Change the Singapore Dream – Kishore

This call sounds like insanity. If it is to dream for the moon, perhaps it may be more agreeable. But to dream to downgrade and give up cars as a convenience, is like telling Sinkies to downgrade to a 4 rm HDB flat that cost $1m and only 60 sq m. But what Kishore did was to be provocative, to think tangentially, to walk the unbeaten path. It is always refreshing to think a bit wild, to be unorthodox, to sound a bit insane but to get people out of their comfort zone.

The only weakness in this dream is that he forgot that this is an unnecessary dream if the planners did not go bonkers to follow the economists blindly. We need critical mass to have a sustainable economy. And that critical mass was 2m, then 4m, then 5m then 7m then 10m. And we can build to heaven’s high or deep down and get closer to living hell. Sure the possibilities are unlimited given the expansiveness of the human mind. But there is a cost involved, just like the insane Medishield Life to cover all and sundry, young and old, healthy and sick. Who is going to pay for it or where is the money coming from?

Car ownership is a luxury, and more than a luxury, it is freedom to travel, it is progress, it is what human beans strived to better themselves and their way of life. It liberates the constraints of time and space. Why all the cries for progress, for economic growth, for technology only to abandon it because some economists got their numbers mixed up and forgot the good from the bad? Do we want economic growth only to abandon our dream of car ownership? Do we want to abandon the dream for landed properties or owning a 1000 sq m home or bigger? Do we want to dream of only eating in foodcourts and hawker centres? It is regressive thoughts surely. Why do we ever think of downgrading, downsizing, giving up the good stuff and con ourselves that less is good, no cars is good, smaller flats, the smaller the better? Idiotic isn’t it?

But if I am the rich and powerful, and living in a 5000 sq m homes and owning a garage of luxury cars, I would not mind conning the daft that no cars is good, and living in a dog’s kennel is quality living.

Kishore said we have to give up the Singapore dream of owning cars, he fell short of saying we also have to give up dreaming of a 1000 sq m 5 rm home as well. And I quote, ‘We have to give up this insane dream of owning a car and replace it with an ecosystem of a public transport system that makes it irrational to own a car.’  I would like to suggest that we should give up this insane dream of a bigger population and replace it with a friendly ecosystem and allowing more people to own cars and living in bigger homes. Just cut the shit in growing the population to consume more of the little land we have. In this case, smaller population is good, and there are many countries that are small in population but doing much better than us and with much better quality of life. And their land mass is also bigger, with more space for living and recreation.

The insane dream is 6.9m that will make life a living drudgery to many average Sinkies. They will be reduced to slaves of the economic system while a small elite will continue to live in sprawling landed homes and owning several cars and laughing at the idiocy of the easily conned Sinkies.

There is a need to recalibrate where we are going and how not to destroy our ecosystem and make it more favourable to living than to working for the sake of working. Yes the planners need to change their insane dream and come down from high heavens to uplift everyone to a higher plateau. They need to plan in such a way that there will be more space for living, for bigger homes and for more cars and more roads. And please, no need creative shit to down size the furniture to make the small space look bigger.

The moment the Sinkies start to accept to downgrade their dreams, they are heading towards a colony of mindless ants or bees, busy, busy, busy all for nothing. We must have dreams, big and better dreams for a better tomorrow.

KNN, why we work so hard for?