![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theonlinecitizen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/shadrake-reuters-30th-july.jpg?resize=319%2C226\")
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Alan Shadrake is, in my opinion, an idiot.<\/strong> John Locke would’ve described him as a rational madman, a person who follows sound, logical steps- from false premises. (This also applies to Chee Soon Juan.) I think his ideas and perspectives are sound, and he’s probably right- but that’s not the point. The point is that he hadn’t properly figured out how to accomplish what (I believe) he was hoping to accomplish. It cost him $75,000 to do what he did- and what did he accomplish out of all that?<\/p>\n You can’t get a couch potato to run a marathon overnight. <\/strong>It’s too much trouble and effort, not enough juice to make the squeeze worth it. You can offer to pay him, and his eyes might light up for a second, but he’s going to flop right back into the couch. If you want to “save” him, you’ll have to get him to start by taking small leisurely strolls, and you have to make him enjoy it for its own sake. (How are we to do this? I will confess that I am not entirely sure.) You’ll have to get his friends involved, maybe. Walking shouldn’t take too much time or energy- it should be easy, accessible, not too much of a hassle.<\/p>\n Singaporeans are like couch potatos. <\/strong> They are not actively<\/em> dissatisfied with the status quo. \u00a0Inertia. They complain and gripe, but at the end of the day, they’re not going to side with the crazy guy insulting the establishment- because the establishment has done its job fairly well- arguably better than any other in the region, arguably better than most others in the world. We’re fairly comfortable. \u00a0Fat guys know they’re fat, smokers know they’re killing themselves, and Singaporeans know that they’re not really thrilled to be Singaporean- but it’s just too much effort to change our ways all of a sudden.\u00a0There can be no social reform or drastic change in Singapore through protest, defiance, picketing, etc. It just doesn’t work that way. We need a soft approach, not a hard one.<\/p>\n Instead of expecting more from Singaporeans, we ought to try to make it easier for Singaporeans to care. <\/strong>I’d like to use a similar analogy for education- instead of expecting students to pay more attention, I’d consider it a better strategy if we made it easier for them to pay attention in the first place. If we want to “save” Singapore- whatever that means to you, we will have to start by getting people gradually and naturally more interested in each other. Right now, Singaporeans are more apathetic than empathic, and my perspective is that this is, like any other social “ill”, largely a structural problem. It’s not really about incentives, money or baby bonuses- it’s about a sense of belonging and ownership, and this cannot be forced, only nurtured where it can grow. The crowds at the YOG were pathetic- yet I’m willing to bet that most Singaporeans wished it weren’t the case. (More on this at another time.)<\/p>\n Where does belonging and ownership blossom? <\/strong>I won’t pretend I have all the answers- but I’m fairly certain that we have to encourage our arts and sports, for sure. People have to make friends with people in their community- their neighbours, their coffeeshop auntie, the bus uncle. People have to give a damn about local music, local theater, the S-League, Team Singapore, etc. People have to develop active interests in being a part of something larger than themselves- even something like church (I’m an atheist). A lot of us are passionate about something- why? What’s different between us and apathetic Singaporeans? I think it’s largely a matter of opportunity- a lot of us were in the right place at the right time, and were inspired to try.<\/p>\n Before anything else, people have to care<\/strong>. And giving a damn is infectious. All of us have to give a damn about making this place something we can be proud of. It can be done. We can do it. Let’s get started, and let’s make it work.<\/p>\n (I am fully aware that I have said what has probably been said many times before, and that I haven’t been entirely clear about what needs to be done- because I must admit that I am not very sure myself. But I want to know. I want to find out. I want to make progress, and I hope you’re with me on that, even if we disagree on semantics.)<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Majulah Singapura! <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alan Shadrake is, in my opinion, an idiot. John Locke would’ve described him as a rational madman, a person who follows sound, logical steps- from false premises. (This also applies to Chee Soon Juan.) I think his ideas and perspectives are sound, and he’s probably right- but that’s not the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[343,26],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-past-projections","tag-singapore"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-i1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9221,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions\/9221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mundanetechnologies.com\/goings-on\/workshop\/singapore\/images\/singapore.jpg?resize=336%2C224\")
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