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Korea World Leader in Broadband/Technology at Home
bozoman42 writes "67% of Korean Internet users are connected to broadband, some at 32Mbps! In fact, according to the Guardian Article, Korea is leading in nearly all walks of a modern high tech life. But there may be downsides. (Especially as covered here last week.)"
Yeah, like living next to North Korea.
Thanks,
--
Matt
Multiplayer games are absolutely huge in Korea, people have played themselves to death. And there are examples in real life beatings because of stuff that happens in multiplayer games.
SIG: Don't support Redhat until they support basic democracy in the dictatorship China vs democratic Taiwan issue. It's an evil company.
67% of Korean HOUSEHOLDS are connected to broadband. There's a big difference there, and it's very impressive. I'll bet that 67% of Mexican Internet users are connected to broadband, and it's around 0.1% of their population.
Or did you mean the United States' potential development of new nuclear arms in violation of a Congressional ban?
Funny old world!
South Korea is leading in nearly all walks of a modern high tech life.
North Korea is involved in the development of nuclear weapons in violation of international treaty?
Please read the article and your link again, as there is a big difference between the two countries.
Ingredients for happy society:
Add: one ounce of capitalism, one ounce of socialism, a pinch of communism
Not everything in the world is black and white, especially when it comes to determining which "ism" makes the greatest number of people happy.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Unfortunatley BT refuses to upgrade rural exchanges for ADSL, and people are very angry at this. The town of todmorden recently made the headlines for being the first town to reach the threshhold of being upgraded. I live in an 'unupgraded' town, but I dont really care about BT, because Im happy with my cable modem from telewest. The cable companies are more determined than BT to supply broadband, but they can only cover where their cable network goes.
Satilite broadband is becoming popular too, but its expensive, one way and low latency.
They're doing it so that people can die at home, surrounded by their family, instead of at internet cafes.
RMN
~~~
In 2000, the government launched its Cyber 21 program, to train a million housewives in IT use in 18 months
-Haxx calls Korean Airlines for a flight to korea to find a wife.
Imagine discussing port security during intercourse.
Was it just me or did everyone reading that linked-to story think:
"And ? What game was it that he was playing non-stop?!"
Probably EQ I suppose, but I want to know!
graspee
This is not shocking due to some basic differencews between the US and South Korea.
1)The South Korean government is encouraging technological growth, while the US is still realing from P2P networks and people exercising free speach.
2)South Korea is relatively new, like Europe and Japan, South Korea recently (relativel) rebuilt its industrial base. The US has NEVER had a serious conflict close enough to home to neccesatate major rebuilding. This means that our stuff is old compared to theirs.
So you see, it is not only explainable, it is logical that South Korea would lead the US, and the rest of the world, in the people having cool toys and making cool tech toys.
Help I'm a rock.
He means South Korea.
I got these Korea at a glance, 15 Fun Facts! Let me tell you, there are a lot of reasons to move there aside from the high bandwidth penetration:
1) Korean women are hot.
2) Don't look at me like that. Seriously, they are muy en fuega.
3) I'm not chauvenistic. The female anatomy is a thing of beauty. Especially in Korea.
4) It's not a fetish thing. Sheesh.
5) They have lots of technology and stuff, unlike Thailand. Also, Thai women (while hot) have AIDS. Seriously, man, you're risking your life.
6) Government less fascist than Singapore or China, and getting less fascist every day (unless it's more, I forget). Although, there's this one Singapore chick who does this really funny webcomic. I would totally do her.
7) No, it's the Japanese who are into the cartoon porn.
8) Whoah! Evidently, Koreans also like the cartoon porn.
9) Korean cartoon porn is totally nasty.
10) Anyway, Korea doesn't look like a giant mall. Japan creeps me out - stainless steel fucking everywhere.
11) All Koreans are nerds, and totally bad ass at the same time. Swear to god, I knew this one guy in my engineering class who could do a backflip and kick out ceiling fixtures - he was 27 and he'd never kissed a girl. They won't even notice how much of a nerd you are. Swear to god.
12) No, he was totally not gay. His parents had arranged a marriage for him with... holy shit, he was so gay. How could I not have seen it? God damn, we were like in the locker room together all the time.
13) I don't have a problem with it! He's a cool guy. Leaves more Korean women for me, heh?
14) What?
15) In Korea, you can pick up chicks by playing video games and drinking soda that's been laced with speed. I swear, that's what pickup joins are like in Korea. Dude, I read it in the nytimes.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
No wonder spammers like South Korea so much. I keep wondering if I'm going to have to blackhole all of Korea on the mail server that I run.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
...and all their boxes are routing SPAM TO ME!
After reading this article, I got to thinking about computer networks a bit in detail. Normally, we all worry more about software and more tangible things rather than the bridges that link our computers to the Internet.
I just gave an assignment that dealt with relativistic calculations and using c, the speed of light, which is equal to 3x10^8 m/s.
What I got very curious about was the following -- "Is there a way to measure the speed of light, precisely, with a computer network?"
The answer, I think, is a resounding YES!
I believe that if I can simply reflect packets of data between adjoining computers on an Ethernet (perhaps here in my lab) and measure the time it takes to complete a round trip, then my collegues and I could use a few simple electromagnetic equations to compare electrical signals in cable with visible light, thus measuring the speed of light to a very precise value!
Who would've thought the Ping utility would be so handy!
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3H 3J5
I live and work in Seoul and while its true that most people seem to have broadband at home it doesn't seem like they use it all that much. Its also incredibly affordable, very fast and extremely reliable.
With that said, Internet Cafes (PC Bangs) are a huge business here. They are literally everywhere. Its very difficult not to walk in a busy area and not see multiple PC bangs. So while all these people have internet at home, they still go out to the Internet Cafe to play games and spend extra money when they could easily do so at home.
I'm sitting in a PC Bang now, it has about 40 stations and half of them are in use. Mostly men in their early to late twenties. Most of them are playing Starcraft: Broodwar or one of numerous Diablo II clones. The handful of women in here are playing cards or using chat software. I will play Warcraft myself shortly.
Anyhow, my point is that all these homes are wired yet people still flock to these cafes unnecessarily. I mean, in the afternoons these places are filled with middle and high-school kids and then with adults all through the night. Most are open 24 hours.
So 67% of Korean homes may be wired, but I'd say an even greater percentage of the population are internet users, I don't know a single korean who doesn't have an e-mail address or an IM id.
and kimchi. Can't do without that.
Existence usually comes as a surprise (Idem)
There is some strange paradox here. Korea in fact is two Koreas. They started just in the same line and nearly with the same problems but today they seem to make a difference like Earth and Moon. We have the North with its rich resources but backward economy, its hunt for nukes, militarisation and lack of Internet (probably with exception of some bureaucrates). And we have the South that was considered to be more poor in resources, but which, in the end, is becoming the top technocratic country in the world. Yes, the South was also highly militarised and had nukes from the US. But the same went for the North with USSR.
I just wonder what will happen when someone will try a real reunification. What will happen when a North, which still cannot give up its dependency on someone else, with an economy in shambles and one of the biggest armies in the world meets a South which a big part of the world depends on, an economy that gives envy to anyone and carrying a more pacifist mood than ever?
North - What do you mean by "using Internet"?
South - What do you mean by "not using Internet"?
Here in the US, broadband "internet" is becoming more and more like cable TV. Unilaterally changeable service contracts ban useful services, ports are blocked and upload rates are artificailly reduced. It's mostly because of bad laws which alowed the regional bells to stomp fledgling DSL competition and other bad laws which essentially give cable operators exclusive franchises in huge areas. Rather than embracing the communications possibilities of wires in our homes and networks we have built, we plod along with pay per minute, voice only, long distance telephony.
Has Korea learned from our mistakes or will they repeat them?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthl ights2_dmsp_big.jpg
If you think the Koreas are anything alike, look at that picture to see what communism does to a country. The divide almost looks too perfect.
--Joey
high bandwidth penetration
Is this some secret korean technique, perhaps vividly depicted in those korean cartoon pr0n magazines you refer to?
Existence usually comes as a surprise (Idem)
are probably why North Korea is giving strange information that seems contradictory to other policies before. They're trying to change to a more open and capitalist government. North Korea has made other announcements besides nuclear weapons. They also disclosed the abduction of Japanese during the 70's and early 80's. Information here. Anyway, back on topic, North Korea has realized that nuclear weapons do not serve any good day-to-day purpose, because unlike video games using nuclear weapons in a recreational manner is highly illegal and non-productive in a down economy.
For those who are interested and not overtly offended by the source of the information, the CIA Fact Book for South Korea is available.
Why you listen to anything that this guys says.
... I don't think you'll find a bad word said about Microsoft. Nice to know.
If he isn't being paid by M$ he should be. Read his other articles...
A hard sell for cuddly new XP
The mother of all operating systems
Sun sues Microsoft from inside a glass house
To name a few
Game finals are even brought live on TV there.
Gaming IS a sport there, look at "starcraft" the prizes you can win in the rounaments are insane.
But that trend is starting to rise in the west too: think of CPL for instance, it's a worldwide event with international clans fighting for the first place (internationally!) in FPS games. And some clans even have dedicated fans nowadays, some players even have groupies (I kid you not: pretty girls, who take pictures with their webcams ofthemselves in their bra's holding a paper with the name of their favourite CS player for instance).
In a way I think that's a logical evolution in the world of sports: why would sport have something to do with only the physical? Look at chess, and snooker etc.
I mean, dedicated gamers even behave like real life jocks: they have the whole "yeah we're so 1337" thing going and act real tough (online that is
"The majority is always sane, Louis." -- Nessus
http://slashdot.jp
In urban India (where I'm unfortunately banished), the internet has become just another method of communication. Access is taken for granted. his despite the average computer here is a pentium1 with hardware sold under false pretenses. Broadband is unheard of. Most people access the internet at cybercafés How does pervasive broadband access measurably improve on this situation? Sure, flashy content is enabled, but I don't think anything fundamentally changes.
Uuuu. Just a note near-offtopic but which I think it deserves attention. "C and "K", in many European languages, have nearly the same intonations. For Spanish, Portuguese and French the correct name is Corea. At least for Russians is "Koreya". Germans seem to use the term Korea. English don't make a big difference between "C" and "K" but they seem to highly prefer to use "K" in names.
The correct name for Japan is Nippon and it seems that this is the way Japanese name its country. Besides Koreans and Japanese have completely different alphabets and intonations from us, Eurasians. So I don't get the reason why Japanese would be so pecky with one letter. I know that Japan and Korea have lots of problems between each other. However this story seems to have a reason completely different from what you state. The first europeans to reach East Asia were the Portuguese. So they named it Corea. But that was nearly 450 years ago and a lot of water went on since then. Today English is the main language in the world and Russian had lots to do with Korea (the Russian "C" is latin "S" btw). So I wouldn't be admired to see that this was the reason for the shift.
So Korea leads the world in broadband connections... They also lead the world in open relays and in spamming people with messages they can't even read.
My own mailserver doesn't accept incoming connections from Korea - at the time I inserted korea.blackholes.us into the dnsbl list, I had received ONE legitimate e-mail from Korea, and over four thousand spams from Korea.
"Buh-bye, Korea." I'll take them out of the filters as soon as the logs indicate less than once bounce per week instead of 30-50 bounces per day.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
For one thing Light isn't moving in a straight line in fiber optic cable so the speed of light is considerably slower when moving from one place to another.
Also the ping utility would be terribly innacurate for someting like this. It would also involve delays in processing at each computer, the slightest delay would be extremely harmful for something like this.
Hmmm... Pie...
Japan launched 3G phones first, and broadband is equally prevasive here. Obviously, the author didn't check their facts. I probably just sounds better to say Korea, which has a back water image for some reason, than to compare to Japan. Still its more accurate to say large parts of asia (taiwan, korea, singapore, japan) are now significantly ahead of the west as far as being wired goes. Its easy here because due to population density the last mile problem disappears.
--wyn
If you read the article this points to, some broadband connections are 8mbs not 32mbs, and they hope to have 20mbs connections out by 2005.
I wish they'd spend as much time and money controlling the amount of spam leaving Korean networks, rather than getting more (ab)users hooked up with insanely fast connections.
I still use Spamcop to report most spam I get, but it's hard to know whether it actually does any good for mail originating in the Far East. Do they not have any responsibility to their peering networks?
Your not limited to chatting via text only...
If your a mp3 pirate, you can download ten songs per minute rather then 1 song per 5 minutes.
Also the speed difference between while loading web pages is huge. So the WEB is far more enjoyable when your not waiting forever for pages to download.
Of course if you want to be limited to text communication using transliteration then it's fine.
Hmmm... Pie...
its not a troll, nor flamebait. Its true.. Living in Korea sucks. I know several people from Korea and several of my profs are from Korea. It sucks.
A couple of years ago I had a Korean studen living with me and he was surprised to see I did not have broadband! (I was still using dial-up then.) He said that DSL was available to almost anyone who wants it in Korea. I was kinda skeptical at the time but I guess they have a pretty good system.
... I get so much spam in Korean!!!!
It would improve the social enviornment in the USA, and give kids a place to go.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
And if it weren't for the *EVIL* United States, there would be a single Korea and it would be one massive hellhole instead of half hellhole and half really nice place to live.
Right now the US has tens of thousands of troops right now helping the South Koreans hold of a million man North Korean army. With the news that North Korea has broken the treaty that gave them economic aid in exchange for giving up nukes, it should be increasingly obvious that the current US foreign policy that is heavy in, ahem, consequences, is not so naive after all. What is naive is the idea that you can solve all your problems with mean people by just talking nice to them.
I wonder how if South Vietnam would be doing as well as South Korea of the US had succeeded in defending it.
Brian Ellenberger
Capitalism is currently leading to Socialism anyhow, big companies, big government, class warfare.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
You do realise that there is only one nation which has actually used nuclear weapons in war - and its not any of the countries in the so-called 'axis of evil'.
If you still don't know the answer, visit this site
Tim
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
My girlfriend is Korean and when she read this she died laughing. She printed your post and it's haning on her wall in her dorm room!
Oh yea, she promised to show me what "Korean High-Bandwidth Penetration" is all about later tonight...
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I got these Korea at a glance, 15 Fun Facts! Let me tell you, there are a lot of reasons to move there aside from the high bandwidth penetration
Penises have higher bandwidth than cable modems What? They cum more than everyone else?
Is it better to kill people the old fashioned way using explosives that obliterate them into scattered pieces?
Yes, you don't poison the land and seas for thousands of years to come and create the massive problems that a hideously irradiated planet would have to face up to. All weapons are bad for sure (they reckon it will take 400 years to clear Cambodia of landmines at the present rate), but some are really, really bad.
Mind you some people make *lots* of money out of selling them.
According to South Korean intel reports, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has a IQ in the genius range (150-160) and is a computer wizard. I'm sure he's a multiplayer fanatic.
The 50s IIRC, there was (actually still is) a civil war the North was for Communism the South for capitalism. The south was supported by the west and now theres a border across the middle of teh country that is heavily armed. They've been at ceasefire for decades now......
Because I'm being trolled I'll be brief:
<sarcasm> Yeah, I agree, we should wait until we're living in an opressive regime similar to China or Cuba before we do anything. </sarcasm>
Free speech isn't an issue that you can wait until it gets bad before you address (because once you have no free speech, you loose your ability to address problems). That is why it is important to keep these problems contained before they get out of control.
I read the internet for the articles.
To add to the parent post they used the French spelling because the official language of FIFA is French
I've always wondered about this. For a long time Korea has had extremely high amounts of online time spent per-user. Presumably, that means lots of experienced techies from dicking around with computers so much.
Yet I hear surprisingly few Korean names among major open-source developers. Korea has a name for pirated software, and that's about it.
Why no *good* benefits coming from all that online time?
May we never see th
Ok there's a big difference between "Some 67% of Korean households now have broadband" (As said in the article), and "67% of Korean Internet users are connected to broadband" (As said in the /. post). Anyone know which is correct? I heinously doubt that 67% of Koreans have broadband, its more likely 67% of internet users.
Everything sucks except musicandstuff
Why would the CIA World Factbook offend anyone? it's a tremendously good resource.
One thing the US government is really good about is putting out lots of free data archives that it's spent money building. There are *excellent* resources available to the world:
The USGS puts out really great maps and elevation maps for free. Not something you can produce on your own easily.
NASA puts out some of my favorite stuff -- images, huge quantities of data.
The Farm Security Administration has some really nice old photographs.
The Library of Congress has tons of really nice stuff.
The Smithsonian is one of the greatest museums I can imagine.
The US government is one of the most steady and highest-quality provider of useful content (and ad-free!) available to the Internet.
I kind of wish there was some site that listed all the US government sites as a sort of tree...make it easier to browse through them.
May we never see th
What do you think about Västerås then?
Not everyday I see my hometown mentioned of slashdot. =)
Oh well.. back to some boring x86 asm then.. =)
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Your forgetting that it was North Korea that invaded South Korea---without any provocation. The reason why we haven't "left them alone" is because they *invaded* another country who is our friend. Also, don't forget that North Korea and South Korea are technically still at war. Are you actually arguing that South Korea would have been better off had we just let the North invade and take over?
Second point is that there is no such thing as a vacuum in world politics. Everybody pretty much has an interest in everyone else's affairs. Even more so when they see them as a potential threat.
We tried isolationism in the earth 20th century. For outcomes see World War I and World War II.
Brian Ellenberger
Although the technology mentioned in this article is still far from the reach of most western countries, Japan already has it all.
High-speed internet access has been common for many years. 10 megabit cable is now common for home users. 100 megabit is also available.
NTT Introduced FOMA 3G mobile services way back in early 2001.
HDTV has been available for at least 4 years. I first saw an HDTV broadcast in 1998.
How come all those servicemen who were at nuclear tests are putting in legal cases? How come all those people died in terrible agony? Have you read any stories from the survivors (and yes I know the Allies were responsible for another charming act of war atrocity with conventional weapons at Dresden).
I really, really hope this never happens, but I'd be interested to hear your position about how you'd feel about somebody letting off one in your country. It could happen, the world is crazy enough and there are enough poor people with not enough to lose, as another poster has commented.
It does strike me as very ironic that the one country that's used nuclear weapons is one of the most keen to make sure other people aren't allowed to possess them, while they reserve the right to maintain their own arsenal. Lots of people find that a bit hypocritical to say the least.
And they aren't the only one to violate and / or try to sabotage international treaties. (Not that I'm defending North Korea, it is probably one of the most horrible places to be on this earth.)
Here's why South Korea is so wired:
1. 80% of the population live in urban areas.
2. About half of these live in humongous high-rise housing complexes.
That pretty much explains why it was so easy to wire up the place for broadband.
corea or korea. the correct way to describe south korea is "dae han min gook" (please don't make any 'gook' jokes) which translates to 'republic of korea'.
also, as a story i used to hear from my dad... japan and korea has had many conflicts over history. he mentioned that japan opted to name corea as korea because the 'k' comes after 'j'. sounds racist, but i haven't found any truth to this statement.
Why do I get so much spam from kornet.net and other Korean networks?
The reason they all have broadband is that a handful of stupid Westerners (I'd say they would be Americans) are replying to their spam and buying penis enlargements and such, and funding the broadband explosion.
I am maintaining a list of IP address of spammers, which can be found at: http://enthalpy.homelinux.org/spammers.txt and I assure you, they are 90% Korean arse-lickers.
The other 10% are from UUNet.
However, around six months ago I read a horiffic account of her six years in the North Korean prison system by a woman named Soon Ok-Lee and I was so appaled and so angry that something like this could go on on this planet that I suddenly became very interested in North Korea. I have a lot I'd like to share, so please forgive me if this post is quite 'information dense'.
First, I'd encourage all of you to read Ms. Lee's account. There is a condensed version of it at this URL (caution, not for children.. it may even give you adults nightmares..)
US Senate Testimony of Ms. Soon Ok Lee North Korean prison camp survivor
There are many other defector testimonies available too. They make fascinating if chilling reading, as does anything having to do with North Korea. All I can say is that North Korea is an enigma of sorts. An entire country operated like a cult. It is a cult in which to question the insane narcissistic ruler Kim Jong-Il is often to die. You dont believe me? Read her story!
Which brings me to the reason why I am posting. Kim Jong-Il's hold on North Korea, I think, is fragile. It depends on a very tight "blockade on information' coming in to the country. Can Slashdot readers think of any way to get news of the outside into North Korea ? Because if we could.. we could rid the world of a madman comparable to PolPot or Hitler or Stalin..
For some background on NK's techniques of control, read the following:
The Official Propaganda In The DPRK: Ideas And Methods
The Repressive System And The Political Control In North Korea
Here are some other resources: Two other defectors stories..
http://monthly.chosun.com/html/200201/200201280001 _1.html
http://monthly.chosun.com/html/200006/200006130003 _1.html
NK Human Rights website
North Korea's strategy
Anyway, please check them out, and please do something for human rights in North Korea today. They are human beings like ourselves and they are suffering.
I daresay that any of us outspoken geeks who found ourself suddenly transplanted into North Korea would soon find ourself in the position Ms. Lee. found herself in. Except that she lived and we would die for that ill-considered remark. She was one of the only people to ever be released from an NK death camp. She risked (and is risking) her life to tell her story.. Maybe we can help in some way.. Breaking the blockade of information coming into North Korea would help destabilize Kim Jong-Il. With all the technology available to the West, there has to be away.. And it would be nonviolent, since eventually HIS OWN PEOPLE would kill him..
He is one of the most evil people who have ever lived. Dont fall for the lies.. He is fooling so many people... he will never 'open up' he is afraid the world would find out about his crimes and NK's 'killing fields'. It is all an act. A lie.
One idea I had was to float toilet paper into North Korea on leaky balloons.. Most North Koreans have never seen toilet paper. Lets show them that the rest of the world is not trying to kill them. We want to help free them.
I knew it! Go korea. :)
--
"pain is weakness leaving the body."Just because 67% of the homes have broadband doesn't mean that 67% of the homes have good system administrators :-) Actually, the early problems weren't homes, but schools, which ran a standard software distribution that had lots of holes in it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If you going to start getting First Order Logic about it then please at least define the predicates.
Basically this is my argument. North Korea and South Korea pretty much started out the same. Same people, same general geographic local, same wartorn post-WWII state. One adopted a communist economy, one a non-communist economy. The communist one is a hellhole. The non-communist one isn't.
Of course one country does not make a proof. Maybe it was a freak occurance. But a similar thing happened in Eastern Europe. And there is a wealth of documented evidence that communism makes your country a hellhole. I don't see which proposition you think is false.
Brian
One difference is that broadband internet lets you get more TV-like services, compared to the limited range of opinions on government and corporate TV, though satellites have already done much of that. But the more important difference is that having a broadband connection at home means you can easily put up your own web site, and distribute as much content as you've got disk drive for. In some places, like parts of the US, the broadband companies discourage this, but in most of the world you can run your own servers.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The term "rogue nation" concerns me, it is just too comic strip/ kids playground language to be taken seriously. The idea that some of the most powerful decision makers in the world think we're playing cowboys and injuns or cops 'n robbers is downright scary. I think you make a fine analogy by mentioning Calvin and Hobbes. The USA is a damn sight better option than most of these countries, but is sure aint perfect. I think we're in agreement, we have a responsibility to keep our elected representatives accountable, to remind them that they are representing us, not just being voted in to be let loose with a lot of toys. Democracy shouldn't mean a once every four years (or how often you vote for your reps) responsibility, and then you throw away any personal involvement.
As you well mention, it would be a far better option to find a way to make sure the 'other countries' have something to lose. I think a lot of the craziness in the world is coming from people who have been so f**ked over by the big boys that they just have nothing to lose any more.
Ok, serious request, not just a wind up. Do you have a URL reference to where it is used in a serious context, e.g. UN documents etc. Over here (UK) it has just been taken as part of the comic strip language that Bush uses (and scares the hell out of us). All part of the blurring between b-movies and b-movie language to describe very real, very serious situations. Trouble is the word simplifies things too far.
This will probably annoy you (so apologies in advance) but one of the reasons Bush etc don't do themselves any favours with some of their allies, like in Europe, is they belittle their value by using this language. For example, to be technically correct, your example "Being rogueish means doing your own thing (like plotting against your neighbors and stockpiling biochemical weapons) and not really giving 2 shits about what anyone says." could actually apply to the USA. The USA stockpiles weapons of mass destruction and terror, definitely has plotted against and overthrown its neighbours on several occasions, and does not really give 2 shits about what anyone says. I think most of us want to believe in the USA, but the people at the top could try a little harder in their words and actions. Remember a lot of Europeans and people of other nations of Bush's age have had first hand experience of war as a terrible experience in their own home town, have been on the receiving end of terror-wars, and so are a lot less inclined to simplistic movie- language to describe these encounters.
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-- The First Law Of Thermodynamics
What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth.
-- The Second Law Of Thermodynamics
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