I am now convinced that capitalism is evil

[ignatius]

1 hour ago, chenGOD said:

He got so much wrong in the first three minutes that I had to stop watching. K-pop and J-Pop are fucked up, but they got nothing on the Disney factory in terms of exploitation as far as I'm concerned.

disney factory like kid's shows? do tell. i know a bit but not much. i'm sure it's terrible in a different/same way. 

i was interested in k-pop factory as i knew nothing so wasn't making comparisons to anything. just curious about it. the kids signing contracts at 10 yrs old is pretty fucked up. super exploitive. also, the idea of using them to market any and every product since streaming revenue isn't what record sales used to be is pretty crazy. married to capitalism in a different way i think.. and that channel is largely about philosophy and pop culture and that sort of thing. i find a handful of his videos interesting. is delivery is more palatable or something.  he did that drums machines deleuze video that went viral for a minute. haven't actually watched that one. 

i'm curious what he got wrong though since the first three minutes is mostly south korean history as relates to USA.  i don't know korean history so can't complain. 

btw.. i get this a lot

Quote

He got so much wrong in the first three minutes

 

Edited May 30 by ignatius

[usagi]

1 hour ago, chenGOD said:

He got so much wrong in the first three minutes that I had to stop watching. K-pop and J-Pop are fucked up, but they got nothing on the Disney factory in terms of exploitation as far as I'm concerned.

could you explain what's wrong, I'm curious.

[chenGOD]

First off - North and South Korea were created by agreement of the USSR and the US, because both of them felt the Koreans weren't ready for self-rule. So it's not just "US bad, capitalism bad".

Leftist purges (I use the word purge because that's what the historical record uses, not because I agree they should be purged) in the South started almost immediately after liberation from Japanese colonization, but it was very complicated - the army refused to participate in a lot of the purges, whereas the police were more than happy to do so (police and lower level bureaucrats were also complicit in Japanese colonization, but that's a whole other topic). There were also civilian fascist groups that helped the police in purging leftists.

Syngman Rhee was not the US' first choice for president of the newly formed South Korean state. That was probably either Yo UnHyong or Kim Ku, but they were assassinated in 1947 and 1949 respectively. Rhee was the Americans least best choice, but it was to stave off communism, at least the guy got that part right. He goes on to say that South Korea became a liberal democracy under Roh Tae Woo, which uhh, yeah Roh was a former general, ally with the previous dictator (Chun Doo-Hwan) and complicit in numerous human rights abuses.

Anyways if you want to read more about South Korean history in the 20th century, I'd recommend Michael Seth "A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present" or Don Oberdorfer's "TheTwo Koreas: A Contemporary History)

The guy goes on to say that there was no thriving pop before the 90s in South Korea, which is just fucking ridiculous. Trot(I was jus checking if there was a wiki page on it, and like in the second paragraph it says it's been around for about 100 years) /Bbongjjak was a kind of "disco pop" or "adult contemporary pop" that actually started to emerge during Japanese colonization (it's awful but so catchy) - as it emulated the adult pop that was becoming popular in Japan at the time. That kind of pop spread through radio and vinyl.

Here's some trot:

Spoiler

 

 

And some bbongjjak:

Spoiler

 

Just for fun - here's a bbongjjak remix of a New Jeans song (apparently they are popular in K-Pop now? I have no idea anymore thank fuck)

Spoiler

 

That style of music was very popular with taxi drivers (who would get high as hell on meth to work 36 hour shifts) and older people in the karaoke rooms when I first got there in 1996. You could wander underground shopping arcades and find little second hand record stores with thousands and thousands of these sorts of records.

He then goes on to say that South Koreans became familiar with western pop culture through the advent of the internet in the 90s which is just...I don't even fucking know where to begin with how wrong that is. But all the shit that he talks about how pop stars had their outfits chosen for them/songs written for them etc etc, the South Koreans learned that from the Japanese, the British, and the Americans.

He then of course brutalizes the pronunciation of the "first" boy band (Seotaeji and the Boys) - so that of course was the final nail in the coffin that this guy has no idea about much in South Korea. But just to illustrate that South Koreans obviously knew about western pop culture previous to the advent of the internet ( i think he really means the Web but you know) - this performance of Seotaeji and the Boys was in 1992. While South Korea has some very talented producers, they didn't just whip this together after their first listen to a western pop song on dial-up:

Spoiler

 

Anyways - that's enough for now I'm supposed to be working lol.

[usagi]

thank

I view kpop as a perverted sweatshop industry (like most others in this biz and on this scale) but it doesn't help make the case if you get the historical facts/context wrong.

[ignatius]

29 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

First off - North and South Korea were created by agreement of the USSR and the US, because both of them felt the Koreans weren't ready for self-rule. So it's not just "US bad, capitalism bad".

Leftist purges (I use the word purge because that's what the historical record uses, not because I agree they should be purged) in the South started almost immediately after liberation from Japanese colonization, but it was very complicated - the army refused to participate in a lot of the purges, whereas the police were more than happy to do so (police and lower level bureaucrats were also complicit in Japanese colonization, but that's a whole other topic). There were also civilian fascist groups that helped the police in purging leftists.

Syngman Rhee was not the US' first choice for president of the newly formed South Korean state. That was probably either Yo UnHyong or Kim Ku, but they were assassinated in 1947 and 1949 respectively. Rhee was the Americans least best choice, but it was to stave off communism, at least the guy got that part right. He goes on to say that South Korea became a liberal democracy under Roh Tae Woo, which uhh, yeah Roh was a former general, ally with the previous dictator (Chun Doo-Hwan) and complicit in numerous human rights abuses.

Anyways if you want to read more about South Korean history in the 20th century, I'd recommend Michael Seth "A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present" or Don Oberdorfer's "TheTwo Koreas: A Contemporary History)

The guy goes on to say that there was no thriving pop before the 90s in South Korea, which is just fucking ridiculous. Trot(I was jus checking if there was a wiki page on it, and like in the second paragraph it says it's been around for about 100 years) /Bbongjjak was a kind of "disco pop" or "adult contemporary pop" that actually started to emerge during Japanese colonization (it's awful but so catchy) - as it emulated the adult pop that was becoming popular in Japan at the time. That kind of pop spread through radio and vinyl.

Here's some trot:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

And some bbongjjak:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Just for fun - here's a bbongjjak remix of a New Jeans song (apparently they are popular in K-Pop now? I have no idea anymore thank fuck)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

That style of music was very popular with taxi drivers (who would get high as hell on meth to work 36 hour shifts) and older people in the karaoke rooms when I first got there in 1996. You could wander underground shopping arcades and find little second hand record stores with thousands and thousands of these sorts of records.

He then goes on to say that South Koreans became familiar with western pop culture through the advent of the internet in the 90s which is just...I don't even fucking know where to begin with how wrong that is. But all the shit that he talks about how pop stars had their outfits chosen for them/songs written for them etc etc, the South Koreans learned that from the Japanese, the British, and the Americans.

He then of course brutalizes the pronunciation of the "first" boy band (Seotaeji and the Boys) - so that of course was the final nail in the coffin that this guy has no idea about much in South Korea. But just to illustrate that South Koreans obviously knew about western pop culture previous to the advent of the internet ( i think he really means the Web but you know) - this performance of Seotaeji and the Boys was in 1992. While South Korea has some very talented producers, they didn't just whip this together after their first listen to a western pop song on dial-up:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Anyways - that's enough for now I'm supposed to be working lol.

thanks for all that. informative and concise. 

i just looked at that video again and noticed he pinned a comment with corrections so i guess a few people called him on some things.. but not everything obviously. 

Quote

Some corrections on the things I’ve said in the video: - The 13-year long contracts have not been legal since 2009. It is now limited to 7 years. - I say that Jessica is a member of Girls Generation, but she hasn’t been since 2014. - I say that in the 90s, “with the advent of the internet, South Koreans became familiar with American pop culture”. This is inaccurate as South Koreans had access to American culture long before that. What I meant to say was that the liberalization of media and communications technology in the 90s made American culture easier to access, which led to a growth in its popularity. In addition, it must be noted that some of the things I mentioned do not apply across the board to all trainee situations, for example, dating is not prohibited to ALL trainees and not all trainees have to pay back the money spent on training. As in any large industry, there are exceptions. There are, of course, also changes happening in the industry, but this video was more of a broad outline of how K-pop developed. Any comments involving news on legal and social developments in the K-pop industry are very welcome.

 

[usagi]

 

[EdamAnchorman]

Globalization rant:

I'm seeing a recent growing trend of tons of large US companies outsourcing jobs to South America, Brazil in particular, and to a lesser extent eastern Europe (Poland, Czechia).  They prefer Brazil because it's essentially the same time zone as the US, and they say labor there is at least 1/4 the cost of labor in the US, if not more.  One can argue how equivalent that labor is in terms of productivity, on average.

In my company at least, that's fine for some roles like administrative and support roles; I'd suspect that they are on average about 60 - 75% of a worker in the US in terms of productivity, including the loss due to the large geographic distance and having to manage over that distance.  So while it sucks for the people in NA who now have a harder time managing their direct reports who are now all in Brazil, it probably does save the company money overall (at the cost of NA jobs and sanity).

HOWEVER, in my company, now that senior leadership has the taste of bottom-line savings in their mouths, they've begun outsourcing more technical and specialized roles, similar to the role I have.  This has been a disaster.  I've personally found that, on average, technical and specialized work coming out of Brazil by outsourced roles has been abysmal.  Frankly, they don't have enough experts with the deep knowledge required to properly analyze data (I'm sure the experts exist there, but not at my company and probably to a lesser degree per capita).  They run the experiments poorly, draw hairbrained conclusions, then send data/results to us for affirmation and we have to spend half a day explaining to them all the things they did wrong and how to re-do it properly.  At least half the time they just end up sending their samples up here for us to run after they've failed a few times or for important data like that which has to be included in regulatory submissions.

This is nothing new of course, it has just never hit me as personally as it has now.  If this trend continues (which I'm sure it will), I'm not sure how much longer I can hold my sanity and my job in general.

[zero]

2 hours ago, EdamAnchorman said:

In my company at least, that's fine for some roles like administrative and support roles; I'd suspect that they are on average about 60 - 75% of a worker in the US in terms of productivity, including the loss due to the large geographic distance and having to manage over that distance.  So while it sucks for the people in NA who now have a harder time managing their direct reports who are now all in Brazil, it probably does save the company money overall (at the cost of NA jobs and sanity).

back in 2013 I had a back-office support position doing billing work for a large company. almost all our dept got axed and work got sent to a team in the Philippines. before I got laid off, I was tasked with helping to develop a training manual for what I was doing. it didn't hit me at the time why I was being asked to do that, I thought maybe the higher ups were taking an interest in my role. but later after being laid off I realized I was writing it to train the people who would eventually replace me...

yeah outsourcing work overseas is nothing new of course. call center stuff going to India back in the '90s was probably the tip of the spear for the sea change in regard to outsourcing that would impact the lower-level US office worker jobs. factory work even before that was going to China... but sounds like you're in more of a specialized field than office worker grunt work.

the thing I'd be curious to know would be what academic credentials are required for this type of work. if it requires a Masters/PhD here in the US, is the Brazilian requirement on par with that? because if not, then that could be a big downer for university students pursuing a specialized degree if the careers in that field can be done by someone else in another country with less educational requirements. all because it saves the company in this country $$$

[EdamAnchorman]

1 hour ago, zero said:

yeah outsourcing work overseas is nothing new of course. call center stuff going to India back in the '90s was probably the tip of the spear for the sea change in regard to outsourcing that would impact the lower-level US office worker jobs. factory work even before that was going to China... but sounds like you're in more of a specialized field than office worker grunt work.

the thing I'd be curious to know would be what academic credentials are required for this type of work. if it requires a Masters/PhD here in the US, is the Brazilian requirement on par with that? because if not, then that could be a big downer for university students pursuing a specialized degree if the careers in that field can be done by someone else in another country with less educational requirements. all because it saves the company in this country $$$

Yes, you're right that this in general is nothing new.  Most of our HR and fixed asset (facilities) functions have been in the Philippines for years.  One time I spotted a pretty bad water leak in the building so I called the facilities hotline and it went to the Philippines where it took them 15 minutes to dispatch someone who was already onsite.    Furthermore, any time we need to hire anybody we need to correspond with our partners in the Philippines and can only get 1 email per day back & forth because of the time difference, so the whole process often takes 5x as long and we've lost good candidates because we were too slow to hire them.

My point is that, in the never-ending quest to reduce the bottom line, upper management are starting to outsource highly specialized jobs, many of which require a Ph.D.-level person with some experience.  Problem is, these jagoffs in the C-suite almost never realize what that means.  They don't realize the value of a true, deep subject matter expert...  what they can bring to the table and how it is nearly impossible to replace them with a bachelor's-level employee.  Sure, you can do it, but the work you'll get from the new person will be shit.  So the outsourcing continues.  As an example, one of our competitors, Avon, just moved its entire R&D functions to Brazil and Poland, everyone in the US was let go.  Ph.Ds. from other developed countries are probably just as good, perhaps a tier lower on average excluding Europe which is equal if not better depending on the research group, but the numbers are so much less than in the US. 

Myself, I am a specialist in "rheology".  Yeah, I'm so specialized that you had to go look up what is "rheology".  Got my Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, but have been working in the field of rheology for almost 20 years.  My bosses never understand what I do and I am constantly having to explain the value and why not just anybody can do this.

Used to be that if you were enough of a specialist you had more job security.  Sure, jobs that fit you were much less in number and much harder to find, but if you had one you were generally safe.  The appetite for "stock price must go up" has made that not so true anymore, as companies are looking to outsource as much as they possibly can, executives & shareholders mortgaging the company's and employees' future so that they can realize a quick return and cash out, leaving the rest of us proles with a company in shambles.

Edited May 31 by EdamAnchorman

[Nebraska]

soon they'll just start selling you really hardcore drugs. for work. 

[zero]

35 minutes ago, EdamAnchorman said:

Used to be that if you were enough of a specialist you had more job security.  Sure, jobs that fit you were much less in number and much harder to find, but if you had one you were generally safe.  The appetite for "stock price must go up" has made that not so true anymore, as companies are looking to outsource as much as they possibly can, executives & shareholders mortgaging the company's and employees' future so that they can realize a quick return and cash out, leaving the rest of us proles with a company in shambles.

going down a different rabbit hole - the concept of outsourcing itself could eventually be replaced by AI software, if that becomes a cheaper option than paying an overseas employee. I know we're not there yet, but that'll be pretty wild if that starts happening in our lifetimes... 

[EdamAnchorman]

13 minutes ago, zero said:

going down a different rabbit hole - the concept of outsourcing itself could eventually be replaced by AI software, if that becomes a cheaper option than paying an overseas employee. I know we're not there yet, but that'll be pretty wild if that starts happening in our lifetimes... 

I'll never say never for being replaced by AI, but my job consists of running complex experiments and then analyzing the data and drawing conclusions.  I can see AI for analyzing the data, not so much for overarching conclusions, and definitely not for running the experiments.  This isn't a plug-and-chug, drop the sample in and press "start" type of deal, there's a lot more to it, much of it coming from plain old experience.

The other part of my job is coming up with new predictive models using that data to satisfy business needs.  I can see AI playing a part here, but it would always have to have a human babysitter before the big whigs shell out a few hundred thousand dollars for the experiments needed to build the model.

Edited May 31 by EdamAnchorman

[decibal cooper]

[ignatius]

15 minutes ago, decibal cooper said:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7xCELfy6KV/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

ai/meme overload