-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Are things really that bad for North Koreans?
- Thread starter Polari
- Start date
- Status
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.
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)
Sampling bias?
Unless you're in the freaking military it's the entire damn country! Random arrests, starvation, work camps, etc, etc, etc.
You can't liberate a country when their leadership has their fingers on a nuclear trigger.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
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?
OrlanisWorks
Banned
What do you mean when by a correlation between poverty and life expectancy? Do you mean the poor live shorter lives?
Life expectancy statistics on North Korea are probably bullshit.
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.
North Korea defense force, never thought i'd see it.
Really, you call bullshit on these photos and stuff, but you'll take the statistics coming out of the government at face value?
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
But yet, NK's economy was better than the South until the 70s. (Edit: I see you just said that!)
(Doesnt mean it didn't suck ideologically, but as per the OP's question, I think he's talking about health/economics, etc)
Sampling bias! Look I can do it as well!
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.
I'll take that over the current one!
ElectricBlue187
Member
Aww feel a bit passive aggressive? Maybe some time in a political labor camp would improve your mood.
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.
So what are we discussing then? How is a living hell not equal "really bad".
Instigator
Banned
For... not launching nukes at China during the stalemate of the Korean War?
If you were do even the smallest shred of research on your own, you'd know for yourself just how much of a hell hole N. Korea is.
don't go blaming others for your ignorance.
This isn't really 100% true.
There WAS a limited shared city that you could tour with impugnity but the whole "reunite" campaign was heavily restricted. There was a mountain that's a historical landmark that they used for the all the PR shots in the early aughts.
My grandparents thought about applying for it the last time they were in South Korea but decided against it with all the restrictions. Rather sad because they're in their 80s now, so it's probably the last chance they would've had to see the family they had left in North Korea - assuming they were still alive.
It's easiest to enter North Korea from the Chinese border, which is where much of the personal accounts come from.
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.
BertramCooper
Banned
Just plain old guilt for not doing anything to alleviate the suffering of the North Korean people.
Obviously we haven't been able to do anything for a number of reasons, but that doesn't mean we won't feel guilty about it.
Instigator
Banned
I sometimes see advertizing From the South Korean Tourism Bureau on TV, but South Korea looks like such a generic, soulless Asian country.
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?
shira
Member
The translation is kinda wonky.
And allegedly dude escaped 3-4x to China, and was sent back each time.
I don't think they would have put up with that shit.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
What is a generic soulless country?
Needs more waifu!
You talk about sampling bias, and then look at numbers which were compiled by a totalitarian dictatorship to gauge the quality of life in NK? That makes no sense at all.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I think things suck in NK real bad..
But I do think that most of the world gets its information about NK from American and SK sources that tend to over-emphasize how bad of a place it is, because it is their job to portray NK as a problem that must be dealt with.
But I do think that most of the world gets its information about NK from American and SK sources that tend to over-emphasize how bad of a place it is, because it is their job to portray NK as a problem that must be dealt with.
North Korea is a country that has things like this btw http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13272198
Crimes that can send you to these places for life include watching South Korean tv, meaning mean about dear leader and oh yes, being born there.
There is also a good book called Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden and is a biography of Shin Dong-hyuk, the only person to ever successfully escape from one of these camps and get into South Korea.
Crimes that can send you to these places for life include watching South Korean tv, meaning mean about dear leader and oh yes, being born there.
There is also a good book called Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden and is a biography of Shin Dong-hyuk, the only person to ever successfully escape from one of these camps and get into South Korea.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Every country could use more waifu. Now we are just stating the obvious!
Instigator
Banned
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.
Case in point, Cuba. Literacy is great. Healthcare is great.
Too bad nobody can afford to buy anything.
ChiTownBuffalo
Either I made up lies about the Boston Bomber or I fell for someone else's crap. Either way, I have absolutely no credibility and you should never pay any attention to anything I say, no matter what the context. Perm me if I claim to be an insider
Koreans in general live long so we can experience as much suffering in life as possible. It's han.
HEre's one from the BBC.
Escaping N. Korea...
http://documentaryheaven.com/escaping-north-korea/
Kimjongilia is a great one with stories about people in N. Korea as well as those who defected...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9zgjyd7hgY
The Vice Guide to N. Korea is interesting as well.
You refuse to educate yourself on anything. People provide things for you to check out and you scream "sampling bias".
Are you a holocaust denier as well?
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 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
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.
And there's our monthly Neogaf Dead Kennedy's reference for the month of April.
Thanks for playing, folks!
Instigator
Banned
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.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I'm trying to come up with a counter-point, but... Hmm. Not much competition, is there?
Instigator
Banned
Those Myanmar monks didn't have guns either. Neither did those East German civillians in 1989.
Not all uprisings are successful, but if things are so bad, it should be a prime motivator to act.
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?
They have concentration camps.
So yes. Worse than everyone thinks.
The government is a fucking atrocity.
Try read this if you can stomach it.
So yes. Worse than everyone thinks.
The government is a fucking atrocity.
Try read this if you can stomach it.
Wut? They have concentration camps. Sampling bias my ass.
Their main objective was survival. My grandfather's family were farmers, and rationing made their livelihoods incredibly difficult.
The '60s were an incredibly tumultuous decade in South Korea socially between the student riots and President Park's anti-communism crusade. Not to mention it didn't help that my grandfather was a Northerner. My father's dad fought on the Northern side. My mother's dad fought on the Southern side. This isn't really that rare of a phenomenon, but it was certainly a distinction made thereafter.
We may be a tiny ass country, but we sure as hell make distinctions about what region you came from. We even have our very own West Virginia!
- Status