On this episode of Walt Right Perspectives I speak with WRP alumnus and Overton Window cohost
, who publishes at Scrupulous Pessimism.Sunshine is a center right Asia Policy expert in his mid 20s currently living in Korea. In high school he was fascinated by the Alt Right and briefly interacted with me on Twitter, only to become one of my closest Substack friends a decade later.
Today he comes to the pod with many fascinating stories and insights to share about his adventures in the Orient over the past months.
Topics include:
Sunshine’s recent experience living in an ultramodern “smart city” in South Korea
How smart cities are built to encourage people to have kids and raise the TFR
Sunshine’s experience travelling in Vietnam last month
Vietnam’s current development level and the extent of inequality there
Why Donald Trump is so popular in Vietnam
The complicated historical relationship between Vietnam and South Korea
Why South Korea sent over 300,000 soldiers (!) to fight in Vietnam
Will Vietnam ever demand war reparations from Korea?
Do wypipo get over historical grievances faster than Asians?
Debates in Korea and Japan about the nature of “comfort women” in WW2
Sex tourism between Asian countries (e.g. Korean dudes in ‘Nam)
How the Korean government subsidizes marriages between lower class Korean men and mail order brides from Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe
Mid White Passport Bros can’t get Korean or Japanese women these days
The American military presence in Korea
The extent of gender polarization in Korea vs. America
What is the development level / standard of living in urban Korea?
The general lack of air conditioning outside America
Is Korea as unequal as productions like Squid Game and Parasite would indicate?
Do poor people act different in Asia?
Sunshine’s social life as a foreigner of Korean descent—is he accepted?
Could Sunshine ever authentically assimilate into Korean culture?
Do Asians have any ingroup racial identity?
Debates in Korea over the legacy of Imperial Japan
How Japan in Korea compares to England in Ireland and France in Algeria
How Japan gradually politically integrated Korea during the Meiji Era
Early Korean history—Imjin War, Turtle Boats, etc.
Do Koreans consider themselves the “Top Asians” now that they’re richer than the Japanese and more culturally prestigious?
Which state in the US does Korea’s climate most resemble?
What is life like in North Korea these days?
Why Sunshine doesn’t think the Koreas will ever unify
Are North and South Koreans separate peoples at this point?
Asian vs. White beauty standards
Sunshine keeps getting called handsome by people in Korea
What Asians find attractive and ugly about wypipo
The average height of modern Asians (Koreans are taller than Japanese?)
Why Black people love anime and especially DBZ
Are the white girls who travel to Korea especially nerdy?
Why does Japan feel more culturally alien than Korea?
Is it considered high or low status for Korean men to date white women?
Why Walt thinks it’s more high status / dignified to date a hot poor white girl than an upper middle class nonwhite woman
Sunshine’s mostly Caucasoid appearance—Walt thinks he looks Georgian or Circassian but people in high school used to guess he is Hispanic
Castizo Futurism—will mixed race get blended into mainstream like Italians?
Why Hispanics in FL/TX and even NY are more vital than Mexicans of CA/AZ/CO
Are the Ainu white? Are the Okinawans Polynesian or East Asian?
Territorial disputes between Japan and Korea
Sunshine thinks Imperial Japan was closer to the Kaiserreich than Nazi Germany
The Boxer Rebellion where everyone teamed up to bully China and this cool multilanguage song it produced from the allied coalition
The geopolitical factors surrounding Japan’s slide into military dictatorship
Divisions between branches of government / military in Japan prior to WW2
Why the civilian leadership of Japan couldn’t restrain the military
How did the war crimes of Japan compare to imperial crimes of UK and Germany?
Was the Rape of Nanking worse than frying peasants with napalm in Vietnam?
How does the Rape of Nanking compare to the My Lai Massacre?
Double standards over Japanese war crimes
How capable was the Japanese military in World War II?
The impressive Japanese victory over the Brits at Signapore
Walt is mad the Japanese raped blonde girls in Dutch Indonesia
Why Sunshine thinks the demand of unconditional surrender on Japan was bad
How do people in Japan see the nukings? What about in Korea?
How do young people in Korea view America? What about China? Japan?
Why feminism in Korea is more sex negative than in America
Why Gen Xers in Korea don’t like America
Why Sunshine doesn’t think China will ever invade Taiwan
Political valence of independence in modern Taiwan
Differences between the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Taiwan Question
China’s nuclear position compared to the US
Walt relates to trashy peasant intellectual ENTP Mao Zedong
Could China eventually democratize and peacefully integrate Taiwan?
Attempts to move semiconductor production from Taiwan to Arizona and the many obstacles caused by American laziness and DEI
Why Sunshine doesn’t think China vs. USA will be like the Cold War
How the post-WW2 era of the UN compares to Metternich’s Concert of Europe
The state of the Chinese economy and future growth projections
Sunshine recently learned most Indian CEOs in the US aren’t founders but MBAs without much of a revolutionary vision
Why Google sucks these days
Does Indian caste actually matter in America?
Why are we letting the Chinese work here and learn our business practices?
Walt admires North Indians for being so good at finessing their way to the top
The Chinese immigrants who have the most hustle go back to China
This video by Walt’s favorite Chinese guy: How can Chinese succeed in America
Brown guys seem to want to get back at whitey by fucking blonde women
Walt thinks Scandinavian women are ugly
Paris is black
Contra Sunshine, Victor Huge wasn’t part black, but Alexandre Dumas was
- ’s article alleging that white womyn on Instagram regularly get paid to swab the poop deck in Dubai
Does Sunshine talk about AMWF because he wants to dab on the roundeye?
Sunshine specifically isn’t attracted to white women
Why Sunshine doesn’t like the term “Hapa”
Sunshine’s article Conservatism as Tribalism about how conservatives in different countries don’t feel solidarity with one another like liberals do
Is ethno-nationalism an ideological system distinct from conservatism?
Could we ever see the voluntary repatriation of diaspora populations?
Will tight regulations on trade trap more countries in a partially developed state?
What traits allow someone to successfully repatriate to their ancestral country?
Sunshine admires Nixon because his foreign policy acknowledged finite resources
To what extent did Nixon derive his foreign policy from Kissinger and how frequently did the two disagree?
The Nixon Tapes
Richard Nixon’s insulting comments on Indians
Nixon’s ferocious and long-sublimated resentment against chad “Franklins”
Did Hillary Clinton kill Seth Rich?
Sunshine’s instinctive disdain for conspiracy theories because of their low status vs. Walt’s oppositional culture embrace of low status things
Why Walt has become edgier over the past months
Would Ezra Klein like Walt behind closed doors?
Why Walt still identifies as Alt Right
Walt relates to Christy Carlson Romano’s attempts to milk nostalgia
Is Walt more or less famous today than he was back in 2016?
Sunshine - Asian Affairs and the Stupidity of Passport Bros