Rubenerd

Shannon van Sant wrote for NPR:

Lee served as president of South Korea from 2008 until 2013. A court ruled Friday that before and during his presidency Lee accepted $5.4 million in bribes from Samsung, South Korea’s largest conglomerate.

I remember a gentleman tweeting me — since deleted, for some reason — that he bought Galaxy phones over iPhones because Samsung was, and I quote “more ethical” than “dodgy” Apple. It got a dozen or so likes.

In the early to mid 2000s I had a blog post series called it’s not Apple, so it’s okay, before I decided point-scoring was boring. But imagine for a second if Apple had been caught bribing American government officials to the tune of billions of dollars. The press and social media would DDoS themselves.

It still boggles my mind people can be that selfish; that company managers would be willing to risk the livelihoods of their employees, or a government official the jobs of their staff, for something as cheap as money. And even if you secured it all, I’d be living in fear the rest of my life that I’d be caught. Worrying on a caviar-filled yacht is no way to live.

Aside one: I’m so glad I’m on a social media sabbatical.

Aside two: I say “cheap as money” as someone who has enough of it for a roof over my head, food in my tummy, and train fare. And I’ll bet those involved in the scandal did too.