The feedback unit has recently released some "games" to help the public understand how it works.

Besides being inane, boring and pointless, I was particularly peeved by "Feedback Pursuit". Sacrificing some of my time to play this hilarious (in the bad sense) game and putting up with a banal 2-minute long soundtrack from the 80s put on loop, I bring you these findings:


1) You can lose points on penalty squares. Sample penalties:

- "Complain endlessly without any constructive suggestion" (the alternatives, of course, being either to provide on an unpaid basis suggestions to people who are paid handsomely to think up solutions, or to keep silent and pretend that everyone is happy and that no problem exists) [Addendum: Someone - "Aw, gee. If I were the majority shareholder of a company and I complained to the CEO about the lack of profits, or the shitty reputation it has, and the CEO asked me for an alternative, I'd have him sacked."]
- "Decline invitation to participate in dialogue session" (because the results of and treatment of feedback is unclear)
- "Disregard national issues" (thanks, no doubt, to decades of depoliticisation)
- "The government will take care of everything" ("We decide what is right, never mind what the people think. That's another problem"; the Faustian bargain is being amended - now citizens are expected to do their part, with no commensurate compensation)


2) There are "Reward" squares with items like:

- "Write to Forum page" (no doubt "complain[ing] endlessly without any constructive suggestion" or worse: coming up with a moronic one like governmental regulation of blogs, and concluding with "May the relevant authorities please look into this and/or reply")
- "Your feedback helped make a difference"

- "Participate in social survey"
Considering Section 20 of the Census Act reads:

"Any person who refuses to answer, to the best of his knowledge and belief, any question asked of him by a census officer which is necessary to obtain any information required for the purposes of a census... shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $1,600 ($1,000) or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one month or to both"
(http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_getdata.pl?actno=1973-REVED-\35),

it's no surprise that people feel compelled to participate in social surveys.

Some may point out that refusing to answer the census is a crime in the UK and US as well, but not only is that besides the point, offenders there do not have to go to jail.


3) They spelled "revitalise" with a Z. Tsk tsk.


All in all, this typifies the top-down mindset that locates citizens on a lower level whose sole conduit in attaining political self-actualization is by participating in feedback exercises and
writing in to the relevant authorites with constructive suggestions, and delegitimises other potential conduits, including those typically found in modern democracies.

Following this mindset, instead of using Critical Thinking skills so important to the New Economy in writing their Op-Eds, Catherine Lim and Cherian George should have gone to more tea sessions and participated in more feedback dialogues and written more letters to the Straits Times Forum with suggestions to the relevant authorities, resulting in their feedback being filtered and attenuated through an impersonal apparatus, with unknown results.

Also, given that the Feedback Unit is part of the Civil Service, it is exceedingly odd for the people to engage with it, rather than with the political process proper by voicing their opinions to their elected representatives; the Civil Service deals with implementation of policies, while the political process formulates them - thus, working through the civil service would presumably only tweak the implementation of said policies, rather than resulting in substantive change.


If anyone wants to torment themselves with bad music: http://fbu.snazza.com/