> ... and to find out whether things like this happen in other countries as well.
I didn't DM anyone, and I didn't run the campaign, but there happened to be the John Edwards campaign HQ near me so I walked inside and said I could help do their IT, next day I was a full-on volunteer.
They took me to Charleston for a rally (which was cool cuz I never been) and even got me a jacket with my name and the campaign logo on it. Was pretty nifty at the time.
Few months later they hired me and sent me to New Hampshire for the primary.
Wasn't long after that that we were no longer in the running, but was great experience.
Highly recommend more young people attempt cold walk-ins/calls/DMs like this article mentions.
That isn’t necessarily “different”. Someone with truly horrifying opinions can be genuinely respectful and pleasant to work with, unless you fall into the wrong social group. (I know nothing about this guy’s opinions and don’t have much reason to care, either, I just feel the need to point out how people tend to overestimate the alignment between “nice people” and “people I agree with”. Much as they do the one between “nice people” and “people it’s worthwhile to listen to”, but that’s a story for another day.)
> I’m not familiar with the situation you’re referring to
While HN guidelines ask for assumption of good faith, you're making it impossible to do so. For the American readers, this is comparable to someone writing an article saying that they DM'd Trump, ended up personally chatting with him and building his core campaign, then claiming they're unfamiliar with the "grab them by the pussy" affair and with his (at the time) friendship with Musk. Impossible to believe. You built the core campaign for a presidential candidate whose wiki article you've never read, and whose viewpoints you don't know? Sure.
Thousands of serial rapists, murderers, and abusers also have the ability to be very positive, funny, and genuinely respectful to others when they choose to.
Would you like to share another perspective for them too?
Louis CK and Genghis Khan were both very effective in their respective lines of work and I'll die on that hill. And while I'm at it, Bill Clinton was an alright president (though the surrounding administration would likely be looked at as a bunch of snakes if not for the even worse Bush2 cabinet that followed).
Heck, Lincoln wanted to ship 'em back to Africa and Henry Ford was a moralizing anti-semite. Nobody is clean under a microscope.
Well yeah of course it's not hard to get involved in politics, if the involvement is supporting people who are rich and powerful even if it is via the use of a more modest looking young mouthpiece. OP was supporting a conservative party, so basically going with the flow of a bunch of what a bunch of influential and rich people wanted as their pawn. If you have something that is of little consequence to the rich, like mothers against drunk driving or something, sure you can probably get it done as it's a token gesture and the powerful just pull strings to get out of those prosecution anyways.
If you look at actually trying to move the meter away from the status quo of the rich and powerful, rather than just repainting the pieces on the chess board, you see politicians like Bernie Sanders or Ron Paul found the whole thing rigged against them. Bernie was railroaded by the upper echelons of his own party and Ron Paul found his name magically erased from practically all the talks on the high level debates in the press to the point they would just skip over his name in the primary poll rankings.
>Well yeah of course it's not hard to get involved in politics, if the involvement is supporting people who are rich and powerful even if it is via the use of a more modest looking young mouthpiece.
I fail to see how it’d be any more difficult to get involved in politics for candidates that don’t meet this criteria.
It's incredibly easy to get involved with people like Mamdani or Seattle's Katie Wilson or so many others, if that's your political angle. The same is true on the other side.
We should be encouraging people to be more involved. That helps shape outcomes.
Katie Wilson's claim to fame is doing the bidding of rich and powerful King County Metro union gang / alias "ATU" for the purposes of using exploitive taxes to take from the population of Seattle (who have infamously been fleeced on massive gouged public transit construction costs) and reshuffle the money to cushy transit union lobby and their benefactors so their precious fiefdom would not be downsized. She then created a payroll tax to enrich rich contractors to create a tiny amount of "affordable housing" (buzz word used to enrich construction contractors at public cost) for a select few. She is basically a shining beacon of a mouthpiece for the rich and powerful as they are all too happy to be the benefactors of her tax policies that largely socialize costs and privatize the earnings albeit under a false flag of helping the poor.
Mamdani has been legally barred from the Presidency, the position we are discussing. He simply cannot. In fact, I suspect that is part of the reason why Trump has been so weirdly chum with him, he's simply not a threat for the presidency and never will be.
The bigger the loon, the more impressive the successes of campaign professionals.
Loons are also useful stepping stones. Use them for career progression and then cast them aside, you could even claim they abused you or took advantage of you and that you're excited to help <X> next who actually cares about the people.
Not entirely sure how conservatism is related to either - DOGE is far removed from conservativsm, and the second topic I talked about is even less related to it.
Both are views by the politician from this politican who this entire article is about, sounds pretty related to me.
Very strange downvotes as well, not used to that here. I guess they'll remain now that above has been flagged.
I don't like that particular presidential candidate but this was an interesting read. Thanks for the insight into the details of a campaign like this. I like your writing style.
> He has been noted for his staunch antifeminism and support from South Korean idaenam (young men).
…
> He became popular in the 20s and 30s due to his opposing stance against political correctness such as "faux feminism," introducing reforms supporting meritocracy rather than outright equality of outcome.
I know only a little about Korean politics, enough to know that it’s very dramatic with wild stuff happening, but not really to understand it. From the outside, the politics around feminism there seems rather strange.
> Lee was an early proponent of the finger pinching conspiracy theory, a claim alleging hidden radical feminist messaging in advertisements
Speaking of strange.
> Lee's advocacy of merit-based processes such as exam scores, credentials, and measurable qualifications has been viewed by supporters as aligning with younger voters' expectations of fair competition.
I suppose all the political content was left out of the linked article, but it would be nice to have more context.
Also, looks like he’s at least somewhat technical:
> After graduating from Harvard University in 2007, Lee returned to Korea to perform military duties working as a software developer (alternative military service as industrial technical personnel) at 'Innotive', an image browsing software startup, a subsidiary of Nexon.
> After completing his national service, Lee prepared to start his own venture. He received funding from the venture startup program backed by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups on 5 August 2011 and founded Classe Studio: an ed-tech startup that developed personalized tutoring software and workplace training applications.
Interesting! The article talks mostly about how this all worked, but rarely about what was actually discussed. Which opinions of the party do you like or support?
I’d prefer not to dive into policy positions here — the main focus of my post was the product-building process and what it was like to work behind the scenes.
With those little takeaways in between like talking to users first to understand their requirements, building an mvp and shipping it as early as possible I was half expecting the article ending with the kind of startup lessons/wisdom you typically see here on HN.
But I'm really glad it wasnt. Not everything has to have a grand lesson or takeaway. I enjoyed reading your once in a lifetime experience.
> ... and to find out whether things like this happen in other countries as well.
I didn't DM anyone, and I didn't run the campaign, but there happened to be the John Edwards campaign HQ near me so I walked inside and said I could help do their IT, next day I was a full-on volunteer.
They took me to Charleston for a rally (which was cool cuz I never been) and even got me a jacket with my name and the campaign logo on it. Was pretty nifty at the time.
Few months later they hired me and sent me to New Hampshire for the primary.
Wasn't long after that that we were no longer in the running, but was great experience.
Highly recommend more young people attempt cold walk-ins/calls/DMs like this article mentions.
Seconded. Political campaigns are fun. And if you're not sure it's for you, start by volunteering for a local campaign.
Does the guy still admire DOGE, and still insist on speaking only in English to born and raised Koreans who happen to be white?
Very weird, creepy guy. Doesn't pay his lawyers either.
I’m not familiar with the situation you’re referring to, but my experience was different.
From my side, the collaboration was positive and genuinely respectful.
Just wanted to share another perspective.
That isn’t necessarily “different”. Someone with truly horrifying opinions can be genuinely respectful and pleasant to work with, unless you fall into the wrong social group. (I know nothing about this guy’s opinions and don’t have much reason to care, either, I just feel the need to point out how people tend to overestimate the alignment between “nice people” and “people I agree with”. Much as they do the one between “nice people” and “people it’s worthwhile to listen to”, but that’s a story for another day.)
@mananaysiempre I completely agree with your point.
> I’m not familiar with the situation you’re referring to
While HN guidelines ask for assumption of good faith, you're making it impossible to do so. For the American readers, this is comparable to someone writing an article saying that they DM'd Trump, ended up personally chatting with him and building his core campaign, then claiming they're unfamiliar with the "grab them by the pussy" affair and with his (at the time) friendship with Musk. Impossible to believe. You built the core campaign for a presidential candidate whose wiki article you've never read, and whose viewpoints you don't know? Sure.
Thousands of serial rapists, murderers, and abusers also have the ability to be very positive, funny, and genuinely respectful to others when they choose to.
Would you like to share another perspective for them too?
Louis CK and Genghis Khan were both very effective in their respective lines of work and I'll die on that hill. And while I'm at it, Bill Clinton was an alright president (though the surrounding administration would likely be looked at as a bunch of snakes if not for the even worse Bush2 cabinet that followed).
Heck, Lincoln wanted to ship 'em back to Africa and Henry Ford was a moralizing anti-semite. Nobody is clean under a microscope.
By the sounds of it you're sharing the only perspective with any validity so far.
Do you have links to back up those assertions?
The only context I have is that the OP helped a right-of-center political candidate in his country of origin.
Who you work with certainly matters, but it does show that it's incredibly easy to get a foot in the door with a lot of political things.
People complain so much about politics as being this completely foreign and detached thing. But it's not if you put a bit of effort into it.
Well yeah of course it's not hard to get involved in politics, if the involvement is supporting people who are rich and powerful even if it is via the use of a more modest looking young mouthpiece. OP was supporting a conservative party, so basically going with the flow of a bunch of what a bunch of influential and rich people wanted as their pawn. If you have something that is of little consequence to the rich, like mothers against drunk driving or something, sure you can probably get it done as it's a token gesture and the powerful just pull strings to get out of those prosecution anyways.
If you look at actually trying to move the meter away from the status quo of the rich and powerful, rather than just repainting the pieces on the chess board, you see politicians like Bernie Sanders or Ron Paul found the whole thing rigged against them. Bernie was railroaded by the upper echelons of his own party and Ron Paul found his name magically erased from practically all the talks on the high level debates in the press to the point they would just skip over his name in the primary poll rankings.
>Well yeah of course it's not hard to get involved in politics, if the involvement is supporting people who are rich and powerful even if it is via the use of a more modest looking young mouthpiece.
I fail to see how it’d be any more difficult to get involved in politics for candidates that don’t meet this criteria.
It's incredibly easy to get involved with people like Mamdani or Seattle's Katie Wilson or so many others, if that's your political angle. The same is true on the other side.
We should be encouraging people to be more involved. That helps shape outcomes.
Katie Wilson's claim to fame is doing the bidding of rich and powerful King County Metro union gang / alias "ATU" for the purposes of using exploitive taxes to take from the population of Seattle (who have infamously been fleeced on massive gouged public transit construction costs) and reshuffle the money to cushy transit union lobby and their benefactors so their precious fiefdom would not be downsized. She then created a payroll tax to enrich rich contractors to create a tiny amount of "affordable housing" (buzz word used to enrich construction contractors at public cost) for a select few. She is basically a shining beacon of a mouthpiece for the rich and powerful as they are all too happy to be the benefactors of her tax policies that largely socialize costs and privatize the earnings albeit under a false flag of helping the poor.
Mamdani has been legally barred from the Presidency, the position we are discussing. He simply cannot. In fact, I suspect that is part of the reason why Trump has been so weirdly chum with him, he's simply not a threat for the presidency and never will be.
> Bernie was railroaded by the upper echelons of his own party
Bernie Sanders is an Independent, he doesn't have a party.
The bigger the loon, the more impressive the successes of campaign professionals.
Loons are also useful stepping stones. Use them for career progression and then cast them aside, you could even claim they abused you or took advantage of you and that you're excited to help <X> next who actually cares about the people.
[flagged]
Not entirely sure how conservatism is related to either - DOGE is far removed from conservativsm, and the second topic I talked about is even less related to it.
Both are views by the politician from this politican who this entire article is about, sounds pretty related to me.
Very strange downvotes as well, not used to that here. I guess they'll remain now that above has been flagged.
I don't like that particular presidential candidate but this was an interesting read. Thanks for the insight into the details of a campaign like this. I like your writing style.
Neat. I have volunteered for political campaigns in the US before, but didnt find it rewarding.
Here is the politician’s Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Jun-seok
These parts jumped out:
> He has been noted for his staunch antifeminism and support from South Korean idaenam (young men).
…
> He became popular in the 20s and 30s due to his opposing stance against political correctness such as "faux feminism," introducing reforms supporting meritocracy rather than outright equality of outcome.
I know only a little about Korean politics, enough to know that it’s very dramatic with wild stuff happening, but not really to understand it. From the outside, the politics around feminism there seems rather strange.
> Lee was an early proponent of the finger pinching conspiracy theory, a claim alleging hidden radical feminist messaging in advertisements
Speaking of strange.
> Lee's advocacy of merit-based processes such as exam scores, credentials, and measurable qualifications has been viewed by supporters as aligning with younger voters' expectations of fair competition.
I suppose all the political content was left out of the linked article, but it would be nice to have more context.
Also, looks like he’s at least somewhat technical:
> After graduating from Harvard University in 2007, Lee returned to Korea to perform military duties working as a software developer (alternative military service as industrial technical personnel) at 'Innotive', an image browsing software startup, a subsidiary of Nexon.
> After completing his national service, Lee prepared to start his own venture. He received funding from the venture startup program backed by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups on 5 August 2011 and founded Classe Studio: an ed-tech startup that developed personalized tutoring software and workplace training applications.
Interesting! The article talks mostly about how this all worked, but rarely about what was actually discussed. Which opinions of the party do you like or support?
Thanks for the question!
I’d prefer not to dive into policy positions here — the main focus of my post was the product-building process and what it was like to work behind the scenes.
He won't answer this because he knows it's abhorrent...
Enjoyed reading this! Nice job in throwing together something polished in such a short time
Thank you! It was chaotic but fun to build something real under that time pressure.
Glad you enjoyed the read!
I thought this was a fascinating story. Also cool to see the technical details like AWS in there.
Thanks a lot! Glad you enjoyed it :)
Thas was quite fun to read.
Thank you for sharing this short time of your (development) life, including all the reasons and logic on why and how.
Thank you so much for reading it. I’m really glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks for sharing! Really admire your bravery and trying new things.
Its an interesting read for sure.
With those little takeaways in between like talking to users first to understand their requirements, building an mvp and shipping it as early as possible I was half expecting the article ending with the kind of startup lessons/wisdom you typically see here on HN.
But I'm really glad it wasnt. Not everything has to have a grand lesson or takeaway. I enjoyed reading your once in a lifetime experience.
That was a great read!
Thanks a lot! Glad you enjoyed it!
Soon to be a Netflix series
I’m deeply honored. Thank you.
[dead]