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Being better than North Korea is a pretty low bar I would expect from the greatest democracy and country in the World to be in the top three, not a little bit

Being better than North Korea is a pretty low bar I would expect from the greatest democracy and country in the World to be in the top three, not a little bit better than those at the bottom

ben_w 6y ago
My point is NK is a lot worse, not “a little bit”.
- notreallytrue 6y ago
  As any other country did something similar to what US did? Can you name one which isn't already bad? Like, I don't know, Spain? Germany? Argentina? South Africa? The greatest democracy and country in the World shouldn't even be in the same business of North Korea style And yet...
  - ben_w 6y ago
    There’s plenty of stuff America does wrong, present tense and past, without needing to make hyperbolic comparisons to NK.
    - notreallytrue 6y ago
      It's not hyperbolic How many countries NK invaded? How many coup d'état that established long and painful military dictatorships around the World it supported and/or financed? At least nobody calls NK the greatest democracy and country in the world or the land of the free...
      - ben_w 6y ago
        On the other hand, how many styles of haircut are you legally allowed in the USA? Can you leave if you want to? Can you criticise the government without you and your family being shot? Never mind Apples and Oranges, you’re comparing a rabid kitten (NK: you don’t want to be a cell inside it, but the animal is containable) with a healthy chimpanzee in the jungle you’re walking though (USA: violent and acts like it owns the place, so being one of its cells is safer than being a cell in many of the things around it).
        romanoderoma 6y ago
        Good answer, but hyronically in USA you have 6 chances in 100 thousands to be murdered, in NK it's 6 in a million. Looks like the chimpanzee cells are not safer after all.
        ben_w 6y ago
        What’s your source? Wikipedia puts their intentional homicide rates at 4.96 and 4.40 per 100k respectively.
        romanoderoma 6y ago
        Homicide rate in NK (4.4 / 100k) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/intentional-homicides-per-100000-people?tab=chart&country=~PRK https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/intentional-homicides-per... Homicide rates from firearms NK (0.11 / 100k) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rates-from-firearms?tab=chart&country=~PRK https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rates-from-firea... Homicide rate in USA (6.1 / 100k) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&country=~USA&region=World https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate?tab=chart&s... Homicide rates from firearms USA (4.63 / 100k) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rates-from-firearms?tab=chart&country=~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rates-from-firea... So USA is more dangerous than NK in general and the chances of getting shot and killed (quoting "Can you criticise the government without you and your family being shot?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25032711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25032711) are 42 times worse in USA than in NK. It means that for every person shot and killed in NK there are 42 in USA. I was wrong anyway, it's not 6 chances in 1 million but ~1 chance in a million to get shot and killed in NK. Compare it now to some other western country, for example Italy, my country: homicide rate: 0.7 / 100k homicide rate by firearms: 0.3 / 100k Italy is quite average for the west, all the other western countries have similar stats, more or less. What's wrong with the US?
        ben_w 6y ago
        Ah, you’re referring to murder specifically by guns yet regardless of motivation. Yeah, no. The figure here would be for those executed by the state for political crimes, though that will be hard to measure in both cases and I’d prefer to include in that count things like “unlawfully killed by cops who didn’t like you because you uncovered evidence of systematic racism” because I feel de-facto truths are more important than de-jure claims. Then you get messy things like prison labour, and systematic policies of punishing entire communities for crimes (or protests) of a few from that community, and I don’t even know if you’re able to demonstrate any of these without being piled on by people defending any given example as unrelated/justified/propaganda/all of the above. In fairness to you, this is a lot messier than my original comment. :)

Being better than North Korea is a pretty low bar I would expect from the greatest democracy and country in the World to be in the top three, not a little bit better than those at the bottom

ben_w 6y ago

My point is NK is a lot worse, not “a little bit”.

notreallytrue 6y ago
As any other country did something similar to what US did? Can you name one which isn't already bad? Like, I don't know, Spain? Germany? Argentina? South Africa? The greatest democracy and country in the World shouldn't even be in the same business of North Korea style And yet...
- ben_w 6y ago
  There’s plenty of stuff America does wrong, present tense and past, without needing to make hyperbolic comparisons to NK.
  - notreallytrue 6y ago
    It's not hyperbolic How many countries NK invaded? How many coup d'état that established long and painful military dictatorships around the World it supported and/or financed? At least nobody calls NK the greatest democracy and country in the world or the land of the free...
    - ben_w 6y ago
      On the other hand, how many styles of haircut are you legally allowed in the USA? Can you leave if you want to? Can you criticise the government without you and your family being shot? Never mind Apples and Oranges, you’re comparing a rabid kitten (NK: you don’t want to be a cell inside it, but the animal is containable) with a healthy chimpanzee in the jungle you’re walking though (USA: violent and acts like it owns the place, so being one of its cells is safer than being a cell in many of the things around it).
      - romanoderoma 6y ago
        Good answer, but hyronically in USA you have 6 chances in 100 thousands to be murdered, in NK it's 6 in a million. Looks like the chimpanzee cells are not safer after all.
        ben_w 6y ago
        What’s your source? Wikipedia puts their intentional homicide rates at 4.96 and 4.40 per 100k respectively.
        romanoderoma 6y ago
        Homicide rate in NK (4.4 / 100k) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/intentional-homicides-per-100000-people?tab=chart&country=~PRK https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/intentional-homicides-per... Homicide rates from firearms NK (0.11 / 100k) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rates-from-firearms?tab=chart&country=~PRK https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rates-from-firea... Homicide rate in USA (6.1 / 100k) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&country=~USA&region=World https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate?tab=chart&s... Homicide rates from firearms USA (4.63 / 100k) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rates-from-firearms?tab=chart&country=~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rates-from-firea... So USA is more dangerous than NK in general and the chances of getting shot and killed (quoting "Can you criticise the government without you and your family being shot?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25032711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25032711) are 42 times worse in USA than in NK. It means that for every person shot and killed in NK there are 42 in USA. I was wrong anyway, it's not 6 chances in 1 million but ~1 chance in a million to get shot and killed in NK. Compare it now to some other western country, for example Italy, my country: homicide rate: 0.7 / 100k homicide rate by firearms: 0.3 / 100k Italy is quite average for the west, all the other western countries have similar stats, more or less. What's wrong with the US?
        ben_w 6y ago
        Ah, you’re referring to murder specifically by guns yet regardless of motivation. Yeah, no. The figure here would be for those executed by the state for political crimes, though that will be hard to measure in both cases and I’d prefer to include in that count things like “unlawfully killed by cops who didn’t like you because you uncovered evidence of systematic racism” because I feel de-facto truths are more important than de-jure claims. Then you get messy things like prison labour, and systematic policies of punishing entire communities for crimes (or protests) of a few from that community, and I don’t even know if you’re able to demonstrate any of these without being piled on by people defending any given example as unrelated/justified/propaganda/all of the above. In fairness to you, this is a lot messier than my original comment. :)