Wednesday, January 10, 2018

South Korea should develop national dignity and a national identity instead of always licking America's dirty bottom [COMPACTIDEA]

South Korea should stop being so womanly all the time. It always bends down too much for the US, as if feeling no shame in publicly admitting that it considers America its master, which can whip it as it pleases. When South Korea gives out such statements, it's the South's own dignity and identity that gets shaken. It appears that the South is always eager to please America [and also to not offend it in any way]. This is too girlie and not befitting of an economic, manufacturing and technology powerhouse. South Korea shouldn't think that there's no world possible without America. There is. And it's actually a better world.


Airbus is prostituting itself and endangering its future in order to save its flagship A380 program - but it isn't the only one doing this [COMPACTIDEA]

This is somewhat similar to what Russia is being forced to do, most unfortunately. Airbus is desperate for the survival of its flagship A380 program, and in its desperation it's doing what a prostitute routinely does - sell her body, her mind and her dignity in order to make money for her survival. That's the harsh truth about the so-called "industrial partnership" that Airbus has offered to China for the A380 airliner. This uncomfortable reality - that the A380 has been converted into a sort of industrial prostitute - has been nicely packaged into sophisticated sounding phrases such as "industrial partnership" by cunning MBAs who are naturally concerned with only their own jobs and care least about the future of the iconic company or of Europe. China will quite obviously and rightfully milk as much know-how and technology as it can from this "partnership" in return for throwing airplane orders at Airbus, and it'll help them advance at a higher pace in their domestic aircraft programs such as the C919 and CR929.

Good for Asia and good for the emerging world order!

Non-English nations like Iran and China must take steps to reduce and eliminate the cultural infection that comes with the English language

ALSO SEE OID 226Z

I say this as someone who is fluent in English. When a majority of the youth of your nation knows English fluently, some terrible things start to happen:
  1. They start using the English language for daily conversations, leading to a gradual rot of their native language. This use is usually considered "prestigious", due to the historical colonial dominance of the world by the British.
  2. Many native words start to get replaced by English words, thus corrupting the native language.
  3. The youth's minds experience a "cultural invasion" from English movies, TV shows, etc. These audiovisual pieces of content introduce them to culturally, morally, religiously and socially harmful and corrupting concepts and practices that are widespread in countries such as US and UK.
  4. They start to read the propaganda that is the bulk of English-language news media - whether it be about how this media portrays certain countries of the world, or how it spins the world's events. This can negatively affect the thinking and ultimately the actions of a country's youth and its people.
All that being said, it is unfortunately true that English is widespread in global business and trade. It is therefore essential to carefully "balance" a country's needs for global commerce with maintaining a country's cultural heritage, traditions and overall national identity.

How can this be done? One good way can be by diversifying. Let's take the example of Iran. There are - fortunately - many countries in the world that play a key role in global trade and commerce [or are upcoming giants] and are still not fully infected by the virus that is English. South Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Turkey, and South America [taken collectively] are some of the examples. Iran should cultivate speakers in the native languages of these non-English powerhouses using a fixed/forced quota system, whereby alongside Farsi/Persian language for all, some pupils are taught French, some are taught Russian, some Korean, some Turkish, some Spanish, some Arabic, and so on [as the second language]. This will ensure that no single non-Iranian language dominates within the Iranian people, and so the Iranian people will always communicate with each other in their native Persian. And yet Iran will have a good number of speakers in various other languages, and these folks will enable direct global trade as well as international diplomacy with powerful global nations without the need of English language. Diversification of citizens' second language can be a powerful tool by which nations can get the beneficial aspects of knowing other languages while preventing psychological corruption of their people's thinking.

Tuesday, January 09, 2018

The relation between accessibility features in products and services, and the lack of software applications for less-popular operating systems

It might seem at first that there's no connection, but there is. When we ask private corporations to wholeheartedly put accessibility features into their products and services, we're asking them to do things which aren't profitable for them. These companies publicly emphasize their "deep commitment" to making their offerings accessible to all, but privately it's an unnecessary cost for them and they grumble about it. Why? Because the number of users with such needs is low-enough to not make the expenses profitable.

Think about desktop and mobile operating systems. Platforms such as Windows 10 Mobile, BlackBerry 10, Linux, and others have a low market share. So very few companies release their applications for these OSes [even though all three of these, and many others, are excellent operating systems]. There's an analogy here - we're asking the same companies which don't support excellent operating systems [because the number of users is low] to make their products/services usable by those with disabilities [here too the number of users is low per product/service, even if not on an aggregate basis]. The difference here is that supporting the disabled makes for good PR [and there might even be laws requiring you to make your products accessible], but there are no laws and no PR losses if you don't support, say, Symbian. That's why we see the difference in how companies behave in these two otherwise analogous cases.






Narendra Modi isn't good but there's no alternative to him at present - it's a golden opportunity for Rahul Gandhi to prepare and establish himself

Forget the jokes people throw at Rahul Gandhi. Puny people will keep doing such things. Some people say that Narendra Modi is so widely and deeply established in Indian politics that there is and can be no credible challenger/opponent to him. This situation might seem bad for Rahul Gandhi at the first sight, but it's actually a blessing, an opportunity. The brutal power of time will ensure that sooner or later Modi is eventually kicked out of Indian politics, and someone will have to succeed him. Rahul Gandhi should take advantage of the lack of credible opposition/opponents at present and prepare himself for the inevitable near-future time when Modi leaves. The opposition-vacuum then will make it easy for a well-prepared Rahul Gandhi to quickly insert himself into Indian politics and take the crown jewel. Don't underestimate or mock Rahul Gandhi. He's young and this is his biggest weapon against Narendra Modi - the force of time will soon wear out Modi and Rahul might be the only choice then.

Friday, January 05, 2018

South Korea should actually admire that fellow Korean blood created such advanced nuclear weapons, rockets and missiles [COMPACTIDEA]

Just a passing thought. No matter how high the tensions between the two Koreas, in reality the South should have a secret admiration for the technological achievements of the North. Atomic bombs, hydrogen bomb, rockets, ICBMs, hacking/malware, and more. The South might be far more advanced in most other sectors, but it's the North that has made its mark in the defense/military sphere. Fellow Koreans they all are. The same blood. Brethren. Should love each other and admire each other's achievements.