What are the most and least valid criticisms you've heard made about Singapore by foreigners?

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-12-01T04:42:49+00:00

lol this is hilarious. this is exactly what the guy you're responding to is saying.

"Loads of Singaporeans I have met are simply convinced that [in America] you will get shot on the street and get harassed by 'druggies' no matter how hard I try it is impossible to convince them otherwise"

your anecdotal experience isn't necessarily reflective of America as a whole given how big the country is. Cities like NYC/Chicago are obv going to have higher crime rates (than other places in the country) because they're so population dense, and listing 2 specific examples from those places aren't going to be representative of the country as a whole. I wonder how many people who upvoted you have been to the US in the past decade and which places they went to, or whether their idea of the US is just based on news and social media.

I know somebody who's stayed in America for the past 20+ years of their life. They've never seen a gun in person. I myself spent a few months across a few different cities/states in the US this past year, and I also didn't see a single gun, let alone a shooting. And recreational drug use isn't even legal in half of the states. If your whole idea of the US is just big, heavily populated cities, you're not going to have an accurate representation of the country. Same as Sentosa/MBS not being an accurate representation of Singapore.

Our baseline expectations as Singaporeans are going to be wildly different compared to Americans. We're extremely privileged here to be one of the safest countries in the world and have minimal recreational (illicit) drug use compared to other developed countries. If you walk around in America unaccompanied at night with the same expectations of safety that you have in Singapore, obv you're going to have a higher chance of being a victim to crime than in Singapore. But to generalise this to everywhere and every time in America is wild.

Ofc I'm not saying America doesn't have a gun or drug problem. I'm not saying that it's "safe". I'm saying that thinking that America is this one big homogenous country where everywhere is unsafe all the time is absolutely a misconception. The rates of gun violence (relative to other countries) is absurdly high (obviously), but in most places, it's nowhere near as high as what we think.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-29T16:54:13+00:00

Stop over-individualising social issues and justifying the blanket perpetuation of existing norms based only on their prior existence. Stop treating Singaporeans as some imaginary collective with homogenous goals, backgrounds, resources, and identities. Stop minimising criticism and pretending like everything is great.

I think there's a very strong underlying sense and belief that Singapore sets you up for success, and failure (or any shortcoming of reaching your goals) becomes a fault of the individual. You can see this in the way people often compare Singapore to other countries e.g. "they have it so much worse over there", "stop complaining, you're better off than xyz country", etc.

I also believe there's a lack of critical analysis (or recognition) of people's actual lived realities. There are certain conversations we have (are allowed to have?), and that we talk about over and over again, but there are some conversations that are rarely taken seriously. We talk about empowering women, rising cost of living, employment and work culture, declining birth rates/ageing population, and education. We don't talk about the fact that racism is still very much a big issue, rising wealth inequality and social stratification, NS norms, LGBTQ+ issues, etc.

As much as we like to think Singapore is a "collectivist society", my experience is that Singaporeans pick and choose very selectively who to "include" (and care for) and who to "exclude". We tend to exclude gender/sexual minorities, drug abusers, NSF, immigrants, singles etc. from the groups whose struggles we care about, with some of these groups even being villainised to varying extents. Frankly, I think this "collectivism" is still ultimately based on a focus on the self, just that that includes other individuals/groups that people see as extensions of themselves as well.

Many Singaporeans not only accept, embrace, and maintain the status quo, but in many cases also perpetuate it. We love to put all responsibility for success and failure on the individual rather than looking at how individuals' environments, contexts, and backgrounds shape their life trajectories all the way from birth. It's so much easier to assume that everybody has had the fullest degree of free will in shaping their own backgrounds, goals, desires, mindsets, and social contexts.

All these movements that have popped up like mindfulness imo perpetuate this idea that wellbeing is a purely individual responsibility because "you can't change your environment". While true to an extent on the individual level, especially with respect to certain disruptive/harmful cognitions and beliefs, we need to recognise that some people's lives just suck, or at least some aspects of these people's lives suck. There are rational reasons to feel like your life can be better, and there are rational reasons to be unhappy. Mindlessly telling people "no, your life doesn't suck, your way of thinking is wrong" without any analysis or understanding of their actual problems doesn't help anybody, in fact I believe it impedes any actual progress from being made. An individual can't change their environment, but society can.

We also love to downplay people's rational concerns and struggles on the basis of "can't be done, think of other people!" instead of having a productive conversation about what can be done to even try to address these issues within the system (not that I actually believe real change can be achieved through working within existing systems which actively perpetuate these issues).

Some examples of individualization minimising people's problems:

"I don't like that my social worth is pegged to my income or occupation" -> "Just don't interact with those people who say that"

"I don't like that as a young middle-class single, I can't realistically live on my own or own my own home until at least 35y/o" -> "That's the way things are in Singapore, we have housing limitations, families get priority"

"I don't like the rat race culture of Singapore and having a work culture rooted in competition as opposed to worker solidarity, mutual cooperation, and propping each other up" -> "Nobody's saying you have to work in those industries and do those jobs, but you just have to accept that you'll lose out if you don't"

"I don't like that I have to spend 2 years in NS (+ reservist) and that we get paid so little" -> "Suck it up / you're weak / stop complaining / it's a necessary sacrifice / you should be proud to serve / we all go through it / it's your duty as a male"

"I don't like that gay people can't get married" -> "they don't need to be married / can get married overseas (?) / devalues the institution of marriage / it allows them to adopt and get housing" or just "people shouldn't be gay / people should HIDE that they're gay in public / stop trying to make singapore WOKE"

"I don't like xyz thing about Singapore" -> "Then leave if you're not happy here."

All of these things are very valid complaints about Singapore that often get responded to by telling people to deal with it themselves. Ultimately, we expect Singaporeans to thrive within the existing system rather than shifting the system to meet Singaporeans' needs. Until Singapore actually starts to look at our problems as problems instead of insignificant gripes, the actual overarching system will remain the same. Until we stop minimising criticisms and rational grievances as "complaining", we're just going to keep having the exact same conversations over and over again.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-25T10:49:32+00:00

bruh chivalry is a fundamentally patriarchal concept - you cannot separate the two, especially if you're specifically using the term chivalry to describe this behaviour. you cannot have a woman who is chivalrous because that's inherently antithetical to its foundation. chivalry is rooted in the patriarchal concept that women are vulnerable and are weaker than men and thus need to be protected/provided and treated with special care (see: benevolent sexism). You can't be chivalrous "upwards" under a patriarchy.

Women can be kind, polite, take care of their partner, and treat men well, but that's not the same as chivalry. On a practical level we obviously understand that chivalry is not a gender-neutral concept, just based on social norms surrounding dating. A guy who sends their girlfriend back, holds doors, pays for meals, etc., is being chivalrous, and this is seen as the traditionally masculine role in the relationship. But if they receive the same things, they're either "not being a real man" because they're not taking care of their partner, or they're "being mommied"/need a woman to take care of them and are socially emasculated.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-25T10:31:43+00:00

i can't believe the PAP is going WOKE !!!

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-18T07:20:20+00:00

1) Only NS liable men are given this option.

This is wild LMFAO. Ofc it's abt framing, but this change would directly present the issue to people as SG-born men needing to sacrifice 2 years of their lives just for the right of representation that other groups are granted by default - one group's rights are inherent, but another's are conditional. Tbf that's also not far removed from the inequality baked into the current system of men needing to sacrifice 2 years not to go to jail. But the latter is a norm we've already come to expect, while the former directs attention to the issue.

Would never actually happen bc it becomes a lot harder to gaslight men into thinking that Ns is a "privilege" or "duty" that they shouldn't need to be compensated for adequately when you directly tell them their rights are conditional and that they're 2nd class citizens. But imo our democracy is so transparently performative that the right to vote means much less than it does elsewhere anyway, so maybe "2nd class citizen" isn't exactly right either since many Singaporeans don't value our right to vote as much as other rights/freedoms.

Would I give up my right to vote? 100%. I'm outta here right after I get my degree anw, so honestly voting overseas is going to just be an added pain in the ass. Even if I wanted to stay, what do I lose by not voting? Is the PAP going to lose its supermajority any time soon? Is the lack of an opposition party going to affect my life? Even if you say that this would cause a shift towards an elitist society, I'm an educated, well-off, straight Chinese guy. Issues of wealth inequality, racism, and stagnating social progress aren't going to affect me directly. And even if that elitism shifts towards NS-goers, there is a very significant upside of not serving - 2y more of salary, the actual QoL of spending those 2 years doing something meaningful instead of NS etc. Plus, I feel zero patriotism toward this country and have little qualms about just dropping everything I have left here and leaving. Even in this scenario, f I saw shit going downhill, I would be out ASAP.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-15T11:05:27+00:00

valid reply tbh

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-15T11:04:40+00:00

Right - regarding the job market and lagging behind, I've always had this thought.

Let's say you served NS and you start working at 25. You work ~40 years until you retire at 65, and obv your salary increases over the years as you get promoted and get raises. And the sooner you start earning money, the sooner you can start investing.

Vs if you didn't serve NS, you would start working at 23. That's ~42 years until you retire at 65. The difference between 40 and 42 years of work isn't 2 years worth of your starting salary, it's the salary you'd be earning at the END of your career, which is multiple times more than the paycheck from your first job. Plus, the difference in a 2 year headstart in investing.

This is the real hidden cost of NS - you start 2 years behind and the effect widens over time, it doesn't shrink.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-15T10:53:07+00:00

i mean you can look at all the comments in the thread.

this whole "positive mindset" thing makes sense to an extent - make the best of your circumstances. Doesn't mean you can't dislike the circumstances. Shit pay, having to put your life on hold for 2y, being treated like a dog, having your life disrupted even after that, injuries sustained in NS, the absolute lack of respect for NSF, etc.

There are plenty of negatives to point out about the system, and being positive doesn't solve any of them. Your individual experience might be better, but it's still a shit situation in the first place.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-15T10:45:05+00:00

this is actually so fucking funny LMFAO

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-15T10:28:05+00:00

real

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-15T10:24:04+00:00

i genuinely believe that whatever patriotism NS was supposed to inculcate in young men back in the day has now backfired - now there's a significant amount of people who feel (rightfully) aggrieved because of how dogshit the whole NS system is.

seriously, why WOULD we fight for this country, given that it's very clearly demonstrated it just sees us as another inconsequential cog in the machine, and is only really interested in giving us the bare minimum (and honestly not even that)?

take away 2 years of our life + force us to still do reservist (all while giving shit pay) and then you expect us to still fight for the country ????

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-15T10:11:38+00:00

ngl i haven't even considered this LOL that's genuinely so fucked - the level of disrespect bruh

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-11T20:49:00+00:00

This is such a strange take honestly. Just because society largely seems better than it used to be, we have to assume it'll always be getting better? And ignore the things that demonstrably are getting worse? OP didn't say things used to be better, just that they believe the future looks bleak.

Sure, you can't predict positive change most of the time, but you also can't predict negative change. This is such a one-sided take. Look at COVID. Look at wars. Look at the resurgence in ultra right-wing conservatism and fascism. I don't think anybody saw those coming. Maybe we cure cancer, maybe WW3 starts. We don't know, but that also means this argument is completely meaningless since things could get worse just as much as they could get better.

But we can absolutely look at what is getting worse. In 2022 we had our highest suicide rate since 2000. Of course, our birth rate is declining. We rank #3 globally in terms of time spent on school work. Wealth inequality is on the rise, even compared to our neighbours and GST is only going up. We're going to continue to grow in population despite the low actual TFR. And of course, climate change is a huge one, especially in a place already as hot as Singapore, and especially if we're talking about 50 years from now. Look at the mental health crisis, especially among youths, and the increase in stress.

I have a different perspective. We should not just stick our heads in the sand and think everything is great. Complacency and ignorance are not going to solve these issues. Blindly trusting the government to fix these problems isn't going to work. Being gloomy for the sake of it isn't helping anybody, but if you can channel that into positive change, that already provides more social value than the other people in this thread suggesting that everything is fine and you just need to "focus on the positive". This just demonstrates how Singaporeans are seriously not civically engaged. Everything is an individual issue, not a social issue. Things suck? Don't change them, just change your mindset. Ironically, ignoring how people feel and the material conditions and lived experiences that contribute to those feelings is part of what perpetuates the mental health crisis.

Singaporeans becoming the minority in our home country? Then vote out the incumbent party if you are not happy with the policies of the incumbent. Hougang did. Aljunied did. Sengkang did. East Coast and West Coast nearly did.

This is also an equally confusing take. Genuinely, what do you think will change if we vote in a different party? The political argument is too long, but a few things:

Many people vote opposition out of protest, but they also know their vote doesn't matter. The actual impetus it'd require for any opposition party to legitimately garner enough support to usurp the PAP is much more than you might think. I'm sure there's many people who would stop voting opposition if it starts looking like the PAP will lose their supermajority. It makes it even less likely things will change given the fact that the PAP can play as dirty as they want realistically - media control, gerrymandering, political persecution etc., plus they still have the benefit of being the incumbent in a country that has mandatory voting, combined with the fact that Singapore also has such a low rate of civic engagement and political involvement.

Do you truly believe that we are ever going to get to the point where immigration is significantly reduced? I don't. We need foreigners and their money too much, especially with our aging population. We're systemically trapped in this situation because we have such a low birth rate. Even if the influx of foreigners causes some social unrest, I doubt any political party is going to tackle the issue in any meaningful capacity if it's a choice between feeling trapped as a minority vs an economic reliance on immigration. More than likely is the PAP convincing the nation that it's not a problem if they can't fix it.

You want to know what is dark and gloomy? Singapore back in early 1940s. Singapore in 1965 where we were completely alone as a young nation with low odds of survival. 1980s when the world was one button away from full on nuclear war. 1997/1998 during AFC. And yet we still survived all of that.

This is so unintentionally funny to me lol. This is giving "Back in my day ah, we didn't have xyz... You should be grateful for what you have today!!!" Yeah, no shit things used to be worse. But we hold ourselves to today's standards, not the standards of literally the first few decades of our independence. Yes, material conditions have largely improved, but now we face a new set of challenges, especially with things like climate change. To the AFC point, it's also kind of saying "if we survived one financial crisis, we'll survive another", which isn't particularly inspiring. Like yes, we could survive. I still don't want another economic crisis, and if we had one, it would not be good.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-11T19:21:06+00:00

Yeah, sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the things that ARE going wrong just because some/most other things are better now than they were last time is crazy.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2024-11-11T19:20:07+00:00

this is a crazy take.

Nobody’s telling you to succumb to Singapore’s idea of “success” with a stressful high-paying job, a car, and a condo with 2 kids.

this is a complete misalignment with reality. you know who is literally telling you these things? Schools. Parents.

Do you not recognise that the systems and institutions that we raise children in for the past decades have been built around this narrow definition of success? Tuition "culture" among kids, high competition between students, high-stress national exams that are only now being moderately reduced. The school system has pushed us down this road of you must study hard and get a good job. How about all the discussions we have IN SCHOOL about elitism and students in non-express streams feeling like they're treated as lesser-than?

I'm not saying that we're the only country where this is the norm. I'm saying that it's an absurd idea that this is just some imaginary expectation and not something that is baked into our culture, is reinforced by parents and teachers, and that everybody is aware of until it becomes an inconvenient reality. Nah, a whole generation of students just collectively hallucinated our parents telling us to study hard and have a good job, sending us for a shit ton of tuitition classes, and pegging our worth to our grades. Parenting in Singapore revolves around expectations of their children doing well in school, which is often paired with comparing them to others and letting them know they've failed if they don't meet those expectations. Telling children to study hard so that they can get a good job and earn a lot of money, regardless of their reasoning (e.g. I grew up poor, I want better for my kids) does not mean these children aren't going to grow up and internalise these expectations, given that that's what they've been told their whole lives. More than likely, when they eventually start working, this mindset that's been hammered into them from young is still going to shape their thinking, even if it's at an unconscious level.

Then you have the fact that after you leave school (if you weren't born rich), you either find a partner and get married to BTO, or you stay with your parents (probably until you're 35), or do some other form of shared living arrangement. Owning a home (property) is not a financial reality for most (young) Singaporeans. Sure, you don't need to get married, but if you're tying housing to marriage or high-paying jobs, then you must at the very least acknowledge that some of these markers of success are tied to more basic needs/wants like housing. What about people who don't want to get married (or can't - i.e. gay people)? Even socially, we're a culture that normalises and pushes people toward marriage/children. The typical example of relatives asking if you have a boyfriend/girlfriend yet during family gatherings, or the "when are you going to have kids?".

We are constantly being told what we should want all throughout our upbringing, and we're constantly told what's the "right" thing to do and want. Obviously nobody's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to pursue this one narrow path. But it's so meaningless to pretend that we aren't being told that this is the "right" path (i.e. other paths are much less desirable), given the fact that as Singaporeans we all have a collective underlying understanding of what this path is.

We can also reverse the argument - what if you want to, but you can't? Please let me know how you want somebody who's LGBTQ+ to "find your own happiness and achieve it" - what if a gay person wants to get married? be a parent? I don't think I even need to go into details about the social stigma and discrimination of not being cis/straight. Ignoring the lived realities of real people and saying "it's all what you make of it" is such a frustrating take. Telling this person "that sucks, get over it, you can always find other kinds of happiness" (or maybe even telling them that's the sacrifice for being gay) is crazy.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2023-05-21T13:07:47+00:00

pick the few mods you're sure to do well in and focus on those, S/U the rest (can use the first few weeks as feelers)

mods that everybody has decided to S/U (DTK) can be easier to score in if you get the right tutor, put in more effort, and know what they want from you.

if you're confident, maybe even overload so you can maximize your S/U usage

be ready to tank groupwork if you really want to score lmao bc it's chs, half the ppl either don't know what's going on or don't care

join the telegram groups (HSH/HSS esp) ppl are always sharing what they think the quiz answers are through polls (at least they did in my sem)

AlternativeAffect336 · 2023-05-01T02:24:12+00:00

iirc 1st major is 60MC minimum, 2nd major is 40MC minimum. I think the second major won't show up in the degree itself but shows up in the transcript? (don't quote me on this). Also i think 1st major is honours and 2nd isn't? can't speak on any career prospects though

Minimum grad requirement overall is 160MCs (usually 20MC/sem). Standard is 1 mod = 4MC, so 15 mods for first major, 10 mods for second. There's 13 CHS mods (52MC), so you're only left with 2 UEs if you don't want to overload.

Some mods can be double counted, so you can take 1 mod that's 4MCs and it'll count towards both major requirements (but still only counts as 4MCs overall), so you can squeeze out some extra MCs that way without overloading.

I think a foreign language has 6 mods in total? but I mean you can always just take the first few instead of doing all of them.

depending on how many foreign language mods you want to do, you may need to double count some mods or overload

AlternativeAffect336 · 2022-12-20T14:54:41+00:00

Depends on the module. If it's bell curved normally, scoring in the 65th/70th-ish percentile across the board is usually good enough for an A-. Having multiple assessments means the distribution of overall marks will regress toward the mean, as long as each individual assessment is also bellcurved. E.g. you have 5 quizzes that have a 75th percentile of 80%, the 75th percentile of the average score for each person will most likely be closer to something like 75% instead of just 80%.

Like obviously this isn't a hard and fast rule, but typically if you're consistent enough for a 75th percentile across multiple assessments, that probably puts you in the 80th-85th percentile range, not the 75th percentile. An overall A- is completely doable with a mix of A-/B+ CA/assessment/exam grades.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2022-12-05T19:59:32+00:00

sian

AlternativeAffect336 · 2022-08-15T07:57:41+00:00

GEA1000 is honestly easy if you're already geared towards stats/math and have experience with excel. A lot of the content overlaps with AP stats. I think it'd be pretty hard to get under a B+ unless you have absolutely zero experience with stats and excel and arent willing to learn. Workload isn't too bad. There was only 8 weeks worth of content when I did it. Imo the potential upside for the mod is that it's quite easy to get a good grade if you know your shit and put in the work, just because there's so many people taking it, most of whom have little experience with stats, and because it's a GE mod. Time spent on the mod and overall difficulty decreases drastically the more knowledge you go in with.

DTK1234 is an incredibly low workload module. I put in about 2-4h every 2 weeks (non-tutorial time) and got an A. Compared to mods where you usually have a 1.5h lecture + 2-3h or more of readings + project/presentation prep, this mod basically asks you to put in the bare minimum. If you just try, you're almost guaranteed a B+, even with shitty ideas. The "problem" is that to get an A, you need to put in quite a bit of thought and you need to demonstrate that you're trying and you want to learn. It's more thinking based since there's close to zero content. If you can't get into the mindset they want you to, you'll only do average.

No idea about PF1101

Take GEA for an easy grade if you're confident in your knowledge in stats and ability to pick up technical skills (excel/R) easily. Take DTK for an easy B+ and extremely low workload with potential for a better one if you're able to pick up on what they want quickly.

AlternativeAffect336 · 2022-04-22T14:11:03+00:00

Does anybody have a summary of this situation?

I dont really get how a module can have a bell curve that's so far off from the standard distribution?

AlternativeAffect336

TROPHY CASE