Would you change places with him?
May 26th, 2023 | 
Author: I remember catching up with my oldest friend, who had transitioned from a corporate law career into teaching. She mentioned that in the course of new job, she actually had to “sweep” the school she was teaching at. She then reminded me that back when we were kids being a “sweeper” was something that parents always used as a “threat” – “If you don’t study hard, you’ll end up as a street sweeper.”
I think of this conversation that I had with my oldest friend because it hit upon the topic that is a hot topic for discussion but one which nobody wants to do anything about. That is the topic of work. My friend had a point in as much as she reminded me of how professional middle class families use the threat of a future as a manual worker to get their children into what they considered “proper” jobs, which inevitably involved needing paper qualifications and sitting in an office.
This mindset isn’t particularly limited to those who are “born” into working professional families. My former father-in-law put two kids through university by selling eggs. His pride was having two kids who were joining professions (my ex is a teacher and her brother works at DSTA) and not taking over his business. My former brother-in-law in particular was regarded as something of a star in the family because he had the “ultimate” job working in a government related job that paid very well and had the prestigious label of being an “Iron Rice-bowl.” I knew I was probably not fit for mainstream Singapore when at the last meeting with my ex, I told her that her family had the wrong hero. Instead of idolising her brother for doing what everyone else does (thus betraying my middle-class background), the one they should have admired was her dad who put his kids through school by selling eggs (how much does one make on an egg).
Now, I do get the value of “professions.” Houses, for example, do need to be designed by architects and engineers are needed to get them up. Should one ever need surgery, one would want the person holding the knife to have studied everything there was to possibly know about surgery. The same can be said of lawyers – would you want to face a law suite without a lawyer who knew the law like the back of his or her hand?
As the pace of technological pace speeds up, the importance of continuous learning will only become more important. The adage that the best investment that one can ever make is “education” is not only true, its going to be more so as things progress.
Having said what I’ve just said, I believe the majority of us in the “professional sector” need revalue our perception of the world. Too many of us grew up with the idea that work outside the office was not “real work” or that it was only people who were not going anywhere in life. To be fair, I believe this attitude is generally true in just about every place on the planet. However, in Singapore, it becomes especially when you notice the fact that people in manual-labour tend to be darker skinned and from other parts of Asia.
The fact that I took a waiter job in my late thirties put me at odds with mainstream thinking. As mentioned on a few occasions, one of the great pick-up lines I ever received was “Are you a Yellow Ribbon Criminal, you’re working here and the way you speak don’t gel.”
Then, when I joined a proper profession in the insolvency trade, I remember a lawyer telling me “Oh you do the easy part,” when I mentioned that I do the running around whilst my boss does the paper work.
I don’t dispute that my boss has the harder job. I am very clear about what I want and don’t want to get involved in based on my situation in life. However, I find it strange that people who sit in airconditioned offices think that manual work is easy.
It hit home today, when I went out in the afternoon. May 2023 has seen some high temperatures and today was no exception. Even in a short distance, I made it a point to stay under shelter. Then I noticed a construction worker behind me and noticed that he had come from the sun. Then I noticed a group of them across the road working.
These guys were out in the sun working on a Saturday, whilst I was avoiding the sun on what is officially my “off day.” Then I asked myself – where do people sitting in airconditioned offices staring at screens get the idea manual workers get it easy?
If manual work is “easy,” why aren’t people rushing to do it? Surely, if the manual workers are having it easy when compared to the office workers, you would find people who would be willing to do it.
Yet, this clearly isn’t the case. I know people who are considered “long-term” unemployed from their last office job. Instead of taking on manual work to supplement their income, they prefer to stay at home. It’s a case of having too much pride to be seen doing manual work but plenty of pride to beg friends and family for money to smoke.
Why don’t people want to change places with manual workers, since manual work is not real work? Some would argue that it’s the pay. I mean, I earned from a single press release than I did in a month at the Bistrot. So, assuming that manual work paid the same as office work, would people still want to change places with the manual workers since manual work is not really work?
I know I don’t want to change places with the construction workers. I like the comfort of not being in the hot sun on a Saturday. I have the privilege of being flexible with how I make my living. I can hang around the periphery of Cubicle Land and on occasion wait tables here and there. I might even get a few cents in advertising for this blog piece.
It’s not that me and the rest of middle-class doesn’t have struggles. However, if you look at everything we do, we are the ones who have it relatively easy and our work, is well, not real. We are not the ones out in the sun on a Saturday. I can think of a number of construction workers who would happily take my place. I wouldn’t want to take theirs.
So, the next time someone gives you the idea that manual work is not “real work,” you should perhaps ask them if they’d happy to change places with the manual workers.
Tang Li
*Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able to meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.
Posted in 
Is the writer a confirmed ‘lapd0g’ writing propaganda for a newspaper owned by Indians, HQ in UK?
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Dignity in work..
Respect all works and appreciate them.
What the world will be if we do not have garbage collectors or cleaners ?
Pay a decent pay for all works especially the lower one as they also need to survive in this super expensive Singapore.
The top group has never experience the need and pain of the ordinary Citizen at this challenging time…
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The writer is honest about things. He is not saying that office work has no struggles but manual work is something that more locals shun than office work. Then among the locals, there is a hierarchy. Those in the ministers or related jiak liao bee network shun manual work more than other locals so that they have time to work on schemes to go for sky high pays. This is a fact.
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Those who work in office, use their minds. Perceived as sin nang. People don’t know bosses can keep staff till very late.
Those who use their hands, perceived as did not do well at schools.
Even hawkers want their children to do white collar.
All wrong perceptions.
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Only one point. Don’t believe a single word what the lan jiao PAP ministers preached, that paper qualification is not the be all and end all thingy. Blah, blah blah.
Watch what these fckers do and not what they say. All these fcukers are where they are in the first place, by paper qualifications.
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The word that Tang Li is looking for is COMFORT. Specifically, being very comfortable in an air con office doing your work vs sweating it out in the open at the mercy of the elements. Human nature is such that we don’t like suffering by default so given a choice all would choose to work in an aircon place unless there really is no choice.
The perception that people have about manual labour being easy is because these people rightly or wrongly think manual work is just cleaning floors/toilets, laying bricks etc. Supposedly very simple tasks that anyone with a bit of training can do. But people love being comfortable so an office job will always be more appealing. From the outside it sure looks like an easy job, just sit there type type type on the laptop can liao is what these Banglas doing manual work are probably thinking when they look into an office.
Once again, it’s all about…………..you guessed it dear reader,
C-O-M-F-O-R-T.
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One thing for sure, I won’t change places with this Tang Li. ‘Unborn babies’ & ‘children’ will look for him. Btw, he paid me to do his “dirty works” for him. As I need the money, I just bury the ‘syringes’ behind the children’s playground.
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Wrong, the writer is stucked in his own world of superiority.
When you read carefully, the writer is in fact full of discrimination at mutilevel, socially, physically and mentally.
While he is highly educated, he did not find out what it meant to be a construction worker in the developed countries.
His ignorance is basically build on exploitation of those who are disadvantaged by their circumstances. And in the process, enriching those who exploit others.
Taking construction sector as example if :
1. A local can, through series of formal skill learning, able to earn $10k a month including OT, why should there be no local workers?
2. Proper Safety and Health management in construction site – who would not enjoy such profession, a real professional?
3. Not allowing cheap labour from the 3rd world country, how would it not suppress local earning?
By exploitation, it:
1. Had the main contract winner eat the lion share without much outlay on cost.;
2. Exploit the system further until the 4th and 5th level of sub-contractors where the main skills are. Amd they are usually from across the causeway, and they took all the risk of delayed payments on earnings.;
3. Exploit further by large recruitment of the 3rd world workers with a fraction of what its equivalent counterparts will get in the developed country, and further exploit them by providing them with food and accommodation taking away another fraction of their earnings.
Construction industry is a dirty word for SG.
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This is the right thing to do.
LKY said said before, the successful must help the less successful.
“A society to be successful must maintain a balance between nurturing excellence and encouraging the average to improve.”
― Kuan Yew Lee, The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew
My great PAP had been dishing out training funds for Singaporeans to train and upgrade themselves.
I myself had personally paid and sponsored 2 Singaporeans for courses (example below) but these Singaporeans are not interested and not grateful.
Online courses.
https://t.ly/fep-
They kept saying no time…this is the super poor attitude of Singaporeans.
Singaporeans are lazy and unmotivated and proactively disengaged (bochap). Hopeless case.
Do you want to hire/employ them?
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CCP China has no human right. Their workers are forced to work 9am to 9pm Monday to Saturday.
Nothing to be proud of. No time to poke backside you know.
https://kungfudata.com/insights/996-chinese-work-culture
Jack Ma said: “I personally think 996 is a huge blessing… How do you achieve success you want without paying extra effort and time?”
“996” is Ruled Illegal
https://www.china-briefing.com/news/996-is-ruled-illegal-understanding-chinas-changing-labor-system/
Though 996 is made illegal, it is was lip service by the CCP. Nothing change.
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Of course, Tang Li is the manipulator & svengali; just exploiting Blangladeshi workers and using them to prop himself up. He seems to confuse individual conduct with systems of “labor frameworks”, … at least in this odd discussion. I would say, an affirmative sabotage with some subtleties of racism. Case in point. ‘Fair/justice’ is a slippery slope. As things have been allowed to play out, globalization certainly has hurt many workers, particularly those in manufacturing. But more than half of the manufacturing jobs lost were lost due to technology which increased the productivity of the remaining workers. This dude use rationality largely as the judge of worth in our society, but in nature many animals dominate others out of physical strength instead. Heirachy exists everywhere you look in nature, and justification for preying on animals is easy to find.
Everybody is equal meaning that you treat anybody in the same manner you would want to be treated. That is the high road less traveled because a lot of people give themselves a pass, meaning they are equal but they are more equal than others. Hypocrites want you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps but they themselves will want a break when they cannot hack it and they show no compunction judging other people’s lives.
Good authors acknowledge their bias and strive as much as possible for objectivity and balance. If this well educated person cannot admit to being part of a community that pretends it doesn’t have both conscious and unconscious bias then I see little reason to see the difference between him and a load of leftist craps!
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Last time during the 90s, during a period of unemployment I met a Malay guy who was unemployed.
Somehow we chatted and he was kind of outraged that I gave the impression that jobs were hard to find.
This chap tried to be proactive and led me to the nearest restaurant who was hiring. He went in for the interview. Moments later, he came out , crestfallen. He said pay too low.
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Some of the best writing I read since many commentators had left TRE.
Good mate, Royale Craps!
In this era, left and right is no longer that clear cut.
Is only who are more of the other and pretending to be another.
Hope to read more of your comments mate.
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Has the purge begun?
As the time near for a crown prince to succeed, he would purge the powerful and disloyal generals and court officials.
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One of the seriously wrong thing that happened in SG is paying ministers or it’s deputies sky high salaries. In argument, that prevents their corruptions. However, the extreme high pay made them on top of the food-chain in their eco- system without them qualified for. Corruption will corrupt in its own way, highly paid or not. That is the essence of cronyism.
The fist step for SG future is to reduce ministers pay to no higher than 0.6x of MR4 salary. Anyway a minister don’t really have productive outputs.
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This show:
1. There are plenty of jobs in SG.
2. Singaporeans are choosy.
3. Singaporeans are self-inflicted unemployed
4. Singaporeans are lazy, do nothing and always wait for others to sacrifice for them.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job.
Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.
Tech: I may not agree with you most of the time, but this is one instance I am tempted to agree with you. BUT then hor, Sinkies are in this current state because of the 60%+ who asked for it, so then hor, blame who lay?
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@SGAI, you are right if we talk about construction work and the kind of respect it accords in other developed countries but the writer is talking about Singapore. It’s easier if we use his contents to infer what he meant.
When he said “the one they should have admired was her dad who put his kids through school by selling eggs (how much does one make on an egg).”, he is talking about who should be given respect.
When he said “Having said what I’ve just said, I believe the majority of us in the “professional sector” need revalue our perception of the world. Too many of us grew up with the idea that work outside the office was not “real work” or that it was only people who were not going anywhere in life. To be fair, …attitude is generally true in just about every place….. However, in Singapore, it becomes especially when you notice the fact that people in manual-labour tend to be darker skinned and from other parts of Asia.”, he is talking about his observations in Singapore. Also, when was the last time you and I saw Western expatriates sweating it out under the sun and soaking in the rain for Singapore’s outdoor work?
When he said “These guys were out in the sun working on a Saturday, whilst I was avoiding the sun on what is officially my “off day.” Then I asked myself – where do people sitting in airconditioned offices staring at screens get the idea manual workers get it easy?”, it leads to the subsequent section of “will you and I swap jobs with the outdoor people?”
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I agree. People damn lazy.
They would rather cut in the narrow gap between me and the wall than walk around me to the bigger space on my other side.
In shops, Women always look for the person near them, ask the person to help them take things. Rather than walk a bit look for sales staff
China people too lazy to learn English. Always look for people who can speak Mandarin.
Cyclists too lazy to observe traffic rules, piss off drivers and pedestrians.
People too lazy to walk, use motorized wheelchair.
The choosy part:
Foreigners CHOOSE to come here. They CHOOSE to come spore work because their own counties paid less. So they are as CHOOSY as locals. Anybody with a brain with choose the better option. Tio bo?
Employers always CHOOSE the cheapest worker. Cheapos.
You know what? I went for interview at museum, they asked me to volunteer aka work for free. so that is why the museum only draw crowds is when there is FREE entry.
Those kind of cheap behavior starts with the companies. You know, I sold advertisement space before. A lot of those big reputable companies asked for free ads. They all deserve to close down.
A lot of people on carousel like to low ball. Want something for nothing. That’s why a lot of sellers tell low ballers to piss off.
All you cheapos go to hell. Only you need to make profit, others don’t. Selfish, stupid b*t*h.
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@ Absurdity,
Perhaps you may not had understood the writer’s core value.
Why would you want to see a white sweating under the singapore sun in a construction site afternoon while getting a salary of $3,500 a month?
But, it is worth it for our bros from over the other side of causeway taking home more than 3x worth after exchange, earning better than their home grown graduates working in the air-con offices among the KL buildings.
Someone said “It’s the economy, silly”
And also, “It is the money, silly.”
Does the writer really thought that his boss thought it was easy for manual job?
Nah, the was either naive or ignorant (and still, his wisdom had not grown a bit since then). Just like most of us SG folks, off-springs of some low-end piglets who were living along the coastlines during the era of famines, running away from poverty and fightings. Anything was considered better, even if it meant being exploited.
Anything here making their earnings is better for our e.g. Bangladesh bro than back home. And thus happily, they accept our system exploiting them, their youthful physical body. At the same time, such system eliminates our local expertise.
What measures us is not what we can offer,
but what we valued.
Sadly, we are a society, a nation of Hypocrites.
Our success is based on how much we can exploit, not creativity, not ideas, not inventions, not humanity.
Perhaps I am over critical on Singaporean. But we deserved what we deserve.
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Do you know why all those business owners tell job seekers not to be choosy and just accept their “fate”?
Because business owners THEMSELVES would NEVER take these jobs. That’s why they CHOSE to be the boss rather than employee.
They just need to find the cheapest labor to carry out the work. And fast, so they can run operations smoothly.
Behind closed doors they’ll be popping the bubbly and congratulating themselves for making more profit because they found cheaper labor.
That is why the Bible said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.
Because the rich got rich at the expense of others.
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This Tang Li character – apart form glorifying himself endlessly – also tries to shame $inkies for being what they are – hardworking (if stupid) servants of the Regime.
He fraudulently compares our level of social achievement – which was hard fought and made with great sacrifice by our forefathers and even the present generation of $inkies – with the life of a Bangladeshi worker who came here because his country is pone of the most corrupt in the world. This comparison has no relevance whatsoever. Are we responsible for Bangladesh being what it is? What about Ethiopia? Or Afghanistan? Saying that somehow $inkies are bad people because we do not want to do a a job that we cannot survive on.
I used to be in construction before the Regime turned it into a third-world employee factory. We were paid like other sectors and was proud of the work I did? This Tang Li has never been in any menial position, and yet he tries to be a champion of the poor and downtrodden – because $inkies look down on them for the ‘low-class’ work these people do.
This Tang Li knows very little of the real world. Apart from praising his own achievements and insulting others, he does not seem to post anything significant. For people like him, unfortunately this site is a blessing because no other place will print his crap for free.
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@SGAI
“Too much wine has me decided to aimlessly wax poetic”. I know the feeling. Maybe should watch less television. :-)
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@Harder Truths
Have you heard of “reverse psychology” and “reading between the lines”?
BTW, Tang Li and Kirsten are (I heard) related. Does Kirsten appear to you as a pro-party activist, compared to that Polish blogger who loves to give heads and taking it up the orifice that the Sun never shines?
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Dear Tech,
Let dive into the details. It is not the 60% fault.
So Why blame the 60% right ?
People Action Party had got action which the people agrees that it benefit them and thus vote for PAP.
Just like Hungary PM Viktor Orban told a rally of his supporters: “We must stay out of this war (Ukraine war) … therefore we will not send any troops or weapons to the battlegrounds.”
Guess what, PM Orban won the election with a large margin.
Hungarians voted not to be canon fodders for Americunts/NATO/Zelensky.
Don’t the Hungarian also voted in their own interest?
So, is Hungarian selfish? or Was it the Americunts who are the selfish one?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/01/hungary-election-ukraine-a-key-issue-viktor-orban
On the other hand, our Opposition had got no action.
Opposition No sound, No shadow, No Action.
Everyone is waiting to free ride on others while they hide far away eating in fine restaurant like Martin Lee.
I had challenged Opposition who disagreed with my great PAP high salary to work for FREE. Thus far there is no taker…hahahaha.
You may have 8000+ readers but 7999+ are free riders. Just look at the pathetic donated amount towards your medical fees.
Conclusion: It is the Opposition fault that we PAP win because Opposition had got No Action…hahahaha PAP huat huat huat ah ..
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Yes, the rich got rich at the expense of others.(Human)
And the poor got rich at the expense of others. (e.g. selling chicken rice resulting in more chicken lives lost? No?)
We are all part of a big food chain. Anyone disagreed ?
Selective Quoting from the bible?
Time to wake up from the religion scam.
1. Thou Shall Not Kill, British monarchy colonized and killed natives anyway.
2. Thou Shall Not Steal, British monarchy steal from other colony anyway.
3. Thou Shall Not Lie, Americunt/British lied anyway..where is the weapon of mass destruction as alleged by Bush/Blair ?
Quote – Desmond Tutu
When the missionaries came to Africa,
they had the Bible and we had the land.
They said “let us close our eyes and pray.”
When we opened them, we had the Bible, and they had the land.
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Who’s selectively quoting here? You are
The poor got poorer. Many articles will tell you salaries did not rise in spite of inflation
The lying, stealing, killing part is true. Are you part of it?
That is why Sodom and Gomorrah was incinerated. Lawlessness. The men surrounded Lot’s house and asked him to bring his male guests out so they can have sex with them. If Lot did not comply, they threatened Lot with harm. So the angels blinded them.
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Class will always be there as long as human exist.
The elite and the mass. All man are not equal and we do not start with the same starting line.
That is why not all job pays the same …and many are overpaid.
That is the reality.
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Yes, agreed with you on this.
Opposition complain salary low and want high salary but they does not allow our great PAP to take high salary.
All you cheapos go to hell. Only you need to make profit, others don’t. Selfish, stupid b***h.
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Since you oppose me for the sake of opposing, then your place in hell is confirmed. Your PAP also oppose the opposition, is that not?
You stupid selfish b*t*h plus cheapo plus ass sniffer. Only you need to make profit, be always correct.
Tech: Please hor, language! TRE must have standard one, you know? lol
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lol. Is this for me only or does it apply to free rider as well?
Tech: What do you think?
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Since this is Tang Li’s article, I will share my thoughts on the advertising industry.
I have met many who are rude, arrogant, full of themselves and lacking in basic respect and courtesy for others.
If you do not wish to take a meeting, simply decline nicely. Don’t ask people to attend meetings where you act bored and display bad attitude.
In case these people think they are so big deal, you are not a celebrity or someone famous. So drop the snooty, disdainful diva act.
There is no need to talk to media salespeople in a rude, snappy and condescending manner. You are what? Just junior exec. Big fiack ah?
Also to all those job interviewers, if you don’t want to hire, simply don’t respond to application. By asking the candidate to come down and just end the meeting in under a minute is unprofessional. Also to ask someone come for interview and to tell the candidate he’s not suitable is just plain stupid. You simply don’t call in the first place!
Companies like that WASTE THE CANDIDATE’S TIME AND MONEY. Also refrain from insulting candidates who are more accomplished and with more experience than you. It makes you and the company look childish, jealous, ungracious, tactless, mean.
Just take a leaf from all those well mannered companies. Something along the lines of :”your application is not successful in this instance and we wish you the best.”
Also, don’t be like some cruise ship that promise a job verbally and later send rejection letter. It shows those people are not a woman of their word. Also a lack of ethics. Poor business conduct lead to company sink like ship!
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may I ask why you ** words like evil and wick*d. They are proper words not vulgarities or slamg.
Even newspapers and magazines print out the word bastard without*** the word.
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Lol there u go
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Very well said.
For the successful, you have a duty to help the less successful.
For the less successful, you need to have the spurs stuck into your hide.
If the less successful refuse to upgrade, than it is your problem.
“A society to be successful must maintain a balance between nurturing excellence and encouraging the average to improve.”
― Kuan Yew Lee,
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@Tech,
Opposition all go bonkers if you speak the truth. All dare not face the truth.
My great ex MM Goh is right.
Always ask the Opposition: What can opposition do for me?
PAP got action, Opposition no action and talk c0ck sing song only.
Opposition will run away if you challenge them with facts.
https://www.tremeritus.net/2023/05/25/her-ignorance-and-detechment-from-the-ordinary-singaporeans/
@Light the Way, am waiting for you reply.
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Easy lah. Vote pap into opposition and see what they can do.
Tio bo?
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@ Sporeans Keep Govt Employed
That’s the exact observation and it has been this way, if not, worse.
SG will go towards extinction, if younger generation unable to make our society any better.
By the way, don’t be too hard on TRE Tech. Tough questions are for not suitable for volunteers.
First step is to get rid of 50% cheap foreign labours, and employers will be more kind, respectful and serious with their recruitment process.
2nd step is to set minimum wage of $20 an hour. Employers will become more efficient in using worker’s time. Productivity will raise significantly. It may creates more temp or part time jobs than full-time permanent positions, but who need a full-time job paying $8 an hour for 40hrs week if you can work for $25 for 20hrs week? Your other 20hr can be productive in doing other jobs for other employers.
3rd step is to set up a gov agency incharged of inspecting and fine businesses which are not following, minimum fine $50k.
This is the time for SG to make these changes in labour and business law when we are moving to the next phase of global economy. Or we risk becoming a dying nation as a toilet bowl economy of cheap labours, no innovation, no creativities , no moral, no ethics.
When a new raising SEA economy starts to do what I mentioned above, and if that time SG is still not doing so, that’s the time we SG becomes the real 3rd world of developed countries.
Wonder why most countries leaders see us no up on the global stage?
Will anyone look at a pile of puppy waste more than 10 seconds?
Just about two decades and we already lost the shine.
If not the recent billionaires runs, where to get more hot monies?
And SG is a known place for dodgy billionaires to wash clean their IDs and obtain a new nationality to go to their ultimate destinations.
In a decade time, SG economy will be left a huge vacuum. If that is something transparent for us to find out.
What happened in the 90s was not without any lessons.
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Very well said. Did Jeanne Marie Teh obtain justice in your system?
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Can apply same question to your pap.
What can pap do for me?
@Tech,
Opposition all go bonkers if you speak the truth. All dare not face the truth.
My great ex MM Goh is right.
Always ask the Opposition: What can opposition do for me?
PAP got action, Opposition no action and talk c0ck sing song only.
Opposition will run away if you challenge them with facts.
https://www.tremeritus.net/2023/05/25/her-ignorance-and-detechment-from-the-ordinary-singaporeans/
@Light the Way, am waiting for you reply.
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I think the problem with Spore is that it is too pre occupied with status. So people display contempt for others that is below their station. Eg employers being rude to employees.
I went for interviews at two public relations firms. The first had a clerk interview me, the second a junior exec. Don’t insult job seekers this way. They could well work for your clients in the future. Not interested, don’t call. I did tell that that it is bad public relations to do what they did.
There was an advertising boss who complained clients were disrespectful to her. Simply because they are paying for her services.
Recently a maid killed her boss’ mother-in-law. The old lady would use her knuckles to knock the maid’s head. The old woman was stabbed multiple times.
As with Tech, I had to ask certain questions. Not my intention to be rough on him.
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@ Sporeans Keep Govt Employed
It’s hard not to.
Status is a result of ignorance.
Most people relate status to income to power; or power to income.
When a society have an obvious desire for status, corruption already creeping deep. Moral corruption.
If a cleaner can earn $5k a month, would a clerk earning $3k thinks he or she having higher status?
If a security guard can arrest police for entering a premises without warrant, would the police feel necessity to respect law or status?
If a teacher can become President of Singapore, would a school principal thinks that he or she commands respect because of his pay grade?
We had barber, teacher, seating next to a Harvard graduate in parliament deciding the future of this nation, when did we start having piggy bag politicians just because they have been active as president of community club’s youth club?
Singapore definitely lost our way. The cowardly generations before us, and after us, if so.
It’s beyond just status.
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@SGAI
Read somewhere mass immigration can weaken a country. Your thoughts?
Food panda has the highest speed riders. Dangerous to the community.
Puki mat was on bus 165.
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Wow.. you are a rare Opposition species who at least provide solution so unlike other Opposition who oppose just for the sake of opposing, no solution provided except criticize only.
Keep it up…
But I have to cautious you that your suggested solution is not workable.
台積電工時12小時太over？美工程師驚:在美國會徵不到人…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LG2EqgQm8E
expensive labour = expensive output = expensive price = not competitive
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Nice move. Get others to provide solutions so you can just take and use.
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@ Sporeans Keep Govt Employed
I am assuming that you are referring to mass ‘temporary’ immigration, such as those on work pass.
A country may adopt temporary mass immigration as a mean to kick start or fills vacuum in certain sector(s) of the economy. However, it has to be temporary, could be 5 years, can be a decade. While the country finds longer term solution to the situation and develop domestic solutions.
If a country stucked with same mass immigration policy for only certain sectors of the economy, and did little to the situation lasting more than 2 decades, it is simply enriching certain cronies and magnifying the problems it tried to resolves.
Taking construction (and ship-building) industry as example, from early days, we have local (and malaysian) labours, then the Korean, the Thais, the Chinese, and now Bangladeshi. All the excuses were given to the people, except in recognizing the fact of maintaining the developers’ profit margins. And these developers are part of the main cronies.
Today, we still have some highly skilled Malaysians working at our construction (and renovation) sites in ad-hoc manners. But they rather live in Malaysia than have our pink IC.
Someday, the Bangladeshi bros will also stop coming. Where are our local skills men in the construction sector?
The government had failed its planning. And we people had failed ourselves as democratic nation, failed our intellectual sense.
If we are talking about ‘permanent’ mass immigration, it is a whole different ball game. Singapore, restricted by our physical area, is too tiny for any permanent mass immigration. If not the 2nd generation, or 3rd, at certain point, the future generation will leave this tiny land that inspires nothing.
Just some quick thoughts, welcome debating any points.
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@ Singaporean R Free Rider
Want to be competitive?
How about building HDB in Bangladesh? Develop luxury condos in Nigeria?
Why shift semiconductor wafer out of China? And go Vietnam? Why not go Indonesia, much much cheaper labour.
Why ASML can have so many factories in developed countries but not in Singapore?
Wny Seagate still in Singapore? Are their workers from Bangladesh? Why that many from across the causeway?
I started off talking about construction industry which is very domestic. If we want to debate about other products for export, we can start hitting them one by one. Thus, need not generalize expensive labour = expensive output as expensive land cost and utility cost plays the same in the equation.
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I think with all the mass building of BTOs, the immigration seems to be a permanent one. On track to 10 million.
Am sure there is temporary immigration for labor to do all those construction and reno stuff.
I was very intrigued by the idea that mass immigration could weaken a country. The author did not explain but I guess there could be social fractions and fracture, resulting in division and disunity. But an irony to even think that far because as Singaporeans, we are groomed to compete against one another. So it is actually very easy to divide and conquer.
But what you have mentioned – that this island is too tiny. It would be interesting to see how this population expansion pans out. We are already seeing people fighting and quarrelling inside MRT cabins, something that rarely happened 20 years back. It could be too many packed together. Plus the foreign vs local issue.
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@ Sporeans Keep Govt Employed
It is “Behavioral Sink”.
John B. Calhoun, a behavioral psychologist, conducted the “Mouse Utopia” experiments in the 1960s to study the impact of overpopulation on animal behavior. The experiments involved placing groups of mice in a confined space with unlimited resources such as food, water, and bedding, enabling unfettered population growth. Yes, initially there was space for increasing population, but there was a limit to space ultimately. E.g human can build 40-level high residential or go 50m low into underground, ultimately there is a limit.
Initially, the mice reproduced rapidly while the population grew steadily; however, as the population approached its carrying capacity, the social structure of the mice began to break down. Territories were established, and some mice began to exhibit abnormal behavior, such as extreme aggression or social withdrawal.
Dominant males became aggressive, some moving in groups, attacking females and the young. Mating behaviors were disrupted. Some became exclusively homosexual. Others became pansexual and hypersexual, attempting to mount any rat they encountered. Mothers neglected their infants, first failing to construct proper nests, and then carelessly abandoning and even attacking their pups. In certain sections of the pens, infant mortality rose as high as 96%, the dead cannibalized by adults.
Subordinate animals withdrew psychologically, surviving in a physical sense but at an immense psychological cost. They were the majority in the late phases of growth, existing as a vacant, huddled mass in the centre of the pens. Unable to breed, the population plummeted and did not recover. The crowded rodents had lost the ability to co-exist harmoniously, even after the population numbers once again fell to low levels. At a certain density, they had ceased to act like rats and mice, and the change was permanent.
One of Calhoun’s assistants described rodent “utopia” as having become “hell”.
Of course, we are human, we don’t eat one another because of space, we only occasionally eat one another due to starvation or as battle trophies for winning territories (in times). And we have LAW, don’t we? We are sophisticated mice.
For us human, those with sufficient resources or capabilities ultimately migrate to other places, leaving those lab mice to fight one another and homo among themselves.
As I mentioned previously, this government has not been doing a proper job since 1990s. And we have been allowing ourselves to go extinct. Bang, even China is shrinking.
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Ahh, overcrowding cause extreme aggression, hostility and sexual perversion.
I think in Spore the pursuit of material life and riches as a life goal are the cause. Because we have to compete in school and the job market, the aggression and hostility towards others is inevitable. And spore is crowded with limited resources. That familiar refrain! So the rat race is intense. People cannot have consideration for others.
If people don’t have children or become homosexual, they get to enjoy the material life more. Eg spend on themselves only. They become more Self centered and selfish.
Have you seen Hollywood celebs parade the children in public dressed as the opposite sex? There is a certain pattern to normalize homosexual, pansexual and hypersexuality.
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