[rikacomet]

As long as they don't nuke anyone, I believe North Koreans have every right to live as they want, no matter how strange/hilarious/unmeaning/suppressed their lifestyle may seem to us.

EDIT: Explanation-https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5694012

[ctdonath]

The whole point is that they DON'T get to live anywhere close to how they want. The slightest dissent or disobedience is met with vicious punishment or death. They can't leave, even if they want to. Ongoing starvation is normal. They act odd at the football game because they never go to football games and have no idea how to act; most there likely were told "attend or die". If they "like" this it's because they at not allowed to know any options.

You know that recent news story of three women rescued from 10 years brutal captivity? North Korea is that on a national scale.

[DLay]

I'm sorry, did I miss the sarcasm in this post?

Please peruse these hand drawn pictures done by a North Korean defector depicting what life is like at one of their concentration camp--at your leisure, of course:

http://imgur.com/a/648Mv

http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com/2007-09-atbirth.htm

To add to that, North Koreans have this policy called "third generation punishment". If a person does something that's frowned upon, like complaining about food rations, he/she gets executed with the knowledge that three generations of his/her family will be tortured to death at the camps. Many times the family gets sent without knowing the original family members' crime, just that they are now prisoners. If someone is born there it is a lifetime of slavery.

---------------

"I believe North Koreans have every right to live as they want, no matter how strange/hilarious/unmeaning/suppressed their lifestyle may seem to us."

Do you wish to retract that statement now?

[rikacomet]

India has a policy called AFSPA, MCOCA, and POTA, that basically allow armed forces, not civil forces, to arrest, shoot, or kill any person without any trial, proof.

Prevalent in at least two states: J&K and Nagaland.

Turnout in last elections was near the national average. Rest is upto you to adjudge.

[alinajaf]

I'm not quite sure how that answers DLays points. Care to elaborate?

He/she was pointing out that people the children, and childrens children of people who are deemed enemies of the state are not free to live how they want.

[bluedevil2k]

So you really think if they just opened up the border to South Korea and let people go as they please, NO ONE would leave the glorious nation of North Korea because it's how they want to live?

[rikacomet]

and you believe that every last North Korean would go to South Korea, supposedly if that is true, you base this belief on?

[bluedevil2k]

An adult's understanding of how people behave, and a parent's desire to give their children a better life...not a 21 year old's ignorant view of the world.

[rikacomet]

And of all things, you had to go to my profile, and adjudge me ignorant, based on my age. Well, I don't mind that. Some people are built that way to find illogical reasons to deny someone's opinion.

People here, of all the people, know better that wisdom is not based on age. It is rare at young age, but not impossible.

[bluedevil2k]

You're confusing "intelligence" and "wisdom". Wisdom is, without a doubt, based on age. It's something that can only be obtained through years and years of experience dealing with people, places, and situations in the world. While you may have more intelligence than an 80 year old Korean War vet, I don't think anyone would believe you have more wisdom.

[GhotiFish]

A note on wisdom: A 21 year old posts advocating that we are almost certainly acting reactionary to a different culture.

Now if a 35 year old were to come along and outright dismiss him because he's too young, oblivious to how bad that would look to a herd of hackers, then that would challenge your assertion that wisdom is earned from experience.

My moneys on the 21 year old

but hey, I'm 25. You know us young fools, right?

[chris_wot]

I completely disagree with the original poster, but lets focus on his argument, not on a thing as ridiculous as the posters age. I'm 34, btw.

[return0]

By that logic you must be even younger

[alinajaf]

For a minute there I thought you were talking about Kim Jong-un, but it turns out he's 28.

[nodata]

I believe North Koreans have every _right_ to live as they want

Do you realise that this article is highlighting the point that they _don't_ have this right?

[rikacomet]

and who exactly adjudged that, that they don't have this right? You? Me? Media? After having seen, what is the policy with foreign journalist? Do you say that any media report is 100% free of bias?

[Zirro]

"and who exactly adjudged that, that they don't have this right?"

Those who manage to escape the concentration camps and leave the country.

[cs648]

I think nodata is saying that the North Korean government has taken that right away from them.

[rikacomet]

And I think, I said it clearly, that what is the proof of, that right being taken away is something NK's want to fight for? even if what nodata said is true, that it is indeed being taken away.

The reporting of our own media? which are not being allowed into NK, or if they are, are they being allowed the time, freedom to scrutinize? And if someone would think, that because they are disallowing media, they have something to hide, while indeed they have! but would you allow your neighbor to come inside your house, and get the truth about any fight you had within your family?

[delackner]

No one is attacking you personally here. You have simply said some misguided accusations about a country whose history you clearly have not read very much about. That is fine, we all make mistakes. Digging your heels is unnecessary. Perhaps this story would make you pause and reconsider your perspective. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Dong-hyuk_%28human_rights_... One exerpt is particularly chilling:

"""When Shin was 14, he overheard his mother and brother planning an escape attempt and informed the guards, which was something he was taught to do from an early age.[4][5] Rather than reward Shin for turning his family members in, the guards tortured him for four days to extract more information from him.[4][5] According to Shin, the guards lit a charcoal fire under his back and forced a hook into his skin so that he could not struggle,[12] and this caused Shin to receive many large scars from the flesh being burned and other abuses.[13] On November 29, 1996, camp officials forced Shin to watch the public execution of his mother and brother, and he knew that he was directly responsible for the execution """

[alinajaf]

If only 10% of one of the accounts of the concentration camp escapees is true, then NK is in the same cluster as Syria and Congo in terms of treatment of its people.

Its reasonable to assume that the right to not have your malnourished six year old daughter beaten to death for stealing a few corn kernels is one that homo sapiens everywhere find worth fighting for.

[robomartin]

A number of issues with your position.

First of all, people, regardless of country, don't start wars, governments do. The North Korean people will not nuke anyone, ever. If that happens it will be done by their government. Be sure to understand that distinction as you go forward in life. The hundred million people killed during the world wars died because of decisions and actions taken by governments, not farmers in Germany, teachers in Japan, taxi drivers in New York or restaurant owners in London. War is one of the most regrettable failures of our collective approaches to government.

As for the rest, read the Allegory of the Cave. Someone who only knows shadows does not know reality. You seem to imply this is perfectly acceptable. I think most of the negative reaction you are seeing is because, of course, this idea is deeply flawed and, at some level, really cruel.

I'll take this to an uncomfortable extreme. Suppose the town next to yours has a culture of child abuse. That's just what they do. Every home has a dungeon and kids are kept in there until they become adults. No education is provided at all.

You and I look at this from the outside. You say it is OK no matter how horrible this might look to us. I say it is not.

I know you've had criticism for being young. I won't go there other than to say that there are a lot of indoctrinated young idealists in the HN audience. In some cultures they come out of school indoctrinated and fail to understand the world and their environment until perhaps decades later. I'd venture to say people don't really get it until somewhere around 30 to 40 years of age.

Start by reading some of the Greek philosophers. I am not suggesting you take their writings as facts as much as I would propose they might teach how to reason and view things from many angles. I don't intend this to imply you are ignorant. Not even close. It's something from my own education I continue to find value in over the years and I thought I'd share that with you.

[obviouslygreen]

First of all, people, regardless of country, don't start wars, governments do.

This is exactly backwards: There is no such entity as a government. It is a collection of people, appointed in some fashion (whether by others or by themselves), who make decisions on behalf of a larger group of people. It's people all the way down.

It's like a corporation in this respect. Google has never done anything, nor has Microsoft, Citibank, or any of those big earners on Wall Street. There are not bad corporations or good corporations; there are only corporations run by people that make decisions and take actions to which we then assign a moral judgment.

Making the mistake of assigning that judgment to a faceless non-entity and not to the people who are running it is the same as saying "The North Korean people will not nuke anyone, ever." If a nuke is launched by North Korea, it absolutely was launched by North Korean people: Those who gave the order to launch it. This is why different politicians within the same government can continue to hate, disagree with, and rail against each other, and why it's never so simple as "country x did thing y, they're all evil, kill 'em all."

If it were that simple -- or even if many people believed it were -- we'd have all wiped each other out very quickly after the advent of the nuclear bomb (if not before).

[robomartin]

Sorry, that's nonsense. Did the people of the US decide to attack Iraq? Nope. A few people in government did. Yes, they are US citizens. Still, it is a ridiculous stretch to say that the people of the US decided to go into Iraq. Nobody asked me. I would have said not to do it.

[GhotiFish]

Out of curiosity. What was he indoctrinated into thinking? That objective morality doesn't exist?

Speaking of indoctrination, there is a contingent of people who actively view this as child abuse. Your metaphor is a reality, one town (I'm sure more than one, actually) really does actively abuse their children in the view of another.

Do you still say it's not ok? Even when the one abusing that child is your next door neighbor, even when you don't hold the morality of this other demographic? We live in an antagonistic society, where we compete to produce, The weakest of us fall to the wayside, are we moral?

If that town abusing their children followed your law, they would of wiped out the atheists, for abusing their children. Not teaching your children about god is child abuse, after all, in one groups view.

[gsk]

>What was he indoctrinated into thinking?

The parent did not say that. You did.

[GhotiFish]

?

   I know you've had criticism for being young. I won't go 
   there other than to say that there are a lot of 
   indoctrinated young idealists in the HN audience. In 
   some cultures they come out of school indoctrinated and 
   fail to understand the world and their environment until 
   perhaps decades later.

So this is not calling him indoctrinated?

I suppose it technically isn't, actually. I find that position pedantic though.

When you see a headline titled "Is Obama trying to destroy America?" you know exactly what their position is. They just can't swap the "Is" and "Obama" words, because it's slander at that point.

None of this is to be commended.

[robomartin]

> So this is not calling him indoctrinated?

Yup. You got it!

What I am saying is factually correct. There are a lot of young brain-washed (indoctrinated) folks who post on HN. How can one tell? Experience. When you read some posts from the perspective of having lived a life outside of academic and religious indoctrination long enough you detect sometimes subtle cues that reveal it. These posts are always detectably different from those of someone with what I might call "independent" life experience.

One of my favorite examples of this is the "blame the rich" meme. It's a very popular meme. Rich businessmen (never women, BTW) are greedy, get paid too much and oppress the little guys. Such statements can only come from a position of indoctrinated ignorance. You can derail such ideas with a few well-crafted questions that quickly point out just how ridiculous a concept it is.

Indoctrination is a powerful force. People will blow themselves up and kill others because they've been brainwashed into a belief system that makes zero sense to someone watching from the outside. What most don't want to accept is that indoctrination isn't limited to extreme quasi-religious ideologies.

[GhotiFish]

Ah I see, so then there was no point in mentioning it right?

Since rikacomet is not indoctrinated, the suggestion to read the works of Greek philosophers was also not a suggestion to correct that line of thinking, and I doubt you were referring to the people responding to him. So it must just be an off the cuff remark. I like carrots. Carrots earned their reputation for improving eyesight in world war two, when the allies spread the rumor that they were giving their pilots a high dose carrot diet to improve their eyesight, as a cover for their shinny new radar system. After all, given the fact that they arn't related, it doesn't seem to apply to anyone really in this discussion.

Or maybe I'm wrong? Did your comment about indoctrination relate, in some way, to something? I think I'm missing it's purpose.

[da_n]

I agree in principle but the fact is most North Koreans do not have the right to live as they want.

[thedrbrian]

Apart from the elite do any North Koreans actually want to live the way they do?

[kpierre]

i don't think any of the elites want to live the way they do, too. but they're stuck in the loop like everyone else.

[rikacomet]

and you both are saying that from experience? You know the elites, and the poor, more than what we have seen through the media?

No, unless you are North Korean citizens for years, it is hard to grasp the truth.

Of course, we all made this judgement, by comparing our life, and putting ourself in what NK's seem like living in right now, and adjudged that we would hate such a life, so the actual North Koreans must be hating their life as well.

But truth be told, Many of the people there haven't even seen foreigners in their whole life, they are like a modern tribe, living in seclusion, we have to let their curiosity take its course, instead of pointing fingers at them saying, "look how boring is there football" "look at that, they don't have any fast food chains " etc etc.

[cturner]

Your first comment wasn't so good. But here you pose a great thought experiment.

To run with your point for a moment - it is possible to consider the idea of a caste system. Most hacker news readers would be disgusted at it, but you could imagine it being run humanely, and the people there would be content to live as they are.

Here's my rule zero of political freedom: do you live in fear of a knock on the door in the middle of the night?

So long as someone lives-and-lets-live, they should never need to live in fear of an authority with a power to arbitrarily do nasty things to them.

To me - that's valid for North Korea, The Lives of Others, middle eastern dictatorships, black helicopters, people who live in gangland Baltimore, domestic violence, children, pets, farm animals and the cold war.

[GhotiFish]

People fear knocks in the night in the USA, Canada, even Sweeden now adays. If you're damn fool enough to run afoul of copyright laws. In fact I would say it's a distopia, if all I did was focus on every incident of homes getting bashed in and governments misstepping. It's easy to fall into a focus illusion, and whenever mainstream media gets involved, there's going to be a focus illusion.

[cturner]

Yes. I made this point several times in drafts of the comment you replied to. But kept removing it because it didn't help me make the point and would have triggered offence in some people who'd otherwise get the point. (I was pushing my luck by mentioning farm animals already)

A British citizen was extradited to the US to be jailed for a crime that did not violate the principle of live and let live. That's an evil that's got long arms.

I guess I can see it as a limited dystopia - one of the worlds that Heinlein puts Job through. But I'd avoid using a word like that for this, for risk of overuse.

[rikacomet]

Yes, you have a very good point regarding caste system. About first post being, not that good, well I got that feeling (haha) No shit!

well, there is a need for scrutiny, as to why there haven't been a popular revolt, against the government, if people are that oppressed, as we are being lead to believe.

[Volpe]

Erm.. propaganda is a very powerful tool, when combined with extreme violence it is easy to oppresse a great number of people.

Your argument that "Given north koreans haven't revolted, might mean they don't mind", would be similar to saying "Maybe the jews didn't mind the holocaust, else why didn't they just overrun the prison camps"

You seem to just be trolling this whole article. There are number of accounts of how bad NK is from people who have escaped the country. There are a number of independent media groups who have made very compelling unbiased reports of what is happening in NK. There are a number of journalists who have been imprisoned while reporting in and around NK.

That coupled with the very public (false) propaganda that is produced by NK itself. Paints a very compelling case that NK is ruled by a single family that is controlling the entire population through miseducation (propaganda) and violence.

Could you show some evidence that suggests it is just media hype?

[cturner]

Regarding the caste thing, had some more thoughts. Django Unchained plays with this. At first, you don't know where Stephen fits in. Is he a slave who "knows his place"? But he's so disrespectful! Gradually you learn that he has carved out a special role for himself at the expense of others.

There's lots of room for talking about knocks on the door, and who fears who in Pulp Fiction too.

Thinking about North Korea is interesting because the media coverage is so slim. What can I trust? Maybe I'm just living in a personalised version of the Truman Show. But the closest we have to a knock on the door is fear of economic strife, and very rare but overhyped incidents of domestic terrorism.

    > why there haven't been a popular revolt, against
    > the government, if people are that oppressed

Revolution is a rare thing.

I assume North Koreans have to deal with twisted language as well, and they're not allowed to talk to one another to work out their ideas. Marxism is filled with weasel words like "permanent revolution".

Imagine how your brain would work if you had been born and bred on a diet of astrology, and taught that even discussing interpretations of what the people with guns say will have immediate, dire consequences.

Most of history is dictatorship and compliance. What we have at the moment feels normal because it's what we know. But really it's a special exception to everything that has come before, and the reality for most of the people who are alive even today.

I'm glad you challenged the post, I didn't have a bunch of these ideas an hour ago.

[ezequiel-garzon]

And how would we know about that popular revolt? I know you're busy answering everybody's replies... but I'd like to add, stating the obvious, that I strongly doubt there's any society with millions+ people where "they live as they want", with "they" = "they all". It just so happens that I can if I so desire read the American Chomskies but not his North Korean counterparts, who, I feel (without proof), must exist.

[kpierre]

please read about Soviet Union. on elites, i recommend you "Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class" by Michael Voslenski. the soviet elites were screaming happy when borders were finally opened. and it's not like NK's lower classes have absolutely no idea what the outside world is like. it is well-known that many have access to SK TV shows and so on. speaking of the poorest, i don't think that you can get used to or love starvation.

[mikeash]

> No, unless you are North Korean citizens for years, it is hard to grasp the truth.

Those who were born there, lived there for years or decades, then escaped, grasp the truth, and have told others how it is.

It does not take any leap of imagination to say that North Korea is a hellhole. All it takes is paying a little attention to what's going on.

[Sprint]

I do not know, do you?

[RobinL]

You're assuming they live as they want to.

Read this and think again: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nothing-Envy-Lives-North-Korea/dp/18...

[fredoliveira]

Being a contrarian will make you look interesting in some cases, ignorant in so many others. You should be a little more informed about what's happening in North Korea and about how exactly their people have "every right to live as they want".

[return0]

Dictatorships are not unknown to the west. We know though, that it is more productive and fulfilling to live in a free democratic society. True, people in dictatorships can claim even a high level of satisfaction and happiness, but it's mostly a case of ignorance being a bliss. You are dismissing the power of oppression in altering minds. We have that in the west too, the media, yet we believe its marginally better due to pluralism