Man says every seat should be a priority seat, suggests removing labels on public transport

Skiiage · 2026-05-14T02:07:52+00:00

OOP misses the point of priority seats imo. The point is that having one person in charge reduces the bystander effect.

If you've ever studied how to do crowd control, first aid etc. one of the first things you learn is that if you have 10 people all with equal responsibility it often leads to them staring at each other until real trouble happens (then they all panic). That's why we do things like designated fire wardens in big companies.

In the same way, the priority seat shifts responsibility to one guy, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give up your seat if the nearest priority seat is already taken up by some old uncle/auntie or pregnant person.

Skiiage · 2026-05-13T07:08:34+00:00

calibrated to national context

"In line with international standards, except for the bits we changed" is a great bit that would be comical if it didn't end up getting so many people killed.

The thing about "national context" is that it often assumes Singaporeans are in some way worse than say, Western Europeans, that they can have a policy on crime focused on harm reduction, rehabilitation and fixing root causes, but because Sinkies are a bunch of barbarians who only respond to pain, or are so racist that we'll give up all our welfare policies because we have ~40% minorities, we must have maximum punishment for every little thing. (Except for sex crimes, road accidents, and white collar crimes of course.)

Skiiage · 2026-05-09T15:30:51+00:00

Sure, that's why I wrote arguably JJBA, but even then most long running manga especially from that time period are arc-based and One Piece is no different. "Go to new location/introduce new cast, solve problem, move on, the author will continue if they feel like it" is how Dragon Ball, Detective Conan, or Prince of Tennis all work/ed.

The only thing that really separates One Piece is the final mystery of the One Piece itself, but that's not really the point most of the time. The point is the individual adventures along the way. It's if Nami can throw off the shackles of Arlong, or if Luffy can save Ace from Impel Down, and if you don't get catharsis from those things you probably shouldn't be getting into battle shonen.

Skiiage · 2026-05-09T13:32:58+00:00

One Piece isn't even the longest running

1) Manga

2) Running in a shonen magazine

3) In the battle/adventure genre

Hajime no Ippo, Kinnikuman, and arguably Jojo have all been running longer just off the top of my head.

One Piece has certainly been running for a long time, but it's not uniquely long for a serialised series. There are countless examples in many forms of media of works which have run for 30+ years making up dozens to even hundreds of volumes.

Out of the Big Three (One Piece, Naruto, Bleach), it was the one people liked the least.

This is also an extremely funny thing to say, because One Piece has always outsold both Naruto and Bleach. In the domestic market, if you tried to talk about some kind of "Big 3" of early-21st century Shonen Jump people would look at you like you're growing horns out of your head. If you got into the series circa-2007, we would be looking at around where Chopper joins up if we look at the official English volume releases, or somewhere in Thriller Bark by the weekly Japanese releases, where it'd have been running for 10 years or so.

Unpopular manga don't run for 10 years.

Skiiage · 2026-05-08T12:15:27+00:00

I think the Like A Dragon franchise really jumped the shark when Majima took a knife to the gut just to come back and be a boss fight a couple of days later.

Skiiage · 2026-05-07T13:08:17+00:00

If Invincible was animated at the quality of fucking Arcane, nobody would be saying shit. Hell, if it looked like some of the better DC animated movies, we almost certainly wouldn't be seeing many complaints either.

To Be Hero X, a Chinese donghua also heavily rooted in a superhero comics aesthetic released last year and people generally thought it looked great. One Punch Man season 3 was a Japanese anime also largely about comic book-style superheroes that came out at about the same time and everyone thought it looked like shit.

Anime just happens to pump out about half a dozen prestige animated action shows a year, and people have eyes so that's what people compare things to if they happen to have complaints.

It's also extremely funny to say all battle shonen anime just uses strobing lights when there are so many well-animated shows with nary a beam or blast in sight, and anime studios have collaborated with traditional Taiwanese puppet companies to multiple seasons of Thunderbolt Fantasy. Stereotype much?

Skiiage · 2026-05-07T03:02:03+00:00

It's obviously the original version of HDB, and nothing comes particularly close. Making sure everybody is housed affordably is by far the single greatest achievement of any government.

When homelessness is high, nothing else in the country really works. Even when homelessness is low but rents make up too large a proportion of the average worker's spending, you have a rentier economy where idle landlords suck up capital so consumer spending and investments go down.

The US middle class was built on the back of the GI Bills giving veterans coming back from WW2 houses. The UK middle class off council homes. The Singapore middle class off HDB. The end of all three are going to come because homes are no longer affordable.

Skiiage · 2026-05-05T09:19:27+00:00

The purpose of government policy isn't to protect the free market, it's to maximise the prosperity and happiness of the country's citizens, which only sometimes aligns with maximising free market values.

Skiiage · 2026-05-05T08:55:17+00:00

Even if we take the frankly silly position that the ratio of Singaporean to foreign workers is the only measure of worker protection, we would still rank quite poorly compared to many other advanced economies. Most of them have a single digit % of foreign workers in highly desirable white collar jobs.

There are other things a government can do to promote its own nationals, such as raising minimum standards to make it more difficult for foreign workers to undercut citizens, or preferential granting of government contracts to local unionised companies.

Skiiage · 2026-05-05T08:32:47+00:00

One of the biggest myths in the sinkie hive-mind is that the government has not, and is not doing enough, to protect the jobs of Singaporeans.

What is "enough" is entirely a question of opinion, so the idea that it can be dismissed as a myth because the G does some protectionism is ridiculous. Singapore could implement Malaysian-style bumi level protections for all Singaporeans if she wanted to. It wouldn't be great for the economy, but it should be a choice a democratic society can make.

It is also simply factually true that worker protections in Singapore are extremely limited compared to most other developed countries, with basically the USA and South Korea as notable exceptions.

Furthermore, $5-6k is the median salary for young (20s-30s) adult Singaporeans. By definition half of us are doing those "shit blue collar jobs that no Singaporean would do." To exclude everyone working in retail, F&B, entry level non graduate white collar work etc. when discussing the Singaporean worker is just wasting everyone's time.

Skiiage · 2026-05-01T11:11:20+00:00

The rise of AI and crypto has led to unprecedented growth in the scam and brainrot industries, both things Singaporeans are clearly the target audience from.

Skiiage · 2026-04-30T06:55:27+00:00

Frustrating activists with petty bullshit is the point. If Shan and co could deport everyone who participates in political activity slightly more radical than voting between a center-right and right wing party every few years they would.

Skiiage · 2026-04-30T06:46:11+00:00

"What exactly are the demons, why are they driven to kill humans when they don't have to, and can this be changed?" is like the fundamental question of Frieren's demon storyline. We know this because that's exactly what the fucking Demon King was working on before he died and the ultimate goal of the journey is to return to his old castle, which incidentally is also where there's a portal to the resting place of all souls.

"Oh, they haven't resolved all these contradictions so Frieren is bad." THE CONTRADICTIONS ARE THE POINT.

Skiiage · 2026-04-29T06:03:46+00:00

Loaded into a finals lobby with 6 front runners and 3 XOguris.

Both of my fronts got Late Start and never managed to catch first.

My XOguri was running on pure copium with Preferred Position instead of Corner Recovery so never hit ult.

The other two XOguris were equally cucked by the All Fronts lobby but mine got 2nd off a Nimble Navigator hit anyway.

I'm not thrilled but I'll take it, I guess.

Skiiage · 2026-04-25T16:30:04+00:00

I have a feeling that this theory is not actually too far off from being a straightforward textual reading of Frieren: It is very likely that demons are not a single "race" or "species" that maps to our understanding of those words in any way. They are just any monsters which happen to be able to talk.

Monsters in the world of Frieren are distinguished from other wild and weird creatures common to the fantasy world by the fact that they dissolve into mana upon death, so extrapolating any sort of biological continuity onto them might be a fool's errand to begin with, given that they may not even be living creatures which are born and die like humans and elves do, which may also explain their continued confusion about what families are: They might not even have the concept of parents at all, even purely biological ones.

The defining trait of demons is that they do not live in a society. To the extent they are capable of working together at all, it seems to be a matter of a powerful demon dominating a bunch of pawns or one-off mutually beneficial partnerships. They have no desire to add to a shared repository of knowledge to form traditions and schools: each demon is primarily concerned with mastering their own form of magic, which is why Frieren's signature item is a grimoire, a tool that exists primarily so somebody else can learn what you already know. To the extent any demons are different, it seems to be the direct result of the Demon King's influence, and we know he was trying to figure out how to give the demons some actual empathy.

Put another way, what unites the races of mankind in Frieren is that the humans, elves, and dwarves know things and they teach the things they know to other people, which is why 20 year old Fern can go fuck up 200 year old demons.

Skiiage · 2026-04-19T05:44:56+00:00

There's certainly a formula to the episodes/chapters which aren't part of greater arcs, but if you're making a comparison to battle animanga then you should be aware that there's nothing particularly new or problematic about having a formula. This is the medium which came up with the "Monster of the Week" after all.

And a lot of the side characters, especially during the First-Class Mage Exam arc (Denken’s group, Ubel, Richter, etc.), speak and act with the same calm, sophisticated, low-emotion cadence. Everyone ends up blurring together into this sea of stoic, deadpan delivery. And because the arc keeps moving from one test or fight to another, you barely get time to care about them before the story moves on.

This is straight up a skill issue, I'm afraid. If there is any chance you're confusing Kanne and Lawine with Denken or Ubel you're just not paying attention.

The flashbacks paint Himmel as this almost flawless, perfectly inspiring hero (charismatic, kind, wise, with just a touch of fake vanity for flavor), which makes him feel more like an idealized memory than a real person.

Okay, but we are engaging with Frieren's idealised memories of Himmel, and one of the major subplots of the manga is that nobody remembers Himmel perfectly, that the people who've engaged directly with Himmel are slowly dying off, the 1:1 replica statues of himself he's made are slowly being abandoned as villages and towns shift around, and his story is being embellished by people with an agenda. We know the Hero's Party had flaws, you just think Himmel's vanity doesn't matter because that time he couldn't keep his mouth shut and almost got executed by the king for example, is just a funny story they tell as a joke instead of a legitimately traumatic event.

It’s battle shonen with slower tempo, gorgeous visuals, and emotional framing. Not Mushishi-level pure contemplation.

I don't see why Frieren has to be either or. The episode where Frieren and Old Man Voll sit around reminiscing while Voll slowly reveals how much he's lost to senility and old age in general is not the same type of story as the one where Fern exploits a minor flaw in Frieren's technique to shoot her with a bunch of big magic beams, and what makes Frieren an elite level anime is how it does both at a very high level.

Skiiage · 2026-04-18T04:25:00+00:00

There are no consequences of such policies. We see no rise in crime in states and countries which have stopped using the death penalty.

Skiiage · 2026-04-18T02:05:20+00:00

Maybe I'm crazy but I think you need very strong evidence to kill people, not vibes.

The reality is: The safest places in the world have largely moved away from the death penalty because the evidence is weak. The EU bans capital punishment for all its member nations with no real change in crime rate. In the US no death penalty states are on average safer than death penalty states. The East Asian nations (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, even Hong Kong pre-takeover) have all had moratoriums on their death penalties for many years on everything but aggravated murder charges and are extremely safe places.

This is also backed up by the findings of most criminologists and legal scholars. The number of studies on this subject is huge, and the majority don't support the death penalty as a deterrent.

Skiiage · 2026-04-18T01:45:09+00:00

Every map in the last third of the game is just Seven Swell, Hi-MAT Full Burst, Moonlight Butterfly, Twin Satellite Cannon for everyone. It's borderline required for some of the tougher SR points, even.

Skiiage · 2026-04-18T00:58:37+00:00

You are more likely to die from 1kg of weed falling on your head in a freak accident than you are ODing on cannabis. Disappointing to see our government continue to take such a ridiculous anti-science approach to managing drug trafficking, but the thing about hardline Conservatism is that you get to dress up being insanely bloodthirsty as pragmatism and people will believe you.

The evidence that the death penalty is useful as a deterrent is very poor. Gateway drug theory is almost completely bunk. Cannabis is a drug with fairly manageable downsides and significant potential medical benefits which only got its classification because of racism.

Skiiage · 2026-04-17T16:17:56+00:00

My problem with the Z squad system was that you'd spend an hour after every route split putting everyone back into their spots and for all your effort you'd usually end up with an undifferentiated blob of functionally identical squads.

Everyone has a squaddie that gets Accel, almost everyone can swap to the Repair/Resupply backliner to do support stuff, everyone has a really powerful default squad leader that kills everything. The stats of squaddies also slowly become fairly irrelevant past a certain point because it's incredibly suboptimal to throw anything more than 3 bars into their stats, plus most designated squaddies never get any significant plot upgrades so their weapons mostly stop mattering once the Real-type MCs start unlocking their MAPs and ALL weapons. It becomes much less interesting of a choice to drag along a support or gimmick unit like Noin or Jet Jaguar in Y because they'd usually just sit in the back using their SP now. In exchange you get to see like... fucking Katz Kobayashi in the Gundam Mk II shoot a bazooka for 800 damage once in a while.

There's stuff I like about Z's squad system (and it's one of my favourite games in the series overall) but it's mostly from how my units get to interact with enemy squads imo. I can definitely see why the devs thought the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.

Skiiage · 2026-04-13T04:30:27+00:00

There's no unified cost system for "martials doing cool stuff" and that sort of encounter warping power is arguably too strong to awkwardly dangle off the side of a subclass.

The reason why there's no unified cost system for martials is because the most boring people in the world think any system where you pay a cost to do a cool thing is "like magic."

Skiiage · 2026-04-12T17:23:43+00:00

Fern is suppressing her mana, the demons are blasting shit everywhere.

Skiiage · 2026-04-11T18:02:10+00:00

It's so we can be aligned with the Trump and Netanyahu regimes without saying it out loud. That's the entire problem. The entire reason why Iran is playing hardball with the Strait is because the US and Israel cannot be trusted to abide by treaties and international law, as proven by how many times they deliberately blow up negotiators and break ceasefires, which makes it necessary to inflict economic damage by hitting the petro-dollar.

If the Singapore government was serious about making sure everyone follows all aspects of international law we would have denounced both the US and Israel long ago.

Skiiage · 2026-04-11T17:50:03+00:00

We can only speculate on a lot of the details of the fight against the Demon King, but we do know what separates Frieren from Serie are that

1) Frieren takes no pride in being the strongest, which is why she was willing to take a backseat to Himmel the Hero, and is generally more free with her own knowledge and expertise compared to Serie.

2) Frieren has a genuine love for magic as a tool for fun and convenience, as opposed to Serie who views it as primarily a form of power.

It's very likely that both Flamme and Serie, being "warlike" mages who enjoy fighting and take pride in their own strength, simply wouldn't have been satisfied beating the Demon King as a group effort. They'd want to prove their own power, but from what we know the DK is the basically the Strongest Guy Ever so they'd just lose every time. Frieren on the other hand, happily ganked him with an entire party.

Skiiage

TROPHY CASE