Mike Pesca Might Be Wrong & The Art of Korean Rock Throwing

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist – "Mike Pesca Might Be Wrong & The Art of Korean Rock Throwing"
Episode Date: April 25, 2026
Host: Mike Pesca, Peach Fish Productions

Episode Overview

This episode of The Gist is a classic two-parter. The first segment spotlights a lively and nuanced discussion between Mike Pesca and Jeff Mauer (host of “I Might Be Wrong”), focusing on the language and logic around labeling political leaders as "autocrats", specifically Viktor Orban and Donald Trump. The second half features Pesca’s deep-dive “spiel” into an unusual subject: the historical Korean tradition of organized rock-throwing battles. Throughout, the episode’s tone is conversational, witty, and just the right amount of provocatively skeptical.

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Segment 1: Debating the 'Autocrat' Label

Timestamps: 04:59 – 26:18

Key Discussion Points

• Context:
  Jeff Mauer invites Mike Pesca to discuss an article Pesca wrote about Viktor Orban’s recent defeat and the use (and misuse) of terms like “autocrat” and “authoritarian” in American and global political commentary.

• Pesca's Thesis:

  • Argues that if Orban was truly an autocrat (“rule by one, that you can't have any say in”—[13:42]), he couldn’t have lost an election.
  • Criticizes hyperbolic pronouncements (especially from academics, pundits, and media) about the perilous state of American democracy.

• Media Framing & Overstatement:

  • Overheated claims can demotivate voters or create voter apathy by making democratic participation seem futile (16:32).
  • Raises concerns about creating “boy who cried wolf” scenarios, weakening public trust when real dangers arise ([16:51]).
  • Points to overstatements from the V. Dem Institute and the Democratic Erosion Institute, e.g., "the speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history" ([14:57]).
  • "When you describe Trump as having more power than he actually has... you actually confer more power." – Mike Pesca ([23:34])

• Civil War Analogies:

  • Critiques alarmist talk of impending American “civil war,” comparing it to definitional drift and media incentives ([18:46]).
  • Cites researcher Barbara Walter and media amplification; points out most people equate civil war with mass violence, not academic thresholds of “100 politically violent deaths per year” ([19:16]).
  • Draws a parallel with post-9/11 terrorism fears: "It was totally overstated... [but] our law enforcement... monitored things to try to keep us safe and it generally worked" ([22:13]).

• Incentives for Alarmism:

  • Discussion of how academics, journalists, and commentators have incentives to exaggerate danger for attention and career advancement ([23:51]).
  • "If you're an academic and you do an analysis and you find us not at risk of civil war, well, that's going nowhere." – Jeff Mauer ([23:51])

• Key Terms – Definitions and Clarity:

  • Autocracy: “Rule by one, usually one with absolute power” (25:43, Pesca).
  • Conversation closes with defining “autocracy” and “authoritarianism,” with playful interjections and a sharp cut-off for the I Might Be Wrong paywall.

Notable Quotes

• “The only reason we really care in America is we map it onto our situation... It’s all about us.” – Jeff Mauer ([12:38])
• “A lot of our political scientists did not describe things correctly. And that's because I think they jumped right to the normative... as opposed to just calmly telling us what is.” – Pesca ([13:33])
• "When you describe Trump as having more power than he actually has... you actually confer more power." – Pesca ([23:34])
• "We shouldn't be injecting more danger than is real into the body politic." – Pesca ([20:52])

Memorable Moments

• Extended riffing and in-jokes about the band Cake and the “Cake KKK” ([21:26]); exemplifies the episode’s dry humor and comfortable rapport.
• Pesca and Mauer mock the proliferation of think tank and institute acronyms, lampooning media branding of “democracy in danger” studies ([14:38], [16:53]).
• Meta-commentary on podcasting itself: “That's 90 something percent of podcasting – three people vigorously agreeing with each other.” – Pesca ([09:17])

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Segment 2: The Art of Korean Rock Throwing

Timestamps: 27:18 – End (~33:45)

Key Discussion Points

• Historical Curiosity:
  Pesca explores a passage about 1890s Pyongyang defense tactics, where “expert stone throwers” were deployed against the Japanese army. He becomes fascinated by this lost tradition and uncovers its roots.

• Description of Korean Rock Battles:

  • Known as seol kajan, these semi-organized battles took place twice a year, with sometimes hundreds of participants—young men from rival towns or families ([27:35]).
  • The battles were brutal, involving polished stones, wooden/iron cudgels, and primitive armor. Children often participated, sometimes as young as eight ([28:30]).
  • "Stone throwers stood in the front rank, while the cudgel wielders formed the second rank... emboldened, of course, by that straw armor." – Pesca ([28:53])
  • Injuries, shattered teeth, and even deaths were considered “unavoidable accidents” ([29:53]).

• Cultural Analysis:

  • Pesca notes the tradition dates back to at least the 6th–7th centuries, complete with royal sponsorship ([30:34]).
  • Stone-throwing units were even attached to the military, but became obsolete due to advancements in weaponry and “a long period of peace” ([31:30]).

• Modern Decline:

  • The tradition faded as firearms replaced rocks; by the time the Japanese invaded, rocks were no match for rifles and artillery ([32:30]).
  • Pesca's tone remains tongue-in-cheek as he contrasts the proud tradition with the practical realities of modern warfare—"not since the Balinese Pointed Stick Brigade or the Malaysian Prickly Leaf Forces was such an arsenal just totally overlooked out of hubris." ([32:52])

Notable Quotes

• “In the winter, the people have nothing to do. So the strong and brave men of all the towns of Korea come to play and fight...” – 1903 Korean account quoted by Pesca ([29:30])
• "Straw armor? Seems that they didn’t have the deepest understanding of material science or three pig theory." – Pesca ([28:53])
• "Stone throwing as hobby seems to have subsided in the last century in Korea. And as a happy byproduct, the belief that a good rock tossing could repel an invader... has seemed to have faded away." – Pesca ([33:21])

Memorable Moments

• Pesca’s mock-serious anthropological asides: "If you have a stone, all you're going to do is piss off an adversary, you would have been better off surrendering. The French knew that." ([33:40])
• Gently sardonic treatment of cultural relativism: “I am an outsider... In these matters, it is best to let he who is without sin look at that large pile of stone at his feet and say, yeah, this is a terrible idea.” ([33:50])

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Additional Information

• Relevant Links/References:

  • Pesca’s articles on Substack and The Free Press (topic of discussion)
  • V. Dem Institute and Democratic Erosion Institute studies (cited and critiqued)

• Tone & Style:

  • Conversational, direct, often sarcastic but empirically minded; hosts avoid partisan dogma and prefer clear-eyed skepticism.
  • Frequent injections of humor, especially when ribbing media conventions, academic groupthink, and historical oddities.

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Listening Guide – Key Timestamps

• 09:02–11:40: Opening banter, setup of Viktor Orban discussion
• 13:24–16:32: Media and academic overstatement of autocracy
• 18:46–23:51: Civil war analogies and dangers of alarmism
• 25:10–26:18: Defining 'autocracy' and 'authoritarianism'
• 27:18–33:45: The spiel: “The Art of Korean Rock Throwing”
• 28:30–29:53: Vivid description of traditional battles and their dangers
• 32:30–33:50: Modern implications and cultural analysis

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Conclusion

In this episode, Pesca and Mauer model civil disagreement that is both substantive and entertaining, dissecting the language and self-interest underlying today's political alarmism. The second half offers a memorable detour into history’s oddities, combining research with dry humor. Both segments reflect Pesca’s hallmark style: surprising, reasonable, and “willing to critique... any idea.”

Transcript

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[C]

Hello, if you're hearing this, that means you are not currently a paid subscriber to the I might Be Wrong podcast, but you can become one@I might be wrong.org and great news. Right now I am running a special third millennium sale for the next 974 years. You can get a subscription for only six bucks a month if you get the yearly plan and $7.50 if you go month to month. And what does that get you? Well, that gets you access to all the stuff I Typically do four articles and two podcasts a week. A free subscription gets you half that crap. A full subscription gets you all all that crap. You also get full access to the archives, which is now more than a thousand articles and podcasts. You get priority. When I do a Q and A, you can comment on all the articles, you can participate in all the threads, and I'm gonna be honest, on the articles and threads that are behind the paywall, we mostly talk about you. We talk about you. I do a really funny impression of you, but if you're not behind the paywall, you'll never hear it. What else do you get? Well, you get the warranty, two year warranty. You get priority boarding on all domestic flights. Just wander straight onto the plane, just head straight on, push a person in a wheelchair out of the way and say, I get priority. I subscribe to. I might be wrong. Trust me, they know what that means and they allow it. You also, and this is maybe not even worth mentioning, but you get my sincere thanks because I'm an independent comedy media guy who gets to just say whatever I want without a network getting in my ear. And I'm able to do that because of the paid subscriptions. So I really do appreciate everyone who makes that possible. And what follows is a preview of this week's episode. Hopefully just enough to draw you in, but not enough to make you think, alright, that's plenty. I try to give you a good chunk of the episode and then put the paywall in the most annoying place I possibly can because my goal is to make you go, gah, fine, you piece of shit, I'll subscribe because I will accept your contempt if I also get your $6. So here we go with the preview. Please enjoy. I've got a guest on the podcast today, it's Mike Pesca. I think it's fair to call Mike Pesca a friend of the POD at this point. Mike is a guy who always says what he thinks, which is the only type of person I'm interested in listening to. You probably know Mike from the Gist podcast, which wasn't it also a radio show? It was an NPR thing at one point, and then not. I think it started out as a stage play, it was like a vaudeville thing and then eventually it morphed into a podcast. So you know him from that and the hundred million NPR shows that he was on back in the day and he wrote for Slate. He's now on substack. Mike Pesca, substack.com and he's now very recently started doing the how to podcast that's now called how to with Mike Pesca. It'd be funny if it had been called that. And then they were like, guys, we really gotta book Mike Pesca for this. We've really gotten out over our skis calling the show that before he's part of it, we've got to get him, pay him whatever it takes. Anyway, he's on that. The reason I wanted to talk to him this week is because he wrote an article that was both in the Free press and on his blog post that I sort of disagreed with. That's always when I want to have someone I like. On the podcast, Mike wrote an article about Viktor Orban and what his defeat means. And I won't summarize the article because Mike's about to do it. We're gonna talk about what authoritarianism means, what it doesn't mean, what's the difference between an authoritarian system and an authoritarian guy. And we're gonna start with what it means in Hungary, but then of course, make it all about the United States because we're both Americans and that's what Americans do. So here's the interview. Take it away. Me, Mike Pesca, welcome back to the podcast.

[B]

Oh, thanks for having me back. Let's get, let's get into it.

[C]

Let's do it. We do. I know that's the best time to have someone you're normally simpatico with on the podcast is when you disagree because people don't want to hear us be like, well, that's also a good point. We've got.

[B]

Well, I would think that people don't want to hear that, but that's 90 something percent of podcasting. You're, you know, three people vigorously agreeing with each other.

[C]

It's because you can.

[B]

Odds will save.

[C]

It's because you can typically get people on your podcast if they think it's going to be a friendly interview. That's why. So you get them on because you know, you're close enough in your thinking and then you, yeah, you just get on and wake each other off.

[B]

I like to have like minded people on the podcast and then just be a dick to them.

[C]

You do? Yeah. And I have been on your podcast and it was quite an experience. So now turnabouts. Fair play, motherfucker. Now you're on my podcast. But we, here's the thing. I don't know if we have a disagreement or not. We're going to, we're going to find out. We're sort of both trying to find the words to describe Orban and Trump. And figure out. Sexy, hot, lithe, nubile, taut. Both words. No. Okay, all right, now you're being vulgar. But both words. All words that describe both men. So you wrote an article that you were kind of. Well, you were thinking out loud about the word autocrat and whether it applies to Orban. And if some people are overstating it and the consequences of that, I'd like to start by. Could you just kind of run us through the article? Basically make it so nobody has to pay for your work. Can you just tell us what the article says?

[B]

I put it on my substack for free, even though it ran in the Free Press for pay. Isn't that ironic? The Free Press.

[C]

The Free Press wants you to pay. Okay, so truth in advertising, not so much. Free Press.

[B]

Yeah, unless you're an Ellison. The. I guess they paid the most, didn't they? Like, do you think Larry turns a day like 150 million? What the hell?

[C]

Free at all. Expensive. Expensive press.

[B]

Barry. She's good, dad. She's good. I don't know. What's the dynamic? Who are we describing?

[C]

I have no idea what we're talking about. Thanks for coming on, Mike. We'll have you back some other time.

[B]

So.

[C]

Oh, yeah, go ahead.

[B]

The headline in on the mike pasco.substack.com and on the Free Press was the same, what kind of Autocrat loses an Election? And on the Free Press, which I don't have open, it was a little explanation, something like, so many of the pundits called Viktor Orban an autocrat, but given that he lost, I don't think he was. And my subhead was. Was something very terse originally, like, not a good autocrat, which is maybe a little funny, but people hated that. And I changed the subhead, and I've never done this at all. And I did it because I didn't want to lose subscribers who were just incensed saying, Pesk has become an Orban apologist. So my. My subhead now is, I think maybe the point of the piece, the larger point, what kind of autocrat loses an election? How to beat Trump is how Hungary beat Orban. Just vote him out. And so my thesis is much of the description of what Orban did to Hungary. And then, of course, the only reason we really care in America is we map it onto our situation.

[C]

It's all about us.

[B]

Yeah, right. And, you know, we are bigger and more important, of course.

[C]

I mean, it is all about us,

[B]

the way people were describing it. And Using the word autocrat and saying. And I play a clip explicitly from John Oliver. He's an English comedian who's on.

[C]

Never heard of him. Never heard of him.

[B]

I play saying essentially, Orban has so tilted the playing field or made elections free but not fair that you could vote for anyone you want and then they'll lose to Orban. The thinking was he's rigged the game. No one could win but Orban. People go out and they have votes, but these are just an exercise in futility because Orban has done to the constitutional system there what Trump is accused of doing here.

[C]

And.

[B]

And it's something much less than democracy. Even Orban reveled in calling it illiberal democracy. It's autocracy. And so people called Orban a dictator. They say Trump is maybe wants to be a dictator. Burgeoning dictator. They call him an autocrat. An autocrat means rule by one.

[C]

Right?

[B]

Rule by one that you can't have any say in. And we know now from the results of the election that he wasn't an autocrat. This doesn't mean that he was a good guy or it was all fair or it wasn't rigged. It was rigged a little bit. Maybe Trump is trying to rig the election a little bit. He definitely is. But I do think that a. Are a lot of our political scientists did not describe things correctly. And that's because I think they jumped right to the normative, like what should be, as opposed to just calmly telling us what is. And I don't think I know that the state of America's democracy is much less wet than. Than or much better off than what some of our leading political scientists, like this one guy from the V. Dem Institute in Sweden. Oh, don't get me started on the Sweden, the Swedish and the way they talk. Who literally says our.

[C]

We spent some time before the podcast pointing on what is the most ridiculous accent and both of us immediately settled on Swedish. So, Mike, I would like you to please read now. Actually, don't. No, I'm going to start an international incident. But just know it would be 10 times funnier if you really laid the accent on thick. Go ahead, what's the quote, please?

[B]

But yes. So V. Dem Institute comes out. Here's a Guardian headline which is accurately explaining to their readers what the V. Dem Institute has found. American democracy on the brink. A year after Trump's inauguration. Experts say. I guess that has a little bit of wiggle room in the description. I just don't agree with it. I think our. I think Donald Trump's this gigantic danger, and I think the way out of the danger is to vote against him and the votes will be counted and then the Democrats will win in the midterms. And who. Who knows what will happen in 28, but it will be fair. Another quote from this guy from the V. Dem Institute is the V. Dem Institute said in 2026 that quote, the speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history. They also say that US Democracy is. Is now back at the worst recorded level since 1965. So this is before the 1966 voting rights. Civil Rights Act. Yeah. What are you talking about? And they will explain what they're talking about at length in the Guardian, but it's just not true. There's another group called the. The Democratic Erosion Institute. They sound like fun people. America demoted to flawed democracy. I mean, when weren't we. But we're a democracy. Insofar as you ask the regular person, what's definition of a democracy? Oh, you get to vote for your leaders. What if the votes don't count? Then it's not a democracy. Okay. Will the votes count? I hope so, because I'm going to vote and guess what? They're going to count. That's a little bit of my bottom line.

[C]

Yeah. And I also, there is definitely a danger here of people thinking, oh, it doesn't matter, the system is rigged. Why vote? Why bother? And I understand the value of not wanting people to think that. If people have thought that in Hungary, we'd still have Orban because nobody would have turned out and voted against them.

[B]

If people had listened to the Democratic

[C]

Erosion Consortium, which really sounds like they are involved in, like, plants. Plants and potting soil and that type of thing. Beyond just the danger of people thinking, what the hell, it's all pointless. I'm not even going to vote. There is just this problem that I've written about a lot because it keeps popping up on the left where it is possible to overstate the danger from Trump to overstate how bad the stuff he's doing. Some of the quotes you just read, you know, unprecedented in the history of democracy or whatever that was like, well, that sounds like a good way to overstate. I mean, all the countries. I don't know how far back you extend, you know, modern times, but surely there is a worse deterioration of democracy than what we're experiencing now. And some of the stuff can be so hyperbolic that it takes you into a boy who cried wolf situation. And I feel like this constantly happened before this. The 24 election, especially since Trump had served one term. There was a lot of. It wasn't that bad the first time around. And unfortunately, every time somebody said, well, you know, people said thing 1, 2 and 3 was going to happen in his first term, and then it didn't. Then they had a little bit of a point in that some of the stuff is hyperbolic. I mean, get on Blue sky, watch some msnbc. It is possible to overstate the danger. And even somebody like me, who, you know, I don't know how to phrase it, but I don't like Trump at all. I think he's a terrible guy, and I hope we're rid of him soon. But even I would experience some of that stuff and think you've taken it too far. Right. Is that part of your concern here? Not just the nuts and bolts of people not voting, but also just almost forcing people to take Trump's side by saying, like, okay, well, now you. You're overstating it.

[B]

Yeah, I definitely. And also, there's an analogy with the discussion about civil war. And so for a time, this researcher named Barbara Walters said. Not Walters. Barbara Walters said Barbara Walter.

[C]

Very confusing.

[B]

It's very confusing.

[C]

Could you do the Barbara Walters voice, though, for her?

[B]

No. And I think, like everyone, we just do people doing impressions of Baba Wawa.

[C]

Of course, yes.

[B]

This is why we have come to

[C]

be doing Rachel Drash

[B]

to talk about. She studied every revolution in the world. She said, America fits in with this trend. And so we're going to. We're going to have a revolution. Revolution's inevitable. And many people took up this call. And then the debate even became, are we going to have a civil war, or are we already having a civil war? And what this hinged on was a definition of civil war, which might be useful if you're a researcher, or it might be useful in an academic context, but it was something like 100 people a year killed in the name of political violence. And that is just not how most people think of a civil war. They'll also do this game, the people predicting a civil war. Well, it won't be gray coats and blue coats standing in a field with muskets. No, I know it's not 1864, but. But we think about, you know, we think about some of these dystopian movies that have come out. We think about civil war. We think about many people dying, many hundreds of people dying. So I do not think we are going to have a civil war. And I think that there is a caustic consequence to Keep running the MSNBC segment now. Ms. Now or then MSNBC now, now. In that it convinces people, it radicalizes the, the people on the other side. And this actually has been documented that a lot of the reason why people turn to violence is they're very certain that the other side is a second away from taking their own lives and guns and liberty. And this happens on both sides. And a lot of the left wing

[C]

assassin Flight 93 election logic, you know, we have to take extreme measures because

[B]

we're faced with MSNBC viewers, left wing viewers do this too. We shouldn't be injecting more danger than is real into the body politic. So I think we could see it.

[C]

Can I, can I interrupt there before you go further? Shouldn't be injecting more danger, but then also there is some danger. Would you agree with that?

[B]

Absolutely. It's just like.

[C]

I think that's why it's tricky.

[B]

The strongest analogy. And civil war is also tied up with white nationalists and proud boys and you know, the new Cake kk. This gets overstated to the.

[C]

The Cake kk.

[B]

The Cake does that.

[C]

Does everything to do with the band Cake because I like the band Cake.

[B]

If they have a KKK is going the distance and they're going for speed, they have long hoods and a white short jacket.

[C]

I like that. I like the band Cake enough that if they were affiliated with the kkk, I'd be like, I don't like, I don't like their new direction. But I'll give it a listen. I'll listen.

[B]

Or the white nationalist TV show. Is it Cake kk, Right, where's it,

[C]

where's the bottom of this? Well, where does this end? Sorry, go back to. I took us off track. Sorry.

[B]

No, this is why we love you. The concern about white nationalists and concern about the danger thereof. The best statistics will say there's something like 60 or sometimes 30 murders a year by white nationalists. And of the 30 to 40, 25 or guys they used to serve in prison with or other members of biker gangs or meth distribution beefs. So there's very little, there's very little bona fide violence from white nationalists as white nationalists. So the answer is. But what do you do about it? Do you just slough it off? Do you just say that or civil war is not going to happen? No, you do exactly what we did about the threat of Islamic terrorism after 9 11. It was totally overstated. Our law enforcement sometimes went too far but monitored things to try to keep us safe and it generally worked. And that's what our law enforcement is doing. Now, you talk to most people in the FBI and the people tasked with this, and I have. They're not nearly as concerned about it. Even the people who study it every day and go undercover. I interviewed a guy, I went undercover with these guys in a biker gang, and he wouldn't say that, you know, this is something that the average person definitely needs to worry about, but it's out there and the professionals worry about it. But your question was. So I think it's pretty clear when violence is in the air, how it begets counter violence. What about just a concept of autocracy? And if we're describing that wrong, and in general, I don't think it always happens, but I do think you lose the risk when you describe Trump as having more power than he actually has. Like these Guardian headlines, american Democracy on a Brink. When you describe him as having more power, you actually confer more power. And one of the ways it shows up, not in Democrats voting against him or going to no Kings rallies, but in Republicans telling themselves or, you know, other elected Republicans, you know, I dare not. I dare not break with this guy.

[C]

Yeah. One thing that's certainly in play is what you might call the lonely academic problem. Though I suppose it'd be unfair to pick out just academics because it also applies to, you know, journalists and absolutely, you know, podcasters slash substack writers. If you're an academic and you do an analysis and you find us not at risk of civil war, well, that's going nowhere. That's not gonna boost your Q rating. Nobody's gonna publish that. It's certainly not gonna get written up in the Guardian. So you go, okay, well, I'll tweak it to us is going to have a civil war. And now you're on the Today show, and it's the same thing, you know, in our world, in the substack podcast world. Talk about inflammatory stuff, exaggerate problems, because it's more interesting to talk about. Oh, we're on the. We're poised on a knife's edge. We're dancing on the rim of the volcano here than to just say, this thing is a problem of a certain size. By the way, I thought the terrorism analogy was a very good one. It's bad terrorism. You know, this is my hot take. Terrorism is bad. But it is also possible to be too concerned about it. So concerned that you're, you know, overreacting and implementing fixes that are worse than the problem.

[B]

Right.

[C]

That is the danger here, or pulling

[B]

Everyone off the mafia beat to study terrorism. That just about plot points from the Sopranos.

[C]

I think that counts as a fix that's worse than the problem. It's because you're not seeing things clearly. The problem is in fact inflated. Let's try to define some terms here. Can we start with autocracy? Because that word features prominently in your piece. So I'm springing this on you, but do you have a definition of autocracy ready to go? If not, maybe we can grope towards

[B]

one rule by one, usually one with absolute power. It has to be ruled by one.

[C]

Yeah. Otherwise the auto thing doesn't make sense and the Krat does. The. The C is still up for debate. But the auto and the Krat. So does it have to be absolute power? If somebody is close to having absolute power, but not quite, are they not an autocrat?

[B]

I think they're a schmautocrat at that point. That's Schmotocracy. Then there are other good terms out there like authoritarianism.

[C]

And here's the annoying part where I fade in and you think, wow, he was telling the truth about putting the paywall in the most annoying spot he could. And if you would like to never feel that feeling again and also find out what people in the comments section are saying about that shirt you wore on Thursday. You can get a paid [e-mail] Six bucks a month if you act soon. And by soon, I mean before the year 3000. I hope you enjoyed the preview and bye for now. On Deck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps On Deck

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[B]

does not lend in North Dakota. All loans in amounts subject to lender approval. And now the spiel. If you heard part one of my interview, you heard that my interest was piqued by a sentence or two in in Jonathan's book, this was in 1894. Hapless officials ordered piles of rocks to be gathered along the city wall so Pyongyang's expert stone throwers could muster a defense. This defense did not work, but the reference to expert stone throwers led me to believe that this was something of an institution, that these were known People who could be called upon to cast rocks at the Japanese army or. Or to defend their Chinese supporters. And indeed, I found some references after doing many deep dives into the tradition of Korean stone throwing. Here is an article from the Korea Times. Lunar New Year, a time for manly sport. In 1903, these events took place or before. There was a lithograph from that era. Here we go. It's a little long, but the prose just sings. The city walls and nearby hills were covered with a great mass of white clad Koreans standing down into a vacant lot with nervous anticipation. In harsh voices, bets were made between the men, sealed with drinks of alcohol and punctuated with horse laughter. Oh, hoarse. While children push their way eagerly for a better view of the impending stone battle. The stone battles, known as seal kajan, were held twice a year throughout the country, usually in vacant fields just outside the city gates, you know, windows. The participants were generally the young men of two different villages or families and their friends that had suffered some wrong from their opponents. These battles were especially brutal and usually involved several hundred men. The two teams advanced towards each other, their approach heralded by the intense taunting and cheering of spectators. The combatants were armed with stones that had been popped, polished and rounded by boys, as well as iron and wooden cudgels. I'm going to stop there and say the cudgels seem a little more potent than the stones. And would you really want to polish and round the stones? I'd say a jagged stone might be better. What do I know? These guys are the experts. It goes on iron and wooden. Wooden cudgels, armor of twisted straw, wooden shields and leather caps for helms. The stone throwers stood in the front rank, while the cudgel wielders formed the second rank. They were emboldened, of course, by that straw armor. Straw armor? Seems that they didn't have the deepest understanding of material science or three pig theory. Back to the document. Suddenly one of the leaders shouted a battle cry and was answered by a barrage of stones, and the two sides raced across the vacant expanse towards each other. These battles lasted for hours, if not days, and surged from one side of the field to the other, causing the spectators that had gotten too close to the action to flee for their lives or be trampled. The rush of the fleeing participants and their pursuers. They could use some straw armor, know what I'm saying? Mothers brought their sons, some as young as eight. Large crowds gathered to watch the battles, make wagers, encourage their sons and yell curses at the other side, much like our modern Little League games. I could think of some differences. And of course, back then, the under 12 stone throwing travel team tryouts were cutthroat. Literally one boy on each side, the bravest and the cockiest was chosen to act as the leader. Given a red felt hat to serve as a helmet, felt again, a poor understanding of how materials worked, what they can withstand and repel. Stones whistled through the air and rained down on the young boys club met flesh and bone, bruising and breaking. When it did, screams of pain from the children. An excitement of the crowd filled the air. The injuries were horrendous. Broken bones and noses, shattered teeth, bruised bodies and not surprisingly, they were often casualties. Well, of course there were casualties, mean injuries, but in this case he actually means deaths. The deaths were deemed unavoidable accidents. Of course you should know the translation from the Korean of the phrase unavoidable accident is our English word for murder aforethought, premeditated murder. So this was in 1884, the exact year. This account that I found was in the exact year of that battle of Pyongyang. And it was explained why they did it by a Westerner, just as in Jonathan Chang's book, a Westerner looking at this and saying, this is kind of weird and I know we're not supposed to go in and put our values on them, but if we didn't see it as weird, I wouldn't have these accounts. Here was the explanation given to the Westerner. In the winter, the people have nothing to do. So the strong and brave men of all the towns of Korea come to play and fight. The strong men of one town fight the strong men of the other town. I go to the wall of the city to look. People must not fight in the city, have to keep it far away. Then they throw stones at each other and beat each other with sticks. If they kill each other, it does not matter now. It couldn't have started, I don't think, in the 1880s. Indeed it did not. I did more research and I found Some references to 6th and 7th century versions of this tradition. The following passage from the history of Sui related to the stone battles of Gogorio. At the beginning of each year, the king's subjects played the stone battle game on the banks of the Daedong River. The king himself was present at these games. His subjects, who were divided into two teams, threw stones and yelled at each other while chasing one another into the water. The Stone Battle of Gorgia. And it says that despite his subjects wishes to the contrary king who just the Letter U. King U of Goryo is said to have often enjoyed watching the stone battle games. Why would his subjects not like him watching them? They seem to be pretty proud of the stone throwing. Did they think it was shameful? Did they think that they'd like some subsidies from the government, which wasn't doing its part to give them the good rocks? Guerrilla's military in fact had unit affiliated stone battle teams as well as a separate stone battle corps. But then what happened is they use these stones and cultivated them and trained on them for wartime use. But here is a quote from the book. But they turned out to be of no use due to. And here I thought it would say their stones and even a pointed arrow will defeat them, though it says they were of no use due to a long period of peace. May I suggest that Pax Korea may have given the Koreans a false sense of security not in their stone throwing prowess, but in the potency of the weapon itself. I could just imagine for decades and decades, them drilling and drilling and telling themselves, we have gotten so good at throwing these stones. Should anyone wish to invade us, we will surely repel them. Because compared to decades earlier, the stones are even rounder, our straw armor is even fluffier, and we've been throwing them a good five to ten feet further. In any case, the Koreans, I would say, seem to hold on to this tradition a little too long. Because in the 1890s, when they were getting their stones in a pile as the Japanese were approaching, here is a description I found of the Japanese and the Chinese army. The Hua army had China's best troops. They were equipped with Mauser breech loader rifles, Krupp artillery pieces, and large quantities of ammunition. And guess what? The Japanese beat them and captured their rifles, artillery pieces and ammunition. That was left behind somehow unmentioned in the spoils of war, were all the rocks, which I'm sure the Japanese looked at and said, get these out of here. What are these rocks doing here? In the way of me taking these Mauser breech loaded rifles, I got to tell you, not since the Balinese Pointed Stick Brigade or the Malaysian Prickly Leaf Forces was such an arsenal. Just totally overlooked out of hubris. Poor hubris by the Japanese. Stone throwing as hobby seems to have subsided in the last century in Korea. And as a happy byproduct, the belief that a good rock tossing could repel an invader or protect the homeland has seemed to have faded away. Really, if you have a stone, all you're going to do is piss off an adversary, you would have been better off surrendering. The French knew that. The Swiss tactic of neutrality, it's a much, much greater improvement upon the manly art of stone throwing. And now Kim Jong Un has invested in, I guess, the most modern of stone's nuclear weapons. But you know, without his rock hurling forefathers, would he understand how deterrence work? Yes, yes, he probably would. I would imagine. Natural selection probably has eradicated the kind of thinking that says no substitute for a good rock at your side. But again, who am I to judge? Like I said, I am an outsider. I am coming in. This is another culture, possibly another slinging technique, I don't know, sidearm running start that I can't even anticipate. In these matters, it is best to let he who is without sin look at that large piles of stone at his feet and say, yeah, this is a terrible idea. And that's it for today's show. Cory Warra produces the Gist. Kathleen Sykes runs the Gist List, Jeff Craig edits How to, and Ben Astaire is our booking coordinator. Michelle Pesk is the COO of Peach Fish Productions in Peru. G Peru Duper. And thanks for listening.