Conscientious Objector Jailed After Being Outed As PUBG Player
Conscientious Objector Jailed After Being Outed As PUBG Player
kotaku.com
Conscientious Objector Jailed After Being Outed As PUBG Player
61 comments
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This seems incredibly stupid on its face. Someone please give me context that makes it make sense.
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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.
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Can't hold a moral stance without shouting it at everyone around you!
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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.
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south Korea is a fascist police state that will use stupid excuses to force men to die for the government.
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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.
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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.
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Avoiding political opinions on South Korea, the court's claim would be that because he likes shooting guns at other people in games, his objection to military service has no ground to stand on.
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"A paintball player? Clearly you must be a gung-ho militarist who loves war!"
"Have a BDSM kink? You go around kidnapping and torturing people, don't you?"
"So you like reading murder mysteries, huh? Seems like you're a murderer yourself, then!"
—Some South Korean judge, probably.
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By that logic, I should be their divine leader because I play RTS games.
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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
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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.
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We're finally imprisoning gamers 🙏
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I always knew my sonic 3 play through would bring me here.
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I can't believe this isn't the onion
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Goddamn, the actual article is even more absurd than the title.
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Man I can't wait to get charged with adultery when the court finds out how much porn I watch.
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If you live in the United States, depending on the state, you might get your wish.
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but a lower court dismissed this partially because he loves playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. (emphasis mine)
I suspect that "partially" is working harder than John Henry in this sentance.
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That's fucking stupid. They should be jailing him for playing a shitty game instead.
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The Supreme Court of Korea is a joke and just lost any credability it may have once had.
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In my country, conscientious objectors can instead opt to work for charity for the duration of their service I believe. Much better solution than throwing service dodgers in jail. This also proves you're not doing it just to avoid service.
For an example I know someone who couldn't serve in the military for health reasons, but instead worked for the food bank for 8 months. The pay is shit, but for some people it's an option. And if you have a young child, you're exempt from service for a while anyway, it's only mandatory if you don't have significant provable responsibilities to other people. And I believe even then it's not mandatory in all cases.
61 comments
"You say you are a concientious objector but how do you explain all the violence you commit in this video game?"
It's not good enough to simply say you're a conscientious objector, otherwise everyone and their brother would do it and conscription as a concept would fail.
So, if you are one, you gotta fucking prove that shit somehow. Words aren't good enough. Go protest, join an org, donate to charities, whatever. Need some evidence though.
It's not complicated to understand.
"I value human life and video games aren't real"
It isn't hard
While I agree with that, I don't agree that playing violent video games is proof that you're not opposed to violence in real conflict.
Oh the horror!
Saying it is good enough. It's not unreasonable to think a regular person might be against human rights abuses. You can't demand that citizens go support your imperialist regime just because they only indirectly show support for human life.
There are better ways to get soldiers than forced conscription.
Like in Pakistan, they run 24/7 nationalist propaganda about how amazing the military is and how brave men have sacrificed their lives for
General Bajwa's 300 papa john's locationsthe freedom of the nation.Or in the USA, they run a 24/7 marketing campaign advertising minimmum wages and education in exchange for "chilling" 6 years in the infantry with no post service trauma or health issues whatsoever.
LOL this reads like a reverse Sovereign Citizen.