As of 2024, Singapore had one of the world's highest GDP/capita of 90,600 USD.
Currently, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranks it's public sector as being the 3rd least corrupt country in the world.
It is a nation that is incredibly business-friendly and economically prosperous.
At the same time, it's 'political environment remains overwhelmingly repressive' according to Human Rights Watch, with freedoms of expression and rights to assembly being heavily restricted.
The passing of the 'Online Criminal Harms Act' in 2023 has been highly critiqued since it granted the government the ability to censor the internet which it has since used to restrict opposing viewpoints and enforce compliance.
Government workers and supporters of the workers have routinely argued that it has been this restriction of freedoms that have permitted the nation to achieve such massive economic successes.
Another light one today - but still, I find fossil water to be a fascinating concept.
Essentially, the simplest way to visualise fossil water is to think of something like oil, and then swap the oil out for water.
In a bit more complex terms, water enters an aquifer and - through various processes - that aquifer then gets cut off from the larger water cycle for a bit by the development of some sort of barrier, leaving the water sort of just... there... with no way out.
Do you think the water gets scared?
Anyways, the real reason fossil water is fascinating is because a lot of places actually depend on it, extracting it sort of like oil. This water is then used for agriculture and a bunch of other things. There's only a couple of problems with that.
You see, like oil, fossil water takes a really bloody long time to replenish (though, compared to oil, fossil water can replenish in like a couple thousand years, this is still an incredibly long time on the human level). Thus, fossil water is effectively finite.
Secondly, since this water has been sitting in the ground for like, a really long time, things like radioactive contamination can occur due to minerals seeping into the water and this can make it very hard to use because like - its not safe, y'know?
Thirdly, extracting fossil water means you just left a giant opening in the ground for other things to flow into. This may be freshwater, but it also may be contaminants dissolved in water or just sea water, which effectively destroys these reserves.
Thermohaline circulation is very important for our planetary health so before you pass this post because of the dumb nerd shit word in the title, let me explain.
So!
*cracks knuckles*
Thermohaline circulation refers to how the varying salt content and temperature of different regions of the oceans create currents that circulate the Earth's oceans. These currents look sort of like this:
Essentially, cold water sinks in polar regions because that water is colder and has a higher salt content (for a series of complex reasons to do with pack ice and some other stuff we don't need to get into right now). This increases the density of the water and thus the water sinks. This sinking of water creates a void which warmer, less salty water is drawn into from the tropics.
This is a VERY basic summary and the reason the currents on the map above are all funky and all over the place is because this is a highly complex process, the above explanation is just the rough notes on why these currents form.
Now that w have that established, let us get back to the important question: why the fuck is any of this important?
Well, I am glad you asked. You see, Thermohaline Circulation plays a key role in regulating our climate. Not only does it circulate warm and cold water - which plays a key role in rates of evaporation, thus rainfall and humidity, but also in just regulating air temperature and the amount of ice in the poles - but since water (cold water especially) also absorbs carbon (that thing which is in carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas) these paths of circulation also play a major role in storing away loads and loads of carbon in deep-ocean currents.
However, if you have been paying attention throughout this post (thank you by the way, means a lot) then you will realise that ocean temperature plays a very significant role in ensuring the stability of thermohaline circulation - like, it is in the name. 'thermo' and all of that. Returning to the point: given current trends depicting a generally warming global climate, it is quite likely that Thermohaline circulation will be increasingly disrupted if no actions are taken to prevent climate change. This will lead to a general breakdown in current global weather patterns and also an increasing amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change since - y'know, as I said before cold water hold more carbon so if the water heats up well what do you know? More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
How horrific (:
Sources:
I'm a bit too tired currently to attach sources and because this is a well-understood geographic phenomenon (rather than a more political or historical thing) I feel that a simple google search is literally all you need to substantiate this phenomenon.
In the aftermath of World War I, the European and American public largely did its best to forget about those who had been facially disfigured by the conflict.
Though those with missing limbs were still viewed through a rather uncomfortable lens - the provision of prosthetics in the USA being based off of a desire to make people look 'normal' and 'whole' rather than helping the disabled - it was the facially disfigured who arguably suffered the most (if you can put a value to suffering, that is).
In services of remembrance, the facially disfigured were not allowed to take part.
During their recovery in specially set up hospitals meant to keep them isolated from the public, benches in the nearby area would be painted blue so as to notify people that there would be men around with facial disfigurement, granting them the option to avoid them and their viscerally disturbing presence.
Yet, despite them being pushed to the shadows of society, post-war pacifist movements utilised images of the traumatised and disfigured to push their messages.
Thus, even when they were acknowledged, it was as an object of disgust rather than people.
World War I is a really gruesomely interesting conflict when you think about it. This war, essentially, was the first time in history that major industrialised powers went to war with one another, revealing the many horrific ways in which men can die but - more importantly - the many horrific ways in which men can survive these things.
By the time of the First World War, developments in chemical warfare, machine guns, and artillery shells did present a colourful menagerie of ways in which a man could die. Yet, at the same time, improvements in surgical technology meant that people could survive previously grievous wounds. Usually, this came with severe scarring or missing limbs - but right now we are talking about those with facial disfigurements.
Now, the treatment of these people was outright inhumane.
Specialised hospitals meant to treat the disfigured were established by men such as Harold Gillies. These places, arguably, understood the need to properly address the mental trauma done by the facial wound while also providing proper plastic surgery.
Yet, at the same time, it can be argued that most of the time these 'treatments' were more concerned with keeping the public comfortable rather than properly protecting and treating the disfigured men.
Do some more reading if you are interest, but just as my two cents on this topic:
I think this is best taken as a lesson on the need to treat people as fundamentally human no matter what they have been through. This may be an obvious message to take away from all this, but genuinely, even in the modern day many people with facial disfigurements are treated with disgust and discrimination for no logical reason other than a knee-jerk - and un-confronted - revulsion.
