jjani

> Countries like India, Vietnam, and South Korea have begun replicating the Chinese Thousand Talents program to attract their diasporas back to domestic academia.

Really? I'm yet to meet a single diaspora (i.e. born/raised abroad) professor here in Korea and I interact with universities quite a bit.

Unless diaspora here includes those who did their full university education abroad though, lots of those indeed.

I wouldn't be so sure of that.

The citizens would be very unlikely to view it that way, so they'd have to pray it doesn't hit the news.

The most common reasons among those who did not express disappointment:

- They'd want the very same thing to happen if the roles were reversed: foreign companies in Korea bringing in hundreds of people on questionable visas

- The companies knew exactly what they were doing, that it was illegal and that they were at risk. This had been coming for some time. Cases had been starting to pop up of those trying to do multiple consecutive visa runs (blatant abuse, but often instructed by these same companies) being denied.

- The employees who get sent on these business trips are often privileged and rich, so some take pleasure in seeing them not get away with something for once.

- Korean young MAGAs who love the concept of deportation and the current US gov

The philosophy espoused by the stickied comment is based on the idea that it doesn't matter what the deeds of the person in question were; it's about the concept.

Whether that philosophy is one I'd personally agree with, I'm not sure. But it's certainly one that doesn't match the idea of applying it to one but not the other - that's an entirely different philosophy. Which one is more valid is something we could discuss for many hours, and I'm sure we'd still end up with many, many different views.

[flagged]

Genuine question.

2 Minnesota lawmakers shot in politically motivated killings, governor says (cbc.ca) 102 points by awnird 88 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 19 comments

What retaliation did this trigger?

2 Minnesota lawmakers shot in politically motivated killings, governor says (cbc.ca) 102 points by awnird 88 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 19 comments

At least one HN, this story is already getting 100x(!) the reach, when it doesn't even involve lawmakers.

2 Minnesota lawmakers shot in politically motivated killings, governor says (cbc.ca) 102 points by awnird 88 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 19 comments

Interesting to see the 100x(!) attention that this gets on HN, likely representative of similar media reach on more mainstream channels, when it's not even lawmakers in this case.

> If the US builds a plant in Korea, can it hire Americans hundreds to do the work?

No, it absolutely can't. I'm familiar with the Korean visa system, and you're correct.

Koreans and the Korean government would have zero time for that excuse if e.g. a Chinese company gives the exact same reasoning to violate visa laws in Korea.

> I happen to know someone well who works for a Korean Conglomerate building industrial/car batteries in the US.

You could just say you know someone at LG ;)

> However, ICE didn't need to arrest everyone. All they needed to do was send a warning. These companies don't want the trouble, they would comply.

The point is to reach quotas. Warnings and voluntary exits don't help with those.

> Now you have many Koreans very upset.

FWIW, the reaction among Koreans (i.e. in korea), especially the younger generation, has been quite mixed. Among age 20-39, only a minority expressed being "disappointed with the US' excessive measures". Among the older groups, the majority did react negatively.

From outside the US the view looks very different:

1. In 2016 Democrats choose a candidate based solely on internal party politics rather than to win an election, get routed by Trump

2. In 2024 Democrats choose a candidate based solely on internal party politics (letting Biden run) rather than to win an election, get routed by Trump

3. In 2025 Democrats try their best to put up a candidate for New York mayor based on internal party politics rather than to win an election

Gee, wonder what the pattern is here.

> supreme court isn't helping.

Similar patten here. How did the SC end up like this? If the roles were reversed, would R have done the same as D?

> 4. the current administration is getting something done, yes. Some things are down the wrong path and shouldn't be done. Some things are debatable but perhaps the right path but doing them in a stupid manner.

You really believe that if only D currently had a majority somewhere, the current gov wouldn't be doing most of the stuff it's doing?

That's the nice thing - they don't need to create one. They just need to put up some barriers, and there will be plenty local entrepeneurs who will be happy to create a competitor unencumbered by those same barriers.

This is not some wild theory, this is how it has generally played out in real life in the countries that did put up such meaningful barriers.

> Teenage boys everywhere have a widespread bias against putting in the effort to get good grades.

"Everywhere" as in "across the world and across time", "because testosterone/teen boys will be boys"?

If so, then I can give you an emphatic no, this is not at all true. It is, as with 99% of things, a cultural phenomenon. The degree to which the "bias against putting in the effort to get good grades" exists varies enormously depending on subculture and time. You may have personally only experienced cultures where this is the dominant case, but that does not make it indicative of immutable nature.

If not, then where and when is your "everywhere"?

> The issue is you can no longer physically remove a child

What change has made this impossible?

Let's do away with the blackboards, school books, pencils, pens, and edutech. Replace all of them with tablets loaded with TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, Minecraft, Roblox. I'm sure they'll see much more use than what they're replacing. Such efficiency!

The idea that this is literally an unsolvable problem is just absurd. If every Amazon warehouse worker instead became a Facebook pedo monitor making a >95% decrease happen would be pretty trivial.

Indeed they are, IMO this is the real number 1 reason behind the US tariffs, as well as behind his anger against Brazil, even more so than the prosecution of his fash club buddy.

What you do is get together with a bunch of other countries and announce it as a block. The US can only keep shooting itself in the foot so much. The thing they should've done is, very soon after the US tariffs were announced, say "We think this is a fantastic idea by Mr. Trump. Aligned with his views, we are instituting accompanying digital tariffs to fix the digital trade deficit. We're sure he'll agree that the trade balance should be corrected in both the physical as well as digital worlds".

The UK is effectively a colony of the US so them backing out is entirely expected. Luckily, other countries aren't. I think Brazil, Vietnam (?), Thailand (?) are ones that have already set a date for when it's being instated, and I haven't heard of them backing out. There's probably more. The EU has also confirmed today that they won't be cancelling the Google fine, though we'll have to wait and see what happens to their DST proposals. Given their serious lack of spine as well as how far the EU has gone to the right, I do expect them to cancel it, but who knows.

And again, there's a hundred other protectionist barriers that can be put up. This is the smartest way, salami slicing, as China has figured out decades ago. You begin very small and just ramp it up. You begin with something like banning Twitch because of moral concerns. Maybe even just from 8 to 8, when kids are up. Then you say national security concerns mean data centers of critical infrastructure all have to be hosted in the country. Then you expand that. Then you make Whatsapp (or whatever is the most popular messaging app) do a JV with a local player because it's a national security risk. And so on.

But Western governments don't have the wit to execute this, in which case a cruder measure such as a digital tariff is what's left.

Great, let's do that when the negative externalities of cars are properly priced into their usage. This is the number one reason that's causing such sentiments, and rightly so. Expecting people to approach it differently before that is fixed is unrealistic. Currently, cars are subsidized to an absurdly higher level than public transit. That's the status quo. A change of that status quo means moving car subsidies to public transit subsidies, unless you raise taxes, which will make the exact same people defensive and hate you.

GoDaddy is in every way a much shadier company yet half the internet is hosted on top of it, would you be okay with them being used? Come on now.

> Dare I remind you that the whole left-pad situation was because Kik, the company, stole (with NPM's assistance because they were big enough and friends with the right people) the kik package ?

And then never even did anything with it.

For egregious cases, yes. Absolutely. That very short term pain is almost instantly offset by the societal gain brought about by companies' better adherence to the law. It's incredible just how much good it would do, and how quickly this would happen.

And please don't assume a "you wouldn't if it was your own employer" - no, I very much would, despite the struggles it would cause.

> "Disrupting" YouTube is difficult

For a company, it's impossible. For any country except for the US, it's very easy: you use any of the million different protectionist measures available. Such as tarriffs, as the US itself has taken a liking to - in this case it would be their digital equivalent, namely digital service taxes.

The screenshot gives a 1:1 comparison that directly contradicts what you're implying: the difference in that "enhanced visibility" is incomparable. On Google, they're not just enhanced, they're the only things shown on the entire map. On Naver and Kakao, they're not even highlighted.

Me using them on a daily basis [0]. The image I made says more than a thousand words. Hint: They very much don't! Much like, say, Google Maps of circa 2010.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45185614

Finally, my time has come! A topic I'm both very passionate about and have a lot of experience with.

> As a result, domestic technology firms like Naver and Kakao have cornered the market for mapping services, making navigation harder for foreign visitors unfamiliar with their platforms.

Oh no! Poor tourists have to download a different map app! Such inconvenience and hardship! It's the opposite. Whenever I go abroad and get to use a local app instead of a FAANG monstrosity, it's usually a delight.

And there is no better example than Maps. Even without knowing a lick of Korean, the discerning HN reader will immediately spot the difference in degree of enshittification with the two local market leaders [1]. Google Maps? Massive space to 3 companies that clearly paid the most for ads. I can't emphasize just how random the companies are, there's no other reason than ads that those are shown. The pictured area is tourist heavy, so plenty of Google Maps users. And dozens and dozens of establishment even just in the screenshot with 100x+ the visitors, including Google Maps searches, than the 3 companies that do get their own name and icon.

Everything else is a grey mess, unusable. Public transit, metro lines? Never heard of them. Different types of streets? Colors that make sense and increase readibility? Nope. Why? Again, go make the ads stand out more.

And unfortunately this is unrelated to Korea - Google Maps is this awful anywhere, as a result of being a monopolistic ads company. Such a prime example of why they need to be broken up.

The local map apps in Korea, Naver Maps and Kakao Maps, are the poster child of just how good it is for a society to protect themselves against the FAANGs. 50 million people get to use a much better navigation app thanks to it. In addition, it creates jobs and keeps all related revenue inside the country. Win-win-win. The only one who loses out is Google, and the few tourists who can't be bothered to install a local app (available in multiple languages, by the way). Even for those, it's not like Google Maps is banned; it's definitely functional. It has the public transit, it has the restaurants and so on.

[1] https://ibb.co/hJkL3xRY

And making navigation better for the 50 million Korean residents who get to deal with mapping apps that aren't enshittified to the nth degree to optimize ad revenue and nothing but that.

You do realize that a country like the US does the same in many ways, just less on the nose - until 2 years ago that is, now doing even more blatantly than SK? And most of the countries in the world put up all sorts of visible and invisble barriers?

> In the USA, sensitive sites are not hidden by blur, but instead by fake scenery generation.

This is generally the same in Korea, the title is wrong. The military bases are made to look like forests.