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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

#321

Post by fierro »

csomar wrote: post #124
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 h…

cue amateur historian pontification

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

#322

Post by Sammi »

garden_hermit wrote: post #291
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…

Studies mostly show that, in the long run, family-based immigration policies lead to more economic growth than the "best and brightest". Basically, forming immigrant communities is useful—they provide support to new entrants, and lead to better outcomes for everyone. Importing a few educated doctors, rather than families or broader populations, leads to less long-term benefit.

Interesting. Would love a source.

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

#323

Post by usaar333 »

alephnan wrote: post #4

Wait. Korea was just updated to a developed country last month ?!?! > South Korea’s rise to a middle power status comes without much historical baggage In terms of technological, industrial and infrastructural innovation, SK has less 'tech debt' than Japan and the US.

Upgraded by some specific UN agency. They don't have a monopoly on labeling countries developed and probably lag years behind

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

#324

Post by fleddr »

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…

Maybe we have to rethink our economic system so that producing more humans just to create new customers is a perverse incentive.

Less humans means less demand means less work. In our current paradigm, this is a problem. In a healthy paradigm, it is a solution.

Less people? Rebalance human development with nature. Less consumption of resources? Wonderful. Less jobs? Great, let's all work less and live more.

Many would call this utopia, I call it sanity. I'd also say that couple not reproducing or doing so at increasingly old age, is the ultimate sign of how our economic system doesn't even support one of the most natural things there are: to form a family. It is openly hostile to this option.

And we want do double down on that? The trend of economic security is going to be even less, not more.

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

#325

Post by Aperocky »

eatonphil wrote: post #41
Clewza313 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ja…

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

On the other hand, if you can read Chinese.. then reading signage in Japan is like having half Chinese half weird squiggly stuff but the Chinese half would still mostly make out most of the sense.

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

#326

Post by dragonwriter »

iammisc wrote: post #243
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's trying and then there's trying. Japan is doing the first kind, where you put some effort in, but it's kind of limp. The other kind of trying is when you put vigorous effort into making it easier to have children. Dramatically ramp up childcare support. Strongly enforce anti-discrimination laws, particularly in the case of discrimination against mothers. Forbid employers from requiring more than 40h of work pe…

> Dramatically ramp up childcare support. Strongly enforce anti-discrimination laws, particularly in the case of discrimination against mothers. Forbid employers from requiring more than 40h of work per week under certain (very high) compensation thresholds. Provide direct payments to parents that substantially offset the costs of additional children. Align housing policy with the need for larger dwellings for larger…

> By and large, the nations with more childcare support, more protections for pregnant women, etc have lower birthrates than those that don't.

That's because they also have more public poverty and old-age support; which reduce the incentive for large families as old age and disability “insurance”.

Which on its own is a good thing, but if you want to encourage births anyway, your public support for parenting has to offset the effect that has on incentives to have children, which is a very bif effect. Nations don't do that because they don't think its an important-enough public need to warrant that approach.

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

#327

Post by Animats »

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…

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.

Yes, by 2100, the population might be all the way down to where it was in 1980.

Also, at some point, South Korea and North Korea may settle up, much as West Germany and East Germany did, and for much the same reasons.

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

#328

Post by ardit33 »

spothedog1 wrote: post #271
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those European countries also developed fast without much immigration (including Switzerland and the Nordics, which were not affected much by the war). It may have nothing to do with immigration, but you certainly haven't proved that. Edit: Currently the poorest parts of the US population are stagnating at best, at a time when rates of both legal and illegal immigration are quite high. It is hard to make the argument…

Yea they were mostly rebuilding the physical world and not having to completely rebuild society from the ground. Small countries like the Nordics aren’t great examples because they’re so small and a massive part of their wealth came from selling oil to the wider world. The amount of oil revenue generated per person in those countries allowed them develop such a high standard of living along with really smart and egal…

This is pretty wrong. Most immigrants come from much poorer countries, and they themselves have to restart everything from scratch, with little saving and no home ownership.

People coming from the Philipines, or India, or Eastern Europe, post communism from the 90s had to restart everything from scratch, including learning the language, yet over time they end up doing well.

You have this weird mentality, that all immigrants are coming rich, and from rich countries, which is the opposite from the truth.

I guarantee, that Someone in Bangladesh coming here, has had a much harder life, than the average minority living in Brooklyn or Queens.

Yet, even the obstacles, they end up doing better than the locals. So, initial conditions are not the major hamperer of success.

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

#329

Post by fleddr »

totoglazer wrote: post #3
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…

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.

I don't think Amsterdam is what is meant by the Netherlands.

Amsterdam is basically a super old village built in a swamp that it interesting for its history, architecture, culture, and so on. Or for the red light district and weed shops, if you prefer that. It's not a display of infrastructure.

The Netherlands has some of the best developed infrastructure nation-wide: roads, railways, and most famously its massive water management systems, as half the country is below sea level.

It is also very well developed economically (punching far above its tiny weight), technically, and socially (hybrid welfare system).

By comparison, many parts of the US feel like a 3rd world country.

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

#330

Post by jollybean »

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…

Demographic decline is only a bad thing from a fairly singular, industrialist, globalist perspective.

While it definitely means some reduction and prestige and power, and in some areas scale does provide advantage - in most ways, it's not decline in anything but the 'major shareholders of the economy'.

It's a 'Investor Problem' for the most part.

Japan never needed 180M people to maintain their standard living, so from the average person's perspective it looks different.

Otherwise, it's a little bit of an economic Ponzi scheme.

Of course, 'permanently fewer children' to the point where population goes to 0 - well that's a problem, but hopefully they will mitigate that and find a happy equilibrium.

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