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Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

mrsteinberg.com

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Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#21

Post by aspenmayer »

FpUser wrote: post #17
aspenmayer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they prefer USSR to DPRK?

Trying to imply they were the same? Make a wild guess. While not a shining citadel of freedom USSR in the 80s was infinitely better than North Korea. Their words, not mine.

No implication at all, I was simply curious. I think in the West we assume that the communist experience was bad, but I have no frame of reference for this, as I wasn’t there at the time. Then comes comparing between communist regimes, which is farther removed from my experience.

I wish the CIA would’ve let democratically elected communist regimes alone, like Vietnam or certain Latin American countries. It just grinds my gears I guess. We claim to support democracy, except when we say that they’re holding it wrong, or doing it wrong. Who are we to say that?

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#22

Post by germandiago »

This is the sad truth of places like Cuba or North Korea. Everything is forbidden to the point that eating is difficult. So people get corrupted and the guards, etc. just want their part.

None of those things should be illegal. It is really annoying to see how a leader class kills people of hunger and make everything illegal so that now everyone is a criminal for trying to survive.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#23

Post by madeofpalk »

lisper wrote: post #20
decafninja wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this too. Their mantra is usually something along the lines of "don't believe everything you see in the corrupt Western/South Korean media". What gives? I can understand different countries have different pros and cons, different people value different things, and something an American might find unpalatable might not be considered so bad somewhere else. But North Korea seems to stand out as being one of ve…

My guess is that most of the people who profess to believe that everything in the DPRK is hunky dory are on the extreme political left. The right does not have a monopoly on crazy people.

I can't imagine these people are on a left-right scale. They seem to be perpendicular.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#24

Post by lisper »

madeofpalk wrote: post #23
lisper wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that most of the people who profess to believe that everything in the DPRK is hunky dory are on the extreme political left. The right does not have a monopoly on crazy people.

I can't imagine these people are on a left-right scale. They seem to be perpendicular.

I've never met a DPRK supporter, but I have met Cuba supporters. They were white, non-Cuban, and leaning so far left I was surprised they could remain upright. (And I'm pretty far left myself by contemporary U.S. standards.)

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#25

Post by germandiago »

warning26 wrote: post #14

Really interesting article! On a related note, one oddity I often see online (and, once, in person) are the die-hard groups of westerners who insist that North Korea is actually a paradise on earth and any claim to the contrary is some kind of evil capitalist propaganda. Utterly baffling, when there are so many sources like this article indicating otherwise.

I have lived in Vietnam for almost a decade. North Korea seems to be the equivalent of Vietnam before it started to open its economy in the 90s.

I can tell you, that is a hell, but what really makes me more angry about all this is how a leading class spoils people mercilessly and treat them as animals with no dignity. I am talking about North Korea for what I see in articles lately. But in Cuba there are similar patterns where everything is forbidden and corruption reigns with people trying to survive because some others decided they have to live like animals.

Vietnam is way waaaay better than NK and Cuba, even if it has its downsides, since its economy has been steadily opened to investment.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#26

Post by MiroF »

warning26 wrote: post #14

Really interesting article! On a related note, one oddity I often see online (and, once, in person) are the die-hard groups of westerners who insist that North Korea is actually a paradise on earth and any claim to the contrary is some kind of evil capitalist propaganda. Utterly baffling, when there are so many sources like this article indicating otherwise.

I definitely lean skeptical of Western sources on things like this, but life in NK is obviously pretty awful.

That said, there is essentially no information in this article that makes me believe that they actually talked to this person as opposed to making up a caricature of how they imagine life in NK to be.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#27

Post by FredPret »

germandiago wrote: post #22

This is the sad truth of places like Cuba or North Korea. Everything is forbidden to the point that eating is difficult. So people get corrupted and the guards, etc. just want their part. None of those things should be illegal. It is really annoying to see how a leader class kills people of hunger and make everything illegal so that now everyone is a criminal for trying to survive.

[flagged]

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#28

Post by germandiago »

decafninja wrote: post #18
warning26 wrote: post #14

Really interesting article! On a related note, one oddity I often see online (and, once, in person) are the die-hard groups of westerners who insist that North Korea is actually a paradise on earth and any claim to the contrary is some kind of evil capitalist propaganda. Utterly baffling, when there are so many sources like this article indicating otherwise.

I've seen this too. Their mantra is usually something along the lines of "don't believe everything you see in the corrupt Western/South Korean media". What gives? I can understand different countries have different pros and cons, different people value different things, and something an American might find unpalatable might not be considered so bad somewhere else. But North Korea seems to stand out as being one of ve…

People tend to value different things. If you value hunger and corruption, go to Cuba or North Korea where you have to ask permission even to have the hair cut you want and some are illegal (NK in this case). Or you have to be treated like an animal in the customs to even make medicines or food in. I have seen this elsewhere, believe me. Those people that live from that deserve... I will not say what they deserve, but nothing good.

In the meantime, what happens is that the market is not and invention, but it "is". That is why there are black markets. And they are illegal. So what now? Easy: you have to brive all the public workers to get what you want. This is not only sad, this is attacking the dignity of the normal people who deserve a life.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#29

Post by MiroF »

lisper wrote: post #24
madeofpalk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine these people are on a left-right scale. They seem to be perpendicular.

I've never met a DPRK supporter, but I have met Cuba supporters. They were white, non-Cuban, and leaning so far left I was surprised they could remain upright. (And I'm pretty far left myself by contemporary U.S. standards.)

I'm not a Cuba "supporter" but I do think that the quality of life in Cuba is not terrible, Western sources are not to be particularly trusted when it comes to Cuba, and that if we were serious about our opposition to authoritarianism internationally - Cuba would not be towards the top of our list compared to autocracies like Saudi Arabia.

This is very different from the DPRK.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#30

Post by MiroF »

germandiago wrote: post #28
decafninja wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this too. Their mantra is usually something along the lines of "don't believe everything you see in the corrupt Western/South Korean media". What gives? I can understand different countries have different pros and cons, different people value different things, and something an American might find unpalatable might not be considered so bad somewhere else. But North Korea seems to stand out as being one of ve…

People tend to value different things. If you value hunger and corruption, go to Cuba or North Korea where you have to ask permission even to have the hair cut you want and some are illegal (NK in this case). Or you have to be treated like an animal in the customs to even make medicines or food in. I have seen this elsewhere, believe me. Those people that live from that deserve... I will not say what they deserve, bu…

> If you value hunger and corruption, go to Cuba or North Korea where you have to ask permission even to have the hair cut you want and some are illegal

Cuba does not have a major hunger problem at all and has a higher life expectancy than the US.

Lumping Cuba and North Korea together is silly & misguided.

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