• detalferous@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    This seems incredibly stupid on its face. Someone please give me context that makes it make sense.

    • gnutrino@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      So, as far as I can see the ruling was that the guy hadn’t sufficiently proved through his actions (e.g. protesting, joining any anti-war movements or in this case even expressing this view to anyone beforehand) that he was an actual conscientious objector and not just a chancer who didn’t want to serve.

      The fact that he played PUBG was brought up as part of the suggestion that he was just having a go but wasn’t the whole case against him. Indeed tbh I can’t really see anything suggesting it was a particularly important consideration compared to the lack of positive evidence of conscientious objection but obviously it’s the bit that’s going to get clicks.

      • CluelessLemmyng@lemmy.sdf.org
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        9 months ago

        Honestly, the comments show who read the article and who didn’t. It’s really not hard to see that the court was looking for a history of conscientious objection and didn’t find any proof, instead finding arguments to the contrary.

        • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Hang on, because I’m morally opposed to war and violence, but I’m not out attending rallies or protests. While my arthritic old body isn’t what anyone wants in battle, if I were healthy, and we had a draft, I’d be a conscientious objector with no history of activism.

          Would South Korea put me in jail?

          • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            Would you have never mentioned this to anyone, knowing your country has mandatory service? Never protested about mandatory military service? Are you not even a member of an anti-military group? In many countries you have the option of joining. When you don’t have an option not being involved doesn’t make sense.

            • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              No, it doesn’t come up very often, and discussing politics and morality is considered impolite. I don’t join “groups” but I don’t see how that makes a difference.

              • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
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                9 months ago

                The point being that if you are a conscientious objector in a country with mandatory service and few exceptions, perhaps you should do some stuff as evidence for that. Otherwise you experience the consequences of inaction. In an ideal world armies don’t exist and if so joining would be entirely voluntary but we don’t live in an ideal world.

            • Traegert@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              The draft is still mandatory in the US for men 18 and above, by the by

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It is stupid. The man says he is .orally opposed to the military, but the courts rules that playing a computer game like PUBG makes that a lie.

      • EssentialCoffee@midwest.social
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        9 months ago

        Well, they ruled that he had no history of being a conscientious objector and did not put any previous effort into spreading his claimed ideology that would point to a history of it. One of the findings was that he didn’t want to join the military because the ‘orders were unfair.’ PUBG was a small part of the argument that he was not as against war and violence as he claimed to be, but the article is on Kotaku, so they know their audience to get clicks.

        To my knowledge, the current law is that if you say you’re a conscientious objector, the alternative to military conscription is to work in a prison or correctional facility for 36 months. Getting the previous punishment of 18 months in prison is at least a shorter amount of time.

        I wonder if he went to court to get the previous alternative of 18 months in jail over the 36 months of work. At least it’s a shorter amount of your life.

        • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Thanks for the elaboration. But with the 18 month sentence would the alternative service not still be required afterwards. That’s how it would most likely be here in the Netherlands. Punishment for not doing a required thing is not a substitution… it’s punishment, you still have to do the thing.

    • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      South Korean government isn’t exactly a bastion of democracy and sensibility. It’s a fascist hell hole.

        • RobotToaster@mander.xyz
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          9 months ago

          To quote Georgi Dimitrov:

          “fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital. … Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations. … The development of fascism, and the fascist dictatorship itself, assume different forms in different countries, according to historical, social and economic conditions and to the national peculiarities, and the international position of the given country.”

    • Pfnic@feddit.ch
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      9 months ago

      According to the article, the court argued that the guy refusing mandatory service for conscientious reasons enjoys playing violent games such as PUBG, calling the reasons given for abstaining from military service in question

    • RobotToaster@mander.xyz
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      9 months ago

      south Korea is a fascist police state that will use stupid excuses to force men to die for the government.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      One presumes that there is a certain standard in Korea to establish that you are a CO. Compelled military service makes it harder to avoid this. It seems that the Korean courts believe that liking violent video games means you’re a violent person. It’s a terrible ruling, but it frankly doesn’t surprise me given the context.