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Comment by rikacomet | Hacker News Reader

and you both are saying that from experience? You know the elites, and the poor, more than what we have seen through the media?

No, unless you are North Korean citizens for years, it is hard to grasp the truth.

Of course, we all made this judgement, by comparing our life, and putting ourself in what NK's seem like living in right now, and adjudged that we would hate such a life, so the actual North Koreans must be hating their life as well.

But truth be told, Many of the people there haven't even seen foreigners in their whole life, they are like a modern tribe, living in seclusion, we have to let their curiosity take its course, instead of pointing fingers at them saying, "look how boring is there football" "look at that, they don't have any fast food chains " etc etc.

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Your first comment wasn't so good. But here you pose a great thought experiment.

To run with your point for a moment - it is possible to consider the idea of a caste system. Most hacker news readers would be disgusted at it, but you could imagine it being run humanely, and the people there would be content to live as they are.

Here's my rule zero of political freedom: do you live in fear of a knock on the door in the middle of the night?

So long as someone lives-and-lets-live, they should never need to live in fear of an authority with a power to arbitrarily do nasty things to them.

To me - that's valid for North Korea, The Lives of Others, middle eastern dictatorships, black helicopters, people who live in gangland Baltimore, domestic violence, children, pets, farm animals and the cold war.

Yes, you have a very good point regarding caste system. About first post being, not that good, well I got that feeling (haha) No shit!

well, there is a need for scrutiny, as to why there haven't been a popular revolt, against the government, if people are that oppressed, as we are being lead to believe.

Regarding the caste thing, had some more thoughts. Django Unchained plays with this. At first, you don't know where Stephen fits in. Is he a slave who "knows his place"? But he's so disrespectful! Gradually you learn that he has carved out a special role for himself at the expense of others.

There's lots of room for talking about knocks on the door, and who fears who in Pulp Fiction too.

Thinking about North Korea is interesting because the media coverage is so slim. What can I trust? Maybe I'm just living in a personalised version of the Truman Show. But the closest we have to a knock on the door is fear of economic strife, and very rare but overhyped incidents of domestic terrorism.

    > why there haven't been a popular revolt, against
    > the government, if people are that oppressed

Revolution is a rare thing.

I assume North Koreans have to deal with twisted language as well, and they're not allowed to talk to one another to work out their ideas. Marxism is filled with weasel words like "permanent revolution".

Imagine how your brain would work if you had been born and bred on a diet of astrology, and taught that even discussing interpretations of what the people with guns say will have immediate, dire consequences.

Most of history is dictatorship and compliance. What we have at the moment feels normal because it's what we know. But really it's a special exception to everything that has come before, and the reality for most of the people who are alive even today.

I'm glad you challenged the post, I didn't have a bunch of these ideas an hour ago.

It depends, whether this is the case with NK as well. As it is, they are indeed subject to a fair amount of our interference, Ideas, or whatever you call it.

But the fundamental issues of a country are poverty, education, shelter, etc. Why?

Well, if you are hungry, a lifetime of servitude to psychological brainwash, would not turn the millions of years of instinct. If that situation worsens, people across North Korea would have been angry, even if they don't express it immediately.

This anger, increases overtime based on atrocities caused by the government.

But imagine, America coming in to NK, in the name of liberalizing the people, and causing more death, famine, and stuff in the process, which is not avoidable.

It would be too easy for the great leader to propagate, and even easier for the people to accept, that all fault lies with America and its allies, thus causing a failure of attainment of objective, i.e to provide people a way to better life.

The war against NK, if it exist, is at the base level. Organizations like RedCross, UNESCO, and others have to be pressed upon.

Not more economic sanctions, and threats to a society, that understands very little about your intention.

Why are all the downvotes here? rikacomet isn't obnoxious, just making a point that you're uncomfortable with. Or maybe you can see flaws - if so then respond. If you can't explain why you disagree, maybe that's something you need to work on more constructively then silently downvoting something just because you disagree with it.

Maybe the propagandaid has seeped too far in the (un)conscious minds of people to the extent that they cannot/do not question their own reality (maybe to the same extent that NK's?) and feel the need to fight/put down all existential threats to such.

Then again, nothing more depleted uranium rounds can't fix because terrorism.

> But imagine, America coming in to NK, in the name of liberalizing the people, and causing more death, famine, and stuff in the process, which is not avoidable.

Ugh, this dichotomy of America as world police vs. cultures it doesn't really understand is juvenile at best.

The US drone strikes on Pakistani civillians are horrible, but if you want a lesson in brutality towards non-combatants, look no further than Pakistan during partition or the Bangladeshi independence war. The U.S. dropped nukes on Japan, but the atrocities carried out by the Japanese military at Nanking and Unit 731 are about the most terrible you'll read about outside of the Third Reich.

Morality, especially in terms of the actions of nations over time is complex and nuanced. Pointing out that the North Korean regime is fucking insane does not imply that you think the U.S. should roll in guns blazing.

> Organizations like RedCross, UNESCO, and others have to be pressed upon.

Pressed upon to do what exactly? Provide even more aid to the North Korean regime who will distribute it to citizens it deems fit to eat?

I applaud the sentiment here, but this belies either naivete about the complexities and long-term effects of supplying aid to developing countries (especially dictatorships) or a complete lack of knowledge about the North Korean track record.

The grim western consensus on the North Korean problem has always been to sit-tight and let the country implode and hopefully unify with the South, though whether this is likely to happen soon is anyones guess.

And how would we know about that popular revolt? I know you're busy answering everybody's replies... but I'd like to add, stating the obvious, that I strongly doubt there's any society with millions+ people where "they live as they want", with "they" = "they all". It just so happens that I can if I so desire read the American Chomskies but not his North Korean counterparts, who, I feel (without proof), must exist.

Erm.. propaganda is a very powerful tool, when combined with extreme violence it is easy to oppresse a great number of people.

Your argument that "Given north koreans haven't revolted, might mean they don't mind", would be similar to saying "Maybe the jews didn't mind the holocaust, else why didn't they just overrun the prison camps"

You seem to just be trolling this whole article. There are number of accounts of how bad NK is from people who have escaped the country. There are a number of independent media groups who have made very compelling unbiased reports of what is happening in NK. There are a number of journalists who have been imprisoned while reporting in and around NK.

That coupled with the very public (false) propaganda that is produced by NK itself. Paints a very compelling case that NK is ruled by a single family that is controlling the entire population through miseducation (propaganda) and violence.

Could you show some evidence that suggests it is just media hype?

People fear knocks in the night in the USA, Canada, even Sweeden now adays. If you're damn fool enough to run afoul of copyright laws. In fact I would say it's a distopia, if all I did was focus on every incident of homes getting bashed in and governments misstepping. It's easy to fall into a focus illusion, and whenever mainstream media gets involved, there's going to be a focus illusion.

Yes. I made this point several times in drafts of the comment you replied to. But kept removing it because it didn't help me make the point and would have triggered offence in some people who'd otherwise get the point. (I was pushing my luck by mentioning farm animals already)

A British citizen was extradited to the US to be jailed for a crime that did not violate the principle of live and let live. That's an evil that's got long arms.

I guess I can see it as a limited dystopia - one of the worlds that Heinlein puts Job through. But I'd avoid using a word like that for this, for risk of overuse.

please read about Soviet Union. on elites, i recommend you "Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class" by Michael Voslenski. the soviet elites were screaming happy when borders were finally opened. and it's not like NK's lower classes have absolutely no idea what the outside world is like. it is well-known that many have access to SK TV shows and so on. speaking of the poorest, i don't think that you can get used to or love starvation.

> No, unless you are North Korean citizens for years, it is hard to grasp the truth.

Those who were born there, lived there for years or decades, then escaped, grasp the truth, and have told others how it is.

It does not take any leap of imagination to say that North Korea is a hellhole. All it takes is paying a little attention to what's going on.

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