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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

#251

Post by luckylion »

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…

> They buy goods and services in the local economy increasing demand and work tax paying jobs.

That heavily depends on the immigrant group, and is, on average, not true in most of Europe where many immigrants heavily depend on welfare and it turns into intergenerational dependency. I'm sure it's different in countries that aren't offering full benefits to immigrants, and are much harder to reach via illegal migration, i.e. the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, but that kind of blanket statement isn't accurate.

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

#252

Post by spothedog1 »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #237
spothedog1 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The reason certain countries don’t like immigration is because a conservative faction wants to keep society in place. This is so simplified that it is basically false. There are a range of reasons for not supporting immigration, but basically no one wants to "keep society in place". I will note that the USA had historically low immigration in the post-war period that was associated with rapidly rising wellbeing[0].…

That was almost entirely due to America rebuilding Europe and every other major industrial power knocked off their perch for a couple of decades. It had nothing to do with immigration. Additionally Americans were still having lots of kids at that point so the population was growing without immigratiom.

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

#253

Post by dougmwne »

forinti wrote: post #186
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.

The DDR had about half the income per capita as West Germany. South Korea is currently at about 24x the per capita income of the north. It would be a huge challenge to unify those two economies and it would surely take decades. South Korea developed itself from the 1960s onwards, so I would guess that unification would take that kind of time frame (50-60 years - if they could pull off another such miracle).

Ok the other hand, it would give the south a ready source of young labor, which they absolutely will need going forward. Managed properly, it could be a huge boon.

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

#254

Post by jeffreyrogers »

spothedog1 wrote: post #252
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason certain countries don’t like immigration is because a conservative faction wants to keep society in place. This is so simplified that it is basically false. There are a range of reasons for not supporting immigration, but basically no one wants to "keep society in place". I will note that the USA had historically low immigration in the post-war period that was associated with rapidly rising wellbeing[0].…

That was almost entirely due to America rebuilding Europe and every other major industrial power knocked off their perch for a couple of decades. It had nothing to do with immigration. Additionally Americans were still having lots of kids at that point so the population was growing without immigratiom.

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 that immigration is preventing things from getting worse.

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

#255

Post by spothedog1 »

luckylion wrote: post #251
spothedog1 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> They buy goods and services in the local economy increasing demand and work tax paying jobs. That heavily depends on the immigrant group, and is, on average, not true in most of Europe where many immigrants heavily depend on welfare and it turns into intergenerational dependency. I'm sure it's different in countries that aren't offering full benefits to immigrants, and are much harder to reach via illegal migration…

I’ve read about this and a big reason is it’s simply so much easier to get a job in the US. You’re not dealing with unions and America just has way more low paying jobs. You can def argue this isn’t a good thing but working a low paying job is better than working no job.

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

#256

Post by [deleted] »

closeparen wrote: post #239
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…

Young people consume things that can be made at scale. The march of technology makes the things we buy cheaper, better, and more abundant. At the same time, it makes labor related to the production of that technology more valuable. Old people consume 1:1 care. And as medical technology improves, elderly people survive increasingly complex conditions requiring increasingly labor-intensive management. At the same time,…

[deleted]

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

#257

Post by iammisc »

sct202 wrote: post #34
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…

It's going to be hard to convince couples living in 1 bedroom apartments to cram in 2 kids just so that the country can hit replacement level fertility rates. Large urban cities just don't seem built for families, especially with the way that larger spaces are priced.

The thing is cities don't need to be anti-child. But you're right... they absolutely are.

It's not just the apartment size, it's the entire setup. For example, my city of Portland let the bars remain open while shutting down the parks during COVID. It just sends the message that those in charge don't care about families.

Or look at the tolerance for deviant homeless. It's one thing to be compassionate. It's entirely something else when that compassion extends to men exposing themselves and masturbating in front of young children (which has happened here before).

America's cities have become playgrounds for single adults, instead of their historical place as places for all kinds of people.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190910-the-major-citi...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/where-have...

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

#258

Post by tablespoon »

dragonwriter wrote: post #231
tablespoon wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OTOH, most of the arguments I’ve seen for it actually being important (in the near term) are the kind where you scratch the surface and underneath is pure racism, so I’m not all that concerned. Can you go into more detail on that? In some respects "demographic suicide" solved with immigration has many (but not all) of the characteristics of colonization, and I think it's a reasonable speculation that colonized and…

> Can you go into more detail on that? A typical example is a two-step argument equating race/biological heritage with culture and/or ethnic identity coupled with appeals to an imperative to preserve culture and/ot ethnic identity. Something like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28051854

> Something like this:

Honestly that comment doesn't read "racist" to me. Maybe the disconnect is taking "culture" too literally, or using "culture" when one really means "people" (i.e. a combination of culture and ancestry/descent). Also even though an entire culture can technically be transmitted memetically, that's practically not the case except in cases of early childhood adoption. Immigrant populations may tend to take on certain cultural characteristics (e.g. economic and political ones) of the population they get socialized into, but those characteristics may not actually be the ones particular individual cares the most about preserving (e.g. culture in a narrower non-anthropological sense, like religion and and attachment to certain literature).

And even assuming a full memetic replication of a culture, I don't think the last member of a colonized people would be entirely happy that his people went extinct even if some of the colonizers fully took up his culture.

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

#259

Post by iammisc »

BurningFrog wrote: post #206
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…

Hungary and Poland are making serious efforts to boost their birth rates. Hungary gives life time tax exemption to mothers of 4 children, and may lower that to 3. It's too early to tell if it's working. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/04/baby-bonuses-f...

Hungary and Poland also have incredibly interventionist governments who are happy to not only ecourage family formation through economic policy but also cultural policy. The former is fairly easy and many other developed countries are going down that road. The latter is the part that some countries in Western Europe and the USA do not want to touch with a ten foot pole, but it is the more important metric.

You want more families? You need to unashamedly celebrate your nation and culture.

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

#260

Post by rat87 »

slothtrop wrote: post #178
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Automation isn't an issue (except for wealth gap). Automation opens up new jobs
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