Politics

[dwchang]

In fact, it's been argued that once things get desperate with the famine, North Korea WILL invade since wars stimulate the economy.

http://economics.about.com/od/warandthe ... conomy.htm

Hmmm I dunno. I remember taking an econ class during my undergrad (OK that was a LONG time ago) and they explained something how if the Government spent one dollar during war-times, it was equivalent to the consumer spending two or something like that. The details are obviously shady, but they were basically saying it was *good* for the Government to be spending during wartimes and that it stimulated the economy (for the short term).

The most obvious ways would be in the employment rate (I would imagine). I'll get back to you on the details. My father is (fortunately?) a Ph. D. in Economics of all things and I imagine if I ask him about this I'll get the details of what I was *trying* to say about Government spending. Consider it a 'work in progress' (this post that is) . Then again, I'm sure he would agree with others in that it's not really a 'science.'

Back on the subject though, even disregarding the economic comment...given the (lack of) sanity in their dictator, I wouldn't at all be surprised if he invaded just for the sake of "you assholes aren't taking us alive" point of pride.

In any case, it's been something I've thought about for YEARS even as a kid (North Korea that is).

[Zarxrax]

Korean politics are getting scary. They have their own evangelical Christian radical right movement going on. Five of the worlds largest Megachurches can be found in South Korea.

I'm actually fairly surprised that Christianity has such a root in Korea. Has any other major religion traditionally been practiced in the area?

[Zarxrax]

The broken window fallacy is itself a fallacy. Planned obsolescence is, essentially, the broken window fallacy on a macro scale. And it works. I don't like it, but the idea does actually work. As can be witnessed by the fact that MS has had 7 major OS's in the last 12 years with lack of support for old ones to encourage upgrading.

You mean on a micro scale. And planned obsolescence is clearly much different than the broken window fallacy. This is simply technological advancement. When you purchase a new operating system, its not the same as the old one--it does MUCH more. Likewise, the old ones are still perfectly usable for the purpose they were originally purchased for. A 100mhz Pentium running windows 95 is perfectly capable of typing up reports, surfing the internet, playing music, and yes, they even play SkiFree.

[Kionon]

Korean politics are getting scary. They have their own evangelical Christian radical right movement going on. Five of the worlds largest Megachurches can be found in South Korea.

I'm actually fairly surprised that Christianity has such a root in Korea. Has any other major religion traditionally been practiced in the area?

A mixture of Buddhism, Conficianism, and Shinto mainly. Pretty much the same general flavor as Japan, but Christianity is apparently insane. If I recall correctly, the Economist claimed that a full third of Koreans claimed Christianity, and that 1 in 20 citizens of Seoul were members of the megachurch across from the National Assembly (that's 800,000). Let's see if I can pull up the quote...

As of 2005, approximately 22 million or 46.5% of the South Korean population express no religious preference. Of the remainder, 13.7 million are Christian (of which 8.6 million profess to be Protestants and 5.1 million to be Catholics), 10.7 million are Buddhist, and less than half a million belong to various minor religions including Jeungsando and Wonbuddhism. (Source: According to figures compiled by the South Korean National Statistical Office. NSO online KOSIS database. Retrieved on 2006-08-23. This should not be confused with other figures which report only the percentage of the religious population that are Buddhist, Christian, etc.)

The largest of them all, Yoido Full Gospel Church, sits opposite the national assembly in Seoul, an astute piece of political positioning. It looks somewhat unprepossessing—a brownish blob surrounded by office buildings—but Yoido boasts 830,000 members, a number it says is rising by 3,000 a month. One in 20 people in greater Seoul is a member.

The Protestant surge in South Korea has slowed down a bit recently, a development which is variously blamed on changes in school laws and the abuses of some clerical families. Even so, the growth has been phenomenal. In 1950 only 2.4% of South Koreans were Protestant. Now the figure is close to 20%. Counting Catholics (which many Korean Protestants don't), Christians make up close to 30% of the population. “Koreans don't play church,” says an American elder at Yoido.

[dwchang]

Korean politics are getting scary. They have their own evangelical Christian radical right movement going on. Five of the worlds largest Megachurches can be found in South Korea.

I'm actually fairly surprised that Christianity has such a root in Korea. Has any other major religion traditionally been practiced in the area?

A mixture of Buddhism, Conficianism, and Shinto mainly. Pretty much the same general flavor as Japan, but Christianity is apparently insane. If I recall correctly, the Economist claimed that a full third of Koreans claimed Christianity, and that 1 in 20 citizens of Seoul were members of the megachurch across from the National Assembly (that's 800,000). Let's see if I can pull up the quote...

I wouldn't say it's necessarily like Japan in that...Japan doesn't have that many Christians in it compared to Korea. In fact, that's the major difference between Korea and most of the other surrounding Asian nations.

Other than that, yes Alan, there are a lot of Christians in Korea . I'm surprised you haven't seen the massive-mega weddings on the news or anything. Weddings where like 100+ couples get married all at once at a mega-church.

At the sae time, I wouldn't say it's that big of a problem as folks are implying. It's not like you walk down the street and folks harass you about religion or anything and it isn't as deeply rooted in the politics or anything. I think that sentiment in this thread has been way overblown by some people. Frankly, having lived and visited enough times, I can tell you otherwise.

Not to say there isn't corruption (in fact the Government is QUITE corrupt), but again for every day life? It doesn't affect me at all.

And I've been around that Church in Yoido. In fact, a lot of my family lives around there...

[Kionon]

Dan,

I can see your points. I admit The Economist is definitely liberal leaning (and the writer actually admits that in the article as well), and so am I. I also have a fairly intense fear of the radical right in any country, especially when it is faith based. Since Korea is going to be my new home for the foreseeable future, I have a right to be concerned by the political movements that govern it, especially when many of their claims are contrary to my own ideological flavor.

[dwchang]

Dan,

I can see your points. I admit The Economist is definitely liberal leaning (and the writer actually admits that in the article as well), and so am I. I also have a fairly intense fear of the radical right in any country, especially when it is faith based. Since Korea is going to be my new home for the foreseeable future, I have a right to be concerned by the political movements that govern it, especially when many of their claims are contrary to my own ideological flavor.

I'm trying to calm your fears since in my own personal experience, I believe these observations are being overblown and you shouldn't be worried.

Frankly I think the radical right in this country has FAR more power and reason to be afraid than in Korea. Trust me. If you can deal with it here, Korea won't be so bad.

And again, I think there are far more important things to worry about, which I guess is more reason to worry and counter to my original point (oops )

[godix]

You mean on a micro scale. And planned obsolescence is clearly much different than the broken window fallacy.

Given how prevalent it is in all aspects of industry I meant macro. Cars, home appliances, DVD players & other home entertainment products, TVs, computer peripherals, and computers themselves are all areas where planned obsolescence is the norm. You are right, it is different than the broken window fallacy, it's the exact opposite of it in fact. The broken window thing says, basically, that the economic gains from something being destroyed and replaced does not outweigh the economic gains if it weren't destroyed. Planned obsolescence says that the economics gains of something made worthless and replaced is more than if a product doesn't become worthless. The two ideas are directly opposite. The only test place for economic ideas, the real world, follows the model of planned obsolescence which indicates to me the broken window fallacy is not correct or else we'd be following it's core ideas instead.

A 100mhz Pentium running windows 95 is perfectly capable of ... surfing the internet

A win95 computer on the internet would be hacked very quickly because there are known vulnerabilities in win95 that MS will not patch. I guarantee if you asked MS about those security holes their answer would be to go out and purchase XP or Vista. Withholding support is one of the hallmarks of planned obsolescence. In fact in the US case where MS was declared a monopoly has other elements to it much less known. One of which is that the court declared MS was guilty of using postponement strategy (deliberately not releasing new innovations until the obsolescence time had passed and they would release a new product anyway) which is further indication that software does indeed follow the planned obsolescence model.

[guy07]

About canada eh ...? Well, for one. Any laws involving drinking or weed are almost never followed. If they catch you smokin a joint, if you have under 3G's on you, they just confiscate it and leave. If your caught drinking, same. If your drunk, they might take you to a drunk tank or even drive you home. Police=free taxi service

I'm sure u all know about how hentai is pretty much illegal. You can't smoke in bars, or anywhere but in your car or home, or like 20 meters from a building entrance. (FUCKING SMOKIN LAWS!). And they are trying to make it so you can't smoke in a car if there's a child in there. You can have sex when your 14 (i think). And if your a politician, no law applies to you. Or so it seems these days -_-;

We have lots of fun crazy laws. Not many people follow any of them though ...

[Sereenie]

I also have to confess to voting Liberal once

Shame, shame, shame!

Then again, I think the risk was only minor, with our region being painted such a deep red. As someone said before, you could paint a pig in red and he'd get elected easily...

Lawrence Cannon was a glitch and only got elected because people wanted to "vote for a Minister" (god, I hate that state of mind).

I'm with your about the Canadian system. It's hardly the worst, but it's still totally screwed up and in sore need of reform.

At least, now parties get funded according to the number of votes they got in the previous election. Even if our votes don't count, going for a small party means they'll get a bit more money. I guess it's better than nothing.

S.