South Korea: The only middle power of its kind • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by dotcommand » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

All of these kind of propaganda is the same. But nationalinterest is a propaganda outlet and the author "is a Member on the policy advisory boards of the Ministry of Unification, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the National Assembly's Committee on Unification, Diplomacy, and Trade."

Without reading the article - "Western" values/democracy, "liberal values" and lgbt. I guarantee it.

Firstly, you can't be a "power" if you are occupied. You are a vassal, nothing more.

The only thing korea will be used for is to spread the lgbt agenda in asia as it's the weakest asian "power". It isn't a secret that we've been trying to peddle the lgbt agenda to asia and everywhere we tried - japan, taiwan, philippines, thailand, etc - flat-out rejected. The silly awards ( oscar, etc ) and praise ( like this propaganda piece ) are just worthless payments given to korea in exchange for accepting and peddling the lgbt agenda. Isn't that what the article is really about?

> Liberal values such as freedom of speech, basic human rights, and racial and LGBT equality could have a universal appeal if advocated by non-Western democracies like South Korea.

There it is. Vassals/subjects/etc are always 10 or 20 years behind their masters. The only thing south korea is an example of, is selling themselves and their people to the highest bidder.

Maybe instead of doing other's bidding, south korea should look at their hideous fertility rates (lowest in the world), growing societal divide and reuniting their divided country. Certainly more important than mindlessly peddling "Western" interests. No? Or is that what "powers" do, serve other people's interests?

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

#72

Post by wastedhours » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

calmd wrote: post #36

sct202 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to be hard to convince couples living in 1 bedroom apartments to cram in 2 kids just so that the country can hit replacement level fertility rates. Large urban cities just don't seem built for families, especially with the way that larger spaces are priced.

So urban cities are anti-child? Thus we will see cites change or depopulate? Does low fertility correlate with dense urban dwelling and sky high real-estate prices? I suspect it probably does, but I haven't seen any proof. Maybe this shift to remote-first work that happened over the last 18 months will help....

> So urban cities are anti-child? Thus we will see cites change or depopulate?

Or, people now value cities more than they value having more children, leading to depopulation due to replacement rate reduction, rather than people leaving to have more children.

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

#73

Post by 1-6 » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

franhield wrote: post #61

South Korea is one of the leaders in technology and other fields. Also, they are one of the fastest internet providers in the whole world. The problem is that the country can truly unleash its untapped potential if the North and the South decided to unify under the leadership of the South.

Being a fast internet provider is all relative. If you only had to maintain the landmass equivalent to the state of Indiana, you can quickly upgrade everyone's infrastructure. The government also initially started the telecommunications projects, now they're all transitioned to the private sector.

North and South Korea are complementary in economic capability. Some even go as far at to conclude that the reunification efforts between North and South Korea may be hindered because of this fact.

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

#74

Post by jonpurdy » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #54

calmd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So urban cities are anti-child? Thus we will see cites change or depopulate? Does low fertility correlate with dense urban dwelling and sky high real-estate prices? I suspect it probably does, but I haven't seen any proof. Maybe this shift to remote-first work that happened over the last 18 months will help....

I am not a professional in this field at all, but my personal experience suggests that we need more smaller cities, more densely connected, or perhaps more and smaller "downtown" areas within a single city. Then people could have a bit more personal space (less geographic concentration reduces demand and price pressure in specific areas), while keeping density and interconnectedness high to support mass transit, walk…

You are describing Seoul and Tokyo perfectly.

Despite having tens of millions of people and average densities much higher than most cities, they’re both among the most livable cities in the world.

Both of them inherited pre-war street layouts (in Tokyo’s case, despite being bombed, the layouts stayed the same). So neighbourhoods have narrow streets which makes them safer to walk (due to cars needing to drive slowly) and more interesting. And most neighbourhoods have older 2-4 storey or newer 10-20 storey apartments that provide the density to enable local shops and amazing public transit.

So much easier to raise children when you have everything you need within walking distance in the same neighbourhood, including child care.

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

#75

Post by phkahler » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

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…

>> Demand per capita grows unabated.

I don't see that. Demand for what? Consumption? Increasing the flow of "stuff" from store/Amazon to the landfill? If we account for inflation, what's increasing?

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

#76

Post by refurb » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #65

nerdponx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

This is actually part of what I'm talking about. The sweet high-paying tech jobs went to a group of people that can comfortably afford to live without marrying off. They date around because they can. I know, because I got that sweet job in 2008 just at the start of the tech wave and I dated around quite a bit and the pressure to get married for financial reasons wasn't there and the social pressure to get married for…

This doesn’t jive with the idea that high paying, lower skilled jobs were plentiful in the 50’s and you only needed one income for a family let alone a single person.

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

#77

Post by rjzzleep » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

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 don't know about South Korea, but looking at some other asian countries, there are a couple of things, I think the housing part falls into number 3 but is only a small part of the whole:

1. Having children without being married has a bunch of problems, and in some countries like singapore gets punished for it in lack of certain social services

2. Most of these societies expect women to work or have their husband take care of them. Maternity leave is in some aspects as bad as or worse than in the US.

3. Having children is expensive and the education stress that follows for over a decade after giving birth is even more straining. The subsidies people get in Asia hardly even make up for the cost of a c-section. Sure the same might be true for the USA, but we know it's not a good place to compare things to. But birth and housing are also a fraction of the long term pain of raising a child in those societies.

Other people have mentioned dating. I think modern societies in general have had a break down in social structures, where people used to get their partners from.

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

#78

Post by 100011 » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

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…

This is correct. There is no logical reason or empirical evidence that opening country to mass immigration will help fixing native birth rates. Problems such as housing will just increase as there's more competition for a 5 square meter flat.

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

#79

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

aikinai wrote: post #70

3pt14159 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Neither of these apply to Japan, especially Japan decades ago when their birthrate fell to around the current rate. So that’s a pretty strong data point against these theories being key factors.

What?

1. Yes, obviously Japan housing prices have fallen from their insane 90s peak, but housing is still very expensive in Japan, and especially in urban areas where most Japanese (especially younger Japanese) live, space is famously at a premium.

2. I can barely count the number of times I've read articles on the reasons Japanese women don't want to get married. Unlike some Western nations, there is still a cultural expectation in Japan that women do a ton of housework and childrearing with little help from men, to the point that famously elaborate childrens' bento boxes are a source of stress. Many Japanese women with careers easily see marriage as a net negative, obviously different than decades past.

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

#80

Post by ptsneves » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #64

calmd wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 dispari…

> 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? Isn't all this equally true of population growth as well as shrinkage?

No. Major population growth has been happening since the times of the new world migration.

The only major time i can think of where there were major depopulation events are in the times of the Fertile Crescent civilizations and perhaps in Asia in Angkor Wat. In both of the scenarios this massive depopulation led to the extinction of those civilizations.