
Chank
1.9K posts




Video of alleged shooter on the ground at WHCD





My standard answer for anyone asking why the start-up ecosystem in Singapore isn't flourishing really comes down to institutionalized risk-aversion. In Singapore, there is a "standard" path that practically everyone goes through. From age 6 to age 24, there is an institutionalized path that you are more or less constitutionally and socially mandated to follow. If you stick within the confines of the path, you are "doing well". If you veer from this path, you get struck down as a failure. Ability to stick within the confines of the path is only a function of academic prowess. I've lived both sides of the world first as a traditional "overachieving scholar" and then dropping out of school once I decided to walk the path less traveled. The difference in attitude from society is stark. This breeds a mindset among most Singaporeans that there is a "correct" answer for all situations. You smell this fear of "being wrong" in all walks of life, at every layer, in all institutions. This belief system of thinking there is a clear cut answer to all situations is entirely at odds with what is required to invoke the dark alchemy of creating something from nothing. To create a start-up, you need to be radically comfortable with being wrong and being able to iterate ruthlessly towards the correct answers. The government however, WANTS to keep the current outcome. This mentality among society at large allows them to clip the left tails of failure, push the median up (we are, after all, highest GDP per capita in the world) and think that clipping the far right outcomes is a worthy price to pay. To be entrepreneurial in Singapore is to literally go against institutional and societal programming.




"I switched my opinion as soon as my class interests changed"




"Singapore has no startups because everything is too convenient" Bro China has the most convenient payment and utility payment systems on earth. That clearly didn't stop them. The real problem: Singapore's system is so well-designed that the rational move for a smart person is to never leave it. NUS → DBS → $10K/month by 30. The expected value genuinely beats startup odds. Smartest locals I know "try" startup for one year — after thinking about it for three. Meanwhile US/China founders just jump. And if Grab started in SG instead of Malaysia, you think MOT wouldn't have shut it down before Series A? It's not convenience. It's a system optimized for comfort, and a culture that counts the odds before jumping.










Here is your reminder to not bring any weed for your next trip to Singapore. You wouldn't want to be executed for attending token2049 💀



Feb 26: Panamanian investigators carried documents out of offices belonging to CK Hutchison’s subsidiary Panama Ports Company, which operated ports at both ends of the Panama Canal until its concession was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last month. Visits were made to three offices of the Panama Ports Company in Panama City and that the Panama Maritime Authority and investigators from the National Directorate of Judicial Investigation also participated. Public prosecutor Azael Samaniego said his office had information pointing to the possible commission of a crime, but he did not specify what the crime could be. He said an investigation was in its early stages. The investigation comes days after the Maritime Authority seized the Balboa and Cristobal ports from the Panama Ports Company. The company has previously rejected the court’s ruling and the Chinese government has accused Panama’s government of bowing to US pressure. apnews.com/article/panama…











I think a huge part of the reason why no government has been able to enact difficult pro-growth reforms is that the average voter still believes we remain a rich country. You hear this in politicians’ rhetoric “the sixth richest country in the world”. We’re the sixth largest economy but now far from the richest. Per capita we’re tanking down the rankings. One of the reasons why Poland or China have been able to have growth miracles in recent years is they think like a developing country. They know they were poor and they have to build to get rich. We think we are rich and that we don’t have to build anything anymore, or that when we do, it has to be the most expensive possible version of what we build. Bat tunnels. Fish Discos. Kittiwake hotels. We think we’re rich so we can afford to chase some wealth creators away, afford to mandate public biodiversity net gain on every development in the country, and afford to ratchet up state pension spending five times faster than the rate of growth in the economy. We’re suffering from acute ‘rich country delusion’. It’s only once we realise we’re far poorer than we should be that we can start to fix this nonsense.








