There's so much news about North Korea right now and what Un is doing, I got a suggestion for a NK megathread, so here it is. Post the world's greatest nation's antics here. I'm merging a few of the more recent threads to continue discussion.
Here's hopefully what will be a repository for their Southern neighbors here, as well as to trash talk or rant about them in general if that's your thing.
South Korea President Lee Jae-myung is getting into bed with the Bill Gates foundation, and took this unsightly picture of him that makes him look like he has Down Syndrome:
i have unreleasable hatred towards worst korea
they somehow manifested the culture that creates the most souless humans on earth
i think the most blood boiling thing to me is they eagerness to shape their face because of a trend of the week which is absolutely diabolic
every time someone mentions south korea this image pops into my head View attachment 7808722
Even their entertainment industry stars look soulless too. K-Pop stars are self-explanatory, but their E-Sports players are the definition of cookie cutter and plain. Some examples include:
Faker (5-time League of Legends World Champion), who literally carries the Sport so much, that viewership plummeted when Faker had to sit out due to an injury:
Knee, a Tekken Pro Player:
Sejun Park, the 2014 Pokémon World Champion in VGC Masters, and became famous for having Pachirisu on his team in the event:
Maru, one of the current top dog players in StarCraft 2:
Nearly half of murders committed in Korea last year targeted family members such as parents, spouses and children, data showed Sunday.
According to the National Police Agency's 2024 crime statistics, 131 of the 276 people apprehended for murder last year, or 47.5 percent, had killed a spouse, parent, child or other relative.
The share hovered around 30 percent between 2020 and 2022, but in 2023, it surged to 55.1 percent, or 160 out of 290 murder suspects. The apparent sharp rise was partly due to a change in methodology that year, when cases involving former spouses or common-law partners began to be counted. The proportion has since remained close to half.
Several recent high-profile murder cases have underscored this trend.
Causes behind family murders range from marital conflict and financial hardship to mental illness, with some cases pointing to a deeply rooted cultural belief that family issues should be handled privately.
In July, a man in his 60s in Songdo, Incheon, was accused of killing his 33-year-old son with a homemade firearm. The attack occurred shortly after the family had celebrated his birthday, and the suspect allegedly tried to harm other relatives as well. He claimed that the killing stemmed from long-standing resentment between him and his son.
In April, a man in his 60s in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, was arrested for killing five family members, including his parents in their 80s, his wife in her 50s and his two daughters, one in her 20s and the other a teenager.
He reportedly drugged his family and strangled them while they were unconscious. The suspect later told police he was overwhelmed by debt and facing legal action after a failed business.
Last month, an unemployed man in his 30s in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, allegedly killed his parents and older brother. Investigators said he lashed out after becoming enraged at his parents' concerns about his employment situation.
Is it just a Korean thing for people to take out their anger by attacking their own family members? It's a contrast to the "revenge on society" attacks that are becoming more and more frequent in China, where someone starts killing random people out of nowhere, because they feel helpless since the CCP makes their life completely shit.
Is it just a Korean thing for people to take out their anger by attacking their own family members? It's a contrast to the "revenge on society" attacks that are becoming more and more frequent in China, where someone starts killing random people out of nowhere, because they feel helpless since the CCP makes their life completely shit.
For the debt-related ones at least, it's because by law debts are passed down to next of kin and it's a pain in the ass to get out of + asian shame culture so simpler to just kill your whole family.
quoting from some reddit thread:
yes, you can inherit your deceased parents' debts in Korea. once you’re informed that you’re next in line for this, you have some options and a time frame of 3 months IIRC.
one, you inherit both the assets and the debts.
two, 상속포기, renouncing your inheritance (aka you give up on both assets and debts).
three, you can choose to inherit a portion of the debts, but this comes with inheriting an equivalent portion of the assets. like, if you inherit a property worth a certain amount, you also inherit debt of the same value, which cancels out the benefit of the inheritance.
this is mostly for estates with net negative assets (more debt than assets). if the assets outweigh the debts, then this option is less favorable because “inheriting everything” would be more beneficial.
if you don’t choose an option in the time frame, then by default, you’re automatically stuck with option one (inheriting both assets and debts)
you can appeal with the courts for an extension for the deadline, or like, changing between the options, if you originally didn’t know/were misinformed about this.
once you choose to opt out, the next person in-line after you falls under this. and they’ll have to go through the same process. usually, it sucks for a lot of families.
south korea is an alleyway full of mentally ill addicts. they are the legit cyberpunk dystopia that much fiction has portrayed japan to be. one example of rot in their society lately is the strike in their video game industry by Neople. i will post more about it when i get home, unless someone beats me to it.
in the process of writing a thing about Neople i got MATI and decided to also denigrate worst korea in the process. forgive my autism.
asians are hopelessly addicted to gambling. there's a reason casinos adopt asian aesthetics. gambling is illegal in south korea (and probably in its neighbors, too, but i don't know for certain), but that just means everyone finds loopholes to circumvent the outdated laws or just outright break them. when you gamble, you will either lose the entirety of your bet, or win more than your wager. with lootboxes and RNG, suddenly you're always getting something even if that something is technically worthless, so it's totally not gambling. this forms one of the core problems of their society as a whole: the vast majority of them are desperate escapist seeking the dopamine of gacha because the day-to-day life for the average guy is fucking horribly miserable. it's a "skill issue" if you can't make enough money to not be miserable, so you might as well gamble, because gambling is awesome and you're a helpless addict. this is true of japan and especially china. infinitively so with china.
also, read about the Spoon Class Theory at your own caution. it's vicariously blackpilling. you might honestly wish you were born in india rather than south korea. even being a chinese peasant might be preferable.
the most recent, and most interesting non-political development in south korea kicked off a few weeks ago. a subsidiary studio of Nexon, called Neople, the developers of the Dungeon & Fighter franchise (Dungeon Fighter Online in the west), have legitimately gone on strike after rattling the cage for the first half of 2025. this video, in Korean, contains the first official statements of both the Neople Union and the company itself. in lieu of a video and any ai-translated captioning, you can also view the Namu wiki article on the strike with something like Chrome to auto-translate to English, but it is edit locked so it's not got all that much to say. there is one salient point in this article that i will reference later.
here is the briefest summary of the strike: "Neople employees are complaining about poor working conditions and that they aren't getting paid enough despite the overwhelming success of DNF Mobile. They are demanding things like 4% of the profits to be shared with them all, and better 'working conditions'."
i talked to several Korean bros i know and checked out sites like Arca (korean reddit) to see what was being said about the strikes, and to learn more about Neople themselves. this is what all i could put together:
1) the average wage for a Neople employee is hard to ascertain. there are five-figure and six-figure salaries quoted by both sides. the lowest i've personally seen is equivalent to $110,000, and the highest at $173,000. Neople employees get free housing, free benefits (for everything) due to Nexon/Neople having some of the best welfare of any company. the average Neople employee is making more than enough to live comfortably in Seoul, and house their family there. when you consider the ridiculous population density of SK and how crippling it can be to get any job, the immediate consideration is that Neople employees are living lives of luxury and are still complaining.
however, these perks require some self-sacrifice on the part of the employee: Neople employees must relocate to and live on Jeju Island. this would be like if you lived in the US and your employer stipulated that everyone must live on Hawaii. Jeju Island is a tourist hotspot, so one perspective is that it's "great to visit, crappy to live in". on the other hand... you're making ungodly amounts of money off sad pathetic gambling addicts for little to no effort, and being looked after.
2) did you know that Neople boasts a 1% employee voluntary quit rate? well, it quickly became a source of mockery for them following the strike. among Korean DNF players, a new motto for the company was put together: "Only 1% of Neople employees quit their jobs but they made 90% of the players quit." this is in reference to an absolutely disastrous year for Dungeon & Fighter in 2024 where the game began to decline in Q1 and spiraled hard. the game's director was forced to not only end the level cap/season earlier than planned, but also reveal that, yes, 90 percent of KDNF players had left, and only 10 percent of new players were being retained.
one of the complaints by the Union is that "the employees are overworked", but not a single person believes there is any merit to this. the players put the striking employees on blast for their shitty output.
3) the crux of the strike is the massive success of DNF Mobile, specifically in China. see, the thing about Neople is that the vast majority of their money comes from China. not from Korea, not from Japan, and definitely not from the US and Europe. Dungeon & Fighter is, historically, one of the top 10 most profitable/grossing games of all time, year over year... because of China. China is their main audience, and they treat everyone else like shit. in other words, Dungeon and Fighter is Korea's child, but China is raising it better.
The Chinese version of DnF Mobile (地下城与勇士：起源) has generated nearly $2.5 billion in gross revenue since its launch in May 2024 through the end of the year, according to the Niko News newsletter.
It is unclear how spending is split between platforms, but Niko Partners typically takes into account not only iOS data, but also revenue from third-party Android stores. It is worth keeping in mind because Google Play is banned in China, and most analytics platforms only track revenue from the App Store in the country.
According to Niko Partners, DnF Mobile was the 2nd highest-grossing game of 2024 on the Chinese App Store — behind only Tencent’s evergreen hit Honor of Kings.
When only looking at iOS revenue, Dungeon & Fighter Mobile generated $270 million in its first month. According to Sensor Tower, this is the best launch ever for a mobile game developed or published by Tencent. For comparison, Honor of Kings reached $130 million in player spending in its debut month, followed by Peacekeeper Elite (Chinese version of PUBG Mobile) with $69 million.
a mind-boggling success. now, Neople also released a standalone souls-like called Khazan: The First Berserker. by all metrics used in western video game markets, it was a success. but it's not gacha, so it's not all that great compared to the massively skewed effort:reward ratio of free-2-play games.
if it wasn't clear, the striking Neople employees believe they are all entitled to a cut of the DNF Mobile team's success even though they didn't work on it or contribute to it. that's where the "4% share of the DNF Mobile profits" demand stems from.
4) the national laborer union group of Korea is keeping their distance from the striking Neople employees, too, which means their cause is pretty much fucking lost. the media isn't on their side, the company isn't on their side, and even other unions and labor organizations aren't on their side because... great wages, great working conditions, actually. they have no one on their side. top tier wages, top tier conditions, yet going on strike for money they didn't help to make. the players also have much to say about the dearth of content and output for over half a year following the already disastrous cycle of content in 2024, but i can't speak too much on that myself. what i can speak on is that players have also talked about Neople employees sneering at and insulting them.
and speaking of the community...
5) this labor strike by Neople employees was strategically timed to also force the cancellation of the 20th Anniversary convention event for DNF. this was such a shock and so horrifically timed that all of the merchandisers, fans, and creators who were going to the event to sell cool DNF-related things were all fucked over. every single person who invested their own money and time into preparing for the event lost opportunity and their money because of the strike. even outside of this, it's hard to describe the loss of face that was suffered here. it's one of the most consumer-hostile things i've ever seen in my life, not to mention just all-around jawdropping that such a milestone would be missed like that.
but there was exactly one person in the mix who was speaking sense, so, naturally, his post had minimal engagement.
i said i would reference something in the Namu article i posted earlier, and here we are. in Voidwing's post, in his second edit, he states: "The union also went on strike during the previous year (2024) when the game was on death's door. They got a pretty significant spot bonus out of it..." the Namu article mentions this but doesn't expound on it.
and there you have it. this isn't a legitimate labor strike by suffering employees who are making peanuts and living in slave conditions. this is, by all accounts, a devious and cunning ploy to fuck over the employer, and they're being even more blatant about it because, i dunno, it worked once. why not try again, right? and fuck the players and your whales, the people who made your dreams come true. you have top 1% wages and living conditions and can say "fuck you" to them all, and you can try to crowbar more money out of your employer.
For the debt-related ones at least, it's because by law debts are passed down to next of kin and it's a pain in the ass to get out of + asian shame culture so simpler to just kill your whole family.
In his 12 year baseball career with the Haitai Tigers, he won 4 champions with them. After retiring in 2001, he quickly fell into financial troubles after several business attempts failed, he fell into the trap of gambling and racked up gambling debts, and he was arrested for an investment fraud scheme. That arrest led him to being separated from his first wife and son. Lee then started a relationship with another 44-year old woman that had 3 daughters, and he borrowed money from her. In February 2008, the woman asked Lee to return the money he borrowed, which caused him to tard rage so hard that he strangled the woman and her 2 younger daughters to death, and bashed the oldest daughter in the skull to death. Lee then packed up their bodies and buried them, and then later jumped into the Han River and drowned himself.
In this case, would his son have inherited the debts, and would there be the option to renounce them?
South Korea successfully blended the worst aspects of both American and Japanese culture.
The entire country feels fake, or "soulless", if you will.
It feels like the modern South Korea is a product that was created in a board meeting.
There's also something strange how all leftists that I know absolutely adores what could arguably be considered the most capitalistic country in the world.
lol this here after that awful story just feels like the most jewish question ever, "...so he annihilated an entire family and drowned himself; now, what are the tax implications going to be?"
lol this here after that awful story just feels like the most jewish question ever, "...so he annihilated an entire family and drowned himself; now, what are the tax implications going to be?"
Blame the South Korean state for such a situation. Renunciation of inheritance is a very real thing that can be done in the country (with a time limit of 3 months no less upon learning someone is deceased apparently) if your dearly departed has a lot of liabilities.
It all boils down to lack of Social Mobility, which seem bad in South Korea even compared to the rest of Asia. My guess is that, unlike Japan and China, too much of the upper class survived mid 20th century and entrenched their control that you are basically fucked unless you get extraordinary lucky. With social media showing how it's better everywhere else and even winning the rat race doesn't guarantee shit if you were born with the wrong spoon.
I wonder if the employees organising the revolt at Neople were upper class that can easily move to a different high paying job, similar to nepotism in the west ruining corpos.
It all boils down to lack of Social Mobility, which seem bad in South Korea even compared to the rest of Asia. My guess is that, unlike Japan and China, too much of the upper class survived mid 20th century and entrenched their control that you are basically fucked unless you get extraordinary lucky. With social media showing how it's better everywhere else and even winning the rat race doesn't guarantee shit if you were born with the wrong spoon.
I wonder if the employees organising the revolt at Neople were upper class that can easily move to a different high paying job, similar to nepotism in the west ruining corpos.
Social mobility in SK is incredibly difficult. Most people are contracted by a company, not salary. So after your contract is near an end, they can tell you they won't renew it. This sort of thing is normal in the West if you run, let's say, a landscaping business. You'll put in a bid to do the landscaping for some company's property, etc. But in SK they go a step further, and the landscaping company will have their workers on contract, too.
In SK (and in Japan) you're also expected to spend time with co-workers and your boss after hours. So your work day is 14 hrs or so. This is probably one of the leading factors of what people aren't getting married, having sex, and starting families.
It's very interesting to see also how the North blended the worst of Stalinism and the Japanese Empire in the very early days with many policies inspired from the latter. Seeing how the divide turned out was interesting to me along with aritcherue inspirations and cultural. South Korea managed to get the HR culture of the US, overwork culture from the japs, and lots of their stuff being inspired by the US especially their idol music. However there seems to be a backlash against idol music for being too western, and many koreans seem to dislike it now because it brings in koreaboos. The audience for idol music has changed so much from mostly Koreans in the 90s to it mostly being southeast Asians and those from the west.
The island of Jeju, often referred to as the “Hawaii of South Korea,” has issued a multi-language guide warning international visitors to behave following a string of viral tourist incidents and cases of disorderly conduct.
Last year, more than 13 million people were lured to the island, famed for its sparkling blue waters, green tea fields and snow-covered shield volcano, Halla-san. In fact, Seoul to Jeju is now the world’s busiest flight path, with more than 13 million passengers making the 1 hour and 15 minute trip between the island and South Korea’s capital last year, according to the International Air Transport Association’s 2024 World Air Transport Statistics report.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic ended, the yearly total of foreign tourists visiting Jeju Island has almost quadrupled to 1.9 million in 2024, according to the Jeju Tourism Association.
In response to that growth — and the difficulties that have accompanied it — officials on South Korea’s “magical island” have printed 8,000 copies of the guides, which outline minor offenses that misbehaving tourists can be fined for.
Written in Korean, English and Chinese, the guide is aimed at informing foreign visitors who may lack knowledge of local regulations and culture, say officials.
For instance, smoking in non-designated areas, jaywalking, littering and damaging the environment could each result in a 50,000 KRW ($35.77) fine.
“The violation of the above-mentioned offenses shall also be punishable by misdemeanor imprisonment or by a minor fine,” warns the guide.
Following the post-Covid boom, as planes and cruises started bringing more tourists to the island province, Jeju residents began to complain about misdeeds committed by foreign tourists, some sharing their frustrations online.
For example, a video showing a foreign tourist smoking on a bus in Jeju went viral online in April, prompting anger among South Korean commenters.
“Isn’t this basically ignoring our country?” another wrote.
A screenshot of the multi-language guide issued by the Jeju Provincial Police.
Last summer, a photo of a foreign child defecating on a sidewalk in Jeju also stirred fury online, with many calling for heavier fines on international tourists.
Jeju Island is one of several spots in the region to face overtourism challenges following the pandemic. South Korea’s historical Bukchon Hanok Village introduced a strict curfew last year for non-residents following complaints from locals about the noise level.
Meanwhile, discussions about the pitfalls of overtourism have exploded in Europe. In countries like Spain, Greece and Italy, fed-up locals have taken to the streets to protest.
Last summer, images of local Barcelona residents shooting water pistols at tourists went viral around the world. It was more of the same this year, with protestors taking to the streets across Spain and Italy, including Venice, while in Paris, staff at the Louvre went on a spontaneous strike in response to what they felt were unmanageable crowds.
Ruben Santopietro, CEO of Visit Italy, a marketing company for various destinations across the country, says respecting the goodwill of residents is just as important as tackling the crowds.
“A city where residents are not satisfied is a city that doesn’t work,” he told CNN in a recent interview. “It loses its identity completely. Residents feel excluded and neighborhoods become touristic.”
A progressive party has proposed a bill to extend legal rights and protections to adults living together outside traditional marriage or blood ties, as Korea moves toward recognizing more diverse family structures.
As Korea faces one of the world’s lowest birthrates and a rising number of single-person households, its modernizing society increasingly clashes with a legal framework that leaves nontraditional couples without basic protections that married couples take for granted, from inheritance rights to hospital visitation privileges.
The Life Partnership Relations Act, introduced by Rep. Yong Hye-in of the minor Basic Income Party, seeks to define a "life partnership" as a mutually agreed relationship between two adults who share a home and care for one another.
Unlike marriage, the partnership would not create legal ties to a partner’s family or relatives, making it a personal union between individuals rather than a family-based network.
“This country’s outdated family laws cannot reflect the reality of how people are living today,” Yong said during a press conference at the National Assembly. “We must expand the framework of family policy to guarantee dignity and rights to all types of families.”
Statistics show that more Koreans are forming households outside the bounds of traditional marriage.
More than 1.1 million people now live in households with friends, partners or companions. A 2020 survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family found that nearly 70 percent of respondents believe those who share a home and livelihood should be considered family, regardless of marital or blood ties.
Under current laws, life partners often face barriers in daily life and during major life events. They cannot cosign housing contracts or loans, are excluded from many welfare and insurance benefits and lack legal standing in medical or emergency situations.
“Even in times of crisis, life partners cannot consent to emergency surgery or act as the chief mourner at a funeral,” Yong noted.
The proposed legislation includes revisions to 25 related laws, ranging from the Civil Act to social insurance regulations, so that life partners may access equal rights in areas such as public benefits, housing, parental leave and tax deductions.
The bill also allows foreign residents and marriage migrants to form life partnerships, a modification from an earlier version proposed in the 21st Assembly.
The initiative has received support from nine lawmakers across progressive and minor parties. Advocacy groups, including Rainbow Action Against Sexual Minority Discrimination, welcomed the proposal, calling it “a first step in ensuring that diverse forms of care and companionship are reflected in Korean law.”
However, despite rising public support, pushback is expected, especially from conservatives advocating for narrower alternatives, such as civil unions limited to heterosexual couples.
Previous attempts have faced stiff resistance from conservative religious groups, who argue that recognizing nonmarital partnerships would undermine the traditional family system and encourage homosexuality.
Still, experts say momentum is building.
“Recognizing partnerships beyond marriage is essential in addressing Korea’s loneliness crisis, social caregiving gap and declining birthrate,” former Constitutional Court Justice Moon Hyeong-bae said recently.
Gender Equality Minister nominee Won Min-kyong signaled cautious support.
“We must carefully consider the realities of today’s families alongside international examples and the protection of basic rights,” she told reporters last month after her nomination, adding, “I will do my part to ensure that meaningful discussions on the Life Partnership Relations Act can move forward.”
Will Worst Korea also fall to the same Globohomo troon shit that Taiwan went all-in on, or will they still stay stubborn so that it's only a nuisance? The severely low birthrates sound like that the rainbow shit will win out in the long-term, unless something like North Korea achieving re-unification happens. And has Japan been leaning more towards this rainbow shit or is being stubborn against it?
As 40 people take own lives each day, gov’t moves to reverse grim pattern
The Korean government on Friday announced a new initiative to tackle the country’s suicide rate, which remains the highest among OECD countries for the 22nd consecutive year, setting an ambitious goal of reducing it by nearly half in the next 10 years.
Last year, more than 14,400 Koreans took their own lives ― an average of 40 deaths per day. Under the 2025 national suicide prevention strategy, the government set out to cut annual suicide deaths to below 10,000 within five years and to lower the suicide rate from 28.3 per 100,000 people in 2024 to 17 by 2034. Officials said they set the 2034 target by referencing Lithuania’s rate of 17.1, which is the second-highest among OECD member states.
To reach these targets, authorities plan to intensify support and supervision, particularly for high-risk groups such as suicide attempt survivors and bereaved family members.
“There were some reservations about setting the goal, but simply saying ‘we would make an effort’ was not enough, so we have decided to set a challenging goal,” Lee Hyung-hoon, second vice minister of health and welfare, said during a meeting at the government complex in Seoul.
The government strategy will mobilize all ministries and local governments to address crisis triggers ― including financial hardship ― through proactive interventions.
Specifically, emergency room data from suicide attempts will now be automatically shared with local suicide prevention centers, enabling immediate response and support. Previously, local officials were informed only if requested by police or fire departments and consented to by the person.
The health ministry will expand from 92 to 98 suicide risk response centers next year. Their roles include providing counseling and psychological assessment for people who have attempted suicide or self-harm and offering economic support to high-risk individuals, including relatives of people who have died by suicide.
To support people struggling with debt or illegal debt collection, the government plans to purchase and write off long-term overdue loans ― specifically those held by small business owners and individuals that have been overdue for at least seven years and are worth less than 50 million won ($36,000).
To help tackle root causes of the program, the Ministry of Education is strengthening school violence prevention and expanding support for victims. The Ministry of Employment and Labor is intensifying prevention education and consulting to combat workplace bullying, as well as strictly enforcing labor inspections and penalties against firms when serious incidents occur.
Meanwhile, the health ministry plans to help revise the law to strengthen support for those who are struggling with addiction issues.
Innovative technologies, including artificial intelligence for counseling analysis and online risk monitoring, will also be used to improve suicide risk detection. Two additional national suicide hotline centers are set to open next year.
“We may not have entirely new countermeasures, but even the existing ones can yield different results depending on the attention and effort of the local and central governments. The new administration will respond strongly and with full commitment and a heightened sense of urgency and determination,” the second vice minister of health said.
On Wednesday, 115 legislators proposed a resolution declaring that the government is responsible for keeping its citizens “safe and happy” and vowing to help significantly reduce the suicide rate.
I don't think these government incentives will fix Worst Korea's extremely high suicide rates. If they were REALLY intent on reducing suicide rates, they'd have to use literal Orwellian tactics such as adding anti-suicide nets to bridges and buildings, making metal barriers to prevent people from driving cars into bodies of water, banning the use of string-like material to prevent hangings, cracking down on drugs to prevent overdoses, force cars to be 100% EVs so people can't drink gasoline to poison themselves, and even banning knives to prevent stabbings. Also I don't see the Government being able to fix the family mindsets that cause numerous suicides to happen in the first place.
I don't think these government incentives will fix Worst Korea's extremely high suicide rates. If they were REALLY intent on reducing suicide rates, they'd have to use literal Orwellian tactics such as adding anti-suicide nets to bridges and buildings, making metal barriers to prevent people from driving cars into bodies of water, banning the use of string-like material to prevent hangings, cracking down on drugs to prevent overdoses, force cars to be 100% EVs so people can't drink gasoline to poison themselves, and even banning knives to prevent stabbings. Also I don't see the Government being able to fix the family mindsets that cause numerous suicides to happen in the first place.
they will have to somehow reverse their problem with urbanization (wherein everyone in the country is flocking to Seoul if they can afford it because it's the only place worth a shit in SK) if they want to get to the root of the problem. urbanization is leaving local governments and cities bereft of able-bodied men and women to the point they're just dying off and can't even be considered more than podunk villages.
x 21 
