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Seoul Is Reinventing Itself As a Techno-Utopia (wired.com)
mirandakatz writes: Seoul is struggling: Its birth rate is at an all-time low, college graduates are having enormous trouble finding jobs, and trust in government is not high. But South Korea is also, in many ways, cutting edge -- and it wants to use that future-thinking power to build its capital into a techno-utopia. As Susan Crawford details at Backchannel, that begins with a powerful data analysis tool known as the "The Digital Civic Mayor's Office." Crawford writes that "this dashboard seemed like a potential green shoot of democracy -- a city doing what it can to show citizens why government should be trusted and that their quality of life, including the quality of the air they breathe, the prices of the apples they eat, and the traffic jams they face daily, is important."
...the Norks heartily approve of the Seoul government making themselves a bigger hostage in any standoff.
Nobody listens to techno
So with the example of the North Koreans within artillery range the South Koreans decided that what they really needed to do was build a massive all-powerful government?
So the South Korean government is willing to do anything to show that they're trustworthy except actually doing trustworthy stuff? If they actually had some transparency and you know, trustworthiness, this wouldn't be necessary.
Why not start with a little transparency at the top? Isn't that the corruption mess that started this whole failure?
Why government should be trusted?
Not a good question.
The real question is "CAN government be trusted?"
And the answer is FUCK NO!!!!
We could have trustworthy governments if we elected trustworthy people. For some reason the entire world seems to use systems that promote the most unscrupulous people to the top. I still have hope that this can change one day. Power doesn't corrupt everyone to the same degree. I don't buy that absolute power corrupts everyone absolutely, it just absolutely corrupts the people who manage to work their way through the system to get there.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Isn't this the same government that mandates that everyone use Internet Explorer with ActiveX to access government services, do banking, or shopping?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/e...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
https://www.reddit.com/r/today...
Kim knows he gets one WMD shot. After that it's game on and he's not going to win that game.
I don't think he's going to do anything that stupid. He IS going to push up as close to the line as he can and still have the ability to deny he fired first.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Either way Seoul is toast.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
It is the Fire Brigad: they are damn busy keeping up with Samsung batteries spreading fire all around...
He doesn't necessarily need to waste his nukes on it.
One of the reasons the stalemate on the Korean Peninsula has lasted over 60 years is that Seoul is only about ten miles from the DMZ, and North Korea has a huge number of large artillery pieces dug into the hills just on the other side. On paper, North Korea could turn Seoul into what has been called a "sea of fire" in a matter of minutes.
Now there's a big question of how operational those artillery pieces actually are. But it's not something a sane person would want to gamble with. Kind of like Kim's supposed ICBM mountable nuclear warhead. If you were a betting man you'd give far from even odds that it'd work. But you'd be staking an entire city.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
No, thanks. In fact, nothing has ever shown me that the government deserves anything but contempt from me.
The only thing I'll willingly give any government is the middle finger.