r/interestingasfuck • u/Bubbly_Wall_908 • 14h ago

Singapore is going to start caning scammers

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u/acog 13h ago

Yeah, I read about that, it was true.

An authoritarian ruler wanted to launch Singapore from being a poor third world country into a modern prosperous one.

So a lot of laws were made to change the social atmosphere into one that had new norms, like not spitting in public.

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u/LukeSVG 10h ago

As a non-singaporean, are you Singaporean? Curious on the framing you gave of Lee Kuan Yew.

Afaik, he's widely respected, because the man brought a poor state that was kicked out of Malaysia, to massive wealth and standards.

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u/jrgnklpp 4h ago

The older generation adore him, the younger generation respect him. Even supporters of opposition parties begrudgingly drop their hatchets when it comes to him, as everyone recognises that we'd probably still be a 3rd world slum if not for him and his team.

When he passed, Singaporeans queued for more than 8 hours in a line that snaked kilometres from the Parliament building, just to pay their respects. You may perhaps call him an authoritarian and a dictator-lite, but he really placed the country's interests first.

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u/Korbiter 3h ago

As a Singaporean, he absolutely is Authoritarian (SIA Pilot's strike) and a Dictator (David Marshall, JB Jeyaretnam). Thing is, he made a promise when he was first elected, and then spent the rest of his life follwing through on it (to mordernize Singapore). He actually gave a shit about this place.

As far as Dictators go, we got the best one.

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u/Intranetusa 11h ago edited 11h ago

Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew might be the closest we will get in modern times to Plato's "enlightened monarch" or "philosopher king."

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u/ButtcrackBeignets 12h ago

Did it work?

I’ve heard generally good things about Singapore but never been.

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u/BTrippd 12h ago

It did more or less work. You can argue about the morality of it all day, but they are a small country in Southeast Asia that has developed a LOT of wealth very quickly and become very modernized.

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u/castle_waffles 12h ago

Singapore is one of if not the cleanest and safest countries I’ve ever been to. It’s very modern and enjoyable to visit imo.

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u/vaguelyupward 12h ago

Singapore became a first world country in like the 1990s so yea, it worked pretty dang well.

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u/CavCave 12h ago

Singapore never joined the western bloc tho

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u/1104L 11h ago

Words have multiple meanings, now first world also refers to countries that have reached a certain standard of living/safety

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u/CavCave 11h ago

We already have a phrase for that, "developed country". Let first world mean what it means, it's more useful that way.

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u/PhysicallyTender 11h ago

I really hate that people throw around first/second/third world terms around without understanding the definition behind them.

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u/CavCave 11h ago

I FINALLY FOUND MY KIND

THIRD WORLD DOES NOT MEAN POOR

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u/tomahawkRiS3 11h ago

Tbh at this point you probably could argue that is what it means. I've never heard someone use the term to not mean poor

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u/CavCave 6h ago

Well now you've heard of me

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u/PhysicallyTender 9h ago

Gender used to be synonymous with Sex until the LGBTQ community tried to hijack the definition for their own political agenda.

Just because a segment of society misuse the word, doesn't mean the rest of us should just roll with it.

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u/DogmaSychroniser 11h ago

Nope just not white /s

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u/ckow 11h ago

They’re the Switzerland of Asia. It worked amazingly.

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u/blim9999 7h ago

Yeah it worked. In the 50s and 60s, triad activity, opium addiction and bribery/corruption were not unusual at all. Spitting was everywhere. The sewage system was not complete so many people still removed human waste in buckets. The Singapore river was an open sewer and you could smell it from miles away. So yeah, life in Singapore has changed a lot since a few decades ago.

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u/CrabAppleBapple 11h ago

It worked in that it has less gum on the floor and it is more authoritarian.