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Comment by UnoriginalGuy | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to wait for trusted experts to look at the data, before I assume this is true. However if the data holds up then I'm not sure what the West can do, only China seems to have the ability to influence NK right now (as we've already sanctioned them about as much as we can).

PS - The reason my initial reaction is skeptical is not that this type of thing cannot happen (as we witnessed during WWII). It is that other defectors have defected from NK before and told the West exactly what we wanted to hear so they'd receive preferential treatment, these claims get splashed all over the headlines, then it turns out further down the road these people's accounts might not be true (and the corrections are on page 5 in a one paragraph story). But raw data is very compelling proof, hard to fake, so as soon as it has been verified I'll buy it.

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As I posted elsewhere, there is little doubt and plenty of evidence of the NK regime's atrocities against its own citizens (and other nations' citizens too, sometimes).

EDIT: Interestingly, there are several posts using the same arguments to create doubt about this and all NK defectors (something I also posted elsewhere; sorry).

EDIT2: This follows the pattern of the professional/governmental astroturf campaign pretty closely (though, because the astroturfers' goal is to look like everyone else, I could of course be wrong). Certainly you can imagine the value of creating doubt about all NK defectors. Generally the pros build reputation by making posts on topics unrelated to their goal, and then, when it's time to take action, try to make arguments that go as far as they can while sounding reasonable. Here's a great story on a Russian operation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html

While there have been highly credible reports of concentration camps within NK (inc. satellite photos of the complexes), I think some of the other claims against NK come from single sources and are hard to corroborate.

Which isn't to say they're untrue. Just unverified.

It is also worth considering that if the West cared about the North Korean people's health and wellbeing we would also have to discuss sanctions in that conversation, as sanctions have definitely caused deaths and suffering within NK.

All I am getting at is, when it comes to NK there is a lot of legitimate "bad" you can say about them. But there is also a lot of propaganda. It is sometimes hard to sort those two things into what is credible and what is uncredible, and defectors are going to say what we want to hear.

> Interestingly, there are several posts using the same arguments to create doubt about this and all NK defectors (something I also posted elsewhere; sorry).

And there are several posts claiming this is just categorically true without even wanting to wait for trusted experts to look at the data. I just want fact, and I believe in this instance (because of the raw data) it is likely that after an examination of the details we can determine with a reasonable degree of certainty the facts of this case.

Seems like that is the minimum we should expect before we start beating our drums of war once more.

> While there have been highly credible reports of concentration camps ...

I'd say that at this point there are a lot more than reports, there are actual concentration camps, as well as brutal oppression, starvation at times, and many more horrors.

The fact that we can all talk about what we 'want to hear' about a place seems to imply that we have a narrative which we're looking to confirm, rather than being objective and rational in our approach to these things. As with most red-washing campaigns, it's going to be hard to figure out how much badness was caused by horrible economic circumstance, how much by bad management, and how much by outright badness for badness's sake.

At the end of the day, you'll always have people on both sides - Stalin did nothing wrong and Stalin was literally worse than Hitler 90 million killed with his own hands, that sort of thing - and folks talking about NK operatives astroturfing in HN comments and everything else.

I think you're totally right, and this raw data is a great opportunity to actually get some facts and perspective on an otherwise opaque part of the world. Then we all get to have opinions and have those opinions confirmed, which will be nice.

> you'll always have people on both sides - Stalin did nothing wrong and Stalin was literally worse than Hitler 90 million killed with his own hands

You'll always find some people who say anything, but having people say them doesn't make those assertions any more factual. Saying the Earth is flat or that Stalin did nothing wrong is false (without getting into debates about the meaning of "wrong"), even if people say it, no matter how many people say it. Saying the NK regime is not a brutal, murderous dictatorship, or suggesting that it is questionable or that there is some ambiguity in the responsibility of the perpetrators, is deceit.

What corrections? What is 'not exactly' true?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/world/asia/prominent-north...

http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/the-strange-tale-of-yeonmi-pa...

http://adamcathcart.com/2014/10/09/north-korea-misinformatio...

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/north-korean-...

It doesn't mean much. NK has been a brutal dictatorship for over 60 years; undoubtedly, like with anything else, there has been some misinformation about the issue. It doesn't make NK defectors particularly hard to believe, and especially doesn't cast doubt on the overall picture of oppression.

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