Remind me to take the bus and not a car if I'm ever in South Korea.

Excellent *election *meme though - considering the "Gangnam being the richy-richy part of South Korea" aspect of the original.

@rbar I didn't call you a socialist, I don't know you that well! It was about your portrayal of capitalism. Also, I apologize for referring to free market capitalism, subject of this topic, as just "capitalism", that caused understandable confusion. I completely agree with you that some of those "isms" fall under a broader definition of capitalism, as they're social orders dependent on private property rights. Those who advocate free markets like me, however, really tend to consider free market capitalism as the only real one, while variations are just "less capitalistic" or not capitalism at all.

Any economic system is as cooperative as the next? Hmm... I don't know, rbar. Would you say there's as much cooperation inside North Korea as there is in South Korea? The old East and West Germanies? Surely any country with a lesser economy enjoys much less cooperation of their citizens among themselves (or with other countries) than a country where policy favors economic growth, no? Very common in North Korea, the "do what I tell or you'll starve in a concentration camp" approach, just isn't my favorite definition of cooperation. Coincidence or not, their economy is shit.

You raise a very important issue of limited resources, that wikipedia article on Capitalism explains better than I ever could, that counter-arguments to "those criticisms of the depletion of finite natural resources consists of the economic Law of Diminishing Returns, opportunity cost, and scarcity in economics". Interesting stuff.

My issue is with you portrayal of capitalism as ever-increasing competitiveness, because it's kind of biased and overlooks the abundance of cooperation. Imagine looking at a crowded night club and describing it simplistically as "a bunch of people struggling for the attention of the opposite sex". Seems pretty accurate if one hates night clubs. There is competition going on, specially for the most popular people, but what about all the other people enjoying each other's company over drinks, talking, flirting, and laughing, couples making out and enjoying the music on the dance floor? Who would describe those activities as purely competitive?

There is a lot of supply and demand in a capitalistic economy, not trying to sound like an economist, but competition is proportional to the difference between supply and demand. So what about where supply is meeting demand, should we just overlook the huge amount of cooperation happening there?

I find it amusing that you ask "What? What policy?", then, at the end of the same paragraph, write "The way the bailout happened is ... utter crap, but that is a different story all together." No, it's not a different story, the bailouts are government/central bank policy, partly the answer to your important question. Stepping in and handing out money to bankers who should have been punished by their excessive risk-taking with bankruptcy, is the exact opposite of letting free markets work.

To try to answer your persistent request for examples of free markets, if you didn't realize it yet, free markets are not very compatible with central banks, institutions that have a legal monopoly over what happens to half of a country's economy (usually half of all economic transactions involve money). Now, do you know how many countries have central banks today? Except for Monaco and Andorra, all of them.

Centuries ago, there wasn't a single country in the world where people enjoyed freedom of expression. That fact could be considered an obstacle to its adoption, but never a testament to its impracticality.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Yang Hak Seon, Vault, Gold Medal, London Olympics, 2012, South Korea' to 'Yang Hak Seon, Vault, Gold Medal, London Olympics, bullet time, 2012, South Korea' - edited by doogle

Korean friend sent this to me and MOTHERFUCKER it's already sifted. Apparently Gangnam-gu is like the Beverly Hills of South Korea. But to me it will always be GUNDAM STYLE

South Korea is the same, and Japan's had this problem for a long time, though I'm not sure how they're coping with the problem.

Also this is somewhat of a limited argument because in places like Africa, India and China they've had severe poverty for a long time, yet the birthrates are still very very high.

>> ^Mammaltron:

Apparently Top Gear South Korea - it wasn't Richard Hammond flying.


You deserve soo many points for that.

Apparently Top Gear South Korea - it wasn't Richard Hammond flying.

I've taught for over a decade in Canada, South Korea and Taiwan from kindergarten to mostly the University level...I think most of you would be stunned by the profound ignorance of the coming generations.

I did enjoy the map of South Korea. Although, I guess it still doesn't count as 'man-made, visible from space'.

>> ^quantumushroom:

If only this were true! Let Europe and South Korea and everyone else pay for their own national defense, and welcome the red chinese bases that will replace ours.


Nah, the Chinese are too smart to waste billions of dollars that way. They'd just buy up the oil and natural resources sectors of those countries and reap the profits because corrupt governments allow them to... Oh wait... They're already doing that.

The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas. We would not stand for it here, but we have had a globe-straddling empire and a very intrusive foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of hatred and resentment towards us.

If only this were true! Let Europe and South Korea and everyone else pay for their own national defense, and welcome the red chinese bases that will replace ours.

if north koreans go full ape shit and decide to invade south korea these guys will be the first to be fucked. Let them act like men obviously lacking the company of hot women.

Good luck on the revolution front. Not only do we need a new foundation on how we deal with corporations, police, military, science, religion/state, prisons, health-care, lawmaking, politics, policy foreign/domestic, executive functions state or country, emergency response systems, logistics roads/bridges/railroad, infrastructure, welfare and societal needs, energy, money/goods, trade, etc...

Like he said, we need a new foundation on our psychology. What we teach our children is bunk, it will make the majority of them happy for a few fleeting moments and unhappy the rest of their lives. We need to find a new foundation to help find happiness for everyone for the majority of their entire life--without resorting to competition and instead combining our strengths and creating a great community.

I'd wager the closest you'll get is to literally do education completely different than what we do now. Start at an early age and give the children a glimpse of ALL trades to be used and learned in the world. Over time find what they excel at and LIKE doing and help them achieve their goal in that field. Then continually narrow the field as they get older so they can truly become a master at something, like a chemical engineer. Education would, graphically, look more like a giant plinko board that students slowly make their way down and filter themselves into the field THEY want. If we supported students all the way PASS college to the point they were job ready (and in fact you could perhaps harmonize corporations into the mix, so that when you get your degree not only have you most likely interned/researched at the place you will work gaining practical knowledge you are ready day one out of school to start a job you LOVE and excel at.

I know you'll get clumps and pools of people in places you may not have uses for them, but if we truly put our minds to it I bet we could find a way to still get the method to work (I know corporations won't necessarily do what I said except in--most likely-- the science fields, but having just a few large companies do it would help). Then if we lived a slower paced life, with more time off to OURSELVES than in slavery to someone else you might see a change in the overall attitude of our community and maybe civilization. Help people pay for modest houses and maybe even some furniture. Cover healthcare needs for each other, maybe even other social services as well. Tone the military down to a defensive one, one that can defend us, but can only truly become a real war machine like what happened in WWII.

Granted, there would be a lot to work out, but I highly doubt it's impossible to create a GREAT life here on this planet if we all work together to make it happen. Hell, we walked on the fucking moon! I know most of this will require not only leaps in science and with those leaps, hopefully ,soon, some of those bring about leaps in the psychology fields helping us to genetically weed out sociopaths, psychopaths, unipolar, bipolar, borderline, Asperger's, sever depression/anxiety, OCDs, addictions, etc... Plus with expanded bio-engineering, especially in genetics, if we could make sure people atleast have an IQ of say 120 (hell if you truly find the master switch--just turn it up), get rid of all genetic diseases and birth imperfections, rid us of deafness, blindness, baldness, etc... Then add in the advancements in bio-engineering on the mechanical, nanotechnological, electronics, and computers and we'll have one hell of a ride (of course if we haven't solved the psychological issues by then, we will almost certainly kill ourselves off). But, that stuff is 50 years away with some probably 150-200 years away. If we can help stabilize our humanity, through engineering and perfecting our psychology, I really believe we'll have a chance one day to see some sort of Utopian society.

Everything he talked about most likely leads to something that MIGHT be better than what we had. But, it won't be here in the U.S. and I doubt it'll even be in Asia (China, South Korea, and Japan). Europe, excluding the U.K. has a chance, with northern Europe having a better chance. You never quite know who history will choose next to bring the next big leap in progress to the human civilization.

/I didn't think I'd write something so long about that. Oh well, I just felt like sharing a little more optimistic view on what could happen to we humans.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^TheFreak:
Don't know what's been happening with tae kwon do in the past decade. It's developed this strange focus on ineffective spinning-jumping kicks. More like gymnastics than martial arts.
Government interference is what happened.
First they pressured the separate kwons to unify in an attempt to form one universal Korean martial art. This is what created TKD (in name, at least). Then they sought ways to make it a symbol of the country, to give the Korean people something to be proud of. Ultimately this culminated in an effort to introduce it to the Olympics. In order to accomplish this, they had to turn it into a sport. The military style of TKD still exists but, aside from the actual military, it's hard to find anywhere that teaches it inside Korea.
I have a friend who is from South Korea. He was adopted and brought to the US when he was still a baby. He's a TKD black belt. He's taken trips back to Korea and he's sparred with people who have learned TKD there and they are all horrible because they've been taught to dance rather than fight.
The only fighting they know is point fighting so they do not learn to defend and they do not learn how to generate power. They are incredibly fast but, in a real fight, he had no doubts that they would pose little to no threat unless he was greatly outnumbered.


Interesting, I was unaware of most of that.

I was talking to one of my older Aikido students last night who's been teaching TKD for a long time. I'd judge his style as very martial and effective based on the punches and kicks he was using while we compared notes. We were discussing how the tai sabaki from Aikido has influenced his TKD and I asked him about the change in TKD. He brushed it off and pointed out how he teaches both point fighting and martial effectiveness and distinguishes between the two to his students. His only thoughts on the current state of some TKD was that it was a passing fad.