Excerpt from blog post: Some “difficult” personal ideas[19-Dec-2009]
The Singapore Dream is dead… You get married, then have children to get some discount to buy ownership in a HDB for 99 years is a lie to keep you a slave for the system. After a while you get sick and die surrounded by consumer goods that you don’t really need. Consumption now generates most of government taxes.
Consumption not only generate most of the government’s gahmen’s taxes. Consumption is the very dynamo of the economy of the Free World. In fact, this might even be the way of life that China aspires to have for her citizens. George ‘Warmonger’ Bush said this after the 9-11 attacks:
I encourage you all to go shopping more.
Call it an encouragement from the American President to the people to show they are not cowering in fear by living their lives as it is. The truth is, there is more at stake here than not showing an outward sign of weakness and defeat to the terrorists. A failure to throng the malls and spend money would have serious consequences for the American economy (and the world economy in general). People need to spend to keep economic activities going, which in turn keeps people employed and provide the money for them to continue spending.
The same goes for Singapore. That is why malls after malls are erected to satisfy our material cravings. Vivocity, Jurong Point extension, Illuma, Orchard Central, ION Orchard, 313 Orchard are such fine examples of monuments to consumerism.
Meantime, the media floods our senses through advertisements with all that dazzling consumer goods. Trade fair after trade fair, especially those for so-called state-of-the-art and ultra high-tech gadgets that would become obsolete in 6 ~ 12 months draw in the crowds and rake in an astonishing amount of revenue which make a mockery of the recession. Very often I see on micro-blogging sites like Twitter and Plurk or the status in Facebook, someone announcing the acquisition of a new purchase for a DSLR, iPods, game console or mobile phones. At times, the same person would announce the acquisition of several items within a week and sometimes within the day itself! The items are not just a cheap sub-$50 thumb drive but an expensive mobile phone or a DSLR camera. Whether they completely utilise the features available don’t matter at all since they can pay for it.
This is the Singapore Dream. Always chasing after the next best electronic gadget or the next better car or better located condominium. An endless cycle of spending… and debt. The dream is never dead, it is just one the gahmen wants to keep everyone from waking up from. It wants us all to keep dreaming for a better outcome.
That way, one remains a slave of the system. Indeed, Singapore is like a warm bath where one sinks in, slits his wrists and watch his lifeblood drains away and he wouldn’t even bother he is dying because it’s warm. Slowly, as life drains away one drift into a sleep he would never wake up from and dream wonderful things while he dies. It would be almost painless, and one probably can find no better manner to waste his life away. Thus, Singapore taps us all of our labor just like how the Matrix would tap humans of their energy as a battery until they die. Just don’t scream and cause everyone else to wake up in panic when one realise his dream is nothing more than a nightmare.
Shhhh… Be quiet!! I am trying to sleep and dream my sweet Singapore dream.
Welcome to Singapore.
Recommended Read:
National Geographic: The Singapore Solution
Recommended Video:
Smart Planet: Is the IPhone bad for innovation?
yes, to survive, we need to consume. there is no apology needed for being a consumer because food is fuel to our physical body as consumption is fuel to our corporate body.
the problem here is not that we are slave to consumption because we all need to eat anyway.
the problem lies in our..DIET.
our “diet” has contribute d to green house effect to the widening the rich – poor divide.
it has made the corporate body….sick1
Very true. The Singapore dream happens everywhere too. In Hongkong, the credit card debts also shot up including it’s suicide rate. There was a news report few months back about Singapore yuppies getting into serious credit card debt. Credit cards are now easily rampant. A typical salary of 2k per month can easily get credit card.
Friends of mine also buy things like there’s no tomorrow. Owning a car, DSLR are all things that a young teen should have and not might have. Remember that time, told u abt a friend who is buying an DSLR who uses auto function. -.-” just because everyone has it.
I do not know if the generation of this time might have enough savings for their tomorrow.