Tips to grow your North Korean Startup • Hacker News Board

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#221

Post by bernawil » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:28 AM UTC

lisper wrote: post #204

sudosysgen wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, bullshit. What other "left" government ended up with a hereditary monarchy?

You're right, left-wing dictatorships tend not to be hereditary. NK is unique in this regard.

NK is really the odd one there with the hereditary thing and all. Almost all other communist "dictatorships" are really not that different from US style corporations. Basically, organizations staffed by common people jockeying for position. Sometimes climbing the ladder on merit, sometimes politicking but you get the point. Being family with the CEO helps proably as much as being family with the head of the politburo.

And if you think about it, how much of American culture in the 20th century was a result of things that came out of corporate boards?

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#222

Post by germandiago » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:29 AM UTC

the_af wrote: post #199

germandiago wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If the only capitalist in Argentina you know is Milei (far right, self-proclaimed "libertarian", worked under a known criminal of our military dictatorship) then you're out of touch. Really, consider how you're shifting the goalposts: you only consider far right libertarians as capitalists. The rest of the world disagrees with you. Anyway, I live in Argentina and you don't. You are wrong. > That is not capitalism. Ca…

Far right is the label you put to degrade Milei. Milei is a libertarian. If that looks to you like "far right" it is your call. For me those are very different things. Apart from this comment: capitalism is free market and low regulations.

By that measure, how capitalist is Argentina? As much as this in the economic freedom index, which could be considered an index of "how capitalist" a country is (position 148): https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

If this is capitalism...

I do not know what consensus you talk about. Capitalism is low or no regulation and free market. Also, should favor low taxing. Otherwise you have social democracy.

> Anyway, I live in Argentina and you don't. You are wrong.

This is a fallacy of authority, as you can see by the economic freedom index I shared with you. Position 148 next to countries like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Ecuador... even the communist Laos has a better score in economic freedom!!! I live in Vietnam, Laos is next to where I used to live in Hanoi. If that has more economic freedom than Argentina, Argentina cannot in any way be considered capitalist as such.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#223

Post by sudosysgen » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:30 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #209

camdat wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

What is the connection between Cuba and "Excess mortality in Wuhan city and other parts of China during the three months of the covid-19 outbreak: findings from nationwide mortality registries"? Are you saying that since we know that Chinese statistics are accurate, Cuban statistics must also be?

The original argument is that the "communist strategy" for handling the pandemic doesn't work and that they are faking the statistics.

Beyond that, given the fact that both of them used very similar tactics, we would expect similar results.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#224

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:31 AM UTC

bernawil wrote: post #221

lisper wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, left-wing dictatorships tend not to be hereditary. NK is unique in this regard.

NK is really the odd one there with the hereditary thing and all. Almost all other communist "dictatorships" are really not that different from US style corporations. Basically, organizations staffed by common people jockeying for position. Sometimes climbing the ladder on merit, sometimes politicking but you get the point. Being family with the CEO helps proably as much as being family with the head of the politburo…

> NK is really the odd one there with the hereditary thing and all. Almost all other communist "dictatorships" are really not that different from US style corporations.

Wait, are you saying equity ownership and therefore control, of “US style corporations” isn't inheritable?

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#225

Post by scollet » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:35 AM UTC

ghufran_syed wrote: post #142

ModernMech wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true though. Communism isn't about communal ownership of all things, it's specifically about ownership of the means of production . Communism doesn't preclude ownership of personal property. You can still own your toothbrush under communist philosophy. However what you can't own is the steel plant. You can't own the roads. You can't own the Internet. You can't own the school system. You can't own the heal…

Does that imply that people who produce things with their minds e.g. mathematicians, would therefore need to be “owned” by the government?

What?

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#226

Post by tigerInATurvy » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:38 AM UTC

aspenmayer wrote: post #146

tigerInATurvy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if they did. The post-Stalin Soviet Union would be a much freer place than North Korea. Here's a couple of quotes from Andrei Lankov's* book "Essays on Daily Life in North Korea" on how Soviets viewed North Korea: "When I arrived in North Korea for the first time on a sunny day in September 1984, I felt perplexed. I came to study at the Kim 11 Sung University, as a participant in an exchange p…

This was exactly the kind of context I was missing. Thanks for this. I remember some high-profile expats immigrating to China in the 1950s and 60s, and writing about their experiences publicly to acclaim and disdain. Do you know if any of these are critically well-received?

I'm not sure which high-profile expats you're referring to. That's not an area I'm familiar with. I do know about the fates of some westerners who went to North Korea. But don't know much about those who went to China.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#227

Post by germandiago » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:39 AM UTC

beepbooptheory wrote: post #207

germandiago wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If communism was a real thing, it would have worked as predicted. It did not happen. I think one of the worst contributions of marxism (as in incorrect) is the theory of objective value (translating from spanish, I hope I am doing it right), which basically says how much you are being stolen. In fact, there is no such thing as objective value and this is very easy to demonstrate in the experience of any of us. It is…

This is not what Marx believed, he painfully toils through literally thousands of pages arguing for his theory of value, and is not that there is one objective value, which translates to the exploitation of the worker. In fact, his theory is grounded in the profound complication of what we consider 'value', specifically its duality under capitalism: "use value" and "exchange value". What you are most likely referring…

"labor theory of value" -> this is what I was trying to say. Probably I did not phrase it well. I did not read the full book, but I tried to learn its main points. As incorrect as it is IMHO, it is still something everyone should study because of its impact in history.

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#228

Post by bernawil » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:54 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #224

bernawil wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NK is really the odd one there with the hereditary thing and all. Almost all other communist "dictatorships" are really not that different from US style corporations. Basically, organizations staffed by common people jockeying for position. Sometimes climbing the ladder on merit, sometimes politicking but you get the point. Being family with the CEO helps proably as much as being family with the head of the politburo…

> NK is really the odd one there with the hereditary thing and all. Almost all other communist "dictatorships" are really not that different from US style corporations. Wait, are you saying equity ownership and therefore control, of “US style corporations” isn't inheritable?

I'm saying public companies -as in trading in the stock market- (and to a lesser extent private ones too) and corporate culture is very similar to communist government.

Schumpeter said something in the lines of "it's ironic that in democratic free-market countries most economic activity happens under hierarchical top-down organizations".

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#229

Post by int_19h » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:59 AM UTC

germandiago wrote: post #210

miracle2k wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Cuban regime is responsible for its sins. The US is responsible for the consequences of its embargo. The whole point of these sanctions it to put pressure on the sanctioned economy; the more pain the economy experiences, and by extension the people who live there, the better. It is disingenuous to claim that US policy is not leading to economic suffering there.

The original reason for the embargo was because when the lands were expropiated the americans forbid to basically trade with cubans to not trade with stolen property due to the revolution. I tell you if you are not aware of the original reason. The original reason makes sense. I understand that normal people is who suffer. That is true and sad.

Given that pre-revolution Cuba was not exactly democratic either, and had insane concentration of wealth, it's arguable whether that stolen property can be considered legitimately owned in the first place. A government of robbers announcing that what they robbed is legitimately owned doesn't make it so.

(The same, of course, applies to the post-revolution government - I'm not trying to claim that it's somehow better.)

Re: Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

#230

Post by int_19h » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 4:00 AM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #216

e-clinton wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think it’d be any different if the embargo were lifted?

What makes you think that the US would blockade Cuba if it would have no effect?

To be fair, doing things for show - basically, to placate one's potential electorate - is par for the course in American politics. In case of Cuba, the embargo is there to placate the Cuban expats in Florida, mostly. Any actual effects that it does or does not have is secondary to that goal.