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Comment by nlh | Hacker News Reader

What a fascinating and engrossing read. Thanks for sharing.

What I found most remarkable was that despite NK's best efforts at total and complete isolation of the prisoners -- Shin was born into the camp and knew nothing of the outside world -- the human soul still inherently wants to be free. You can "nurture" a miserable existence all you want but it won't keep.

And in the end, what cracked the walls of the prison (metaphorically speaking) was an outsider with nothing more than stories.

No wonder dictatorships fear things like free speech and dissidents. Even the slightest hint of a better place (through words alone) can start the chain reaction.

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The way I read it was that Shin only knew the virtues are betrayal and of being betrayed until he met the man who nursed him back to health and told him stories of freedom. Although these stories led him to "wake up", he was still steeped in the economy of betrayal when he used his naive friend's writhing body as a staircase to freedom.

I read elsewhere that a post-Juche NK would need one or two generations of special oversight before full reunification could take place due to the amount of mental trauma inflicted on the population (of ~20 million).

“special oversight”? What does that mean?

How would such a reunification compare to, say, East and West Germany?

East Germany was by far the most advanced and capitalist of the Communist states, and very close culturally to West Germany, but there is still the phenomenon of "Ostalgie", from Ost=East + Nostalgie=Nostalgia, yearning for the good ol' days of Communist suppression.

The movie 'The Lives of Others' was motivated by the filmmakers' desire to smack down the Ostalgie-types achieving popularity in Germany. It is common there to see shops selling East German themed stuff, and there is at least one chain of shops solely dedicated to East German paraphernalia. Polls suggest there is a real yearning in some areas to go back to the days where the secret police and rationing of basic goods were real things. It's bizarre.

I spent 5 years in a small city in the former East Germany and I am still spending a lot of time there. The "Ostalgie" is especially the nostalgia of full employment and social bonding. People basically say, we went from communism to hard capitalism without the paternalism social democracy West Germany enjoyed. In 1994, 80% of the jobs in the industry were cut with a few emblematic cases of West German companies buying back the companies, removing the hardware, shipping it in China and resuming the production there. It was not a reunification, it was a take-over without respect for the good things in the East. For example everything with respect to employment of women, women/men pay equality, etc. Nowadays, Germany is figuring out that it was not that bad.

I was not able to find a single person saying, please send back the STASI, it was better with.

You must only accept that early 2000, the bubble crashed, the complete economy went out of track and that just 10 years after the reunification. They did not had the time to taste the good working capitalism.

This.

My father lived in various bits of East Germany during the communist era. He had nothing to say but good things about the situation, until he pissed off a couple of Stasi in the late 1970s that was and was deported to the West after a fairly light telling off (fortunately versus locked up). The main thing that pissed him off about this is that he had just bought a new Robotron TV that he spent two years saving up for and had to leave it behind. He is bitter about this to the day :)

If it wasn't for the Stasi, it would have been a modern Utopia. Stable employment, manufacturing oriented economy (value added everywhere) and could pretty much stand alone. They even pushed family values and equality for all over conspicuous consumption, which is pretty much the entire facade of capitalism these days.

This ALL went down the shitter at reunification.

Perhaps someone should try it again (without the Stasi that is).

Some Ostalgie: I have three bottles of Vita Cola in the cupboard (that stuff rocks) and a Praktica MTL 5 camera which I use regularly - I find these to be the essence of the good bits of the GDR :)

Your next door neighbour to the left (Netherlands) here. You're forgetting the part where under the commies you were not allowed to be a free indivudual. No creativity unless within the State's rules. Added value? Stolen / copied tech from the West, low quality stuff with no luxery. Everybody worked for the same pay. No incentive to become more. You're everybody's slave basically.

Versus socialist Britain for example? (where I live).

Dragged through the courts for using Facebook and Twitter, held indefinitely without trial under the Terrorism Act, all the technology is imported from the communist far East, low quality things with a contract attached, luxury as a form of class ego via conspicuous consumption, everyone works for the minimum wage in service industries, no incentive to do anything but live on state handouts.

Really? thats why a lot of young people move to GB right? I agree with you we (the west) are heading in the wrong direction but (thankfully) we're not a commi State (yet).

Yes that is the reason. It's an easy ride once you get here.

Yet, although I think the EU would rather like us to be.

I was actually referring to talented young people from other european states (France, etc) that are seen as startup/business unfriendly, but I get your point. GB -thankfully- is not a commi country but it is showing a socialist trend. If it were a communist State they would have shot Nigel Farrage years ago ;-)

They haven't shot him because everyone would notice :)

A Utopia? Perhaps you are setting the Utopian bar a bit too low?

There was very little, if any freedom of expression or freedom of speech. Not very utopian.

Average citizens had their exposure to the outside world limited. Not very utopian.

Citizens lived in a very tightly controlled society. A society controlled by the government and secret police. Not my idea of utopia.

Even if the modern internet had existed then, it's doubtful that a citizen would even be allowed to come to a site like this and even have this discussion.

As far as the Stasi go, you can't just say "without them it would have been fine" because they are completely intertwined with that society. That society required very little or no dissent to continue and that is why the Stasi existed: To crush dissent and keep everyone thinking how wonderful their "utopian" existence was....

That almost sounds like our current political state?

And how so?

> Perhaps someone should try it again (without the Stasi that is).

Perhaps there is a reason that a "Stasi" always ends up appearing in these kinds of societies?

To be fair it wasn't rationing - that was a load of crap apparently. It was fixed prices everywhere. Butter was X marks everywhere and there wasn't the luxury of choice (choice was defined to be the enemy which I do sort of agree with - I spend way too much time selecting products versus using them).

The reason for Ostalgie is that if you didn't piss off the Stasi, you actually had a reasonable life. Also, since reunification, the West Germans have treated the East like a second class lepper colony and closed all their businesses down resulting in much pissed-off-ness.

>Polls suggest there is a real yearning in some areas to go back to the days where the secret police and rationing of basic goods were real things. It's bizarre.

Not very bizarre. Other things were also "real things", like job security, food for everyone (even if little), a sense of belonging, etc. And a far better culture (including a vibrant counter-culture against the regime) than the BS that the media serve today.

If you visit some places full of dirt poor families, abandoned buildings and meth addicts, you'll get a nice glimpse why some might want it another way.

> If you visit some places full of dirt poor families, abandoned buildings and meth addicts, you'll get a nice glimpse why some might want it another way.

Do you really think complete control over another human being is morally acceptable, even if it prevents that person from becoming a drug addict?

I mean, we could cure all drug addicts today by sending them to a prison camp with violent punishment for carrying drugs. But would that be preferable to actually having drug addicts?

We can achieve a lot of things with force. The question is if the force itself creates more destruction than it prevents.

>Do you really think complete control over another human being is morally acceptable, even if it prevents that person from becoming a drug addict?

Do you really think a complex political system like in a former socialist country, can be reduced to "complete control over another human being"?

From what I hear in some places in eastern Germany, if you hire a contractor to get building work done, he will typically quote you a very high price. If you say that's too high, attempt to haggle, or say "I can go to So-and-so who will do it for cheaper", the contractor may become gravely offended.

The idea of capitalism, and with it the associated idea of having to compete for people's business, is still somewhat new to them, you see...

> What a fascinating and engrossing read. Thanks for sharing.

An amazing, gripping story...and then I read a thread about Who hates on other platforms more - Android fans or Apple fans?

Here's a free idea, assuming it hasn't already been done in some form: In a Twitter-like interface, people with first world problems type in what's bothering them (eg "Didn't get an iPad for Xmas - my parents suck!") and when they hit submit, an algorithm returns either a brief story, picture or video from less fortunate countries that neatly correspond to their problem (eg, picture of a child begging a guard for something to eat).

It would be a great place to help us get over the little things that bother us more than they should. Seems http://www.firstworldproblems.com is already taken.

Honestly, that sounds like a great social media campaign.

"Judy: I'm so thirsty" "@Judy Here's the story of Jamie in Zambia. Jamie is always thirsty http://link

I honestly think you are well-intended, but that is no solution to anything. Covering up your own emotions by witnessing other people's suffering solves nothing. Your suffering is still there when you stop thinking about other people's suffering.

You can't cover up thoughts with thoughts. Or emotions with emotions.

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