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Comment by monksy | Hacker News Reader

How do you get IT workers there being highly skilled when most of the population isn't on the internet. Also, considering the treatment of throwing lots of them in forced labor camps over percieved slights and poverty..

I just don't understand where are these people coming from? It's not like NK has universities and a lively educated class.

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It's still a pretty large country: around 26 million people. And it's not exactly a destitute state: it's a kleptocratic state with an educated (often abroad) elite class.

It's hard to get an exact estimate of their current HDI, but the UN placed it at 0.766 back in the 1990s[1]. That puts them in around the same tier as Yugoslavia today.

[1]: https://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/259/hdr_199...

North Korea literally does have universities and an educated class.

The fact they're capable of successfully building, deploying, and advancing nuclear technology should tell you that your stereotypes are missing some things. The Wiki page [1] is very outdated, but has plentiful information to at least start challenging your stereotypes. For instance almost 40 years ago now, North Korea had reportedly 23,000 college/university teachers alongside 4000 other postsecondary teachers teaching upwards of 300,000 university level students at the time, with an educational system largely focused on STEM.

And it's reasonable to expect those numbers have increased since. Education through secondary is mandatory, and there is then a competitive process for admittance to higher education. Adult education is also an ongoing process with workers continuing to participate in educational groups daily and also having, and having the opportunity to participate in the equivalent of educational 'boot camps' to learn advanced trades.

I feel in modern society that we are increasingly failing to learn from the past (and present) due to presenting things such that evil is evil through and through, and good - well it at least has some flaws, but tends to be more or less good through and through. Reality isn't quite so kind.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_North_Korea

You are missing the fact that not all societies are open

Closed authoritarian societies, even those under sanction, have a ruling and privileged classes that DO have all the amenities — basically by extracting all the wealth to the small ruling classes. Even if it is only a microscopic percentage of the society that is at the top, it can still amount to substantial numbers.

I suspect you have an unrealistic view of the country.

Even very poor countries with hereditary dictators are very large places.

Poor countries with hereditary dictators aren't nearly as secretive, closed off, or have such sanctions as NK.

I wonder why some NK people really great about hacking/computer science/rocket science despite the country is poor. Looks like successful of education.

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