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

North Koreans speak secretly to BBC from inside closed country

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 100 posts

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

#61

Post by kneebonian »

netsharc wrote: post #45
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

An important matter to understand is that a power vaccum fills very quickly, and often a power vacuum is filled by the most sociopathic, brutual and ruthless people around because they are willing to do anything necessary to secure and retain power.

Many good and normal and moral people would want to self organize and self govern and build something better from the ashes of a fallen country, the problem is that those good and honest people will be manipulated, tricked, and murdered by those who are more brutal and cunning than them.

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

#62

Post by bitwize »

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…

> This sounds like something taken straight from https://elan.school/. Or is it the other way around?

Totalitarianism kind of tends to take the same shape no matter the initial ideology. It's kind of like how crabs keep spontaneously re-evolving across genera.

To me it sounded like the "struggle sessions" of communist China, or "sec checks" in Scientology. St. Augustine showed us that it's much easier to keep control of a population if you can infuse them with guilt and get them to police themselves (and each other). Other cults and states just applied that principle in different ways.

> I have to ask - what does the NK leadership hope to achieve here? Control? Over who - the dead?

For the Workers' Party of Korea, if the country gets run into the ground doing the right thing that beats a thriving country living outside the rules of Juche.

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

#63

Post by kneebonian »

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.

I maintain that the second greatest mistake the US ever made was not giving McArthur the bombs he wanted.

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

#64

Post by jraph »

kelipso wrote: post #55
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.

People in this thread itself are talking about how they wish NK would be invaded. You can justify pretty much anything using any justification as long as enough people believe or support it.

Well, from the article, some people there seem to hope for something like this.

> “Only with a war, and by getting rid of the entire leadership, can we survive,” he says. “Let’s end this one way or another.”

> Myong Suk agrees. “If there was a war, people would turn their backs on our government,” she says. “That’s the reality.”

I don't have any opinion myself. I would hope the world could do something about it and put an end on this, but nobody has figured out how so far apparently. I would naively hope we could avoid war and convince the Kim family to stop the disaster…

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

#65

Post by kneebonian »

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.

This is mentioned in the article, even when foreign aid is brought in the state ensures no one gets it or knows that it exists, holding it back for the powerful, so that their people don't start to understand how good the life outside of NK is.

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

#66

Post by arp242 »

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.

Many (though far from all) dictators started out with fairly good intentions: Mao, Gaddafi, Mugabe, Castro, etc. all fought against oppressive regimes and were more or less justified in their fight. Turns out that the required skill sets of "freedom fighter" and "effective democratic leader" don't have a whole lot of overlap, and that people with the right skills for both are relatively rare.

Once you've got absolute power fewer and fewer people will call you out on your bullshit and you quickly become more detached from reality – humans are very good are rationalizing our own actions, even when it's wholly irrational, and if there are never any real consequences ... well ...

My point being: Kim Jong Un may genuinely believe he's doing the right thing.

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

#67

Post by CrackerNews »

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…

There is still a benevolence angle when it comes to things like providing free healthcare, but even here food supply has been a problem.

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

#68

Post by arp242 »

GartzenDeHaes wrote: post #56
arp242 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really feel like we’ll look back at how we ignored it for so long shamefully One of the big problems has long been that North-Korea has a large network of artillery within shelling distance of Seoul. Now they also have rockets and nukes and stuff, but even without those any serious threat to NK would come with devastating cost of civilian lives in South-Korea. See e.g. [1], which estimates that "the DPRK could ca…

That's military industrial complex propaganda. The North Korean air force consists of just 40 MiG 29's. The ROK military outclasses NK in every way that matters, including 167 F16's, 60 F15E's, and 40 F35's. This is in addition to the 160 F16's the US has stationed there.

I'll assume that is the case, but that says exactly nothing about artillery capability or the damage this can do in just a matter of hours. How many pieces of (often fortified) artillery do you think those 427 places can take out before shelling starts?

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

#69

Post by dirtyid »

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.

PRC has little control over NK whose the one that's been limiting cross border trade. NK would rather starve a few people in exchange for autarky / independance. NK only started openning up to agri imports from PRC / RU in Q1 this year, but that's mainly due to may/june being toughest period for NK agri production - "sprint poverty" right before harvest. All PRC can do is deal with NK like everyone else, while also encourage their missile program since they'd rather NK fling their target at Japan or US West Coast than PRC.

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

#70

Post by pertymcpert »

kelipso wrote: post #55
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.

People in this thread itself are talking about how they wish NK would be invaded. You can justify pretty much anything using any justification as long as enough people believe or support it.

TFA has a North Korean wishing that the US would invade so that they could be free.
Post reply on HN