Singapore Cyberpunk

Reb did a project on healthcare in Singapore and it reminded me of one of the best known pieces of cyberpunk journalism "Disneyland with the Death Penalty." In 1993 Wired magazine sent William 'The Godfather of Cyberpunk' Gibson to Singapore and he reported on a burgeoning biotech city-state run by a nearly totalitarian state. As Wikipedia notes: "the article had an immediate and lasting impact. The Singaporean government banned Wired upon the publication of the issue, and the phrase "Disneyland with the death penalty" became a byword for bland authoritarianism that the city-state could not easily discard."  In 2012, Wired got a Singaporean to update the article and see how Gibson's predictions fared and give a more balanced view.

Disneyland with the Death Penalty (1993)
http://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/

Disneyland With the Death Penalty, Revisited (2012)
http://www.wired.com/2012/04/opinion-jeyaretnam-disneyland-death-penalty/

Wikipedia on the Article's Impact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_with_the_Death_Penalty



If you want a few more points in your 'Cyberpunk (Politics)' statistic read the three articles above. Singapore is a very strange place, not really a nation but a giant city-state were 40% of the population is imported labourers and rich Europeans fly in to have surgery done. Gibson's fears of a "sterile Asian neo-Switzerland of law abiding automatons" has not exactly panned-out and crazy mega-cities like Dubai have taken it's place as futuristic environments but Singapore remains a fascinating example of a "one-party state and capitalist technocracy".