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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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VanIslander

Joined: 18 Aug 2003 Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 3:56 am Post subject: |
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this thread reminds me how much i've changed
ten years ago i'd be right into this kind of topic
nowadays i think 'don't give a flying *beep*' |
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Manner of Speaking

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 4:03 am Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
this thread reminds me how much i've changed
ten years ago i'd be right into this kind of topic
nowadays i think 'don't give a flying *beep*' |
Probably partly because it's been reiterated over and over again.
There isn't a lot that is new or interesting on this forum anymore. |
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Manner of Speaking

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 4:13 am Post subject: |
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Just a few minutes ago I read an interesting article on the Daily NK website that illustrates what I am talking about:
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South Korea Visits Weakened Chongryon
The Plunging Chongryon - Part 4
By Kim Yong Hun
[2009-12-10 09:13 ]
After the Chongryon (General Association of North Korean Residents in Japan) had finished promoting their own �Homecoming Project,� the South Korean government began its own �Visit the Motherland� project, also targeting Korean residents in Japan.
In 1975, the Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan) took Korean residents affiliated with Chongryon and others to visit their ancestral graves in South Korea at Chuseok, the Korean traditional thanksgiving holiday. Many who felt deserted by or discontented with Chongryon were very fond of the project.
The Japanese media released impressive scenes of Korean residents who nominally sided with Chongryon visiting their homes after 30 years or more. From this beginning, the �Visit the Motherland� project grew in popularity.
According to the Mindan Newspaper, some 50,570 Korean members of the Chongryon visited South Korea thanks to the project between 1975 and 2005.
These visitors to South Korea were able to see that Chongryon propaganda about the poverty of South Korea was false. Even Chongryon officials and merchants affiliated with it visited South Korea secretly through the project. Thereafter, once news of the aftermath of the Chongryon�s Homecoming Project started spreading among members of Chongryon and �Visit the Motherland� grew in popularity, the atmosphere of the Korean residents� community, previously dominated by Chongryon, changed forever.
As the Mindan project grew in popularity, Kim Il Sung instructed the Chongryon to strengthen their organization. Therefore, by the late-1970s the Chongryon had chosen reorganization as its priority in order to raise superior students for espionage activities against South Korea.
In the 1980s, Kim Il Sung handed down another decree, �Patriotism Project Renovation,� instructing core Chongryon officials to make efforts to prevent members� breaking away from it. However, it was difficult to turn back the tide of public opinion which was inclining towards South Korea.
A former Chongryon official, who wishes to remain anonymous, told The Daily NK in a telephone conversation, �Before that Mindan project, people believed the propaganda released by Chongryon; that South Korea is a colony of the U.S. and the South Korean people live in a real hell. However, after visiting South Korea, they were shocked at South Korea�s economic development, and those facts circulated rapidly among other Korean residents.�
He added, �As the North�s real character became clear, the numbers of those who wanted to change their nationality to South Korean increased, and the Mindan�s �Visit the Motherland� project encouraged them to do so.� |
Intergovernmental relations between North Korea and South Korea have become much more complex in the past 50 years, and now the two governments operate in a very multidimensional, albiet limited, manner. Yet neither government has surrendered its sovereignty to the other, nor is either bound to in the forseeable future. But because of information technology, trade and mass international travel, it is becoming more and more difficult for North Korea to prevent the diffusion of real, factual information about economic conditions and quality of life among South Koreans, to the North Korean populace. |
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scotty12347
Joined: 16 Sep 2009
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 4:21 am Post subject: |
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| eIn07912 wrote: |
| It makes sense that the only way the human race can survive our future struggles (which are gonna make our historical ones look like pancake breakfast) is to act all together. Is to have the entire human race as one unified people. A planet without border. A nation without lines. The citizens of Earth. |
very poignant |
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bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 11:33 am Post subject: |
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| runthegauntlet wrote: |
| bacasper wrote: |
| eIn07912 wrote: |
| And not to get too far off topic, but as far as I know, I'm the only one that has come up with this theory... but could the sudden surge in homosexuality be evolution's way of controlling the population? |
No you are not the only one; in fact, you probably got the idea from me as I posited it quite some time ago.
If there were a good way to measure the incidence of homosexuality, the hypothesis could be tested. One would have to compare its incidence with population densities in various times and places around the world. Unfortunately, measurement of "homosexuality" is exceedingly difficult and inexact. (I put it in quotes because we do not even have a good definition, much less an accurate measure of it.) |
Orrrrr, it's just as likely that homosexuality has stayed fairly stable through the millenia but was repressed by religious and other social norms and is just now being openly accepted.... |
I'd really love to know how you measured those likelihoods. There is basis for my hypothesis in that many species have been observed whose reproductive rates change in accordance to environmental conditions. |
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Steelrails

Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Location: Earth, Solar System
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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| scotty12347 wrote: |
| eIn07912 wrote: |
| It makes sense that the only way the human race can survive our future struggles (which are gonna make our historical ones look like pancake breakfast) is to act all together. Is to have the entire human race as one unified people. A planet without border. A nation without lines. The citizens of Earth. |
very poignant |
Won't happen until the aliens show up. |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 9:28 pm Post subject: |
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| The replacement of the nation state with what are essentially large trading blocs represents a further levelling towards undifferentiated humanity. That is my stance. |
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