All you need is to completely disregard human rights and Singapore is pretty decent.
Other than the gross attitude toward people from weaker country and their treament of maid as if they’re dog, what other human right issue they have?
They love executing people and long prison sentences like it’s medieval era.
marijuana? DEATH
Well i blame the US for influence this part of the world with their war on drug campaign, and the fear of drug is the direct result of opium war. It’s not even that long ago that US started to legalise recreational use of marijuana, it’s kinda condescending to it in such simple way.
At least there’s been multiple talk by the government of Malaysia (where i’m from) to decriminalise drug, not sure about Singapore.
US foreign and domestic policy certainly deserves a share of the blame. And we don’t even have universal legal access here, it’s a shit show.
Yeah. The issue with Singapore is they have extremely strong ruling party and nepotism run strong, so the old perspective will take some time to ease out. If there’s more and more evidence piling up on medical use i’m sure they will move to decriminalise.
The only country to have legal recreational marijuana in South East Asia is Thailand, though they’re about to pull back the decision.
dang, that’s a shame for Thailand - new junta, new rules I guess.
Well they aren’t junta, they legitimately won an election. I think you’re confused Thailand with Myanmar lol
I thought it was mostly with the British and forcing Opium on the Chinese.
Yes, but the story and fear never left the community, it passed on for generations and spread across the south east asia.
well, that *technically *doesn’t violate any human rights, i guess
If you don’t consider living a human right
Not sure it’s that simple, since liberty is also a human right, so punishing crimes with prison would also violate human rights if you follow that line of thinking
Mostly it does since most “crimes” and nonsense
A few? Sure. Most? Definitely not.
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“other than abusing people from other countries, what other issue do they have”
Hey that’s antisemite.
I love that I can feel your vernacular in your writing. please never change. /gen
The same goes for the UAE or Saudi Arabia
I live in Singapore; this comparision is deranged. The worst you could say for SG are draconian drug laws, we aren’t upholding slavery and slaughtering journalists/opposition parties in broad daylight. This is like equating Taiwan to Palestine or South Korea to North Korea for fuck sake
The hardest of drugs: chewing gum
It’s like gateway drug of crimes. JK, It all goes back to litering, gum has lots of wrappers and the inedible gum itself. No gum helps build the SG culture of zero tolerance for crimes. If you teach children even the smallest of crimes have serious repercussions they will be less likely to commit future crimes. At least that’s the idea, it’s easier in a rich country where people have their basic needs fulfilled.
Sounds like it would teach them to fear and blindly trust authority. Which I’m sure sounds fine to them.
That’s definitely one way of viewing it. I’m definitely anti-authoritarian, but the city-state has the right to agree upon a strict set of rules and standards of behavior and to hold people accountable to uphold peace and order. It’s a trade-off for a life in a much more stable country compared to the US where there is always a risk of people infringing on public peace. Ranging from simple things like littering, obnoxiously loud music in public, to something more dramatic like robbery, or even getting caught in a mass shooting because some depressed guy in his early 20s bought a gun from walmart. Say what you will about their government structure but none of these things mentioned are an issue in Singapore.
The states are a pretty low bar
You can swallow gum. Not sure why that myth exists. It’ll pass whole and come out with the rest of your shit.
But why.
You can swallow a marble too, that doesn’t make it edible.
If you swallow the occasional one it’s fine but probably not if you make a habit out of it.
for the most part I agree, and I grok SG’s laws on free speech as a concession to too many religious folks bottled up in too small an area. ok.
but.
Death for marijuana? REALLY? Like… DEATH?
That’s where it goes off the rails for me. deport somebody, put 'em in jail for a few years, sure, have your rules…
and fuck, cocaine? opium? heroin etc? I guess if you really need to but the mary jane? naw man… just… naw.
fan of the country, been for business, love the food, but won’t visit for personal travel because of this.
I agree with you - hell, we fucked over our best athlete (Joseph Schooling) just for partaking overseas - nobody gets a pass.
He’s not even “our” athlete. He was trained and brought up overseas. Just happened to be Singaporean by birth.
Singapore is not the dream. It’s a police state and dictatorship
Came here to say this. People don’t realize how backwards that place is. Just being gay is illegal as fuck over there. Fuck Singapore.
Thank you! Finally someone speaks out, too. Singapore is a totalitarian capitalist dictatorship and the closest thing we have to a true cyberpunk dystopia. It is a horrible place with clean sidewalks.
The law hadn’t been applied decades, male homosexual sex was decriminalised in 2007 and legalised in 2022.
The legal situation before that was inherited from the British Empire, a 1871 law which made all kinds of “sodomy” (oral, anal) illegal for everyone. By now you also have protections against discrimination, hate speech, etc. There’s a gazillion things to criticise about Singapore you don’t need to make shit up. Other things on the list of “don’t criticise about Singapore” include public transit, public housing (though they could ease on the mandatory ethnic mixing a bit), and the food. Oh gods the food.
Dictatorship is also kind of a misnomer… Singapore is one of a kind. Certainly paternalistic as fuck, authoritarian it depends, the PAP is actually listening to people and considers electoral results <70% an issue that must be addressed by fixing shit – and no they don’t mess with the ballot: They mess with media and election timing, as is British tradition.
Two particular things that stand out is the lack of corruption and actual respect for the law, otherwise the whole system would long since have collapsed. That is: All the authoritarianism is actually codified, there’s laws you can read, rights that you have, you’re not going to prison because some big-wig doesn’t like your face or your business idea is interfering with their kleptocracy but because you broke the law, and there’s no easily abused laws like Thailand’s lese-majeste, either. All that is highly untypical for your usual run-off-the-mill dictatorship where favours and loyalty are the only legal currency.
Things to criticise that aren’t caning for littering or insanely hardcore drug laws? Things like the abysmal status of foreign workers. Or, from a more Confucian perspective actually: The failure of the grand daddy PAP to properly see discontent coming, and address them proactively. Lack of connection to younger people who don’t happen to be PAP members.
Can confirm Singapore is a one-party police state ruled by a political dynasty.
Do they still publicly flog people and criminalize chewing gum?
Chewing gum is not illegal, the importation and sale is. You can bring in gum from abroad and chew it. What you do with it afterwards is also important.
Once, there was this kid who
Took a trip to Singapore and brought along his spray paint
And when he finally came back
He had cane marks all over his bottom
He said that it was from when
The warden whacked it soooooo haaaaard
This reads like a Crash Test Dummies song
These are the lyrics to a parody of a Crash Test Dummies song, so I’d hope so.
Well that explains that. Clearly I do not know the parody.
It’s where I got the term “Mr. Happy” from many years ago and still use to this day.
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Singapore laws play for keeps tho
1 to 2 years for selling gum. 100 to 500 USD for chewing.
Jaywalking? Fuckin life with no parole.
Not looking both ways before crossing a street? Straight to jail.
Not holding the door for an old lady? Public lashing.
No, not chewing. POP’n.
He had it com’n. He had it com’n. He only had himself to blame.
I think this is the only comment I’ve ever seen anywhere referencing Chicago. Congratulations! Your prize is the knowledge that my wife and I still occasionally use jazz-hands as code for “that person had it coming.”
Broadway Chicago reference good. Movie Chicago reference… go listen to the Broadway soundtrack and hear how it’s supposed to sound.
Fair enough. I enjoy musical theater, but that one never grabbed me. So the movie’s my only point of reference, and I wasn’t a big fan. Don’t think it deserved to beat out Gosford Park or Fellowship of the Ring for best picture.
Honestly, if the only way you know the music is from the movie, I’m not surprised it didn’t grab you.
Sounds reasonable.
They’ll chop off your wiener for looking at naked women.
Naah, it’s always women’s fault. Don’t you know that. /s
I know it’s almost impossible but I’d be taking the bike out so much more often if I knew I could leave it somewhere and it’d still be there when I got back.
Same, and mine is not even close to this price range. I heard Japan is like that as well. If you have any semblance of protection, like tying it up with rope, no one will touch it, ever. Must be nice living in civilized world.
Crazy how when you design a society around meeting people’s basic needs, petty theft almost disappears.
I wish.
Had several bikes stolen in Norway.
My E-bike gets zero use in the city. Too many thieves.Outside the cities it’s usually not a problem though.
I think in big part it’s due to culture.
Absolutely this. The only times I take my bike out is when I know I’ll never have to leave it. Which basically excludes using it for transportation purposes, and leaves only cycling just to cycle (which I do still enjoy).
Just too high of a chance for it to get stolen (completely or just parts), or vandalized. It’s not even that great of a bike either.
I have a friend who “solved” this problem by having such a junker of a bike that it didn’t even look like it functioned.
Check if there are any facilities in your area for secure bike storage, my nearby city for example offers free staffed bike parking and a free bus to get around. The inter city train station offers 20/7 keycard access bike parking with changing facilities, but that requires a deposit, proof of address etc.
I usually end up using one of these two facilities when I visit the city because of the rampant bike theft issues there, with the preferred one being the inter city station since it’s open almost all the time
There was even a docked e-bike hire offered by the local govt, which sadly went bankrupt because people were vandalising the e-bikes and destroying the docks ☹️
It’s the only reason I don’t own a bike. They get stolen even when locked up in the daytime with a good lock. Bolt cutters are quick.
if you’re not destitute you can pull the dutch gambit: use a shitty rustbucket bike that you give precisely 0 fucks about being stolen
Is it unattended? Looks like someone is standing right in front of it taking a photo for Twitter.
I’m pretty sure it’s because Singapore has security cameras pointing everywhere. Also, caning is a big deterrent to theft.
Yeah, we just need less privacy, more fascism, and more brutal cops.
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That’s what fascists literally always say.
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stay
stay
stay
This implies they’re a utopia and not a rich-people-only dystopia.
Is the bigger picture murdering people consuming cannabis?
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Murder is acceptable if petty thefts are reduced? So the worth of a human life is roughly $200 - $2000, or the worth of a laptop?
If the only way to stop petty thefts is murder, petty theft cannot be prevented ethically.
The death penalty for drugs is a worthy sacrifice considering the extremely positive societal outcome.
“It’s good that we kill someone for smoking a joint because no one stole my laptop!” You have fucked up priorities.
I don’t understand how you’ve equated security cameras in a PUBLIC PLACE as “less privacy”.
What do you want privacy for in a public place?
I don’t think the issue is “I want to do illegal things in public without consequence.” It’s more, “I don’t trust the mechanisms of enforcement to use this power justly.”
For example: Radio City Music Hall used facial recognition tech to identify and ban a lawyer whose firm was suing them. She wasn’t even working the case. RCMH just issued a blanket ban. It’s abusive.
And there are other risks. Stalking is a huge one. (Some creep takes your pic at the supermarket and now you spend a year of your life getting creepy messages and feeling unsafe everywhere you go.) Or there’s the risk that people who participate in lawful protest will face retribution or punishment by corrupt law enforcement.
Kashmir Hill has a great book out about this now. You can read an interview with her here.
ah yes, you have “Nothing to hide” i presume?
No dude, I have plenty to hide. Just nothing that I do in a public place though. Wonder when was the last time you were at one of them.
If they have facial tracking then they can basically keep track of everywhere you go
Have you seen China? Singapore is fast moving that way.
The secret ingredient is surveillance.
We have that over here too
That’s why there aren’t any thieves in London. With surveillance you can live the best of lifes, free and save. /s
How TF is that bike (or any) $15k?!? Does it come with a bike path concierge on every trip?
Multiple, actually. No one can keep up with him for long, so they swap out. Each concierge (usually called “Domestiques”) sweeps the path clean of all gravel, dirt, and random people with strollers for the rider.
(I just realized how much I miss /r/bicyclingcirclejerk.)
How TF are lamborghinis so expensive? A car is a car after all
But… a Lamborghini is a tractor.
So is an Aston Martin if you look up why they’re called “DB”
Was in a bike shop the other day and they were selling a wheel for €1.2k. Didn’t even come with the axle or the tyre
at that point it really just feels like being expensive for the sake of being expensive, so that rich twats can show off how rich they are
It’s more that you are seeing the f1 equivalent in bikes. They are redesigning these chasis, wheels, etc every year for competitive advantage. Add in all the customizations, being hand made, and using very expensive materials and you get very high prices. It’s easier to see the jump in cost because we can actually see those differences in price more readily from the $100 Wal-Mart bike to the 15k bike. How many times do you compare a basic econobox car to an F1 car? That would be insane, one is about utility the other is about pushing performance at all costs for competitive advantage.
I met a guy at a party who said he was into cycling. I told him I used to like cycling but my bike is so broken the repair tech said I should cut my losses and get a new one. He started giving me advice about what wheels and tires to put on my new bike. I asked him how much they would cost and he said they weren’t expensive - just about $1200 per wheel. Turns out this guy was significantly richer than me.
Carbon fiber wheels, carbon fiber frame, high end bearings, location of manufacture, billet machined parts from titanium or aluminum, and the brand tax.
I don’t get it but if you got the money for the nicest and lightest ride; why not?
It’s called midlife crisis excessive spending
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ niche parts made by niche companies that charge a significant amount of money
To me, the culture shock would be that there is a bicycle that costs $15K
I’m into mountain biking and it’s fucking criminal what they charge for bike prices these days. A good bike with decent quality components is like $5000-$7000. High end name brand components will bring that up to $9000 easily. Higher end frames and boutique components can bring it into the $11000-$15000 range. It’s fucked lol.
Oh and for an electric bike add $2000-3000 to the price.
Where are you buying this shit? I got a nice KHS like 5 years ago for $700 and it’s not terribly expensive to get a motor, controller, and batteries.
Building an ebike is way cheaper than buying one, but off the shelf mid drive stuff from Bafang, etc is generally not as high quality as Shimano, Bosch, TQ, etc. I’ve got a Bafang mid drive bike that’s crazy powerful with 2300w, but it’s heavy as hell and very loud/not super refined. My TQ bike is 25 pounds(!) lighter and while it only has 300w of power, the power delivery is incredibly natural and responsive, and the bike feels more like an actual mountain bike to ride on trails instead of like a motorcycle lol.
Hot damn, 2300w is no joke!
Yeah it’s honestly too much lol it destroys cassettes really quickly 😂 but it can almost go 40 mph on the street. This is an M620 with an Innotrace controller.
Any more than that and you’ll want the extra weight for stability!
Wow I suddenly feel privileged to have had a bicycle growing up.
EDIT oh actually even then it looks like they’re relatively affordable. This was the hot brand for cool kids when I was growing up
Cheap bikes still exist, they’re just not made for the same purpose as what I was describing
Your notion of “decent” is certainly not the same as 99.99% of the population. Or you live in a very expensive place and have a very specific use of mountain bikes.
Yes my notion of “decent” is skewed because I’m doing 3000 foot climbs/descents on highly technical and fast trails with drops, jumps, rock rolls, wet roots, etc. You can ride those on a $500 Walmart bike but you might not survive it lol. There’s deals to be had, direct to consumer bike brands are considerably cheaper (like $1000 cheaper in general I’d say) and there’s obviously more budget oriented options, but their performance, longevity, and weight are typically not as good.
I was going off of a ballpark average of what I’ve been seeing in media and bike shops over the last couple of years. Seems like every mountain bike even with lower end components is $5k+ these days, but media tends not to cover cheaper stuff because it’s not as interesting.
I’m more wondering why someone would spend that much on a damn bike. I bought my car for 15k of course that was in 2010 but I’m still driving it to this day. Toyota Corolla before anyone asks.
Edit: I just realized this was posted under fuck cars and now I feel like a dick comparing it to the price of my car. It wasn’t intentional but still holy shit that’s still a stupid amount of money to spend on a bike. Like how can you even justify that price? It has to be a completely insane amount of markup.
He admits he has a car, get him fellas!
Entry level racing bikes are about $3-5k these days. That’s a top end Pinarello with custom paint. It might be $15k, but it’s probably closer to $10-$12k with those wheels.
I’m the guy who puts my $8k mountain bike on the back of my 20 year old shitbox Honda when I drive to the trails
Not a biker, but it makes complete sense to me. Car = transport, bike = great pleasure.
It’s one of “the rules” that bikes on top of your car should cost more than the car itself.
and also, 15k would be like the cost of a drivers license there.
I don’t know the actual numbers, but it is wicked costly to even get the privilege to drive there, let alone get a car.
Singapore has some of the best mass transit in the world. It rivals Japan and Spain in quality. And in a city as dense as it is, it kinda has to be or the metro area simply couldn’t function. If everyone in Singapore needed to own a car to get around, the city would be in permanent gridlock 24/7.
I think most people forget when you get these bikes it’s like buying an f1 car in motorsports. That 15k bike is probably nearly identical to what the pros are running, like maybe they use a different hand grip or seat but for the most part that’s a completely custom chasis, redesigned from the previous year and up to spec to compete in a professional capacity right off the bat.
Almost certainly competition / training. A bike like this is your exercise, leisure, hobby, your source of competitive spirit, your hobby, and of course its your baby who you love and keep tuned up. A 15k car is a great value, a workhorse. Is it your baby? Maybe it is if you’re still driving it.
There’s nothing can legit do to a bike to make it be worth 15. Grand except put a motor on it
These bikes are at the same level as what is being used at professional levels. You can always get a cheaper bike if that’s not what you are into, but it’s like looking at an f1 car and saying it’s overkill for the road, well no shit, it’s made for the extreme end of the sport. Calling these bikes crazy is like conflating the price of an f1 car to the price of a civic.
Definitely not my baby. Just a cheap reliable source or transportation in a city that you have to own a car to get anywhere. Paints chipping off and it has rust but still gets me to work everyday so I don’t care. I’m a tightwad so spending like this will never make any since to me. I’m just not a person that wants many material things.
Probably a status symbol to some extent. And some people are so rich they will spend a lot more for very slight, incremental improvements. For them, the difference between $5k and $15k might be more like $5 and $15 for an average person.
Because they can afford it and want to have top end carbon, dura-ace, etc.
Do you need it ? No! Does it feel good to ride? Hell yeah!
now I feel like a dick comparing it to the price of my car
I don’t think its an unfair comparison. There’s simply nothing that you can do to a bicycle that will make it more complex or difficult to manufacture than the most bare bones automobile. So it is a bit crazy that folks can charge $15k for a fancy frame and tire set, when an extra ton of precision engineered material costs the same.
At some level, it just feels like gouging. A good bicycle should be the sort of thing anyone can afford, not a luxury good reserved for wealthy hobbyists.
I once asked a friend of mine why he spends £90 on fancy branded T-shirts and a £1500 watch.
He said it was so he didn’t have to walk down the street and see somebody else wearing one.
So it’s mostly that. It’s not $15k of bike. It’s $15k of wanting to have something nice other bike people will see and think “that’s a nice bike”.
Someone who spends 10k+ on a bike is probably fit as fuck, so biking 10s of miles to get somewhere is nothing, plus you can take it on the train. New bottom bracket every couple years, maybe 200 in tyres, maybe 100 in brake parts. Cost of getting around, it only takes a few years to pay for itself even at those prices when you add on the actual costs of running a car, saying all this as someone who drives. If you don’t need to move a bunch of stuff or other people around, in terms of transport cost even an expensive bike is cheap of you use it.
look guys! I can leave my unguarded outside in a dictatorial police state!
Eh, sure? Great?
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Pretty sure it’s because Singapore is notoriously harsh on crime.
Im baffled youre confused, this clearly isnt a direct quote of anyone. This style of reframing a statement to emphasize a specific aspect you want to draw attention to while making clear who made the original statement isnt new.
People do that all the time in my area. It’s not because it’s “safe”, it’s because they’re stupid. Then they want to join my communities so they can spam it with their stolen bike posts and get help finding them.
It might have a tracker.
You have to be very brave to keep your 15k bike with an airtag only
In Singapore?
Not in Singapore, but I see a lot of people in my area doing this. I’ve always wondered how the unafraid part works when the bike is obviously over $5k.
Where you wanna go after stealing it?
Unfortunately wouldn’t deter anyone where I live… addicts will flip that for $20 within an hour, and go get their drug fix, before the owner even has a chance to catch the thief
Even worse are the organized criminals driving around in SUVs looking for high end bicycles, a good few videos of them all over xitter sadly, brazen enough to follow people home and rob them in their driveway
What country is this, so that I never travel there?
The first paragraph is just about every city in Canada right now. Can’t even mow our front lawn with the garage open because they run into your garage and snatch it before you can run after them. Although I haven’t heard of quite the extremes of the second paragraph here yet.
Probably most major western cities
Yet people complain when Singapore has death penalty for drugs 🤔
Gee almost like there’s a stage between streets filled with addicts and murdering people.
Y’know like decriminalising and rehabilitation.
But I guess valuing life is hard for some people.
Death penalty for drugs, chewing gum is illegal, porn is illegal, mandatory national service if you’re a (male) citizen… If you keep looking it looks less and less like a good trade.
Yeah because that’s horrific? What point are you making?
Death penalty for anything is abhorrent
I’ve left my bike like this for 50 seconds total in the 25 years I’ve had it - and I had to chase it down to get it back.
Reminds me of my first weeks in Japan…
I took my Kona Private Jake with me (nowhere near that bike, but $2-3k) which I would expect to be gone in an instant in the UK. I kept placed my bike on the balcony of the monthly apartment in Roppongi, which was only on the 2nd floor, and would check it at night as I thought someone would nick it
This shortly progressed to leaving it outside when going to the conbini, etc
I love how you casually slipped in the word “conbini” as if it were English, lol
conbiniens storu
