I got a few questions about North Korea (NK) and South Korea (SK):
1 - Should there be a conflict between SK and NK, would the lives of Americans change in a massive way? Europeans? Will I miss a few extra electronics (assuming that NK wins, which is highly unlikely)?

The answer is no.

2 - Does SK deserve continued defense against NK's -- at times -- schizophrenic foreign policy?

Goodness no! Whether you like it or not, the country is quite anti-American, has no valuable resources (such as oil) that US really wants/needs and has been more than just a tad anti-Semitic in the past, with almost no attempt to reconcile these social faults of their own. They shall sleep in the bed that they made for themselves.

3 - Does the Korean peninsula even matter?

No. Say we have this scenario, NK attacks, is getting its ass handed to it by SK (who has a better military), at which point China steps in and "liberates" the entire Korean peninsula. Ok. The worst possible outcome is the loss of all those Starcraft "champions" and chubby-dear-leader-version-3.0 masturbating that much more.

Should there be a war in that part of the world, US (and anyone else that has half a brain) should just sip cocktails while crafting strongly worded letters. Oh, and, make some coin selling weapons to Seoul.

I'm rather curious to see where this topic will go in a couple of posts.

On-topic: whereas your question 1 is silly and question 2 makes some valid grounds for debate, it's question 3 that invalidates anything that you might say or think in any meaningful context. Let me put it in perspective: why does the US matter? Truthfully, the world could easily be a far better/easier place without it. Wouldn't it, therefore, make more sense to just let the entire country burn in the flames of its massive debt?

I got a few questions about North Korea (NK) and South Korea (SK):
1 - Should there be a conflict between SK and NK, would the lives of Americans change in a massive way? Europeans? Will I miss a few extra electronics (assuming that NK wins, which is highly unlikely)?

The answer is no.

Let's go back to 1935-1945 period. Should there be a conflict between Germany, England & France, would the lives of Americans change in a massive way? Will I miss a few extra machinery, some inmigrants they send, and a bunch of scientific papers?
The answer at that time would be no too.

NK has a leader that genuinely believes is a god-like being that descended from heavens, and constantly talks about the greatness of his country and how it should be ruling the entire world. It's natural to think it won't stop at SK. And it has nukes. And every other country in the neighbour that may get involved (willingly or not) has nukes too.

(assuming that NK wins, which is highly unlikely)

You're missing the point. In a war where everyone's got nukes, nobody wins. That was the whole point of the Cold War.

The last thing the United States needs to do right now is to show their allies that they were just posturing, and won't honor their contracts to support their allies when bullets start whizzing by. The last thing the United States needs, is to show the entire world that we'll pull out of friendly nations, just because unfriendly nations start rattling their sabers. Especially small unequipped unfriendly nations. If we flee from the rat (North Korea), the tiger (China) will feel emboldened to do what they please in that part of the world. The Koreas, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan would lose most of their national freedom.

If I say I'm going to back you, I should try to back you, even if it comes at my expense. Long-term, we'll hurt worse if we back down - unless you want North Korea to continue developing nuclear weapons, and then sell them to all the nations who hate us.

I'm rather curious to see where this topic will go in a couple of posts.

On-topic: whereas your question 1 is silly and question 2 makes some valid grounds for debate, it's question 3 that invalidates anything that you might say or think in any meaningful context. Let me put it in perspective: why does the US matter? Truthfully, the world could easily be a far better/easier place without it. Wouldn't it, therefore, make more sense to just let the entire country burn in the flames of its massive debt?

Yes.

Given the social, economic and political norms (political correctness, perceived morals, etc.), when the dollar's value is around nothing, bailing the US out (heck, bailing anything/anyone out) is moronic unless there is an absurdly good reason (the said entity has all of the resources that the world needs and others can gain later by bailing out the entity now).

Let's go back to 1935-1945 period. Should there be a conflict between Germany, England & France, would the lives of Americans change in a massive way? Will I miss a few extra machinery, some inmigrants they send, and a bunch of scientific papers?
The answer at that time would be no too.

That's not a valid comparison, not by a long shot. UK, France, etc. were not countries that were anti-American entities. They actively supported the US in one way or another given that they knew Germany was not playing nice.

NK has a leader that genuinely believes is a god-like being that descended from heavens, and constantly talks about the greatness of his country and how it should be ruling the entire world. It's natural to think it won't stop at SK. And it has nukes. And every other country in the neighbour that may get involved (willingly or not) has nukes too.

Yes, yes, their leader is -- from the outside -- scary delusional. There's a reason to deify the dear leader: power. I say let them worship their pudgy overlords.

As for the nukes, honestly, whatever nuclear capacity that they have is along the lines of a joke. Their nuclear tests have either been inconclusive -- when one of those goes off, you can hear shockwaves in the earth around the globe, this didn't always happen in NK's case -- and having 1 to 5 nukes doesn't make you a military threat (although it boosts your ego). There's a reason why the US tried to get Japan to give up -- similar case -- after making them think that they have hundreds of nukes instead of just two.

You're missing the point. In a war where everyone's got nukes, nobody wins. That was the whole point of the Cold War.

You know, I'd love to believe that, I really would. But you're making a lot of assumptions:
1 - NK has a reliable and accurate nuclear weapons delivery platform. Their rockets are a step above SCUDs.
2 - Their nukes are reliable to detonate when they need to. No evidence of this to date.
3 - They actively want war that could topple their regime or at least make them puppets of Beijing.

If this was a global exchange, similar to the one between US and USSR, then yes, we'd all be royally screwed. Mad Max tenfold. However, even in the worst case, Pyongyang just doesn't have the capability to do something like this.

The last thing the United States needs to do right now is to show their allies that they were just posturing, and won't honor their contracts to support their allies when bullets start whizzing by.

SK is a US ally? What makes you think that SK and US are -- in any way -- good buddies?

The last thing the United States needs, is to show the entire world that we'll pull out of friendly nations, just because unfriendly nations start rattling their sabers.

The unfriendly nations will always rattle. But SK is a friendly nation? Since when?

I urge you to re-read my initial post about SK and note the rising anti-Americanism in the country. The better question to ask is: Why help countries that hate you?

The Koreas, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan would lose most of their national freedom.

Well, the Koreas don't like us as it is and since they're adults, they can deal with their problems.

As for the assumption that Taiwan and Japan will be invaded or taken over somehow by China, that's a pretty absurd jump in logic and holds more than a train-load of assumptions. How does leaving SK to fend for itself automatically have China landing troops in Japan and Taiwan? <---- please answer that for me.

If I say I'm going to back you, I should try to back you, even if it comes at my expense.

You can do that. And that would be a foolish thing to do. When you have one group of people helping/defending another that actively hate their benefactors, then the former deserve anything bad that might happen to them.

Actually, you've indadvertedly stepped at the heart of this issue: continued US support for SK -- given its anti-American position and stance in society and government -- is just plain stupid. American foreign policy is downright idiotic to support this government after it has thrown dirt in the face of Uncle Sam.

Long-term, we'll hurt worse if we back down - unless you want North Korea to continue developing nuclear weapons, and then sell them to all the nations who hate us.

They've done that already. So what's the concern further?

SK, is pretty pro-American, in worldview and economic interests and practices if nothing else.

But it's irrelevant. The US is formally, legally bound to assist SK militarily in a variety of curcumstances. Disregarding those obligations would have serious destabilizing effects on US interactions with all the nations we treat with, particularly in Asia. That alone would probably be worth intervening in at least some capacity, your fairly shallow analysis notwithstanding.

Just the same, I would very much prefer that there be no outbreak of war.

Really? That's it?