Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

singularityhub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 216 posts

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#101

Post by Jun8 »

run4yourlives wrote: post #95
Jun8 wrote: post #68

(This is a recurrent fantasy of mine) I think we should have an independent armed forces with the power to intervene in gross violations of human rights, something like the UN but with exponentially more authority (current UN peace keeping forces are a joke, e.g. see Srebrenica massacre, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre , for just one example of many). This force would have the initiative to wage war…

The most powerful military the world has ever known already exists; and it would not be capable of "fixing" North Korea or Libya without sustaining (and more importantly, inflicting) significant casualties. The best course of action, militarily speaking, would probably be to significantly nuke Pyongyang quickly and have S. Korea take over administration of the country. This is not politically or morally acceptable. T…

I totally agree with your points (i.e. "who watches the Watchmen" and accumulative hatred) but I'm not happy to be so. Goethe said that "to be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state". Even if we're not pleased with the notion that no better solution exists (or can be found), still it makes one sad about humanity.

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#103

Post by gyardley »

sedachv wrote: post #81
jhamburger wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would you rather be? Is it a close decision?

If I was a black male in the United States, I would have a 1 in 10 chance of being in prison at this moment. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta... ) Amnesty International estimates there's around 200,000 "political prisoners" in North Korea, out of a population of 25 million. I think I'd rather be in North Korea.

Both the conditions of incarceration and conditions of not-incarceration are dramatically better in the United States.

That so many people in this thread are trying to suggest that the United States is somehow worse than North Korea or that people from the United States can't criticize North Korea saddens me. The United States' prison system has obvious problems. All of North Korea is a totalitarian hellhole.

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#104

Post by [deleted] »

Goronmon wrote: post #22
fijall wrote: post #3

2,292,133 were in prisons in the United States in 2009 [from wikipedia]. Even though I guess conditions are better, 200 000 doesn't sound like that many after all.

Are you arguing that prisons in the US are akin to what is described as concentration camps in the article, or that what is described in the article is comparable to what you find in US prisons?

[deleted]

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#105

Post by run4yourlives »

lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #74
Jun8 wrote: post #68

(This is a recurrent fantasy of mine) I think we should have an independent armed forces with the power to intervene in gross violations of human rights, something like the UN but with exponentially more authority (current UN peace keeping forces are a joke, e.g. see Srebrenica massacre, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre , for just one example of many). This force would have the initiative to wage war…

I 100% agree, imagine if we had invaded North Korea rather than Iraq. Both had bad tyrants/dictators but North Korea makes Iraq look like Disneyland. Same as number of other countries, I think we should be tackling objectively worse humanitarian problems as higher priority.

If we had invaded North Korea, it is highly likely that the death toll would be in the tens of millions and that several cities in Asia would no longer exist.

Add to that the fact that life expectancy around the world would probably dip sharply due to the widespread effects of radiation.

It is a known fact that North Korea has at least 6-8 nuclear weapons. It's also a know fact that China will defend North Korea if it feels the situation is not in its best interests, as they did the last time we invaded.

There are worse things than a prolonged limited regional conflict. Just because you have not experienced these within your lifetime does not mean they won't happen.

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#106

Post by tptacek »

157 votes so we can have an amateur North Korea/US comparative studies class. Respite from 3-year-old LKML security flame war, also on the front page? Maybe. Still sad. See you in a week or so.

My "minaway" is 10,000 again. Old timer? Have you tried this yet? It's a revelation. You will thank for me this advice. Noprocrast=yes, minaway 10000+. You might code instead, or drink whiskey and read a good book, or find some less exasperating place to rant at like-minded people online. Anything else you do will be better than HN on May 12, 2011.

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#108

Post by AJ007 »

ajkessler wrote: post #100
jacoblyles wrote: post #97

It's interesting to see reddit's America-hatred spread here. We can't condemn atrocities anywhere in the world without first holding America up as a paragon of all that is evil. The failure to recognize the good in America, indeed the many ways in which it still leads the world, and see the difference between a free country with perhaps too-strict sentencing guidelines and one which enslaves and kills its people for…

If I've learned anything, it's that we can't judge. Nope. Regime that interns its people in death camps? A system that engenders such poverty that people are forced into cannibalism ? ( http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1875007335054132657# ) Couldn't possibly judge. Nope, not with all the similar problems here in the evil ol' US of A.

North Korea: Homeless and those with homes starve to death. USA: Morbidly obese homeless chatting on cell phones

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#109

Post by run4yourlives »

Jun8 wrote: post #101
run4yourlives wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most powerful military the world has ever known already exists; and it would not be capable of "fixing" North Korea or Libya without sustaining (and more importantly, inflicting) significant casualties. The best course of action, militarily speaking, would probably be to significantly nuke Pyongyang quickly and have S. Korea take over administration of the country. This is not politically or morally acceptable. T…

I totally agree with your points (i.e. "who watches the Watchmen" and accumulative hatred) but I'm not happy to be so. Goethe said that "to be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state". Even if we're not pleased with the notion that no better solution exists (or can be found), still it makes one sad about humanity.

That is a totally valid feeling.

Of course these are just extensions of our own personal hatreds and prejudices. The best way to change them is to change these feelings within yourself.

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#110

Post by jaekwon »

bigwally wrote: post #39
ceejayoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more that one camp.

If you watched the video they said it was all in 2 valleys. 200,000 in those two valleys? Impossible.

I estimate roughly around 500 small housing units from what I've seen. The smallest units are about 60*30feet in size.

For a slave labor camp, it would be easy to fit 100 people in each unit with two story bunk beds. That's already 50,000 people. The units may be more crammed than I imagine, and I may have missed miscounted these housing units. 200K sounds like an upper limit but it's not impossible.

Post reply on HN