On Politics, Hype and Decision-making

TLDR;

Part 1:

General elections in Singapore this year has activated a broader political conciousness.
This is a good thing.

Part 2:

I abhor hype. But I am keen to open my mind to contrarian views to challenge my thinking on this.
I appreciate its potential to create a positive impact (if not abused)

I decided to combine a draft blog post I had been mulling over with a very timely and topical issue here in Singapore.

GE HYPE TWENTY TWENTYyyy

A Step change in Politics, but a Masterstroke in Governance?

What stands out from the results is that everyone is happy. In an age of Trump, Brexit and many others…this is highly, highly unusual.

Two online communities: reddit (young demographic, wishing for their voices to be heard and Hardwarezone (people left behind by the incumbent government ) are…lets say “representative” media sources I browse through every now and again to get contrarian views. Despite the demographic divide, both seem happy with the outcomes. This, despite the incumbents winning the vast majority of Parliamentary seats.

As in turns out, I think the biggest “winners” of this are the electorate. The same cannot be easily said of other countries in the last five years….

We now have a Singapore which:

Can get Sh** done amidst a crisis. (say what you want, but my view is that times of crisis are better spent under consolidated leadership instead of a fragmented one, assuming reasonable competency of course.)
An activated democratic populace - highest voter turnout in quite some time, across demographics.
Relatively appeased camps
A legitimate opposition - an indication of a maturing democracy?

In short, I actually find myself looking at Singapore with an optimistic lens, for…

The best measure of success of a democracy is the quality of its opposition.

Overcoming the Odds

There are a few things that came to mind when I mulled over the some the barriers preventing the ability to forge a strong opposition. This warrants much deeper research, but here are some thoughts off the top of my head:

Inertia for change - with a large enough populace, there is a greater diversity of issues. For example, the rural/ urban divide is non-existent in Singapore, and allows policy makers to address issues with relative homogeneity. This reinforces homogenous representation, which favours a single-party system.
Probability of the Capable- with a large enough populace, there is more willingness and ability to govern. 0.1% of China’s 1.4 billion population will give you a million good candidates to choose from. Surely some of these would enter public service? On the other hand, Singapore’s 0.1% - that leaves us with a pool of a few thousand eligible Singaporeans. The odds are innately stacked against us.
Probability of the Willing - There will always be a push for our best and brightest seek their fortunes elsewhere - some enslaved to money and “financial success”, others in the pursuit of freedom. Opinion: Ego tends to prevail in the “survivalist” mindset that Singapore oh so loves to espouse. I am not entirely sure where Singapore sits in terms of the individual vs communal mindsets. That said, with no common public goods (e.g. natural resources) at stake to enable corruption - I seriously doubt those in politics are in it for the fame or money.

And thus, it is most impressive to see a competent opposition rise and overcome the structural odds stacked against them.

Wishes for the Future

The collective “we” and identity of opposition came out stronger than ever before. I hope this does not devolve at scale into opposing purely for the sake of opposing. It is a slippery slope to populism trumping rationality.
Personal view: issues such as LGBTQ that strongly appeals to a new generation. I would frankly be shocked if this is not addressed adequately in the next election. Voters born in the 2000s are coming online.

In a related vein, I had also wanted to write a little about the benefits and downsides to hype.

Change My Mind: Hype = Bad

A while ago, I listened to a podcast by intelligencesquared - an interview of Gemma Milne, a former marketer, now tech journalist, and recent author of Smoke & Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It. It pretty much discussed the upsides and downsides of hype.

Now prior to this, I fervently believed that hype is does more harm than good. Hype clouds rational judgement, masks the fundamental truth with noise, and generally drives people to invest (time, money, etc) in nonsensical things. Things that often teeter on the edge of pseudo-science and conspiracy.

Since listening to the podcast, I concede that ultimately, there is some truth to the argument that hype plays a role to change societies. This is driven by outcries from public sentiment, new sources of demand from said hype, and the need for sufficient scale to be amssed for change to be enacted.

From a systems thinking point of view, this is aligned to what I would call “step changes”, that is - a system must be sufficiently destabilised before change can occur. Visually, you can imagine this as a major peak (in amplitude) on a sine curve that “breaks” the prevailing trend (exceeds the average) to form a new “steady-state” (a new average).

And so I am left with some counterarguments to mull over:

If we were all rational, non-emotional human beings, could humanity progress?
Is hype needed for new ideas to be brought to scale and for creative destruction to occur?

Yes, probably. Not as simple as I originally thought.

Conclusion

Has my mind been changed?

I still think hype has a net-negative impact on the world, but I have certainly developed a better appreciation of the counterargument.
On the upside, hype could be seen as a necessary enabler of change if deployed well and sensibly.
To mitigate downside, we must ensure that this driving force is directed towards problems that really need to be solved…and not towards snake oil products, parasitic “get rich quick” schemes and the division of society….though I am not sure how we might do so.

These thoughts will probably be built on, as I discuss my personal abhorrence of the marketing and advertising industries. (not intended to be a scathing critique, but as something terribly misaligned to my values).

Until then, dear reader.