Continuing with the theme of building nations, here’s a counter-intuitive take on Singapore – a country people world over have marvelled at over the years, all the more commendable given the short span in which it has achieved this status. The author, a Singaporean whilst proud of its development, laments about the lack of creativity. The sub-title of the blog reads as “thoughts on why the smartest country in the world has never shipped anything that matters, and why only you can fix it”
“We are the descendants of those brave few who, fleeing war, fleeing famine, or perhaps just seeking their fortunes, gave up their whole world to move to a new life on this island.
They built a country which works so well, it has tamed the utter chaos that historically defined most of our forebears’ lives and given us all a neat, packaged life. A life which most of us can live formulaically, sleepwalking through it without doing a single brave thing. You are, of course, still expected to work hard, but we hold the honour of being the first immigrant nation to have so thoroughly self-domesticated, to have ourselves doused the ambition which ferried the droves of hungry poor, desperate and begging for better lives.
We are a rich land, and we have been a rich land for decades. Our people are industrious, hard-working, and well-educated. Our universities are nearly world-class, and they will only get better with time. We hold the privilege of being the only nation in this world with a sane government, and a competent bureaucracy.
All this effort — fifty years of non-stop toil — turning a fallow wasteland into fertile earth, and where are all the crops we have to show for it? Where are all the local companies that we can point to and be proud of? Where are our Ericssons and Nokias?”
The choice of companies at the end of that rant seems to be intentional, in that, the crux of the argument that follows is the Singaporean culture that doesn’t particularly appreciate failure, something very crucial for risk taking innovation.
“Our best minds don’t build — they’re all far too smart for that! We Singaporeans are so smart, we know that the safest way to get a return on our investment is to see what everyone else is doing, and to do it better. We’re so numerate, we know instinctively that starting something new has a lower risk-adjusted EV than working hard as an investment banker/consultant/lawyer/doctor/software engineer, and with a far higher Sharpe ratio too – look at this study that shows how 90% of startups actually fail!”
So, what is it about the culture that snubs risk taking? Ironically, the author points to Singapore’s world-renowned education system:
“We have a brutal education system that rewards those that keep winning and shunts aside those that fail at any point. Those who commit the grave sin of fucking up even one exam, must pay penance by being forced take the long way through the Singaporean life (save of course, those rich enough to pay for an indulgence to go overseas).
By the time you reach university, you have survived two cycles of competitive examinations, each of which purports to endow in you necessary skills/knowledge to function in this modern age, but in actuality teaches you the most important lesson of all in Singapore: do not be the one that gets cut.
The rational response to such a system is to spend all your energy climbing as far up the pole as possible, before the woodchipper at the bottom grinds you down. But when every test score determines your future, who can afford to be bad at anything? The opportunity cost of an extra exam paper done or an hour spent in a tuition class is a side-project not pursued, a skill not learnt, another door closed in a long and unknown future. It is the artificial constriction of an otherwise large and varied life into paths of academic excellence, where the end goal is to become one of those professionals in a field which rewards sterling credentials.
Maybe you’re part of the 1% who never struggled in school – lucky you! You have enough spare capacity to find out what you actually like, experiment around a bit. There’s maybe 50 of you per batch. Half of you will then saunter prestigiously into the government and never see the light of day again. The other half will leave for America and never come back.”
The author goes on to talk about what’s holding back even those who realise this aspect and finally how she emigrated to the US to imbibe the risk-taking culture vowing to come back and build in Singapore.
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