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SHGator428
Joined: 05 Sep 2014
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 Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 5:00 am Post subject: It's the SEWOL anniversary today |
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| A grade 6 student told me this, so it's still on the minds of some. RIP all that lost their lives. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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Unfortunately, as several posters here predicted, nothing has changed safety-wise in the ROK.
No. 1 in the OECD for workplace accidents and close to no.1 for pedestrian deaths--the recent sinkholes are emblematic of what much of Korea Inc.'s success rests on.
It was a shame those kids had to die when they could have been rescued, a shame that a ship that unsafe was allowed to sail, and a shame that so many continue to die in preventable accidents.
I read an editorial where some professor or the like said it would take 30-50 years for Korea to develop a safety mentality. That type of thinking is what's killing Koreans. Why do today what someone else can do tomorrow? |
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3DR
Joined: 24 May 2009
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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| atwood wrote: |
Unfortunately, as several posters here predicted, nothing has changed safety-wise in the ROK.
No. 1 in the OECD for workplace accidents and close to no.1 for pedestrian deaths--the recent sinkholes are emblematic of what much of Korea Inc.'s success rests on.
It was a shame those kids had to die when they could have been rescued, a shame that a ship that unsafe was allowed to sail, and a shame that so many continue to die in preventable accidents.
I read an editorial where some professor or the like said it would take 30-50 years for Korea to develop a safety mentality. That type of thinking is what's killing Koreans. Why do today what someone else can do tomorrow? |
Sadly true. I really don't understand the mentality. I remember reading an article about a fire that happened a few months back. Of course cars blocked pathways for the firefighters, and the building was built with extremely flammable material, but who did the residents blame? The firefighters for not responding quick enough and for "blowing the flames" with their helicopter. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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| atwood wrote: |
| I read an editorial where some professor or the lik said it would take 30-50 years for Korea to develop a safety mentality. That type of thinking is what's killing Koreans. Why do today what someone else can do tomorrow? |
Yes, because everywhere else on the planet, cultural change happens instantly and overnight. Why hold Koreans to a different standard?
30-50 years is a reasonable guesstimate. Think about what people would do in the 1950s back home. It wasn't really until the 1990s that things changed significantly. You used to be able to kick your kids out of the house and tell them to go run around and play unsupervised. Now you get arrested for that. Definitely safer. My dad talked about setting off some kind of explosive he made in chemistry class in high school on the football field and how it was just "kids being kids". Some kid might lose a hand or a finger, but life would go on. Now if that happened the FBI would raid the kid's house. Kids could bring in ammunition to use as pencils or homemade slingshots for show and tell. Heck, in 2nd grade I brought my dad's sling into school and kids would do stuff like make paper swords that could actually do serious damage and would just beat each other with them.
Now that's all gone. Maybe for the better. It certainly is safer. You talk to anyone in the baby boom era and even slightly after, and the lack of safety then and the indifference people paid to it was remarkable, and many of those practices still existed in some form into the 1980s. Seatbelts didn't become mandatory until then I think. |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 9:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| atwood wrote: |
| I read an editorial where some professor or the lik said it would take 30-50 years for Korea to develop a safety mentality. That type of thinking is what's killing Koreans. Why do today what someone else can do tomorrow? |
Yes, because everywhere else on the planet, cultural change happens instantly and overnight. Why hold Koreans to a different standard?
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Just curious...not serious.
What makes you think it is a different standard?
Human beings are unbelievably stupid at times.
But in the cases you mention...those people didn't know better.
It took a while to prove it to them.
The information that it took to prove it to them took a while to compile and even longer to disseminate.
That information is out there.
If only there were some type of information sharing network that could help pass on the information more quickly. One might think that people would learn more quickly.
Debatable for sure. This thread begs that question. |
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Bongotruck
Joined: 19 Mar 2015
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| Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 1:08 am Post subject: |
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Korea does not have to learn the hard way. They can get th info from countries that lost many lives to things like lack of seat belts, and incorporate it themselves before several hundred die every year and the public demands something done.
Koreans seem to think Korea and Koreans are somehow unique where we are all human. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 1:27 am Post subject: |
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| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
But in the cases you mention...those people didn't know better.
It took a while to prove it to them.
The information that it took to prove it to them took a while to compile and even longer to disseminate. |
With regards to the examples Steelrails listed, I'm not really sure that's true. I'm inclined to think that people were always familiar -- intellectually if not emotionally -- with the potential risks of letting children roam, of setting off home-made explosives, and so forth. It's our (I use the first person plural extremely loosely here) attitudes that changed regarding a lot of this, not our knowledge; people started to take safety more seriously, to an almost hysterical degree. It's safety hysteria that forces us to take off our shoes before entering a plane; to equip our city halls with metal detectors; to prevent the sale of things like raw milk; to label anyone who thinks its okay for their children to enjoy a bit of freedom to roam a bad parent, if not an outright criminal; to begin punishing students for playing with paper guns, imaginary bombs, or the One Ring.
In short, I don't think this is just about information. It's about an attitude towards life and the living of it, and like Steelrails mentioned, that attitude is often culturally informed, which means they'll take time to change. They almost certainly will change; mass media hysterics will inevitably push their culture in the direction of increased safety-consciousness, just as it has in the West. It's just a question of time, and a question of whether they'll be able to resist following us in taking safety-consciousness to an unreasonable extreme. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:54 am Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| atwood wrote: |
| I read an editorial where some professor or the lik said it would take 30-50 years for Korea to develop a safety mentality. That type of thinking is what's killing Koreans. Why do today what someone else can do tomorrow? |
Yes, because everywhere else on the planet, cultural change happens instantly and overnight. Why hold Koreans to a different standard?
30-50 years is a reasonable guesstimate. Think about what people would do in the 1950s back home. It wasn't really until the 1990s that things changed significantly. You used to be able to kick your kids out of the house and tell them to go run around and play unsupervised. Now you get arrested for that. Definitely safer. My dad talked about setting off some kind of explosive he made in chemistry class in high school on the football field and how it was just "kids being kids". Some kid might lose a hand or a finger, but life would go on. Now if that happened the FBI would raid the kid's house. Kids could bring in ammunition to use as pencils or homemade slingshots for show and tell. Heck, in 2nd grade I brought my dad's sling into school and kids would do stuff like make paper swords that could actually do serious damage and would just beat each other with them.
Now that's all gone. Maybe for the better. It certainly is safer. You talk to anyone in the baby boom era and even slightly after, and the lack of safety then and the indifference people paid to it was remarkable, and many of those practices still existed in some form into the 1980s. Seatbelts didn't become mandatory until then I think. |
More crap from the king of crapola.
You and those who think like you ARE the problem. That you can't see that makes you not only ignorant but prejudiced.
Prejudiced because what you are saying is that Koreans are incapable of making the changes necessary to live more safely. This is the same argument, in essence, that the Japanese used to rationalize their colonization of Korea.
BTW your anecdotes are pure fiction. No one is getting arrested for sending their kids out to play. The FBI is not raiding anyone's homes because thier kids are playing with firecrackers. |
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Bongotruck
Joined: 19 Mar 2015
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| Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:56 am Post subject: |
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I think a large part of it is for perceived efficiency and economics.
Take today for example. A large ladder truck blocked an entire road. There were no workers on the ground, no safety cones. They were expecting pedestrians to walk under the ladder. That or take a 3 block detour.
Safety is expensive. So are human rights. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 3:02 am Post subject: |
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| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| atwood wrote: |
| I read an editorial where some professor or the lik said it would take 30-50 years for Korea to develop a safety mentality. That type of thinking is what's killing Koreans. Why do today what someone else can do tomorrow? |
Yes, because everywhere else on the planet, cultural change happens instantly and overnight. Why hold Koreans to a different standard?
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Just curious...not serious.
What makes you think it is a different standard?
Human beings are unbelievably stupid at times.
But in the cases you mention...those people didn't know better.
It took a while to prove it to them.
The information that it took to prove it to them took a while to compile and even longer to disseminate.
That information is out there.
If only there were some type of information sharing network that could help pass on the information more quickly. One might think that people would learn more quickly.
Debatable for sure. This thread begs that question. |
Here's a great example of how change is executed/instituted:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-changing-one-habit-quintupled-alcoas-income-2014-4 |
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schwa
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Location: Yap
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| Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:39 am Post subject: |
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atwood wrote:
No one is getting arrested for sending their kids out to play.
Its an issue in the States right now, all over the news. Its basically illegal to let your children play unattended in a park or walk home from the library. Someone observes kids alone, phones the child protection agency, & the parents are in big trouble. Kids do get seized from nice family situations.
http://www.inquisitr.com/2005783/maryland-free-range-kids-seized-from-parents/
Its gotten insane. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 5:07 am Post subject: |
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| schwa wrote: |
atwood wrote:
No one is getting arrested for sending their kids out to play.
Its an issue in the States right now, all over the news. Its basically illegal to let your children play unattended in a park or walk home from the library. Someone observes kids alone, phones the child protection agency, & the parents are in big trouble. Kids do get seized from nice family situations.
http://www.inquisitr.com/2005783/maryland-free-range-kids-seized-from-parents/
Its gotten insane. |
I would not call the Inqisitir, which is just a blog, "all over the news."
And these kids were really kids-6- and 10-years-old. Don't you think that's a bit young to be wandering around the city?
There's a big difference in sending your kids out to play and in letting them loose to go where they please, which is what "free range' parenting seems to be about.
A parking garage, where these kids also spent time, is not a playground.
Anyway, nice derail attempt. |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 5:15 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
But in the cases you mention...those people didn't know better.
It took a while to prove it to them.
The information that it took to prove it to them took a while to compile and even longer to disseminate. |
With regards to the examples Steelrails listed, I'm not really sure that's true. I'm inclined to think that people were always familiar -- intellectually if not emotionally -- with the potential risks of letting children roam, of setting off home-made explosives, and so forth. It's our (I use the first person plural extremely loosely here) attitudes that changed regarding a lot of this, not our knowledge; people started to take safety more seriously, to an almost hysterical degree. It's safety hysteria that forces us to take off our shoes before entering a plane; to equip our city halls with metal detectors; to prevent the sale of things like raw milk; to label anyone who thinks its okay for their children to enjoy a bit of freedom to roam a bad parent, if not an outright criminal; to begin punishing students for playing with paper guns, imaginary bombs, or the One Ring.
In short, I don't think this is just about information. It's about an attitude towards life and the living of it, and like Steelrails mentioned, that attitude is often culturally informed, which means they'll take time to change. They almost certainly will change; mass media hysterics will inevitably push their culture in the direction of increased safety-consciousness, just as it has in the West. It's just a question of time, and a question of whether they'll be able to resist following us in taking safety-consciousness to an unreasonable extreme. |
Yeah...you are right. I was referring to the seat belt part specifically and should have made that clear. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 12:22 am Post subject: |
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| atwood wrote: |
| And these kids were really kids-6- and 10-years-old. Don't you think that's a bit young to be wandering around the city? |
Depends, if you live in a big city, you can't watch your 6 year-old kids 24/7 going to, and back from, school. I've seen young kids go through the subways here, and in Japan, all by themselves often (granted I don't know their exact ages). Nobody bats an eye. |
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jazzmaster
Joined: 30 Sep 2013
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| Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 12:46 am Post subject: |
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Rest in peace to all the people who died. I hope someday the parents can find peace.
What's heartbreaking is the way the crew acted when lives were at stake. People trying to justify it, we all know who it was, are beneath contempt. |
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