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Comment by emteycz | Hacker News Reader

Why is it surprising that the top 1% programmers of an entire country (many of them probably with western education) can produce quality software when put under deadly threat?

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Look the government of NK sucks, but I think your model of the world is wrong if you think they are being forced to build this operating system under deadly threat. I doubt they had to take this job, it is probably a pretty prestigious one in NK society.

Plus plenty of people in other countries do the same work as their hobby. I doubt North Koreans needed any coercion to build it.

I knew a South Korean prof who chose to live in North Korea (as a philanthropic act) and teach at their top university (His research was in Embedded Electronics). Conversations with him completely changed my mind on North Korea, because prior to that my only context was through American/Canadian mainstream media (read: propaganda). I still think its a dictatorial regime that needs to be abolished and the North Korean people deserve democracy, but the day to day life of an average North Korean residing in a large city is not very different than any of us here.

This.

If anyone thinks North America isn't actively involved in propaganda as well, they are delusional.

The amount of "anti-china" comments i come across on the internet is shocking, and I can tell the posters have never left the US, let alone been to the country of their targeted "hate". Where do these strong views come from if they haven't been there, and probably have minimal contact with people who have?

Probably comes from the fact that you can't meet North Koreans because the ones who try to leave get shot.

You can meet North Koreans. US media generally doesn't have any interest in meeting them because they don't always answer questions about North Korea in the required way. US media prefers its North Koreans either silent or pitched to them by the wholly funded thinktanks of defense contractors.

One should separate anti-China with anti-CCP. The majority of comments are not the former, but the latter, and for good reason, as the CCP itself works in opposition to the Chinese people much of the time.

"but the day to day life of an average North Korean residing in a large city is not very different than any of us here."

Sure thing, I had to sneak out into the woods as well, to set my black pirated satellite internet connection up.

"Internet access is not generally available in North Korea. Only some high-level officials are allowed to access the global internet.[47] In most universities, a small number of strictly monitored computers are provided.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_North_Korea#Inte..."

When people say Hacker News doesn't have an intense bias I'll just link this comment.

The comment where a single person said that they heard that the elites of North Korea have fairly normal daily lives?

Are you saying that HN is biased because they haven't deleted the comment and tried to have the poster arrested for supporting terrorism?

I can link to your comment too where you imply that the bad news about North Korea is just defense contractor propaganda. Thanks!

Imagine being a North Korea simp like this.

The assumes that’s how they are motivated. We also know quality suffers with a gun to your head.

They are far more likely to produce quality work by patriotism or material rewards.

I don't think they had a gun to their head literally, or that the threat was voiced - but IMHO not many of them would defy the order and definitely would not try to make the project slow down or fail, due to the implied threat of "disappearance".

> They are far more likely to produce quality work by patriotism or material rewards.

Is that really what you feel as a programmer that has to take free and open software and make it closed and spying while pretending it was your country that made the entire OS and apps and it's not just a rebrand?

I can agree with the material rewards. DPRK can probably make the best offers - maybe they're not paying in USD but most probably still enough to have a house/skyscraper apartment, servants, personal chef and driver, etc.

I have done far far worse in the name of God and Country.

I don't think that any programmers in the DPRK will have access to western education.

People who do are many, many tiers up.

At the very least, western educators are coming to them - there were articles about that on HN.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z4m8qx/how-to-teach-computer...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLDFAABtxfw

It's about north koreans who go ito other country's to make lots of money/spying/education and send the dollars/intel back to NK.

Found it just in German...sorry

The top 1% won't work on that.

The top 1% either work on surveillance (domestic and foreign), rocket control, hacking etc. to strengthen the state or for outside companies (I remember a German story about somebody regularly printing out android API docs for their team in North Korea) to bring money.

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