A few weeks ago I was privileged to go to the Asia Foundation’s event “The Future of Democracy in Southeast Asia.” I was mainly there to meet up with other IR/PS alumni as I’m more interested in East Asia and China in particular, but surprisingly the event turned more towards the relationship between economics and democracy which was quite fascinating.

The overall subject was how democracy was faring in the region and how that related (or not) to the lack of democracy. Larry Diamond from the Hoover Institution favored the more Modernization Theory approach and Big Bang aspect of turning around a country’s economy by quickly embracing democracy whereas Kishore Mahbubani noted that in fact what matters more is the role of good governance.

Listening intently to the arguments laid out by both sides, I actually could not help but envision the two of them as two differing viewpoints of mine where I truly believe that on the one hand democracy is the best form of government possible for economics in the long-term and for the well-being of the countries’ citizens. Yet, at the same time, democracy and elections are not everything if the democracy is so corrupt and governance so poor that the people begin to clamor for an autocracy that could benefit them instead.

In the same way, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea all developed economically with a system of government that was either not democratic, or at best a minor democracy. China even sees Singapore’s style of government as the best outcome for development rather than a quick change that Russia went through.

Nonetheless, I am an eternal optimist that all countries that want to develop into a first world (aka developed) nation status will have to develop a style of democracy suiting to the country’s citizens in order to consistently root out endemic corruption that grows over time under one system of rule (endemic in this case being longer than eight years). Interestingly, the development of democracy has occured when the average citizen earns around $5000 a year or can afford a car.

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孙智谦 at Due East notes correctly how the US, though perceived by itself as being the leader in technology, actually lags behind for implementation:

You know those cool credit cards that are starting to pop up more and more, the kind that you can wave in front of the gas pump instead of actually having to go through the usual “insert card and remove quickly” routine? Those may be all the rage in America [...], but they’re old news. All the cool kids (who live in Korea) have USB credit cards now. They don’t have to enter information to make purchases online; all they have to do is plug their credit card into their USB port to pay for stuff online.

The sad part was that I actually first saw USBs come out nearly half a year in mainland China before the US even began to sell them! That and because I learned the Chinese for them (U盘) I called them USB drives before I learned the American catchphrase of thumb drive. And when it comes to any new and small tech product, you can expect a lag of at least 6 months from seeing it in Asia to seeing it in the US. Other areas such as an all-around card for any kind of public transportation and more (like the one in Hong Kong) is still not around as far as I know in the US.

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Google announced a few days ago its vision to essentially mash together a Wikipedia like site with a Squidoo layout essentially desiring to have a competitive online encyclopedia that has ads. Beyond the horrible name, this product may come to haunt Google in the long-run becoming a turning point its perceived status as an honest company into a monopolistic corporation similarly to Microsoft.

Google Knol essentially could take down the major content providers such as Wikipedia, Squidoo, Hubpages, Yahoo Answers, etc. as it will naturally be ‘algorithmically’ favored by the grand ‘artificial intelligence’ of Google—just as Youtube currently is for videos. Competition for ad revenue will drive a lot of people to copy millions of text from across the web creating duplicate content issues that Google still cannot detect through its ‘artificial intelligence’ particularly with RSS feeds, in turn creating complaints of infringements on copywriting.

(more…)

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The New York Times today had a fascinating article about a Korean internet addiction boot camp:

MOKCHEON, South Korea — The compound — part boot camp, part rehab center — resembles programs around the world for troubled youths. Drill instructors drive young men through military-style obstacle courses, counselors lead group sessions, and there are even therapeutic workshops on pottery and drumming.

 

 

Lee Chang-hoon, 15, runs an obstacle course at the Jump Up Internet Rescue School. He spent almost all of his time online before his mother sent him to the camp. “Seventeen hours a day online is fine,” he said at the camp.

But these young people are not battling alcohol or drugs. Rather, they have severe cases of what many in this country believe is a new and potentially deadly addiction: cyberspace.

They come here, to the Jump Up Internet Rescue School, the first camp of its kind in South Korea and possibly the world, to be cured.

Part of me wants to laugh so hard about how sad it is for such a camp, but at the same time I realize that it really can be a huge problem (think of it as a camp for WoW addicts). At least the kids look relatively in shape such that they look like they can compete the courses.

I know that for myself, having to start my first real job and stop playing WoW cold turkey was not a desirable situation, but I realized at the same time that WoW would ruin my career life if I did not cease right away. All that said, I’m still afraid for when Star Trek: Online comes out as it’s an nasty mix of my love for Star Trek and my love for playing games… my wife probably will really be angry at me with that game (that is, unless I can get her addicted to it as well).

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