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Korean Job Discussion Forums "The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
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Mr. BlackCat

Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Location: Insert witty remark HERE
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 5:12 am Post subject: |
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I posted stats compiled by the OECD that indicated that Korea has higher violent crime rates than Canada and many other countries. I'm not familiar with the site you posted, but when you click on how they got their numbers it says, in part;
"Crime Index is an estimation of overall level of crime in a given city or a country."
So I'm going to stick with the OECD numbers. Stats are stats. You can prove anything with stats, 68% of people know that.
But just to clarify, I don't actually think Korea is dangerous. My point is only that it's not as safe as many foreigners here like to believe, and our home countries aren't as dangerous either. We just needed some perspective. Some posters here *cough SteelRails cough* like to repeat these falsehoods again and again and then it's taken as fact by everyone else here. Just thought we could use some facts, not that facts make a difference to people like SR. But I'm not trying to reach him, I'm just trying to present a more rational real world counter to his fantastical stories. |
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fermentation
Joined: 22 Jun 2009
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 7:05 am Post subject: |
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I think safe has a lot to do with perception. I never been robbed at gun point in the states even though that's what most Koreans think will happen in the States. There was a time I went to school in a predominantly black area in the "hood" and nothing ever happened to me, the only asian kid in school.
In Korea, I've been beaten by older kids. My mother's friend's daughter was stabbed a few years ago near the han river. A guy bashed another guy's head in with a hammer near where my aunt lives. A friend of mine knows a girl who got drunk and gang-raped. Several women I know have had at least one experience where a guy tried to drag them away.
I'm not saying nothing bad happens in the US or Korea is filled with criminals. Stats don't matter. The one murder-rape in your town will feel like too much if it happens to you or somebody you love. Korea may feel safe, but we should never neglect vigilance. |
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Stain
Joined: 08 Jan 2014
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 7:51 am Post subject: |
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fermentation wrote: |
I think safe has a lot to do with perception. I never been robbed at gun point in the states even though that's what most Koreans think will happen in the States. There was a time I went to school in a predominantly black area in the "hood" and nothing ever happened to me, the only asian kid in school.
In Korea, I've been beaten by older kids. My mother's friend's daughter was stabbed a few years ago near the han river. A guy bashed another guy's head in with a hammer near where my aunt lives. A friend of mine knows a girl who got drunk and gang-raped. Several women I know have had at least one experience where a guy tried to drag them away.
I'm not saying nothing bad happens in the US or Korea is filled with criminals. Stats don't matter. The one murder-rape in your town will feel like too much if it happens to you or somebody you love. Korea may feel safe, but we should never neglect vigilance. |
Thread is finished here. |
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Steelrails

Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Location: Earth, Solar System
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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Mr. BlackCat wrote: |
You're still missing the point (intentionally, I presume). You can't take your very specific experience and claim it's representative of "back home" for everyone. Especially when your specific experience is such an outlier and changes with every conversation on this board. Very, very few people here grew up on a farm in the middle of a ghetto while working in a gang infested fast food joint next to an airport on the coast while flying planes and sailing boats, all while being coming experts in law, politics, history, international trade and physics. |
Blackcat, whatever your lifestory is, and the various places you've moved and things you've studied, I take at face value.
If you told me you've lived in Germany, Thailand, and the UAE, I wouldn't doubt you. That's a lot of people. But apparently growing up on a farm and moving into the city during college and living in a crummy neighborhood is some sort of improbably stretch.
If you told me your dad built motorcycles and did hang-gliding and you brought those things up, I wouldn't doubt them. But apparently my parents owning a light airplane and me going on my uncle's yacht a couple times is some gigantic stretch. And for the record the yacht thing was done to MOCK my lack of nautical expertise. I think I said something along the lines of my experience "was limited to a few times on my uncle's yacht and rowing a boat in a pond". Not exactly a claim of expertise.
Lastly, if you had some knowledge about say, Romantic Poetry, scuba diving, hunting, French History, and gardening, I wouldn't dismiss that. It's called having a hobby and reading. Everyone does those things. If something pertaining to gardening was being discussed and you chimed in with some knowledge, I wouldn't go "Blackcat's making it all up. How can anyone have any knowledge about gardening??" The problem is you are suffering from selection bias. You remember all the things I've chimed in on with knowledge, but are forgetting the threads I don't.
Anyways, if you truly believe that such life experiences and acquisition of knowledge is impossible, then I just feel sad for you. In that case its a reflection on how limited your own life has been. |
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Mr. BlackCat

Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Location: Insert witty remark HERE
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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Stain wrote: |
fermentation wrote: |
I think safe has a lot to do with perception. I never been robbed at gun point in the states even though that's what most Koreans think will happen in the States. There was a time I went to school in a predominantly black area in the "hood" and nothing ever happened to me, the only asian kid in school.
In Korea, I've been beaten by older kids. My mother's friend's daughter was stabbed a few years ago near the han river. A guy bashed another guy's head in with a hammer near where my aunt lives. A friend of mine knows a girl who got drunk and gang-raped. Several women I know have had at least one experience where a guy tried to drag them away.
I'm not saying nothing bad happens in the US or Korea is filled with criminals. Stats don't matter. The one murder-rape in your town will feel like too much if it happens to you or somebody you love. Korea may feel safe, but we should never neglect vigilance. |
Thread is finished here. |
Agreed. This is the point I was trying to make, and fermentation did it much more succintly.
SR, it's not that you have various experiences. It's that you never mention these experiences until a subject comes up here and suddenly you're an expert and no one else knows what they're talking about. I'm not the only one who has noticed it, and wasn't even the first one to bring it up. When you suddenly became an expert on aviation after the Asiana crash last year I didn't question you when others did. But when you suddenly became a sailing expert with a minor in maritime law when the Sewol went down I couldn't really take you seriously anymore. As I've said before, your constant desperate attempts to convince me otherwise just confirm my suspicions. I don't care if you believe what I say, but you seem a bit too desperate to make me believe you. Me thinks he doth protest too much. |
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Steelrails

Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Location: Earth, Solar System
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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Blackcat, the reason I dont talk about knowledge in aviation until an aviation thread comes up is because we arent talking about aviation. What am I supposed to do, mention this on the Taco Bell thread???
"Taco Bell is coming to Korea in 2 months. Cant wait for some gorditas. Oh and by the way my parents own an airplane."
Blackcat, as you can see, you havent thought this out real well. Anyways, why dont you take issue with the content of my "expert" knowledge and not with the timing? If I am a fraud as you say, it should be quite easy to disprove such things. But you dont, you instead go on the "Steelrails is xlaiming to be an expert" line. The fact that you dont do this suggests at some level you know what Im saying makes sense and the only way you can argue back is a personal attack. If it didnt make sense youd argue the point, not the person. But you dont do that in those cases (others of course you do).
Yes I do protest. No one likes being called a liar and no one likes when people dismiss actual life events youve had. Thats normal. Youve set up a false choice where if I disagree with you, Im guilty. If I agree, Im guilty. And if I stay silent, you get to speak unopposed. |
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Coltronator
Joined: 04 Dec 2013
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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Why would you compare violence stats to Canada though? It's like saying that well we aren't as safe as the 7th safest place. So we might as well feel really bad about our 10th place ranking. Like the education rankings. Man Canada's education system sucks we only rank 4th or 5th on PISA, we suck........... Well no we don't. Korea is safe so is Canada.
It isn't an embarrassment to rank well but not the best. It is just embarrassing when you say you are the best and are world beaters but end up ranking hand in hand with the developing countries in education, health, safety, etc.[/list] |
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Mr. BlackCat

Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Location: Insert witty remark HERE
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Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 9:59 pm Post subject: |
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Coltronator wrote: |
Why would you compare violence stats to Canada though? It's like saying that well we aren't as safe as the 7th safest place. So we might as well feel really bad about our 10th place ranking. Like the education rankings. Man Canada's education system sucks we only rank 4th or 5th on PISA, we suck........... Well no we don't. Korea is safe so is Canada.
It isn't an embarrassment to rank well but not the best. It is just embarrassing when you say you are the best and are world beaters but end up ranking hand in hand with the developing countries in education, health, safety, etc.[/list] |
Sorry, obviously you haven't read the thread. I never said Korea wasn't safe, or was way more dangerous than Canada. The point was that SR (and others) like to repeat again and again that Korea is so safe compared to "back home". So I compared the stats to Canada since that's my 'back home' to prove that Korea is not, in fact, much safer than back home. I did it precisely for the reasons you mentioned. SR likes to exaggerate things and impose his past experiences (real or made up) on everyone else. There was a liquor store near him with bullet proof glass, and now every expat is from ganglands with daily drive bys and armed robberies.
And one more post to SR. I don't try to disprove what you say because I am not an expert, and I'm a well enough developed adult to admit that. But when you claim to be an expert on every single topic that comes up around here, can you really blame people who start to doubt you. Especially when your opinion is always contrary to everyone else's (and common sense)? Everyone knows someone like you in real life, the 'one upper'. No matter what you've done or experienced, that guy has always done or experienced juuuuuuust a bit more and therefore 'knows' so much more about it than you do. Eventually you just start tuning that guy out.
We're not having presidential debates here. I don't have a responsibility to disprove what you say. I can just decide not to believe any of it. It's the internet, people make up crazy stuff all the time. I don't have time to go through everyone's post history on the world wide web and find ways to disprove them. What am I supposed to do, track you down, look up your family history, visit them, ask them about flying planes, demand photos of you as a child in the cockpit, and then write up a summary of my findings? It's seriously not that important to me. You're the one who apparently really cares about proving all these fairy tales to me personally, so why don't you provide the proof then? Why is it my responsibility to confirm your assertions?
Btw, I've been called a liar and many worse things on this board in the past, and I don't think I've ever challenged that person. I really don't care who believes anything I say here. My self worth isn't based on the approval of strangers on the internet. |
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Steelrails

Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Location: Earth, Solar System
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Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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But when you claim to be an expert on every single topic that comes up around here, can you really blame people who start to doubt you |
But I don't. You're ignoring all the threads I don't post on or comment on relating to things. Selection bias.
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Especially when your opinion is always contrary to everyone else's (and common sense) |
I seem to recall a time or three on this board where you've gone against the grain and had to face off against the pack. And who is "everyone's"? Not everyone disagrees with me all the time. Again selection bias. And what about those times when I'm right? Say, the "North Korea could flatten Seoul" threads? And why if I'm going against common sense, do people sometimes respond with personal insults and not say, evidence? Usually if I do say something really dumb, people do post evidence. Many times its little more than namecalling and "Steelrails doing it again". Which is not a counterargument.
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I don't have a responsibility to disprove what you say. I can just decide not to believe any of it. I don't have time to go through everyone's post history on the world wide web and find ways to disprove them. |
If that's all you do, fine. However, I think if you're going to call me a liar, there is an obligation to back it up.
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You're the one who apparently really cares about proving all these fairy tales to me personally, so why don't you provide the proof then? Why is it my responsibility to confirm your assertions? |
I don't think anyone here posts their personal facebook and their family albums on this site. FYI, one notable poster on this board did express curiosity about my backstory on this board via PM and I did send him some stuff. You could do the same. If I really cared THAT much, I would have sent you a PM full of stuff. But that's just creepy. Instead, between silence and letting you repeatedly calling me a liar and stalking you via PM with 50 photos of my childhood, I simply chose to take issue with you on this thread.
But please, the "If you agree with me you must be guilty" and "If you disagree with me you must be guilty" is the type of logic reserved for witch trials. And if I did stay silent you'd probably say "See, I called SR out and now you don't hear a peep out of him". So I lose either way. You have no fair and objective standard. |
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Mr. BlackCat

Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Location: Insert witty remark HERE
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Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 9:03 pm Post subject: |
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Steelrails wrote: |
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But when you claim to be an expert on every single topic that comes up around here, can you really blame people who start to doubt you |
But I don't. You're ignoring all the threads I don't post on or comment on relating to things. Selection bias.
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Especially when your opinion is always contrary to everyone else's (and common sense) |
I seem to recall a time or three on this board where you've gone against the grain and had to face off against the pack. And who is "everyone's"? Not everyone disagrees with me all the time. Again selection bias. And what about those times when I'm right? Say, the "North Korea could flatten Seoul" threads? And why if I'm going against common sense, do people sometimes respond with personal insults and not say, evidence? Usually if I do say something really dumb, people do post evidence. Many times its little more than namecalling and "Steelrails doing it again". Which is not a counterargument.
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I don't have a responsibility to disprove what you say. I can just decide not to believe any of it. I don't have time to go through everyone's post history on the world wide web and find ways to disprove them. |
If that's all you do, fine. However, I think if you're going to call me a liar, there is an obligation to back it up.
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You're the one who apparently really cares about proving all these fairy tales to me personally, so why don't you provide the proof then? Why is it my responsibility to confirm your assertions? |
I don't think anyone here posts their personal facebook and their family albums on this site. FYI, one notable poster on this board did express curiosity about my backstory on this board via PM and I did send him some stuff. You could do the same. If I really cared THAT much, I would have sent you a PM full of stuff. But that's just creepy. Instead, between silence and letting you repeatedly calling me a liar and stalking you via PM with 50 photos of my childhood, I simply chose to take issue with you on this thread.
But please, the "If you agree with me you must be guilty" and "If you disagree with me you must be guilty" is the type of logic reserved for witch trials. And if I did stay silent you'd probably say "See, I called SR out and now you don't hear a peep out of him". So I lose either way. You have no fair and objective standard. |
You should be studied. |
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