Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

nationalinterest.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 444 posts

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

#151

Post by Balero »

keewee7 wrote: post #117
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…

The solution is immigration but with high barrier to entry. I live in Denmark, a country portrayed as anti-immigrant by American and British media. However there is no opposition to educated professional immigrants from India, China, Iran and Eastern Europe. Brain drain of these countries could be a problem but countries like India and Iran are probably producing many more highly educated individuals than they can do…

This is hopefully just a temporary solution though. What happens when these places get rich enough that their birth rates also drop?

To butcher an unrelated saying: "We can't all get immigrants from each other".

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

#152

Post by csomar »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #135
csomar wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

There's only so much juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce, though. And as retirees continue to make up a larger portion of the popular vote - they'll continue to demand more from a shrinking workforce. At some point (I imagine in my lifetime) - the straw will break the camel's back.

> And as retirees continue to make up a larger portion of the popular vote - they'll continue to demand more from a shrinking workforce.

Sure, if you fail to outsource to other countries; or automate your economy enough.

> There's only so much juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce, though.

For most countries, you can get access with a job offer. Countries are not against people who can get employment where they have shortages.

But a "bare human" is barely employable which is how he turns into a liability. ie: immigrating more people (randomly) will generate a negative return at least in the short-term.

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

#153

Post by kwhitefoot »

1-6 wrote: post #73
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…

What' the average internet speed in Indiana?

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

#154

Post by dragonwriter »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #135
csomar wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

There's only so much juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce, though. And as retirees continue to make up a larger portion of the popular vote - they'll continue to demand more from a shrinking workforce. At some point (I imagine in my lifetime) - the straw will break the camel's back.

> There's only so much juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce, though.

For the developed world, where a lot of the wealth coming in is capital returns from global corps whose ability to generate wealth isn’t constrained by local population size, that just means you need to tap that more effectively. It’s a problem for the payroll tax model of social support funding, perhaps, but unless you are emotionally attached to that model, I don't see that as a big cost.

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

#155

Post by tootie »

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 think the solution lies not in more people but in more sustainability and shift away from competitive capitalism as an economic model. I genuinely think that it's inevitable. The great challenge of the next century will climate. We're on the fence right now between a climate-induced nightmare world and a post-scarcity economy where resource competition no longer drives global conflict.

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

#156

Post by WanderPanda »

frenchy wrote: post #129
WanderPanda wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By adding new random variables to the max() its expected value should monotonically increase, no?

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

#157

Post by ticviking »

chasd00 wrote: post #95
nerdponx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’re basically describing suburbs (not exurbs). Despite having everything you wish for suburbs are apparently the greatest threat to civilization since the trinity test.

Suburbia in the US is a very different beast. One of the most difficult Problems is how completely the US infrastructure basically assumes it only exists for cars.

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

#158

Post by mathverse »

babesh wrote: post #150
mathverse wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Korea it's not about UBI but about terrible working conditions and societal pressure. Even with UBI you want your children to go to the best schools so they can get a job at one of the Chaebols.

Wouldn’t UBI serve as a counterweight to terrible working conditions and societal pressure?

Koreans still have a culture of face.It's hard to admit that you live on just UBI and cant hang around your friends in places where you cant really afford to be.

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

#159

Post by dragonwriter »

forkLding wrote: post #149
dragonwriter wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Its kind of amazing how often people make judgements based on extrapolating demographic trends over much longer terms than there is any reason to think that they will hold, and then as soon as they fail turn around and do the same thing based on the new demograp…

It is actually quite hard to raise the birth rate, Japan has been trying for years (see https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/Tokyo%E2%... ). The real impediment is that it is now too costly to raise more than 1-2 children and also not enough time. UN 2015 report on Japan's birth rate policy attempts: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf... To summarize, they've started policies a…

> It is actually quite hard to raise the birth rate, Japan has been trying for years

Not...really.

> UN report on Japan's birth rate policy attempts:

And details defects in the specific policies (notably, these defects are, one who is familiar with policies of the type will notice, ways they fall short of the support policies in many European countries that aren't even specifically trying to boost birth rates.)

E.g., a paid family leave policy with low payments and lacking legal force, so many employers haven't actually implemented it.

This is a government making a pro forma show of “doing something” about a problem, not a serious policy effort.

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

#160

Post by mathverse »

keewee7 wrote: post #117
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…

The solution is immigration but with high barrier to entry. I live in Denmark, a country portrayed as anti-immigrant by American and British media. However there is no opposition to educated professional immigrants from India, China, Iran and Eastern Europe. Brain drain of these countries could be a problem but countries like India and Iran are probably producing many more highly educated individuals than they can do…

You cant just easily immigrate to CJK countries.You will not become a part of the society.That's just impossible.Not even those of us that married koreans,speak the language and know the customs are that accepted in the society.We are tolerated and easily live and work there but you will never become korean or japanese or chinese.

You will always be the "foreigner".

Post reply on HN