[infecto]

Is it really racist? North Korea is the most tightly controlled country in the world. Seems too easy to just throw out the racist card when you did not refute or provide any counter point.

I am certain there are good people in North Korea but it would be hard to figure folks allegiances. A lifetime of propaganda can really do something to the mind.

[fsloth]

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘good’.

May I suggest you may have meant ‘there are probably people who in the deepest of their heart disagree with state policy’.

If the state can execute your family on a whim because somebody stepped out of line you keep generally those sentiments well hidden.

But _liking_ the policies of the state where you live in is generally not considered a vice. So if a person who disagrees with the NK state is ‘good’ this implies people who agree NK state are ‘bad’ and I don’t think that’s the right framework when discussing large populations of nation states.

[infecto]

It’s mostly just a hand-waving acknowledgment that, yes, I’m broadly categorizing everyone as a North Korean state actor. I get that there are gradients of belief, some coerced, some true believers, but in the end, they’re all still acting on behalf of the state, one way or another.

[keybored]

> I am certain there are good people in North Korea but it would be hard to figure folks allegiances. A lifetime of propaganda can really do something to the mind.

What sources have taught you about life in Korea?

[infecto]

Numerous different documentaries and individual travel videos. Like all things there is a bias but I am also not sure what your point is? Are you suggesting North Koreans are not subject to massive amounts of propaganda and indoctrination into this idea of the supreme leader?

This is starting to feel like a flat earth discussion.

[dttze]

You’re making broad, sweeping generalizations based off biased videos. If this is a flat earth discussion, you’re the flat earther.

[infecto]

I get it, nuance is hard, but this isn’t nuance, it’s lazy contrarianism. You’re not defending truth, you’re just allergic to anyone speaking plainly about a brutal dictatorship. If you’ve got a credible counterpoint, make it. Otherwise, tossing out “bias” like it’s a trump card isn’t an argument, it’s a dodge.

[dttze]

Once again, you made broad generalizations based off some videos you saw (who even knows how biased or truthful they were). You know nothing of NK and yet here you are confidently making statements about it and its people.

It is typical western chauvinism and it is embarrassing to read you try to pretend it isn't.

[infecto]

Ah, there it is, “Western chauvinism,” the all-purpose dismissal when you’ve got no real counterargument. You’re not engaging with what I said, you’re just performing indignation.

Yes, I’ve seen videos, read books, listened to defectors, and followed reports from Amnesty, the UN, and others. You? You’re just here to sneer at the idea that anyone outside North Korea could possibly know anything. That’s not humility, it’s nihilism in a moral disguise.

You say I “know nothing” about North Korea. Maybe not everything. But I know enough to not reflexively defend a regime that starves its people while building monuments to a cult of personality. If that makes you uncomfortable, good.

[keybored]

> Numerous different documentaries and individual travel videos. Like all things there is a bias but I am also not sure what your point is? Are you suggesting North Koreans are not subject to massive amounts of propaganda and indoctrination into this idea of the supreme leader?

North Korea is famously one of the most closed-off countries in the world. Its Western-aligned neighbor is officially still at war with it. But at the same time people will make assertions with certainty about what North Korea is.

North Korea is an unreliable narrator. So are South Korea and America because they are hostile to NK. And people in the West don’t trust whatever countries are aligned with North Korea.

That’s the discrepancy—speaking boldly about the most closed off country in the world. Like documentaries and travel videos? Travel videos will be cherry-picked because of the government’s[1] policy of stalking and sheepherding all their tourists. That’s just one example from the NK side. We can also get into Western outlets making up NK fairytales based on no NK sources at all.

> This is starting to feel like a flat earth discussion.

Asking what level of information you have on a very closed-off country is comparable to denying a scientific fact that has been hypothesized for millenia, empirically proven probably for centuries, and can probably be empirically proven by an amateur scientist mountaineer?

Oh yeah? Have you got any more tired cliches up your sleeve?[2] “Oh hush” to quote a HN user.

[1] Or the regime if you prefer

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43618619

[infecto]

You spent a lot of words saying “nobody knows anything” while conveniently ignoring the mountains of defectors’ testimonies, satellite imagery, and reports from human rights orgs that paint a bleak but consistent picture. But sure, let’s pretend the real problem is me not being epistemologically pure enough about the world’s most repressive regime.

Your entire comment boils down to: “We can’t trust any sources, so how dare you have an opinion.” That’s not skepticism, that’s intellectual paralysis dressed up as nuance.

And yes, invoking Flat Earth was apt—because entertaining every counter-narrative, no matter how unmoored from reality, in the name of balance is exactly how we ended up with people thinking the Earth is a disk.

But by all means, tell me more about the utopia behind the DMZ, if not hush too. You have said a lot of nothing.

What a world we live in. You cannot even call NK a repressive regime without folks jumping to point out how wrong you are. Maybe you need to go through the test your self and denounce the supreme leader.

[keybored]

I should gather my thoughts and focus my statement now that I recalled why I made it to begin with. I was really mostly curious specifically why you were so certain about the “lifetime of propaganda” and what it can do to the mind. Being a closed society we don’t have access to North Koreans to just talk to. You have defectors who are outliers. Secondly, taking the statement about the propaganda at face value, the next problem is what it does to the mind. Because we can’t point to people praising “the dear leader” or whatever in public as proof of the inner life of someone. If they live in such an authoritarian hellhole then they will have to say that just to survive. So is it a lifetime of propaganda? Or are they just getting by?

The next point would be juxtapose the lifetime of propaganda with your complete and unwavering certainty about the state of mind in the hermit kingdom, but you don’t seem quite ready for that.

Now to your reply here. There’s too many muddied points, too many strawmen to go into in detail without boring you in turn. So I won’t. But notice that I haven’t even defended North Korea. In fact one of the points I made was how they will sheepherd tourists. My comment was 80% epistemological, as you say. And your response? Talking about “the Utopia” of the DMZ? Oh wait, that’s exactly the phrase you brought up to someone else[1] and they too never ever said that North Korea was a great place to live (only that the narrative was “racist”).

So why go into these epistemological sleep study sessions? Because as evidenced by the conversation in [2], you (but also serving as an example because this is far from unique) will dismiss people who question the narrative of the OP, namely “The FBI reported the money funds nuclear weapons and operations”. This is perfectly germane to the topic: is this a thing of concern or is it a convenient narrative? You dismiss that as a “conspiracy” in your reply and waffle on about “sure, other countries do bad things, but NK worse”. Your dismissal has got nothing to do with the topic, though. The topic is not if NK is a fantastic place to live, a “utopia” or whatever. The topic is if they did something that other countries don’t do.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43618677

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43618503

[infecto]

You write a novel to say “we can’t really know,” then act like that’s some brave intellectual stance. It’s not. It’s just a way to dodge moral clarity.

Defectors are “outliers”? Of course they are—it’s a police state. That’s how tyranny works. You don’t get a representative sample when dissent gets you killed.

You’re not offering insight. You’re drowning basic truths in a flood of words to avoid saying anything with weight. At some point, skepticism becomes cowardice.

Say less. Mean more.

[tkel]

"A lifetime of propaganda" about how NK is some nightmare land?

The evidentiary standard on reporting goes basically to zero if it's about NK. Outlandish claims are to be taken at face value and not interrogated, because of a "lifetime of propaganda" in the US, since the Korean War. Yes, that is linked with racism. The evidentiary standard in the media on other European countries for example is much much higher. For the most part, the racist narrative follows that places where white people are good and free, and places where non-white people are dangerous and bad. Classic racist rhetoric.

With regards to the specific points the article is making: "The FBI reported the money funds nuclear weapons and operations". Is a laughable fearmongering hypcrocrisy. part of Every tax dollar in the US goes towards funding nuclear weapons and operations. But good luck trying to get reporters at Fortune to be self-aware of their hypocrisy. That's the propaganda: bad when they do it. Good or neutral when we do it. Uncritical re-printing of statements from government agents (FBI). A reporter with an evidentiary standard would ask for evidence before printing that. Last I checked there was only one country that has actually used a nuclear weapon. Objectively, I would say that country is far more dangerous.

[simonh]

So, which evidence are you questioning. That Harrison Leggio has identified many North Koreans posing as US citizens? His claim that other companies he is familiar with are finding the same thing?

Are you disputing the evidence from other specific named private citizens in companiess that are reporting this happening, such as Michael Barnhart and Jamie Collier of Google, Bojan Simic of Hypr and Emi Chiba at Gartner who are confirming they have experienced the same activity in their firms? How about the evidence from Aidan Raney, a private security researcher, who reports he personally infiltrated one of these scam operations?

Furthermore it’s not just unsubstantiated claims by US agencies, the article also refers to two successfully prosecuted court cases in which they had to present evidence to secure convictions.

Your criticisms are aimed at US reporting, but the United Nations reports the same thing.

[x3n0ph3n3]

Cool. Go hire some North Koreans to work at your company. Have fun with that.

[tkel]

It's not hiring north koreans that's the issue. It's that doing so is worthy of writing hysterial articles full of unsubstantiated propaganda.

[infecto]

Oh hush. I have zero tolerance for conspiracies. Yes, every country has its own flavor of nationalism, pride or propaganda but let’s not confuse ourselves and try to sell NK as some misunderstood nation.

[tkel]

Expecting journalists to have evidentiary integrity is now a conspiracy? I didn't say it was false, or that it was true. I'm saying that uncritically reprinting dramatized, political statements from government agents without evidence is propaganda. When they operate in this way, the media acts as a propaganda wing of the government.

[infecto]

Come on. There’s a difference between questioning U.S. foreign policy and pretending North Korea is some misunderstood utopia. You’re right that propaganda exists in the West, but that doesn’t mean every criticism of the DPRK is racist or unexamined.

Calling out the regime’s control and the risk posed by state-backed cyber ops isn’t some “classic racist rhetoric”, it’s acknowledging reality. This is a country where you can be executed for watching the wrong movie. Pretending that’s morally equivalent to U.S. hypocrisy is lazy relativism.

Yes, the U.S. has done awful things. Yes, our media should be more critical. But no, I’m not going to pretend North Korean IT operatives raising money for a weapons program isn’t a serious issue just because the U.S. also has nukes. That’s not nuance, that’s deflection