Citizens of Singapore!

In this week’s assignment, I am going to adopt a local blogger’s blog to address/discuss about politics in Singapore. His blog URL and title is: http://bleongcw.typepad.com/simple_is_the_reason_of_m/2007/03/the_first_world.html, Titled as. The First Worlds, Our Destination? His name is, Bernard Leong. He is currently an adjunct assistant professor in National University of Singapore Entrepreneurship Centre.

Key conversations:

In Bernard’s blog, he talks about how difficult it is to implement the vision to take Singapore to the first world. Furthermore, he listed 5 features that he feels that the first world should have. Bernard Leong wrote a very interesting piece about Singapore’s progress towards the First World. And, he outlined some characteristics which he thought represents what it means to be in the First World. I quote his opinion on the politics in a First World country.
“The real issue is that when you are in a first world country, you always hear all different points of views. One political party gains power and starts to undo the other’s legacy. So, in the end, political ideologies trump over public policies. Although it might not be as efficient as others, at least the politicians have to learn how to humble themselves to convince others to agree with them.”
I agree fully with Bernard’s opinion. Even the wackos get their say in first world countries. True, it is not time-efficient to listen to the opinions of wackos. But therein lies the rub. How do we know they are wackos? Could the “wackos” actually be geniuses in disguise, just that the majority has yet to acquire the capability of understanding what they are talking about?
Politically, I think that it is important for diversity of opinions. Government policies are usually not made for the short term. As such, the effects of policies are usually felt some time down the road, and if it turns out to be a wrong move, the cost of repairing the damage is usually very high. This is why it is important to hear as many different views as possible, and to actually account for such views in decision-making.

Singapore’s political situation is in such a way that one party dominates the scene. This is not a bad thing in the sense that it allows the Singapore government to respond more quickly, and much more efficiently compared to other countries. However, this very strength could turn out to be Singapore’s own undoing, especially if the wrong policies were executed very efficiently.
I am aware that the PAP dominated Singapore government does its homework before embarking on any major policy. Nevertheless, the possibility of groupthink is very real. A bunch of highly intelligent policy makers might not be able to escape the effect of groupthink. Therefore, it is perhaps wiser to have a divided political system where no party is dominant. No doubt, that it is less efficient to try to convince another party, and to make some concessions in the process.

Therefore, I shall relate back to today’s topic of whether the internet (blogs) allows better democracy in Singapore. After reading Bernard’s blog, I think that blogs will definitely be a good way of playing in a part in desion-makings. As mentioned earlier, it is very important to hear different views from people around Singapore to truly know what they want and what they think about Singapore.

According to Alinta Thomton, Does Internet create Democracy, “citizens can exchange views on matters of importance to the common good, so that public opinion can be formed. This public sphere comes into being when people gather to discuss issues of political concern.” I agree with her argument.

Singapore in fact, allows freedom of speech and anyone can comment on anything they want. But in Singapore, one has to be careful of what they says and what they do. Because, in this “kiasu and kiasi” society, we as Singaporeans, often take what we can do for granted. Freedom of speech are often a way to scold the government and insult them.

To conclude, I think that Singapore can come out with an online blogging system which must be registered for. People all around Singapore can login and comment about issues and their thoughts. Just as what Bernard has stated in his blog, “in the west, you can say it with a considerable amount of comfort, but that also means that insults and personal attacks are more common as well.” Well, if such system is created, I am sure many Singaporeans will start blogging on “OUR” issues and not just “THEM” (the LEEs’)

Citations:

Thornton, A. (2002, October). Does Internet Create Democracy. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc

Bernard,L (2007, March) The First Worlds, Our Destination. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://bleongcw.typepad.com/simple_is_the_reason_of_m/2007/03/the_first_world.html
benbasket at 12:18 PM

QotW 7: Twitties

An online community is where people interact with each other in a virtual world- like instant messengers, IRC etc. Community is an important aspect of life for most people. Cooley (1983) says that all normal humans have a natural affinity for community. He suggests that the primary factor inhibiting the formation of communities, no matter what their scale, is that they are difficult to organize. The structural process that is associated with community is communication. Without communication, there can be no action to organize social relations. The intimate nature of this relationship is best illustrated in the words community and communications. (Fernback & Thompson, 1995)

Through communication and community, it revolves around the issues of brining people closer together, even those that you do not know. One example of such community communication would be Twitter.com. Although it is not as good as the instant messenger (which explains it all, as it is INSTANT), but it is quite cool to a certain extend. Imagine this, you invite all your friends into twitter and start a live update (conversation) of what you are doing. It connects you and your friends together, somewhat like mass chatting or rather what we call as a conference. I never expect it to be so cool, as I have technophobia. However, twitter really amazes me of what it is capable of. Certainly, twitter can be considered as an online community can do what a basic instant messenger could. Things like, making friends, project discussions, sharing of personal information and even making potential mate partners through it.

The concept of community commonly refers to a set of social relationships that operate within specified boundaries or locales, but community has an ideological component as well, in that it refers to a sense of common character, identity or interests. (Fernback & Thompson, 1995) Through twitter, one need not know the other person in order to start a conversation. There are not restrictions in whom or how many friends you make. Its is a place where people from all over the world, come together and experience a completely new form of online community. Twitter is a social networking service that allows members to inform each other about what they are doing and what they think. It allows users to send messages via phone or instant messaging. (Twitter, 2007) However, the sending of messages are only now avaliable on the US and UK (the place where twitter is first founded). Technology is changing in a rapid pace. Who knows that twitter might be the next “hottest” thing to be done in the next 3 to 5 years?

Typical online communities can bring you more cons than pros if one were to view it in the long-run. Why? People of normally sign up for such communities would actually get “hooked” into such ways of communications, thus turning them away from real-relationships with their family and friends (Hiltz and Turoff, 1993). They will lose physcial communication with their friends and kin and end up being the best of friends with their “feelingless” computers. However much, Twitter does not breach this concern of turning your friends and family members into your personal computer. It is somewhat a mixture of social network community, but provides real-time updates that can be send through sms (Short Message Service) via hand phone as well. I believe that twitter and other online communities will make it big in time to come. As not only it brings strangers and strangers together, but also, it aids people by maintaining and strengthening friendships between one and other, regardless of how far you are away from each other.

Citations:

Fernback, J., & Thompson, B. (May, 1995). Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?. Retrieved March 16, 2007 from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html


Twitter (2007). Retrieved March 16, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter


Hiltz, Starr Roxanne, Kenneth Johnson and Murray Turoff. 1986. "Experiments in Group Decision Making: Communication Process and Outcome in Face-to-face Versus Computerized Conferences." Human Communication Research 13 (2): 225-252.
benbasket at 7:31 AM

Com125 Qotw6: Privacy

The British sociologist Anthony Giddens has described the ways that citizens in a risk society can no longer rely on tradition or fixed hierarchies to establish their identity or to give them reliable guidance about whom to trust in a society of strangers. Confused and anxious about status in a world where status is constantly shifting, we feel increasing pressure to expose details of our personal lives to strangers in order to win their trust, and we demand that they expose themselves in order to win our trust in return. (Rosen, 2004) Examples of these “exposures” are like when you register online for a free E-mail account- they would ask personal questions like what is your name and your date of birth. My question to these questions would be, “how are they even relevant to what I am subscribing for?” Personally, I believe that my online identity must be kept as a secret, or rather not revealing every part of my body to the naked crowd.

Psychologists tell us boundaries are healthy, that it is important to reveal yourself to friends, family and lovers in stages, at appropriate times. However, few boundaries remain. The digital breadcrumbs you leave everywhere make it easy for strangers to reconstruct who you are, where you are and what you like. In some cases, a simple Google search can reveal what you think. Like it or not, increasingly we live in a world where you simply cannot keep a secret. (Sullivan, 2006) We have to be clear with the conjunction of revealing myself to my friends and families and the revealing myself online towards people I don’t even know, who claimed to be your “friends”.
Privacy invasion is not just happening on the internet- in fact, do you even know that you are being spied on online and offline? In America, the legal, ethical, and policy issues surrounding personal sousveillance are largely yet-to-be-explored, but let us consider a simple parallel example, namely the recording of telephone conversations. Telephone tapping is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. In America, such activities are very common. What is amazing is that a simple conversation with your friend is being exposed on the papers the very next day and everyone is talking about it- the best part is you do not even know about it. Even on business today, people are being spied on, for example, Hewlett Packard executives hiring private investigators to spy on employees and journalists. ( Sullivan, 2006).
The invasion of privacy is like an on-going trend that is spread around the globe- I think it is even faster than the SARS. Certainly, people just do not want to be left behind and instead following the trends- especially Singaporeans. For example, I saw a website in the internet. It is about Singaporeans with their hand phone, going around and taking videos. With respect to the first video on the website, it is about a dispute between two people over a car accident. However, the most hilarious thing I realize upon watching the video is that- the one who is taking the video is the main culprit of the accident. (Posted by Kevin, 2006)
The internet has vastly increased the opportunities for individuals to subject themselves to the demands of the personality market, resulting in ever increasing confusion and anxiety about how much of ourselves to reveal to strangers. (Rosen, 2004) We must be careful with what we do in and off the internet. The bottom-line is, never to reveal too much of yourself when you are unsure of the circumstances.

References:

Rosen, J. (2004). The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age, Random House.

Sullivan, B. (17th October, 2006). "Privacy Lost: Does Anyone Care?". Retrieved on 8th March, 2007 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/

Sousveillance. (2007, February 7). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 9, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance

Internet Website Posted by Kevin: http://philiptiongson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/12/singapores_aunt.html
benbasket at 6:09 AM