As an undergraduate, he studied maths at Trinity College Cambridge. Béla Bollobás said [1]:
> I certainly taught him more than anybody else in
Cambridge. I can truthfully say that he was an exceptionally
good student. I’m not sure that this is really known in
Singapore. “Because he’s now the Prime Minister,” people
may say, “oh, you would say he was good.” No, he was truly
outstanding: he was head and shoulders above the rest of
the students. He was not only the first, but the gap between
him and the man who came second was huge.
> I think that he did computer science (after mathematics)
mostly because his father didn’t want him to stay in
pure mathematics. Loong was not only hardworking,
conscientious and professional, but he was also very
inventive. All the signs indicated that he would have been a
world-class research mathematician. I’m sure his father never
realized how exceptional Loong was. He thought Loong was
very good. No, Loong was much better than that. When I
tried to tell Lee Kuan Yew, “Look, your son is phenomenally
good: you should encourage him to do mathematics,” then
he implied that that was impossible, since as a top-flight
professional mathematician Loong would leave Singapore
for Princeton, Harvard or Cambridge, and that would send
the wrong signal to the people in Singapore. And I have to
agree that this was a very good point indeed. Now I am
even more impressed by Lee Hsien Loong than I was all
those years ago, and I am very proud that I taught him; he
seems to be doing very well. I have come round to thinking
that it was indeed good for him to go into politics; he can
certainly make an awful lot of difference.
He then did the (now-discontinued) Diploma in Computer Science at Cambridge.
Instead he rotted as an actor of change, represented his citizens, protected his country and solved sudokus.
I dont know if he's good for Singapore but I mean, he did one of the most noble thing a human can do so I wouldnt blame him. I hope to do 1% of what this politician tried to do in my lifetime.
Even if Singapore is the best of all the authoritarian governments out there, it is still kinda fucked up. Even with its nature put aside, Singapore still engages in all sorts of regressive, backwards policies, up to a point where it's difficult to claim that any high govt official from Singapore holds any sort of sense of nobility within them. If this person is the prime minister, he is actively choosing to ignore, detach himself from, or even to support and continue those policies.
Singapore is a successful example of how to intergrate multiple ethnicity groups. Many liberal and progressive countries have tried their way and didn't get a good result.
Are both things linked? Even if they were, it's difficult to see how, say, caning as an accepted punishment, or gay rights suppression, can make an effect in ethnicity issues, unless we take this in the context of co-opting the cultural values of the less progressive culture present in the country. And in any case, stomping on some human rights for the greater benefit of the rest of society is kind of a gray area. The least we can do is recognize that grayness. Even if there existed a tangible payoff in acting and governing in that way, everyone should be aware of its price.
I vouched for this comment because it was worth addressing.
You can go online and ask Singaporeans all day about their opinion of Lee Hsien Loong, depending on how old they are they've voted for or against him and the PAP several times.
Singapore is a de facto one-party state, but it stays that way by (sometimes narrowly) keeping the ruling party in power by voting for it periodically.
The comparison to Kim Jun "um" is inept and insulting.
Quite the opposite - I'm not sure how many eminent mathematicians have the background to have gone far in politics.
The early pandemic outlined how many politicians lacked even the ability to reason about exponentials (let alone scientific thinking!) I am very glad that there is at least SOME representation of great thinkers amongst our leader-class
As an undergraduate, he studied maths at Trinity College Cambridge. Béla Bollobás said [1]:
> I certainly taught him more than anybody else in Cambridge. I can truthfully say that he was an exceptionally good student. I’m not sure that this is really known in Singapore. “Because he’s now the Prime Minister,” people may say, “oh, you would say he was good.” No, he was truly outstanding: he was head and shoulders above the rest of the students. He was not only the first, but the gap between him and the man who came second was huge.
> I think that he did computer science (after mathematics) mostly because his father didn’t want him to stay in pure mathematics. Loong was not only hardworking, conscientious and professional, but he was also very inventive. All the signs indicated that he would have been a world-class research mathematician. I’m sure his father never realized how exceptional Loong was. He thought Loong was very good. No, Loong was much better than that. When I tried to tell Lee Kuan Yew, “Look, your son is phenomenally good: you should encourage him to do mathematics,” then he implied that that was impossible, since as a top-flight professional mathematician Loong would leave Singapore for Princeton, Harvard or Cambridge, and that would send the wrong signal to the people in Singapore. And I have to agree that this was a very good point indeed. Now I am even more impressed by Lee Hsien Loong than I was all those years ago, and I am very proud that I taught him; he seems to be doing very well. I have come round to thinking that it was indeed good for him to go into politics; he can certainly make an awful lot of difference.
He then did the (now-discontinued) Diploma in Computer Science at Cambridge.
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20180722130213/https://www2.ims....