You're doing the racist rhetoric.
There's no one in north korea that isn't "an agent of the state"? Give me a break. You sound ridiculous.
There's no one in north korea that isn't "an agent of the state"? Give me a break. You sound ridiculous.
I am certain there are good people in North Korea but it would be hard to figure folks allegiances. A lifetime of propaganda can really do something to the mind.
May I suggest you may have meant ‘there are probably people who in the deepest of their heart disagree with state policy’.
If the state can execute your family on a whim because somebody stepped out of line you keep generally those sentiments well hidden.
But _liking_ the policies of the state where you live in is generally not considered a vice. So if a person who disagrees with the NK state is ‘good’ this implies people who agree NK state are ‘bad’ and I don’t think that’s the right framework when discussing large populations of nation states.
The evidentiary standard on reporting goes basically to zero if it's about NK. Outlandish claims are to be taken at face value and not interrogated, because of a "lifetime of propaganda" in the US, since the Korean War. Yes, that is linked with racism. The evidentiary standard in the media on other European countries for example is much much higher. For the most part, the racist narrative follows that places where white people are good and free, and places where non-white people are dangerous and bad. Classic racist rhetoric.
With regards to the specific points the article is making: "The FBI reported the money funds nuclear weapons and operations". Is a laughable fearmongering hypcrocrisy. part of Every tax dollar in the US goes towards funding nuclear weapons and operations. But good luck trying to get reporters at Fortune to be self-aware of their hypocrisy. That's the propaganda: bad when they do it. Good or neutral when we do it. Uncritical re-printing of statements from government agents (FBI). A reporter with an evidentiary standard would ask for evidence before printing that. Last I checked there was only one country that has actually used a nuclear weapon. Objectively, I would say that country is far more dangerous.
Calling out the regime’s control and the risk posed by state-backed cyber ops isn’t some “classic racist rhetoric”, it’s acknowledging reality. This is a country where you can be executed for watching the wrong movie. Pretending that’s morally equivalent to U.S. hypocrisy is lazy relativism.
Yes, the U.S. has done awful things. Yes, our media should be more critical. But no, I’m not going to pretend North Korean IT operatives raising money for a weapons program isn’t a serious issue just because the U.S. also has nukes. That’s not nuance, that’s deflection
Are you disputing the evidence from other specific named private citizens in companiess that are reporting this happening, such as Michael Barnhart and Jamie Collier of Google, Bojan Simic of Hypr and Emi Chiba at Gartner who are confirming they have experienced the same activity in their firms? How about the evidence from Aidan Raney, a private security researcher, who reports he personally infiltrated one of these scam operations?
Furthermore it’s not just unsubstantiated claims by US agencies, the article also refers to two successfully prosecuted court cases in which they had to present evidence to secure convictions.
Your criticisms are aimed at US reporting, but the United Nations reports the same thing.
What sources have taught you about life in Korea?
This is starting to feel like a flat earth discussion.
It is typical western chauvinism and it is embarrassing to read you try to pretend it isn't.
Yes, I’ve seen videos, read books, listened to defectors, and followed reports from Amnesty, the UN, and others. You? You’re just here to sneer at the idea that anyone outside North Korea could possibly know anything. That’s not humility, it’s nihilism in a moral disguise.
You say I “know nothing” about North Korea. Maybe not everything. But I know enough to not reflexively defend a regime that starves its people while building monuments to a cult of personality. If that makes you uncomfortable, good.
Gotta call a spade a spade sometimes, sorry bud.
>Yes, I’ve seen videos, read books, listened to defectors, and followed reports from Amnesty, the UN, and others. You? You’re just here to sneer at the idea that anyone outside North Korea could possibly know anything. That’s not humility, it’s nihilism in a moral disguise.
This isn't even an argument. You read things? Wow, me too. I read NK is awesome. They are trying to sustain their nation. Your repeating of biased western propaganda uncritically is the nihilism.
> You say I “know nothing” about North Korea. Maybe not everything. But I know enough to not reflexively defend a regime that starves its people while building monuments to a cult of personality. If that makes you uncomfortable, good.
I never even defended them. Just pointed out your ignorance and racism. Cheers. Nice edit btw.
The racist card is boring and over used. Build a backbone and a real opinion.
We have decades of reports regarding NK please go elsewhere with your conspiracies.
This refers to the edit that the sibling comment made from:
> Thank you for finally bringing your silly antics to a conclusion.
To adding four more sentences (ending with “We have decades ...”). Which seemed weird given that the first sentence was thanking OP here for bringing the “antics” to an end.
And apparently OP then made an edit in kind.
North Korea is famously one of the most closed-off countries in the world. Its Western-aligned neighbor is officially still at war with it. But at the same time people will make assertions with certainty about what North Korea is.
North Korea is an unreliable narrator. So are South Korea and America because they are hostile to NK. And people in the West don’t trust whatever countries are aligned with North Korea.
That’s the discrepancy—speaking boldly about the most closed off country in the world. Like documentaries and travel videos? Travel videos will be cherry-picked because of the government’s[1] policy of stalking and sheepherding all their tourists. That’s just one example from the NK side. We can also get into Western outlets making up NK fairytales based on no NK sources at all.
> This is starting to feel like a flat earth discussion.
Asking what level of information you have on a very closed-off country is comparable to denying a scientific fact that has been hypothesized for millenia, empirically proven probably for centuries, and can probably be empirically proven by an amateur scientist mountaineer?
Oh yeah? Have you got any more tired cliches up your sleeve?[2] “Oh hush” to quote a HN user.
[1] Or the regime if you prefer
Your entire comment boils down to: “We can’t trust any sources, so how dare you have an opinion.” That’s not skepticism, that’s intellectual paralysis dressed up as nuance.
And yes, invoking Flat Earth was apt—because entertaining every counter-narrative, no matter how unmoored from reality, in the name of balance is exactly how we ended up with people thinking the Earth is a disk.
But by all means, tell me more about the utopia behind the DMZ, if not hush too. You have said a lot of nothing.
What a world we live in. You cannot even call NK a repressive regime without folks jumping to point out how wrong you are. Maybe you need to go through the test your self and denounce the supreme leader.
The next point would be juxtapose the lifetime of propaganda with your complete and unwavering certainty about the state of mind in the hermit kingdom, but you don’t seem quite ready for that.
Now to your reply here. There’s too many muddied points, too many strawmen to go into in detail without boring you in turn. So I won’t. But notice that I haven’t even defended North Korea. In fact one of the points I made was how they will sheepherd tourists. My comment was 80% epistemological, as you say. And your response? Talking about “the Utopia” of the DMZ? Oh wait, that’s exactly the phrase you brought up to someone else[1] and they too never ever said that North Korea was a great place to live (only that the narrative was “racist”).
So why go into these epistemological sleep study sessions? Because as evidenced by the conversation in [2], you (but also serving as an example because this is far from unique) will dismiss people who question the narrative of the OP, namely “The FBI reported the money funds nuclear weapons and operations”. This is perfectly germane to the topic: is this a thing of concern or is it a convenient narrative? You dismiss that as a “conspiracy” in your reply and waffle on about “sure, other countries do bad things, but NK worse”. Your dismissal has got nothing to do with the topic, though. The topic is not if NK is a fantastic place to live, a “utopia” or whatever. The topic is if they did something that other countries don’t do.
Defectors are “outliers”? Of course they are—it’s a police state. That’s how tyranny works. You don’t get a representative sample when dissent gets you killed.
You’re not offering insight. You’re drowning basic truths in a flood of words to avoid saying anything with weight. At some point, skepticism becomes cowardice.
Say less. Mean more.
There’s also no point in fretting about cowardice. Critiquing a poor Asian country from an apartment in Europe/America/South America won’t get you harmed.
It's tricky to weed out spies, if they are American ("Tell me a bad thing about Donald Trump"), Australians, Chinese, Russian or North Korean. That's why you have recruiters doing background checks.
That's not what he said.
NK and SK constitute separate ethno-states (due to different culture, socio-political env, upbringing), despite being very close genetically.
It got to the point that each nation's name is different, South Koreans are Hanguk, while North Koreans are Chosun
Whatever this is, it's not racism.