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Singapore is an air-conditioned nation. The plant which grows in the greenhouse cannot withstand the storm.
Its citizens suffer from two malaises:
Comfort and Conformity.
Everything is much too comfortable. A Singaporean can go an entire lifetime without coming into contact with reality.
The prosperous, comfortable lives of Singaporeans comes from subsidy by the state, & yet this prosperity is more of a socialist prosperity, which is distributed in service of social outcomes, rather than a prosperity that is generated through the +EV effort of Singaporeans creating economic value.
This leaves Singaporeans often with a feeling of “unreality”, working bullshit jobs, being comfortable, sleepwalking their way through life.
Beyond getting your home, or your next trip to Japan or a festival, there is not much to strive for. The government works hard to ensure employment for Singaporeans, by bringing in foreign companies to start branches here (with tax incentives) & forcing them to hire locals, and even employing vast swathes of locals in the government with jobs that pay enough to upkeep their lifestyles.
As an engineered economy, it’s fantastic and stable. But it’s a greenhouse, which explains why all seems to wilt.
It is hard to find truly generational talent and ambition here, it is much too comfortable. As a startup, it’s nigh impossible to hire in Singapore because to many, why grind at a startup, if you can afford everything while working a job that gives you prestige?
Singapore is one of the few countries in which a person can live their entire life within this bubble. Everyone comes to you. Many never have to work part time. Jobs come to you. The schools are right here. You never have to leave your family home. As such you have grown adults who never learnt to cook, do laundry or accept discomfort and solitude.
Comfortable.
Although we develop much human capital, we also do not really provide the preconditions for greatness to emerge.
Non conformity is often punished, or at the very least, judged. Intense academic competition, and being judged for every activity since you were 12. You are forever on a scorecard. You are always assigned a rank at every turn. A series of Pass/Fail gates every few weeks, until you’re middle aged with children in a government subsidized, allotted and ballotted HDB. This requires you to make and clear a certain amount of income as well, and we all know that means sitting in an air conditioned office 99% of the time. Hence the dearth of musical and creative opportunities outside of state sponsorship.
Every dollar spent is ruthlessly optimized, to the point where credit card points conversations are a common topic.
As @hoeflatoor mentions as well, “Sinkie pwn Sinkie” is a common phenomenon.
Some of the smartest, most capable Singaporeans are sniped and brought into government service at an early age.
Others opt out and move elsewhere, most often to America or the UK. I’ve met some brilliant Singaporeans out in SF.
There are no strong incentives for a Singaporean to pop out their head, for the cost of failure is often much too high, and the benefits reaped do not outweigh the sheer comfort. They’d much rather trade, live lives of quiet comfort & anonymity despite their immense privilege, which does not much to inspire the next generation of thinkers, darers, and doers.
Many of them moved away.
One must have enough chaos within oneself to give birth to a dancing star.
eigen moomin@eigen_moomin
singapore is the highest iq country that has never shipped anything that matters. this is my essay on why there are no great singaporean companies. we are a nation of compradors; middlemen too domesticated to do anything but serve.
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