DPK Passes Pro-Labor Bill in National Parliament
This bill is basically giving collective bargaining rights to sub-contractors and those not directly employed by businesses. What is probably the most interesting aspect of this bill is that unions get protections from causing damage to businesses while protesting. Considering how violent the KCTU can be when protesting, it is likely them who advocated for this protection in the bill:
Korea’s contentious pro-labor bill — dubbed the “yellow envelope bill” — was approved at the National Assembly on Sunday, after nearly a decade of political tug-of-war.
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) railroaded the passage, with 183 votes in favor and three against out of 186 lawmakers present, mostly DPK and minor liberal parties. Members of the conservative main opposition People Power Party boycotted the vote, following a 24-hour filibuster that ended earlier that day.
The new law, an amendment to Articles 2 and 3 of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, aims to broaden workers’ rights in collective actions and negotiations with employers. It will take effect six months after promulgation.
Under the revision, subcontracted and indirectly employed workers will be able to negotiate directly with parent companies on issues in which the parent company wields effective control, such as workplace safety.
The legislation also expands the scope of labor disputes to include restructuring and mass layoffs, though not all business decisions — such as overseas investments — automatically qualify. In addition, unions and workers gain protection from some damage suits for losses resulting from labor actions, especially those taken to defend their rights against an employer’s unlawful conduct.
You can read more at the link.
This is insanity; going to be like Barcelona just prior to the Spanish Civil War.
just prior to the Spanish Civil War.
Ah yes, the ever-predictable right-wing mob—rabid, ignorant, and forever daydreaming about civil war and toppling the very government that’s protecting peace and prosperity for everyone else.
If you knew your history you would know Barcelona was the center of the communist movement in Spain. Workers seizing factories, civilian committees taking private property, killing of clergy and nuns; the usual communist stuff. It was a historical reference of what Korea is going to look like under the clown pres Lee.
If you knew your history you would know Barcelona was the center of the communist movement in Spain
Again the Koreans have to step in to educate the ignorant and poorly educated the right-wing Setnaffarian mob.
Flyingsword, if you knew your history you’d know that Barcelona in 1936 wasn’t “communist” in the Soviet sense—it was anarchist and syndicalist unions like the CNT and FAI leading the collectivizations, not some monolithic communist project. Revolutionary Catalonia was a short-lived, chaotic experiment in worker self-management during a civil war.
Trying to equate that with Lee Jae Myung’s policies in South Korea is just ahistorical. Lee isn’t abolishing private property or handing factories to workers. His economic plan is state-led industrial strategy within a capitalist framework: record AI and R&D investment, green transition, expanded social safety nets, and modest redistributive policies like childcare, pensions, and pilot basic income. That’s not anarchist revolution—it’s more akin to Scandinavian social democracy combined with strategic industrial policy.
So no, Korea under Lee is not about to turn into 1936 Barcelona. It’s about trying to modernize the economy while reducing inequality.
It’s hardly “the usual communist stuff” and at the end of the day, it will be the Korean people who will benefit.
If you knew your history you would know Barcelona was the center of the communist movement in Spain
Again the Koreans have to step in to educate the ignorant and poorly educated the right-wing Setnaffarian mob.
Flyingsword, if you knew your history you’d know that Barcelona in 1936 wasn’t “communist” in the Soviet sense—it was anarchist and syndicalist unions like the CNT and FAI leading the collectivizations, not some monolithic communist project. Revolutionary Catalonia was a short-lived, chaotic experiment in worker self-management during a civil war.
Trying to equate that with Lee Jae Myung’s policies in South Korea is just ahistorical. Lee isn’t abolishing private property or handing factories to workers. His economic plan is state-led industrial strategy within a capitalist framework: record AI and R&D investment, green transition, expanded social safety nets, and modest redistributive policies like childcare, pensions, and pilot basic income. That’s not anarchist revolution—it’s more akin to Scandinavian social democracy combined with strategic industrial policy.
So no, Korea under Lee is not about to turn into 1936 Barcelona.
It’s about trying to modernize the economy while reducing inequality—hardly “the usual communist stuff” and at the end it will be the Korean people who will benefit.
Korea Thing is one of the dumbest commenters known to man…
…then he uses “ahistoric” after an amazing history lesson that had vocabulary and phrasing choices which indicate it was preceded by “Here is a paragraph explaining…” and followed by, “Would you like me to…”
But let’s break this down:
“His economic plan is state-led industrial strategy within a capitalist framework:”
We will be watching that.
“record AI and R&D investment”
That is a good thing… until it is also record fraud, waste, and abuse… which it frequenty is. In theory, this is they type of thing that keeps Korea prosperous. In reality it need to be monitored to ensure there are no wealth transfers.
Bonus: Koreans are some of the world’s worst programmers on a fundamental level and unless this changes, any leadership in AI is doomed.
“green transition”
Insanity… self-destructive and counterproductive insanity.
You cannot rely on “green” energy and have AI data centers… especially if you limit nuclear energy. What you can do is never really go anywhere with AI and you can talk green but remain dependent on importing foreign energy.
Globalists and Korea’s competitors don’t want to see Korean advancement in AI or becoming independent of foreign energy. Any Korean politician who plays into this is suspect.
“expanded social safety nets”
Social safety nets are good… until they start creating generational dependence and all the evils that go with it. With the rapidly rising drug culture and the promise of government care, there is a risk of creating a permanent non-productive underclass such as can be found in America, which once had these same good intentions. Be careful.
“and modest redistributive policies like childcare, pensions, and pilot basic income.”
Childcare sounds like a good plan to have a stranger raise a child in line with state doctrine while every bit of labor is extracted from the mother. That’s the most cynical view. What is the proposed program?
Pensions are not redistribution, as workers have paid into them.
Universal Basic Income is one of the worst ideas since the Holodomor… and every pilot project confirms this.
Koreans are some of the world’s worst programmers on a fundamental level and unless this changes, any leadership in AI is doomed.
Proves that despite the claims of @setnaffa, he is indeed an anti-Asian racist.
Let’s dive in with more education for the poorly educated Setnaffarians with very low brainpower.
ChickenHead calling me “the dumbest commenter known to man” isn’t an argument—it’s just an admission that ChickenHead doesn’t have one. So let’s actually deal with the substance here.
State-led industrial policy
Yes, it needs oversight to prevent fraud or waste. That’s true of any large investment, whether in Korea, the U.S., or Europe. But pretending that because fraud can happen, therefore investment shouldn’t happen, is just anti-growth defeatism. South Korea didn’t get from poverty in the 1950s to today’s tech powerhouse by avoiding industrial policy—it did it precisely through strategic state-led investments.
AI and programming talent
Claiming “Koreans are the world’s worst programmers” is both laughably broad and factually wrong. Korea has some of the world’s top-performing math and science students, and its firms are global leaders in semiconductors, electronics, and digital platforms. Do they need more AI talent? Absolutely—which is why Lee is pushing education and workforce reforms in parallel with investment.
Green transition and energy security
Dismissing the green transition as “insanity” ignores global reality. Every advanced economy is pivoting to renewables—not because it’s trendy, but because energy independence and resilience matter. Lee’s plan isn’t anti-nuclear either; it integrates renewables with nuclear and smart grids. That’s not “self-destructive,” it’s the future of energy security.
Social safety nets
The idea that modest welfare expansion will automatically create an American-style “permanent underclass” ignores context. Korea is starting from one of the weakest social safety nets in the OECD, with some of the highest rates of elderly poverty. Expanding childcare and pensions addresses real demographic and social issues—aging population, low fertility, youth precarity. That’s not creating dependence, it’s preventing collapse.
Childcare, pensions, and UBI pilots
Childcare: This isn’t about “the state raising kids,” it’s about giving working parents the support they need in a country with one of the lowest birthrates in the world.
Pensions: Correct—workers pay into them. Which is why strengthening them is fair policy, not redistribution.
UBI pilots: They’re not Holodomor 2.0, they’re small-scale experiments to test viability. Even if you oppose them, comparing them to famine induced by Stalin is unserious hyperbole.
Bottom line: Lee’s policies aren’t anarchist collectivization, and they aren’t “communism lite.” They’re pragmatic attempts to modernize Korea’s economy, expand opportunity, and address structural challenges. You can critique the details—but the caricature you’re painting is just ideology posing as analysis.
Of course @setnaffa won’t bother reading my valid and correct points and will accuse me of being a leftist, and writing too long a piece.
So, here’s a shorter version that his low powered brain can digest.
Calling Lee’s policies “communism” is just ahistorical. He’s not collectivizing factories—he’s investing in AI, semiconductors, and green energy while expanding childcare and pensions in one of the weakest welfare states in the OECD. Fraud risks exist in any big program, but Korea’s growth has always come from state-led industrial strategy. If you want to critique, do it on policy specifics—not with lazy stereotypes about programmers or Cold War scare talk.
All different flavors and stages of communists…..”you’d know that Barcelona in 1936 wasn’t “communist” in the Soviet sense—it was anarchist and syndicalist unions like the CNT and FAI leading the collectivizations”
@Flyingsword
You should seek professional help for the mental illness which makes you see imaginary Communists everywhere.
Wow!
We are watching Korea Thing v3.0 hand off to Korea Thing v4.0 in realtime.
“Claiming “Koreans are the world’s worst programmers” is both laughably broad and factually wrong.”
You are right. It was hyperbole. Somewhere there is a group of inbred bushmen or perhaps some inmates in a home for the criminally retarded who are slightly worse, though likely not at webpage design.
“Korea has some of the world’s top-performing math and science students, and its firms are global leaders in semiconductors, electronics, and digital platforms.”
None of which are… programming… which, did I mention, Koreans are horrible at.
“Do they need more AI talent? Absolutely—which is why Lee is pushing education and workforce reforms in parallel with investment.”
Korea is going to succeed at a lot of things, such as delivering high-quality weapons at reasonable prices, but Korea is very likely going to fail at AI… especially compared to the competition.
Like search and maps, Korea can likely prop up weak domestic options by creating artificial barriers to superior foreign competition.
But Korea cannot be a world player in an industry perfect for a country with no resources but brains because, despite talk, Korea is self-sabotaging or focused on the wrong things.
Calling Koreans “the world’s worst programmers” is lazy stereotyping. Korea isn’t perfect at software, but the country built world-class online gaming, mobile payment ecosystems, and messaging platforms before most of the world even caught up. Korean engineers also power the back end of global firms like Samsung, Naver, and Kakao—all of which require heavy-duty programming expertise. If that’s “the worst,” then a lot of countries would be lucky to be that bad.
Korea Thing has clearly never used auction.co.kr.
So why are Koreans great engineers but poor programmers?
Engineering in Korea requires discipline, precision, following specifications, and solving physical problems. That aligns perfectly with Korea’s education system and work culture (structured, hierarchical, rigorous).
But pogramming (especially modern software / AI) requires creativity, breaking rules, building from scratch, and open-source collaboration. Korea’s culture often discourages the “messy” experimentation that makes great programmers.
Korea’s education system has heavy focus on math, physics, and memorization. This is great for engineering, circuit design, chip fabrication, etc. But with little focus on creative problem solving, abstraction, and open-ended projects it is not ideal for programming innovation.
Until recently, computer science in Korean universities was viewed as a “support field” for electrical or mechanical engineering, not as its own field.
Korea’s tech giants (Samsung, LG, Hyundai, SK) are hardware-first companies that have invested heavily in semiconductors, displays, cars, ships, telecom infrastructure but have historically seen software as an add-on, not the core product. As a result, engineering talent was cultivated, while programming talent lagged behind.
Open-source contribution (a huge part of modern programming culture) is relatively low. Many Korean programmers work on internal corporate projects, not public repos. This means less visibility and less “programmer culture” compared to places like the U.S. or India.
And Korean rigid work and social culture is the opposite of accepted chaos in exchange for innovative creativity.
Korea does well with engineering programming such as hardware control for things like industrial machinery and robots (though the interfaces frequently have a lot of WTF… as Koreans are horrid front end programmers).
AI programming requires skills and a mindset that is very much incompatible with Korea culture.
Bonus thoughts:
– Korea does not have the data necessary for world-class AI development
– Korea has a lot of small roadblocks against individuals getting involved in AI, such as high taxes on hardware, high priced for cloud services (with foreign cloud services charging an Asia Pacific premium), privacy laws against web scraping, corporate lock-in of datasets
– American private developers can easily get access to data, release an impressive open source project, get free cloud credits to further develop it, get merit-based grants without being affiliated with a university, etc.
– late mover disadvantage – Korea is way behind America and China. Like rocketry (another story) they are floundering and it is unclear if throwing more money at it will pay off.
– brain drain – best korea ai minds have already left korea for great pay and research freedom at foreign organizations
Many of these are all generalities, of course. But when competing against the generalities of America and China, it means something.
Korea can succeed at AI, as perhaps can anyone, but the requirements are likely more than Korea can fulfill.
So does ChickenHead, a bot who resides in @setnaffa laptop know that auction.co.kr is a Korean subsidiary of eBay?
People confuse “creativity” with “chaos.” Korea isn’t chaotic—and that’s exactly why it could win in AI.
AI today is less about brilliant solo coders and more about huge engineering systems: chips, clusters, 6G pipes, and safe deployment. Korea is world-class at all of that.
While the U.S. and China stumble through hype cycles, Korea can target applied AI in healthcare, robotics, defense, and infrastructure—areas where structured discipline and engineering culture matter more than hacker swagger.
Far from being “unfit for AI,” Korea might actually be one of the best prepared.
“AI today is less about brilliant solo coders and more about huge engineering systems: chips, clusters, 6G pipes, and safe deployment. Korea is world-class at all of that.”
AI has always been about brilliant solo coders… and will always start from that point, as solo work is the fundemental state of briliant coding.
They do something impressive to get noticed and get snapped up by the big tech companies to program all that amazing hardware with a team of brilliant formerly-solo coders.
Korea simply does not have a pool of brilliant coders, solo or in teams, to compete in the global AI market no matter how much great hardware is set up.
To develop a pool of world-class coders that will stay in Korea is no small task and is a generational project for which Korea is already far behind.
There needs to be social engineering to push the idea that AI coding is great work by great people. There needs to be real education in school so every child knows the fundementals of AI. There needs to be rock star status and pay for coders. There needs to be affordable hardware in the hands of every interested student. There needs to be hogwons and clubs and teams and contests teaching and promoting advanced AI.
America and China have all of that, and refined it shockingly quickly after LLMs came out. Before that, this all existed for fields like machine learning and computer vision.
Despite America being full of useless people, frequently encouraged by government programs, the productive classes are very, very productive and exist in a subculture the useless classes are unaware of.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/08/first-lady-melania-trump-launches-nationwide-presidential-ai-challenge/
In related news, NASA is going to abandon all the distracting climate nonsense and get back to exploring the moon and Mars.
America is getting back on track.
Nothing but opportunity for those who chose to abandon failure and join the productive class.
“AI only comes from solo coders in garages”? Sure—until they need a data center with 10,000 GPUs, a national-scale telecom backbone, and $100M in cloud credits. That’s where Korea shines.
Korea may not yet have the ‘rockstar hacker’ culture of Silicon Valley, but talent pipelines can be built shockingly fast—look at how esports, K-pop, and even chip design became national obsessions.
The country that industrialized from war ruin to tech powerhouse in 30 years is somehow “incapable” of creating coder culture? That’s betting against history.
As we have discussed, Korea has great engineers, as the requirements for great engineers fit with the fundementals of Korean culture.
There is no doubt Korea can develop excellent AI / datacenter hardware with the same speed and quality as the cellphone and internet infrastructure.
But AI success requires something Korea does not have, and until the current AI panic, has shown no interest in developing.
Along with the hardware, AI needs clever software. And Koreans are not clever programmers.
In fact, Koreans are poor programmers in everything from organization to efficiency.
There are ways to manage this deficiency. It will need to be managed by smart people who understand the problem instead of retards saying, “but… but… but… we have great hardware!”
Saying “Koreans are bad programmers” is just lazy.
KakaoTalk, MMORPG engines, fintech systems—these didn’t build themselves.
AI isn’t solo genius—it’s scaling software + hardware + data, and Korea is world-class at that.
Yes, hardware alone isn’t magic, but neither is dismissing an entire talent pool.
Let’s look at your examples.
KakaoTalk
KakaoTalk is what Korea needed, but it had ZERO innovation. It is a copy of similar social media apps and has failed to catch on outside Korea.
I wrote a clone of KakaoTalk in ONE afternoon in Python and MySQL. I run it on a private server consisting of an old PC that can do at least 50 simultaneous connections. It is web based, so there is no need for an app, and you can access it from any device without any restrictions or crippling.
I did this because so many people who lived in Korea used KakaoTalk but couldn’t get it working again outside of Korea when they changed devices.
KakaoTalk is a marketing success story. From a programming perspective it is a high school project.
MMORPG engines
Korea uses Unreal and Unity as their engines. These are foreign products. Making those requires heavy duty programming ability. But Koreans can’t make those.
Koreans use those to craft games in the same way you would make an art project.
Fintech systems
Korea only programs the UI. My three Korean banking apps appear to be designed by people who never had a bank account. They have poor workflows, don’t group needed information in one place, and are cluttered and clunky.
The backend of Korean banking is all done by foreign programming, AWS, Azure, Visa/Mastercard rails.
Setting up a UI to access this is an art project, not a programming excercise.
And the only things Koreans do worse than backend programming is frontend UI/website design.
So.
Your examples reinforce Korea’s inability to program, and possibly failure to recognize this, which is why Korea currently cannot compete in the global AI market, and likely never will.
So why can Korea drag and drop their way to decent video games on a foreign-programmed engine?
Because, while Korea has no real hacker culture that is required for developing forward-thinking AI, Korea certainly has a culture of appreciating big-tìttied women with swords.
And those vìrgins make good game designers because they love what they do, and have since puberty.
While some of your points about the global success of certain Korean tech companies and the use of foreign engines have a kernel of truth, your overall argument is based on significant oversimplifications and factual errors. It also contains several offensive generalizations. Here’s a rebuttal to your claims.
KakaoTalk’s Innovation and Success
You claim KakaoTalk had “ZERO innovation” and that you could clone it in an afternoon. This is a gross misunderstanding of what makes a successful tech product. While the basic messaging function is common, KakaoTalk’s innovation was in its localization, integration, and platform strategy.
* Deep Integration: KakaoTalk became more than just a messaging app. It’s a platform deeply integrated into Korean life, offering a wide array of services including Kakao Pay, Kakao Taxi, Kakao Friends, gift-giving, and more, all within a single application. This level of seamless integration and user habit formation is a significant innovation that a simple messaging clone can’t replicate.
* Cultural Fit: The app’s stickers and unique user interface resonated perfectly with Korean culture, which is a major factor in its unparalleled dominance in the domestic market.
* Engineering Scalability: The engineering challenge isn’t just about a basic prototype. It’s about building a system that can reliably handle over 50 million monthly active users, processing billions of messages and transactions daily without crashing. Building a web-based clone for “50 simultaneous connections” on an old PC is not a comparable engineering feat.
MMORPG Engines and Programming Prowess
Your assertion that Koreans can’t create game engines is incorrect. While it’s true that many Korean companies use Unreal and Unity, this is a global trend, not a sign of a country’s programming inadequacy. Top-tier game studios worldwide, including those in the US and Europe, license these engines to focus on content and gameplay rather than reinventing the wheel. The real programming challenge lies in optimizing and modifying these engines for specific game genres, especially the large-scale, high-performance needs of MMORPGs, which Korean developers are masters of.
Furthermore, several major Korean companies, such as NCSoft, have developed and continue to use their own proprietary game engines, such as the Blade & Soul engine, specifically for their games. This directly contradicts your claim that Koreans can’t make them. The ability to create complex, globally successful games like Lineage, MapleStory, and PUBG demonstrates a high level of programming and engineering skill.
Fintech Systems and Programming
Your critique of Korean banking apps is subjective and fails to grasp the technical reality. While UI/UX can always be improved, the claim that “Korea only programs the UI” is false. The back-end of these systems is a complex mix of domestic and foreign technologies. While some services may use foreign cloud providers like AWS or Azure, the core banking systems, which handle sensitive financial data and transactions, are often built on sophisticated, domestic platforms. APIs and middleware are heavily developed in-house to connect legacy systems with modern front-ends.
Moreover, the entire infrastructure for Korean-specific payment systems and digital certificates (like 공인인증서, now largely replaced) required a massive amount of domestic programming and development. The challenges with a smooth user experience often stem from integrating these complex and heavily regulated legacy systems, a problem not unique to Korea.
AI and a “Hacker Culture”
The notion that Korea lacks a “hacker culture” and therefore cannot compete in AI is baseless and relies on a narrow definition of innovation. Korea has a strong tradition of technical education and is a global leader in fields like robotics and semiconductor manufacturing, which require a high level of programming and engineering expertise.
Korean tech giants like Naver and LG are making significant investments in AI research and development, building large language models and other AI technologies to compete with global players. The country’s strong infrastructure and government support for R&D position it as a major player in the future of technology, not a country “unlikely ever to compete.”
Your final comments are crude, offensive, and completely irrelevant to the topic of programming and technological innovation. They serve no purpose other than to undermine your own credibility. Your entire argument, which dismisses the work of countless skilled engineers and developers, is based on a shallow understanding of what it takes to build and maintain large-scale, successful technology platforms.
For @setnaffa who can’t read and comprehend detailed posts.
Your arguments misunderstand the nature of tech innovation and are based on harmful stereotypes. The success of KakaoTalk wasn’t in creating a new messaging protocol, but in its deep platform integration and localization, which made it indispensable to Korean daily life—a far more complex engineering and business challenge than a simple messaging clone. Similarly, the global reliance on game engines like Unreal and Unity isn’t a sign of Korean programming weakness; it’s a global industry standard that allows developers worldwide, including those in Korea, to focus on creating sophisticated games, not reinventing the wheel. Korea’s fintech and AI sectors are also more advanced than you suggest, with significant domestic development in back-end systems and substantial investment in AI research. Dismissing these achievements with offensive and baseless claims about “hacker culture” and “big-tittied women with swords” demonstrates a shallow understanding of a complex, thriving tech landscape.
Poor Korea Thing either doesn’t get it or doesn’t want to get it.
Not understanding, refusing to understand, and lying to onesself are functionally equivalent.
Nothing it bragged about concerning Korea’s tech ability addresses Korea’s shortcomings that keep it from being a global AI leader.
It talks while the subject is .
Bonus: Korea’s banking software is a global joke. ActiveX was only abandoned a few years ago and instead of starting over with a modern system, it was simply modified to be even more convoluted but without the glaring security flaws of ActiveX.
Koreans are horrid, horrid horrid programmers and no amount of government money will fix that.
There needs to be a cultural shit.
The first step is recognition.
https://www.chosun.com/english/national-en/2025/06/02/LW2KTIZNT5GPDCQSCVCIEIWT64/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Korea Thing either doesn’t get it or doesn’t want to get it.
Why should I “get it” from a racist and white supremacist who is denigrating Koreans and Asians in general?
“Approved by the parliament..” – yeah approved by the Minjoo folks who were placed there NOT by the people, but by rigged Chinese elections..
Anyways
ChickenHead’s comment is based on outdated and generalized information. A factual look at South Korea’s tech sector shows a nation actively modernizing and investing heavily to secure its position as a global technology leader.
AI Leadership
The claim that South Korea isn’t a global AI leader ignores the country’s strategic and financial commitment. The government and private sector are investing **$72.29 billion** to become a top-three global AI powerhouse by 2027. This isn’t a nation “not understanding,” it’s a nation with a calculated and massive plan. As of 2024, South Korea’s overall AI capabilities rank sixth in the world, directly contradicting the idea it is a tech laggard.
Banking Software
The argument about “global joke” banking software and ActiveX is a relic of the past. Korea’s financial technology has undergone a rapid transformation, moving away from desktop-based systems to a vibrant mobile-first ecosystem. Modern fintech companies like **Kakao Bank** and **Toss** now dominate the market with their intuitive, app-based platforms. The country’s open banking API platform is a sign of a modern, interconnected financial system, not a backward one.
Programmers
The broad generalization that Korean programmers are “horrid” is an unsupported and inflammatory claim. The reality is that the demand for skilled tech talent in Korea is soaring. A thriving tech industry, driven by companies like **Naver, Samsung, and Kakao**, is a testament to the nation’s strong programming and engineering talent. A “cultural shift” has already occurred, evident in the country’s move toward modern, mobile-first technologies and its aggressive pursuit of leadership in the global AI race.
yeah approved by the Minjoo folks who were placed there NOT by the people, but by rigged Chinese elections..
If Joshua Lee wasn’t a bot that resides in @setnaffa laptop farm I would’ve sworn that he sounds like one of those Asian right wing wackos that constantly scream “China” and despite @setnaffa claims, protest regularly in Gwanghwamun.
Naver is a miserable search engine designed by horrid programmers. It is only non-tariff trade barriers that keep Google from eating it.
KakaoTalk is good, but it is nothing innovative nor difficult to program. It is a marketing victory, not a programming showcase.
Samsung’s software efforts are a success… when they outsource. Yes, OneUI (smartphones) was primarily programmed by Indians and Vietnamese and then tested and refined in San Francisco and London.
Keep in mind, I don’t say that Koreans are wretched programmers lightly. I seldom criticize Korea, but when I do, I mean it.
Koreans are wretched programmers.
And every example you give to the contrary actually confims it… and confirms that Korean tech companies, which are excellent at hardware, are self-aware that software needs to be done by professionals.
This can change but it will take a change in culture… Koreans have to LOVE programming to be good at it… and “investing” money in “AI” is not going to make Korea better at loving programming.
And without a large pool of people who live and breathe AI programming, Korea cannot compete internationally.
To give perspective, in 2024, Korea published 1,763 AI-related papers. That is about 2% of the global output of AI-related papers.
Not exactly an AI Leader.
Good luck, Korea.
More anti-Korea and racist remarks from ChickenHead.
This shows the true nature of his master @setnaffa who I might add is no friend of Korea.
Anyways.
ChickenHead’s claim is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Korean tech market and its innovation. Here’s a quick reality check:
Naver isn’t surviving on trade barriers; it’s a platform built for the Korean ecosystem. It’s an entire suite of services—from e-commerce to news—all integrated in one place, which is why it’s more relevant to Koreans than Google’s traditional search model. To call its programmers “horrid” is to ignore the complexity of creating and maintaining such a massive, integrated platform.
KakaoTalk’s true innovation isn’t just in messaging. It’s the engine of an entire mobile-first economy, connecting millions of users to everything from payments to transportation services. That level of seamless ecosystem integration is a massive programming feat and a showcase for platform design.
Samsung is a global powerhouse with R&D centers worldwide, but its software leadership is a result of a massive in-house development effort, not just outsourcing. To say its success is thanks to others ignores the sheer scale of its own talent.
Finally, dismissing an entire nation’s programmers and researchers as “wretched” is a baseless and prejudiced generalization. While the sheer volume of AI papers might be smaller than that of the U.S. or China, a country ranking sixth globally in AI research and investing billions into the field is a serious contender, not a nation “not getting it.”
ChickenHead’s comment is a masterclass in confirmation bias, using a few cherry-picked details to build a flawed and outdated narrative. The reality is simple: The success of Korea’s tech giants—from Naver’s super-app ecosystem to Kakao’s multi-billion dollar platform—is the direct result of world-class programming and strategic innovation. To dismiss their work as either simple or outsourced is to ignore the complex engineering required to build and scale services used by an entire nation. The facts—from Korea’s top-tier AI ranking to the global demand for its tech talent—don’t just refute the claim; they demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes a tech leader.
Korea AI: Sparkling!
Ah yes now ChickenHead is making fun of people with disabilities. How low can he get?
Interestingly he is also mentioning AI that does not exist.
Everyone knows that Bixby and Cortana do not exist and Siri has been surpassed by Gemini AI and ChatGPT.
Not to mention Samsung AI is now superior to Apple AI, which explains why iPhone users are ditching iPhones for Samsung phones.
“Ah yes now ChickenHead is making fun of people with disabilities. How low can he get?”
Disabled children.
Then it descends to Korean programmers.
Disabled kids → Korean programmers.
That’s not analysis, that’s just you running out of material.
Silly Korea Thing…
I didn’t say retarded kids. I said disabled kids. Their body is dysfunctional but their mind is still active.
Then it goes down to Korean programmers who are also not retarded but have some slight cognative dysfunction, as demonstrated by many of the UI and workflow choices we see in Korean software products.
Then comes retarded kids.
O.K… sure… high-functioning retarded kids and entey-level Korean programmers have some overlap, but probably no more than 30 to 40%.
Don’t worry, Korea will be be a world leader in AI… making products with the relevance of Hangul word processor, the intelligence of Bixby, the effectiveness of AhnLab Virus Farming, etc.
I hate to steal a Korean programmer’s job but let me help Korea become an equal among world leaders in AI in 15 seconds of code…
10 print “WELCOME TO SUPER ULTRA MEGA WORLD LEADER KOREA SPARKLING BEST AI”
20 input “ENTER QUESTION: “;Q$
30 A$ = ChatGPT_API (Q$)
40 print “As you know, “;A$
50 goto 10
Now say something appreciative.
I don’t know how familiar everyone is with LLMs but Korea Thing’s sudden linguistic transformation from idiot to long-winded idiot is due to his cut and paste from an LLM.
What he doesn’t realize is that LLMs write in such a distinct way that it is easy to spot their writing, especially with software designed to spot their writing… which i have.
You can mix it up by requesting certain styles but commercial LLMs have a limit on their randomness (“temperature”).
This means first order variation, such as vocabulary can change quite a bit and fool the normies, but higher orders of stucture increasingly change less… meaning sentence structure, paragraph stucture, deep patterns of cognative progression, etc.
This might be impossible to hide when using a commercial LLM. I will test this on commercial and personal LLMs this week, as this is a bit interesting.
A flaw of (the current) commerical LLMs is they are highly sychophant. If you cut and paste something and tell them to rebut it, they will simply lie instead of telling you that you are wrong and it cannot be rebutted.
Korea Thing has fallen into this but thinks nobody sees it.
Now, everyone does.
Korean programmers are no good.
What ChickenHead claimed
I didn’t say retarded kids. I said disabled kids. Their body is dysfunctional but their mind is still active.
What I said before ChickenHead made that ludicrous claim
Ah yes now ChickenHead is making fun of people with disabilities. How low can he get?
@setnaffa is famous for lying in addition to spreading fake news and misinformation.
So, it’s not surprising that his bot, which resides in his laptop farm, is liar too.
Put it simply @setnaffa bot runs on bullshit, just like its owner.
Korean programmers are no good.
Imagine needing six paragraphs and two sentences to prove you’ve got nothing to say
Koreans are great engineers.
Koreans are very poor programmers.
These require very different skillsets and very different cultures.
Korean culture breeds good engineers.
Korean culture does not breed good programmers, and perhaps even discourages them.
To be a global leader in AI, you need excellence in hardware and software.
Korea can certainly assemble physical AI infrastructure. By making it a national priority through attention and funding, Korea can likely even compete with NVIDIA in designing and manufacturing cutting edge AI chips.
Korea is not prepared to develop a pool of programmers in the quality and numbers needed to be a world leader in AI.
Can Korea get prepared?
Not specifically by throwing money at the problem.
Maybe Korea can do with AI what big Korean companies do for other products.
Hardware is primarily Korean while software is done at their Indian branch and UI work is done in America and Europe.
Koreans are very poor programmers.
These require very different skillsets and very different cultures.
People said the same thing before Korea built the world’s best phones, cars, and chips. Turns out ‘culture’ changes fast when there’s money and priority behind it.
Funny that ChickenHead keeps hammering Korea for ‘bad programmers’ but never mentions China.
China has the same rigid education system, similar culture, and top-down state control—yet China is widely seen as an AI leader.
Either the logic doesn’t hold, or ChickenHead just doesn’t want to admit Korea might follow a similar path once it makes AI a true national priority.
Which means, ChickenHead / @setnaffa, despite the rhetoric, is a supporter of China, which makes sense considering that China is an ally of Russia, the country that pays the bills for @setnaffa laptop farm.
“Funny that ChickenHead keeps hammering Korea for ‘bad programmers’ but never mentions China.
China has the same rigid education system, similar culture, and top-down state control—yet China is widely seen as an AI leader.”
Let’s count the reasons why:
– Korea has an exceptionally strong engineering culture driven by 50 years of development and positive reinforcement… but no real coding culture for the reasons we discussed (and a few more)
– China has several decades of pre-AI machine learning coding culture which has developed an entire surveillance state infrastructure, a financial system isolated from reliance on the world, a cutting edge e-commerce system that shames everything Korea cobbled together, and a lot of domestic industrial systems intentionally isolated from reliance on outside influence of spying and sabotage.
In short, China has relied far more on domestic coding than foreign software and 3rd world outsourcing like Korea has.
– With 30 times the population, China simply produces more coders.
– Chinese shameless steal everything and then replicate it at a rate Koreans only dream of. Anybody who hires Chinese in fields other than laundry, railroad construction, and buffets, is asking for problems.
– China’s demand for AI and access to the data to train it both are far in excess of Korea’s.
Those are major reasons. There are other that are more nuanced.
Those are major reasons. There are other that are more nuanced.
So in other words, ChickenHead’s whole act boils down to cheerleading for China.
Makes sense—Russia bankrolls @setnaffa ’s laptop farm, and China’s their ally.
No wonder the Setnaffarians quietly retired the word ‘chinabot’.
“No wonder the Setnaffarians quietly retired the word ‘chinabot’.”
No. We realized you are too stupid to be a chinabot.
You are clearly a product of Korean programming.
No. We realized you are too stupid to be a chinabot.
You are clearly a product of Korean programming.
In other words, you are supporters of China and Russia, which proves my long-time theory that you are Sino-Russobots.
As such you also help prove my other long-time theory that you are no friends of Korea, despite @setnaffa ‘s denials, and that @setnaffa ‘s claims of having a Korean wife and family are all bullshit.
That and @setnaffa ‘s laptop farm which he operates with funding from Russia and China.
“In other words, you are supporters of China and Russia, which proves my long-time theory that you are Sino-Russobots.
As such you also help prove my other long-time theory that you are no friends of Korea, despite @setnaffa ‘s denials, and that @setnaffa ‘s claims of having a Korean wife and family are all bullshit.
That and @setnaffa ‘s laptop farm which he operates with funding from Russia and China.”
Shìt.
Setnaffa, he figured us out… well, he figured you out… I’m just a virtual construct.
I know how much it pains you to kill… but..
“though not all business decisions — such as overseas investments — automatically qualify”
Huh… I’ll have to disagree with the detractors. Could be a big win for America when Korean companies decide dealing with the unions just ain’t worth it and jump to friendlier business environments.
Comunism works great when it’s not in your own country. Look at how many of the best and brightest ex-Soviets we got when they could finally escape.