The dictator teaches his people Americans are evil, and must be destroyed. The dictatorship is actively teaching citizens hacking skills--aimed at ruining American lives.
So no---don't give them anything other than food, and medicine.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26910467.
And miss an opportunity to infiltrate them with BIOS-level malware? That'd be a shame.
Did you miss the entire section of the previous century we refer to as the "Cold War"? the US and the Soviet Union kept missiles pointed at each other to deter each other from open war. South Korea and the US are doing routine military "exercises" near the North Korean border (just as NATO did near the Soviet Union's border). There's no reason to believe North Korea could ever destroy the entire US and come out alive, but making sure that if the US (or South Korea) decides to invade them it'll be as unpleasant as possible seems like a good survival strategy when even your closest ally, China, is unlikely to back you up in a war against the US.
> The dictator teaches his people Americans are evil, and must be destroyed.
Hyperbole aside, please read up a bit on the history of the Korean War. The US actively involved itself against the wishes of the UN and went on to commit more war crimes than either of the two Koreas. You can't fault North Korea for thinking of the US as evil after that.
> The dictatorship is actively teaching citizens hacking skills
In the same sense that the US government is actively teaching citizens military skills, sure. It's called military training and every country that maintains a standing army has it. There's no reason to paint this as nefarious by implying North Korea is mass enrolling janitors, teachers, basket weavers and rice farmers in "military black hat hacking 101" on udemy. Especially when this thing exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Army
> aimed at ruining American lives.
Citation needed. If what you mean is disrupting US infrastructure and harming its economy and military operations, then that's not unusual or particularly nefarious, even if you might disagree with it because you're on the receiving end. Remember when "someone" (speculated to be Israel and/or the US) sabotaged nuclear power plants in Iran?
> teaches his people Americans are evil, and must be destroyed
Just because I feel like I need to go back to this point: international media frequently portrays North Koreans as gullible mud farmers who believe their dear leader can teleport and landed a man on the sun. Throughout the early 2000s a common refrain in the US when talking about why Middle Eastern countries disliked the US was "they hate us for our freedoms". Remember when we had news articles for months about "Freedom Toast" and "Freedom Fries" because Americans were upset about France refusing to participate in the US's illegal military invasion? The president literally described several countries as an "axis of evil" and used religious language to describe the US and its justification for war.
If you take a step back and acknowledge the humanity of both peoples and that both of your governments engage in propaganda, it should become apparent that your entire argument can be summed up as "they have a different form of government, treat a larger share of their own population badly than we do and have conflicting geopolitical interests", which fine, but just cut out the moral grandstanding next time.
EDIT: This got downvoted (at least twice) but it's an honest response and explaining the reasoning behind either name seems redundant given the context of your question.
BTW, every one of my comments on this article has spent more time downvoted (i.e. less than 1 point) than upvoted although some fluctuate a lot. If you think this is about tone, phrasing, attitude or anything other than content, you're kidding yourself.
This isn't my first rodeo. I abandoned my old account a few years ago and took a hiatus until earlier this year with a fresh start. HN is an ideological echo chamber but sadly it's important because it's frequented by a significant amount of wealthy tech influencers (or "thought leaders" if you prefer that term) and VCs.
The sanctions on Cuba over the past 70 years have curtailed their access to food and medical equipment.
Beat policemen in America can have a "bad day" and execute someone they feel "threatened" by with near impunity. They happen to feel threatened by people with extra melanin more often than not.
In the 1940s, the start of the epoch you specified, we put Japanese in camps. You can just imagine what would have happened if there was a mainland invasion of the country.
Are those genocidal enough for you?
as mentioned by other commenters, the Indonesian genocide of '65-'66 was enthusiastically supported (watch The Act of Killing), along with numerous examples in Latin America. I know a few Salvadoran friends had family members who were murdered by the US-trained Atlacatl death squad. of course most were done in the name of anti-communism and are therefore sacrosanct in the American mythology.
and since we're on a thread about North Korea I would be remiss if I didn't also point out that the US killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Korean war, and one of our top generals at the time was a rabid advocate for genocide via nuclear attacks.
500k Iraqis
2000k Vietnamizes
300k Afghanis
This is ignoring any "indirect" involvement in many, many coups in south America.
I honestly think the world would be safer if you fucked off for 50 years or so. Find a pet project closer to home you're interested in, those Mexican kids won't put themselves in cages after all.
North Korea is being bullied for ideological reasons that lost meaning with the end of cold war. The solution is more integration in the international community, not more bulling that profit only a few politicians of one country.
> The dictator teaches his people Americans are evil, and must be destroyed.
Americans teach that North Korea is an evil country that must be destroyed. Your comment is a perfect example of this education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_invol...
If by "ideological reasons" you mean "human rights".