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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

#121

Post by JohnWhigham »

mathverse wrote: post #107
vbtemp wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to see a Slate Star Codex piece on this. One of his classic pieces was "Meditations on Moloch" https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ ( and related: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage... ) It seems like the similar thing here - literally everyone sees how agonizing, exhausting, detrimental, and counterproductive the current system is. No one likes it. But…

It's very simple actually.Koreans hate the working culture and long working hours but at the same time require convenience that can only be achieved by maintaining this hellish working culture.

at the same time require convenience that can only be achieved by maintaining this hellish working culture.

That's a core problem for every industrialized country. We've become addicted to the cheap goods that NAFTA has allowed us. And it may end up eating societies alive.

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

#122

Post by vlads »

Clewza313 wrote: post #106
ptsneves wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article title explicitly calls out South Korea. The country is also recognized as sovereign nation by more than 188 countries, having a seat in the United Nations as well. Territorial disputes are common even in Europe, as well as developments out of brutal dictatorship. I honestly do not get your point :)

There are no territorial disputes in Europe that involve nuclear powers threatening total annihilation on neighbors. Seoul is within easy artillery range of the North, and the badly misnamed DMZ (or, rather, both sides outside the zone itself) is among the most militarized places on the planet.

You must have somehow missed the ongoing war in East Ukraine.

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

#123

Post by jonpurdy »

mathverse wrote: post #87
jonpurdy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)…

I dont find them particularly livable.Yeah maybe when you are in your 20-later 30s then they are livable but they are absolutely dreadful when it comes to having a family. All that convenience that you see is there because of that fast paced life style people have. Source: Married to korean and lived in Korea.

I lived in Korea for years and have visited Japan as well.

Having lived in Toronto, South Korea (Ulsan), and now SF (Sunset), I can’t imagine a better place for a family to live than many neighbourhoods in Korea.

Now that I’ve got a wife, dog, and newborn baby, we needed to purchase a car to get them around (since SF public transit isn’t good enough for this). At least in Toronto we were within a few hundred metres of doctor/dentist/pharmacy, but lacked a walkable grocery store despite being in the city.

There are reasonably nice walkable streets, but in both Toronto and SF the neighbourhood streets are too wide, which results in traffic going way too fast along them. I’ve seen some traffic-calmed streets with artificial barriers and curves but there’s not much.

When I lived in Korea, both neighbourhoods I lived in contained everything I needed, and would have needed if I had a family at the time. And walking around (even with no sidewalks) was a pleasure because cars took the main roads. (Only the delivery scooters were a menace, which I’m sure you were familiar with ).

Of course, this excludes societal pressures, personal finances, etc that affect local Korean and Japanese people.

This is anecdotal, but I've been casually studying urban planning for years to help quantify why I found daily living in Korea to feel so much nicer than anywhere else.

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

#124

Post by csomar »

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…

Not really. Immigration has become an issue lately because a human (or a bare-human) is worth much less.

1.000 years ago a bare illiterate human had some considerable value. He could work in the field or he could fight. More humans, more food and production. More humans, more manpower to fight your enemies.

Now a bare semi-educated human is a liability. Which is why most countries are refusing their entrance. Times have changed. In a near future where wars will be fought with robots and drones, you need less manpower (and their wives/kids); and thus you need much less of your general population; and much more of a few specialized people to achieve your goals.

We are getting there, whether we are self-aware of it or not.

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

#125

Post by radmuzom »

ptsneves wrote: post #90
throwaway4good wrote: post #33

Funny how the article doesn’t mention that Korea is a divided country technically still at war. Besides the development of modern South Korea out of a brutal military dictatorship is largely parallel to that of other Asian countries: Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and China.

The article title explicitly calls out South Korea. The country is also recognized as sovereign nation by more than 188 countries, having a seat in the United Nations as well. Territorial disputes are common even in Europe, as well as developments out of brutal dictatorship. I honestly do not get your point :)

OP was explicitly referring to South Korea too. If you are not aware of their extremely brutal past, here are few links to get you started (these articles just skim the surface, much deeper study is needed if you really want to get into the details).

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/05/south-korea-park-chung-he...

https://www.smh.com.au/world/south-korea-owns-up-to-brutal-p...

https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/the-forgotten-history-of-sou...

https://archive.is/fBa5L

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

#126

Post by gedy »

atom_arranger wrote: post #112
thow-01187 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, low fertility rate is not a one-time problem of boomer generation followed by a stable plateau. It leads to a perpetual spiral of gerontocracy, high dependency ratios, under-investments and general vitality being sapped out of the populace. It's no coincidence that Italy and Japan, once vigorous and creative, are not exactly bursting with enthusiasm in the past ~20-30 years

Random idea: What if the votes of each age group were weighted to account for the size of that group, e.g. making the votes of 18-20 have the same weight as the votes of 40-42, even if there may be more people in the 40-42 group. This would prevent an aging population from giving too many benefits to older age groups, and would encourage policies that consider long term impacts more.

Shades of 3/5ths Compromise maybe? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise

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

#127

Post by baybal2 »

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…

> How does the developed world pull out of this type of tailspin?

1. Find a young woman

2. Make her happy, and confident in you

3. ?

4. Pull your family for the next 30-40 years

With all respects, I always seen a family as a man's responsibility, and a failure at creating/maintaining one to coming from man's deficiencies first.

In virtually every human culture in the world, even matriarchal societies, it is by default that a man needs to put more effort than a woman to score a marriage. It is very deeply ingrained into human culture.

A man can always always find another woman if one does not want a family with him up until mid-thirties. A lot of time.

And yes, I really want to have a family, and I really want to work hard to have one.

It really sucks for bachelors. Unmarried people in most of Asia effectively lost 2 years of their reproductive life, and probably will lose at least 1 more year.

It's completely incorrect to think that China had any much of normal life after quarantine succeeded. Last 12 months was a life in constant paranoia, extreme social unease, and daily life disruptions from periodic Covid breakthroughs.

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

#128

Post by tpm »

thow-01187 wrote: post #83
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…

I'm continually amazed how this isn't #1 topic on governments' agenda across the developed world. We're looking at South Korea losing 95% of its generational cohort size in 100-year timeframe. 80% for Japan or Italy, 70% for Germany, etc. Climate change is on everyone's mind - but what's the point of solving climate change if there's barely anyone left to inherit the planet? Black Death, Mongols, world wars, not even…

Barely anyone left? Africa alone is projected to have a population of 3 billion by 2100.

https://qz.com/africa/1881468/how-fast-is-africas-population...

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

#129

Post by frenchy »

WanderPanda wrote: post #82
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

IMO Science and technology is a max() operator on the peoples ideas. Also, division of labour should go down in a smaller population, so I think this is far from linear in reality and a population collapse can be actually devastating

The value of any max() would depend on the distribution, though.

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

#130

Post by mjmahone17 »

namarie wrote: post #118
atom_arranger wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random idea: What if the votes of each age group were weighted to account for the size of that group, e.g. making the votes of 18-20 have the same weight as the votes of 40-42, even if there may be more people in the 40-42 group. This would prevent an aging population from giving too many benefits to older age groups, and would encourage policies that consider long term impacts more.

> What if the votes of each age group were weighted Because the principle of "one person, one vote" is widely (and correctly IMO) accepted.

In many places and for certain purposes (the US and the EU for instance), geographical regions have one vote, regardless of their population size.

It’s unclear that an age-based distribution instead of geographic distribution would be worse. But it would probably be unrealistic to achieve without basically completely upending existing political structures.

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