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Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

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Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#131
post #14

Maybe all these snowpiercer, squid games, parasite narratives are having an effect? Its like all these dystopic, zombie, monster, battle royale movies and shows are just expressing the never ending exploitaion and helplessness around people.

How is „Parasite“ supposed to be left-wing? I honestly fail to see how it can be interpreted that way.

Think about who are the actual parasites in the movie...

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#132
post #22

This already happened, yesterday.[1] About 16,000 people showed up for a rally in Seoul. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/south-korea-squid-game-labor-un...

Never trust media on counts. Went to some boat rallies that had many thousands of people and hundreds of boat. Highly impressive turnout. Media reports made it out that barely anyone showed up.

It's really hard to estimate the size of crowds without the help of technology.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#133
post #27
post #10

I wonder if Squid Game has had an impact. Gi-Hun had a flashback to an auto factory strike that was pretty traumatic that led him down the path to sign his life away to the game. https://labornotes.org/blogs/2021/10/real-life-auto-strike-b...

So many of their recent films with worldwide acclaim are about rampant classism and economic inequality. Even as someone not super in touch with Korean social sentiment, I still get the feeling that Koreans are getting super fed up with their status quo. Might not be "having an effect" so much as "reflecting the way they feel".

It's a chicken and egg problem, or maybe a feedback loop.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never trust media on counts. Went to some boat rallies that had many thousands of people and hundreds of boat. Highly impressive turnout. Media reports made it out that barely anyone showed up.

It's really hard to estimate the size of crowds without the help of technology.

Reported crowd size has more to do with if the reporter wants to promote or disparate a group. How they want to “spin” the story.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#135

> Nationalize key industries and socialize basic services like education and housing. Yeah, hopefully they don't achieve this.

In some countries with absurdly high house prices, I think some level of nationalisation of housing is an eventual inevitability. Much like Seoul, places like Sydney are so expensive that unless you already own a house, or are eventually going to inherit one, no amount of hard work or education can reliably get you into the market. Entry level prices within 25 miles of the city are around A$1.5m for a detached house,…

> apartments are predominantly 1 or 2 bedrooms and poorly built

It is just amazing that Australia does not good regulations for building apartments. You work hard, you save money, buy an apartment and then you find out there are some major structural issues in the building.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#136
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Allowing employers to control health care is not a good idea. Not that I disagree, but I'd like to point out that you're effectively advocating for all other employers to "cut" healthcare as well. As someone who pays my own (and my family's) healthcare to the tune of $16K/yr for a really shitty plan, I'd also say that _who_ pays is probably not the primary concern here. If it cost one third what it does now (which…

Do you think healthcare providers could get away with such crazy prices if they had to negotiate with the government, instead of some insurance giant which in turn is bilking some corporation?

Perhaps a better question for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon? It's not like the US Government has some strong history of excellent price negotiation.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never trust media on counts. Went to some boat rallies that had many thousands of people and hundreds of boat. Highly impressive turnout. Media reports made it out that barely anyone showed up.

Wanted to comment with a snide "QED", then got really sad, because jumping from poor reporting on boat rallies to "never trust the media" feels way too real right now.

Why on earth would anyone “trust” the media or any other group.

That’s like believing Facebook has your best interest in mind.

Figure out what a group wants to understand how they are spinning story.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Korea frequently tries to decentralize and build new districts and cities from scratch.It just does not work because of korean culture.

I am wondering if a super super block model would work. You take a 3x3 block of houses and label it a super block. Then you build a 5x5 block of super blocks and then put commercial zoning in the middle.

I'm not sure that South Korea has a single flat area to put 5x5 block of super blocks. The landscape is very rugged.

Also, putting any number of buildings in the middle of nowhere is not solving any issues. And near Seoul there's no land.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#139
post #128
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you will but you will never get it though. Because there will be a class of people who decide who should get that extra 3 meters and as my experience growing up in USSR tells me it's ain't gonna be you.

A class of people? You mean our democratically elected officials? For all their flaws, I would rather they do something productive with "some" of the resources we're talking about here rather than putting it to use on just another bottle of Dom Perignon. Sure, even that generates economic activity, but there are much better economically multiplying activities that can be invested in.

Well at the point of time when policies are that to the left hard to imagine you will still have elected officials but who knows

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really hard to estimate the size of crowds without the help of technology.

Reported crowd size has more to do with if the reporter wants to promote or disparate a group. How they want to “spin” the story.

Depends on how they're reporting on it.

There absolutely are reporters that do this by always saying things like "it feels like... " Etc.

It's however notoriously hard to estimate these numbers and participants generally overestimate the amount by several orders of magnitude.

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