#59. 'Squid Game' Finale Bonus Epsiode
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
This bonus episode is a wrap-up of Squid Game's final two episodes (8 and 9), recorded in Vic's basement studio with self-declared "Korea expert" Paul Crookston, a former Sub-Beacon producer whose main credential turns out to be a new Korean-American girlfriend he's just now revealing to the hosts. Most of the runtime is the trio (and Paul) ribbing each other about the leather-and-mist decor, sharing earbuds like conjoined twins, and needling Paul about his dating life and his AEI job applications before they even get to the show. On the finale itself the verdict is largely negative: Sonny calls the police-brother subplot a total dud (a big fat F) that existed only to kill time, finds the glass-bridge deaths unfair in a way the show hadn't earned, and doesn't buy Gi-hun's post-win depression arc or the old man's late reveal, with the recurring gripe that the whole nine-episode season should have been a tight 95-minute movie; Vic is similarly unmoved by what he'd have done differently with the prize money (hotel, shower, lawyer). Paul supplies the "expert" cultural context the group actually wants: Korean pop culture's obsession with debt as a plot engine, the lingering trauma of the 1990s IMF crisis, South Korea's brutally rigid job market and cutthroat university admissions (compared to squid-game-style competition), and the psychological weight of living next to a nuclear-armed North Korea. The conversation also wanders into the North Korean supermodel character's implausible height, the show's PlayStation-symbol production design as the real driver of its global appeal (with a detour comparing it favorably to The Queen's Gambit's similarly set-design-driven success), and Sonny's admission that his new girlfriend refuses to watch anything this violent.
From the show notes
On this week's bonus episode about Squid Game, the guys are joined by noted Korea expert and one-time Sub-Beacon producer Paul Crookston to talk about the show, its impact in Korea and the United States, and biking to Vic's dungeon. Great episode (this one, not the TV show, which is ... nyeeeeh)!
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of squid game on the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe and tell your friends. Today, we're talking about the final two episodes, eight and nine, and we are thrilled to have with us the one and only Paul Crookston. Paul, welcome to my basement lair.
Sonny00:00:39Yeah, the decor is very tasteful. I wasn't aware you were so into leather, but it looks great.
JVL00:00:49Paul, you look great. How have you been? Things going okay?
Sonny00:00:52I'm glad you can reach the mic from the harness that you're in, Paul. That's fair.
Vic00:00:57I unzipped the part of the mask so he can talk.
Sonny00:01:00Okay, good.
Vic00:01:01Have you been working out, Paul?
Sonny00:01:03Yeah, constantly running from end to end of a school can do that. Now, I already loved my body before, but I think lately with the newfound teacher, Paul, doing a lot of running around and not much eating, I feel like I'm even more shredded.
JVL00:01:23Now, I don't know if Vic told you, but on Patreon, we always have some pictures of our guests, and normally there's headshots. Sometimes we might do a little glamour work. And so, Vic is, after we're done taping, Vic is going to give you a drink or two just to help you loosen up, and then he's going to take a couple pictures. Nothing that you're not comfortable with.
Sonny00:01:47This is the real Squid Game.
Vic00:01:49I was going to say, you know, Paul, you're probably wondering, what is this white mist coming out of my vents? Pay no attention to that. Pay no attention. The wood panel. The wood paneling really just makes this so good, Victorino. And the fact that we're sharing earbuds. Yeah, you guys are like on top of each other. Like Pam and Jim. Like Pam and Jim. We're literally on top of each other. We look like we're conjoined in this picture.
Sonny00:02:11Why don't you put the earbud in your other ear so you can get slightly further away? Oh, you're so smart. That's better, Vic.
JVL00:02:20Vic is like, damn it, you foiled my strategy.
Vic00:02:23That's not how it was. Sonny, you're so terrible. Way to cock-block me. I know, you totally. Actually, I hear better in my left ear for some reason. Okay, so people are wondering the reason why you're here, Paul. Besides the fact that you're a good friend and former producer of the show. Former producer. But it's because you are, and correct me if I'm wrong, is the term Koreafile? You're a Koreafile?
Sonny00:02:52Good question. I prefer the title Korea expert. I definitely liked that. You know, my expertise is long and deep. It included one week trip. But it now does include...
Vic00:03:06That makes you an expert.
Sonny00:03:07It now does include a special someone. I am dating a Korean woman I met at my church, which is really nice.
Vic00:03:13How dare you not tell me until we're recording this show.
Sonny00:03:19This show has gotten full of surprises.
JVL00:03:21When you say Korean woman, do you mean that she grew up here in America? No, no. Of Korean descent?
Sonny00:03:28No, she's born and raised. So she came to the United States for college. But yeah, she was born and raised in Seoul.
JVL00:03:36That's fascinating.
Sonny00:03:37I'm just trying to... I want to drill down on this Korea expert thing. So if we were talking about like a think tank, you'd be like a senior fellow on South Korea studies? Yes, that is exactly it. At the Crookston Institute? I'm still waiting to hear back from the American Enterprise Institute. I sent in my application a little while ago.
Vic00:03:57I have all sorts of questions for Paul about Koreans, but why don't we go into the episodes themselves?
Sonny00:04:04Let's wrap up this dum-dum show. I know.
Vic00:04:07It's been interminable. I can't wait. Yes. So we're going to talk about episodes eight and nine. And let's just combine them. But it's Frontman and One Lucky Day, which, by the way, if you looked at the episode guide before you finished it, that gave you some hope that Heejun might just make it out. And, Paul, did you binge watch Squid Game or did you break it up?
Sonny00:04:32I broke it up because I actually had trouble watching it. JVL, one point that you made a while ago, not even about Squid Game, this is pre-Squid Game, has stuck with me because I think it's incredibly true. Everything is padded now. And these shows, the pacing is just slow. And obviously Squid Game, the idea is that it's pulse pounding and all this kind of stuff. So often, like, this is just slow. And there's these interminable sections, you know, in real life soul and in the, you know, gen pop, like, giant room they had where I'm just like, I'm forgetting that there's even murder games in this show. I want more murder games.
JVL00:05:17Could have been a 95-minute movie.
Sonny00:05:19The show was at its best in episodes 3 and 4 and 5 and 6, which is when the meat of the murder games.
Vic00:05:26Yeah, the tug of war.
Sonny00:05:28Yeah, basically everything up to, again, 3, 4, 5, 6. So basically everything before the glass, you know, path game.
Vic00:05:40The glass hopscotch.
Sonny00:05:41Yeah. Actually, I did like how totally unfair that game was. You guys gave it a bad rap in the last episode.
Vic00:05:47It was ridiculously unfair. Especially after they made this fetish for fairness, right? Like, oh, we have to execute all these people because it wasn't fair. Right, because the doctor had the edge. And then suddenly, and remember at the end of our last special episode, we were talking about the game and I was very, I was infuriated about how they blew up the bridge. And it is because now, you know, the North Korean girl, she dies because of shrapnel, because of a shard of glass having nothing to do with skill, but rather because of the overseer's decision. To like, oh, and by the way, when they, when they make it over, let's have the whole thing exploding glass and cut them up.
Sonny00:06:32Should have got, shouldn't have gotten over it faster. That would be, if you want to win, if you want to win the murder games, you got to do it quick. My, well, first of all, that's not what killed her. Sang is what killed her.
Vic00:06:45She would have had a slower death.
Sonny00:06:46All right, let's just, let's just talk about the episodes, quad episodes real quick, because, all right, so, so the one of the episodes is only 30 minutes and the other one was about an hour. So it's basically 90 minutes. Yeah. For the two episodes. For the two episodes. And it easily could have been 50. 20.
JVL00:07:01Sorry, you misspelled 20.
Sonny00:07:03Could have been, could have been 40. But here's, here's the big, here are the, here, all right, so let's set aside the fact that it's all, it was relatively uncompelling, the, the conclusion of the murder games, frankly, the, the two of them fighting. I didn't, I didn't just, I didn't care that much. And let's, let's also set aside the fact that I didn't really buy, uh, that's his name saying, is that, what is that? Am I getting him wrong? Song Wu, Song Wu. I didn't really buy Song Wu giving himself up. It was totally contrary to the character to the whole thing, but they needed to have our guy survive, whatever. Set aside all that. The most frustrating part of this whole thing was the terribly boring conclusion to the policeman subplot, which is like, it's like, okay, his brother is the guy and then he gets shot and he falls off. He doesn't, he doesn't get shot in the head. He clearly has survived. He's going to show up. In season two, that's what I'm saying because we'll have drifted off into some Island somewhere and like James Bond at the beginning of skyfall and he gets shot and falls in the water. So that, that whole sub, that whole season long subplot was just a big fat F for me. Frankly, with the conclusion, it was boring. Didn't care. Terrible, terrible conclusion. Cause you wanted him to just kill time, just drain time from the series. Basically all the, all the whole purpose of it was just so we could see the organ transplant sub thing going on. That was great.
Vic00:08:27Yes.
Sonny00:08:28Uh, um, but then on top of that, that all the stuff in, in, uh, back on the mainland afterwards, again, I just, I don't, I don't, I didn't care. I think I, I just didn't care about, uh, you know, the fact that he's sad now that he won the games and then he goes and he talks to, he goes and talks to the old man who was the ringleader of the whole thing. And they have a, they have another interminable conversation about, you know, fairness and whether people are good or whether you trust. I don't care. I don't care about any of this. I just want murder games.
JVL00:09:00And these last episodes did not have enough. What is the American equivalent of what he walked away with?
Vic00:09:04I have $39 million. That's what I had 45, but 39 million won.
Sonny00:09:09That's it. No, $39 million. I mean dollars. Cause it's like 46 billion won. Billion.
Vic00:09:13That's right. That's what it was.
JVL00:09:14Is that enough for him to start his own murder game or is, what is the. Right. He's going to go back into the murder games.
Vic00:09:19What I don't understand is Junho's brother deciding that I have all this money and I'm just going to go. To continue doing these murder games. Like, did he actually enjoy it? That's why. Because that is not what I would do. And the same thing with Junho after he wins the squid game, which is the last game. And then he decides to be homeless and stinky for a long time. That is not how I, the first thing I would do with that. I'd go to a hotel. That's the first thing I do is with the money. I'm going to stay at a nice hotel and then give myself a very long shower. Sonny's wondering what I'm going to say. Showering. I cleanse myself. Cleanse myself. Two chicks at the same time. Take the double up on me. And then after that, and then that go to go to a haberdashery and then get some clothes and then begin from there and then get a lawyer, whatever, and then start organizing. What do I need to do? But that's the first thing I would do. I would not be do what he did. And yes, I was very disappointed with the old man. That just it didn't do it. For me, JV or JV. I'll go ahead. No, no. Paul's trying to get in here.
Sonny00:10:29Oh, go. Oh, Vic, you didn't mean you didn't mention dye your hair red.
Vic00:10:33Oh, yes. What was that? Oh, I do have a question, Paul, since you've been to Korea in your Korea file is Korea. Careful with that earbud. So is that is this unusual because I was so distracted by it or is this a common thing? So I I literally Googled.
Sonny00:10:54Why does. Oh, Squid Game guy. And then it auto completed dye his hair red. I clicked it and I got sent to one of those pop culture websites. Sonny might know the name of it. If I mentioned it, I forget which one it was. And it was like a quote from the Squid Game creator. And he's like, I was just trying to think of something that made no sense. And like, what can I think of that just makes no sense? And that's what I went with.
Vic00:11:21I assume it's because there are a lot of Koreans dye their hair.
Sonny00:11:26Yeah. I mean, colors like K-pop stars might, but I don't, I don't think it's super. Yeah. A lot of blonde, but no, it was, it was not like he was reacting to a trend or anything like that. It was literally like he was trying to come up with something that was completely random.
JVL00:11:41All right. Can we, can we just turn this into the Paul show here? Cause I have nothing to say about any of this, but I'm deeply interested in all of Paul's thoughts about the series, uh, about where this fits in. It's in with contemporary Korean culture about what it says or doesn't say about Korea and Korean culture.
Sonny00:12:03I Paul contrast to Paris, put a quarter in the machine.
JVL00:12:08Go.
Sonny00:12:09Yeah. So, okay. So, you know, the meme with, with the crow at the comedy show and he says, caw, caw, caw. And the guy's like, boo, get new material. And he looks at his cards and it just says, caw, caw, caw. He starts sweating flop sweat. Yeah. Um, that I feel like. Korean, um, like modern day dystopian stuff. Um, that is like the debt plot lines. Like they need new material every single, it's like a running joke. Every time I watch something Korean, if it's set in the present day, if it's not a period piece, it always goes back to a debt crisis of some kind. And this seems to go back to a few different episodes of the not too distant past. The, there was a international monetary fund crisis in the nineties that like hit Korea super hard. And my girlfriend's always talking about it. Like it, like it made everybody paranoid and obviously you have the financial crisis that was global. And, um, and then personal debt, um, is high there. And then debt to GDP is like a concern publicly. Right. And they seem to think that like, they can just always raise the stakes and always create drama by bringing up debt issues. And I think Sonny, you got to this in a previous episode, but like, how much am I going to sympathize with the gambling addict who created this whole problem for himself? Like anybody can do that, whether you live in Korea or not. Yeah. The, the only sympathetic person in this whole story is the North Korean, like expat, the one who, the one who fled, you know, uh, totalitarianism supermodel is the sympathetic character.
JVL00:13:52Yeah, convenient.
Sonny00:13:54The most, the most beautiful. The most beautiful person on the show is the best. Yeah. I don't think anybody, I think that's, that is like, that is a general rule of shows. I think, I think we should make that a rule.
Vic00:14:03It reminds me that we can, we can eat less is what it reminds me because then, you know, I mean, she looked great.
Sonny00:14:09Yeah. Vic, I'm, I'm glad I'm Sonny. I'm, I'm glad you brought her up. So you guys keep banging into the mic or something. Can you, can you, can you guys, I can't tell if it's, I can't tell if it's your mic cord or what, but it's probably me hitting the desk. Oh yeah. So stop hitting the desk.
Vic00:14:25Stop hitting the desk. Paul, that's, that's okay.
JVL00:14:27Paul, shorter strokes.
Sonny00:14:28Stop hitting the desk. That's not the desk, Paul. Okay. Um, so anyway, I'm glad you brought, I'm glad you brought her up. Um, I think a lot of people had a similar thought when they were like, North Koreans look like that. Um, but Vic, I need to go to you on this. We need like a Berlin, Berlin airlift. Get them all out.
Vic00:14:50Yes. It's Paul. Notice I have to look at you on screen to talk because if I turn to you.
?00:14:55Okay.
Vic00:14:55So, so in that.
JVL00:14:57Sometimes the things we need most are right in front of us the whole time.
Sonny00:15:01This is, this is literally like on a, on a, on a movie set, they will, the director will make people get like uncomfortably close to talk to each other. And that is exactly what's happening right now.
Vic00:15:10I'm sweating over here. So go ahead. Ask me, Paul.
Sonny00:15:12Yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:15:13So. I'm just going to look ahead. I'm looking straight ahead.
Sonny00:15:15Yeah. You guys made a great point. Just think about baseball.
Vic00:15:24Yes. Hand check. Hand check, everyone.
Sonny00:15:27Please.
Vic00:15:28Finish this.
Sonny00:15:28You guys, you guys, you guys brought up something I thought quite relevant. Yeah. About. When you mentioned. Can you spot them? Yeah. The North Koreans, right? They look different now from their, their erstwhile brethren to the South because of just environmental factors. They're genetically the exact same people, North and South Koreans, but they are, and actually the Korean peninsula is like the most ethnically homogenous place in the world. So genetically. They are exactly the same. The difference is in environmental factors, right? Nutrition being the main one. Yeah. And so North Koreans are, are tiny. I've met actually a bunch of North Koreans through really cool work that I've been able to not participate in, but more observe. You're talking about, are you talking about exfiltration? Are you part of, are you part of the, the, the, you know, the, the freedom tunnels? Yeah. I give, I give to Liberty in North Korea. That's part of that. And I've been able to meet some of the refugees and stuff.
JVL00:16:24You only get the hot ones out, right?
Sonny00:16:26And so, um, studiously ignoring that question. So, um, the, uh, um, the North Korean, North Korean, right? Model that we all, uh, were aware of how odd that was kind of from a casting point of view. But Sonny, I thought she's like, she's like five foot 10. I looked her up because I was like, who, who is this woman? She's like, she's like five, nine. She's like the tallest Korean person. In history, it's the Michelle.
Vic00:16:57We, yeah.
Sonny00:16:58Yeah. So when, when she has the giant piece of glass in her and Vic, I need, I need to go to you on this. And she's like, you know, having to take off some clothing, you see her in the bathroom and you're like, okay, maybe malnutrish, you know, malnourished North Korean kind of makes
Vic00:17:15a little more sense than I thought. It took all of my skills to mentally CGI the blood out of that scene in order to just see her for who she is. Although, you know, you get it. You get a good look at it. I believe in the second, in the second episode, because when they, she gets thrown out of the van and she's only in her like a bra and whatnot. And so you're like, oh, that's the first time I noticed, like, who is she? You know? And then of course it turns out to be very relevant, you know? But yes, that was, it was a terrible thing that happened to her. It turns out to be very relevant. I think, Sonny.
JVL00:17:47Were you surprised, Paul, that this took America by storm? Very.
Sonny00:17:52Great question. Very. And Sonny, I think. The world, the whole world. The world, yes. It's crazy.
JVL00:17:57But Paul isn't an expert about the world. He is an expert about both Korea and America. And so I'm.
Sonny00:18:03Yeah. So I, I thought there was, I saw a funny meme the other day that was like, it's squid game in every country, but apparently except for Spain, where it's El Juego de Calamar, which I think is pretty great. But, but anyway, Sonny, I think you nailed it. It is about the set design. I really think. That is the core of the show's appeal. It's visually striking. And I would add to that the costume design, not because the costume design is particularly good, but just because it's so simple. Circle, triangle, square, you know, it's very visually. Yeah. It's so striking. And so it's easy to watch when you're like folding laundry or something. I feel like. Are those symbols, is it explicitly designed to look like a PlayStation? Yeah.
JVL00:18:51Well, just universal symbols, right? Everybody and everything. Every country will recognize.
Sonny00:18:55Yeah. And I think it might, there might be a touch of maybe, you know, Sony's a Japanese company. If it's like, hey, we're associating this beloved brand PlayStation with murder. You know, if it was a Korean company, they might get some bad, they might get some bad looks for that. But I don't think anybody minds because it's Sony. But I think that the set design is huge. And it reminds me of another show that Netflix has that was a big hit that I think is almost and I realized this is before we Squid Game even happened. But I remember watching it and I was like, this show is just about the locations and the set design. And it's the Queen's Gambit. In the Queen's Gambit, the locations and the set design basically tell the whole story. And the it's not particularly well written. I don't think the characters are particularly good, but they they just make you so fascinated by these places. And my brother is a chess teacher. And he was saying, like, even the nicest tournaments don't look like that in in world chess, like the quality of the boards, the quality of the locations. It's all like super duper beautiful in that show. And I think that Netflix has settled on a kind of something. They figured something out where they they draw people in with set design and costume design, and they sort of almost like weirdly let that tell the story. And it works for them because people are oftentimes doing other things, maybe while they're watching Netflix and and also the preview thing that you get. On Netflix, like the Squid Game, it's very striking. The M.C. Asher colorful thing.
Vic00:20:28Very unusual set.
JVL00:20:30People are going to click thumbnail design for YouTube, right? This is, you know, I have I have in my professional life, I've been talking with a bunch of YouTube creators, and one of the things they say is that the thumbnail design is 80 percent of what gets a video watched. I was like, great. That's super cool. That's right. They said it's much more important to have somebody with good Photoshop skills to do engaging thumbnails than it is to have somebody with good video skills making good videos.
Vic00:20:59Now, Paul, I was wondering, I mean, is it I guess I could figure this out if I went to Google, but I didn't. So is it as our Koreans as obsessed with Squid Game as we are with Squid Game?
Sonny00:21:12Yeah, I think it's I think it's pretty big. They they love when something of theirs goes global. So I think that's what gets them really excited. I don't know how popular the show was. But before it went global, like a month ago over there, I assume it was pretty popular. But they love now the fact that they're the talk of the town in Hollywood, you know, in other parts of Asia and around the world. That's that's what really gets them excited. So they have there's like a Squid Game. They have the girl from Red Light, Green Light is like they have like a statue of her like in the middle of town, I guess. Oh, my gosh. Like they're they're going they're going for it.
JVL00:21:49Isn't that a little weird? Yeah, right. Like having an intro. Instrument of murder as you're like, hey, that's wild.
Sonny00:21:57And there was this debate that happened over the last few weeks of like, how much should we embrace this? And basically it reached the point where it was so big that they're just like, OK, we have to embrace it. Yeah. Yeah. Just own it. Uh, is your girlfriend into it, Paul? No, she does not watch things. She she was freaked out by Knives Out. She doesn't like the murder show. Too much murder. She doesn't want murder games. No, no, no murder mystery and certainly no murder games. That's interesting.
JVL00:22:25Yeah. She's pretty conservative. Yeah. What does she like?
Sonny00:22:29Um, she likes, um, classic, like animated classics, um, and, um, like, I'm going to I don't want to make her sound like a dork.
JVL00:22:43Is she going to be super into the new West Side Story?
Sonny00:22:45Um, I don't think so. She she just kind of she's more of a reader, um, which is why she. Like, has a law degree and is successful. I don't know what you, I don't know what you see in her. So I'm, I'm always trying to get her to watch things. And sometimes I'm like shocked.
Vic00:23:03I'm the exact opposite in case you're wondering, sometimes she's one of those
Sonny00:23:06people, you know, where like you're shocked sometimes at the things she hasn't seen. So like I showed her Casino Royale and it was great. She ood and odd at all the right parts. That's like a Crookston family classic. So that was good. So usually she has good taste in that when I show her really great stuff, she likes it. Most of the time. But like the, she hasn't seen a ton of stuff. She loves like Lord of the Rings and some other classics. But has she read The Guns of August? You know, it, it took her no, no offense, Vic, but apparently it took her about a quarter of the time. She said it's the longest it's ever taken her to read a book.
Vic00:23:43In, in what language was she reading it? And that's what I wanted to know.
Sonny00:23:46Yeah. She, she has to read stuff, um, in English because apparently Korean translations of things mostly suck. So she always reads stuff.
Vic00:23:53Well, it's mostly circles. I look at that. I see, I see Korean, a lot of circles, mostly circles, mostly circles. You can quote me on that one language. Uh, Paul, it's mostly circles. That's how, you know, it's Korean. Uh, when you, when you were watching it, Paul, did you turn the subtitles off and just go full, what is it? Hangul? Did you go Hangul?
Sonny00:24:12Uh, oh, I, well, so I've been learning, uh, Hangul and it is, um, I mostly have the alphabet down. That, that is as far as I have gotten.
Vic00:24:24It comes in very useful.
Sonny00:24:26I know, I know a couple of phrases.
Vic00:24:27I always love when I hear, Fik, I'm just ignoring you. Yeah. And you can't leave because we're connected. We're conjoined by the earbuds. I can say anything I want now.
Sonny00:24:37It's umbilicus.
Vic00:24:38It's like, it is. It's very umbilicus. Yes.
Sonny00:24:40So I love it when I hear a phrase that I know, like chogyo, which is like, excuse me, or like you over there, I'm always like, Ooh, I know that one. Um, and like the curse word that the, I remember like every time they're cursing
JVL00:24:53it's the same word, no matter what they're saying on screen. Shiba, Shiba. That's me by the way.
Vic00:24:57Lauren's going to listen to this, Fik. Oh, sorry, sorry, hold on, hold on, I'm sorry.
Sonny00:25:01She, she did, she did say she was going to listen. I was like, I don't know how much this will be up your alley. I told her there's lots of inside jokes, so don't ask me to explain everything.
Vic00:25:10A lot of, a lot of, a lot of inside jokes.
JVL00:25:11So it's very violent, a lot of murder talk. She doesn't want to, go read a book. I can't believe you have to share her with me. Go read a book.
Vic00:25:19Okay.
JVL00:25:19Um, so.
Vic00:25:22I guess Paul has to go teach soon.
JVL00:25:25Come on, I guess, Paul, do you think that this is, do you think that Americans are experiencing something like squid game on the same level that South Koreans are? Because I, I take it. And maybe I'm wrong about this, that the, the debt and the finance and the capitalism stuff really speaks to people on a deep personal level over there. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is just the, you know, the elites. And the cultural elite think this way and, you know, your average person doesn't care.
Sonny00:25:58Yeah. So I think that there's a couple of things on that. I think one of the main ones, so I'm a dyed in the wool capitalist. I ha I am not yet working at the American enterprise Institute, as I mentioned, but that's, it's in the works. Um, but basically I think my, my theory of the case, uh, is almost that like capitalism works too well. So South Korea.
JVL00:26:22Capitalism.
Sonny00:26:23Yeah, I know, I know JBL, I know JBL is not going to be into this fight, but basically like South Korea got so rich, so fast that societally they couldn't adjust to it. And so there's all of these like social development things that are out of whack in the country because they got so wealthy so quickly. And I think gambling could be a part of that. Um, that's always that it comes up a lot and you know, you oftentimes gambling will be connected to. People's debt, which, as I mentioned, debt is like always a subplot in these movies and stuff. And then, um, I think another thing is that I really like the theory that having North Korea right there just kind of puts them in a weird place mentally. I know for some reason I hadn't thought of that. And when you mentioned it, JBL, I was like, that makes so much sense because they, they actually have something like an existential threat right on their doorstep, which you have non-nuclear obliteration, right? Like right over artillery, just wipe it out completely. The half the country lives in Seoul. They could just wipe out Seoul with conventional weapons, you know? And so, yeah, I think that, I think that's huge. So I think both of those things are key as, uh, capitalism, um, is unnatural. It, it creates all of this churn and all of this efficiency and productivity that people don't necessarily want in the, in the immediate term. And so. So that creates like psychological effects, um, that aren't great. Sometimes if you have a place that rapidly develops like Korea has, it's almost a victim of its own success in that way. And I think that, um, the, the country is going through a lot of different sort of social things where religion is declined. Um, that's a huge thing, you know, um, you can see my AI white paper on this, hopefully in six months, we'll see, we'll see how that goes. But, um, decline of the family kind of stuff. I mean, fertility numbers there are, are in line with Japan and other countries that are going through like a long-term baby bust. And so there's just a lot of issues around that and they have this wealth and they don't know what to do with it. And, and the other thing is, and this is the key difference I think with America. And this has come up a lot when I've talked to my friends, the job market there is completely different. And this is hard. This is kind of hard for us to understand. Cause obviously everyone hates losing their job. Everyone hates looking for a job, all that kind of stuff is really tough, but like the best place to go through that is America because our job market is so elastic and, um, there's, there's so much potential, the churn is very favorable to the worker in, in America's world of capitalism and in South Korea, it's not. And you have big businesses that the chaebol as they're called, like Hyundai and Samsung that really hold all the cards and, um, and then they're, they're kind of connected with the political powers and essentially when you get down to like the worker level, it's a very weird economy to be in. It's a very weird economy to find a job. It's a very weird economy to get marketable skills. It's not the open kind of loose, exciting elastic job market that we have here. So it's like the pressures of capitalism. And the churn of capitalism, but without the like backstop of that,
JVL00:29:57like really, so that's what I was going to ask the two, and then I promise I'll stop, but the two questions I'm going to ask you, what is the social safety now like, because they, they've had rapid development into being first democracy and be being a pretty capitalist system over the, I mean, it's been like what, 50 years total. Right. Uh, and so they've been like going through what took America a hundred years in, in half the time. Do they have a social safety? Matt in it? Are, is there any backstopping of people? And the other question is what is, what is the economic mobility like, right? Is, is it more of a caste based system, you know, like in Europe where, you know, you're sort of, you're born to the class you're born to, uh, or is it like America where there's a lot more mobility and ability to go up and down?
Sonny00:30:43Yeah, my sense is that it's in between. It doesn't have the, it doesn't have the sort of, um, the class the sort of like defined kind of class system that you see in European countries. Um, but the, the nature of, um, again, like the job market, the, um, education is also kind of weird in South Korea. So fighting for the slots at the key universities is like, that's the squid game. Like, and I think a lot of these kinds of things, by the way, movies like squid game, they're almost part of it. It's just working as a metaphor of like, for academic competition, like in Korea, because who, well, who watches these kinds of shows? It's young people largely. Right. And, and I think they, it resonates with them because it's their experience of school. And like hearing about what school is like for Lauren or was like for Lauren is insane. She, she would, she'd get up at like 6:00 AM, go to school and be at school to midnight and, and go, go home and sleep for a couple hours and do it again.
Vic00:31:51Like JVL in college.
Sonny00:31:54Yeah, that's and, and she wasn't getting extra credit from her teachers. I guarantee you. Um, so yeah, I think a lot of real school, Sonny, real grades.
Vic00:32:05Okay. That's all. Yeah. I'm sorry.
JVL00:32:07I know this turned into more serious than you boys want. Sonny's falling asleep.
Vic00:32:10Yeah. Okay.
Sonny00:32:13Can I just say murder, murder, murder? No, I'm, I'm kind of with Sonny weirdly on this because JVL. I was hoping there'd be more like that. There'd be some interesting things about Korea that were said in the show. And in the end, I just don't think there's much, unfortunately. Um, I think anything interesting you could draw about Korean society out of this, you would have already drawn from parasite and other things. And so interesting show in ways that aren't related to Korea, things like set design and that kind of thing.
Vic00:32:47Okay. Thank you. That is all the time we're giving to this bonus episode. Paul, thank you so much for, uh, coming here. Thank you.
Sonny00:32:54So you're so close. You're, you're like on top of them.
Vic00:32:57I really enjoyed having you. I enjoyed it even more. Questions, comments, compliments, tweet us @SonnyBunch, @VictorinoMattis. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon, just go to subbeacon.com. We're there to tell your friends until next time.
Spot something wrong in this episode? Suggest a correction →
Comments
Loading…