ROK Drop Open Thread – January 24, 2025

I have been saying for a long time that Korea doesn’t need more babies.

Korea needs better babies.

Larry Fink of BlackRock just agreed with me.

And, like Ozzy’s music, he was talking to me personally.

Or not. Who knows.

Nonetheless, here are some quotes:

“You know, we always used to think shrinking population is a cause for negative growth. But in my conversations with the leadership of these large developed countries that have xenophobic immigration policies, they don’t allow anybody to come in, shrinking unemployment, excuse me, shrinking demographics.

These countries will rapidly develop robotics and AI and technology.”

…and…

“And so the paradigm of negative population growth is going to be changing. And the social problems that one will have in substituting humans for machines is going to be far easier in those countries that have declining populations,”

100%

Countries that want to be successful don’t need more worthless babies… and certainly don’t need worthless “immigrants”.

They need high-quality babies… and those babies need to be trained to work with AI to augment their abilities.

AI is coming and much of the low-skill stuff that low-skill people do will easily be done by AI.

In higher skill domains where people won’t be replaced by AI, those people will be replaced by people who know how to use AI.

If you have no skill AI cannot replace or your skill can be outdone by a less skilled person who can use AI, there is going to be no place for you.

That should terrify you into getting some new skills.

But, if you look at growing homeless camps, you can see people are not that terrified by complete life failure.

Let’s talk to the welfare department and see if we can fix that with this one simple trick.

More evidence https://x.com/BaramMusa/status/1882601825393848731

Korea needs to:

– to build a population of people who are smarter than the global average and then support those people to do more amazing things than the global average.

– End programs that offer any sort of perverse incentive. This statement can be sugarcoated a number of ways but reality is income is a proxy for intelligence, motivation, and societal value. Korea needs to end any subsidies which negitively affect the ideal traits of a future population. This is not promoting a eugenics program. This just means the government does not get involved.

– When high-value babies statistocally outnumber low-value babies, society improves. Government now needs to get involved. STEM education should be competent, forward-thinking, and free. Government should sponsor fundamental industries in AI, space, biotechnology, etc., to prepare Korea for a time when people stop buying cars, larger TVs, and every 3rd world country can make memory chips on a street cart.

Korea doesn’t need a larger population of unneeded people with no place for them in society.

Korea needs a smaller population of high quality people building a society so valuable and productive, the effects of a shrinking and aging population are unnoticed.

Ridicule this all you want.

The true forward thinkers who have a trackrecord of success believe this is the way forward.

You will be on the wrong side of history if you disagree.

You didn’t answer my question. How do you stop making low quality babies and instead make better quality babies, as you put it? Do Koreans need to inspect their sperms and eggs for quality issues? What factors define the quality of babies as you define it?

This is the type of dumb nonsense statement that a typical Trumpster would make.

US losing friends in Europe, as European and South Korean defence industry will replace American arms sales to Europe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ThNMEwLF7s

You didn’t answer my question. How do you stop making low quality babies and instead make better quality babies, as you put it?

According to studies on orphans intentionally separated at birth, intelligence is more than half genetic.

Income is a great proxy for intelligence. You can argue that there are many other factors than intelligence that affect income, but you will find smart people get more education, have smarter spouses, don’t get in as many street fights, etc. The regression graph of IQ and income is a straight upward line.

So the way to make “better” babies with no effort is to do absolutely nothing that encourages or assists the poor and dumb to have kids… as the poor and dumb respond to token government subsities more than the smart and financial competent who think things throuh.

If you want to tip the scales further, subsidize children of those with STEM degrees for a couple of generations.

If being called a Nazi doesn’t bother you, sterilize anybody under a certain IQ threashold. Let’s make that threshold about 105 for fast results.

If this wasn’t clear and you have further questions, please ask!

Flyingsword spreading PPP fake story again. If anything, Yoon should have the advantage here, as Five of the Eight judges are PPP judges. Only three are the DPK judges. The ruling PPP’s acting president wouldn’t appoint the ninth judge because the PPP wanted to ensure a Yoon victory at the impeachment hearing. They need 6 out of 8 judges to agree for the impeachment to go through.

if you want to tip the scales further, subsidize children of those with STEM degrees for a couple of generations.

If being called a Nazi doesn’t bother you, sterilize anybody under a certain IQ threashold.

You sound like a Chinabot/North Korea commie, calling for eugenics to create a super race. Maybe you’re the true chinabot?

Old dirty Rightwing people who should be dead by now from old age as we are now living in the modern age, turning South Korea into a Third World country. Everyday, they are loudly blaring with mega phones, obsceneties and calling for violence. They are even attacking the fewer and fewer tourists who have stopped coming. All due to these people and Yoon, nobody wants to visit S.Korea and the country’s international image has been wrecked beyond repair. It will take many more decades to just to come back to where we were last December, as tourism has cratered. Small businesses are now suffering enormous economic damages that will drive them out of business – all due to picking the wrong man as the President.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=gEDDRk8-pwY

They’re even attacking tourists for speaking Chinese, even when they have worn badges that says “I’m from Taiwan, not China’. Hateful disgusting people that should disappear from natural selection pretty soon.

Korea doesn’t need international tourists…

…and doesn’t know what to do with them if they come.

Send them to “Korean Hawaii”? “Korean Las Vegas”? Etc?

Korea needs to make its money on weapons and rockets, not tourists gawking at each other in hanbok pretending to be in a Korea that never existed.

…moving on…

You sound like a Chinabot/North Korea commie, calling for eugenics to create a super race. Maybe you’re the true chinabot?

Hmmm. I have not called for any eugenics program. I have called for the government to not create socially and nationally self-destructive programs that encourage the wrong people to be fruitful and multiply… be they chronic welfare recipients that cannot take care of themselves in our modern world or “refugees” and illegal aliens looking to freeload and have children that American citizens cannot afford.

In Korea, programs to help “women” better afford babies should be abolished. Korea doesn’t need more babies. Korea needs better babies.

Korea needs to help the right women have babies… based on parents with accomplishment.

This is not really euginics. Nobody is told they cannot have babies. They just have to pay for them. That’s not really a nazi-grade request.

If you want the taxpayer to subsidize your children, you must return something to the society that pays for it. With some wisdom, this can be quantified… education, income, accomplishments… Korea loves point-based systems.

There is nothing revolutionary about wishing society to head toward success rather than mediocrity or failure.

“U.S. does not support Taiwan independence, Rubio tells China’s Wang”. Is this some change in policy, or are you protesting no change in policy? Seem to remember Trump was the first president to address a Taiwanese leader directly in decades, and even that gave a lot people hives.
But who knows. Maybe they’ll invite the PRC for private tours of our largest military bases, like Obama did.

You’re getting more and more bizarre to say the least, oh my:

The tourist industry breeds whòre mentality. If that statement makes no sense, go to more places that rely on tourism. It is not something that should be encouraged in decent society when there are other options. 

Please stop, you’re embarrassing yourself.

Weapons, rockets, AI, nuclear, construction, etc… are industries that will maintain Korean prosperity for another half generation or more. Pointing this out is realistic capitalism, not communism.

That’s China, right now. You want Korea to be just like China. OK Chinabot, you’ve been outted.

Here’s an article from that East Asia Forum, from an author other than the dubious far-right wingers, Tara O, Gordan Chang, or Sung Yoon Lee.

From: Karl Friedhoff

https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/01/26/yoons-fall-sets-up-a-comeback-for-south-koreas-progressives/

What a refreshing view of Lee Jae-Myung from Friedhoff:

The policy agenda from Lee’s failed 2021 bid for president — which included an unconditional basic income, a tax on land and a carbon tax — can be dusted off and ushered through. But reforms to education, the pension and the health system are also desperately needed. The conservative PPP may be able to gum up the process by abusing its committee chair privileges but would otherwise be effectively powerless to stop these reforms. That helps explain why they continue to defend Yoon’s martial law declaration. And if the Democratic Party pushes forward, the PPP may resort to calls for violence directed at political rivals.

The PPP has always been a roadblock to any reforms in the Korean pension, health, and education systems. They always want Korea to go back to the 1970s era. Now that Lee will have an overwhelming mandate with his party probably sweeping the election, he will have the free reign to do what he needs to do. If the PPP resort to violence, then Lee should have no problem disbanding this party using the same law that Park Geun Hye created to ban a far-left party back in 2015 for insurrection and treason.

If Lee is elected as South Korea’s next president, it would neatly align his presidency with Trump’s second term. The foreign policy to-do list will be long. Lee will want to reorient relations with an unpredictable United States, rework relations with Japan, aim to reposition South Korea between China and the United States, and manage an always threatening North Korea. Still, the combination of Trump and Lee may work better than expected on some key points.

This is what I’ve been saying all along. Lee and Trump will make a far better relations, as they have the same goal – signing a peace deal with North Korea.

In office, Trump will likely push for South Korea to take more responsibility for its own security. This has been a goal shared by progressive presidents in the past. For example, the Moon Jae-in government sought to complete the transfer of wartime operational control by 2022 and oversaw the largest defence spending increases of any South Korean president. Lee will likely pick up where Moon left off in pursuit of wartime operational control, giving him a common understanding with Trump about South Korea’s future role within the alliance.

This is what I’ve said all along. The Democratic party is the champion of strengthening South Korea’s military and being less reliant on the US. That includes beefing up the defense industry to what is today. The KF-21 fighter project, the projects for K-2 tank and K-9 self-prop guns were all started by the Kim Dae Jung administration in 1998. It was the Democratic Party which started South Korea’s formidable defense industry that’s exporting to a lot of countries including countries in Europe. The PPP party on the other hand, has always supported ‘leeching’ off of the United States military presence, in return for buying exorbitant purchases of US weapons, and giving lip service to the US military in South Korea.

If the US really want South Korea to stop being depended on the US, then they should be supporting Lee Jae-Myung as South Korea’s president. He would work well with Trump, and both men can come to an agreement on how to end US military presence in South Korea with friendly terms, if that is what Americans really want (to leave South Korea).

America went through this level of insanity. 

Sorry, but you’re still going through a high level of insanity.
Why isn’t Ukraine war ended? Didn’t they say it would end as soon as Jan 20 came around? Why is your grocery bills still going up? Wasn’t it supposed to go lower as soon as Jan 20 came around?

Cynical Publius
@CynicalPublius

To fully understand just how remarkable today’s exchange with Colombia was, you need to understand how Washington DC has traditionally worked through these sorts of issues, and the different way it works now under Trump.

I’ll illustrate.

Traditional Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. On Monday, the State Department convenes an interagency task force with DoD, NSC, DEA, INS, ICE, Commerce, Treasury and Homeland Security.
3. The task force meets for four days and develops a position paper.
4. The position paper is rejected by the Secretary of State, who is unhappy that insufficient equity considerations are built into the process.
5. The task force reconvenes a week later to redevelop three new, equity-centric courses of action and create a new position paper.
6. The process is delayed a week because Washington DC gets three inches of snow.
7. SecState approves the new position paper for interagency circulation, and considerable input is received from the heads of other departments so the task force must reconvene.
8. The original three proposed responsive courses of action are scrapped in favor of a new, fourth course of action that achieves the worst aspects of the three prior courses of action but satisfies the interagency.
9. Someone in State who disagrees leaks to the Washington Post, who writes a story about how ineffective the Presidential administration is.
10. The White House Chief of Staff sets up a session three days later to brief the President, who approves the new fourth course of action.
11. Over a month after the issue is first raised, the State Department Public Affairs Officer holds a press conference announcing that Colombia has agreed to try to send fewer criminals into the US and everyone declares victory.

Trump Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. After a par-5 third hole where he goes one under par, Trump uses his iPhone to post on social media as to how the USA will destroy Colombia’s economy if they do not do what the USA demands.
3. By the time Trump gets to the par-4 sixth hole, Colombia’s President has agreed to repatriate all the illegal Colombians in his own plane, which he will pay for.
4. Trump finishes three under par and goes to the clubhouse for a Diet Coke where he posts a gangsta AI image of himself and the new FAFO Doctrine.
5. Winning.

See the difference? It’s called LEADERSHIP.

“Colombia was never against the US sending their illegals back home. They just objected how Trump shackled them and put them on a military plane as if they were dangerous criminals.”

Right. So when you object to your citizens being “shackled” and returned in that condition. What you do is refuse to accept their flight in, and return them to the place that “shackled them”.
No one is this stupid.

“I hope Colombia won’t round up 15,000+ illegal Americans in Colombia, shackle them and put them on a plane.”
Why?
And Isn’t an extradition treaty designed for just that purpose? Usually people are begging for their criminals back, to try them. Unless they are also criminals.

Anyone in America illegally is a criminal.

QED.

There should be two options:

– free repatriation flights on chartered civilian aircraft with peanuts, soft drinks, and no questions asked

– violent raids by trigger-happy law enforcement, abysmal holding conditions for extended periods, degrading visuals on the way home, and perhaps some sustained séxual violence interspersed within all this.

The Bureaucratic State and Deep State have greatly refined the Process is the Punishment method of dealing with enemies who have not really done anything wrong. The Democrats have artfully adopted it.

Now, it is time to use this against non-American criminals for the power of good… encouraging them to do the right thing at the lowest cost to America.

Bonus:

For many of these criminals, they should be supplied with a machine gun, a couple thousand rounds of ammo, a few weeks of food, and told to stop trying to remake America in their image but remake their country in America’s image.

“Countries don’t have friends, only interests.”

– Charles de Gaulle

Everything is transactional. Diplomacy keeps this reality hidden.

Trump is making it clear.

America has a lot to offer. It is no longer free. And it certainly is not available for abuse.

Other nations will do what America wants and they will do it the way America wants it or they will do without America.

Up a notch, going against America may get a forceful response. Looking at you, Panama.

“But but but no friends,” you say?

America never had friends. Everyone is looking to take advantage or sabotage America… even Korea. Remeber the state-sponsored Korean prostitution ring to high-level government-affiliated Americans? Sure would love a followup. This stuff is tolerated when done by “friends” such as Korea and Israel.

So everything is transactional. Trump is the master of this and he is the master of making it win-win. Everthing he takes is exchanged for something that is of less value to America but more value to the trading partner.

America doesn’t need to be liked. It has not been respected or feared for a long time… until now. But it is always envied.

Trump is turning this envy into benefits for America and Americans.

Bonus:

America’s success is not at the expense of the rest of the world. Those who work with America will see their fortunes rise as well.

chinabot thinks illegal aliens are not all criminals. That’s a total lack of self-awareness. Illegally entering a country is a crime.

As those who refuse to self-deport from the USA will quickly realize.

As Yoon’s popularity approaches Trump level, the anti-Yoon forces should consider if keeping him locked up during a holiday is aiding in public safety or just making them look vindictive and petty.