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If everything is equally bad, would you prefer to be brainwashed in North Korea or South Korea?

• Daishiman 10y ago
  If North Korea were a wealthier country because of extensive natural resources, an established industrial base, and distributed the money more reasonably, then you're making an actual dilemma. Why, instead of taking a comically bad example, you don't pick a more controverte place like Singapore, an organized state where drug consumption leads to the death penalty and you will be suppressed it dissent is attempted, yet has one of the highest standards of living in the world?
  • yks 10y ago
    > instead of taking a comically bad example On the contrary, my example is probably the best you can get because the point I'm making is the equivalence between one government and another, or between US presidents and Castro is a false one. No one is saint obviously but the offenses have a different gravity hence we have as different societies as North and South Korea. Some Western people might feel like the US or the UK are literally totalitarian states but they just didn't live under autocratic regimes. Speaking of which, the false equivalence narrative is actively exploited by such regimes to legitimize their own miserable state of affairs. It's fascinating how it works but apparently if something is bad in, say, Russia and also bad in the US (as told by the state TV), Russian citizens are fine with their conditions not being improved.