Smart is Awesome: Edition 1

♬ ☢★Ikky-G ★☢ ♬ Dec 06, 2010

I found these Diesel ads to be particular interesting, but perhaps not in the way it's creators intended. I'm guessing its anti-smart/cautious rational messages is meant to encourage people to aspire to the carefree, daring lifestyle "stupid" apparently offers. But if you think about these ads for more than 5 seconds it's not hard to see why they're wrong. Being "stupid" will only earn you a place in The Darwin Awards.

Why is being smart or wanting to be smart a bad thing? Why glorify anti-intellectualism? So much of our society encourages people to be stupid. Bullies in high schools punish the 'nerds'. Politicians belittle scientists and academics when empirical data won't match the rhetoric. Don't even get me started on reality tv celebrities. I don't want to keep up with the Kardashians. I'd much rather keep up with the Ahmadinejads, they have nukes.

Seeing as my "Hunt for the Worst Musical Act" is on hiatus, I'm going to be writing a new series of (hopefully) semiweekly journals about what's happening on planet Earth. These will cover world news, science and other random things worth reading and discussing with links and/or humour.

Smart is Awesome

Smart is Awesome: Edition 1 photo 1

Edition #1

So what's up with North Korea?

North Korea! It's been in the news recently and it's antics are probably best summarised by this very amusing Cracked article. So what's the deal with it? In a nutshell, after the Korean War there have been two Koreas; North and South. While the South was helped along by the US, enabling it to develop into a first world capitalist economy, the North has been under the "democratic" (read:authoritarian) leadership of Kim Jong-il, as featured in Team America.

Ever since, there has been disputes between the North and South about where the border is. Specifically, North Korea has decided on creative interpretations of this border and frequently has soldiers shoot into South Korea.Their endgame is a unified Korea controlled by Pyongyang (that's the capital of the North).

Who are the major players?

USA: responding to the recent conflict, the US have sent armed forces to help the South Korean navy. The USA is also a major supplier of aid to North Korea. North Korea has a terrible economy and constant food shortages. While no one likes giving Kim what he wants (read: the ability to claim that the packages are ransom from America in fear of his almighty leadership), no one likes starving peasants either.

China: formerly the North's only ally, the Chinese are taking a very hands off approach as of late. Leaked wikileaks cables seem to suggest the Chinese would favour a unified Korea under the South. China's stance is important because they are the superpower of Asia and North Korea would would loose any war without China's support. The Chinese don't support any kind of war though (whether they were involved or not) - it would mean lots of unwanted North Korean refugees. What China is hoping for is that North Korea will eventually dissolve into the South. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

Why is this in the news all of a sudden?

Recently things heated up because the North Koreans fired shots onto a South Korean island, killing a number of South Korean soldiers and civilians.There are a couple of streams of analysis about why the North is playing up:

Kim Jong-il's son Kim Jong-un is said to be taking the reins of the country's leadership and this is a show of strength by him.
The North is just trying to wrangle more aid from the US by threatening to kill South Koreans.

In all likelihood, a little of both is probably true.

Should I fear impending nuclear doom?

Probably not. While the North claims to have nuclear missiles, whether they really do is anyone's guess (the best guessers all seem to be saying they don't.) Even if we assume they do have working missiles, it seems unlikely they would attack the US or its allies because surely even North Korea, in spite of its crazy and delusional leadership, realises they could never win a war against the US.

My guess is that they will probably just use their "nukes" as bargaining chips for more territory and more aid. Using missiles against South Korea is even fairly unlikely because it would draw more US involvement, something that the North would (should?) realise is tactically undesirable.

So I can still book that holiday to South Korea?

Maybe not right at the moment...