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Comment by pilsetnieks | Hacker News Reader

I mean this guy is NK's Kim level of crazy but you should see who he replaced: the previous president-for-life Niyazov is known for:

- renamed months and days of week to references to his own autobiography;

- banished dogs from the capital;

- banned lip syncing at concerts;

- banned recorded music at any public event and on television;

- built a palace of ice in the desert near the capital, so people could learn to skate;

- after quitting smoking himself, banned smoking and chewing tobacco for the entire country;

- outlawed opera, ballet, and circus because it's un-Turkmen-like;

- banned long hair and beards for men;

- banned makeup for news reporters;

- discouraged gold teeth and suggested that people should chew on bones like dogs to improve dental health;

- changed Turkmen language to rename bread (as in actual bread) and the month of April to Gurbansoltan, his mother's name.

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Just because I'm in a playful mood, I've always wondered if Kim is actually mentally unstable in the way many people suggest. Just reading through the Wikipedia page, it seems that he grew up in Switzerland and loves basketball. He was said to be shy and unassuming. His half brother was always supposed to inherit the "throne" (probably there is a better word for it), but was caught trying to go to Disneyland in Japan and lost favour. Kim Jong-un was then made the hasty replacement.

According the the Wikipedia page, Kim Jong-un is on record as having questioned the lavish lifestyle he had. His then-ousted brother was actually downright rude suggesting that the Chairmanship should not be inherited but rather democratically elected (this from a Japanese news report I heard -- I can't really vouch for its veracity, but interesting if true).

I remember when Kim Jong-un came to power and there were reports that hardliners in the party really hated him because they thought he was too soft. When he took over, he did do a lot of thing differently, like going to a pop concert with his then wife.

But then, suddenly: His wife is executed. His uncle's entire family line is eradicated. His elder brother is assasinated. And we hear no more about Kim Jong-un's "softer" approach to running the country. Any time I look at video from about 2012 to 2016 he looks like a deer with its eyes caught in the headlights. Lately it looks like he's got his feet under him and I figure it's because he's learned how to play ball.

I don't know. Like I said, I'm really just being playful, but western governments like their "Axis of Evil". You need the mad, evil villain to justify whatever they decide must be done (Wikipedia page mentions an attempted CIA led assassination...) What if it really was the case that Kim Jong-un is as much a victim as everyone else. Forced to take power. Forced to execute his wife, his uncle, his entire uncle's family and even his older brother. The entire country really being run by a brutal bureaucracy that doesn't care who they steamroll. That would be pretty craptastic.

Just so you know Ri Sol-ju is totally alive.

Correct. And even his ex-girlfriend (the singer) turned out to be alive: there were rumors about her execution but they were fake.

Evil is a spectrum, we're all on it

Banality of this comment...

Interesting word choice, maybe. Consider the "banality of evil". We like to think of it as something sensational, perpetrated by outlier individuals or small groups of extremists. In fact, it's everyday acts that cause greater harm in the long run. Buying a product that destroys the environment. Or yourself. Tolerating a system that burdens individuals and even entire countries with unrepayable debt. And so on. All quite banal.

> - built a palace of ice in the desert near the capital, so people could learn to skate;

This doesn’t seem weird, they aren’t actually that far south, and are very inland, so winters should still be pretty cool even if arid. (And doesn’t anyone remember watching spies like us in the 80s?)

- banned lip syncing at concerts;

- after quitting smoking himself, banned smoking and chewing tobacco for the entire country;

How are these two things bad?

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