Singapore Like Steemit Leads the Good Life Under a Benevolent Dictator - But How Long Can The American Dream Last?
Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!
~The Masque of Anarchy - Shelley
The American Dream Fulfilled?
Many say that Singapore has indeed achieved what America never could - the American Dream. There are similar parallels to Steemit too.
Singapore like Steemit is a clean place with nice welcoming people and glittering delights as you navigate its streets. There are flowers and cats just like on Steemit, but at the head of it all you know there is thriving free-market state that is run by a few clever socialist dictators. It is a very clever system of control. You can't see it, but you can feel it in the air.
While the whales of Steemit are not currently down-voting posts, but you know they are there just like the government of Singapore. In Singapore everything runs like a Swiss watch - not a fragment of errored code - the same as Steemit. The punishment for drug trafficking is death. Surely that is worse than a whale down-vote?
The last time I visited Singapore I felt its paternalistic government, and when I step onto the streets of Steemit daily I get a similar feeling.
Like Steemit, There Is No Other Place To Hang Singapore On
*Singapore does not fit like any other country. Similar to what Steemit is in the blockchain world. It is a benevolent dictatorship with free speech. It uses capitalist methods to obtain socialist ends - the whales think they are doing the best for everyone like the Singaporean government.
I once read that Singapore University scholars called Singapore a “Confucianist, bureaucratic, elitist, state”. This is a deadly accurate assessment of Steemit too.
Whatever we want to call it, by all its polished appearances it works astoundingly well — so far, anyway.
Time always does tell on these kind of governments as the leaders change - Steemit is not an exception.
Steem on my Confucianist friends!
P.S. Anti-social behavior is not permitted in Singapore. The fine for littering is $250. Jaywalking, spitting, and smoking in government offices are also fined $250. Gambling, except for the state lottery, is illegal. The punishment for drug trafficking is death.
Check out my "anti-social' behavior of calling out abuse support and otherwise immoral and disingenuous behavior by @fyrstikken
Copied from earlier comments about it:
He is flagging me after I pointed out his immoral behavior in a thread dedicated to him. I asked him very pertinent questions about supporting anonymous blackmail and voting purely for gestural reasons and to antagonize people by voting two opposing views with those votes worth 0.03%. He has lied about that and only recently in that post has admitted to voting like that while before he said he votes automatically with 1% and now just like before he deflected answering for those purely gestural votes, this time lying and saying he was out of voting power when in fact during those days he voted like that he barely voted compared to later times. Now after admitting he votes like that he started to slander me and attack my character and never answered as to why he support whoever runs blacklist and their extortion and flag attacks without reason or justification for the flags. He closed as you will see, by attempting to appear like he was open to discussion and even saying that he doesn't care about me slandering him, which I have not as I simply stated the truth/facts, but then when he came back all he did was flag my comments and post that had nothing to do with him. He doesn't seem to want to talk and has resorted to only attacking my character/petty name calling.
Before this I had a good suspicions that he is not only running the anonymous blackmail/extortion racket of blacklist but also runs iflagtrash because in a previous encounter where I asked him about the voting behavior the bot iflagtrash turned on right after I was literally egged him on to turn on the bot because nothing was going to stop my inquiry, and I believe my suspicions were warranted because of his post about anonymity at the time that iflagtrash was founded/created/activated along with his blatant support for blacklist and their 40 steem pay up extortion to be removed form their list, whoever they are, and that only made me more determined to pursue that even more. His troll behavior is now only showing even more, and so until he is either open to discussing it and/or more people start to recognize and question his actions, I will simply continue to point out that his behavior is not only disingenuous, but abusive and detrimental to the community.
This is the thread/post I was referring to link, and if you want I'll be more than happy to link you the previous one where I suspected him for running iflagtrash and blacklist.
That big man is always up to mischief!!
His actions don't make him big man, and mischief is what one attributes to children:
I meant big in stature not big in morals or ethics. With 250k in SP he is a minor whale. I'd just start a new account as the @baahianreloaded and reload against him with some videos instead. Your words are not connecting this him for some reason.
Hmm to compromise with a bully, where are my ethics? To cower down to a bully, where is my pride and courage? To make a bully understand, where is my sanity?
THE MASK OF ANARCHY (FULL POEM) SHELLEY
Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war.
And if then the tyrants dare,
Let them ride among you there;
Slash, and stab, and maim and hew;
What they like, that let them do.
With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay,
Till their rage has died away:
Then they will return with shame,
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek:
Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!
More on the romantic poet Shelley can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley
You have a good point. Is Singapore on a journey to becoming something else? Maybe, certainly not a democracy. Is steem on a journey to something else? Maybe, and that's why we're here hopefully, well some of us ;) Steem can become so much more because at its core there is integrity and the means for direct, censorship resistance, transparent, self-governance.
I have friends who live in Singapore, they're natives. I've been told the government is really struggling with immigrants and keeping everything neat and shiny. The job market really sucks my friends who did well in the banking industry and are struggling to find jobs after massive layoffs. They have had to take lower paying jobs outside of the financial industry. Immigrants do not respect the strict laws regarding litter, vagrancy, and behavior codes of conduct.
At the cost of safety and their conditioning to not overly complain people are really suffering and the government only becomes more ridged applying its laws.
Immigrants get more work, the government ignores the unrest regarding its native population ....the country is really racist too...
How decentralizing would work, I have no clue. But I think taking care of your own people first would resolve a lot of their problems.
Hi @reddust,
I live in singapore since 2 years and work in the banking industry, I can tell you, personally, not hearing from a friend -the government is no struggling no one and makes no problems to no one, the unemployment rate is 3%!! the banking industry is transforming in the last years and the FINTEC is causing a lot of functions that were manually made to be done by computers - as a result many people lost their jobs - that is all over the world (also in my bank).
no one suffer in Singapore you don't see homeless or really poor people like in europe or in the US .
And government in not racist at all.
It is a very bad place if you want to litter smoke everywhere spit on the flour do graffities commit crimes and deal with drugs - the punishments are very severe for those things - but if you are a normative person ..probably you won't have a problem with this severity.
That is what I've heard for years about Singapore, clean and efficient, better mind your manners. Thanks for the update @yacov, my friend gave me an alternative view that may be true for him but not everyone else.
I tried to find Singaporeans who are unhappy with their paternalistic government. In a week of searching, I found none. People think the regulations make sense. No one seems to fear the government; most feel they can bring complaints to it.
My friend that shared his experience isn't happy naturally, hehehe, and complains all the time about the littering problems and indecent behavior, getting drunk, lued behavior, drugs and peeing in public, especially when using public transportation by some immigrants. He is unhappy with the government but not the monarchy...I don't understand exactly how they work together though....
But if you research job and immigrant issues plenty of journalist are writing about the problems. Most of the Singaporeans I know are practicing Buddhist, very devout and are very polite and would never say a bad thing about anyone!
Very true. The super-modern Singapore is indeed crumbling. Lets hope Steemit doesn't suffer the same fate ;)
Current globalization methods are destroying nations, communities, economies, cultures, and infrastructures across the globe.
More on a video post v.soon on how I'd like to see Steemit go from a Singapore to a Switzerland :))
I can't wait, your posts are fun!
Very nice ~.~
The very first time I got to grips with Steemit it reminded me of Singapore! Like a very diluted version of The Matrix!
Can a Steemit Singapore mutate into Switzerland??
https://steemit.com/steemit/@mindhunter/mindhunter-talks-about-the-steemit-miracle-question-what-if-you-woke-tomorrow-and-something-had-drastically-changed-on-steemit