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On August 30 2017 00:34 ghostmaster93 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2017 19:26 evilfatsh1t wrote:On August 29 2017 17:43 ghostmaster93 wrote:On August 29 2017 10:54 Mohdoo wrote:On August 29 2017 10:53 ghostmaster93 wrote:
Interesting to see many people here care about NK. Do you guys care about life at NK in general? rofl is this some shitty high school philosophy graduate way of saying people don't care about North Koreans, just what their government might do to people we care about? You misunderstood my point. "Here" is to imply teamliquid. There are facebook /many forums online and even reddit/subreddit, and to me teamliquid is a forum focus on gaming most . For example, if I want to read about NBA stuff, I rather go to reddit NBA or reddit Boston Celtics to know what people think, rather than go to teamliquid's NBA topic. About my question, I am just surprise because i found out there is a topic relating to NK. Most of the news relating to North Korea is relating to missle launching/ nuclear bomb v.v... Other than that, NK is a total myth for the world. It happened to most of the people and myself. Just recently I discover a fanpage who post pictures and videos relating to NK inside life, and thanks to that I know more about it current society right now. So i m willing to establish a topic if there are enough care and willing to discuss, rather than totally focus on current events report by main stream Western media. he understood perfectly what you were asking, but his response was unnecessarily hostile. to answer your question i would say no, most people cannot say with complete honesty that they care about north korea's general livelihood, much like most people dont care about africa. they are aware of it and would maybe express sympathy, or even make the occasional donation but thats about the extent of their interest. to be fair, for the majority of people thats probably the most they can do to help. but to clear things up for you, most interest about north korea i would say comes from the nuclear missile programs, ongoing hostility and possibility of war. without these things north korea would just be another africa; a country people know needs help and a shit ton of work to make properly livable, but dont really do much about it. Thanks for your answer. In my opinion, your interest comes directly from the media's impact, because most of the time media focus on the the topics you mentioned, rather than other NK's information. And based on other source which I have read and reviewed, in my opinion, the living standard in NK is pretty medium, not so bad as people often imagine.
Please define medium living standards. I don't know much about the country but the fact that people starved to death there in the 90s is no good advertisement and the gdp per capita is 3 digits low, in 2015 they were 179 highest nation of 195 in the world.
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On August 30 2017 00:55 Deleuze wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2017 00:52 ghostmaster93 wrote:On August 29 2017 22:27 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
If you are expressing suprise that there is an active thread dedicated to North Korea, you have to remember that Team Liquid which has its roots in starcraft broodwar, which means that it would have a bigger focus on South Korean culture and issues than would otherwise be expected in a western gaming forum. Plus this is the general forum part, where there are loads of random political threads and North Korea has been a hot global issue for a few years now. Actually when I search key word "korean" or "south korea", most of the topics are relating to gaming. There are two big topics relating to non - gaming issues in Korea (the topic about K-pop and this topic), and that's quite small compare to the thread about gaming here. So you cannot say that Team Liquid has bigger focus on SK culture. Ok, come back to the topic. If I recall correctly, Japan has a surface-to-air interceptor known as the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) with the US. Why don't Japan just use that? There could be many reasons. Those missile shields are notoriously unreliable. Why risk missing the NK missile and causing public panic when it was a test rocket with no payload?
So can we say the best response is sit tight and doing nothing? I wonder if there are any better solution.
Well at least Japanese politicians will have more money spend on upgrading their military power.
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On August 30 2017 01:25 ghostmaster93 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2017 00:55 Deleuze wrote:On August 30 2017 00:52 ghostmaster93 wrote:On August 29 2017 22:27 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
If you are expressing suprise that there is an active thread dedicated to North Korea, you have to remember that Team Liquid which has its roots in starcraft broodwar, which means that it would have a bigger focus on South Korean culture and issues than would otherwise be expected in a western gaming forum. Plus this is the general forum part, where there are loads of random political threads and North Korea has been a hot global issue for a few years now. Actually when I search key word "korean" or "south korea", most of the topics are relating to gaming. There are two big topics relating to non - gaming issues in Korea (the topic about K-pop and this topic), and that's quite small compare to the thread about gaming here. So you cannot say that Team Liquid has bigger focus on SK culture. Ok, come back to the topic. If I recall correctly, Japan has a surface-to-air interceptor known as the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) with the US. Why don't Japan just use that? There could be many reasons. Those missile shields are notoriously unreliable. Why risk missing the NK missile and causing public panic when it was a test rocket with no payload? So can we say the best response is sit tight and doing nothing? I wonder if there are any better solution. Well at least Japanese politicians will have more money spend on upgrading their military power.
There isn't a better solution than the ones being used. Just as in the cold war you send radio broadcasts over to try to influence the population and any other propaganda campaigns that won't trigger a major hostile response. Apart from that we have massive sanctions on them. Not much more we can do. A war breaking out would be extremely costly in lives and infrastructure in SK so hostile actions like assassinations and similar doesn't serve a purpose.
China is the actor that has the biggest chance of changing NK but it isn't really in their interest to do so. It is their border state that protects them from sharing a border with SK that has US military in it. The US allies and China has conflicts of interest in the region, who owns which small islands and the resources around them is the most obvious one.
What happened with Iran where they were negotiated to stop their nuclear program seems the only feasible solution. Yet with how strongly Ukraine is being helped now I wouldn't trust any deal made to stop it if I was leading NK.
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That goes to show again how much Russians fucked up the world with their Crimea fantasy. Now every time a limitation to nuke weapons will try to be imposed on a country, the Ukraine will be given as an example.
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On August 30 2017 06:21 arbiter_md wrote:
That goes to show again how much Russians fucked up the world with their Crimea fantasy. Now every time a limitation to nuke weapons will try to be imposed on a country, the Ukraine will be given as an example.
No, that's just the most recent example of how it works. And it's not just Russia who's not protecting Ukraine. If that makes the world fucked up, it was always fucked up.
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On August 30 2017 06:29 Sent. wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2017 06:21 arbiter_md wrote:
That goes to show again how much Russians fucked up the world with their Crimea fantasy. Now every time a limitation to nuke weapons will try to be imposed on a country, the Ukraine will be given as an example. No, that's just the most recent example of how it works. And it's not just Russia who's not protecting Ukraine. If that makes the world fucked up, it was always fucked up.
Russia invaded. Nobody else protected. There is a distinction. If it was a non-nuclear power fighting them it wouldn't be such a bad example for other future nuclear powers.
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On August 30 2017 00:34 ghostmaster93 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2017 19:26 evilfatsh1t wrote:On August 29 2017 17:43 ghostmaster93 wrote:On August 29 2017 10:54 Mohdoo wrote:On August 29 2017 10:53 ghostmaster93 wrote:
Interesting to see many people here care about NK. Do you guys care about life at NK in general? rofl is this some shitty high school philosophy graduate way of saying people don't care about North Koreans, just what their government might do to people we care about? You misunderstood my point. "Here" is to imply teamliquid. There are facebook /many forums online and even reddit/subreddit, and to me teamliquid is a forum focus on gaming most . For example, if I want to read about NBA stuff, I rather go to reddit NBA or reddit Boston Celtics to know what people think, rather than go to teamliquid's NBA topic. About my question, I am just surprise because i found out there is a topic relating to NK. Most of the news relating to North Korea is relating to missle launching/ nuclear bomb v.v... Other than that, NK is a total myth for the world. It happened to most of the people and myself. Just recently I discover a fanpage who post pictures and videos relating to NK inside life, and thanks to that I know more about it current society right now. So i m willing to establish a topic if there are enough care and willing to discuss, rather than totally focus on current events report by main stream Western media. he understood perfectly what you were asking, but his response was unnecessarily hostile. to answer your question i would say no, most people cannot say with complete honesty that they care about north korea's general livelihood, much like most people dont care about africa. they are aware of it and would maybe express sympathy, or even make the occasional donation but thats about the extent of their interest. to be fair, for the majority of people thats probably the most they can do to help. but to clear things up for you, most interest about north korea i would say comes from the nuclear missile programs, ongoing hostility and possibility of war. without these things north korea would just be another africa; a country people know needs help and a shit ton of work to make properly livable, but dont really do much about it. Thanks for your answer. In my opinion, your interest comes directly from the media's impact, because most of the time media focus on the the topics you mentioned, rather than other NK's information. And based on other source which I have read and reviewed, in my opinion, the living standard in NK is pretty medium, not so bad as people often imagine.
it is definitely not "medium" if you are basing your comparison on what an average western household would look like.
pyongyang is the only city that even gives off the illusion of "medium" lifestyle, and that is strictly an illusion. there are plenty of successful defectors that have given testimonies as to what their lifestyles were like back in north korea, and some of them are pretty horrific. even the "better" cases show that they didnt even have access to some things that even hobos would have access to in civilised countries.
i personally have more interest because im korean by blood and truth be told, north koreans are my brethren. ive followed defector stories in korea and australia and if theres one thing they all have in common, its that they were deprived of some things we would consider so basic that its hard to even imagine how you could not have access to these things. the most obvious one is the internet, but one defector shared a story about how her most memorable time in nk was when a UN aid group came and gave them some decent biscuits and a fking yellow pencil with an eraser stuck on the end of it. if thats the highlight of your stay in north korea then thats a pretty shit life you have.
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Osaka27125 Posts
On August 29 2017 07:06 Mohdoo wrote:
Friend of mine in Japan got woken up from a North Korean missile launch alarm.
Honestly, I think I'd be job searching in the US that same day. Big ole "fuck that" to the whole "cultural blah blah" experience.
It gets harder once your roots get a little deeper here. Not a fun dilemma for anyone with a possibility of moving.
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Meanwhile Chinese media seem to be rather calm about the whole thing. Not even on the headline the whole time.
Real conflict still seems unlikely, so long there are still people trying to de-escalate the situation.
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On August 30 2017 20:44 Yiome wrote:
Meanwhile Chinese media seem to be rather calm about the whole thing. Not even on the headline the whole time.
Real conflict still seems unlikely, so long there are still people trying to de-escalate the situation.
People trying to de-escalate a situation doesn't matter when NK is still *shot a missile over Japan. The situation is clearly getting worse.
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On August 30 2017 23:38 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2017 20:44 Yiome wrote:
Meanwhile Chinese media seem to be rather calm about the whole thing. Not even on the headline the whole time.
Real conflict still seems unlikely, so long there are still people trying to de-escalate the situation. People trying to de-escalate a situation doesn't matter when NK is still *shot a missile over Japan. The situation is clearly getting worse.
Worse then when they artillery shells not only flew over SK but actually killed people there? Worse than when they sunk a SK ship?
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
The Ukraine matter isn't be the first absurdly reductionist argument towards a political end, and it won't be the last. I wouldn't be too concerned about that.
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On August 31 2017 00:52 mahrgell wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2017 23:38 Mohdoo wrote:On August 30 2017 20:44 Yiome wrote:
Meanwhile Chinese media seem to be rather calm about the whole thing. Not even on the headline the whole time.
Real conflict still seems unlikely, so long there are still people trying to de-escalate the situation. People trying to de-escalate a situation doesn't matter when NK is still *shot a missile over Japan. The situation is clearly getting worse. Worse then when they artillery shells not only flew over SK but actually killed people there? Worse than when they sunk a SK ship?
its considered worse because now nk can swap those artillery shells out for a nuke.
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I'm gonna jump into this thread because there is one thing I literally never see the media nor anyone else discuss.
What exactly is his intentions? It's all bla bla bla did this missile test, shot this missile, threatening with this & that etc but there is never any explanation given as to what he really wants...
So. What does he want exactly? Prove dominance, run more propaganda? Become more powerful?
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show that they are able to do that kind of stuff because nations that give away their nukes or stop the developement of those tend to get invaded.
From his point of view it's probably about pure survival
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On August 31 2017 05:24 Jan1997 wrote:
I'm gonna jump into this thread because there is one thing I literally never see the media nor anyone else discuss.
What exactly is his intentions? It's all bla bla bla did this missile test, shot this missile, threatening with this & that etc but there is never any explanation given as to what he really wants...
So. What does he want exactly? Prove dominance, run more propaganda? Become more powerful?
From what I have seen speculated.
1.Survive
As in all forms of government you need an inner circle that has their followers and so on to stay in power. He needs to keep these people happy and slowly replace them with other people that have the same and not conflicting goals.
Externally all surrounding powers are stronger and have somewhat conflicting long term goals so you can't really stay neutral from them all in your intentions.
2. Improve the country. Stop mass starvations, slowly develop forward without compromising 1.
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id say his first priority is keeping his own head and his seat within the country.
2nd priority is actually keeping the country alive.
3rd priority would be keeping his citizens alive
4th would probably be developing the country's living standards?
im not kim jong un so obviously everything is just my opinion, but im more inclined to think also that north korea would put unification with south korea as 4th or 5th priority as well. i do believe to an extent that all the empty threats and aggression engaged by usa and the indifference shown by other neighbouring countries is because they dont want the 2 nations to hold definitive unification talks, but again this is my opinion.
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The two nations visions of unity are so vastly different that the only way for a unification to happen is if NK collapses or invades SK successfully.
When NK says unification, they mean "SK joins us under our glorious leader".
When SK says unification, they mean "NK becomes a part of our nation (probably with some stopgaps so we can find a way to deal with that economically devastated country without breaking our own...actually, we are not even completely sure if we want that at all)
If you think stuff like the refugee crisis in europe was a problem, or if you know all of the complicated problems that arose due to german unification, think about what happens when the "rich population" to "refugee" ratio is 2:1, or when the second half of the country is as economically devastated as the North.
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s defense ministry on Thursday sought $160 million in a record budget request to develop swift, longer-range missiles to extend its military punch in East Asia, countering growing Chinese strength and an increasing North Korean threat.
If approved, the proposal for a rise of 2.5 percent in defense spending to 5.26 trillion yen ($48 billion) for the year starting April 1 would be the sixth straight annual increase as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bolsters the military.
The funds will pay for ballistic missile defense upgrades, six F-35 stealth fighters, four V-22 Osprey tilt rotor troop carriers, besides orders for new naval vessels, including a submarine and two compact warships.
Around $90 million of the requested missile development funds of $160 million will go on studying hypersonic missiles to quickly penetrate enemy defenses.
The rest will pay for research on extending missile range, technology that could potentially be used to help develop strike weapons.
South Korea’s air force conducted an exercise with two U.S. nuclear-capable bombers above the Korean peninsula on Thursday, two days after a North Korean missile fired over Japan sharply raised tension.
“The research and development is for island defense,” a Ministry of Defence official told a briefing, referring to the southwestern Okinawa island chain skirting the East China Sea, where Japan is embroiled in a territorial dispute with China.
The funding for missile development, though relatively small, could nonetheless spark controversy, since Japan’s war-renouncing constitution imposes restrictions on strike weapons for the military.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Japan had consistently hyped the so-called “China threat” to increase its defense spending, and urged it to learn the lessons of history and pay heed to its neighbors’ security concerns.
“Regardless of what its reasons are, Japan’s defense spending is increasing every year and has reached a new historical high. We express concern about this,” Hua told a regular press briefing.
Some lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) argue that Japan needs weapons able to strike North Korean missile sites, so as to deter attacks by Pyongyang.
The longest range missiles in Japan’s arsenal, which includes anti-aircraft and anti-ship munitions, have ranges of less than 300 kilometers.
A group of LDP lawmakers that recommended Japan acquire strike weapons was led by Minister of Defence Itsunori Onodera before he took up his post in August.
But such a proposed shift in military strategy would face stiff political opposition from critics in Japan who say Abe’s hawkish policies have gone too far, hurting his already soggy popularity.
“Striking enemy bases after an attack to stop subsequent launches would seem like a natural thing to do, but that would be difficult for people in Japan to accept under the current constitution,” an LDP lawmaker said, asking not to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The proposed defense budget will face scrutiny by Ministry of Finance officials who may seek to rein in military outlays as they juggle demands for higher spending on health and welfare for Japan’s aging population.
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