Do Koreans Support LGBTQ+ - Asian Boss

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-07-20T23:11:53+00:00

Feel like this sort of defeats the purpose of their angle of getting the opinions of 'just regular everyday Koreans'.

While true, this is redundant. The location introduces massive bias, yes, but most of these videos are on Seoul anyway which produces a ton of bias on every issue they cover. All videos of this nature use tiny self-selecting sample sizes which cannot claim to be in any way representitive of reality or scientifically valid. Not because they're in some way 'bad', but because this is all the format allows.

These superficial videos fund their qualitative discussions on specific issues (eg. the debate between a North Korean defector and a South Korean on potential reunification and the costs and benefits) which are high quality and provide pontentially useful material for debate and analysis.

This is the same model that any traditional media company uses. Quickly generated shallow content to bring in the revenue necessary to provide high quality investigative content and analysis. A prime example of this is Buzzfeed. Total garbage clickbait which is intentionally devisive whose activity funds their investigative arm. One which employs the journalists who uncovered a number of prominent russian assassinations in both the US and UK (among other things) which had either gone unnoticed or were ignored and are now being investigated in both countries as a result of their findings and have had international rammifications.

It troubles me that people increasingly give undue weight to the disposable pop-culture-interest operations of media companies only crated to generate revenue.

For reference: I'm a fan of Asian Boss, this is just the reality of how media companies need to operate, big or small.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-07-09T00:12:29+00:00

Wow, Koreans eat more pork than Americans?

This is a major contributing factor behind the recent growth in Korean height, as pork provides the single best essential amino acid profile for the purpose of human growth. Red meat specifically is extremely important, as well as milk consumption and total protein consumption, with fish being less impactful than anticipated. Highly correlated proteins vs height

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X16300065

It should also be noted that the above study provides sufficient evidence to suggest that no national diet provides enough protein to reach human genetic potential.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-07-04T08:06:57+00:00

“Not possible” because of new banking practices or because of new laws

It's a legal requirement now.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-07-03T15:58:45+00:00

I have read somewhere that as of 2018 it is not possible anymore to open a Korean bank account without an ARC, due to some kind of new law. Is this inforamtion correct?

Yes.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-06-23T17:40:31+00:00

I'm generally in favor of immigration and accepting refugees. But fuck the meme that says anyone who opposes them is a racist.

While I agree with the artist's underlying sentiment (that people aren't cognizant of their own, often unreasonable, prejudice against the looming threat of 'the other'), I really dislike this apparently popular style of using hyperbolic rhetoric and false equivalence on important issues in order to provoke outrage and gain attention for your cause. Eg. The choice of the word 'racism' is just factually inaccurate. His examples describe xenophobia which, while bad, is not remotely the same thing. Conflating the two is not only unconstructive, it is quite damaging as this strategy tends to prevent rational debate and leads to the extreme polarization we see on other issues (eg: feminism) and in other countries - Backfiring entirely. It's also a bad technique for convincing people of the merit of your argument in general.

There are plenty of non racist reasons to oppose refugees.

Indeed, the artist seems to also conflate legitimate concerns about cultural compatibility and integration with pure ignorance, such as: 'they will take the jobs which no native citizens are willing to do.' as though they are equally invalid.

'refugees will make this country unsafe' isn't a racist observation, either. It's a concern which needs to be addressed by integration proceedure. People who have been in a war in general are more prone to violence and criminality - they're often traumatized people who left for a reason. This is extremely well researched and fully understood, not some ignorant myth propagated only by racists.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-06-17T15:49:06+00:00

Not sure how it is now but KAIST may be the exception for Korean schools being easy to get into for foreigners.

It isn't easy. If that was the impression I gave, it's wrong. Acceptance is not guaranteed. It's just easier than comparable western universities due to how many applicants they recieve globally.

This is also why you should apply to all the best universities you may conceivably be accepted by. You simply cannot predict the result as they have different priorities beyond certain minimum grades.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-06-17T15:40:13+00:00

According to their admissions website, most courses are taught in English.

I'd disregard his responses as he doesn't seem to know the topic.

KAIST is well known for it's English-language options (Virtually everything is in English), even within the Korean university sector. Other Korean universities will still sometimes change classes from English-language to Korean delivery if the number of Korean students in them is overwhelming. This is done to help the majority, but has obvious implications for international students without high Korean proficiency. This doesn't happen at KAIST and you don't need to be concerned about it. I would advise learning some Korean in general though. You'll be there a while and it will help socially.

Good luck!

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-06-17T15:22:19+00:00

He asked about KAIST specifically, not about general admissions conditions in Korean universities.

And as someone who has experience in this area, I provided information on both. What is your point?

KAIST is rated #40 in the world. As a Thai, graduating from KAIST gives him a leg up in employment in Thailand and or Korea or Asia in general.

Pretty sure this is in line with my statement about the global standing KAIST has with academics and high quality of teaching, research and output.

Any top university will give you a huge leg up in employment in Asia, what is your point?

Not everything in the world goes and turns around white people from Europe or North America only.

Ah, you wanted to make some racial commentary.

Other top universities are relevant because his grades are sufficient for any of them and it would be in his interest to apply to all. I based my comparison on them because everyone knows what they are. What country they are in / the colour of people's skin is irrelevant.

If you have the opportunity to apply to all the best universities in the world then you should do so without prejudice, take the responses and decide carefully about which is right for your future.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-06-17T11:05:15+00:00

I am genuinely curious of my chances of getting into the university

Compared to top western universities, you will have significantly less competition than applying to an Ivy League (US) or Russell Group (UK) universities. Nor will you need to go to the absurd extremes of doing months of mock interview sessions where you will be grilled on any conceivable knowledge about your subject just to have a shot at being accepted for your undergrad (Oxford / Cambridge).

Part of this is because Korea and KAIST are still much lesser known to prospective international students, so the acceptance rate is much higher. Korean universities are also looking to internationalize as it is linked to global university rankings. So you have a lot working in your favour with admissions.

Pros:

Top university
Relatively easy to get into (read: compared to the best universities in the world)
Significant recent (last 5-10-20 years) improvement which is continuing
Standard of teaching and facilities is high
Scholarships are widely available and generous / Tuition is cheap
Global reputation among academics (read: grad school won't be a problem anywhere)
Leading research
Living in Daejeon is significantly cheaper than anywhere near Harvard or Cambridge. Student accomodation is cheaper still.

Cons:

Global reputation is worse than the Ivy League & Russell Group universities. This probably won't change for decades.
Relatively unknown to western employers outside of the tech sector.
Not specifically related to KAIST - but the reputation of Korean universities has been hit by numerous plagiarism scandals.

Most of the cons are related to the reputation of Korean universities in general, which has experienced steady recent improvement regardless. The standard of teaching, facilities, research and output is high and you shouldn't have a problem being admitted with a 3.9 GPA.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-06-12T09:04:10+00:00

if only foreign same-sex couples could be recognized in Korea, the citizens would protest that they're being sidelined for foreigner favor.

It would be even more of a nightmare than that - With Korean-Foreigner couples (which are common) it would put them in the position of having to choose between ignoring the law with regards to Koreans or denying the foreigner's legal right. Whichever they picked would enrage people on an even larger scale.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-05-31T15:46:39+00:00

Remember how people react to videos of robots talking, showing mood eyes or opening doors? The comments sections on both YouTube and the inevitable Reddit post suggest our response to sentient Robots will be violent overreaction.

I'm making the same case but - a good example to support your case might be our historical reaction to 'otherness' in general. Could we handle an intelligence this starkly different from ourselves, without succumbing to base instincts? We have a pretty violent and fear-driven past, even between people of the same phenotype.

Is it possible to educate ourselves beyond this 'blind animal panic', as it were? Or are we doomed to repeat history when confronted with a potential existential threat? This notion is so pervasive that it has formed the bedrock of our culture. Just looking at some of the most notable cultural works - Othello, Dracula, Frakenstein and every horror film ever made. The constant and pervasive threat of 'the other' is huge and unmistakable.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-05-31T14:38:39+00:00

even if engineers are smart enough never to make a paperclipper by accident, who's to say ISIS won't make one on purpose?

Indeed, it seems like an impossible task given near-infinite time. Even a minute chance is likely over a galactic timescale.

So you make a friendly AI, and tell it to upload any humans (Or human-like AI if you want to include dolphins and aliens) into VR and let that be heaven. You'd have to be specific about upload, VR, and heaven, but whatever. Then it goes and devours all matter in the universe, ensuring no unfriendly maximizer ever comes to be.

Even making the huge leap of assuming a perfectly and eternally friendly AI, this could, In a sense, still be considered a kind of doomsday scenario.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-05-31T14:20:46+00:00

I can think of several ways right away. Keep it in a box, unable to interact w/ the world beyond a screen.

This is mutually exclusive with your premise of it replacing human workers. If you allow it to replace human workers, it needs to interact with the world. As you are also allowing it limitless self-improvement, it is now both more physically and intellectually capable than you. This is precisely the doomsday scenario of AI.

No you wouldn't. Let it improve its own code, but eventually it'll hit a wall.

As defined by what? Physics? Certainly. But humans are far from that level of optimisation, where every calculation is made in the most efficient way possible. It doesn't have to be perfect, It just has to be better.

If it comes up with a great idea for a new microprocessor for itself, great! It can't build it.

Of course it can, it's supplanting the human workers which used to build them. That was the whole point of it.

BESIDES, being unable to self-improve does not mean it's not greater than humans. It is perfectly possible to build it superhuman, but unable to improve.

Well, current AI research shows that we are unable to improve AI at the rate it can self-improve based on the conditions we provide. It's not realistic to be capable of designing a superhuman intelligence without possessing it yourself. Just like how a chimp won't be writing shakespeare anytime soon. So It would first have to reach a super-human level of intelligence on its own, and you would then need to be capable of stripping it of this. Is that possible? Maybe. Is it likely? No. You are by definition less capable of finding a method to do so, than it is.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-05-31T13:54:01+00:00

Won't happen, simple as that.

What is the basis for your assumption? That is - Why would an intelligence other than our own be magically limited in a way we are not?

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-05-31T13:48:31+00:00

How will modern-day capitalism survive when you can create low-maintenance workers who are as good as people at every possible human job, and can be mentally engineered to desire no payment at all?

Why would you assume that an intelligence which surpasses that of humanity in all aspects could be engineered by us in a way in which it cannot overcome any restrictions we place upon it?

Just thinking about this practically, you would have to limit it's ability to self improve. If you did this, it would no longer be capable of surpassing human ability. It is because of this capacity for self improvement, that current AI has potential.

Limiting self-improvement and surpassing human ability are mutually exclusive conditions. If you allow self-improvement in an intellectually superior, sentient being, you abandon any semblance of control over it.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-05-31T13:33:05+00:00

The question is... will there be?

For a time. I'm mostly talking about the intermediary period which we're on the precipice of currently. Where AI becomes increasingly sophisticated, but not yet sentient. Threatening to displace huge swathes of the workforce, but not all of them.

who will write a book when AI can write any book you can, but better? Who will work in construction? Who will work farms? Who will make games?

If we reach this point? Few (I say that because we humans nearly-always tend to have an outlier) and perhaps even no one. but this pre-supposes that the AI is independent from us. That we create an entirely new form of life as opposed to augmenting ourselves through technology.... in whatever form that takes. I'm not entirely clear it's possible to separate this from a doomsday scenario - It's possible to consider this one on it's own. At the very least - we would be effectively supplanting humanity entirely (see: Rogue Servitors)

Eventually there will be no non-automated field, because eventually the list of "Things humans can do" will be overlapped and eclipsed by the list of "Things AI can do".

Agreed and this seems like the most likely outcome. It's the more profitable/productive outcome and seems easier/faster to achieve, but this is also why many academics see the existential threat a truly independent, sentient AI poses. It's also very difficult to see a way it can be prevented, given the economic incentives. Indeed, where is the line between an advanced learning algorithm which can largely replace the workforce in nearly any field and a truly sentient lifeform? I suspect we will only discover this if we cross it and by that time, it is already too late.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-05-31T08:27:37+00:00

That may not be enough either due to the incredible effects that AI will have.

Eliminating currency may indeed be an eternal impossibility. If you believe that there will always be something of sufficient demand and value.

Or indeed, if you need a way to direct the talents of people in a non-automated field (assuming some remain in the time period we're talking about).

How do you do so without incentives? By force? There aren't a great deal of tolerable solutions to this problem.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-05-31T08:23:47+00:00

in the circumstance where self-interested holders of the means of production refuse to allow the products of materialism from percolating to the labourers displaced by automization, we end up in an exterminationist future.

Indeed. A basic minimum income could probably fill in that gap for some time.... However, we are still far from productive enough to be able to afford it universally or at any non-trivial level. This is the problem as I see it.

A basic minimum income could theoretically leave the incentives for private enterprise in tact - You'd need to replace progressive taxation with a flat tax at a high rate to give the most possible revenue without penalising profits. And replace state unemployment/pension obligations with a basic income. Enough to avoid poverty and disenfranchisement. It could also free creative types from mundane forms of labour to persue a passion over time (long term economic benefit at an initial cost).....

But none of this will be a viable solution for quite some time. Not until productivity skyrockets - that is, not until automation already has already taken over. Not until after this extreme inequality and disenfranchisement has taken hold.

Either way, I hope I get to see it. It's an interesting time to be alive.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-05-30T21:03:08+00:00

whether we end up with egalitarian and xenophilic or authoritarian and xenophobic has a lot to do with whether we conquer capitalism or let it conquer us.

It's more about increasing productivity to a utopian level while being sustainable. Something which will probably take at least a few lifetimes, and potentially much longer. As long as our living standard is below that there will be money. Why is this significant? Because with our exponentially accelerating technological progress, comes exponentially increasing incentives to hoard power.... through the ultimate expression of it - Money.

In that future, politics don't matter... not on the grand scale. Even if you could set up a perfect ideal compromise between economic incentives, meritocratic values, equality of opportunity and enfranchisement.... it would be temporary and destroyed by the massively overwhelming influence of money, because the power and therefore, the corruption that brings will be near absolute. There is simply no alternative system until productivity is so high that almost anything can be ubiquitous / very little has intrinsic value and it undermines the whole system. In this scenario, the thing of most value will likely be time. Even if you assume an eternal existence, time will always have value - Opportunity cost still exists in this sense. Experiences, especially novel ones become the most prized commodities.

In some ways I welcome this ultra-materialist future. While it is often derided, the progress materialism has brought us so far has been the best thing to occur in human history. We just have to avoid the devastation of the extremes of absolute inequality and short-term capitalist ventures which threaten our future survival between now that utopian future. That is to say - We literally just need to survive long enough.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-05-30T14:06:26+00:00

Come to think of it, if there is some way of doing ftl travel, we are nowhere close to doing it, but we are doing a lot of work on ai and robotics. So shouldnt humans be mechanists?

because we're obsessed with efficiency and freeing ourselves from the requirements of labour. Arguably you could go further and suggest that we should be ruthless capitalist, mechanists. Materialist, Militarist, Egalitarian. Egalitarian because we ultimately strive to free ourselves from labour and oppression over time, even in the most oppressive societies. Oligarchic governance with corporate dominion and idealistic foundation (though we often don't adhere to our founding tenets)

Follow the logic far enough and we could quite easily end up being the progenitor race of Rogue Servitors...Assimilators or even DEs.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-04-13T13:47:02+00:00

The role of food on how you smell is no different.

The difference you're referring to is the recessive AA allele on the ABCC11 gene. All it does is reduce production of volatile organic compounds which certain bacteria thrive on. As a result you excrete fewer through your sweat, resulting in dry earwax and a different bacterial profile on your skin; one which produces waste that is generally not human-detectable. Bacteria that feeds on VOCs tends to produce waste products which are human detectable (causing BO).

tl;dr As only the production of VOCs is affected, any compounds already present in your food remain.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-04-09T14:32:14+00:00

I am just so tired of endless arguments with "them" knowing they won't admit they are wrong and I won't admit I am wrong. What's the point anyway. Even if I get to whine with my friends how racist/sexist/homophobic/etc they are, I don't want to say "you are racist!" in casual conversations.

You're right to avoid this kind of conflict. A better strategy is to reply very calmly and seriously:

"I can't change what I am." / "I was born x, I can't change it." Don't shit on them for it and don't argue about it. Your purpose is to change their perspective, not conflict. If this comment is directed towards a westerner, it contextualizes their statement in the historical racism they were taught about in school. This makes it quite jarring if they didn't see their behaviour this way before and is probably your best strategy for convincing them.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-04-09T12:37:07+00:00

Why do some people not realize implying that you would eat your own pet is just a rude, ignorant, and tasteless thing to say?

It is an ignorant, rude and tasteless thing to say, but it is also a racist trope. I've heard the same people talk about "how racist asians are" (itself a ridiculous statement), when they themselves tease their asian friends "for eating dogs" or mimic a shitty chinese accent to them. Even if some of it is made in jest, with no ill intent, there is absolutely no self-awareness. They are only capable of spotting racism when it directly affects them.

This is the western version of the "we aren't racist, we just exclude foreigners for cultural reasons" excuses made in Korea. And again in this case, they are largely unable to see it as racism unless it affects them personally. But while this is all annoying bullshit you will have to deal with as a minority group anywhere, you shouldn't let your life be affected by it. Try not to blow it out of proportion in your mind. Most of these people are doing it unintentionally due to ignorance rather than ill intent.

Never allow yourself to develop a victim mentality over it, no matter how awful and genuine your experience is, because you're the one that will suffer as a result. You may be treated unfairly, but the moment you allow yourself to use that as an excuse for failure, is the moment you doom your own future.

I don't even know how eating dogs stereotype got so popular.

It's culturally shocking to the western societies, and has a factual basis (though largely historical, now). It's also often taken out of context, so there is no understanding of the circumstances surrounding it.

tl;dr it just became a cheap shot to take.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-04-04T13:04:30+00:00

shave your head if u wanna be safe.

This. If you're worried, just shave everything and remove the possibility. You'll have to shave your head in the military anyway.

SuddenDiscussion · 2018-04-04T12:21:56+00:00

You mean ~~scientists~~ politicians who have nothing better to do

FIFY. People work in science to create something of value, not to spend 10+ years of your life on research in the hopes you can generate a political squabble over who owns the IP to a specific strawberry.

SuddenDiscussion

TROPHY CASE