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Not only it isn't immoral, it is highly moral and the best you personally can do for them. I was born in the Soviet Union. It has fallen because of Western tou

Not only it isn't immoral, it is highly moral and the best you personally can do for them. I was born in the Soviet Union. It has fallen because of Western tourists coming there, providing the real evidence of the world from the other side of the curtain. Soviet government welcomed foreign tourists, as they were genuinely concerned about what Western countries are thinking about the USSR (for some reason; BTW, Russia is still very sensitive to this). But soon, Soviet people started to think of unthinkable questions, such as "why all these tourists from purposedly struggling capitalist countries are so well fed and well dressed?". North Korea's government is making the same mistake.

cfcef 11y ago
That's absurd. We are talking about a totalitarian regime which does not care in the least what the West thinks, which carefully ushers tourists who feed it the hard foreign currency it needs through a well-honed propaganda machine (read the blog posts of people doing the tour - they all get bused to the same damn statues and propaganda museums and places) surrounded only by hand-picked minders & chaperones chosen for their loyalty with no contact with the general population, with most tours in a city, Pyongyang, whose populations is also chosen for loyalty to the regime. Try to go 'off script' and you'll see how they treat tourists. Thinking you'll change anyone's mind is as sad and pathetic as the people who go there and drop a Bible behind a toilet and think they have any chance of making a difference. Real evidence of the world from the other side of the curtain is provided by Chinese & Korean smugglers smuggling in K-dramas and hard drives stuffed full of forbidden foreign media and balloon drops from missionary networks. You aren't doing jack by going to NK as a tourist. You're propping up one of the most evil regimes with your money - no ifs, ands, or buts. At least when people waste money climbing Mount Everest, they're only endangering themselves.
- atemerev 11y ago
  > We are talking about a totalitarian regime which does not care in the least what the West thinks You are wrong. First, totalitarian regimes care _a lot_ about what the West thinks. I know it because I grew up in one. They have to be just scary enough, look crazy enough, and display some signs of "progress" enough (like — can anybody in the West organise Mass Games? Look at our highly efficient society!) Modern Russia is, unfortunately, now falling in the same behaviour pattern. Now, of course, tourists that are allowed to contact foreigners, especially Westerners, are filtered through layers and layers of state security. But it is impossible to do thorough filtering. You can't stop kitchen talks (they attempted to do it in Soviet Union and East Germany, but failed). Despite you always are in well-staged Truman show, it is not perfect, and real world is always showing through cracks, and most importantly, they can see _you_ through cracks. Back in USSR, in town of Omsk in Siberia where I grew up, a foreign tourist was a legendary event to be talked about for months (which is why it is of uttermost importance to travel beyond capital cities, where life is less staged and opportunities of random encounters are more numerous) — and if he managed to leave some artefacts, like US-made pen or postage stamps, they were caressed as real treasures, the evidence of world beyond the wall. And, of course, smugglers and missionaries are also doing their jobs (VHSs with Hollywood movies also played their part in the fall of USSR). But not everybody can be a smuggler or missionary. Everybody can be a tourist and do their part, though. And about the money — as a tourist, you'll hardly help the evil regime with more than $1000-$2000 (do you know how much a rocket costs? This is a small change). North Korean government is not doing it for your money. They want to look good in your eyes, to pretend they are not that evil (see that other comment in this thread — they want more people to think that way).
  - cfcef 11y ago
    > I know it because I grew up in one. You did not grow up in North Korea. North Korea is not the USSR, and it operates differently. I laid out several ways in which it differed in explaining why being a tourist is only harmful. > Everybody can be a tourist and do their part, though. You know what part you can do which is even more helpful? Donate to malaria bed nets, or donate to the missionaries and other NGOs. > And about the money — as a tourist, you'll hardly help the evil regime with more than $1000-$2000 (do you know how much a rocket costs? This is a small change). And how 'small change' is maybe contacting a regular North Korean and maybe changing their view about something and this someday maybe having an effect? Every dollar of hard foreign currency counts for a tiny impoverished country under sanctions. The NK economy is small and stagnant and regularly straining under the burden of the rocket & nuclear programs. The NK regime believes that the tourism is very useful and effective, and it is not endangered in the least by the prospect of toilets with Bibles behind them, or the chance a tourist will see through 'a crack', and I agree with them. > North Korean government is not doing it for your money. They are absolutely doing it for the money. Just like they were doing Kaesong for the money, not to 'look good' based on some obsolete analogy to the USSR.
    - atemerev 11y ago
      Have you ever had an actual conversation with a live North Korean? Because I had, and I still insist on my point of view. :)
- chatmasta 11y ago
  How do you say in one sentence that the regime "does not care in the least what the west thinks," and then in the next sentence that they feed westerners a propaganda machine? Obviously they care very much what the west thinks...
  - cfcef 11y ago
    They feed westerners a propaganda machine to fill the time and provide a trip. You need paying customers for the hard cash, but you can hardly let them wander around in the general population. The propaganda is there, might as well use it. And it helps with domestic propaganda too: the spin put on the aid and payments made to NK, and trips to NK by high profile politicians like Bill Clinton, is the East Asian motif of tribute. What better tribute to the glories of the NK regime is showing your people how foreigners come from around the world to visit the shrines of the Kims?
tkinom 11y ago
Here's another point of view: The Prime Directive, used in four of the five Star Trek-based series, prohibits Starfleet personnel from interfering with the internal development of alien civilizations. I don't mind different countries, societies, civilizations develop on their own place base on their own values. I believe in diversities, not just diversity of people, and class in one society, but also diversity of societies, countries and value system in our planet and other planets. I strong dislike to force our societies' "moral/religious" values on other countries as much as other wants to impose their "moral/religious" values on me. Especially after we see the results of Invading Iraq because of the WMD Or Destroy Syria, kill 400K people and make millions homeless because of we claim its leader used chemical weapon on a few hundred. Or Destroy Libya and turn it into hotbed of Terror because we don't like its leader. It is OK to let other societies develop, evolve in their own place. Don't force a Electricity, TV, Internet IPad on some isolated tribe in Amazon.
- atemerev 11y ago
  No, it's not OK. Concentration camps are not OK. Killing fields are not OK. Brutal tortures are not OK. And North Korea is so evil that Iraq, Libya and Syria are practically well-developed Western countries in comparison. > Don't force a Electricity, TV, Internet IPad on some isolated tribe in Amazon Why the need to force? Just show them once the benefits of civilization and they will happily abandon their old ways, because they are genuinely harder. Yes, we can prevent it for our own curiosity's sake, but this is quite inhumane. And North Korean society is not an isolated tribe. They have elecricity, water and weapons of mass destruction, officially confirmed. The only reason why US or anybody else keeps this atrocity running is the protection of China and (somewhat lesser) or Russia, who do it for their geopolitical reasons.
  - tkinom 11y ago
    If you know you will kill 400,000 and make millions homeless in Syria, would you act because of the claim of the "chemical war" on a few village? That sounds absolute "evil" when it came out of CNN, ABC, NBC. Those news reports are a lot worst than the claim "Brutal tortures". Would you act to completely destroy a reasonable stable society. How many Iraqis do you need to kill to justify the WMD?

cfcef 11y ago

That's absurd. We are talking about a totalitarian regime which does not care in the least what the West thinks, which carefully ushers tourists who feed it the hard foreign currency it needs through a well-honed propaganda machine (read the blog posts of people doing the tour - they all get bused to the same damn statues and propaganda museums and places) surrounded only by hand-picked minders & chaperones chosen for their loyalty with no contact with the general population, with most tours in a city, Pyongyang, whose populations is also chosen for loyalty to the regime. Try to go 'off script' and you'll see how they treat tourists. Thinking you'll change anyone's mind is as sad and pathetic as the people who go there and drop a Bible behind a toilet and think they have any chance of making a difference. Real evidence of the world from the other side of the curtain is provided by Chinese & Korean smugglers smuggling in K-dramas and hard drives stuffed full of forbidden foreign media and balloon drops from missionary networks. You aren't doing jack by going to NK as a tourist. You're propping up one of the most evil regimes with your money - no ifs, ands, or buts. At least when people waste money climbing Mount Everest, they're only endangering themselves.

atemerev 11y ago
> We are talking about a totalitarian regime which does not care in the least what the West thinks You are wrong. First, totalitarian regimes care _a lot_ about what the West thinks. I know it because I grew up in one. They have to be just scary enough, look crazy enough, and display some signs of "progress" enough (like — can anybody in the West organise Mass Games? Look at our highly efficient society!) Modern Russia is, unfortunately, now falling in the same behaviour pattern. Now, of course, tourists that are allowed to contact foreigners, especially Westerners, are filtered through layers and layers of state security. But it is impossible to do thorough filtering. You can't stop kitchen talks (they attempted to do it in Soviet Union and East Germany, but failed). Despite you always are in well-staged Truman show, it is not perfect, and real world is always showing through cracks, and most importantly, they can see _you_ through cracks. Back in USSR, in town of Omsk in Siberia where I grew up, a foreign tourist was a legendary event to be talked about for months (which is why it is of uttermost importance to travel beyond capital cities, where life is less staged and opportunities of random encounters are more numerous) — and if he managed to leave some artefacts, like US-made pen or postage stamps, they were caressed as real treasures, the evidence of world beyond the wall. And, of course, smugglers and missionaries are also doing their jobs (VHSs with Hollywood movies also played their part in the fall of USSR). But not everybody can be a smuggler or missionary. Everybody can be a tourist and do their part, though. And about the money — as a tourist, you'll hardly help the evil regime with more than $1000-$2000 (do you know how much a rocket costs? This is a small change). North Korean government is not doing it for your money. They want to look good in your eyes, to pretend they are not that evil (see that other comment in this thread — they want more people to think that way).
- cfcef 11y ago
  > I know it because I grew up in one. You did not grow up in North Korea. North Korea is not the USSR, and it operates differently. I laid out several ways in which it differed in explaining why being a tourist is only harmful. > Everybody can be a tourist and do their part, though. You know what part you can do which is even more helpful? Donate to malaria bed nets, or donate to the missionaries and other NGOs. > And about the money — as a tourist, you'll hardly help the evil regime with more than $1000-$2000 (do you know how much a rocket costs? This is a small change). And how 'small change' is maybe contacting a regular North Korean and maybe changing their view about something and this someday maybe having an effect? Every dollar of hard foreign currency counts for a tiny impoverished country under sanctions. The NK economy is small and stagnant and regularly straining under the burden of the rocket & nuclear programs. The NK regime believes that the tourism is very useful and effective, and it is not endangered in the least by the prospect of toilets with Bibles behind them, or the chance a tourist will see through 'a crack', and I agree with them. > North Korean government is not doing it for your money. They are absolutely doing it for the money. Just like they were doing Kaesong for the money, not to 'look good' based on some obsolete analogy to the USSR.
  - atemerev 11y ago
    Have you ever had an actual conversation with a live North Korean? Because I had, and I still insist on my point of view. :)
chatmasta 11y ago
How do you say in one sentence that the regime "does not care in the least what the west thinks," and then in the next sentence that they feed westerners a propaganda machine? Obviously they care very much what the west thinks...
- cfcef 11y ago
  They feed westerners a propaganda machine to fill the time and provide a trip. You need paying customers for the hard cash, but you can hardly let them wander around in the general population. The propaganda is there, might as well use it. And it helps with domestic propaganda too: the spin put on the aid and payments made to NK, and trips to NK by high profile politicians like Bill Clinton, is the East Asian motif of tribute. What better tribute to the glories of the NK regime is showing your people how foreigners come from around the world to visit the shrines of the Kims?

tkinom 11y ago

Here's another point of view: The Prime Directive, used in four of the five Star Trek-based series, prohibits Starfleet personnel from interfering with the internal development of alien civilizations. I don't mind different countries, societies, civilizations develop on their own place base on their own values. I believe in diversities, not just diversity of people, and class in one society, but also diversity of societies, countries and value system in our planet and other planets. I strong dislike to force our societies' "moral/religious" values on other countries as much as other wants to impose their "moral/religious" values on me. Especially after we see the results of Invading Iraq because of the WMD Or Destroy Syria, kill 400K people and make millions homeless because of we claim its leader used chemical weapon on a few hundred. Or Destroy Libya and turn it into hotbed of Terror because we don't like its leader. It is OK to let other societies develop, evolve in their own place. Don't force a Electricity, TV, Internet IPad on some isolated tribe in Amazon.

atemerev 11y ago
No, it's not OK. Concentration camps are not OK. Killing fields are not OK. Brutal tortures are not OK. And North Korea is so evil that Iraq, Libya and Syria are practically well-developed Western countries in comparison. > Don't force a Electricity, TV, Internet IPad on some isolated tribe in Amazon Why the need to force? Just show them once the benefits of civilization and they will happily abandon their old ways, because they are genuinely harder. Yes, we can prevent it for our own curiosity's sake, but this is quite inhumane. And North Korean society is not an isolated tribe. They have elecricity, water and weapons of mass destruction, officially confirmed. The only reason why US or anybody else keeps this atrocity running is the protection of China and (somewhat lesser) or Russia, who do it for their geopolitical reasons.
- tkinom 11y ago
  If you know you will kill 400,000 and make millions homeless in Syria, would you act because of the claim of the "chemical war" on a few village? That sounds absolute "evil" when it came out of CNN, ABC, NBC. Those news reports are a lot worst than the claim "Brutal tortures". Would you act to completely destroy a reasonable stable society. How many Iraqis do you need to kill to justify the WMD?