"Singaporeans are the 2nd coolest people in the world"?

A recent article on CNN says Singaporeans are the second coolest people in the world, beating out Americans, Japanese and Jamaicans. Our claim to fame? Being a bunch of 'absurdly computer-literate' geeks.

According to the article, Singapore is geek central and its people can claim their rightful place as "avatars of modern cool". It also highlighted 10-year-old Singaporean Lim Ding Wen, who made headlines when he published an iPhone app he wrote at age 9.

What's not so cool is that "with everyone stuck at their computers, the local government actually has to encourage Singaporeans to have sex", said the article.

The tongue-in-cheek article made no bones about its entirely subjective standards for ranking nationalities, and was clearly intended to draw laughs. So who beat Singapore for the title of coolest people on earth? Samba and soccer-loving Brazilians, of course.

STOMPer Cooly responds to the dubious award:

"According to a recent CNN article, Singapore is the second coolest nation in the world! Now I feel so cool being Singaporean!

"However, one thing that was not so cool about the article was they used a photo of bar-top dancing in China Jump.

"For those of us old enough to recall, China Jump closed about five years ago!"

Hold on a minute... our claim to fame is being 'absurdly computer-literate'?!
And we beat the Spaniards and Jamaicans to the 2nd place?! How about the painfully-chic French?
This is undoubtedly absurd, there's nothing impressive about being cool by such standards.
Most Singaporeans are too apprehensive and insecure to express their true selves.
How do you deem that cool?
True, we have our iPhones, iPads and we're connecting on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and whatnot.
We're virtually connected but we're socially-detached, in the fundamentally physical sense.
The onslaught of technology has definitely taken a toll on our social confidence, since our virtual identities provide the convenience of anonymity and the lack of face to face time interaction.
I am guilty of this in the first degree.. arghh!
I find myself instinctively reaching for my iPhone during pockets of time when I'm commuting between places, even while I'm walking on the street. Even if it's just to plug in to my iPod. (Music is food for my soul.) I could be fiddling around on Facebook, checking my mail, or *gasp playing Texas Poker!
I dread the day that my social skills will be obsolete.

So, before it's too late, I'll choose to strike up a conversation with a cool stranger than to keep the latest gadgets on my fingertips.