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Comment by digianarchist | Hacker News Reader

Flawed democracy is a more apt description. It's not a dictatorship.

The PAP could technically be unseated but it's unlikely due to gerrymandering and their use of the courts to silence the opposition.

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You're right that it's not a dictatorship but it's also not democratic. Not only in its government institutions but simply there is no civil society at all. From my personal experience there I've never been in a country that is so utterly devoid of politics as such. Life there feels like living in an over-sized company town, not a nation.

> Life there feels like living in an over-sized company town, not a nation.

How so?

Everything seemed very 'on rails' to me. Get your grades, get your HDB flat, get a corporate job, spend your free time at the mall or movies, there's very little in terms of politics or even culture or art or sports to be honest. When I'm in a foreign country I usually like to ask people where I can experience some local art or maybe read a local novelist, and Singapore was the country where by far even most locals did not know a single recommendation. The nation is small and that's one reason, but go to say, any Scandinavian country and the difference in terms of cultural activity is astonishing.

Also what surprised me was how little of a distinct Singaporean identity there is. The legal system is very British, culturally there's a huge Chinese influence obviously, but I couldn't really figure out if there's something that's really distinctly Singaporean (except for Singlish).

Caesar could technically be unseated, but it's unlikely due to his use of the pretorians and dagger-proof cloak? Stalin could technically be unseated, but it's unlikely due to his use of the KGB and gulags?

A dictatorship exists even if technically it could be unseated, just with no practical means available.

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