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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

#211

Post by simmanian »

mathverse wrote: post #160
keewee7 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

To give you another perspective, I would say that many East Asians living in the West don't feel like they actually belong there either. I moved to west coast America when I was a child. I still remember vividly the first thing I heard and understood in class. It was another kid telling me that I'm a "stupid Asian." The barrier is there. We feel it. And let's not pretend Europe is better about this.

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

#213

Post by m_mueller »

presentation wrote: post #134
eatonphil wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but compared to Japan? All of Asia started from scratch after WW2 and Korea was only 10 years behind Japan due to their war. But Tokyo infrastructure felt basically as old as NYC infrastructure to me (a totally qualitative impression). That said, Tokyo is massively cleaner and nicer than NYC even if some of the infrastructure seems old. There is no question it is nicer than NYC.

I live in Tokyo - on the surface certain lines have dated exteriors on their trains and stations, but they are maintained so much better and built with much more care to the surrounding environment that it's impossible for me to compare with NYC. NYC's trains are constantly late, always go out of service, are deafeningly loud, incredibly slow, filthy, don't have great coverage outside of the Manhattan core and genera…

I actually love the rugged but high quality stainless steel look of Japanese trains. I think Starship might bring this look back into fashion. Functional and extremely durable. Airstream caravans are another example of it and they’re beloved too.

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

#214

Post by dragonwriter »

spothedog1 wrote: post #193
slothtrop wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automation is progressing faster than new 'types' of jobs are created. In many sectors they'll be poised to be oversaturated with workers. Owners are happy to remove the human element wherever reasonably possible.

Except the US has a large labor shortage that predates covid in construction, agriculture, domestic work, scientists, engineers and more. If automation comes then great but the basic principals of more people in an economy means more demand for goods and services still applies.

> Except the US has a large labor shortage

No, it has less labor supplied at current prices than purchasers would prefer. Market clearing quantity at current prices being less than buyers would prefer is...the normal case of a market economy.

It's only a shortage if buyers paying more wouldn't increase market clearing quantity, because of some constraint besides “you haven't offered enough money to convince more people to sell their labor”.

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

#215

Post by whoaisme »

spothedog1 wrote: post #190
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…

This is inaccurate. More people, even low skilled ones are still a huge benefit to your society. They buy goods and services in the local economy increasing demand and work tax paying jobs. Immigrants children grow up to greatly out earn their parents pay way more in taxes than they their parents. The only immigrant group that could be considered a liability are older low skilled workers who have passed the age to ha…

Meanwhile people who live in the real world know what you just said is a crock of nonsense.

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

#216

Post by novok »

cyberlurker wrote: post #179
vjdingdong wrote: post #166

German unification was unthinkable until the soviet union collapsed. Maybe in 25 years, the 2 Koreas will be reunited, making Korea an even bigger power on the global stage.

A nice sentiment but seems less likely every year that goes by. The South doesn’t even really want the North because it would be an economic burden. Or so I’ve read.

It depends how they treat the north when they do the integration.

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

#217

Post by m_mueller »

cyberlurker wrote: post #179
vjdingdong wrote: post #166

German unification was unthinkable until the soviet union collapsed. Maybe in 25 years, the 2 Koreas will be reunited, making Korea an even bigger power on the global stage.

A nice sentiment but seems less likely every year that goes by. The South doesn’t even really want the North because it would be an economic burden. Or so I’ve read.

I think like with Germany it is predicated on the collapse of one of the backing superpowers - China or the US. Tbf. at this time (after Trump era) it’s hard to tell which one is more stable.

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

#218

Post by [deleted] »

spothedog1 wrote: post #190
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…

This is inaccurate. More people, even low skilled ones are still a huge benefit to your society. They buy goods and services in the local economy increasing demand and work tax paying jobs. Immigrants children grow up to greatly out earn their parents pay way more in taxes than they their parents. The only immigrant group that could be considered a liability are older low skilled workers who have passed the age to ha…

[deleted]

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

#219

Post by dragonwriter »

ffwszgf wrote: post #203
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, there has yet to exist a condition under which the political will to really tackle this problem has been present, so you would not expect to see an example of a country successfully addressing it. This is pretty normal for humans -- waiting until a problem becomes catastrophic to do anything about it -- as we have seen in other areas recently. We will see how things are going in another few deca…

You can’t rescue ethnic groups that refuse to procreate. Look at Norway and Sweden, the people in those countries long ago decided their culture was not worth preserving. No amount of policy will change that

> You can’t rescue ethnic groups that refuse to procreate.

Ethnicity is more memetic than genetic.

> Look at Norway and Sweden, the people in those countries long ago decided their culture was not worth preserving.

Culture isn't transmitted by reproduction but by socialization. Immigration tends to involve socialization; indeed, the usual observation about future generations of immigrant populations aligning to preexisting native low birthrates in the developed world is evidence of either culture transfer (meaning reproduction not key to preserving culture) or that birth rates are a product of material incentives not culture (indicating that reversing low birth rates at need is a matter of changing material incentives, not culture.)

Either way, the low current birth rates = irreversible drive to cultural death claim is inconsistent with the evidence.

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

#220

Post by spfzero »

Clewza313 wrote: post #104
yorwba wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economically, Japan's GDP per capita (measured in 2010 US$) was 39,240 in 1991 and grew to 49,000 in 2019, a 25% increase. Yes, it's slower growth than before, but slow growth is still growth, not stagnation. For comparison, New Zealand was at 38,345 in 2019: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?end=2020... (also threw in the graph for South Korea)

During that time the USD has suffered around 88% inflation measures by CPI, so in real terms that implies they're going backwards.

That's inflation in US prices. It may not be transferrable to another country, where various things cost more/less, and rise/fall differently through the years.
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