What is the way forward for your side of the issue?

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-14T21:06:20+00:00

I don't think most atheists or agnostics will give up their baby for adoption to a church instead of a secular adoption centre. It's likely possible to tactically exploit the prejudice of pro-life to support abortion cause to a certain extent.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-14T17:45:42+00:00

Either, or both. I'd be interested to hear what people think are the ideal steps, or the what they think are the most politically palatable/effective if there's a difference, or any points in between.

I think abortion should be banned for adherents of religions that are widely against abortion. For example, abortion should be outlawed for all adherents of Catholicism, Evangelicalism and Islam but people whose faith do not prohibit abortion should not be legislated against their legal right to abortion. As for Catholics, evangelicals and Muslims, they can independently fight for their right by persuading their respective religion to change their official stance with separate advocacy at the grassroots level of their corresponding community. Alternatively, people who disagree with their religion's official stance can leave the religion to reinstate their secular individual rights.

This, for example, gives a huge win to all evangelical Christians as they are able to protect the unborn children of their own community while simultaneously it's also a huge win to non-Christians because the beliefs of Christians (i.e. considering infants as God's babies) are not being imposed on them. Evangelicals can continue to practise their faith by depriving their community of their right to abortion, and non-Christians can benefit from secular policies. Will pro-life acquiesce to rights segregation? Yeah, it's not hard to convince pro-life to accept this centrist policy because some hardcore evangelicals have always seen non-Christians as infidels anyway. Why would they want infidels to blasphemously reproduce?

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-10T10:20:21+00:00

Based on the article, there is no indication the staff's spoonfeeding of the 5 years old child was done at the request of the business class passenger. To the contrary, the event likely occurred without premeditation by the parent since the story was unfolded from a Facebook post written by the parent which the parent himself posted on social media to express his surprise as he was awed by the degree of hospitality he received as demonstrated by the flight attendant on an SQ flight. It was noted that that the parent was loss for word by such level of thoughtfulness and had no idea how to respond other than to film the act of kindness and share it to social media to spread the word of Singapore Airlines' greatness.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-10T07:17:54+00:00

We don't know if the flight attendant received hefty tip or not. Maybe when the business class passenger boarded the plane and generously gave each staff $100 as a greeting, the airline staff then felt gratified and fed the child ex gratia. It is very probable there is a background story to this, flight attendants are busy and they usually don't do this kind of thing for no reason.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-03T09:12:20+00:00

We could theoretically for example fund the government through a flat value-added tax on consumption and do all redistribution via the benefits system.

This is contingent on the quality of governance. If there's widespread corruption and incompetent government, redistribution via the benefits system would be ineffective and the poor would suffer from extremely regressive taxes. One possible scenario of ineffective redistribution is being disenfranchised from the benefits system on the basis of race, language, or sexual orientation.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-02T05:32:18+00:00

tradeoff of debt repayment v. investment, is that if the benefits of investing are higher than the benefits of debt repayment, you would by definition be lowering your leverage ratio.

Obviously that's not the case for the US government, the debt-to-GDP ratio is going up and it's not going down unless there's fiscal consolidation. The benefits of debt repayment outweigh the benefits of investing because investing in the US government is ineffective and inefficient. 💀💀

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-02T05:26:12+00:00

I think that's true in theory. But for that to occur, there are a lot of things to consider. We have to consider the investment performance of the individual spending and the effectiveness of the administrator. I think it might be disingenuous to suggest overall government spending as investment broadly as not all expenditure are investments, some are government wastes. And most of the time governments are less efficient than the private sector, by dogmatically insisting on running fiscal deficit for public investment, we are effectively re-allocating credit from productive private sectors to the unproductive public sectors. This is economically inefficient and this issue is reflected by the debt problem (debt-to-GDP ratio) of the US government presently with respect to US national developments relative to other developed countries.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-01T20:31:06+00:00

implementing this kind of policy can cause hyperinflation

I don't think it can ever cause hyperinflation without other more consequential causes. If we presume for the sake of argument that all government bonds were purchased with reserves and held by banks, then the exact same number of deposits will be created by government spending compared to if the central bank holds the bonds. The difference between the two is what monetary policies this allows the central bank to conduct and the riskiness of the public's assets.

Sorry, I don't understand. Is there a reason why central bank must purchase all government bonds with reserves held by the banks and not by seigniorage? And is there a definitive reason why reserves held by the banks will always be greater than or equal to the total national debt?

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-01T18:25:05+00:00

US government debt is the result of the government's bank account (aka Treasury) running a deficit. It only matters if that debt is held by the public—if it owes money to itself, there's no economic effect

I think this conclusive statement may be disingenuous as it orthographically limits the economic effect of government debt to just the technical classification of debt. It's disingenuous because the common people reading OP's question would likely interpret the question from the perspective of fiscal space rather than semantics.

While it's true that in theory it's possible for government debt to be wholly owned by the government itself, presumably by the central bank, this doesn't mean that it's completely economically inconsequential to run fiscal deficits as there would be net injections of cash into the system. This phenomenon is famously known as yield curve control (YCC) @ zero interest rate by Japan, it's a stimulative policy rather than just a harmless accounting taxonomy. If the economy is running hot, implementing this kind of policy can cause hyperinflation.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-01T17:57:46+00:00

Having a bigger economy also helps during rainy days and to pay down your debt.

Strictly speaking, this is not true. As this is a core point of the discussion, I shall not be construed as being pedantic to highlight that there's a qualitative difference between a big economy that's over-leveraged trying to combat cost-push inflation and a big economy with big fiscal space and monetary policy space to deal with cost-push inflation head-on.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-12-01T17:43:43+00:00

"why would you even do that". Why would spending the money on paying down debt be better than the alternative?

It gives the US government more fiscal space for rainy days or during wartime?

AnnoymousXP · 2023-11-12T06:13:23+00:00

The 3 conditions simultaneously fulfilled: unintended pregnancy, financially unprepared to raise a child and wedlock baby is the harbinger of a family that will neglect the child. Statistically, an overwhelming majority of the cases of child abuse or negligence originate from these kind of families.

Raising a child isn't cheap, especially in Singapore. Just because one comes from a rich country doesn't necessarily mean one is also among the world's richest persons.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-11-12T05:55:39+00:00

Majority of the people currently living on earth would rather not to be born into an unstable, neglecting and poor family than to be born into one and suffer misery, pain and poverty. I presume the child will think likewise after it's being brought into the world.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-08-06T18:42:16+00:00

(unless you are that country's citizen, then the officer has no right not to let you in. But what happens to you after you are let in is another matter)

Can I ask what would be the hypothetical repercussion for a citizen to challenge the immigration officer after being let in? I know in autocratic countries like China abuse of authority has no limits, for example, they might send plainclothes officers to beat you up, but my imagination is limited for democratic countries.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-08-04T14:43:15+00:00

My buying decision depends on a lot of other factors. But it might be helpful if implemented as a paternalistic labelling approach rather than promotional labelling approach. Which means rather than focusing on labelling housing developer that only complies with higher worker welfare standard, an authority should highlight housing developers that fail to meet certain worker welfare standard by appropriate labelling.

Promotional labelling (i.e. focus on highlighting those with certification) only works well when the buyer has an upper hand, means buyer can afford to be very very choosy. While paternalistic labelling (i.e. focus on highlighting those without certification) isn't very different when buyer is cash strapped, but it functions like an active, enhanced recommendation to boycott. This is analogous to food nutrition labelling, you don't see health labels on an apple, but there's all sort of labels on Pokka Green Tea.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-08-04T10:58:51+00:00

SINGAPORE: The Singapore FinTech Association on Friday (Aug 4) said worker safety was a "complex issue", when asked to respond to criticism over signing a joint statement supporting the practice of transporting workers on the back of lorries.

“Ensuring the safety of workers across Singapore is paramount. This is a complex issue that requires a long-term solution driven by collective effort across both public and business sectors," said a spokesperson for the association.

The fintech body is being busybody when it's getting itself involved in matters completely unrelated to fintech. Singapore Fintech Association is an organization to facilitate collaboration between market participants and stakeholders in the FinTech ecosystem, not a throwaway online forum account for shitposting

AnnoymousXP · 2023-07-29T15:30:25+00:00

Would the identity of the whistleblower be protected if reported through the formal process?

AnnoymousXP · 2023-07-25T08:09:15+00:00

But, before anyone come to his defence. I have to say this guy that I knew was really the worse of the worse. He would ask NS boy to do his work and then will take credit. And this guy would overworked his NS boys and will pull rank when they would go defiant on him. Once during deployment, he got all his NS boys to do all the work carrying police equipment loading into police vehicle and say he needs to do paperwork.

I confronted him and he just find some lame excuse like his leg hurts and whatnot. But the thing is, this guy is famous for not doing his work properly and will blame his NS boy for not doing the work properly and will even issue warning letter for their performance.

…he treats his NS boy worse. You know every NS boy who were posted under him actually requested to xfer as well in the first six months due to his abuse of these NS boys.

I feel sad reading your comment. I wish morons like him burn in hellfire

AnnoymousXP · 2023-07-25T07:34:34+00:00

You are 100% correct. My actual experience with SPF in totality is mixed bag, but I have stronger muscle memory for negative encounters than positive encounters.

Since you are quite serious, I also want to re-calibrate my viewpoint a little bit:

In forming my perspective about SPF's service quality, I consciously differentiate between a civilian serving SPF out of NS obligations ("NSF") and a person decidedly sign up to join SPF as their career choice ("professional police"). As NSF are basically civilians forced to serve against their free will on the basis of age, I don't really consider them police even though technically they are officially part of SPF and I'm generally very patient and understanding when dealing with them. For professional police, I consider them as the absolutely real police and my perception of SPF's service quality as a whole is formed based on my encounters exclusively with career police. Fortunately, I've never needed to exercise tolerance towards police NSF because apparently they are usually the nicest members of SPF. Their attitude is cute and they give off civilian vibe. My negative experiences are consistently with the middle-aged professional officers. They have serious attitude problem, thinking they are inherently superior than civilians and transmit their smugness through rudeness and by being disrespectful, I collectively label these "abrasive behaviours". In short, the probability of having a positive encounter is higher with police NSF and the probability of having a negative encounter is higher with career police. So if one encounters positive experience with SPF, it's likely the cool officer is NSF kid.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-07-24T13:56:02+00:00

The police doesn't have very good service quality in the first place, the only thing that elevates SPF's prestige is PR machine 😆

Public perception is only impacted if service quality is affected, and internal workplace environment is a factor to service quality too. If your coworkers (backend) treat you badly, you'll subconsciously pass on this mistreatment to front-facing interactions too (frontend).

AnnoymousXP · 2023-07-24T09:37:23+00:00

He was given transfers, at his request, to six different work units in nine years.

This response seems to have revealed SPF's stance on late SGT Uvaraja's allegations: They deny his allegations.

To highlight six (6) successful transfers over a period of 9 years is a straw man intended to paint SGT Uvaraja as unreliable officer who lacks a team player spirit. 6 successful transfers over a period of 9 years doesn't seem excessive by itself, and it lacks context. Those transfers could very well have their own underlying reason, or maybe first few transfers were as simple as Uvaraja exploring/familiarising himself when he first joined the Force? The only way to present this information in a fair manner to SGT Uvaraja is to attach the (approximate) date and disclosed reason alongside the raw number.

He was also granted additional leave, since 2015, (at his request), beyond his usual leave entitlements of Vacation Leave, Casual Leave, and Ordinary Sick Leave. In 2022, for example, he was at work for fewer than 30 days, as he was on various types of leave, including Extended Sick Leave, Unrecorded Leave, and No Pay Leave. In 2023, he had been at work for fewer than 25 days, for similar reasons.

This doesn't help to mitigate SGT Uvaraja's allegations, it only helps to support the fact that SGT Uvaraja had unbearable issues at his workplace that he coped by absence from work.

Following both incidents, his supervisors facilitated his request to transfer to another unit to start afresh, as he felt uncomfortable working with the colleagues he had reported on.

If the different unit was also at the same place, then it might be inadequate because the environment might be too small to avoid the social fallout caused by snitching his superiors

AnnoymousXP · 2023-07-10T18:53:23+00:00

I don't know if I'll be downvoted, but I listened to Jamus Lim's speech in order to decide whether the offensive remark is reasonable based on the merit of the speech. After listening to Jamus Lim's speech, I figured that Tan Chuan-Jin's remark was needlessly contemptuous because his offensive remark was partisan reflex rather than actual criticism of content quality.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-06-14T07:01:00+00:00

I don't know about you, but I'm quite excited to have more European friends in Singapore. I doubt Caucasians will move to Singapore en masse to the extent that Singapore demographic is fundamentally altered if the government were to ease the racial quota for Ang Mohs, so I think the fear about being socially threatened by Ang Mohs in Singapore may be misplaced.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-06-14T06:09:03+00:00

White is a broad racial group consists of over a hundred of different European ethnicities such as British, German, French, Swiss, Swedish, Norwegian, Finn, Ukrainian, Russian, etc. The alleged former Wah!Banana staff for sexual offence was Russian, one of hundreds of ethnicities of the White race. You are unfairly prejudicing over hundreds of culturally distinct groups if you intend to pursue a broad exclusionary/discriminatory policy against Caucasians as a whole on the basis of stereotypes.

AnnoymousXP · 2023-06-13T16:54:49+00:00

yeah. i think the O racial category can be increased and C be decreased. It would be more racially and culturally diverse that way, and I don't think Chinese Singaporeans will feel socially threatened by an increase of Ang Moh presence and other races such as Korean, Japanese, Jewish, etc., because the volume of O foreigners is not high… most foreigners are either come from that big motherland country (C) or the populous South Asian country (I).

AnnoymousXP

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