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North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

bbc.co.uk

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Re: North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

#41

Post by graypegg »

samastur wrote: post #26
graypegg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentioned at the end of my comment I don’t have a good solution. I think something being tragic and shameful is possible even if we don’t have a solution. Just on a human level, this is humans doing horrible things to other humans. To me that’s shameful for all of us on the scale of history.

How is it shameful if nobody can think of a solution? What is there to be ashamed of, lack of omnipotence? Tragic, disappointing sure. I also happen to disagree that it is ignored or forgotten, this article just being the latest example.

I’m probably being needlessly emotional about it. Anytime you look back in history you have all of the foresight from however many years after. I’m sure we’ll know a even more about what’s going on currently in 2023 way off into the future.

On a purely logical level, we did what we could. But when people talk about other world events (WW2 for example) they’ll often wonder why the average person didn’t fight whatever horror was going on then.

Does it ignore the entire context of the situation, yeah. But it’s odd that I think we’re in that time now.

I’m being emotional because I have a cold, I’m in bed, reading something that made me sad. Take that with a grain of salt haha

Re: North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

#42

Post by rqtwteye »

Tade0 wrote: post #13

> They must attend their weekly Life Review Session, compulsory for every citizen. Here they admit to their mistakes and failures, whilst reporting the shortcomings of their neighbours. This sounds like something taken straight from https://elan.school/ . Or is it the other way around? My parents lived through communism and even during the worst days of the system it wasn't this bad - chiefly because it was impractic…

Think about life under Stalin or even worse, the Khmer Rouge. People will always find a way to justify even the worst cruelties.

Re: North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

#43

Post by nickff »

ksherlock wrote: post #23
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have gave MacArthur whatever he needed to win.

He wanted nuclear bombs in NK and China.

Do you have a citation for that? The only sources I've seen have said that others suggested offensive use of nuclear weapons, then scapegoated MacArthur when the studies were leaked/released to the public.

Re: North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

#44

Post by lordfrito »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #17

North Korea runs contrary to my intuition about dictators. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big supporter of regicide, but most dictatorships, even among the most horrific, represent some sort of misguided attempt at benevolance. Killing dissidents? Sure, they're getting in the way of your utopian plan. Failed economic plans that lead to famine? Well, the idea had some justification, better pivot to avoid further harm. Hell…

> represent some sort of misguided attempt at benevolence

This is the image dictatorships sell to their poor, uneducated, and ill-informed public.

The reality is much worse. Rulers tend to make decisions that benefit those who they share power with (no man rules alone). Dictatorships thrive where there are abundant natural resources combined with an uneducated public. Democracies tend to thrive where a country's main resource is it's people.

North Korea has neither. But those in power wish to remain so, and the cult of personality around "the ruler" and his benevolence helps maintain some form of control over those that are starving. Well that and a lot of guns. North Korea has a well deserved reputation for brutality and suffering.

Checkout the video series Rules for Rulers. It's pretty eye opening, and helped me change the way I look at countries and geopolitics. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Re: North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

#45

Post by netsharc »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #20
reducesuffering wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you have the world do? Tens of thousands of Americans died trying to prevent it in the Korean War. Even if North Korea didn't have nuclear capabilities, it's asking for Iraq 2.0 (dictatorship threatening others, populace under severe oppression)

If China decided they would no longer back North Korea, the regime could be replaced in hours. Most of the time, when toppling regimes, you have to be worried about someone even worse taking over. In this case, I don't see how it could get any worse.

What I imagine would happen is the North Koreans who have suddenly stopped becoming prisoners in their own land trying to enter China, and then China would have to post guards at the border, and be responsible for the mess, including violence, trying to stop them coming in. So the Chinese government probably has an interest in keeping an NK government alive, that way they can claim "He's the evil dictator oppressing his citizens, the mess over there is not our problem!".

I wonder why that's my first thought, rather than the citizens wondering "Well, the government is gone, let's build a collective to self-govern." -- I guess people would rather join a structured society somewhere else rather than try to build one themselves (probably out of nothing, in NK). Not to mention yeah, even if the current asshole is gone, the next asshole is probably busy setting up shop to resume the oppression.

Re: North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

#46

Post by rekabis »

jraph wrote: post #37

I just can't understand what motivates so much violence towards a whole population. This is a mystery to me. Even if it's greed or something, how are you happy with yourself and sleep well when you are causing so much harm? I usually try hard to understand fellow human beings but I'm badly failing here.

[flagged]

Re: North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

#47

Post by fragmede »

jraph wrote: post #37

I just can't understand what motivates so much violence towards a whole population. This is a mystery to me. Even if it's greed or something, how are you happy with yourself and sleep well when you are causing so much harm? I usually try hard to understand fellow human beings but I'm badly failing here.

[flagged]

Re: North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

#48

Post by contingencies »

I've been to the border and spoken with Chinese who live there, the stories of death and poverty are horrific. I find it appalling that Switzerland knowingly welcomes the leaders children to educate themselves there and live luxuriously, as they do for many other regimes.

Re: North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

#49

Post by CrackerNews »

awiejrliawjer wrote: post #16
iJohnDoe wrote: post #11

Do the sanctions prevent other countries from providing humanitarian aid? Russia helped North Korea previously, but has been strained in years, plus the war probably further strains any aid. China could certainly help, but that relationship I think is also strained by North Korea not being able to pay their bills for crucial resources to keep the lights on.

The sanctions from outside generally don't limit outside countries from providing aid, but the north korean government closing its borders clearly does. They've never allowed foreign aid workers in generally, and now they've evicted pretty much all foreigners. As the article says, they don't want anyone to understand how much better life is in other countries. Even when foreign countries attempt to send them aid mate…

Countries like NK view foreign aid with skepticism over possible espionage, unfortunately.

Re: North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

#50

Post by kelipso »

graypegg wrote: post #33
vkou wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think when looking back through history, the continued torture of the entire North Korean population is going to be one of the most tragic events of the 21st century. 1. Not the utterly pointless, banal conflicts started by lies and personal vendettas that have already killed hundreds of thousands and millions of people, spilled over into neighbouring (and not so neighbouring) countries, and destabilized entire p…

I’m not going to get into a conversation comparing tragedy to find the top 10. I said “one of” specifically for that reason. I don’t think deciding if there’s actually worse things going on actually adds anything here. (A thread specifically about North Korea)

When you say "one of the most" key word here being most, yes, you are 100% inviting comparison. I'm not interested in the discussion itself but you were definitely inviting comparison.
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