Singapore - The Clean City

Not sure if I mentioned this before. But here it goes...

We all (well ok, not we all, more like you all) have been ingrained by propaganda that Singapore is wonderful clean city right (literally clean I mean)? Well, this is true. No surprise here. I won't say LA is like a trashcan, but ya Singapore is cleaner.

So... while you're booming with your Sinkaporean pride, here's what WL has developed here.

Why is there a need to be so clean in the first place? Yes... WHY???

I see blank stares... Ok, then some people are saying "Clean is good what..."

My fuck. Let's go to first principles. Why do we maintain cleanliness in the first place? Truthfully, there is only one damn reason - disease. A dirty environment spread diseases with the introduction of {there's a godamn biology term for this}, the entity that transfer diseases such as rats. Dirty environment also breed germs and stuff like that. But is it really to be squeaky clean like Singapore? NO. All we need to do is to be clean enough, and Sinkapore is definitely at the stage of "diminishing returns", we're putting too much public money to maintain our cleanliness.

The bastards cynics like me, would then argue that cleaning the city gives people job for the lower socio-economic class. True. But the same can be said, if we pay the road sweepers the same salary (thus ensuring employment), but reducing the workload to like working once or twice per week. WL is not kidding! Why da fuck do we have to be so clean?

You know why? Cause Sinkaporeans (and here I officially distance myself from you guys) have a fucking fetish for cleanliness. Want proof? All through your (and mine) fucking life, you have been conditioned to have a cleanliness fetish. From Primary to Secondary and to JC all had the fucking "use your hand campaign" (i.e. mass cleaning session). Then, there is the over-emphasis on class duty (sweep floor, dust the board, etc...) which btw WL never commits to... because it is simply irrelevant to a job scope of a student, and then of course some girls will simply declare Total War on WL for not doing his "duty" for cleaning the classroom. Duty, my fuck... Then, MOE teachers (oei MOE scholars attention here) would complain how dirty the board is, etc. And in the National Slavery organization cleanliness is again emphasized... for what fucking relevance does it have?!?! Thank god the cleaning fetish ended in the university. Oh, don't forget the don't litter signs everywhere... and btw WL does litter (haha little secret for you to know). And no, I don't feel guilty. And obviously I don't get caught. What's wrong with littering? If I see no dustbin and if I am tired of holding the trash, I just get rid of it.

And screw you if you're trying to a pull a Grace Chong on this one. (Sidenote: Grace Chong was my Secondary 4 CME teacher, a fucking moralistic bitch who think that she's a saint). Common counter-argument is treat public property like how you would treat your room. Trust me dude, you don't want WL to treat public property like his room.

Dude, the fucking UCLA profs here don't complain when the bloody board is dirty!!! And nobody complains LA is dirty... certainly not me! Sure, it is not very nice to see... but seriously money is better spent elsewhere than to keep up the fucking clean-and-green wayang show for the world to see.

So, when you look at your clean city again. Think about how much money is wasted to maintain that image, which is technically useless and irrelevant. Think about how better it can be spent.

Man... ok I think the Ethics & Public Policy class is getting to me. LOL.

So I guess in the spirit of my module, "Is the Singapore decision to spend excessive public funds on maintaining the city cleanliness an ethical decision, in light of the more pressing social needs of the country?"

Ok seriously that was bullshit... we haven't covered stuff like this in class... but it got me thinking anyway. Ok, it's more like an outburst after 6+4+2+2 years of clean fetish oppressiveness...