...because these are in any way similar circumstances? You are an asshole.
Sampling bias.
Look I have listened to a couple lectures of people that escaped North Korea over the last decade, what they describe are Nazi type concentration camps with the most horrific imagery imaginable.
If this was to be true the world loses any claim on humanitarian concerns, it's not that hard to collect evidence these days with satellites and drones.
(and malnourished homeless kids can be found in the EU as well)
Pyongyang is open for tourism. South Koreans were allowed to visit their families in the north. Leaders of allied countries and religious leaders were allowed into the country side. And there are thousands and thousands of other accounts and satellite images. Can they all be wrong? Why doesn't dear leader open up the rest of the country for tourism?C'mon now, really? How do we gauge it then? Defector accounts that result in a massive sampling bias?
True, but in absence of better metrics (I don't think any of the happiness indexes have enough data for North Korea), poverty levels seem to correlate to life expectancy, something that most people responding are completely ignoring. Can someone prove me wrong on that one?
You're the one equating my grandfather, an officer in the North Korean Army who fought in the Korean War, deserting his post and running across the DMZ with his wife and four children to leaving for a first world country to search for jobs.Look I have listened to a couple lectures of people that escaped North Korea over the last decade, what they describe are Nazi type concentration camps with the most horrific imagery imaginable.
If this were to be true the world loses any claim on humanitarian concerns, it's not that hard to collect evidence these days with satellites and drones.
(and malnourished homeless kids can be found in the EU as well)
Polari is fishing for a new tag.
But yet, NK's economy was better than the South until the 70s. (Edit: I see you just said that!)Let me just say this, there's a good reason my grandparents walked across the DMZ with their kids back in the 60s.
Sampling bias. Godammit people.
People are missing the point. I don't want a couple of photos. I can take a couple of photos of Croydon, it's pretty fucking bleak down there but that isn't the whole UK. I'm wondering what actual evidence we have, as the only quantitative data we have seems to suggest things aren't as bad as in somewhere like sub-Saharan Africa.
Polari is fishing for a new tag.
North Korea defense force, never thought i'd see it.
Sampling bias.
Looks folks, I'm sorry I was wrong. North Korea suck ass and is a living hell, I know it because I saw it on CNN. Let's not even bother discussing it.
Sampling bias. Godammit people.
People are missing the point. I don't want a couple of photos. I can take a couple of photos of Croydon, it's pretty fucking bleak down there but that isn't the whole UK. I'm wondering what actual evidence we have, as the only quantitative data we have seems to suggest things aren't as bad as in somewhere like sub-Saharan Africa.
Looks folks, I'm sorry I was wrong. North Korea suck ass and is a living hell, I know it because I saw it on CNN. Let's not even bother discussing it.
When the DPRK finally crumbles and the U.S. and ROK fully unearth all of the atrocities committed by the Kims, we are going to hate ourselves.
Looks folks, I'm sorry I was wrong. North Korea suck ass and is a living hell, I know it because I saw it on CNN. Let's not even bother discussing it.
I'll take that over the current one!
This isn't really 100% true.Pyongyang is open for tourism. South Koreans were allowed to visit their families in the north. Leaders of allied countries and religious leaders were allowed into the country side. And there are thousands and thousands of other accounts and satellite images. Can they all be wrong? Why doesn't dear leader open up the rest of the country for tourism?
ACTUAL EVIDENCE? You have tons of videos on YouTube about refugees telling about how life is in North Korea. This isn't evidence enough?
What do you want? A Michael Moore documentary?
People telling about their lives is not "bias". You are just simply ignoring what's in front of your eyes.
Watch THIS documentary then, made by an american that went to North Korea. Maybe he isn't "biased". You will confirm pretty much everything that other people have already said.
For... not launching nukes at China during the stalemate of the Korean War?
...what the fuck is a "generic" country? One with boring land and borders?I sometimes see advertizing From the South Korean Tourism Bureau on TV, but South Korea looks like such a generic, soulless Asian country.
...what the fuck is a "generic" country? One with boring land and borders?
Needs more waifu!What is a generic soulless country?
Sampling bias.
Needs more waifu!
Just plain old guilt for not doing anything.
Obviously we haven't been able to do anything, but that doesn't mean we won't feel guilt about it.
Case in point, Cuba. Literacy is great. Healthcare is great.HDI is a pretty crappy indicator of how good a country is. It gives 2/9 weighting to literacy, which NK excels at, but suggesting literacy is indicative of quality of life is ridiculous. Same with life expectancy.
Sorry folks, I actually saw it on Youtube, not CNN. A Michael Moore documentary? Fuck no, that's probably the most biased shit around next to Fox News.
those work camps are probably more like holiday camps if anything.
I wouldn't.
Sad for the hardships of the North Koreans, but at some point, people have to take things in their own hands and there's not much to do about it from outside.
I was apprehensive when those Myanmar monks started demonstrating a few years back, I expected bad things to happen to them (and it did), but the country somehow changed course for the better later on.
You're the one equating my grandfather, an officer in the North Korean Army who fought in the Korean War, deserting his post and running across the DMZ with his wife and four children to leaving for a first world country to search for jobs.
The comparison doesn't even work. South Korea's economy was a complete mess in the 60s, which is why they made plans to emigrate to the US soon thereafter.
And there's our monthly Neogaf Dead Kennedy's reference for the month of April.You'll work harder with a gun in your back for a bowl of rice a day.
Wait. That's a Holiday in Cambodia.
The two best news stories on North Korea in my mind are the CurrentTV one from 2007 or so and the ABC News coverage from the late 90s.
...what the fuck is a "generic" country? One with boring land and borders?
I'm trying to come up with a counter-point, but... Hmm. Not much competition, is there?Ironically, that garish spaceship hotel in Pyongyang is very distinctive, probably the most iconic thing on the whole Korean peninsula.
The problem with people having to take things into their own hands is that the average North Korean only has their own hands
The average North Korean soldier has an AK-47
I'm sorry our pagodas look like every other Asian pagoda to you. Because all eastern Asian countries are generic, right? Almost like we all look the same?One that doesn't present anything to make you want to come and visit. In those ads, I saw nothing unique, nothing that said "so this is only in Korea".
Ironically, that garish spaceship hotel in Pyongyang is very distinctive, probably the most iconic thing on the whole Korean peninsula.
Sorry folks, I actually saw it on Youtube, not CNN. A Michael Moore documentary? Fuck no, that's probably the most biased shit around next to Fox News.
Wut? They have concentration camps. Sampling bias my ass.To take they jerbs.
Sampling bias.
Their main objective was survival. My grandfather's family were farmers, and rationing made their livelihoods incredibly difficult.And that's exactly what I was hinting at, their main drive appears to be prosperity, which is completely honorable but let's not disguise it as an escape from hell.
We all care about our grandparents and many have heroic stories to glorify our heritage, take them with a grain of salt.