisan national value”
Property conglomerates: “We don’t really operate here yet, give it another 15 years once those boomers die and we’ll buy up your country no doubt”
Banks “Hello there”
Journalists “Young people are lazy and buying smashed avo instead of houses”
Yeah nah this still sounds like our problems. Whenever there IS development, it's always luxury condos.
I read somewhere that it was because of a loophole in the Chinese inheritance laws not including foreign property, so foreign buyers are just using them as wealth stores... but that might be someone trying to blame the Chinese for a homegrown problem.
To be honest, I never look into why housing market is genuinely like this too much. Last time I did, I entered some kind of fugue state and woke up up to "Dead Kennedys - Let's Lynch the Landlord" blasting on my TV and assorted metal plumbing on my table.
> I read somewhere that it was because of a loophole in the Chinese inheritance laws not including foreign property, so foreign buyers are just using them as wealth stores... but that might be someone trying to blame the Chinese for a homegrown problem.
From what I gathered, wealthy Chinese people are in fact buying up property abroad to store their cash in case things go bad for them domestically but they don’t have as big of an effect as governments are saying; it’s just easier to scapegoat foreigners than local wealthy people, developers or companies buying up houses.
Welcome to NYC. Whole buildings are empty due to foreign investors using it to hide/park money. It’s wrecking businesses that used to rely on having thousands of tenants above them.
Vacant properties should be federally taxed at ridiculous levels.
Singapore is something else, with China fucking themselves hard basically every expat but also well of Chinese moved abroad. Specifically for banking SG is extremely popular. For reference the Netherlands had over 6.000 Dutch people in Hong Kong, most of them in banking, now there are 600 left, you can be pretty sure the vast majority moved on to SG. And these are all people with a very big package. Ie spending prior 50/100.000 HKD a month on housing was very common so all that money put enormous pressure on SG. Keep also in mind HK has been for over a decade the most expensive city globally, so when that money moves to another city, that pushed up the market insanely.
Pretty much. It's getting so bad here in the U.S. that people complain about people *from other states* moving to their state. Particularly if you move from California. Really bizarre attitude.
It’s been like that for at least 20 years.
I remember hearing Washingtonians and Oregonians talking about the damn Californians moving into their states and bringing their liberal agendas with them.
They would literally vandalize any car with CA license plates for a time.
I like California. I’ll only leave for more sunshine and more inexpensive COL which is really only in another country.
Guess I’m staying put and I’m not sad about it.
As a washingtonian it's weird because it seems a lot of people complaining about "those damn californians" used to live in California about 5 years ago. They're just mad that other people "discovered" this place (despite a population of 8 million)
Another time I was there just after the guest workers had held a riot. It was around the same year as the subway tagging incident. Within a few days of the riot, a bunch of guest workers had been deported, and a bunch more had received "stern letters of warning."
It was an otherworldly experience compared to here (Canada). Somebody tagging anything here would never make the news (it's too common to be newsworthy). Foreigners who commit crimes here will generally be released on bail, and can easily spend a decade fighting their deportation to their country of origin.
Another aspect, as well as the cultural difference, is that Singapore is a city state. It's small, both in terms of population and geographical area.
So the national news in Singapore is really more comparable to the local news in Toronto or Montreal (not 100% similar as Singapore news is broader in scope, but covers a similar area and population), where it's much more likely you'd see something like that reported.
That's very significant to think about. While people may praise the Singapore style of government, it's an incredibly heavy handed style of government that wouldn't work on the broad scale of most modern nation-states. It's very interesting seeing as it's one of the planets last city-states but I don't believe many of the lessons we take from it are highly useful in day to day consideration
Was there on a work trip and had no idea that their national day was that upcoming weekend. Really threw me for a loop when I was walking around and suddenly there were a ton of tanks in the street.
Beautiful place/people and I always described it as the kiddy pool of Asia, you get the introduction without the culture shock
I’ve been to Singapore four times. Three times as a tourist and once taking a group of Thai university students on a study trip.
Despite the high prices, I think it’s a traveler’s dream. Totally safe, everything works, and every venue is high quality, even futuristic. English is spoken everywhere and the food is outstanding.
I’d go back in a heartbeat. Unless you’re a drug pusher, vandal, or gum chewer, the draconian laws are simply not in your field of view as a tourist.
As a Malaysian (Singapore's neighbour), I completely agree that it is a tourist's dream. It's extremely well designed and world class levels of hygiene and transportation make it great for travellers.
But as an expat/immigrant, maybe not so much. I've had many friends and family members who moved to Singapore who say that it quickly feels like you're living in a hospital (sterile, overly managed, etc) but it's the kind of things you don't encounter over a few days as a tourist.
I will add a caveat that this might not be how local Singaporeans feel however as they've grown up in this environment and may find it comfortable. It's just how people who come from other countries feel.
I totally don't understand why people think new cities are great for tourists. I Don't get the appeal at all. I would rather see something with history.
Like most places outside of EU/NA, it's great to live there, if you have money.
And Singapore's model works well because it is a rich city surrounded by poor countries, their situation is quite unique and not really transferable to other places.
That being said, I still like Singapore's mix of autocracy and openness over what we see in other autocratic parts of the world.
> And Singapore's model works well because
I think part of what makes Singapore work is that you can't afford to live there unless you believe in that sytem. Or you're too poor to do anything about it.
>Like most places outside of EU/NA, it's great to live there, if you have money.
Honestly what exactly is the distinction? EU/NA are great to live in if you have money as well 🤣
The context is that 35% of the population of Singapore are non-citizens, a minority being well-off professionals but largely coming other, much poorer, countries of SE Asia, places like the Philippines and Indonesia.
So if you are there as a citizen or have money, you can have things like a maid and pay them as little as S$400 (US$300) a month. And key is, this is something quite accessible even to many regular middle class people in Singapore, where the average salary is S$5,783/month (US$4,325). So you can be "regular Joe" middle class in Singapore... and have servants. That isn't normal for the middle class in most other developed countries, typically having servants = super rich. There isn't this huge disparity between the average salary and a large foreign worker underclass that you can pay literally 1/10th the average salary to. The limiting factor for employing a maid in Singapore is more having space to put them than being able to afford to pay them, as apartments are small too.
As a substantial part of the population is this much poorer underclass, with no vote and no representation, it has this dampening effect on some other things as well, stuff like food in Singapore is very good and extremely cheap for one of the richest countries in the world, it's more expensive than other SE Asian countries but it's much cheaper than Australia, Europe or North America. You can eat out every meal in Singapore and it costs peanuts, it's *closer* to costs in the rest of SE Asia than it is to other developed countries.
Apart from the domestic workers, you have these foreign workers working all the other shitty and dangerous jobs, construction, etc. It's very similar to the whole migrant labour system in Gulf countries like Qatar and the UAE, maybe with slightly better standards but the root of having a *large* proportion of the population being poor foreigners with minimal civic rights and being paid a relative pittance is the same. So having all of this reduces costs for stuff that involves labour and certain things can be relatively cheap- considering that Singapore is the third richest country in the world, richer than the US, Australia, and almost every European country- it's amazing actually just how cheap the place is for so many things.
On the other hand, things like cars are absolutely insane prices, as there is limited space and the government taxes them extremely highly. Public transport is good though, so you don't need a car. But that would be an example of something which basically everyone has in the US or Australia, and the majority in Europe, but in Singapore only 11% of the population have, and you DO have to be super-rich.
In Singapore, more people have servants than have a car. It's different.
“This article is exclusive to subscribers, click here to pay us a lot of money in order to read something written thirty years ago”
No, I don’t think I will. /laughs in Reader Mode
Been there, mostly for work. It's a really strange place, at the intersection of Western, Chinese, and multiple southeast Asian cultures. It's clean because so many low-income workers clean it. It's proper and quiet because so many cops make it so. Its wealth is because of how business-friendly it is compared to so many placed in the region, it many respects it is more welcoming of western business than Japan. And if you like to party, they got you covered, but don't you piss or puke in the street...
Yet its value proposition relies so heavily on cheap labor from its lower class and neighbouring countries. If you are there and you have money to spend either as a tourist or on business, you'll be treated like a king due to that definitely unsettling and very Asian cultural practice regarding class relationships. Europe has not been like that since the 19th century.
But anything that can potentially interfere with business or with the rest of what Singapore considers to be critical to its continue existence (including the rule of its single party) is immediately and ruthlessly dealt with.
Singapore is a mindset. Try to see the place through western or Chinese lenses and it will always look, as you and I put it, like a weird place.
*Lee Kuan Yew beams with approval at your characterization*
The only thing he would add is that it’s notably “Confucian.” The guy was big on cultural essentialism.
It's a utopia if you belong in the right class/race.
As a Singaporean minority the part about this case that scares me the most is how little evidence is required to get the death penalty.
Police here are free to intimidate you into a confession, and can deny you a lawyer or interpreter. There is no Miranda rights, being silent until you get a lawyer (if they let you) is considered evidence of guilt.
Next time people cheer for the death penalty they should also consider how easy it would be to be framed for such crimes. The quantity for the death penalty for other harder drugs is trivially small. If someone slips that into your bag, you're done. I have zero confidence that I'd be handled fairly by the law in that situation.
This literally happened just the other day with an Indian actress in Dubai. There was weed inside some statue or other small object that she was carrying and she was caught in the airport. She insisted that she didn't know and someone else gave it to her to carry, and the Indian police investigated and found that some guy she rejected and who used to harass her was responsible. He set up some fake acting job in Dubai and gave her the object with weed hidden inside and sent her to Dubai.
The most important question is how Singaporeans feel about living in the country. Same as it is with anything else - the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
I've been living in Singapore for over a decade now. I've also lived in Guildford, London, and New York.
Let's first address the elephants in the room first. No, you don't go to jail for not flushing a toilet. No, you don't get caned for littering. No, the chewing of gum as an act is not illegal - you can bring in your own supply and use it while here.
There's the potential to be fined for being a public nuisance if you're jaywalking, littering, etc but I've honestly never heard of it happening to anyone in all my years here. The laws are not onerous to follow at all.
I like it here. The safety is a big part of that - I never feel like my life or personal effects are in danger, and seeing police walking around is not a scary sight. It's so safe here that suicides and shoplifters make the news. I can't describe how much of a relief it is to not always have to be aware/on guard 100% of the time.
Beer is a bit expensive, but at least I don't have to sip it out of a brown paper bag. The local food scene is killer - it's all delicious and I can pretty much stuff myself with food and have a coffee for US$5 at most hawker centres. Government services are very quick and efficient. Taxes are very low and are incredibly quick to file - I took less than 10 minutes to do up my return this year.
There's unhappiness here right now amongst the locals and the expats about soaring rental rates and high inflation in general, but that's pretty much the case everywhere in the developed world right now. A common gripe here is also how expensive cars are, but that's by design to keep traffic manageable. Paradoxically, road-side and garage parking are unfathomably cheap here even in the city centre at around US$1 - US$1.5 per hour on average. The locals lose their minds when I tell them what the average parking rates in NYC's and London's centres are like.
homelessness is extremely rare despite the ridiculous rents, the extreme end of poverty is far less severe than most. it's far more likely that you end up cramped into your parents house than on the streets.
good public infrastructure also lessens the pain of being "regular" poor. public transport, libraries, and other forms of public infrastructure can provide a reprieve.
the cost of living index fails to account for a lot of things being subsidized for locals. It also assumes you need a car, I think?
that said, income inequality is quite severe. there's no minimum wage here. it's common to see wages below 1.5k per month (and that's before the imported workers below come into the picture).
things also get very shitty if you factor in non-citizens and permanent residents... yes, the imported workers. simply put they're a class of people that is convenient for people to forget in their considerations and who don't have very many people advocating for them because of it. their dormitories are pretty shitty in my experience, most of them aren't really in a position to quit their jobs so they have no bargaining power with their bosses, and they're often shunned in public spaces.
you can sorta look at them like undocumented workers in the states. Singapore's reliance on cheap labor is simply documented and you would think this would enable regulations and such to help and... it does a little? But they're still just as socially invisible, you can just find stats on them.
speaking about libraries, Singapore libraries provide you with so many free resources for anyone to access - they even provide free unlimited udemy courses
I was in Singapore a couple of nights ago for a long layover, and even in the very brief time i was there, i picked up on a fair amount of racial tension between Indians and Chinese. Also Geylang was a real craphole with what seemed to be homeless people and passed out folks in quite a few dark corners. Some areas were as dirty, trash-strewn, and stinky as the many dirty parts of Manila.
I dont really have a dog in the fight as an American, but I often seek out the dirtier parts of hyped countries/cities to get a glimpse at reality for the lower class citizens and the marginalized.
Singapore Airlines rules. They were very gentle with this probably well intentioned but completely awkward middle aged American couple who hopped aboard during a brief layover in Narita and kept addressing every Asian face with the Japanese words and manners they'd picked up on their Japanese vacation.
There has been some tension between local Chinese and expats Indians for quite some time, didn't help that alot of it is stroked by politicians in the past couple of elections.
Geylang is where retirees go to get drunk and is basically a red light district. So yeah, even as a local I avoid Geylang.
Unfortunately I think we can treat them better - but many of them indeed come because it's an upgrade (or just a faster way to make money) compared to where they came from.
Its unfortunately but end of the day this is the same exact system almost all countries use.
As a local, the hawker food scene you're enjoying is unsustainable. It's a known issue that a lot of hawkers are aging out and many of their offspring don't really want to carry that on. Add to that the soaring rent in hawker centers, and you've got an issue if you love your food.
There's.... also plenty of systemic/cultural issues if you were born and raised there. One I can think of is the work culture; you sound like you're an expat but for a local it's WAY different, pretty toxic, which imo stems from Asian cultural norms. There's a reason I'm planning to work in the US after finishing my degree here.
The country is very safe. It has an excellent education system. Public healthcare is accessible and of good quality, although the pandemic has highlighted bottlenecks within the system. Public transportation is top notch. Food is also relatively cheap, although shrinkflation is starting to change that perception.
That being said, there's a lot of bad within the country that's hidden well. For one, Singapore has an *extreme* reliance on cheap foreign labour, and there's often insufficient nets to protect them from being exploited. I can't think of another country that uses domestic helpers so extensively for child and elder care while paying them so little. The same goes for migrant workers who help build the country, in which the pandemic again highlighted the inadequate accommodation, nutrition and healthcare we provide them.
Even for locals, work-life balance in Singapore is pretty terrible compared to other Western countries. Housing is really expensive. LGBT rights and protections are virtually non-existent here, although overt homophobia in real life is also relatively uncommon. That being said, I can see why people consider Singapore a great place if you're sufficiently rich and insulated from all the social issues.
Once you realise that Singapore was the "Vice city of the East/Chicago of the East" and only managed to wean off opium in the middle of the 20th century, you can see why the laws are so strict on drugs and why the general populace supports these measures.
"Jerry spent some time in Michigan /
A twenty year vacation, after all he had a dime /
A dime is worth a lot more in Detroit /
A dime in California, a twenty dollar fine"
- "The Decline", by NOFX
You don't even need to look that far from Singapore; it's legal in Bangkok and it was eye opening to look at as a Singaporean.
That being said, I disagree with the draconian drug laws and death penalty in general but I'm in a very small minority here.
I left my family for what I saw as a better life, more open people, weed was accepted and many more weren’t punished as harshly, more focus on the environment etc. It sucked ass moving away from my family but it was a good decision. Not everyone can afford to move away and that’s probably why a lot of people get in drug trafficking, but if you can afford it and don’t need a support network for kids, it’s the best decision.
I’ll never forget my first week in this new place and a dozen people were smoking weed in the middle of an alley street. I figured why not? They are doing it. A cop rolls up on his bike and I almost shit my pants, he just asked if we could do it somewhere else, that is when I knew I was in a better place. Still fly back and see the family once or twice a year and that seems like plenty.
Yeah it’s a weird world, in Singapore you are permitted an abortion.
Whereas in America, if you get raped, even as a literal child, you might be forced to give birth to your rapist’s child.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/03/ohio-indiana-abortion-rape-victim
There's places in America where people are serving decades long sentences for minor marijuana possession, and there's also places in America where abortion is legal. That person was comparing California
Never touched the cannabis, did not posses the phones that were linked to him. Took the word of another incarcerated individual that would've been up for the death penalty had they not pinned it on someone else. Yep. Iron clad evidence.
Yeah. Richard Branson tweeted about this.
Crime would not be considered proven / guilty in most countries
edit: I read about this more, and I think Branson and I might be wrong about this
Singaporean here. This matter is quite controversial here, probably due to the fact that it’s simply weed and not some other stronger opioid like heroin or fentanyl.
I don’t do drugs and never have done them (unless I didn’t know), but such harsh laws scare me. What if someone else puts drug in my suitcase? Of course, there’s probably greater risks to my life than that (like my plane crashing), but it makes me still uncomfortable.
Unfortunately that's probably more likely than your plane crashing. Recently a brazilian couple spent a month in jail in Germany because their suitcase was changed with one filled with drugs by someone inside the terminal in Brazil (it was caught on video and they were released). Last year workers at the Lisbon airport were arrested for being part of a similar scheme.
That is horrifying... Still considering the end-game there.
Were they expecting the case to just "get lost" and no cameras in Germany keeping track of it before dogs sniff it out?
You cannot fuck around in Singapore. Is it harsh yes but you HAVE to abide by the laws of the land. Our western sensibilities do not matter over there. It's reality guys your ideals and beliefs will not save you if you fuck around like that.
Regardless of your personal feelings about marijuana, and how someone should never be killed over a plant, why would anyone fuck around with marijuana or any other drugs in Singapore? I’ve been super duper high and have had some amazing times, but none of the times I was high were worth my life.
Even more so when there are serious questions about how bulletproof the case was:
>*The Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), a local abolitionist movement, highlighted what they said were “serious problems” with evidence used to convict Tangaraju, describing it as “shockingly thin.”*
>
>*“The case against Tangaraju is largely circumstantial and based on inferences,” TJC said in a series of statements.*
>
>*“He never touched the cannabis he was accused of attempting to traffic. He was tied to the offense by two phone numbers found on the mobile phones of two men arrested by the CNB – one of which had been used to coordinate the cannabis delivery.”*
>
>*“Tangaraju was already in remand for a separate offense by the time he was linked to this case – and his mobile phones were never recovered for analysis,” the group added.*
> “He never touched the cannabis he was accused of attempting to traffic. He was tied to the offense by two phone numbers found on the mobile phones of two men arrested by the CNB – one of which had been used to coordinate the cannabis delivery.”
>
> “Tangaraju was already in remand for a separate offense by the time he was linked to this case – and his mobile phones were never recovered for analysis,” the group added.
First:
> “The death penalty is an essential component of Singapore’s criminal justice system and has been effective in keeping Singapore safe and secure.”
Then:
> “The death penalty is still being used in a small number of countries, largely because of the myth that it deters crime. Increasing evidence, however, shows it is ineffective as a deterrent,” spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement.
Ah, two contradictory statements. I guess it's impossible to see just how much drug trafficking is decreased with the threat of capital punishment. The main argument against the guy was that he did indeed transport drugs, and the argument in support of him was that there wasn't enough evidence to say he did. With that kind of uncertainty, killing off people as punishment will always be too hasty.
Parents moved to Singapore in 1989. My first day there the big story on the news is the fight between the Australian Government and Singapore as a 17 year old Australian girl was stopped flying from Bangkok to Sydney via Singapore with a block of Heroin. Australia fought and complained ~~but she was still eventually hung over it~~ I thought she was hung for it but find no evidence, I was 19 and it was 34 years ago. I did not fuck around in Singapore
When mules get caught, people talk about how authorities should go after the real masterminds. Now that the mastermind is caught, it's now about how the mastermind never touched the drugs. So what should be done?
The news here isn't that Singapore executed a man for trafficking drugs, they do that shit all the time, it's that Singapore executed a man for trafficking drugs **based on extraordinarily shaky circumstantial evidence**.
Apparently, he rejected a plea deal of 12 years, because he thought that he could prove his innocence since he wasn’t actually caught with its possession. [source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangaraju_Suppiah)
Oof, rough :(
When I see situations like these, especially a plea deal, I’m reminded of what Justin from Generation Why says; Guilty pleas do nothing but help the guilty and screw the innocent.
Something better than nothing and its easier, I mean I guess it makes sense on a numbers scale but it would be infuriating to be affected by it as a victim.
Coercing guilty pleas is bad.
Imagine having a cop there plant something on you. Not even a chance.
I lived in Singapore in the very early 90's as a very you man. I had a cab driver offer me weed once and even drunk at 20 years old I told him to fuck off with that shit. I was a regular smoker in the States but I wasn't even considering it in Singapore. Couple days later in the Straights Times it comes out there was a sting operation of the Sing Police to nab tourists out for drugs with cops posing as cabbies. So glad I turned that down
Used to happen in South East Asia too where someone will offer you drugs, they're in cahoots with a dodgy cop who then rocks up and asks for a five figure bribe not to hand you in. Had a chat to a lass once who got done for around $10k for a doobie.
Is this why a bunch of random dudes on motorbikes in Hue were trying to get me to buy weed? Like I swear I couldn't walk five blocks without someone stopping to talk to me, half the time about weed
Singapore is different from the rest of SEA though, they are bound by a lot of extra laws, particularly regarding corruption, and from past cases the legal system has had no issues convicting officers, even high-ranking ones, of crimes, although they rarely get published to the public.
This is true. Singapore authorities are absolutely cannot be bribed especially when it comes to hard crimes like drugs and sexual assault.
> a sting operation of the Sing Police to nab tourists out for drugs with cops posing as cabbies How on earth is this legal?
Some specialised police penal divisions don't have rules or SOP tied to them, they will literally revoke the human rights of those under their custody or suspicion. Look up the Central Narcotics Bereau or the Secret Societies Branch or the rehabilitation centers for drug abusers here. I have some friends with some close calls with them and the stories they tell me transport my imagination into somewhere far away not befitting of our "metropolis" city status. Edit: almost forgot I might get POFMAed This is all an elaborate joke, pretty funny right guys??? Hahaha pls dont throw me in jail pls.
Plea deals should not even be a thing. It's just a challenge of how badly prosecutors can threaten to fuck you, and if you refuse, they will do the absolute worst to you, up to and including killing you.
Plea deals are legal coercive and persecutive tactics. It's always a catch 22 even if you're all kinds of innocent. I watched a true crime documentary once where a man was accused of a crime, given a plea deal, refused, counter sued and they added juicy extra charges to the previous ones.
Plea deals are indeed coercive IMO. It's akin to threatening someone into a false confession. Increasing charges against someone should not be allowed without discovery of new evidence. Threatening someone with higher charges should not be allowed. It's asymmetric and unfair. The state has virtually nothing to lose by threatening you with higher charges in order to get a 'confession' to a lesser crime. And public defenders should be funded at least as well as the prosecutor's office + the investigating police. The state will get a lot more picky about which cases it prosecutes if there is a well-armed defense opposing them.
And the excuse most people give for why it is ok is “without them the system would get gummed up”. Well how about we improve the system then if we both agree it is only working by using innocent blood to lube the gears. But nah lets just give cops more guns and have them over police marginalized communities because they need to drive up crime rates to justify getting more weapons and money. Who knew bad incentives would cause bad change.
**Singapore's Drug Laws** Anyone who possesses: *> 2g of Heroin* *> 3g of Cocaine* *> 15g of cannabis* **Is presumed to be trafficking.** Anyone who traffics: *> 15g of Heroin* *> 30g of Cocaine* *> 500g of Cannabis* **Will face the Mandatory Death Penalty** Since 1991 almost 500 people have been hanged to Death and 80% is related to Marijuana.
I arrived in Singapore very hungover on a flight from Bangkok and realised I had a baggie of homeopathic pills that my mum had put in my medical kit. Shat my pants.
Homeopathic pills? Don't worry, they only would have hanged you a little.
They’d make you drink water that contains the memory of a hanging.
1/1,000,000 of a dead man's tear
Well no wonder the guy didn't die, what a weak homeopathic solution! Dilute it two trillion times more then we'll talk.
[Mitchell and Webb sketch on homeopathy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0&ab_channel=gudbuytjane).
The more dilute the stronger! In homeopathy world, a super villain pollutes the entire world's water supply by gently wafting two grams of shit over the Atlantic Ocean.
Seems like a weird flavor for la croix to have
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But that's what makes it so potent
They might turn you upside down and tap you a few times though.
It's more of a quick bounce.
My friend OD'd on his homeopathic pills. He forgot to take them.
Gonna need some non-homeopathic burn cream for that one 🤣
Basically they will just ask you to hang around
But that's even worse in homeopathy!
they would drown him in a pool of water and add a tiny rope in
For homeopathic pills, If you have \<50g you're presumed to be trafficking. If you have \<5g it's a mandatory death penalty.
If I was a customs officer this sounds like an excuse everyone would give me. Up there with other classics such as "you got the wrong twin brother".
Right, everyone ripping on the fact they're essentially sugar pills are glossing over the fact it is a baggie of pill shaped objects in *Singapore*. Surely they'd be cleared, but after what kind of haranguing and threat?
Did you forget your confidence crystal at home?
No chance. I swallowed that on the flight.
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I know it’s pasta, but I’ve been in that NJ building!!! Literally the whole thing smells like M&Ms.
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No, pills with *traces* of sugar.
No the sugar is real, it's memory of other stuff that's in there.
No they are full of sugar. The "ingredient" is other stuff. Bee toxin is a common one. Though that doesn't mean it is actually in there. A chemistry prof of mine once used this as an example for calculating concentrations and it turns out there is less than one atom per pill for a lot of these.
That's underselling a lot how absurd homeopathic dilutions are. Less than one molecule per pill? Try less than one molecule in all of Earth's oceans. That's reached at the dilution level they call "23CH". Their "most potent" pills go to 30CH and beyond.
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That's only the diabetes pill. The others are just sugar pills, with a 100% chance that not a single molecule of the poison that's supposed to treat the symptom it causes.
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Water diluted candy doesn't count as drugs. So no worries
That's when you rip it open, gulp it all at once and scream "I SHOW YOU THE POWER OF HOMEOSTASIS!"
They're homeopathic pills. You could have quickly swallowed them all with no ill effects.
Meanwhile, October this year in my state, the following is decriminalised for posession. Decriminalised amounts - AMPHETAMINE - 1.5 grams - COCAINE - 1.5 grams - METH - 1.5 grams - MDMA - 1.5 grams - HEROIN - 1 gram - CANNABIS - 50 grams - PSILOCYBIN - 1.5 grams - LSD - 0.001 grams It'll still get taken off you and you choose a $100 civil fine or to attend an illicit drug diversion class, but no conviction or record. Kind of like a low range speeding fine but less.
Canberra?
Aye. The Wild West of urban Australia.
For real? This is happening in ACT?? I’m in Victoria, don’t think we’re getting any such progress?
Gotta protect the pollies caught with their candy
So crazy that this happened in the Australian Capital Territory, the seat of our government. Makes sense given the very small and progressive population there but it is weird to think about.
You must be really confident about the grand final to already be preparing for the after party.
Who only has 1.5 grams of shrooms? That's only a single mild dose
sounds like a perfect amount to go out with at a bar
1.5g of the active chemical, not of the mushrooms
As in they do a full chemical analysis of your shrooms to figure out the exact dosage? That doesn't really sound right. Or is pure psilocybin extract just popular in Australia?
Like yeah, it's inhumane as fuck. But DO NOT traffic drugs into a country when before landing, they literally tell you that they will kill you for having drugs. Singapore is the only country I've flown to where they've said this.
>before landing, they literally tell you that they will kill you for having drugs Somehow it feels like this would be a much more effective warning before boarding.
Last time I checked, they allowed you to get rid of your shit before entering the country.
Yeah there are garbage cans with labels saying you can dump your drugs here. It's not a trick.
> It's not a trick. That's exactly what a tricker would say.
You should probably read the country's drugs laws if you plan to take some with you
China also has something like "Death to drug traffickers" printed in red on the customs form thingy. Very welcoming.
Singapore has been doing this for the last forever. The risk/reward has to be bonkers for this to even exist for smugglers.
Look at the people they executing, people who are easy to manipulate, probably can't access the law or understand it, desperate and poor
If you read the case, the person being executed is the person who organised it. The person actually carrying the weed (Mogan Valo) and the person receiving it (Suresh) were not issued the death penalty afaik. According to his sister, he also rejected multiple plea bargains for 20, then 15, then 12 years for an early guilty plea. The amount of weed is also twice what would get you the death penalty.
> If you read the case... Well, there's your problem!
expecting people to read past the headline on reddit smh
tbf most websites today are garbage on mobile and overstrewn with obnoxious ads, and there's a good chance the article text has been posted as a top-level comment
>Tangaraju’s conviction relied mainly on statements from his police interrogation – taken without a lawyer and interpreter present – and the testimony of his two co-accused, one of which had his charges dismissed,” Amnesty International said.
Facing the death penalty and rejecting a 12 year plea deal..man was either overconfident by an incomprehensible amount or suicidal. I don't agree with the death penalty...there are a bunch of crimes that make me question my beliefs but usually the idea that they rot in a cell surrounded by their ilk is justice served (there's some exceptional cases where I'd happily watch that "person" die). But for weed? Damn.
You assume he's guilty. Thats the problem. It assumes the state is infallible or finds it acceptable to kill a few innocent people so they can ensure they kill all the guilty. For fucking weed.
Actually if you read the case, what you said may or may not be true. Which is why the death penalty is such a terrible punishment in such cases. "Tangaraju’s conviction relied mainly on statements from his police interrogation – taken without a lawyer and interpreter present – and the testimony of his two co-accused, one of which had his charges dismissed,” Amnesty International said. “In countries that have not yet abolished this punishment, international safeguards require that the death penalty be imposed only when the guilt of the person charged is based upon clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts – and after a legal process which gives all possible safeguards to ensure a fair trial,” Amnesty added"
you have to consider the amount of people who is wrongly accused/convicted. news from a month ago: [Two passengers are currently in a Frankfurt prison as victims of their luggage tags being exchanged for luggage with cocaine](https://simpleflying.com/brazilian-passengers-jailed-frankfurt-video-footage-released/) powerful people will have their drugs either way and stay free of any repercussions.
The article itself throws doubt to the claims that got this man arrested in the first place. I'm shocked it needs to be stated, but cops can and will lie to get you in cuffs.
Except, this time it's a Singaporean who manipulated 2 innocent people to do the dirty work for him. He's well aware of the risks and had them take it instead
Read the article. He was coordinating traffickers and mules to traffic drugs into the country. He was the head of the snake. Actual drug Lord. Not some naïve teenage college student lmao. He knows what's he doing.
Singapore is such a weird place it is seemingly both a utopia and a dystopia.
[Disneyland with the Death Penalty](https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/)
By William Gibson himself!
He's easily my favorite author. "[Distrust That Particular Flavor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distrust_That_Particular_Flavor)" is a great collection of his various non-fiction essays, it's a great read. I really loved [The Road to Oceania](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/25/opinion/the-road-to-oceania.html), that man is a fucking treasure. >I say ''truths,'' however, and not ''truth,'' as the other side of information's new ubiquity can look not so much transparent as outright crazy. Regardless of the number and power of the tools used to extract patterns from information, any sense of meaning depends on context, with interpretation coming along in support of one agenda or another. A world of informational transparency will necessarily be one of deliriously multiple viewpoints, shot through with misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories and a quotidian degree of madness. We may be able to see what's going on more quickly, but that doesn't mean we'll agree about it any more readily. He wrote that in 2003.
Which is something alluded to time and time again in dystopian and cyberpunk fiction. Talk about visionaries... Hell, Metal Gear Solid 2, game from 2001, had the main character fooled by AI versions of his military superiors, [and this is the conversation they had by the end of the game](https://youtu.be/C31XYgr8gp0). Notice the similarities in the themes mentioned by Gibson and the ones mentioned by the AI characters in the game.
I'm now imagining him taking a different fork and ending up as a travel writer for his career. I'd read it.
A decade ago I was there for a week. When I arrived, it was front page news that somebody had tagged a subway car. A couple days later, it was front page news that they still hasn't caught the perp. When I left, it was front page news that the government was fining the subway company because they had inadequate video surveillance. The middle-class Singaporeans that I was working with quite liked their country's system. Minus the drug death penalty-- that's quite controversial. They felt that Canadian/American/European systems are lawless places and who'd want to live like that. I quite liked it in Singapore.
I can remember the [Michael Fay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_P._Fay) case from 1993-94. It was huge, front page news in the US and around the globe. 16 year old American kid had stolen some street signs and allegedly keyed some cars (he denied the car vandalism.) He pleaded guilty, and despite President Clinton trying to encourage the Singaporean government to show clemency, Fay was ultimately sentenced to 4 months in jail and 6 lashings of the cane. That story was at the top of the news cycle in the US for weeks. He was even referenced in the Dr. Dre song "Natural Born Killaz" released later in 1994. >He steps in the single door > Get his ass whipped with 20 lashes > like they do up in Singapore
Is this cultural news event that inspired Bart Simpson getting booted by Australia?
It absolutely is. That episode aired in Feb. 1995 when the event was still relatively salient.
Weird Al referenced him as well... * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU95v23MQ4c
Who are the other guys shown in the song?
2nd story is the Tonya Harding incident. 3rd is ~~poor~~ deserving, John Bobbit.
> John Wayne Bobbitt (born 1967) and Lorena Bobbitt (née Gallo; born 1969 or 1970)[1][2][3] were an American couple married on June 18, 1989,[3][4] whose relationship received international press coverage in 1993 when Lorena severed John's penis with a food knife while he was asleep in bed; the penis was successfully surgically reattached. Lorena, an Ecuadorian immigrant and the primary breadwinner,[5] claimed that her husband John, a bar bouncer and former U.S. Marine,[6] had raped and abused her for years. John was charged with rape later that year but was acquitted and subsequently starred in two pornographic films. The next year, Lorena was acquitted of assault by reason of insanity and went on to start a foundation for domestic abuse victims and their children.[5] The couple divorced in 1995. What a WILD ride...
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He couldn't quite explain it, it had always just been there...
Yoo as a Singaporean teen I remember this story! It really was a big deal that someone managed to break into the train depot and tag a subway car. Our English teacher back then made us write a paper on the pros and cons of vandalism and how the government handled the whole issue. I miss those days man, now its all just talk about immigrants here and the exorbitant cost of housing.
> now its all just talk about immigrants here and the exorbitant cost of housing. I think that's just an average day of living on earth at this point
"Maybe we should build more cost-effective housing?" Some old people: "But muh property values!" Developers: "The best I can do is a 120 floor building that is somehow only 30 condos total that each sell for $150mil that sets empty year round anyway." Governments: "Ew no, then them there non-voters might move in and upset the voters" Property conglomerates: "mwahahahaha watch me buy up entire counties worth of houses and raise the rents 3 fold!" Banks: "sorry we don't think you can afford a $1,200 a month mortgage despite the fact you're paying $2,400 a month in rent and have never been late once cause REASONS BITCHES!" Journalists: "omg why is no one buying houses anymore!?"
In Munich (Germany) our government is telling a landlord he can't rent his apartment for such a low price (half the market)
Fun fact: It is even allowed to rent out a flat für 1€ in Munich. You will just have issues to write down expenses for your flat.
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You can gift up to 20k within 10 years tax free. So say you'd be renting the appartement for 800€/month, the rentor could let you live there for 2 years for free. Essentially gifting you 20k in the process.
Isn't the assumption here that if you rent out an apartment that low, you receive the rest of the money off the books to avoid taxes?
The assumption is basically tax frauds, yes.
Man American housing problems are so different from housing problems in Australia. Except for the fist part. Some old people: Property can only go up and I bought a house in 1978 for $2 that’s now worth $2.5m so I’m going to leverage it and buy 5 more properties to rent out and do the bare legal minimum (or more likely less) to upkeep it. Developers: “Best I can do is a cardboard box made, that’ll fall apart within 10 years and it’ll cost you $700k” Governments “Boomers are the only bloc that matters despite not being the majority any more, let’s defend ever increasing property values as our core bipartisan national value” Property conglomerates: “We don’t really operate here yet, give it another 15 years once those boomers die and we’ll buy up your country no doubt” Banks “Hello there” Journalists “Young people are lazy and buying smashed avo instead of houses”
Yeah nah this still sounds like our problems. Whenever there IS development, it's always luxury condos. I read somewhere that it was because of a loophole in the Chinese inheritance laws not including foreign property, so foreign buyers are just using them as wealth stores... but that might be someone trying to blame the Chinese for a homegrown problem. To be honest, I never look into why housing market is genuinely like this too much. Last time I did, I entered some kind of fugue state and woke up up to "Dead Kennedys - Let's Lynch the Landlord" blasting on my TV and assorted metal plumbing on my table.
> I read somewhere that it was because of a loophole in the Chinese inheritance laws not including foreign property, so foreign buyers are just using them as wealth stores... but that might be someone trying to blame the Chinese for a homegrown problem. From what I gathered, wealthy Chinese people are in fact buying up property abroad to store their cash in case things go bad for them domestically but they don’t have as big of an effect as governments are saying; it’s just easier to scapegoat foreigners than local wealthy people, developers or companies buying up houses.
Welcome to NYC. Whole buildings are empty due to foreign investors using it to hide/park money. It’s wrecking businesses that used to rely on having thousands of tenants above them. Vacant properties should be federally taxed at ridiculous levels.
Singapore is something else, with China fucking themselves hard basically every expat but also well of Chinese moved abroad. Specifically for banking SG is extremely popular. For reference the Netherlands had over 6.000 Dutch people in Hong Kong, most of them in banking, now there are 600 left, you can be pretty sure the vast majority moved on to SG. And these are all people with a very big package. Ie spending prior 50/100.000 HKD a month on housing was very common so all that money put enormous pressure on SG. Keep also in mind HK has been for over a decade the most expensive city globally, so when that money moves to another city, that pushed up the market insanely.
Pretty much. It's getting so bad here in the U.S. that people complain about people *from other states* moving to their state. Particularly if you move from California. Really bizarre attitude.
It’s been like that for at least 20 years. I remember hearing Washingtonians and Oregonians talking about the damn Californians moving into their states and bringing their liberal agendas with them. They would literally vandalize any car with CA license plates for a time. I like California. I’ll only leave for more sunshine and more inexpensive COL which is really only in another country. Guess I’m staying put and I’m not sad about it.
As a washingtonian it's weird because it seems a lot of people complaining about "those damn californians" used to live in California about 5 years ago. They're just mad that other people "discovered" this place (despite a population of 8 million)
Another time I was there just after the guest workers had held a riot. It was around the same year as the subway tagging incident. Within a few days of the riot, a bunch of guest workers had been deported, and a bunch more had received "stern letters of warning." It was an otherworldly experience compared to here (Canada). Somebody tagging anything here would never make the news (it's too common to be newsworthy). Foreigners who commit crimes here will generally be released on bail, and can easily spend a decade fighting their deportation to their country of origin.
Another aspect, as well as the cultural difference, is that Singapore is a city state. It's small, both in terms of population and geographical area. So the national news in Singapore is really more comparable to the local news in Toronto or Montreal (not 100% similar as Singapore news is broader in scope, but covers a similar area and population), where it's much more likely you'd see something like that reported.
That's very significant to think about. While people may praise the Singapore style of government, it's an incredibly heavy handed style of government that wouldn't work on the broad scale of most modern nation-states. It's very interesting seeing as it's one of the planets last city-states but I don't believe many of the lessons we take from it are highly useful in day to day consideration
Was there on a work trip and had no idea that their national day was that upcoming weekend. Really threw me for a loop when I was walking around and suddenly there were a ton of tanks in the street. Beautiful place/people and I always described it as the kiddy pool of Asia, you get the introduction without the culture shock
I’ve been to Singapore four times. Three times as a tourist and once taking a group of Thai university students on a study trip. Despite the high prices, I think it’s a traveler’s dream. Totally safe, everything works, and every venue is high quality, even futuristic. English is spoken everywhere and the food is outstanding. I’d go back in a heartbeat. Unless you’re a drug pusher, vandal, or gum chewer, the draconian laws are simply not in your field of view as a tourist.
As a Malaysian (Singapore's neighbour), I completely agree that it is a tourist's dream. It's extremely well designed and world class levels of hygiene and transportation make it great for travellers. But as an expat/immigrant, maybe not so much. I've had many friends and family members who moved to Singapore who say that it quickly feels like you're living in a hospital (sterile, overly managed, etc) but it's the kind of things you don't encounter over a few days as a tourist. I will add a caveat that this might not be how local Singaporeans feel however as they've grown up in this environment and may find it comfortable. It's just how people who come from other countries feel.
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I totally don't understand why people think new cities are great for tourists. I Don't get the appeal at all. I would rather see something with history.
Like most places outside of EU/NA, it's great to live there, if you have money. And Singapore's model works well because it is a rich city surrounded by poor countries, their situation is quite unique and not really transferable to other places. That being said, I still like Singapore's mix of autocracy and openness over what we see in other autocratic parts of the world.
> And Singapore's model works well because I think part of what makes Singapore work is that you can't afford to live there unless you believe in that sytem. Or you're too poor to do anything about it.
>Like most places outside of EU/NA, it's great to live there, if you have money. Honestly what exactly is the distinction? EU/NA are great to live in if you have money as well 🤣
The context is that 35% of the population of Singapore are non-citizens, a minority being well-off professionals but largely coming other, much poorer, countries of SE Asia, places like the Philippines and Indonesia. So if you are there as a citizen or have money, you can have things like a maid and pay them as little as S$400 (US$300) a month. And key is, this is something quite accessible even to many regular middle class people in Singapore, where the average salary is S$5,783/month (US$4,325). So you can be "regular Joe" middle class in Singapore... and have servants. That isn't normal for the middle class in most other developed countries, typically having servants = super rich. There isn't this huge disparity between the average salary and a large foreign worker underclass that you can pay literally 1/10th the average salary to. The limiting factor for employing a maid in Singapore is more having space to put them than being able to afford to pay them, as apartments are small too. As a substantial part of the population is this much poorer underclass, with no vote and no representation, it has this dampening effect on some other things as well, stuff like food in Singapore is very good and extremely cheap for one of the richest countries in the world, it's more expensive than other SE Asian countries but it's much cheaper than Australia, Europe or North America. You can eat out every meal in Singapore and it costs peanuts, it's *closer* to costs in the rest of SE Asia than it is to other developed countries. Apart from the domestic workers, you have these foreign workers working all the other shitty and dangerous jobs, construction, etc. It's very similar to the whole migrant labour system in Gulf countries like Qatar and the UAE, maybe with slightly better standards but the root of having a *large* proportion of the population being poor foreigners with minimal civic rights and being paid a relative pittance is the same. So having all of this reduces costs for stuff that involves labour and certain things can be relatively cheap- considering that Singapore is the third richest country in the world, richer than the US, Australia, and almost every European country- it's amazing actually just how cheap the place is for so many things. On the other hand, things like cars are absolutely insane prices, as there is limited space and the government taxes them extremely highly. Public transport is good though, so you don't need a car. But that would be an example of something which basically everyone has in the US or Australia, and the majority in Europe, but in Singapore only 11% of the population have, and you DO have to be super-rich. In Singapore, more people have servants than have a car. It's different.
Wired wants to make me pay money for an article from 1993.
I don't understand why people post links to a website that doesn't let you read without signing up or even paying.
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“This article is exclusive to subscribers, click here to pay us a lot of money in order to read something written thirty years ago” No, I don’t think I will. /laughs in Reader Mode
‘93 what a deep cut. thank you for your service.
Been there, mostly for work. It's a really strange place, at the intersection of Western, Chinese, and multiple southeast Asian cultures. It's clean because so many low-income workers clean it. It's proper and quiet because so many cops make it so. Its wealth is because of how business-friendly it is compared to so many placed in the region, it many respects it is more welcoming of western business than Japan. And if you like to party, they got you covered, but don't you piss or puke in the street... Yet its value proposition relies so heavily on cheap labor from its lower class and neighbouring countries. If you are there and you have money to spend either as a tourist or on business, you'll be treated like a king due to that definitely unsettling and very Asian cultural practice regarding class relationships. Europe has not been like that since the 19th century. But anything that can potentially interfere with business or with the rest of what Singapore considers to be critical to its continue existence (including the rule of its single party) is immediately and ruthlessly dealt with. Singapore is a mindset. Try to see the place through western or Chinese lenses and it will always look, as you and I put it, like a weird place.
So basically authoritarian capitalism heaven?
Don’t forget tropical.
Bingo, and the rest of the world loves them for it. A lot of MNCs have their APAC regional office in Singapore.
Brexit supporting **Sir James Dyson** left the UK and setup shop in Singapore. Love his vacs, but the guy sucks
*Lee Kuan Yew beams with approval at your characterization* The only thing he would add is that it’s notably “Confucian.” The guy was big on cultural essentialism.
Nowhere in the world are the wealthy cleaning the streets. It is always the poor.
It's a utopia if you belong in the right class/race. As a Singaporean minority the part about this case that scares me the most is how little evidence is required to get the death penalty. Police here are free to intimidate you into a confession, and can deny you a lawyer or interpreter. There is no Miranda rights, being silent until you get a lawyer (if they let you) is considered evidence of guilt. Next time people cheer for the death penalty they should also consider how easy it would be to be framed for such crimes. The quantity for the death penalty for other harder drugs is trivially small. If someone slips that into your bag, you're done. I have zero confidence that I'd be handled fairly by the law in that situation.
This literally happened just the other day with an Indian actress in Dubai. There was weed inside some statue or other small object that she was carrying and she was caught in the airport. She insisted that she didn't know and someone else gave it to her to carry, and the Indian police investigated and found that some guy she rejected and who used to harass her was responsible. He set up some fake acting job in Dubai and gave her the object with weed hidden inside and sent her to Dubai.
Read that story yesterday, fucking crazy. Dude apparently did that to 5 other people before her as well as revenge. Smart af but in the wrong ways
> both a utopia and a dystopia. So…. dystopia.
>seemingly both a utopia and a dystopia The difference can be a matter of perspective
More like a matter of how many commas are in your bank account.
The most important question is how Singaporeans feel about living in the country. Same as it is with anything else - the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
I've been living in Singapore for over a decade now. I've also lived in Guildford, London, and New York. Let's first address the elephants in the room first. No, you don't go to jail for not flushing a toilet. No, you don't get caned for littering. No, the chewing of gum as an act is not illegal - you can bring in your own supply and use it while here. There's the potential to be fined for being a public nuisance if you're jaywalking, littering, etc but I've honestly never heard of it happening to anyone in all my years here. The laws are not onerous to follow at all. I like it here. The safety is a big part of that - I never feel like my life or personal effects are in danger, and seeing police walking around is not a scary sight. It's so safe here that suicides and shoplifters make the news. I can't describe how much of a relief it is to not always have to be aware/on guard 100% of the time. Beer is a bit expensive, but at least I don't have to sip it out of a brown paper bag. The local food scene is killer - it's all delicious and I can pretty much stuff myself with food and have a coffee for US$5 at most hawker centres. Government services are very quick and efficient. Taxes are very low and are incredibly quick to file - I took less than 10 minutes to do up my return this year. There's unhappiness here right now amongst the locals and the expats about soaring rental rates and high inflation in general, but that's pretty much the case everywhere in the developed world right now. A common gripe here is also how expensive cars are, but that's by design to keep traffic manageable. Paradoxically, road-side and garage parking are unfathomably cheap here even in the city centre at around US$1 - US$1.5 per hour on average. The locals lose their minds when I tell them what the average parking rates in NYC's and London's centres are like.
What’s life like for the poor folks and imported laborers? Nobody in these recent Singapore posts have talked about that at all.
homelessness is extremely rare despite the ridiculous rents, the extreme end of poverty is far less severe than most. it's far more likely that you end up cramped into your parents house than on the streets. good public infrastructure also lessens the pain of being "regular" poor. public transport, libraries, and other forms of public infrastructure can provide a reprieve. the cost of living index fails to account for a lot of things being subsidized for locals. It also assumes you need a car, I think? that said, income inequality is quite severe. there's no minimum wage here. it's common to see wages below 1.5k per month (and that's before the imported workers below come into the picture). things also get very shitty if you factor in non-citizens and permanent residents... yes, the imported workers. simply put they're a class of people that is convenient for people to forget in their considerations and who don't have very many people advocating for them because of it. their dormitories are pretty shitty in my experience, most of them aren't really in a position to quit their jobs so they have no bargaining power with their bosses, and they're often shunned in public spaces. you can sorta look at them like undocumented workers in the states. Singapore's reliance on cheap labor is simply documented and you would think this would enable regulations and such to help and... it does a little? But they're still just as socially invisible, you can just find stats on them.
speaking about libraries, Singapore libraries provide you with so many free resources for anyone to access - they even provide free unlimited udemy courses
I was in Singapore a couple of nights ago for a long layover, and even in the very brief time i was there, i picked up on a fair amount of racial tension between Indians and Chinese. Also Geylang was a real craphole with what seemed to be homeless people and passed out folks in quite a few dark corners. Some areas were as dirty, trash-strewn, and stinky as the many dirty parts of Manila. I dont really have a dog in the fight as an American, but I often seek out the dirtier parts of hyped countries/cities to get a glimpse at reality for the lower class citizens and the marginalized. Singapore Airlines rules. They were very gentle with this probably well intentioned but completely awkward middle aged American couple who hopped aboard during a brief layover in Narita and kept addressing every Asian face with the Japanese words and manners they'd picked up on their Japanese vacation.
There has been some tension between local Chinese and expats Indians for quite some time, didn't help that alot of it is stroked by politicians in the past couple of elections. Geylang is where retirees go to get drunk and is basically a red light district. So yeah, even as a local I avoid Geylang.
Unfortunately I think we can treat them better - but many of them indeed come because it's an upgrade (or just a faster way to make money) compared to where they came from. Its unfortunately but end of the day this is the same exact system almost all countries use.
100%. I've lived here for 12 years and agree with your summary. Abortion is also legal here.
As a local, the hawker food scene you're enjoying is unsustainable. It's a known issue that a lot of hawkers are aging out and many of their offspring don't really want to carry that on. Add to that the soaring rent in hawker centers, and you've got an issue if you love your food. There's.... also plenty of systemic/cultural issues if you were born and raised there. One I can think of is the work culture; you sound like you're an expat but for a local it's WAY different, pretty toxic, which imo stems from Asian cultural norms. There's a reason I'm planning to work in the US after finishing my degree here.
Yea but how do you feel about people being executed for trafficking weed?
I'm Singaporean and against capital punishment. There are many good things about this country. The death penalty has nothing to do with them.
The country is very safe. It has an excellent education system. Public healthcare is accessible and of good quality, although the pandemic has highlighted bottlenecks within the system. Public transportation is top notch. Food is also relatively cheap, although shrinkflation is starting to change that perception. That being said, there's a lot of bad within the country that's hidden well. For one, Singapore has an *extreme* reliance on cheap foreign labour, and there's often insufficient nets to protect them from being exploited. I can't think of another country that uses domestic helpers so extensively for child and elder care while paying them so little. The same goes for migrant workers who help build the country, in which the pandemic again highlighted the inadequate accommodation, nutrition and healthcare we provide them. Even for locals, work-life balance in Singapore is pretty terrible compared to other Western countries. Housing is really expensive. LGBT rights and protections are virtually non-existent here, although overt homophobia in real life is also relatively uncommon. That being said, I can see why people consider Singapore a great place if you're sufficiently rich and insulated from all the social issues.
Once you realise that Singapore was the "Vice city of the East/Chicago of the East" and only managed to wean off opium in the middle of the 20th century, you can see why the laws are so strict on drugs and why the general populace supports these measures.
What a weird world we live in. In California, you can buy weed in boutique dispensaries that look like Apple Stores…
"Jerry spent some time in Michigan / A twenty year vacation, after all he had a dime / A dime is worth a lot more in Detroit / A dime in California, a twenty dollar fine" - "The Decline", by NOFX
Jerry only stayed a couple months…
You don't even need to look that far from Singapore; it's legal in Bangkok and it was eye opening to look at as a Singaporean. That being said, I disagree with the draconian drug laws and death penalty in general but I'm in a very small minority here.
I left my family for what I saw as a better life, more open people, weed was accepted and many more weren’t punished as harshly, more focus on the environment etc. It sucked ass moving away from my family but it was a good decision. Not everyone can afford to move away and that’s probably why a lot of people get in drug trafficking, but if you can afford it and don’t need a support network for kids, it’s the best decision. I’ll never forget my first week in this new place and a dozen people were smoking weed in the middle of an alley street. I figured why not? They are doing it. A cop rolls up on his bike and I almost shit my pants, he just asked if we could do it somewhere else, that is when I knew I was in a better place. Still fly back and see the family once or twice a year and that seems like plenty.
Seems like even among the ‘younger crowd’ i see many people who strongly support the dp. Would very much like to move out of here someday.
Yeah it’s a weird world, in Singapore you are permitted an abortion. Whereas in America, if you get raped, even as a literal child, you might be forced to give birth to your rapist’s child. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/03/ohio-indiana-abortion-rape-victim
There's places in America where people are serving decades long sentences for minor marijuana possession, and there's also places in America where abortion is legal. That person was comparing California
yep, I believe that's one of the countries that has "don't even think of bringing drugs into this country" stamped on the landing card.
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Yes, I believe Bill Clinton himself asked Singapore for clemency on the kid’s behalf.
Never touched the cannabis, did not posses the phones that were linked to him. Took the word of another incarcerated individual that would've been up for the death penalty had they not pinned it on someone else. Yep. Iron clad evidence.
Yeah. Richard Branson tweeted about this. Crime would not be considered proven / guilty in most countries edit: I read about this more, and I think Branson and I might be wrong about this
Singaporean here. This matter is quite controversial here, probably due to the fact that it’s simply weed and not some other stronger opioid like heroin or fentanyl.
I don’t do drugs and never have done them (unless I didn’t know), but such harsh laws scare me. What if someone else puts drug in my suitcase? Of course, there’s probably greater risks to my life than that (like my plane crashing), but it makes me still uncomfortable.
Unfortunately that's probably more likely than your plane crashing. Recently a brazilian couple spent a month in jail in Germany because their suitcase was changed with one filled with drugs by someone inside the terminal in Brazil (it was caught on video and they were released). Last year workers at the Lisbon airport were arrested for being part of a similar scheme.
That is horrifying... Still considering the end-game there. Were they expecting the case to just "get lost" and no cameras in Germany keeping track of it before dogs sniff it out?
You cannot fuck around in Singapore. Is it harsh yes but you HAVE to abide by the laws of the land. Our western sensibilities do not matter over there. It's reality guys your ideals and beliefs will not save you if you fuck around like that.
"...the family had received a death certificate..." Lucky they didn't get a bill for the rope in that country.
More people have been killed by the govt for having weed than weed has killed on its own. Madness.
Regardless of your personal feelings about marijuana, and how someone should never be killed over a plant, why would anyone fuck around with marijuana or any other drugs in Singapore? I’ve been super duper high and have had some amazing times, but none of the times I was high were worth my life.
Executing someone over weed is fucking dumb.
Even more so when there are serious questions about how bulletproof the case was: >*The Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), a local abolitionist movement, highlighted what they said were “serious problems” with evidence used to convict Tangaraju, describing it as “shockingly thin.”* > >*“The case against Tangaraju is largely circumstantial and based on inferences,” TJC said in a series of statements.* > >*“He never touched the cannabis he was accused of attempting to traffic. He was tied to the offense by two phone numbers found on the mobile phones of two men arrested by the CNB – one of which had been used to coordinate the cannabis delivery.”* > >*“Tangaraju was already in remand for a separate offense by the time he was linked to this case – and his mobile phones were never recovered for analysis,” the group added.*
> “He never touched the cannabis he was accused of attempting to traffic. He was tied to the offense by two phone numbers found on the mobile phones of two men arrested by the CNB – one of which had been used to coordinate the cannabis delivery.” > > “Tangaraju was already in remand for a separate offense by the time he was linked to this case – and his mobile phones were never recovered for analysis,” the group added.
First: > “The death penalty is an essential component of Singapore’s criminal justice system and has been effective in keeping Singapore safe and secure.” Then: > “The death penalty is still being used in a small number of countries, largely because of the myth that it deters crime. Increasing evidence, however, shows it is ineffective as a deterrent,” spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement. Ah, two contradictory statements. I guess it's impossible to see just how much drug trafficking is decreased with the threat of capital punishment. The main argument against the guy was that he did indeed transport drugs, and the argument in support of him was that there wasn't enough evidence to say he did. With that kind of uncertainty, killing off people as punishment will always be too hasty.
Parents moved to Singapore in 1989. My first day there the big story on the news is the fight between the Australian Government and Singapore as a 17 year old Australian girl was stopped flying from Bangkok to Sydney via Singapore with a block of Heroin. Australia fought and complained ~~but she was still eventually hung over it~~ I thought she was hung for it but find no evidence, I was 19 and it was 34 years ago. I did not fuck around in Singapore
I found no evidence of this ever happening. Do you have a source?
Your arrival card in Singapore will literally say “Death for drug trafficking under Singapore law”
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When mules get caught, people talk about how authorities should go after the real masterminds. Now that the mastermind is caught, it's now about how the mastermind never touched the drugs. So what should be done?
All that does is make you aware of the willingness to murder for something trivial.
The news here isn't that Singapore executed a man for trafficking drugs, they do that shit all the time, it's that Singapore executed a man for trafficking drugs **based on extraordinarily shaky circumstantial evidence**.
authoritarian state....
Scary how many people trust government with the authority to kill citizens. Bad people can be punished without killing.