One of the most ridiculous threads ever:


A: I generally dislike the pro-life rhetoric of a 'culture of death', but boy, if there is one society with a culture of death, it's Singapore. We have the highest per capita rate of executions, and apparently when dear LKY was PM it was a Ministry of Health policy to 'strongly encourage' mothers who were found to have abnormal babies to abort them. Plus the whole thing about clever people like graduates being more eligible to reproduce, the flippant attitude to deaths and serious accidents in the military, etc etc etc etc.


Me:

>Plus the whole thing about clever people like graduates being more
>eligible to reproduce,

What does this have to do with death?!

>the flippant attitude to deaths and serious accidents in the
>military, etc etc etc etc.

Actually the concern with safety in the SAF is extremely intense. I believe it must be one of, if not the most safety-obsessed military in the world. There are boards of inquiry for all deaths and (I believe) serious accidents.

Slavery may be unacceptable but there's no need to claim there is a flippant attitude to deaths and serious accidents there.


A: The point about a 'culture of death' is that it does not respect the equal right of every person to equal moral consideration. That is why I am continually puzzled by those who think pro-life= biological life, which has almost no moral significance. It is moral personality which is at stake here. To say that some people have more of a right to reproduce is to suggest that certain kinds of people have less of a right to reproduce, and/or to live.

I trust this is clear.

> Actually the concern with safety in the SAF is extremely intense.

This is not true. Having typed up many of the reports issued by such 'inquiries', I assure you that they are generally farcical and for show.


Me: Saying that encouraging women to have abortions is symptomatic of a culture of social engineering in Singapore would be correct. Saying that it is symptomatic of a culture of DEATH (emphasis mine) is inconsistent with your other views and is anyway incorrect since foetuses are not properly alive.

> The point about a 'culture of death' is that it does not respect the equal right
> of every person to equal moral consideration... It is moral personality which is
> at stake here. To say that some people have more of a right to reproduce is to
> suggest that certain kinds of people have less of a right to reproduce, and/or to
> live.
>
> I trust this is clear.

No, it is not. In fact your point is extremely bizarre.

A government encouraging clever people to reproduce more may be reminiscent of a mild form of eugenics (since they are not forced to do so), but this does not mean that people are not given equal moral consideration. Note the difference between government *mandated* reproduction and government *encouraged* reproduction. You might as well say that advertising coerces you into buying products and thus should be banned.

Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

Furthermore, what is this nonsense about having more or less of a right to reproduce and/or to live?! If a government gives tax credit for first time homebuyers does this mean that those who are buying homes for the second, third or subsequent times have less of a right to buy a home?!

I would also question the concept of moral personality defining personhood. Does a newborn infant have moral personality? Does a person in a coma have moral personality?


B: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

OK ALLOW ME TO DO THAT AGAIN:

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

You actually believe that? The SAF seven core values or whatever. We had an extended discussion about this already, on the nature of the SAF, and how every L or H BOI is a farce, and the culture of "safety" as you say is a farce. Gabriel, Gabriel, sometimes you say the most H-I-LA-RIOUS things.


Me: No one is saying Slavery is 100% safe or a walk in the park, but:

There are safety briefings before all events (one hilarious item I saw in the instructions for Company Games was under safety hazards: "Serviceman is hit by frisbee") and you have to stand up so you're alert (this is what someone tells me).

They force you to drink water before events so you are unlikely to get heatstroke (and you're not allowed to do strenuous events the night before).

Medics are assigned to cover even "recreational" runs out of camp (did you have medical cover when you did your 2.4km run in JC?)

Medics have to carry Automated External Defibrillators for all (most?)
events.

If you have a high fever in the middle of the night you can get medical attention relatively quickly (the queues are much shorter than in A&Es).

We have helicopter evacuation for important missions.

There's a safety hotline for you to call.

There are safety posters to encourage awareness.

What was that about a culture of death again?


B: I am going to pull a Gabriel, and reply to each of your points with a
one-liner.

> There are safety briefings before all events

Yes, the safety briefings are so, like, safety oriented! Yeah. That's why you have such important safety hazards like "someone is hit by a frisbee". This is so NOT evidence of some hasty S3 branch planning two hours beforehand. So NOT just going through the motions. SO an example of a culture of safety!

> They force you to drink water before events so you are unlikely to get
> heatstroke (and you're not allowed to do strenuous events the night
> before).

And yet many sergeants persist in telling their recruits NOT to report sick, under threat of malingering. And yeah, last time I checked, the "not allowed to do strenuous events the night before" and the "seven hours of sleep" thing were just like, guidelines that are not adhered to.

> Medics are assigned to cover even "recreational" runs out of camp (did
> you have medical cover when you did your 2.4km run in JC?)

Medics who spend their courses poking each other, who are badly motivated and don't even want to be there? Medics who can't tell a vein from a lymph node?

> Medics have to carry Automated External Defibrillators for all (most?)
> events.

Medics who don't know how to use it? Medics who know how to use it but just can't be bothered? Medics smsing and talking on their handphones and playing Nintendo? Yeah. So safe!

> If you have a high fever in the middle of the night you can get
> medical attention relatively quickly (the queues are much shorter than
> in A&Es).

? Ok. Yeah, this is like on Tekong, where the MO will grumpily wake up and give you a scolding if your fever is not life-threatening. Last I checked, most other medical centres were not 9-5.

> We have helicopter evacuation for important missions.

Righty-o. Like, for when the person has gone into a coma after being too scared by his sergeants to report that he thinks he has the
symptoms of heat exhaustion, one of which is disorientation and confusion. We've been through this.

> There's a safety hotline for you to call.

Yeah. And people call it, because you know, anonymity is like SUCH an important thing in the army.

There are also safety risk hazard forms for you to fill in, and sometimes people are asked to fill them in just for the sake of
showing that hazards are being identified and rectified. Once again - all for show, baby.

> There are safety posters to encourage awareness.

Are you listening to yourself? Yeah. Safety posters! Great! Yay! OHSAS certified! THE SAF ROCKS IT IS SUCH A SAFE PLACE!

> What was that about a culture of death again?

Yeah, not so much a culture of death as a culture of "oh my god I must guard my own ass" instead of a culture of "life is important and must be respected".


Cock: I will also agree with Gabriel on this one. Safety is also treated fairly seriously by mechanics in the various units that I was in. For example, repairing heavy machinery can be dangerous, if one does not take safety precautions.

But of course things like the duty of clearing up black lubricants spilled onto the workshop floor MUST be some meaningless and pointless task rather than something important to prevent people from slipping up and cracking their skulls, isn't it?

If safety was not really important in the SAF, then WHY is it that I felt relatively assured that the cranes we used to use in the workshop to lift out spoilt engines out of tanks were not going to snap? Oh that's because hm...the cranes get inspected for wear and tear regularly by outside inspectors.

Another example: some tanks float, and believe it or not we actually cross reservoirs in them. This is why soldiers take the duty of clearing out the muddy gunk that sometimes collects around the little pumps seriously, and why technicians make sure the pumps work before such exercises. NO commander in my mind has ever things said like " oh, let us be garang and let's see if we can ford this river even though the wire basket surrounding the pump is choked with leaves and mud". That is why despite many, many river crossings no soldier has drowned-by-tank.

And so on and so forth.

The point is, NO ONE wants to get injured, lose limbs and fingers, or get killed while doing routine military stuff. Ironically, I think that's partly because many military personnel are paid so badly. NO ONE is going to risk their life for a pitable few hundred dollars.

There are a lot of things one can accuse the SAF of, but having a culture of disregard of safety is NOT one of them. If I recall correctly, more SAF personnel die or get injured riding their motorcycles to and from work in army camps than in the course of doing military stuff.

And don't be silly. Everyone knows that there must be a culture of safety in all levels of an organisation. This generally be it a shipyard, or an oil refinery, or the army. YOUR safety and indeed, OTHER PEOPLE'S safety is NOT entirely the responsibility of your higher ups. Everyone has a part to play in having safe work practices. This is not meaningless management gibberish. Although I may have been stating the obvious, unfortunately there are quite a few selfish souls out there in the SAF of all levels who stubbornly refuse to recognise this.

I hope I have made my point clear to some ex-NSFs whom, basic military training aside ( and in my experience I agree that the safety culture on the Island of Doom is unsatisfactory compared to any of the other units I have been in), have really not done anything more risky than riding a 5 tonner.


A: Thank you, Jiekai. I bow to your superior knowledge, for of course, having been 'a real man' and done 'things riskier than riding in a truck' or whatever fuck, you of course know best.

OF COURSE there are safety checks. This is Singapore, not the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My point is PRECISELY that higher management don't really give a fuck for the safety of essentially dispensable privates/recruits/etc.

And for your information, I have typed out the 'plans' (or whatever fuck they are called I can no longer be bothered to remember) for many safety officers, and in fact I have done some of these plans myself since many are not literate. In my experience, the pervasive thought is 'ok we have XYZ safety guidelines, but they are something for us to work against -- it is how little we can get away with, not how much'. My point, I stress again, was that ultimately the lives of low-ranking NSFs, especially those who have poor educational qualifications, are given VERY LITTLE consideration. This is the 'culture of death' I was referring to.

More subtlety, please, people.


Me: I never thought the day would come when I would have to defend the SAF, but I suppose this is the price of intellectual honesty.


>Yes, the safety briefings are so, like, safety oriented! Yeah. That's
>why you have such important safety hazards like "someone is hit by a
>frisbee".

You misspelled "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" as "HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA"! Because of one spelling mistake, you must be a terrible speller and we can now disregard all of your postings!

>And yet many sergeants persist in telling their recruits NOT to
>report sick, under threat of malingering.

Yes, all recruits who report sick are charged for malingering. This is why the Tekong Medical Centre is empty and DB is full of inmates, since all of them are charged.

In the last year, I've seen people in Singapore littering many times, despite littering being an offence that brings not only a fine but
CWO. This must mean that, contrary to analyses, Singapore is not authoritarian and the populace are not socially engineered since they dare to litter.

> Medics who spend their courses poking each other, who are badly
> motivated and don't even want to be there? Medics who can't tell a
> vein from a lymph node?

Yes, I'd trust a nurse who had never drawn blood before to draw my blood.

The other day, I heard teachers complaining at lunch that they were underpaid and couldn't wait to finish their bonds. This means that they must be abusing their students and no one learns anything in MOE schools.

And wth do you need to be able to tell a vein from a lymph node to do what a medic does?!

>Medics smsing and talking on their handphones and playing Nintendo?
>Yeah. So safe!

I was at an A&E the other night and there were no patients. The nurses were talking to each other and going for coffee instead of practising their emergency drills and simulating triage. Oh my god. They must be fired for lack of dedication!

>? Ok. Yeah, this is like on Tekong, where the MO will grumpily wake
>up and give you a scolding if your fever is not life-threatening.
>Last I checked, most other medical centres were not 9-5.

If you report sick in the middle of the night and it's serious enough, you will be sent to the nearest 24 hour medical centre.

>>We have helicopter evacuation for important missions.
>
> Righty-o. Like, for when the person has gone into a coma after being
> too scared by his sergeants to report that he thinks he has the
> symptoms of heat exhaustion, one of which is disorientation and
> confusion. We've been through this.

The fact that MI5 failed to stop the 7 July London Bombings, although they have foiled lots of terrorist plots, means that they are incompetent, don't care about Britain's security and should be disbanded!

>>There's a safety hotline for you to call.
>
>Yeah. And people call it, because you know, anonymity is like SUCH an
>important thing in the army.

You don't have to say who you are. The SAF counselling hotline is also anonymous if you wish it to be so.

>>There are safety posters to encourage awareness.
>
>Are you listening to yourself? Yeah. Safety posters! Great! Yay!
>OHSAS certified! THE SAF ROCKS IT IS SUCH A SAFE PLACE!

WOO! Let's TEAR DOWN the posters! It's going to make the place much safer!

>Yeah, not so much a culture of death as a culture of "oh my god I
>must guard my own ass" instead of a culture of "life is important and
>must be respected".

To guard your own ass, you have to not get people killed or seriously injured.

The SAF may not give slaves enough dignity, care or respect, but it cannot be faulted for not caring about safety.

Once again I challenge you to name many armed forces that are more obsessed with safety than the SAF.


B: Gabriel, the obsession with safety of which you speak is merely superficial, as I have been trying to point out. You may be a champion of intellectual honesty, but anyone with half a brain can see that the SAF really only cares about the safety of its personnel because it is afraid of complaining parents. The dynamics of "this person is of intrinsic worth, therefore I must look out for his safety and well-being" is very different from "I must get this certification, and meet my KPIs, hence I will put up safety posters and have contingency plans". This difference is stark, and anyone with half a brain can tell that the SAF's safety standards are merely another symptom of its "wayang" nature. But of course, I could be wrong. After all, I only spent two years looking at 14001 and OHSAS certifications.


Me: I never said the SAF was benevolent, altruistic and caring.

My point was that claiming the SAF has a "culture of death" is preposterous and that many precautions are taken for the sake of safety.

I am glad that you now accept my points.


Cock: Yes. Even though it is true that regulars regard NSFs( reservists?) as a bunch of maggots, we are regarded as valuable maggots and there are strong incentives for regulars to do what is necessary not to maim or kill us. Even if done out of the wrong intentions, the general result is that for a conscripted force, casualty rates in peacetime activities from bad safety are low.

I do not claim to have done the riskiest tasks. On the other hand, as Gabriel has pointed out, news about accidents spreads like fast across units. It is very difficult for there to be a cover-up. We are a small island.

Finally, I think it is unhelpful to be too scornful of the value of safety posters and exhibitions. People actually do look at them, even if they won't admit it. Quite often, they also put up photos of mangled or damaged vehicles on them as well. If you were an NCO or an officer, you would be reminded that you don't really want to travel in a vehicle manned by an exhausted/disoriented driver. The moral of the story is, "mistreat the slaves and they don't even need to be pointing a gun in your direction to endanger your life".

As for comparisons with other conscript armies and terrible treatment, look at this:

http://www.russiablog.org/2006/06/genocide_or_stupidity.php
*snip story about Russian army*

The treatment of slaves in the SAF is nowhere close to this sort of thing. Please do not exaggerate the extent to which regulars or even senior conscripts regard the lives of junior slaves as worthless. I repeat, NSlaves may be maggots to them but there are prudential, if not moral reasons to harm NSlaves.


B: I don't accept your points, Gabriel, they're usually pointless one-liners like "Oh there are safety posters". Your points are ridiculous, namely, that the SAF takes intelligent, compassionate and necessary steps to look after its CONSCRIPT soldiers, above and beyond just going through the motions. Which is, as I have shown, problematic. This may not translate into what you think is a "culture of death", since, as you have shown, you have a tendency to be extremely - dare I say foolishly - literal. But as I have been trying to point out there is surprisingly little respect for the value of life in the SAF. For example, the case of the drowned commandos, where "justice" was served.


Cock: If there had truly been little respect for the value of life, no follow-up action or consequences would have ensued as a result. But there was a huge national scandal when the facts were revealed, criminal charges were pressed against some of the people responsible, and some other people's careers were destroyed. We are not like the Russians.


C: Perhaps a better description is not "a culture of death" but "a culture of ranking the importance of life", e.g. an officer's life is worth more than a recruit's. If an SAF officer had a chance to save the life of a recruit at the risk of his own life, perhaps he would think twice. Would one of the US Army values, "never abandon a fallen comrade", apply to the SAF?


A: I already said Jiekai:

'We are better than Russia' is NOT one of today's more desired accolades.


D: Summary.
Gabriel: You are saying that there's a culture of death in the SAF! You are wrong!
B: You are saying that the SAF is very nice, compassionate, and takes very good care of the conscripts! You are wrong! And stupid!

***
"..."


Me:

> I don't accept your points, Gabriel

Then we have nothing left to discuss.