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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."
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?
It's a MAD situation, I think it's fairly comparable to the Cold War in that respect.
The North seems crazy, but under it all they do want to live, and they will NEVER have enough power to take over so much as a child's playground without being immediately obliterated.
In that light, investment in Seoul isn't unwise. The city won't get destroyed because war isn't really all that likely. In fact, giving North Korea a juicier target to threaten kind of stabilizes the situation, since if there was a chance to take out North Korea without collateral damage... someone might be inclined to try it.
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 is nuclear deterrence sensible when America does it, but "crazy" when NK does it?
I think being able to ensure any victory over you by your enemies is Pyrrhic at best is perfectly sane.
What makes NK seem crazy is the dictatorship, its methods of controlling the population, and the unnecessary hardship put upon the average North Korean to sustain it. And the loony and obvious propaganda, of course.
Then again, threatening a superpower more or less capable of ending human civilization when all you can do is wipe out a city or two... that's like your average bar scrapper picking a fight with an MMA champ to impress a girl. Most likely you're insignificant enough that it's not worth the trouble to drop you so long as you don't throw the first punch, but there's a risk you're going to get dead very fast.
In that sense, while it's still comparable to MAD, NK vs. USA isn't quite the same as USA vs. USSR in terms of 'sanity'.
To get elected generally requires you to convince people you're best for the job. That means, first and foremost, you need to be able to charm people.
To climb your way up the political ladder, you need to learn how to please as many people as possible while not pissing off anyone important. This involves double-speak, backroom dealing, and not getting caught doing anything that will cause public outcry and end your career.
Then you need either a thick skin or to be so self-centered you don't care about all the people constantly trying to tear you down.
Quite frankly, to find someone who has all those qualities and ALSO has the general public's best interests at heart is so improbable it's a wonder it ever happens at all. It's a lot easier to simply tell people what they want to hear and then do whatever you can get away with once they elect you.
Why is nuclear deterrence sensible when America does it, but "crazy" when NK does it?
It's not. Simply having nuclear weapons is sensible, a lot of nations have them.
What makes Norks crazy is daily threatening to blow up the capital cities of various nations with nukes. And every year or so making small-scale attacks that kill 100 people, not enough to trigger war but enough to rattle and piss em off. Like the time they shelled a S. Korean island and killed 4 marines, or torpedoing a S. Korean ship and killing 54 people.
Oh and they have a long history of covertly abducting S. Korean and Japanese citizens for their various skills and putting them into use as literal slaves in N. Korea. And a bunch of other crazy shit.
The human race has not evolved much. In fact I'm pretty sure we are slipping backwards.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
That's none of your business.
And an overly simplistic view of the situation, to boot.
they are taught that they won the war on their own and drove the USA to the bargaining table by defeating them. The role that Russia and China played is not discussed
Exclude China and change the defeated nation to Germany, and this narrative is not so different than the one Americans are taught about WWII.