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[Flying Dice]

TIL that psychics and cult leaders are always true-believers and not just weaving bullshit to ensnare gullible fools for the sake of money/power/influence.

Also it's totally okay for random ultra-rich people to have near-total control over the policy, speechwriting, decisions, &c. of a head of state as long as they're not religious random ultra-rich people.

Like. People have friends. People tend to trust and listen to their friends. People don't typically allow their friends to control most or all of their important decisions, even when they aren't presidents.

[Reelya]

But there don't seem to be any extant cult members, or a cult, or any claims of psychic powers. if there was a religious cult under the father, there's really no evidence that the daughter maintained it. In fact, since the articles refrain from providing any details, I'd assume there's literally zero evidence of that, even though they've dug for it.

Additionally, if the cult part is taken out all that's left is a confidante of a politician who misused their authority to make money. She's rich because she got involved in politics, she's not involved in politics because she was rich.

 The "total control" comment was also about Choi Tae-min (the father), and about the younger years of Park (when she was mentored by Choi Tae-min back in the 1970s-1980s), not about the daughter (Choi Soon-sil) and the current time period. I think people are conflating those two things. Thus, saying that the daughter had "near total control" over policy and the like seems like it's not really backed up by a whole lot. After all, the dad Choi's influence stemmed from his age and authority status and his connections with Park's father, whereas Park and the daughter Choi are same-age peers, so it's going to more like a fraternal relationship.

At this stage, the story has just broken and we're in the wild rumors phase. Articles dated Sunday say they took possession of computers on Saturday. Let's at least wait until they've look at the evidence before we come up with theories.

[Max™]

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=3025478

She's gotten a lawyer.


The tablet with the stuff on it, btw, she denies even owning one, though it has selfies of her, the tablet ID is her daughter's name, and among the few bits of contact information in there was Park's number.

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=3025427


As for the idea that it isn't related or whatnot, ehhhh.

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=3025424

Like I said, this is literally like finding out Obama's best friend since they were kids is a Freemason 3rd Class and their father was a Level Green member of the Illuminati, and then going "wellllll, it's not like that means anything."

[Reelya]

But there's no organization in existence in this case. show me the evidence of that then we can discuss that.

As far as I can see, he set up a group called Yongsaeng-gyo (Eternal Life Church) but there's basically no reference to this group anywhere except on the wikipedia page about his life. So I'm definitely of the opinion that there's not actually a group at all.

[Max™]

[Reelya]

But if we're saying that groups where they haven't been mentioned at all in decades are secretly pulling strings purely based on the fact that some descendant is a string-puller.

That needs more evidence. For example, the existence of some members of said group, or some news coverage mentioning that the group actually exists.

After all, Elder Choi publicly created his Eternal Life Church (which was at least nominally Christian) back in the 1970s. We know that. But then he died, and there's literally no mention of the group in any media for over 20 years. Sure, you can claim they went underground to become the secret puppet masters of the New Korean Order, but we're into pure fantasy speculation territory now.

[Max™]

You're being overly dismissive when mere skepticism is warranted, but I really just wanted an excuse to use that clip.

[Reelya]

Well you're free to believe literally anything. Like shape-shifting alien lizard emperors. Totally can't rule that out.

But generally it's nice to at least have some confirmation that a group exists before trying to work out who they are controlling.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I should point out that you are required to believe in shape-shifting alien lizard emperors to be a card-carrying patriot of DPRK Thread.

[Reelya]

I will point out that Choi junior seems to be running a non-profit group that had it's origins in her dad's charitable campaigns. Her dad's professed religion was in fact Christianity and his main legacy seems to be some Christian-based non-profits that raise money to help children. Choi Junior is the head of one of those charities. We have some whistleblowers from those groups exposing financial impropriety at the top, but none of them are denouncing the pattern of things you'd expect in a cult. Their entire schtick is therefore "praise christ, give money, save the children!" rather than "you must serve the ancient powers of zoggoth, whip yourself 20 times a day with the flail of salvation" type stuff.

So basically I'd say this is actually not a whole lot different to an America evangelical super-PAC having a strong influence on political candidates. After all the American Legislative Exchange Council literally write laws then fund right-wing candidates to pass the laws exactly like the corporate lobby group wrote it.

[TempAcc]

It seems reelya is trying to turn the thread into meta SK. Eventualy it'll be revealed he's a priest in a xenu cult secretly trying to influence bay12 in order to take full control of memes :v

Jokes aside, I'm with the crowd here, I don't get Reelya's angle OR the effort done to try and minimize the nature of something worth of uppercase WTF, specially since this seems to sort of be sky's reaction to the whole thing, IE the only korean in the thread.

Also, yes, lobbying by powerful groups is a common thing pretty much anywhere, but there's quite a big difference between that and literally telling the president what to do at all times, including things like speeches, and literally writing government policy in such direct way.

[Reelya]

literally telling the president what to do at all times

if you say something is happening "literally" and "at all times" then you need some really strong evidence, not hearsay and conjecture. That's my point. People in this thread, specifically, are taking it much further than any of the articles I've read on the issue.

The "total mind control" claims are very closely related to the "cult" claims. if there's no cult in the first place, then the basis of theorizing that her control is that complete starts to unravel.

Merely handwaving away the non-existence of the claimed cult, then latching onto other evidence to back up the original "total mind control" claim, could even be Confirmation Bias: e.g. people make the "total mind control" claim related to the "cult" claim, but when the "cult" claim looks questionable, they back up "total mind control" with "she edited speeches". But I can't think of any other case where we jump from "editing speeches" to "mind control". In confirmation bias cases, the causation of the logic is reversed: we want to believe in the mind control, so we bring up the evidence of the speech-writing, rather than starting with the speech-writing then proving that shows mind-control.

And another pertinent fact is that in Korea, Christianity was only introduced in the post-WWII Era. When the elder Choi started a Christian church in the 1970s that would in itself have been viewed as a radical cult regardless of how mainstream their Christian beliefs were. "Shamanism" is how they described traditional Korean religion, so articles labeling him as "Shamanistic" leader are equally unhelpful. What exactly does that mean in the context of a nation where Shamanism was mainstream?

[Max™]

Well you're free to believe literally anything. Like shape-shifting alien lizard emperors. Totally can't rule that out.

But generally it's nice to at least have some confirmation that a group exists before trying to work out who they are controlling.

I try not to believe anything, the idea of holding something to be true without evidence bothers the shit out of me. Doubt is preferable to unwarranted certainty, I'm saying your certainty that there isn't something is as unwarranted as someone claiming there is something.

[Reelya]

How can you say that when you tried to weave Megalia into this? The fact that people thought that "Megalia" was a sensible place to go with this story sums up the problems.

My main point was that the cult doesn't seem to really exist, thus making some of the tenor of the claims hyperbolic. Basically, the Korean media is freaking out about cults, but nobody can provide any evidence of an actual organization which has the required characteristics. To me, this is clearly a minor case of moral panic, similar to ones that have gripped America about non-existent cults in the past. In the 1980s-1990s the American media was absolutely convinced that satanic cults were infiltrating daycare centers and schools across the nation. Very few media outlets challenged this "fact".

This is a normal corruption scandal but people are reading a lot into it based on hype in the local press. The main solid evidence is that someone with close connections to the president used that to make money. The fact that she's the daughter of a guy who started a church 45 years ago (back when any form of Christianity itself would have been regarded as radical in Korea) seems like a side-story.

[Max™]

Dude seriously, if you're a goddess then I am totally a fan, and I would dig some of that smartphone hotness they got over there.