William Gibson: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

Singapore Handbook by Carl Parkes

It's always great fun to revisit classic posts from the past, such as this Wired article about Singapore by William Gibson. At the time, it was considered scandalous that anyone would criticize the squeaky-clean government of Lee Kuan Yew, but over the years many people have come to realize that Singapore is the perfect police state, so completely hidden behind doublespeak that even the citizens sometimes have a hard time seeing the control through the media. Singapore is perfect, it's beautiful, the trees and flowers are gorgeous, there's no graffiti, and hardly no crime, but that camera on you is always focused; Orwell never conceived a place like Singapore, but it's here and now.

Disneyland with the Death Penalty

We sent William Gibson to Singapore to see whether that clean dystopia represents our techno future.

By William Gibson
"It's like an entire country run by Jeffrey Katzenberg," the producer had said, "under the motto 'Be happy or I'll kill you.'" We were sitting in an office a block from Rodeo Drive, on large black furniture leased with Japanese venture capital.

Now that I'm actually here, the Disneyland metaphor is proving impossible to shake. For that matter, Rodeo Drive comes frequently to mind, though the local equivalent feels more like 30 or 40 Beverly Centers put end to end.

;-)

Was it Laurie Anderson who said that VR would never look real until they learned how to put some dirt in it? Singapore's airport, the Changi Airtropolis, seemed to possess no more resolution than some early VPL world. There was no dirt whatsoever; no muss, no furred fractal edge to things. Outside, the organic, florid as ever in the tropics, had been gardened into brilliant green, and all-too-perfect examples of itself. Only the clouds were feathered with chaos - weird columnar structures towering above the Strait of China.

The cab driver warned me about littering. He asked where I was from.

He asked if it was clean there. "Singapore very clean city." One of those annoying Japanese-style mechanical bells cut in as he exceeded the speed limit, just to remind us both that he was doing it. There seemed to be golf courses on either side of the freeway. . . .

"You come for golf?"

Wired Link