This deal has won a lot of hearts and minds of anti trumpers in my circle. Ppl are starting to see through the lies. The end result of his tenure is that a lot of ppl in the middle ground will be fully woke to the media game. Next stop Moscow.

(06-13-2018 07:27 PM)MrLemon Wrote:  As somebody said above, they can use the Singapore model. Kim was making a lot of appreciative comments about it. Trump is obviously steering him that direction. No doubt, all hugely difficult, but Christ, we rebuilt half of fucking Europe and Japan too after WW2. We have done it, we can do it. We just need people who aren't as fucking incompetent as the current slate of US diplomats.

Sure, Singapore proves that a government need not democratize in order to develop, but Singapore also doesn't have an ethnically/linguistically identical political entity that it used to be part of for a thousand years right next door that's rich and beckoning it to link up. You can't just copy and paste a political/economic system and expect the same results.

I just don't see how we can appeal to KJU's desire for trade and openness, when the whole reason the NK government is still in power is because they've managed to keep their people closed off and ignorant of the outside world, not to mention torturing dissidents/etc. The level of repression that would be required to hold back gradual integration with South Korea is incompatible with opening up the country to development. This is a very different situation vs. China's reform period.

Just a little observation I had:

While watching the meet between Kim and Trump, I noticed that Kim's body language seemed a little on edge, almost fearful. Not because of Trump but more so it looked like a guy doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing.

When we talk politics, a lot of it is speculation based off of very limited information (Or simply the information we're allowed to know) but body language gives us a complete picture of a moment in time.

The roundabout point that I'm making is this: Kim's body language didn't look like that of a man who is in charge of his nation state. It looked like a man who answers to someone else and who was doing something which 'said' person wouldn't approve of.

(06-13-2018 08:24 PM)Rush87 Wrote:  Kim's body language didn't look like that of a man who is in charge of his nation state. It looked like a man who answers to someone else and who was doing something which 'said' person wouldn't approve of.

I got a similiar impression as well.

The real person (or persons) behind the scenes may not even be Korean.

In before (((Koreans))) controlling Kim.

(06-13-2018 08:44 PM)spokepoker Wrote:  In before (((Koreans))) controlling Kim.

It's certainly a thought; that the US only "opens up" countries like these nowadays so that Israeli and Jewish monetary systems can sneak their way in.

See: What the neocons are trying to do to Russia, and did to Libya when Gaddafi threatened their monopoly by trying to create his own new gold-backed currency.

The DPRK (North Korea) is one of the last countries on earth without a (((Rothschild controlled))) central bank.


For how much longer now ?

If the USA gets in, you can guarantee that we'll be seeing some (((banking))) going on. Remember when Gadaffi died? Those "rebels" set up a (((bank))) very fast. That sure was clever for a bunch of supposedly uneducated people living on the fringe of society.

I'm with Arado on this, the end game here is murky. I'm sure that those of us who live and interact with East asians know that all the surface level shit is ALWAYS misdirection as they plot their other moves. I don't believe that KJU had a sudden change of conscience and decided to do the "right" thing for his people.This dude executed his own uncle with motherfuckin' artillery and I'm supposed to believe he is suddenly a great guy? Did he find jesus or something? HA. Give me a break. I would be very surprised if this went smoothly from here.

I don't forsee him making any move that does not immediately benefit him in some major way that USA and China can't take away from him immediately once the treaties are signed. I could even see this just being a way for him to gain face by making the nations of the world look bad and gain some coin before going back on any "promises."

Heheheh, the memes are pretty incredible.



To Fortis's point above, let us just hope it doesn't turn into this:

Fortis is right, surely. Personally I think it's both simple and corrupt, although in terms of easing the burden of human suffering it will still be for the best.

I suspect Trump simply told them "you and all your top guys get paid, bigly, and you all get immunity from your crimes, or I take my nation to war a few months before the next election which would be a win for me anyway, and you all starve or get killed or go to prison."

I don't buy any nonsense about shared humanitarian goals. If that were the case then Trump would have helped wipe ISIS out in Syria rather than looming like a specter over Assad for the last 12 months.

I agree with Mercenary that a central bank will obviously pop up, but that's just icing on the cake. NK was never a threat to the global monetary system like Qaddafi was.

I'm willing to bet that either the Obama era globalists wanted NK to remain on the global stage in it's regular form or they were simply unwilling or incapable of giving the regime the payoffs and immunities they required to get on board. Possibly they were also unwilling or incapable of presenting the stick to go with the carrot.

p.s. For any humanitarian goodwill types, this will be the place to be for the next 30 years. Being able to help a place like that while being under some form of Western protection would be incredibly rewarding. Unlike a lot of other places in the world, every brick you laid and child you taught would matter going forward. In a lot of places in the world your efforts are like building sandcastles at the low tide marker.

Look, I wanna believe it's a cut and dry case of "Trump's just smarter than everyone and we just needed a no-nonsense approach" but I've rarely seen anything go smoothly when it comes down to Asian diplomacy efforts. I hope I'm proved wrong.

(06-13-2018 09:39 PM)Fortis Wrote:  I'm with Arado on this, the end game here is murky. I'm sure that those of us who live and interact with East asians know that all the surface level shit is ALWAYS misdirection as they plot their other moves.

I'm sure that's true. Although I'm not sure if you're aware, but that's the exact same feeling many other nations have in dealing with Anglo-Saxons. How many times has the US broken agreements and promises and went ahead with its own agenda? Too many to count.

Kim knows exactly what he's dealing with.

(06-14-2018 05:52 AM)Fortis Wrote:  Look, I wanna believe it's a cut and dry case of "Trump's just smarter than everyone and we just needed a no-nonsense approach" but I've rarely seen anything go smoothly when it comes down to Asian diplomacy efforts. I hope I'm proved wrong.

My personal viewpoint is that they are just following the Chinese playbook. When Mao was gone, Deng came in and reformed the country into a capitalistic one, but even he had to be super careful and not move too fast otherwise it would upset the old Mao buddies. Deng's Reforms started in the 80s and took a long time to finish, but he had that delay built in, because he did not want to West to come in and exploit them immediately and he knew it would take time to do it right without angering the party.

The Chinese call North Koreans their little brother as a joke for a reason. They copy almost everything the Chinese do. From fashion down to even the progress timelines.

While the world is focused on Trump and Kim, what did the Chinese promise to let them have/or build industry wise? What deals are they going to make with China? Will they continue to run their banks through China so that foreign powers cannot know their real wealth, assets and holdings? When will they open their own banks and block transparency like China does?

Is unification with SK just a gesture? Or do they really want an eventual merger? SK just dumped their first female president for corruption. Does a redpilled society like NK or China want that kind of bullshit democracy system? I don't think they do. I think they might hold on to Autocracy for at least a long while and let the country grow super strong GDP wise, Chinese Style. Kim recently dumped a few generals before the summit. He is taking pages from China no doubt.

I could be wrong and they seek unification immediately, but that does not seem very likely to me.

(06-14-2018 08:24 AM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

(06-13-2018 09:39 PM)Fortis Wrote:  I'm with Arado on this, the end game here is murky. I'm sure that those of us who live and interact with East asians know that all the surface level shit is ALWAYS misdirection as they plot their other moves.

I'm sure that's true. Although I'm not sure if you're aware, but that's the exact same feeling many other nations have in dealing with Anglo-Saxons. How many times has the US broken agreements and promises and went ahead with its own agenda? Too many to count.

Kim knows exactly what he's dealing with.

The TigerMandigo Algorithm:

"B-b-b-b-b-but (X) does (Y) too!"

Yes, we get it. Thanks, buddy.

Well, it's an important point. How do you accuse someone of being untrustworthy if you aren't so yourself?

why are you set on turning this into a discussion that no one is interested in having? We all know EVERYONE ON EARTH IS A HYPOCRITE, but such truisms do nothing to further our discussion of KJU and NK's potential moves.

you are always knocking east Asians. We get it, you haven't had a good experience there and that shapes your cynical view of how they behave. As soon as someone mildly defends them you turn rabid, like Zelcorpion with his anti-Islam garbage. So what is it, were you burned by some Chinese poonany ?

(06-14-2018 12:17 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  you are always knocking east Asians. We get it, you haven't had a good experience there and that shapes your cynical view of how they behave. As soon as someone mildly defends them you turn rabid, like Zelcorpion with his anti-Islam garbage. So what is it, were you burned by some Chinese poonany ?

Who is "we"?
Speak for yourself.

Anyone who knows Fortis also knows that he's enjoying his life in Asia and is having a great time there. Tons of other forum members have met him and can vouch for him.

You on the other hand never met up with anyone. You just hide behind your keyboard and make assumptions about other people you know nothing about.

Whereas Fortis has provided real value to this community and is always ready to give advice about traveling, game, fitness and other topics, sharing his experiences and helping newbs to improve their life, you just lurk in the Politics and EE threads and regurgitate your same old talking points, sounding like a broken record.

You talk the talk, he walks the walk.

(06-14-2018 05:48 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  p.s. For any humanitarian goodwill types, this will be the place to be for the next 30 years. Being able to help a place like that while being under some form of Western protection would be incredibly rewarding. Unlike a lot of other places in the world, every brick you laid and child you taught would matter going forward. In a lot of places in the world your efforts are like building sandcastles at the low tide marker.

Good point. These people are Koreans--in my personal dealings (such as they are) Koreans are straight-up tough cookies, seek higher education at every turn, work their asses off, protect their families. Not like other poor people who, lets' face it, are often just stupid and lazy.

There is the potential to empower some great people here. But, don't want to get all squishy about it. Lots of obstacles.

But as I said before, the US fucking rebuilt Japan and Germany after WW2.

(06-14-2018 01:21 PM)MrLemon Wrote:  

(06-14-2018 05:48 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  p.s. For any humanitarian goodwill types, this will be the place to be for the next 30 years. Being able to help a place like that while being under some form of Western protection would be incredibly rewarding. Unlike a lot of other places in the world, every brick you laid and child you taught would matter going forward. In a lot of places in the world your efforts are like building sandcastles at the low tide marker.

Good point. These people are Koreans--in my personal dealings (such as they are) Koreans are straight-up tough cookies, seek higher education at every turn, work their asses off, protect their families. Not like other poor people who, lets' face it, are often just stupid and lazy.

There is the potential to empower some great people here. But, don't want to get all squishy about it. Lots of obstacles.

But as I said before, the US fucking rebuilt Japan and Germany after WW2.

Korea is also one of the most conservative countries in the East. Heavily Christian, not a lot of divorce and the women are not as quick to give up the poosy as other surrounding countries.

North Korea will no doubt be even more conservative than South Korea. This will be the slow unmasking of a potentially ultra conservative Christian country. I am excited to see how this plays out.

This will be an odd tangent but here goes nothing.

I wanted to get a particularly popular video game (pubg) and I was checking the system requirements when I noticed the reviews had dropped from the high 80's to somewhere around 50/100. It struck me as odd. Before buying it I looked into why people had suddenly soured to the game.

It turned out that when the game was released in China all servers across the world were instantly riddled with Chinese hackers. Not just SEA servers. The Chinese hackers were playing on American servers too, ostensibly to make their cheating seem more plausible due to high ping.

I wondered whether this was just a numbers game or indicative of something more cultural. A little bit of digging revealed that even the game developers themselves had admitted that as much as 90 percent of Chinese accounts were running hacking software.

That is not "more Chinese players means more Chinese hackers".

That's "cheating is a fundamental facet of the Chinese character."

Not that I wish it were true, but it is, and anyone dealing with them would be stupid not to account for it.

(06-14-2018 09:01 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  That is not "more Chinese players means more Chinese hackers".

That's "cheating is a fundamental facet of the Chinese character."

It's true, even if it's not every last person, but it is highly pervasive. Even Taiwanese people have told me it's the "Chinese mind." It could be any little thing too, like exchange students going to the cafeteria in their school abroad and just loading up all of the buffet food and taking it back to their rooms for later, up to blatant intellectual property theft. Sometimes it reaches clown levels, like fake banks that set up, take people's money and disappear in the middle in the middle of the night (this has actually happened in China).

I'm sure there are reasons for this, no doubt stemming from millennia of most people being dirt poor, going through droughts, famines, tons of war, and competing with way too many other people, but there's no denying that a civic mentality is a new thing in these parts.

(06-14-2018 09:38 PM)Super_Fire Wrote:  I'm sure there are reasons for this, no doubt stemming from millennia of most people being dirt poor, going through droughts, famines, tons of war, and competing with way too many other people, but there's no denying that a civic mentality is a new thing in these parts.

Part of the reason for this is simply the fact that China is a third world country.

The bigger question at the heart of the issue is, could China change?

I'm skeptical, because the Chinese people, their institutions and culture shows no signs of desiring change.

Every time I ride Beijing Line One during rush hour (the ancient line wasn't built large enough to accommodate proper queuing infrastructure), people constantly cut the line. No one challenges them, because the Chinese standard response is to have a massive freak-out any time anyone challenges you, especially if they are a stranger.

No one wants to take the risk of being involved in an altercation, because other strangers aren't going to step in as witnesses to defend their actions and dispute the lies the line cutter tells. The police don't waste time enforcing good social behavior -- they have bigger fish to fry, both serious crimes and various corrupt activities they are required to perform.

Japan has responded to the issue of living in an ethical vacuum by creating throughout its history, complex codes of social behavior. All that bowing has a purpose. In Japan, like everywhere in East-Asia, people rush into elevators without looking to see if someone is getting off first, even when there's a 90% chance that someone will be getting off. The Japanese solution to their selfishness and stupidity is for both the idiot rushing into the elevator and the victim they nearly trampled to bow to each other politely and go back to their day. This preserves everyone's dignity and instates a level of humanity in others.

Japan is still and dog eat dog culture at its core, which is why, despite all the bowing, bosses still are complete assholes to their subordinates, but at least they do it in a way that doesn't cause anyone else to feel entirely dehumanized.

The Chinese solution to encountering a person attempting to get off an elevator while rushing on to it, is to pretend that the other person does exist and keep forcing your way ahead, expecting that others bend to your will and find some way around you.

Korea is just a clusterfuck of stubborn personalities, a preference for violent responses to any provocation and no creative capabilities. There's a reason why the country has been in a civil war for 70 odd years. Even China figured out that a Communist system with a command economy and controlling every aspect of everyone's life wasn't working, but N.Korea stubbornly presses on, even as thousands starve. S.Korea got a lot of help from the US in pointing them in the right direction, but have a distinctly unhappy local population, so unhappy that many N.Korean escapees are driven to depression by the S.Korean lifestyle.

It's true that the US has been a real dick as a superpower, but the country has gotten along famously with its allies. China has gotten along terribly with its allies, because the idea of a mutual good is absent from the East-Asian mentality on life.

Kim Jung Un would rather starve half his population to death and waterboard the other half than experience even the slightest tinge of loosing.

The best deal Trump can make will be to pay N.Korea to behave so that China can no longer use N.Korea as a bargaining chip.

(06-14-2018 10:39 PM)Suits Wrote:  In Japan, like everywhere in East-Asia, people rush into elevators without looking to see if someone is getting off first, even when there's a 90% chance that someone will be getting off.

Why would they do this?

Logically, I can understand cutting in line, because although other people lose, you gain by a similar amount.

But waiting for people to come out of the elevator or train or bus(or something related- rushing to grab your overhead items on a flight after it ends) doesn't seem to make sense to me. The elevator/train/bus will be leaving at the same time anyway, so it only makes sense to wait or dawdle before getting on. However, when you're getting off the moment you get off, you can then get on with your day. If you're rushing in you're potentially making those getting off lose valuable seconds for no actual gain for yourself. (The flight logic is similar, but different- you would be getting off at the same time anyway, because it takes a long time for them to open the gates- so why not get your luggage at a leisurely pace and not feel rushed)

I admit I have a similar instinct also, but logically I tempered it for that reason. But it still makes me cringe when I notice others not instinctively wait for others to get off before getting on. I wonder if this deep instinct is relatively biological- similar to pressing a traffic light button or "close doors" elevator button which doesn't work.

Nations formed of peoples accustomed to shortages leaning into famine internalise cutthroat behaviour. You don't rationalise that stuff on case by case basis because when you have to engage in that behaviour routinely enough it's better just to kill off that part of your brain.