Always enjoy your travel reflections. Lee Kuan Yew is a legend. America and Europe can never have a statesman like him because he would be considered a far right bigot. Government jobs are filled by the worst of us, not the best. This is why we can’t have nice things.
The argument is always that we need the poop and crime to be "authentic" or "that's just part of big city life" (implying you're a huge pussy if you care about this stuff).
Excellent piece, as always. Two questions for your next post on Singapore/travel:
1) I've never been to Singapore, but I find LKY and his island creation utterly fascinating. What do you think about the persistent limits on political freedoms in Singapore? My read is that while these are overstated, they are real, and eg freedom of the press is not nearly so robust there as here. As much as the Singaporean ethos seems to embrace an entrepreneurialism that used to be very American, would you say it's the case that the American ethos still values liberty more than the Singaporean?
2) Is it really true you've never found Europe worthwhile? I understand the critique, but it seems too strong. Even ruins can be beautiful.
As a former (and partially still) European: Public transportation in America is a mixture of museum, sewer and halfway house; walking is unsupported to the point of impossibility. American stores outside of the elite/bougie segment (Costco, TJ, WF) are full of overpriced and/or inedible crap filling the prime shelf estate. American education is >=10x the price for perhaps 2x the quality (and still tax-funded to a large extent). Same applies to healthcare, at least if one takes bedside into account (although here the Americans subsidize the rest of the world at R&D, while in turn relying on less regulated countries for test subjects...).
Needless to say, some of these problems increasingly appear in Europe, often in proportion to non-Western immigration; the quality of European food is overrated (and the waiting time for service is almost ridiculous); and there is a whole slew of Euro-specific problems like a visceral hate of entrepreneurship and a misanthropic cult masquerading as environmentalism; and yet I tend to go to Scandinavia to touch grass and breathe air with the money I make in America. My guess is you've never extended your stay for more than a night when going to conferences, and never veered outside the cities except on a conference excursion.
I gotta be honest, there wasn't a lot in this post about Singapore.
Like you would think it would list some not boring things about Singapore, especially ones one might not know about from traveling there a few days.
Anyway, I think Singapore is boring because:
1) East Asia is kind of boring. Older, poorer, no longer growing that much. Singapores rich but only because it's a city state. Five million people in Tokyo's business district would be pretty rich too.
2) The 90s are over. There are no triangulating democrats anymore that can cite The Bell Curve.
Now, I don't mean boring in a pejorative sense. Its fine. I like it. There just isn't much to talk about. It hoovers up high IQ people from over the world (mostly Han) and has to do niche specialist stuff in finance/trade, and they red queen race to 0.9 kids.
Always enjoy your travel reflections. Lee Kuan Yew is a legend. America and Europe can never have a statesman like him because he would be considered a far right bigot. Government jobs are filled by the worst of us, not the best. This is why we can’t have nice things.
The argument is always that we need the poop and crime to be "authentic" or "that's just part of big city life" (implying you're a huge pussy if you care about this stuff).
Some societies prioritize safety, efficiency, and pleasantness versus edgy.
Moral equality is not possible, but is also a terrible ideal.
It’s also a luxury belief, espoused by those who claim implicitly to be morally superior because of their support for moral equality.
Society needs to reward hard work, virtue, and beauty—so as to improve.
Excellent piece, as always. Two questions for your next post on Singapore/travel:
1) I've never been to Singapore, but I find LKY and his island creation utterly fascinating. What do you think about the persistent limits on political freedoms in Singapore? My read is that while these are overstated, they are real, and eg freedom of the press is not nearly so robust there as here. As much as the Singaporean ethos seems to embrace an entrepreneurialism that used to be very American, would you say it's the case that the American ethos still values liberty more than the Singaporean?
2) Is it really true you've never found Europe worthwhile? I understand the critique, but it seems too strong. Even ruins can be beautiful.
As a former (and partially still) European: Public transportation in America is a mixture of museum, sewer and halfway house; walking is unsupported to the point of impossibility. American stores outside of the elite/bougie segment (Costco, TJ, WF) are full of overpriced and/or inedible crap filling the prime shelf estate. American education is >=10x the price for perhaps 2x the quality (and still tax-funded to a large extent). Same applies to healthcare, at least if one takes bedside into account (although here the Americans subsidize the rest of the world at R&D, while in turn relying on less regulated countries for test subjects...).
Needless to say, some of these problems increasingly appear in Europe, often in proportion to non-Western immigration; the quality of European food is overrated (and the waiting time for service is almost ridiculous); and there is a whole slew of Euro-specific problems like a visceral hate of entrepreneurship and a misanthropic cult masquerading as environmentalism; and yet I tend to go to Scandinavia to touch grass and breathe air with the money I make in America. My guess is you've never extended your stay for more than a night when going to conferences, and never veered outside the cities except on a conference excursion.
I gotta be honest, there wasn't a lot in this post about Singapore.
Like you would think it would list some not boring things about Singapore, especially ones one might not know about from traveling there a few days.
Anyway, I think Singapore is boring because:
1) East Asia is kind of boring. Older, poorer, no longer growing that much. Singapores rich but only because it's a city state. Five million people in Tokyo's business district would be pretty rich too.
2) The 90s are over. There are no triangulating democrats anymore that can cite The Bell Curve.
Now, I don't mean boring in a pejorative sense. Its fine. I like it. There just isn't much to talk about. It hoovers up high IQ people from over the world (mostly Han) and has to do niche specialist stuff in finance/trade, and they red queen race to 0.9 kids.