The Tyler Cowen

1. Smart phones in North Korea.
2. Yellowstone...still scary. (Scarier still after seeing 2012.)
3. When diplomacy and humanity clash.
4. US-Saudi relations are worsening. Somewhere, Michael Ruppert is planting his organic crops, waiting for the collapse.
5. Capitalizing on the Arab Spring in positive, economic ways. 

The Tyler Cowen

1. The uniquely American phenomenon of government shutdowns.
2. Some quake-related stuff in the wake of Japan's umpteenth aftershock. Why they are hard to predict and what's going to happen to the debris from March 11th's disaster. 
3. Revisionist alternative energy history.

The Tyler Cowen

1. Couldn't have said it better myself. When will the world's policy-makers realize that nothing is done in a vacuum. Strategies must be crafted with an eye not only for the immediate impact but also the message it sends the other players. 
2. Excellent interview regarding the status of women in North Korea. 
3. Finally, an overview of the tangled mess of politics and diplomacy on the Korean peninsula. 
4. And, turning to the Middle East, a series of essays supporting and condemning the international intervention in Libya. 

Homefront is a Joke

IGN recently published an interview with some of the advisors for THQ's upcoming video game Homefront. The game, set roughly fifteen years in the future, envisions a United States occupied by North Korean forces. In the interview, the advisors detail some of their theoretical assumptions which pave the way for such a situation. While both the advisors and the author dutifully pepper their ideas with caveats and reminders that this is all for the sake of entertainment and shouldn't be taken seriously, the article's title ("Is Homefront Possible?") irks me enough to deconstruct their theories in order.

The article relies on two basic fear-mongering facts: 1) historical precedent and 2) economic decline. The first basically follows the logic that no one predicted the inflation-ravaged Germany would sweep through Europe in the late 1930's, so it might happen again. The second falls back on the current cries of American economic and military decline thanks to a volatile Middle East and our reliance on oil. In unpacking each step of North Korea's hypothetical expansion, we will attack each of these parts as they crop up.

The Tyler Cowen

Nothing like a little bout of food poisoning to take the wind out of your sails. But we've righted the ship after a pretty disastrous start to March and are (hopefully) back on track.

1. What happens if it happens there? Not to sound alarmist but western society could well be in for a painful adjustment period.
2. Beijing's connections to Pyonyang grow stronger and the North shows further signs of reform. How would South Korea react should the North continue its tentative steps along China's reform-path? Both via NKEconomyWatch.
3. The moral circle and its expansion with globalization.
4. The virus designed to attack Iran's nuclear computers. How is this story not a bigger diplomatic headache? 

The Tyler Cowen

1. Two videos via The Awesomer. Both of cute animals shot in slow motion.
   
   
   
2. Korean culture. Via Marginal Revolution. 
3. The celebrations for Kim Jong il's birthday. 
4. Good piece about the Egyptian revolution that bears heavily on an unfinished piece we're working on here. (One of these days!) Via The Browser. 

The Tyler Cowen

1. Hilarious article on the strategic mistakes made by Hollywood's alien invaders. Via Marginal Revolution. 
2. NYTimes does great infographics again. How are we spending our money this year? Look no further. (Now we just need a simple infographic to summarize our oversight abilities.)
3. The impact of Wikileaks on North / South Korean politics and diplomacy.

The Tyler Cowen

1. Great article on North Korea's misguided propaganda. 
2. Found via the above, a video of said propaganda in all its hilarious humorlessness. 

The Tyler Cowen

1. Peter Beck on North Korean economic progress. It touches a lot of the points I made two days ago but is better informed (and I daresay better written). 
2. In line with our recent articles on signs of improvement, the Institute for Far East Studies summarizes North Korea's economic progress in 2010. From the always-excellent North Korean Economy Watch.
3. Also from the North Korean Economy Watch, an amusing list of products and advertisements uniquely North Korean. 
4. And another article on the organic capitalism springing up in the North, this one from the Economist which focuses on the threats of unstructured reunification by focusing on the comparison to East and West Germany. 
5. How to improve baseball from The Hardball Times (via The Browser). Discussions of how to improve baseball always make me think fondly of The Sports Guy's rants. 

Teaching English in South Korea

Seoul

Times have been growing increasingly austere for foreigners teaching English in South Korea. When I first started teaching in 2005, the economy was booming. Korea's newly developed middle class had made their money through fierce competition and, like all parents who had struggled for success, wanted to give their children every advantage. For kids, this translated into an education regimen that would make even the nerdiest westerner blanch. 

The Tyler Cowen

1. A look back at Foreign Policy's art this year, for which the magazine has been nominated twice by the National Magazine Awards. 
2. North Korean rice prices jump after the shelling of Yeongpyeong. With currency pegged, economic reactions to world events play out elsewhere. Thanks to the North Korean Economy Watch.
3. The evolving state of artificial intelligence. It wasn't until we abandoned our attempts to mimic human logic that artificial intelligence started to really take off. Via The Browser. 
4. After successfully flexing its muscle, a softer South Korea now appears open to more dialogue with the North and is expressing concern about the rights of North Korean citizens. 
5. Wonderful subway-map inspired understanding of capitalism and misery via Cool Infographics.

Darwinism in North Korea

Just how childish is DPRK leadership? Let us count the ways...

1. They never say thank you.
2. They throw fits when they don't get their way. 
3. They don't share.
4. They lie even when condemning evidence is thrust in their face.
5. They demand constant entertainment with little thought to the costs.
6. They want presents upon presents. 

The Tyler Cowen

1. Next year's wars by Foreign Policy. Happily, the Korean peninsula is not on their list. (Although their list seems to be solely populated by countries ripe for internal strife.) 
2. Consumer culture in North Korea. 
3. Beautiful piece about snowflakes and how they relate to people from the New Yorker. (Try to ignore the polarizing red herring regarding global warming at the beginning.) Via The Browser. 

Almost 2011 and still yet a flying car in sight. 

The Tyler Cowen

Embedding videos! Is there nothing we can't do?

1. 38 North on brinksmanship on the peninsula. Don't know if I agree yet. 
2. Corrections to the U-bend of happiness. Statisticians think the relationship is pretty weak. 
3. Stranded Buses
4. The ever-charming Gawker on Kim Jong-un's popularity
5. Nice photos of an environmental tragedy

A different perspective on North Korea

A refreshing bit of calm from an expert on North Korea.

"When we consider cases of vulnerable and failed states, the inability to govern and paralysis of national functions presage regime collapse. However, in the case of North Korea, the ruling mechanism is still working."

Deterrence

Edward Luttwak has an article praising the South Korean military for taking a harder line on the North. While hindsight is perhaps 20/20, he does (somewhat indirectly) make a good point regarding the complicity in which third parties empower the image of the DPRK.

Snapshots from Seoul

More juicy details of living with threats hanging over our heads:

• "I'm going to scurry my ass off. That's what they do in the movies right? Shit jumps off and all you see are people scurrying? That'll be me."
• "Yesterday I woke up when some people were drilling in my basement. I thought the shelling had started. It sounded like those aliens from that Tom Cruise movie, War of the Worlds. Everything was shaking. I decided to try and fall asleep again as quickly as possible. Path of least resistance."
• "I'm going to have three quick shots of whiskey to numb the fear. It might dampen my intelligence but at least I wont be paralyzed."
• "Should I just cut my losses and send money home now or try and ride out the storm, hoping the exchange rate will turn around?"
• "What do I do if I'm in the middle of a class? Herd those little shin-biters all down to the basement? The parking garage? You'd think we would have even a modicum of training for such eventualities."

Good times. 

Life During (Almost?) Wartime

Somewhere roughly 125 miles to the west of me, South Korean shells are presumably (hopefully) plunking harmlessly into the water. And, as always, the sensation of being caught between what I read on CNN and what I see around me is difficult to reconcile. Two large cranes operate just outside my window, constructing a new building as Seoul continues to march further down the path of development. Across the street, students bundled in parkas against the cold rush into a Gimbap Chungook (think traditional Korean McDonald's) for an early dinner before their hogwan starts. Buses filled with people lumber through the all-too-narrow streets and everything crackles with activity.

It is amazing to think of the difference between South and North Korea. Conceptually we all understand the great disparity in standard of living but it's different to really feel it. Put yourself in the shoes of a North Korean for a moment and look again at the scene. The new construction, free of any government planning or party oversight, cropping up organically. The students, unique yet uniform in their stylized self-expression, entering a restaurant overflowing with food and patrons, with ten similar establishments within a two minute walk in any direction. This very building, 8 stories tall with no less than four individual hogwans in it, all doing brisk business. And the streets, a constant stream of traffic, rushing hither and fro, each with unknowable purpose.

It is an overwhelming sensation, an impossibly complex tableau of activity. How can there be so many cars? How can there be so many stores and restaurants? How can organic creation produce such order? The inability of our minds to fully grasp the details of a thriving capitalist system is reason number one why centrally planned economies cannot work. And the very idea that this scene might be threatened by a few errant shells 125 miles to the west is equally confounding. One cannot imagine such a scene from scratch but, now it is laid out before us, one cannot imagine it stopping. Perhaps all it will take to free North Koreans from their indoctrination is an afternoon stroll through Seoul.

The Tyler Cowen

Well, I didn't die but I've managed to come down with a helluva cold. Everything aches, including my eye-lids. Is it possible to have a headache in your eyelids?

As I sit here typing, I can hear the street vendors outside in the market hawking their wares through loud-speakers and I'm reminded of how scary this place is when you first arrive. You don't speak the language, you know there are threats of a war, and the first time you see a blue truck drive by with a grey loudspeaker on its roof bellowing something, your instinct is to think it's some sort of alarm. Or when you first see one of the huge airbuses rattle overhead and wonder if something went wrong. Or an attack helicopter.

Anyway...enough of my yammering. Good links below.

• Another nice read from 38North, this one again featuring the mysterious Inspector O. It's funny to think of a few crappy fables cited by a world leader inciting a research craze in Pyonyang. 
• A slightly corny but still interesting look at the bridge between China and North Korea. These simple indicators of disparity are nicely digestible. 
• For some reason I've come across a lot of articles on marriage and compatibility today. All the articles come at the issue from different angles but my favorite is the biological importance of odor. Should I be choosing a mate based on friendship and compatibility for a happy marriage in the long-term or based on sweat glands and urine musk for stronger immune systems in my children? Should I just forgo marriage altogether? Am I really to believe that my current girlfriend, for whom I have what feels like a bottomless well of affection, will one day leave me cold? Ah to be 28 years old. 
• Nice article on the u-bend of happiness. We're at our least happy around the age of 46 as our ambition dies but hasn't yet been replaced by acceptance. But the later years are increasingly happy again. 
• Although perhaps redundant to our own links, the Atlantic Wire has a nice summary of some of the current thinking around the Korean peninsula.

The Tyler Cowen

• Fascinating interview with the only surviving North Korean assassin from 1968's failed attempt on then-president Park Chung-Hee. This culture's capacity for forgiveness is truly awe-inspiring. While the story isn't a fairy-tale, the redemption of a man who, in most any other society, would have been locked away for a long time, is beautiful. Unsurprisingly, he falls far on the hawkish side of the spectrum with regards to current South Korean foreign policy against the North. 
• The first page of Foreign Policy's 'This Week at War' is on the prospects of a North-South war. In the style of these articles, it is terse and to the point, painting a bleak picture of the next few months. They seem to believe that status quo is unsustainable after the shelling of Yeongpyeong: either North Korea will recognize the hard-line and avoid further provocation or things will escalate quickly.

That's all for today. I'm heading out on the town to try and enjoy life lest is be snuffed from me unexpectedly.