Lived in Singapore for 8 years, the delta between what Reddit says about the place being an authoritarian hellscape and the reality is so vast it really makes me question how many other Reddit talking points are bullshit as well.

This is a tiny city-state 30 miles wide that has some of the most well educated and per capita wealthiest people on Earth. What that actually looks like on the ground is a bunch of people who are mostly pretty well off and content.

I've seen people ride up to McDonalds, lean the bike against a fence and walk in without locking it up. People leave their phones on tables in cafes while they walk up to the counter. I go for bike rides late at night through the giant park near me and every night you'll see young women jogging alone as late as 11pm with headphones in, totally safe.

I lived in the US before moving here so I get how looking at the rest of world through that lens can be distorted, until you leave the place it's hard to imagine there's any other way to live, but honestly dude, it's not like there's a heaving, sweaty mass of people here desperate to steal shit just staring at those bikes and phones thinking "oh no we live in a police state so I can't do this crime I want to do" - It turns out if people are happy, healthy, well educated (and that education is available to everyone) and don't live in a society that is mostly a giant stress factory meat-grinder, you get mostly contented people who don't want or need to steal shit and attack each other.

Who knew.