> mandate out for people to be more "creative"

A tough sell in a place where the possession of even a tiny amount of marijuana is punishable by caning and long imprisonment.

Pray tell, what does drug usage have to do with creativity?

Not exactly my point, and I won't go there. I don't know enough about drugs to comment.

Smart, creative people are, by and large, allergic to authoritarianism. Draconian rules around possession of soft drugs like cannabis are useful proxies for measuring a state's authoritarianism.

In Singapore's case, we don't need proxies - we can look directly at how the authorities respond to speech which tests the boundaries of dissent and taboo. Which they generally do with rapid and thorough censorship.

One of the things i found interesting about Singapore's censorship is that it's completely open. It is not itself secret, or a taboo subject. When i was there, i stumbled across an exhibition by local artists that was all about a major obscenity/censorship case in the 1980s that had had a big impact on the artistic community. The exhibition was in a public gallery, and i think had even been supported with public funds.

There's a lot of self-censorship going on from both Singapore's journalists and its people [1], mostly because there's a culture of fear.

Have a look at this recent case where a teen blogger was jailed for making offensive remarks against Christianity, and for circulating obscene imagery. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OB_marker

[2] http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/teen-blogger-a...

Your logic sounds backwards to me. Restrictions breed creativity as people do their best to work around or within those restrictions. I would expect a government that is trying to encourage its citizens to be more creative to have draconian and arbitrary laws.

Lots of creative people like to use drugs. By prohibiting it, you take them out of the talent pool. Look at how many movies, ads, and interface mockups have clocks set to 4:20.

No you don't. They are still there except they don't use drugs.

If people leave Singapore, it's probably for education or work. I highly doubt people are leaving because they have easier access to drugs in other countries.

Causality? unknown. Correlation? strong.

Disney land with the death penalty.

Funnily enough, you're probably be safer on the streets of Singapore than you'd be in any Disneyland in the US. And both places have the death penalty.

All I remember about that is this music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksw2UqTyhhc

> if alcohol was cheaper non-liberalized tech companies could go there assured of happy workers.

Are you asserting something more subtle than "alcohol guarantees happiness" here? It isn't very clear.