My old boss was Korean and he told me about those protests. He was a college student at the time and often waxes poetically about how easy college was back then and he'd just skip it all the time to go in the street and protest. Then he got super rich from the new government. It's probably a little bit of both, maybe don't get so irrationally upset over HN comments. He's not calling the south koreans pigs. Americans are the same way, we ignore government abuses because our lives in general are comfortable enough we simply don't care much more than to comment about it on the internet.