Will Singapore be living underground in the future?

I sometimes wish I lived in Malaysia. Politicians there seem to make more interesting declarations.

Take former Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. His most recent announcement was that 9/11, the September 11, 2001 attack on the New York World Trade Center, was staged by the United States.

"If they can make Avatar, they can make anything," said the outspoken former PM.

In fact, in a later reiteration of his 9/11 beliefs, he went on to say that the Arabs were "not clever enough" to stage such a coordinated attack involving four planes.

Wow. That man has balls.

In one fell swoop, he managed to a) accuse the Americans of killing their own people to make Muslims look bad, and b) pronounce the Arabs too stupid to plan such a difficult attack.

In contrast, Singaporean politicians tend to say pretty boring things. For instance, we had a recent announcement by a high level Economic Strategies Committee on new economic directions for Singapore.

This Economic Strategies Committee (ESC) is made up of some really senior ministers and industry bigwigs. After eight months of meetings, brainstorming and high-level committee-ing, the high-level committee came forth to declare their ambitious plans for transforming Singapore's economy in the next 10 years.

Number one idea on the list? Increase productivity.

You can hear the crickets going, "and?"

No, really, productivity.

Hey thanks, high-level committee dudes! Singaporeans work some of the longest hours in the world. It is nice to know our 70-hour working weeks could still be extended. 

I was kind of hoping the announcement would be along the lines of, "In order to transform Singapore's economy over the next 10 years, we, the high-level big shots of Singapore, declare that henceforth, all Singaporeans will be enhanced with robot arms!"

I am most worried about Teamy the Bee though. Teamy, if some of you are old enough to remember, was the mascot of Singapore's National Productivity Campaign in the 1980s. Looks like Teamy has failed to make us productive enough and we'll need to have a little chat with that little slacker. Maybe fire his yellow and black rear end for failing to raise our productivity levels with his cute little bee-ness.

The rest of the ESC's report showed a little more promise though.

They are looking at alternative space for Singapore. Singaporeans are already used to building upwards and growing sideways by reclaiming land (some say we'll reach Australia soon).

Well, now it is time to go down under (no, not that Down Under). That's right folks, underground.

In fact, the ESC is so serious about it, an Underground Master Plan is being formulated.

I am not too sure how well Singaporeans will take to living below ground though. It is already hard enough to convince Singaporeans to buy units on the lower floors of our government-built HDB flats. Many current property ads tout features like "High floor", "Good view", "Near MRT" and "Chinese owners".

Ok, maybe not that last feature. The property agent won't print that in the ad. He'll just whisper it in your ear.

Perhaps flats from a Singapore transformed by the Underground Master Plan will be advertised as having features like "Subterranean", "No blocked views, in fact, no view at all" and "Enjoy living at the level as the underground MRT station."

You may never need to walk out in the sun anymore. Just walk out of your underground home, into the underground paths, take an underground train, and shop at underground malls. All in air-conditioned comfort. Boast to your friends that your flat is at Basement 29.

We are going to need to get used to living in underground bunkers anyway because the third thing I remembered from the ESC report was that nuclear energy was being considered to meet Singapore's power needs.

I suppose once you decide that you are going to let casinos into Singapore, nuclear power plants would not be far behind.

The question on the minds of most Singaporeans would be, "Will the government build a nuclear power plant in my estate?" (Almost as important as the question, "Will the government build a foreign worker dormitory in my estate?")

Opposition-held wards Hougang and Potong Pasir come to mind as logical places for nuclear power plants. They already face declining property prices from their very choice of political party. A nuclear power plant or two in their backyard can't make things any worse.

Or we could politely ask Malaysia if we could park our nuclear power plant in Johor Bahru. We'd sell the excess power to Malaysia cheaply, in return, of course.

And to show our people just how safe a Singapore-made plant can be, we could turn the nuclear power plants into theme parks. Ride the Urano! -- the world's first roller coaster ride INSIDE a nuclear reactor! Sit on the Coolant River Ride and listen to animatronics kids sing "It's a Half Life After All"! Take home a "Teamy the Nuclear Productivity Bee" soft toy!

If you don't think we can make a nuclear power plant safer than anyone else's, then you don't know the Singapore government. Just you wait, there will be a high-level committee set up to look into the Nuclear-Energy-cum-Integrated-Resort Master Plan soon.