alt Hacker News> But we are saving the lives of ~3 million people so who’s to say what is bad
Korea’s GDP per capita in 1950 was similar to that of Bangladesh around the same time: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/GDP-.... In the alternate timeline where there isn’t a capitalist south korea, the Korean peninsula has 100 million+ people living in poverty and squalor, like Bangladesh today. The cost of that is tens of millions of lost lives resulting from higher infant and child mortality rates.
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Interesting that your takeaway is "capitalist South Korea doesn't exist" when I also said the 38th parallel held?
Also I guess now we're discussing the Repugnant Conclusion, which is a bit out of scope
See also the arguments that more Koreans would be alive and well today if MacArthur's plans to nuke the Norks had been greenlighted by Truman.
The simplest way to have no Korean war is if Kim Il-Sung decides that an invasion is too risky and concentrates on internal matters.