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South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

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Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#41

Post by eatonphil »

Clewza313 wrote: post #38
eatonphil wrote: post #2

My wife is South Korean so I'm biased. But I've been to Japan and South Korea and if you're looking for one of the most modern nations in the world, I strongly recommend you go to Korea. The only comparable country I've been to is the Netherlands or maybe Denmark. In contrast, the US and Japan seem to be somewhat falling apart with a peak in infrastructure and buildings a few decades ago. It's not that bad of course…

I felt the same way about Japan when I first visited it in the late 1990s. Japan has stagnated badly since then, and due to the demographic crunch, it's essentially certain that Seoul in 2040 will look like Tokyo in 2020. (Unless North Korea transforms it into a smoking crater in the ground, that is, since the entire city is within artillery range of the border.) Also, in my experience, Koreans speak even less Englis…

Not to discount your experience at all, but I have been outside of Seoul too and I still didn't feel too overwhelmed. Specifically I spent a bit of time in Bundang (a suburb of Seoul), Busan and Jeju.

One more massive advantage Korean has over Japanese is that Korean has a fairly simple alphabet so you can read and pronounce words after only a little practice.

In contrast, it takes quite a while to be able to read Japanese with their three writing systems and Kanji in particular.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#42

Post by ceejayoz »

calmd wrote: post #26
nwienert wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no problem with low birth rates, this is a meme that is told by a few economists and yet a very slight depopulation is not only survivable but has upsides as well and so far both South Korea and Japan (for going on three decades) have maintained incredibly competitive across nearly all metrics, certainly far better off than the US in so many ways. I got in an extensive debate over this with statistics a few m…

Let's take that at face value. If shrinking populations are okay, what is the desired population level? Right now no country seems to be able to stop this decrease in the modern/developed world. We are just currently shrinking.

> If shrinking populations are okay, what is the desired population level?

The answer might simply be "we don't know" here.

> Right now no country seems to be able to stop this decrease in the modern/developed world. We are just currently shrinking.

Why is that being treated as inherently bad, though?

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#43

Post by maeln »

nwienert wrote: post #8
calmd wrote: post #7

SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…

There’s no problem with low birth rates, this is a meme that is told by a few economists and yet a very slight depopulation is not only survivable but has upsides as well and so far both South Korea and Japan (for going on three decades) have maintained incredibly competitive across nearly all metrics, certainly far better off than the US in so many ways. I got in an extensive debate over this with statistics a few m…

Yes it is possible to manage ... when you have almost no government run retirement system. In country where the workforce pay for the retired, like France and a lot of European country, having your workforce shrink is a huge issue.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#44

Post by nerdponx »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13
calmd wrote: post #7

SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…

> going to be one of the grand challenges of the 50 years I’m sceptical of this claim. Demand per capita grows unabated. Working lives are lengthening. A smaller population living well is economically indistinguishable, in the aggregate, from a large one living poorly. Maybe post-industrial civilisations settle into a lower-population steady state than ones requiring lots of unrefined labor. Yes, dependency ratios wi…

I am very much looking forward to a lower-birthrate future in which fewer people live better and more sustainably.

The problem is in the short/medium term, figuring out how to pay for all these checks that politicians have been writing over the last 50 years.

The problem isn't that "the young" have to support "the old", it's that a lot of promises were made on the assumption of indefinite growth.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#45

Post by calmd »

ceejayoz wrote: post #42
calmd wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's take that at face value. If shrinking populations are okay, what is the desired population level? Right now no country seems to be able to stop this decrease in the modern/developed world. We are just currently shrinking.

> If shrinking populations are okay, what is the desired population level? The answer might simply be "we don't know" here. > Right now no country seems to be able to stop this decrease in the modern/developed world. We are just currently shrinking. Why is that being treated as inherently bad , though?

> Why is that being treated as inherently bad, though?

We are not making this decision completely willingly, it is more just happening and it is out of the governments control. To me this means it is risky, and can we pull out of it? How do we pull out of this shrinkage?

I guess the good thing is that the developed world is all in this together, rather than only parts of it. That reduces the chance of massive disparities as a result of the changes it causes.

If would feel much more comfortable that we completely understood it, and how to control it.

There will be a lot of changes that will occur. For example conservatives are less effected by population shrinkage than liberals in the US -- probably just because conservatives are less likely to be city dwellers? Or maybe it is conservatives have different values... or a combination of values that effect whether they live in the cities.

Atheists have lower reproduction rates than those who are religious as well. (which probably correlates with liberalism/conservatism as well.)

I wonder if there are any genetic contributions to conservatism/religiousness? If so this may be a period of rapid genetic evolution...

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#46

Post by pehtis »

alephnan wrote: post #5
totoglazer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having visited all the countries mentioned within the last few years - definitely agree. Seoul is an incredible, modern city, unlike any other. Tokyo largely feels like it was frozen in time. Parts of Amsterdam have that sort of feel, but it’s definitely more mixed. Not crumbling, but old and making do since it’s fine.

> Tokyo largely feels like it was frozen in time. Economically, Japan has been in stagnation since the late 80s.

It has been in stagnation since the 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades_(Japan)

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#47

Post by andrewzah »

Razengan wrote: post #6
eatonphil wrote: post #2

My wife is South Korean so I'm biased. But I've been to Japan and South Korea and if you're looking for one of the most modern nations in the world, I strongly recommend you go to Korea. The only comparable country I've been to is the Netherlands or maybe Denmark. In contrast, the US and Japan seem to be somewhat falling apart with a peak in infrastructure and buildings a few decades ago. It's not that bad of course…

Most modern how? Is everything just recently built or actually designed with modern principles in mind that will still feel relevant a decade down the road? I’m no researcher of any thing but the casual impression I’ve gotten from reading here and there over the years is that South Korea has plenty of problems, social and otherwise, and some of them pretty archaic and morbid (like idols collapsing on stage but nobody…

"South Korea has plenty of problems, social and otherwise"

So does the US, and Japan, and ... basically every country. Each country is going to have pros and cons. Talking with my Korean friends, their perspective is that the US also has plenty of problems, social and otherwise. Are they wrong? And we've had discussions around e.g. why US cops are going around killing US citizens, etc.

The pros for Korea for me include hospitable people, great food, universal healthcare, and fantastic public transportation (you can get around basically the entire country via bus/metro/trains with a unified T-Money card). I also felt a sense of unity that I don't often feel in the US.

Some cons would include a work culture around working insane hours and compulsory drinking. Those are changing with the current generation though. Schooling is extremely competitive since everyone is trying to get into a handful of colleges in order to have career prospects with the large conglomerations. And having to worry about the air quality index is annoying from my US perspective.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#48

Post by 3pt14159 »

calmd wrote: post #7

SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…

One core issue is housing. And the core issue with housing is that prices are an arms race where everyone always wants more. Most people would have two or three kids if they felt like they could afford it.

The second core issue is modern dating. That one I don't know how to fix, but the essential issue there is the dynamics of dating not requiring commitment coupled with financial security for women mean long term pair bonding happens at a lower rate and later in life.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#49

Post by Razengan »

eatonphil wrote: post #9
Razengan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most modern how? Is everything just recently built or actually designed with modern principles in mind that will still feel relevant a decade down the road? I’m no researcher of any thing but the casual impression I’ve gotten from reading here and there over the years is that South Korea has plenty of problems, social and otherwise, and some of them pretty archaic and morbid (like idols collapsing on stage but nobody…

The trains running in the subways are much newer, cleaner, and wider than the ones in NYC or Tokyo or Paris or London (based on my own observation). They also continually build out entirely new rapid lines like the Bundang express line which takes you from a suburb of Seoul to the center of Gangnam (a major district) in 15 minutes. Their buildings are also mostly new. It seems like every decade or two Koreans demolis…

So most of those things amount to being “mostly new” and made recently, an advantage which will be lost until they keep replacing and rebuilding them.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#50

Post by nerdponx »

3pt14159 wrote: post #48
calmd wrote: post #7

SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…

One core issue is housing. And the core issue with housing is that prices are an arms race where everyone always wants more. Most people would have two or three kids if they felt like they could afford it. The second core issue is modern dating. That one I don't know how to fix, but the essential issue there is the dynamics of dating not requiring commitment coupled with financial security for women mean long term pa…

I'm not sure that dating "not requiring commitment" is the issue.

It's difficult to commit to dating when you are time-poor and struggling to even get close to the financial trajectory that your parents were on.

It's too easy to blame the kids or whatever, without considering that the kids had and have it harder in many ways than the old people did. Being a millennial in the '00s was pretty good, being a millennial after '08 has not been good (unless you happened to get a sweet high-paying tech job in the '10s).

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