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

Defecting from North Korea is now harder

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 201 posts

Re: Defecting from North Korea is now harder

#21

Post by boeingUH60 »

palata wrote: post #9
golergka wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Did you mean "authoritarian" regimes? Communism doesn't imply the same things.

Every communist regime becomes authoritarian; none has proven otherwise. But we can see many examples of successful capitalist countries with democracy and freedom, even though they aren't perfect.

Re: Defecting from North Korea is now harder

#22

Post by jeromegv »

meghan_rain wrote: post #18
lwhalen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...wat

[flagged]

Hacker news is great for many reasons and one of them is that it hasn’t become a place for nazis and other to spread their insanity. (No idea what the comment was) Sane moderation is good. Thank you Dang for your work.

You’re free to go on « uncensored » forums and see how enjoyable it is once they reach thousands of users.

Re: Defecting from North Korea is now harder

#23

Post by karaterobot »

That was harrowing.

There were a couple things I didn't understand:

1. What changed about China's surveillance systems or procedures to make them ~20x more effective at catching refugees in a couple years?

2. There's a bit about how North Korean refugees can apply for asylum in South Korea. I was under the impression (from Barbara Demick's book Nothing to Envy) that all North Koreans are more or less granted asylum by default. My recollection is that she put it even more strongly in her book: that SK in effect treated fleeing North Korean citizens as de facto citizens of South Korea, because they are meant to be one country. Is the asylum process mentioned here a rubber stamp, or did the process get more strict? Would a refugee from North Korea ever be refused asylum in South Korea?

Re: Defecting from North Korea is now harder

#25

Post by phatskat »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #21
palata wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you mean "authoritarian" regimes? Communism doesn't imply the same things.

Every communist regime becomes authoritarian; none has proven otherwise. But we can see many examples of successful capitalist countries with democracy and freedom, even though they aren't perfect.

An argument I’ve seen is that we haven’t seen a truly communist country yet. The most promising ones (imo) were smaller countries who’s communist ambitions were stifled by American-backed coups. Many of the earlier communist leaders like Lenin and Mao also knew that their countries weren’t communist in practice, as you can’t slip a switch and suddenly you have working communism. Their goals were to establish governments that could lead their populations to eventually being communism in practice instead of just as an ideal. Obviously, this depends on having a government that is actively trying to make itself obsolete, and most politicians don’t want that.

Capitalism may “work”, but it’s definitely not sustainable without checks and balances and limits on wealth accumulation and influence. Allowed to roam free, it’s disingenuous to say they “aren’t perfect”, they’re destroying the planet and its people.

Re: Defecting from North Korea is now harder

#27

Post by phatskat »

czechdeveloper wrote: post #15
palata wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you mean "authoritarian" regimes? Communism doesn't imply the same things.

Given that we never saw at scale other than soviet style communism, communism and soviet style communism is being used interchangeably.

“Soviet style communism” quickly became authoritarianism, especially under Stalin. He was communist in title only imo, with a focus on genocide and foolhardily believing that eliminating people with actual education in their fields and replacing them with “the commoners” was somehow good for the country because it looked communist.

Re: Defecting from North Korea is now harder

#28

Post by NelsonMinar »

For more on what it's like being a North Korean software hacker working for the state, listen to the Lazarus Heist podcast. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xtvg9/episodes/downloads

The whole thing is good but IIRC season 1, episodes 5 and 6 are the ones most specifically about what it's like to be a North Korean software engineer in China stealing money online.

Re: Defecting from North Korea is now harder

#30

Post by fndex »

I'm not saying North Korea is a paradise or anything, but the country is technically still at war with the South Korea, which is heavily backed by the US. I wonder how much can be trusted from a NY Times(a US media company) article written by the "Seoul bureau chief for The New York Times".
Post reply on HN