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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

#171

Post by mrtksn »

perl4ever wrote: post #144
mrtksn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not @darkwater but I will use this question to try to put my thoughts together a bit. So, on my first week it was hard. I was working in very central London and I had access to peak consumers options. I like it, I was used to have anything that crossed my mind being readily accessible for me. Except for shorts that week, apparently. My order from Amazon did not arrive and I was trusting Amazon enough to skip goin…

You paint a good picture of Cuba, but what is life as a jaded resident of The City like?

I would definitely not want to live under that regime. Cubans are generally happy people with good lives but they lack the opportunities for higher ambitions. Corrupt, planned economy is not something to be excited for nor is the being the lowest class in a “classless” society. They are also missing out about the world outside of their borders due to the restrictions on their communications.

It’s just that the western lifestyle is not without its own faults. There’s lessons to be learned about being happy without being full blown consumerists.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#172

Post by germandiago »

opportune wrote: post #155
pc86 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question, not trying to start a debate. How does abject poverty in an openly communist country make you think about the "deep impact of consumerism?"

Well one thing about going to a poor communist country is you still notice that a lot of people are doing regular people things like sending their children to school or dance lessons, having weddings, playing music, dancing, and drinking alcohol. The corollary to random consumer goods being in constant shortages is that other things are much more “affordable” than they’d be in a market economy. Cuba is not really in…

> The corollary to random consumer goods being in constant shortages is that other things are much more “affordable” than they’d be in a market economy.

No way for their wealth, to begin with, and why you should choose how people choose? They are animals?

Everything that is cheaper than its possible price is literally being paid by someone, with their labour or by others. Free things, literally, do not exist. And things below real price, do not exist. For that to exist someone along the way has to pay it with time or money or forced by slavery. Please keep in mind this every time someone talks about free. Free means "someone else pays". And someone else pays is as selfish and inconsiderate as if I went to you and I demanded from you an arbitrary effort on the basis that you owe me something for nothing.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#173

Post by xattt »

mrtksn wrote: post #52
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.

I don't know about DPRK but I have been to Cuba for a 2 weeks vacation, so I had time to go out of the default tourists spots. What I've seen is this: Those who have access to tourists or to the government are rich. Corruption is rampant as I've seen people bribing police right at the airport to have their things sorted out. The mainstream corruption in society revolves around casa particulars and taxis. Essentially,…

> Also, there are two different types of shops and businesses: Locals only shops, locals only restaurants, locals only buses

This reminds me of the first MacDonald’s in Moscow near Pushkinskaya Square. I remember there being a separate section downstairs for tourists/people from away. However this is a childhood memory, and perhaps I’m not remembering correctly?

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#174

Post by malermeister »

chernevik wrote: post #114
drekk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I find more odd is how American audiences treat the DPRK while also supporting the continued military puppet state that is the ROK. There were also a "lot of sources" supporting WMDs in Iraq. When what you're saying is the state department narrative it's not going to receive pushback. The US killed 20% of Koreans on the peninsula and reduced it all to rubble. Forgive my skepticism at the "humanitarian inten…

South Korea - has elections - has a free press - allows people to leave etc

It does now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwangju_Uprising

>South Korean universities were shut down, newspaper offices were closed, and any political activity that went against the policies of General Chun Doo-hwan were strictly banned. In further details, all public gatherings that included more than three party were forbidden with an only exception for funerals. With the Korean news media muzzled by martial law, only the handful of foreign correspondents present could publish reports on what was happening in Gwangju — no easy task, given the army cordon. Telephone lines had been cut by the military; some reporters walked miles to villages to line up at the nearest phones still working. Soon after, General Chun Doo-hwan broadened the terms of martial law into the entire country of South Korea and rigorously kept in check with suspicious activities that seemed to be promoting democracy. Thus all pro-democracy leaders including students were considered as traitors or anti-government criminals. In consequence, the charges that met those of who were considered as convicts were in reality as cruel as any major prisoners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_of_May_Seve...

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#175

Post by perl4ever »

voidfunc wrote: post #160
friedturkey wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The embargo has had zero positive effect. Why pointlessly punish the people and strangle their economic livelihood just because you hate the government? We don’t do it to other countries with equally bad or worse governments. After reaching half a century it’s pretty clear it was pointless torture. And besides, I’m not sure if there’s a single case of such actions truly helping the people. Authoritarians thrive when…

Its called “making an example”. The Cuban people mostly suffer for their government’s alignment with the Soviets and deciding to put Nukes 90 miles from Miami. We dont care that they are communists. We deal with all kinds of fucked up regimes around the world but the key difference is none of them have ever dared challenge us militarily with Nukes right off our border. Cuba is basically perpetually fucked as punishme…

Do you think that's the conventional wisdom?

The Cubans that left Cuba and live in the US, do you think their grudge is over the Cuban missile crisis?

I don't wish to debate the question of what actually drives US policy. I am just wondering whether you recognize other points of view and if you think many people agree with you or you see yourself in a minority.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#176

Post by aprdm »

germandiago wrote: post #47
beepbooptheory wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... if you can't believe in something that hasn't yet existed, how does anything come to be at all? Or do you deny that there is any theoretical thought behind communism at all? Is it just something people suddenly found themselves doing, and it failed and that was that? How does someone dream of things that are better? How can you have faith in anything at all? Is not the love you feel towards your friends and…

Quoted post unavailable.

This list of : socialist or communist governments now: makes absolutely no sense.

Mexico? Portugal? Argentina? Why don't you add Sweden, or even Canada by the same standards?

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#177

Post by bryguy32403 »

cmmeur01 wrote: post #150
germandiago wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what you are describing is part of the misery they are condemned to by the regime. They cannot trade normally, everything is treated as trafficking and the hihger layer has privileges, control and are corrupted and live from spoiling the rest. You want to do something by yourself? Brive me, because it is illegal or you will have trouble. And anyway, if I want, you can have trouble any day, because you did somethi…

Crazy what a blockade by the worlds largest economy 90 miles away for decades can do huh?

They could end the blockade at any time.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#178

Post by seanmcdirmid »

trasz wrote: post #41
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.

How is North Korea left? It's an absolute monarchy, pretty much exactly the other side of the political compass.

Social hierarchies emerge in even the most well intentioned left-wing society. It isn't really that odd in Vietnam, China, North Korea, all have developed new highly stratified social hierarchies. The alternative is probably unstable when extreme ideologies are imposed (which really can't survive without authoritarianism).

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#179

Post by opportune »

germandiago wrote: post #172
opportune wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well one thing about going to a poor communist country is you still notice that a lot of people are doing regular people things like sending their children to school or dance lessons, having weddings, playing music, dancing, and drinking alcohol. The corollary to random consumer goods being in constant shortages is that other things are much more “affordable” than they’d be in a market economy. Cuba is not really in…

> The corollary to random consumer goods being in constant shortages is that other things are much more “affordable” than they’d be in a market economy. No way for their wealth, to begin with, and why you should choose how people choose? They are animals? Everything that is cheaper than its possible price is literally being paid by someone, with their labour or by others. Free things, literally, do not exist. And thi…

Lots of things in the US are subsidized too. We still have taxes that pay for “free” things like using public roads.

I am just describing the structure of the Cuban economy where market forces are less involved in how many of something gets produced for consumption. I don’t think it’s great either because it leads to food shortages. Just pointing out (having been to Cuba myself) they aren’t in abject poverty and in some ways punch above their weight for their economic reality (and what someone might think knowing how often they have goods shortages) due to some activites being prioritized over others.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#180

Post by germandiago »

cmmeur01 wrote: post #150
germandiago wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what you are describing is part of the misery they are condemned to by the regime. They cannot trade normally, everything is treated as trafficking and the hihger layer has privileges, control and are corrupted and live from spoiling the rest. You want to do something by yourself? Brive me, because it is illegal or you will have trouble. And anyway, if I want, you can have trouble any day, because you did somethi…

Crazy what a blockade by the worlds largest economy 90 miles away for decades can do huh?

False claims. First, it is an embargo. Second, not all products are blocked at all. Food and medicines can be freely bought. But wait... who blocks the entrance of those? Oh, yes... the customs.

Try to send dollars: the regime will keep them and will give CUPs to relatives of cubans.

I have heard (not confirmed data) that in the customs they can take as much as half of what you send. But yes, the embargo is the problem. Thieves.

I tell you from the point of view of a person that knows what happens there.

You are welcome.

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