At the end of the 90's our enthusiasm for the approaching new century and indeed our ambitions to boldly go into a whole new millenium were seriously tempered by dire predictions of global system failures as our technology would fail to roll over smoothly from 1999 to 2000.
Boffins unanimously explained that when computing was in its infancy the high cost of data storage led to each year being abbreviated to just its last 2 digits; eg computers stored 1989 as simply 89, meaning the year 2000 would be indistinguishable from the year 1900.
Not since Noah had such dire warnings of global cataclysm been voiced - although arguably, this time more people were actually listening. Every imaginable disaster was predicted from airliners dropping out of the sky to having to wait a century for your automatic coffee machine to come out of hibernation.
Partially this is another manifestation of the role of The Eternal Victim - see previous posts. However additional contributing factors include the very little experience that most Koreans have living abroad. Leaving aside shopping in Hong Kong, gap years in Oz or golfing sojourns in the Philippines, few Koreans have actually lived abroad. For those which have, it was something of an endurance test, usually on an isolated construction camp, purpose-built where everything is imported from the toothpaste through to the kimchi. Consequently few Koreans appreciate how safe and protected daily life is in Korea compared with other countries.
One Korean colleague on a business trip to Madrid left his rucksack on his chair while collecting his coffee in Starbucks. When he returned with the coffee the rucksack was gone, complete with passport, money, credit cards etc. By way of comparison, in Seoul we forgot a shoulder bag on a public bench, went to lunch for an hour and then rode the subway for 6 stops before realising the bag was missing. We hastily backtracked on the subway to the restaurant and then to the public bench where the last 2 hours of CCTV showed that 3 people had seen the bag, scratched their heads, rubbed their chins and walked on by. Lastly an elderly gent pushing a trolley for collecting waste cardboard from the streets saw the bag and gave it to a lady street vendor for safe keeping. The bag was full of passports, money and cards which were all untouched and the lady absolutely declined any gift for keeping the bag safe.
Regular examples of the same trust and social consideration can be seen on the streets each Friday / Saturday. On Fridays men drink until they can no longer walk and if they could it wouldn't help because by this time they can no longer remember where home is (see previous posts). The solution is to find a bench, step or short wall, remove one's shoes, place them neatly under the bench along with wallet, cellphone, ciggarettes, unfinished bottle, etc, put head down on satchel and fall into self-induced medical coma for at least 16 hours. Late on Saturday afternoon the chap will awake to find all his personal items untouched except that possibly his shoes may have been polished if the chap was lucky enough to fall asleep near a cobbler's kiosk where the cobbler was having a slow day.
There are many such stories which portray an image of Korea which is as real and as powerful as the issues highlighted by Big Data and daily sadtistics. However none of these anecdotes are collectable in huge, automated sweeps of data to be combed through later by boffins looking to report the positive about life as we know it.
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| "Fascinating Captain. Mass hysteria on a scale rarely seen in a cultured society or indeed an intelligent species..." |
Boffins unanimously explained that when computing was in its infancy the high cost of data storage led to each year being abbreviated to just its last 2 digits; eg computers stored 1989 as simply 89, meaning the year 2000 would be indistinguishable from the year 1900.
Not since Noah had such dire warnings of global cataclysm been voiced - although arguably, this time more people were actually listening. Every imaginable disaster was predicted from airliners dropping out of the sky to having to wait a century for your automatic coffee machine to come out of hibernation.
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| http://time.com/3645828/y2k-look-back/ |
When the Y2K bug failed to deliver armageddon, few people expected computers would bring much more than electronic financial transactions, free email and unfettered access to music, movies and porn. Orwell had correctly anticipated the mass surveillance of Big Brother but few foresaw the arguably more ominous impact of Big Data.
Early examples of big data and what it could reveal came in the form of decades of declassified military bathymetry, hydrophone data and sea surface mapping which laid the basis for the first computerised models of deep ocean currents, most notably the El Nino / La Nina oscillation in the southern Pacific.
So while academics mined historical data for its hidden secrets, big business focussed on the real time collection of new data by connecting every gadget to the net. We can now see how much money people are spending, when, where and on what. Where people are going, by which mode of transport and how often. How many sportos are running, cycling and hiking and how many couch potatoes are watching tv, browsing or XBox-ing. And thanks to twitter we now start to see how many powerful decision makers actually think before they tweet and how deeply they actually understand the issues.
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| Batrump: arguably not the anti-politician that America deserves but trying to be the anti-politician that America needs right now |
In Korea, big data feeds navel-gazing obsessions such as the impending population implosion, gloomy social and employment demographics and the doom of Korea losing its national identity. These warnings are invariably supported by reams of sad statistics or 'sadtistics' from the latest studies which are hastily digested and committed to memory for quick reference later. Long-running themes include;
If the daily media was the window to the nation, we could be forgiven for thinking that the country was about to slide off a precipice, especially for the single men of a certain age without a well-paying job in a huge conglomerate. Positive news is curiously rare, either in the news media or in personal conversation. If something good is heard, then it is usually about another country, with Korea being compared unfavorably alongside.
- Men to run short of brides soon
(unless they consider taking foreign wives)
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/01/07/2017010700379.html?related_all
- 40% of women do not want a family
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/08/27/2016082700462.html
- Rapidly aging society
http://m.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160727000055&ntn=0
- Average debt of newlyweds reaches US$37k
http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/phone/news/view.jsp?req_newsidx=212846
- South Koreans could be extinct by 2750
(unless they consider taking foreign wives)
http://www.businessinsider.com/south-koreans-could-be-extinct-by-2750-2015-6
- 40% of Phd holders are employed on temporary contracts
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/02/19/2016021900590.html
- Job seekers prefer stability of low paid public sector jobs over uncertain higher paid private sector careers
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/07/25/2016072501380.html
- Jobseekers spend 3 times more on looks than on improving skills
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/07/02/2016070200438.html
- People increasingly eating alone
http://m.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160529000252&ntn=0
If the daily media was the window to the nation, we could be forgiven for thinking that the country was about to slide off a precipice, especially for the single men of a certain age without a well-paying job in a huge conglomerate. Positive news is curiously rare, either in the news media or in personal conversation. If something good is heard, then it is usually about another country, with Korea being compared unfavorably alongside.
Partially this is another manifestation of the role of The Eternal Victim - see previous posts. However additional contributing factors include the very little experience that most Koreans have living abroad. Leaving aside shopping in Hong Kong, gap years in Oz or golfing sojourns in the Philippines, few Koreans have actually lived abroad. For those which have, it was something of an endurance test, usually on an isolated construction camp, purpose-built where everything is imported from the toothpaste through to the kimchi. Consequently few Koreans appreciate how safe and protected daily life is in Korea compared with other countries.
One Korean colleague on a business trip to Madrid left his rucksack on his chair while collecting his coffee in Starbucks. When he returned with the coffee the rucksack was gone, complete with passport, money, credit cards etc. By way of comparison, in Seoul we forgot a shoulder bag on a public bench, went to lunch for an hour and then rode the subway for 6 stops before realising the bag was missing. We hastily backtracked on the subway to the restaurant and then to the public bench where the last 2 hours of CCTV showed that 3 people had seen the bag, scratched their heads, rubbed their chins and walked on by. Lastly an elderly gent pushing a trolley for collecting waste cardboard from the streets saw the bag and gave it to a lady street vendor for safe keeping. The bag was full of passports, money and cards which were all untouched and the lady absolutely declined any gift for keeping the bag safe.
Regular examples of the same trust and social consideration can be seen on the streets each Friday / Saturday. On Fridays men drink until they can no longer walk and if they could it wouldn't help because by this time they can no longer remember where home is (see previous posts). The solution is to find a bench, step or short wall, remove one's shoes, place them neatly under the bench along with wallet, cellphone, ciggarettes, unfinished bottle, etc, put head down on satchel and fall into self-induced medical coma for at least 16 hours. Late on Saturday afternoon the chap will awake to find all his personal items untouched except that possibly his shoes may have been polished if the chap was lucky enough to fall asleep near a cobbler's kiosk where the cobbler was having a slow day.
There are many such stories which portray an image of Korea which is as real and as powerful as the issues highlighted by Big Data and daily sadtistics. However none of these anecdotes are collectable in huge, automated sweeps of data to be combed through later by boffins looking to report the positive about life as we know it.
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