"I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave." - E. M. Forster, as a small child

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Club mad

"He had planned a night of revelry with friends at St James Power Station last Saturday, but when National University of Singapore student Matthew Rao flashed his identity card (IC) at the door of the popular nightclub, he was requested to pay the $20 cover charge.

His four friends - from England, Germany, France and Finland - filed in for free.

The reason: They were foreign students on exchange in Singapore, while he was local...

Ms Khong said the policy aimed to "encourage a cosmopolitan party atmosphere for our young partygoers" and added that St James regularly hosts parties thrown by local tertiary institutions and students."

The reaction to this is unequivocably negative, and there are cries of discrimination and such.

Yet, nary a sound is heard about Ladies' Nights, which are equally discriminatory. This is probably because Ladies' Nights work out for everyone - women like the free entry and men like the women, so no one complains.

Policies designed to attract and which give advantages to tourists are not unique to Singapore. Tourist-only beaches in Cuba aside, the Eurail pass cannot be bought by residents of non-European countries, the Japan Rail Pass cannot be bought by Japanese residents, the Great British Heritage Pass can only be bought by "international visitors to Britain" and in Denmark you have tax-free cars which only tourists can rent. Furthermore, in most countries with Value Added Tax (VAT), tourists can get a refund upon leaving them.

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Singapore Peak Oil: Energy, Entropy, Economics, Ecology: Axioms of Sustainability for Singapore

"I compiled these axioms of sustainability from Heinberg, Feeney, Bartlett and Monbiot. The Singapore government needs to abide by these axioms if we are to tackle climate change successfully and ensure a sustainable living environment for present and future generations. Failure to conform to these axioms will render MEWR's blueprint (Green Plan 2012) towards environmental sustainability ineffective in the long term."

Much of this is New Age Neo-Malthusian rubbish. I agree with some parts, but a lot of the rest is dodgy. The more misleading bits:

Our flawed neoclassical economic growth paradigm.
This article accuses Economics of being stuck in the 19th century, but that's because it attacks 19th century Economics. Among other things, there are economic growth models incorporating limited natural resources and there are ways of internalising environmental damage into economic analyses.

Our fractional reserve banking system which is based on a flawed assumption that infinite economic growth is both possible and desirable.
I don't know why fractional reserve banking and economic growth are mentioned in the same breath. Given that the energy intensity of GDP (Energy use per dollar of GDP) has been steadily declining, I don't see what the problem is (ie infinite economic growth is possible). And it is certainly desirable, since without it people are unhappy due to hedonic adaptation.

Food self-sufficiency
Singapore and food self-sufficiency do not go together in the same sentence. One word: trade.

(Tainter’s Axiom): Any society that continues to use critical resources unsustainably will collapse.
True enough, but this is a tautology. Ditto for many of the other lines there.

(Bartlett’s Axiom): Population growth and/or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.
Yes, but development lowers population growth: look at the Developed World. And if new resources are discovered, then increasing consumption of resources can certainly be sustained.

The system which governs our economic lives, which we call capitalism, is itself is a limited resource. Capitalism is a pyramid scheme.
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The response time of populations to changes in the human fertility rate is the average length of a human life, or approximately 70 years. ( Bartlett and Lytwak 1995 ) [ This is called "population momentum." ]
This seems to be a misunderstanding of the term. Fertility rate can change due to many things - family planning, contraceptive availability, one-child policies etc.

The size of population that can be sustained ( the carrying capacity ) and the sustainable average standard of living of the population are inversely related to one another.
This is assuming a static world. Technology progresses.

The benefits of population growth and of growth in the rates of consumption of resources accrue to a few; the costs of population growth and growth in the rates of consumption of resources are borne by all of society.
This ignores how 60 million Chinese were lifted out of poverty between 2001 and 2004 or how the number of people living on under a dollar a day has fallen and is projected to fall further.

When large efforts are made to improve the efficiency with which resources are used, the resulting savings are easily and completely wiped out by the added resources consumed as a consequence of modest increases in population.
This is one of those grand sounding statements that doesn't mean anything. How large is large? How modest is modest?

The benefits of large efforts to preserve the environment are easily canceled by the added demands on the environment that result from small increases in human population.
Ditto.

When rates of pollution exceed the natural cleansing capacity of the environment, it is easier to pollute than it is to clean up the environment.
I would think that it is almost always easier to pollute than clean up the environment.

The chief cause of problems is solutions.
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Humans will always be dependent on agriculture. Supermarkets alone are not sufficient. The central task in sustainable agriculture is to preserve agricultural land.
If agricultural yields keep increasing, agricultural land can be reduced.

In every local situation, creating jobs increases the number of people locally who are out of work.
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