SMRT - the best Mass Transit System in the World

OP: SMRT Trains - Excellence In Motion (1994) - YouTube

"The MRT is an integral part of Singaporean life, it's efficiency echoes the very lifestyle of the nation"

Who now dares to compare SMRT to the nation? hahaha

A: When will you folks stop whining?

OP: ugh. I don't want to argue with you over this. can you give it a rest of being singapore gov's online crusader against unhappy comments?

A: I've just had a conversation with a newly met Swede - we both laughed out your massive whining here.

Hong Kong's MTR had massive disruptions this year too - actually greater than MRT. How about you folks get down to earth and accept things go wrong and people fuck up.

Including all of you.

And no, I don't like the idea of giving it a rest, because that would give baseless complaining free space. You people already come in great numbers, so why should one guy have to stay silent in the presence of this widespread stupidity?

OP: I'm not even proper complaining about SMRT. I'm just saying as a general trend standards have fallen as their past corporate media dares to compare themselves to pretty high standards.

Also, I feel the facts are against you, given KBW also admitted to the higher disruption rates, and the fact we're seeking consultancy help from the taiwanese.

I just don't understand why you see yourself as a tireless crusader of unhappiness and stupidity when it's stuff that people have something to complain about. Is there some aching in your soul to comment whenever someone makes a comment?

A: I don't remember MRT being down for 10 hours.

OP: Khaw Boon Wan raises bar on MRT reliability

I know this is in general a positive article but can you read the comparative stats

A: So what are you bitching about?

OP: Taipei - MBKF: 800,000
HK: 520,000km
Singapore: 393,000 ( with data of incidents omitted due to once every 30 year frequency)
A: HK < SG hence wrong A: What year is this from? Also - disruptions are not made equal. As I said, I don't remember MRT standing still for 10 hours.

Not to mention that globally Singapore would still be among the top performers. So again - what are you bitching about?

OP: This is a tiresome enterprise trying to talk some sense into your crusading. I'm just trying to say that SMRT corporate videos show evidence of stuff getting comparatively worse and you are lumping in all these other values of being grateful to be in Singapore.

A: I'm just allergic to stupidity and if there's nobody else to speak against it, then I will. Also, downfall of a country starts with convincing people they deserve more than they get - usually through lack of perspective and understanding of the context. It's very easy to push the entire country into the arms of a group of incompetent populists, ultimately.

Constant dropping wears away the stone. If baseless criticism is given space then it drives away positive information, leading to a more negative perception of the reality than it really is..

It's the last thing I want to see happening in Singapore. In other words your bitching does not lead to improvement - it leads to destruction.

As I said, you people are just ungrateful spoiled brats who lack any sense of perspective. The fucking MRT is the main topic here non-stop, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Trains go wrong everywhere in the world all the fucking time. Something bad happened? OK, needs to be fixed fine. But just fucking give it a rest finally.

But you idiots keep banging on about it as if it was some disaster. It rather proves how well Singapore is managed, that the biggest reason for groaning is a delayed train. Ludicrous.

OP: Arrghh.. you have an exceptionally short memory given that the last flooding disruption was more than 10 hours. But nothing will satisfy you larh.

A: It was a disruption on a limited distance. And geezus, it was one such incident since when? FFS, you people are completely mental.

OP: I think you need to separate you hatred of people who dislike the current SMRT situation with a general sense of unhappiness being in Singapore, or a lack of gratefulness or nationalism. Again, also the only fact you keep banging on is "SMRT is still good globally what"

Well it was better globally when it started, with the Taiwanese learning from us. Now it's no longer there. Also, I don't think my post was "hysterical" and crying for disaster.

Also it's not like these things happen in vacuum - there are systemic issues, And no I'm not mental, you and your crusading however is.

B: "On October 7, a heavy downpour had led to Bishan MRT station being flooded, and train services on the North-South Line being shut down for over 20 hours."

And FYI it flooded due to lapses in maintenance.

TODAYonline | Bishan SMRT flooding incident preventable and due to poor maintenance, says Khaw

and also MRT delays since 2011 presented as interactive visual graphic

A: You people just can't give it a fucking rest. I'm afraid to open the fridge to see MRT again. Yes, things happen, people make mistakes.

I would dearly like to see how many mistakes you make every year. And how other people bitch about your incompetence non-stop.

Yes - it happens, it's going to be fixed but not overnight. Now move on.

It just makes me puke to see how you morons keep banging on about the same thing over and over and over again.

OP: And here I thought I was just sharing an interesting video that showed comparatively worsening standards, while some guy is saying i'm hysterical, a moron etc etc.etc. 1am at night. gd night to you sir.

A: COMPARED TO FUCKING WHAT? 1994? When you had two lines, barely completed, trains operating at longer intervals, on far fewer stations?

And you want to compare fucking standards? You want to have an opinion?

You're completely oblivious to the fucking context. Awesome, compare it to 1960s then - zero kms of MRT, zero stations, zero delays. PERFECTION ATTAINED!

B: Nothing I hate more than a white dude complaining about Singaporeans complaining too much (IRONY), and behaving like he knows this country better than the people here do. Any criticism of Singaporeans whining about the MRT (just in this instance) needs to be taken in context with the other modes of transport available. First of all, public transport IS THE MAJOR MODE of transport. Unlike other countries where there are multiple lines servicing the same area or station, this doesn't really happen in SG. Cars are freaking expensive, so that's not really a viable alternative. And unlike other countries where living in other cities and less-urban/crowded areas are an option - Singapore is a city-state.

And it is also terribly sad that you had to go and pick on OP in a completely missed-the-point, going-to-nitpick-on-one-thing-you-said fashion just to try and show off your so-called rationality and intelligence. Don't you have better things to do? Move on.

A: Geezus christ, you people are so fucking stupid it beggars belief. If there's one thing that makes me a little apprehensive about gunning for a citizenship here is the level of mental debilitation of a significant part of the society. With this mentality you will destroy this country faster than it was built. When spoiled brats feel entitled to shit that's when things go totally wrong.

And yes, foreigners can judge Singaporeans and have good reasons to laugh at your ignorance - BECAUSE WE KNOW HOW FUCKING BAD IT IS EVEN IN THE "SO-CALLED" DEVELOPED WEST.

So we are fully aware of the context - and we come here and marvel at what past generations achieved in the city.

Unlike other countries? Like what other countries? And what population densities are these lines serving, even if there are multiple connections? Take a goddamn train in Tokyo for a comparison. I can't even fucking imagine the whining in Singapore if you had to travel in standards Japanese do. Old stations, overcrowded carriages, narrow platforms, lack of accessibility options etc. etc.

Cars are not an option not because they are expensive but because if all you idiots had a car then you would all be stuck in a single massive jam. You have plenty of buses and some of the most affordable taxis and private car transportation in the developed world. You can actually use them for regular commute without paying an arm and a leg for a fucking ride. Go ahead and try that in Paris, London or Tokyo.

You just don't know how good you have it here. And that's the problem. Because lack of appreciation coupled with entitlement mentality leads to a decline.

B: Oh! What a pity that you are so apprehensive about getting citizenship. Oh i beg you, please, change your mind, stay.

And surprise surprise, a white man trying to explain why cars are expensive in SG (I am stating a fact, not complaining) as though we have not listened to the government explain it to us over the last few decades.

Oh, woe the Singaporean who has not travelled, and has not seen the world beyond its shores and lived in a city where traffic is worse than ours.

Oh please enlightened one, tell us how to see the light.

A: Oh, so you have a better explanation? Amazing.

As I said - you spoiled brats may one day be the ruin of this great country.

I would invite you all to stand in front of the mirror and ask yourselves what the fuck have you done for Singapore exactly, to be ruffling feathers and making demands of others.

Think what your contribution is - beyond a loud, whiny mouth. Everybody is born with one. Opening it up is hardly an effort.

B: Actually, to answer your question, I volunteer my time with a local opposition party and have been doing so for the last 7 years. While i was studying in uni, I attended the MP's meet-the-people session every week for 3 years, meeting residents and answering their questions, drafting letters of appeal for rental housing, following up on welfare assistance requests.

What have you done for Singapore again?

And if you are considering being a citizen, well done, you have achieved the ability to complain about Singaporeans being complainers and perfectly fell into an stereotype.

A: Oh, you're with the opposition! Amazing 😂
Well - then you surely might be the ruin of Singapore. Even today you're just one cancerous cell on its healthy body.

B: Foreigners are more than welcomed to comment and criticise about our country. Many people do. What we can't stomach is a one who thinks they know this country better than the people who have lived here their whole lives. We don't hate foreigners, we just don't like people like yourself :)

oh yes yes, doom to Singapore! God forbid you live here one day longer.

C: I think it is pretty fair to want people who call Singaporeans who disagree with a 'cancerous cell' on its healthy body to not participate in our political system. Its not a foreigner vs local thing. It is a rational adult vs hysterical child thing.

A: I'm sorry but who the fuck are you? The next Lee Kuan Yew? Doubtful. And by siding with the opposition you're only proving your utter lack of respect and gratitude for achievements of the past - especially as Singaporean opposition is absolutely lamentable.

I can't stomach spoiled brats who think they can make demands, while all they have is loud, whiny mouths, which they use to attack people who make this country run.

You're a nobody and reckless nobodies like you don't try to make a conscious effort to improve things - but to mindlessly oppose, without any practical experience on any matter pertaining to managing complex projects of any sort.

B: LOL, okay, spoken yet again like an expat who knows nothing about this country. Who said about being the next Lee Kuan Yew??? Dude, do you even know how to argue?? lol.

I think I've established you're an idiot. If you feel very intelligent by pelting us with vulgarities and showing how 'frustrated' you are... well... continue to do so cause we don't give a shit what you think. I really only jumped in here cause poor OP even gave a rat's ass about giving you a decent reply.

A: You haven't built anything here, you're not managing anything here, you have no idea what it takes to get thousands of people to actually work in a common goal and execute it for the benefit of millions.

And yet you think you have some god given right to bash those who do, only on the basis that someone pushed you out of their ass in this part of the world.

Good times create weak people - and that's what is seen here. Spoiled, whiny, entitled brats, who make demands before they make an effort. Who complain without the faintest perspective of the global reality and Singapore's place in it.

Pride comes before a fall. Fortunately it is still more likely it will be your personal fall (especially since you're with the loser camp) than the fall of the country. At least for now - who knows what's going to happen when you whiners keep breeding.

Me: It's OK. Even when the government and/or smrt apologise and admit their faults he'll say it's just political posturing to appease ignorant childish idiot Singaporeans

So his claims are unfalsifiable

A: No, why? If there's a problem, somebody made a mistake, it's OK to acknowledge it and fix it. Which is what they are doing.

But why would that make anybody entitled to drone on about it for months on end, bitching how badly SMRT is managed, how the MRT system is bad etc. etc. I mean - who the fuck are you anyway to be the judge?

Given what Singaporean opposition represents, siding with them is a sure sign of stupidity.

D: If you had read some of the more established parties' manifestos and policy papers, you might see that they actually try to offer constructive suggestions. (Some considered commentary on the 2015 WP GE platform:
Workers’ Party’s Manifesto: What I like and What I don’t – Musings from Singapore).

Tarring every opposition supporter as stupid is not only unfounded, but also uncalled for. I'm done with this thread.

A: I'm sorry, but if you judge parties by manifestos you clearly have problems with independent thinking. Not to mention that there are no sane opposition parties in Singapore - whether in manifestos or outside of them.

If you side with any - not to mention being an activist - you're just dumb. There's no other word for it.

E: Don't you get tired

A: I'm never tired of bashing idiots who are harmful to Singapore.

I know truth hurts. But hey, there's always hope, you can always shut the fuck up and do something constructive instead. Prove others wrong. Of course it's tougher than whining about somebody else doing something.

I have all the arguments - you have none. Just your loud mouths.

B: "I win all the arguments! I am the champion! And I completely intolerant of dissenting opinion! I hate all of you and I am blocking all of you!"

A: The only thing I'm still uncertain about is the proportion of you muppets in the country. Whether you're just a whining minority, that soon will be occupied mainly with personal failures, or a tangible threat to Singapore. Every developed state has entitled morons who are best at complaining about how everybody should be doing things better - except themselves. The only - and critical - difference is their share in the society. Whether they can be contained or will they spread like a disease, ruining the achievements of predecessors.

Luckily the people in charge here have always been smart enough to understand this phenomenon and its gravity. One can only hope it's enough.

E: There's no arguing with people who go out of their way to nitpick and find evidence,real or imagined, to confirm their narrow minded worldview.sounds like you're the moron here m8

B: No one here even complained about the MRT man. Lol. He just created something so he could have a massive let’s-shit-on-Singaporeans session.

A: Nitpick? WTF do I have to nitpick? That thousands of lowlife Singaporeans take to the social media to bitch about everything and revel in it?

They say we don't know who discovered water but it wasn't a fish. You don't realize how stupid and ridiculous your bitching looks like to outside observers. And it's only proving why, even after decades of ubelievably successful progress, the society still has to have a very tight oversight, because you whiners are just a step from properly ruining it.

One can only hope that you are really just a loud minority and the silent majority continues sticking to the course.

The really funny bit is that you feel so terribly entitled to bitching and yet are outraged when somebody lashes out at you. You repeatedly complain or ridicule somebody else's work or their mistakes (even though they are relatively small in the greater, global context) - and you feel it's perfectly fine to drone on about it forever. But when someone snaps and tells you off, you're so angry and offended. Oh, you don't like it, do you?

It's comical how all of that still fails to make you self-reflect. What exactly have you contributed to making Singapore work like clockwork, that you forward these demands and assume a position in which you judge and criticize other people? And why all of a sudden you feel immune to criticism yourselves?

Singapore has one of the best public transportation systems in the world - not to mention likely the most affordable out of all developed countries.

F: I think A needs to take some time to ask himself where all this vitriol is coming from.

It’s a Sunday, there are virtually no stakes in him winning this online argument, and he very quickly went ad hominem in his comments; personally I’ve never bitched about the train system because I actually dig it a lot, but the sheer volume of venom from someone who has no “skin in the game” (why are you shaming others about “contributing to Singapore” like some two-bit prematurely retrenched old timer at a coffee shop, all the while having it pointed out (rightly) that our continued success - or eventual failure - is none of your business?) is peculiar.

I guess the real question to ask here is, A, don’t you have real things in your life to be this mad about? Instead of bitterly flaming a bunch of people you don’t know, from a country you’re not from, about how it’s run? Sheesh.

A: I care about the future of Singapore and it fills me with utter disgust to see a bunch of whiners doing what similar people do around the world - lashing out at those who actually do something, to a point this is becoming a quite endless stream of ridicule from people who themselves have contributed less than any of those they attack.

So why should they be immune to criticism themselves? I'm just pointing out the stupidity of the loud minority and run them down in a fashion quite typical for me. That's all.

All of a sudden I'm the problem - one guy barking back at those who continuously bark at others. I find it quite entertaining how it now creates a wave of reactions. And yet, there's never any self-reflection from the people who take a similar position versus others.

And now you people crawl out of the woodwork to tell me to give it peace? It's quite comical. All year the main topic for some here people is that trains occasionally break down. And when someone snaps under the wave of utter ignorance and stupidity, they become the problem?

It does strike me that I appear to have the future of Singapore as a higher priority than all of you combined. You just have an ever mounting pile of expectations and demands.

I can't take that some people keep being run down all the time for relatively minor fuck ups. It creates a very bad atmosphere about the services - and about the country, when things get blown out of proportion.

I'm quite allergic to all that, since I come from a country where people fuck everything up by themselves and for themselves all the time - and complain to fuckin' infinity. So I know how bad things start, even when everything seemingly goes alright.
That's also why I understand how special Singapore is, how much effort it took to create all it has - and how little it may take to undermine it.

Me: I wonder how bad things have to get for them to not be considered "relatively minor fuck ups"

A: And who the fuck are you Gabriel to be the judge? What are your responsibilities here?

Anybody can bitch without taking actual charge of anything. It's the easiest thing in the world.

Me: And your credentials are... lots of vitriol and bluster?

A: I'm not the one making claims MRT can be better managed or that can operate better.

Me: Right. So you're no one.

A: In area of public transportation management? Yes, I am no one.

Just like you. But contrary to you, I'm not suggesting things can be ran better. Not to mention doing it in a position of zero responsibility for it.

That's why I accept the superiority of people who have built this system and have been running it for 30 years. Especially given my experiences as a commuter on public transportation in many countries around the world. Singapore ranks top on my list. Maybe HK or Taipei are better - no idea, never used them.

You know what that's called? Fuckin' humility. You spoiled brats clearly need some.

Me: Don't take it from me.

Take it from whiny bitch Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan who said that there was "poor maintenance and neglect of duties", and that the 20 hour line shutting flooding incident "was preventable" and that "It should not have happened" (Are work lapses a systemic problem at SMRT? Analysts weigh in)

Take it from ungrateful spoiled brat Walter Theseira, a transport economist at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, who thinks that it's "the management’s job to ensure that the system is robust such that it will be very difficult, if not improbable, for any small group of people to basically cause the whole system to fail"

Or take it from the horse's mouth: ignorant childish idiot Singaporean SMRT chairman Seah Moon Ming who proclaimed that "SMRT needs to critically review its operations and support, and maintenance policies, manuals and procedures" (SMRT enlists help of DSTA to review its processes)

But of course we all know that the Transport Minister and SMRT chairman are lying because of political reasons, and that they really know that the SMRT is perfect and that SMRT is perfect and that there is no way to improve it, and that academics are useless ignorant out of touch ivory tower residents who know nothing about the real world and only know how to criticise, and have never done anything worthwhile in their lives.=