South Korea allows K-Pop stars to defer military service until they turn 30 | Hacker News Reader

South Korea allows K-Pop stars to defer military service until they turn 30

nytimes.com

15 pointsAndrewBissell20 comments

SK Gov provides this exemption for stars who bring prestige to the nation.

I feel so sorry for SK now.

What about other super stars in SK? The hardworking people who the media have not yet projected on to the global screen. Why do we over value entertainment people? Soccer is still allowed in Europe but others are not allowed to work because of Covid-19, this is evil.

What if hypothetically these entertainers (including professional athletes) are helping people get through the tough lockdowns and give them something to distract themselves with and that the number of restless people getting fed up is much greater than the number of entertainers allowed a pass? Would that trade be ethical or is it still just about the principal of it?

It's likely the same reason that much of the US (particularly news orgs) value sportball above things like ethical government or better educated voters.

People are 6 year old children. Not exclusively but non-critical reactions drive a big chunk of our behavior.

Is there a correlation between liking sports and valuing ethical gvmnt? I think there honestly might be a small one but plenty of educated adults like sports

The US has been very good to its athletes at times. David Robinson got an early out on his active duty requirement after graduating from the Naval Academy. West Point had a tremendous football team in 1944 and 1945.

Weird, I would've thought that there is value in using public figures to prop up the army's reputation among the younger generation. Like the USSR did with that singer whose name I forgot.

That’s the kind of thing you do when you’re the State and you own the population including all the pretty pop singers.

Compulsory military service is only really tolerated in democratic societies facing down real existential threats, and the last time the US abused it, it was almost entirely the end of the draft (sort of was, but the mechanism by which it could be reconstituted was retained).

Gotta love how men still have to sign up for the selective service system in order to get financial aid. Which the irony is if a war broke out and you racked up an absurd amount of debt from college, dying in war or having the GI bill pay it off isn't a bad tradeoff.

Still need to get Congress to reconstitute the draft. Frankly if a war broke out that was an existential threat to the country, I wouldn’t wait that long to enlist though, but we haven’t faced a real hot existential threat since World War II. The extra step is really to prevent wasting a draft on a Vietnam, again.

You can't tell me WW1 or WW2 were actual existential threats on the US. The US had an amazingly superior navy compared to the Third Reich, which was basically only submarines, even after Pearl Harbor.

The US government as a whole did that to make Americans think it was their duty to do that for the government. It was a crock of shit from day one. It was the government looking out for US interests knowing they'd become a major and dominant global player. The only time you'd truly get me to "fight" for this country is if there were actual boots on the ground. We're far more likely to suffer from civil strife again just because even if a full frontal assault were to happen similar to DDay on US territory, our navy would just cut off naval supply lines from any foreign nation. And yes I'm assuming it's an invasion from a world power and not any of the Americas performing it.

Nobody said anything about WWI, not a fan of Wilson, not going to defend him nor any of his choices, and while I’m not FDR’s biggest fan either, there were major differences:

1. Our territory was actually attacked. All the other noise around what FDR did or didn’t want to do goes out the window; we were attacked by an equal or near equal contemporary power.

2. Up until Midway, it was a more or less even fight with the Japanese. Had we lost Midway, there’s a decent chance the Pacific war could have gone very differently.

3. Our technical superiority over our adversaries was not as obvious before the war as it is in hindsight looking back at the War. There probably wasn’t a scenario in which the Japanese, let alone the Germans landed on American beaches, but part of that was that we fought back. We didn’t take Pearl Harbor on the chin and just lie down and let the Japanese have the run of the Pacific.

Everything after that is a big what if. What if Germany won the Battle of Britain and consolidated control over Europe with virtually no opposition on the Western Front? I’m not going to waste my time or yours entertaining that question. If we faced an existential threat after the Revolutionary War or 1812, WWII was that threat.

Well firstly, we were attacked by the Japanese, not the Germans. And believe it or not, the predominant german population in the US at the time did not like war with Germany. Go figure.

In regards to the Pacific, the Japenese navy couldn't even hold a candle to the US. Even after Pearl Harbor it basically equalized it. What was discovered though throughout the Pacific campaign was that air superiority defined who'd win. The Japanese instructed kamikazes as opposed to saving the aircraft. Since it's a lot harder to rebuild a new aircraft and ship it out than it is to just put a fresh out of flight school kid in a plane, they basically crippled themselves with a semi accurate human guided missile with a minor payload. Not to mention the Japanese still had a smaller navy.

The US had a lot of WWI era ships, but they were still perfectly viable. The Japanese had no chance from the beginning. Thats specifically WHY they attacked Pearl Harbor. They anticipated US involvement so to try and get ahead of the game, they waited until they knew many of the US naval ships were in Pearl Harbor to attack. While it certainly dampened our navy, it didn't stop industry building one up, and definitely did not even compete against US at the time. In terms of chess, the Japanese basically took a rook or a bishop with a pawn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_history_of_World_War_II#...

The Battle of Britain though was far more of an important battle. The British and whomever the Air Marshall was at the time got absurdly lucky they discovered radar. That coupled with the Air Marshalls strategy alone was a testament to his intelligence of the battle he was facing. He knew it was one of attrition so he let the Germans waste time trying to draw out his fighters. Radar helped them determine when the real invasion was coming so they could go balls out to defend it. Had Britain been taken over, I'd be willing to bet the US would only have faced the Japanese. Germany would've likely be able to successfully push through the eastern front with more resources as well.

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There were draft riots in either the US or France around WW1, so that resulted in renaming it later to "selective service" in the US.

However, the voluntary nature of enlistment today does make recruiting less controversial.

I wouldn't call it a partisan thing.

(I think the biggest failure was when women enlisted during the Iraq war, then were assigned to drive unarmored trucks through the desert, becoming the favorite RPG targets. It's one thing to volunteer, but another to become a bulls eye.)

The real concern of the military today is that the population is out of shape and entitled.

Imagine a dating ad that said, "Looking for normal-weighted people who enjoy being outdoors and can do 71 pushups." That's the life of military recruiters today.

http://www.militaryspot.com/army/army-physical-fitness-test-...

Around 2010 there was for eSports, specifically StarCraft: https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/Air_Force_ACE

Unsure if they are still around though.

Or maybe they're using the army to bolster the KPOP industry by allowing people a way to defer their service and thus feeding the machine with fresh new trainees.

Dumb rule tbh to focus on a single occupation.

Just make it money based

Want to skip military service? You will need to pay $3m USD in fees (or some high number). Then, use this fees to compensate the current soldiers.

Win win.

The whole idea is to allow the rich to evade the draft without making it explicit and throwing it in people's faces like this.

That's why they should fees and use the fees to pay the current soldiers.

It's more productive for both sides.

The current system is just bad.

Another bad example is: the whole football team will be exempted if they win a national cup like Asian game.

Imagine playing against a team where, if you win, the other side needs to go to a camp for 2 years.

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