17 ms·

This is the sad truth of places like Cuba or North Korea. Everything is forbidden to the point that eating is difficult. So people get corrupted and the guards,

This is the sad truth of places like Cuba or North Korea. Everything is forbidden to the point that eating is difficult. So people get corrupted and the guards, etc. just want their part. None of those things should be illegal. It is really annoying to see how a leader class kills people of hunger and make everything illegal so that now everyone is a criminal for trying to survive.

dang 5y ago
You started a really awful ideological flamewar here and perpetuated it downthread. That's seriously not cool and seriously not what this site is for. We'd appreciate it if you'd please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not do this again. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29827641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29827641.
- germandiago 5y ago
  Sorry for that. I thought it was not in violation of any rule. I will avoid the political comments, though I tried to keep the discussion reasonable at all times. It was not my intention to start any flamewar, less ideological. You can see in my comments rebuttals or exchange of opinions.
FredPret 5y ago
[flagged]
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't use this site for ideological battle—especially not generic ideological battle. It's against the rules because it's repetitive, nasty, tedious, and not what HN is supposed to be for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- thechao 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't use this site for ideological battle—especially not generic ideological battle. It's against the rules because it's repetitive, nasty, tedious, and not what HN is supposed to be for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - germandiago 5y ago
    He is talking about the history of communism or socialism towards a communism system anywhere it has been applied. That system you define there just exists in your head. It is not possible. It is like pretending the existence of unicorns. The real one every time ends up in an authoritarian regime.
    - beepbooptheory 5y ago
      I mean... if you can't believe in something that hasn't yet existed, how does anything come to be at all? Or do you deny that there is any theoretical thought behind communism at all? Is it just something people suddenly found themselves doing, and it failed and that was that? How does someone dream of things that are better? How can you have faith in anything at all? Is not the love you feel towards your friends and family kind of like the unicorn you are describing? Do you even really feel love, if its just in your "head"?
      - germandiago 5y ago
        tpm 5y ago
        Portugal is a market economy. A government party can have socialism in its name, that does not mean the government is socialist (like DPRK is not democratic at all). This is also true for many other countries on the list.
908B64B197 5y ago
It's the reason it's harder to work in a resort or operate a taxi in Cuba than it is to become a "doctor". The former has access to foreign currency with a real value. The later can hope to maybe get an exit visa (the government will loan it's "doctors" to foreign regimes in exchange for real currencies).
- reaperducer 5y ago
  I'm curious why you put the word doctor in quotation marks, as if to imply they are substandard. It was always my understanding that while Cuba lacks a lot of things that many other countries take for granted, that the quality of its doctors was outstanding. I even remember seeing this mentioned in the newspaper at the beginning of the pandemic. Is this not true, or no longer true? Have I been under a false impression for all this time?
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > Is this not true, or no longer true? Have I been under a false impression for all this time? Annecdotal evidence, but an acquintance of mine (who is an MD) encountered Cuban "doctors" in South America and wasn't impressed at all. > I even remember seeing this mentioned in the newspaper at the beginning of the pandemic. The thing is that Cuba made a lot of claims about their handling of the pandemic, but as with every communist country out there it's hard to really know what's really going on.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      [flagged]
      - camdat 5y ago
        perl4ever 5y ago
        What is the connection between Cuba and "Excess mortality in Wuhan city and other parts of China during the three months of the covid-19 outbreak: findings from nationwide mortality registries"? Are you saying that since we know that Chinese statistics are accurate, Cuban statistics must also be?
mrtksn 5y ago
I don't know about DPRK but I have been to Cuba for a 2 weeks vacation, so I had time to go out of the default tourists spots. What I've seen is this: Those who have access to tourists or to the government are rich. Corruption is rampant as I've seen people bribing police right at the airport to have their things sorted out. The mainstream corruption in society revolves around casa particulars and taxis. Essentially, you have right to rent a room and you have right to ride a taxi but there are strict limits on how much you can do it. So what more entrepreneurial people do? Simply distribute the business ownership to their friends and relatives on paper and keep growing and running their enterprises. Also, there are two different types of shops and businesses: Locals only shops, locals only restaurants, locals only buses that are at very poor quality and I believe they are free or heavily subsidised and there are better quality versions that have prices similar to the European countries(prices way beyond a person with a salary can afford). So who do you think eats at these expensive restaurants? Yes, tourists - but also people who have access to tourists and people who work for the government. One day a wandered around my casa particular in Havana and ended up in a place with very nice houses quite close to governmental buildings. I took some photos, enjoyed the place and ate at a restaurant. Then I noticed that the restaurant got very busy with military personel and well dressed people. Those were definitely not tourists, those were people from the nearby governmental buildings having a dinner after work. Very interesting experience overall. Almost completely positive, full of life lessons about so many things including classes in the society where they are not supposed to exists. I'm also convinced that consumerism is not the only way to a happy life and abundance and excess are not necessarily the answer. The first week was hard, the second week I was completely happy to have only 2 options for beer and 1 option for chocolate.
- germandiago 5y ago
  You described quite well a few things here.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- darkwater 5y ago
  You missed to clarify that tourists use pesos convertibles which are artificially tied 1:1 to USD (1USD, 1 convertible) and that are basically what casas and taxi drivers accept. But you can totally go to local restaurants as a tourist (we did it a few times during our 3 weeks stay). And yeah, it can be sad to see how people lives there, and many try to flee but as you said makes you think about the real, deep impact of consumerism.
wruza 5y ago
Being illegal is crucial to citizens of a totalitarian dictatorship.

dang 5y ago

You started a really awful ideological flamewar here and perpetuated it downthread. That's seriously not cool and seriously not what this site is for. We'd appreciate it if you'd please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not do this again. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29827641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29827641.

germandiago 5y ago
Sorry for that. I thought it was not in violation of any rule. I will avoid the political comments, though I tried to keep the discussion reasonable at all times. It was not my intention to start any flamewar, less ideological. You can see in my comments rebuttals or exchange of opinions.

FredPret 5y ago

[flagged]

dang 5y ago
Please don't use this site for ideological battle—especially not generic ideological battle. It's against the rules because it's repetitive, nasty, tedious, and not what HN is supposed to be for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
thechao 5y ago
[flagged]
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't use this site for ideological battle—especially not generic ideological battle. It's against the rules because it's repetitive, nasty, tedious, and not what HN is supposed to be for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- germandiago 5y ago
  He is talking about the history of communism or socialism towards a communism system anywhere it has been applied. That system you define there just exists in your head. It is not possible. It is like pretending the existence of unicorns. The real one every time ends up in an authoritarian regime.
  - beepbooptheory 5y ago
    I mean... if you can't believe in something that hasn't yet existed, how does anything come to be at all? Or do you deny that there is any theoretical thought behind communism at all? Is it just something people suddenly found themselves doing, and it failed and that was that? How does someone dream of things that are better? How can you have faith in anything at all? Is not the love you feel towards your friends and family kind of like the unicorn you are describing? Do you even really feel love, if its just in your "head"?
    - germandiago 5y ago
      - tpm 5y ago
        Portugal is a market economy. A government party can have socialism in its name, that does not mean the government is socialist (like DPRK is not democratic at all). This is also true for many other countries on the list.

908B64B197 5y ago

It's the reason it's harder to work in a resort or operate a taxi in Cuba than it is to become a "doctor". The former has access to foreign currency with a real value. The later can hope to maybe get an exit visa (the government will loan it's "doctors" to foreign regimes in exchange for real currencies).

reaperducer 5y ago
I'm curious why you put the word doctor in quotation marks, as if to imply they are substandard. It was always my understanding that while Cuba lacks a lot of things that many other countries take for granted, that the quality of its doctors was outstanding. I even remember seeing this mentioned in the newspaper at the beginning of the pandemic. Is this not true, or no longer true? Have I been under a false impression for all this time?
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > Is this not true, or no longer true? Have I been under a false impression for all this time? Annecdotal evidence, but an acquintance of mine (who is an MD) encountered Cuban "doctors" in South America and wasn't impressed at all. > I even remember seeing this mentioned in the newspaper at the beginning of the pandemic. The thing is that Cuba made a lot of claims about their handling of the pandemic, but as with every communist country out there it's hard to really know what's really going on.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - camdat 5y ago
      - perl4ever 5y ago
        What is the connection between Cuba and "Excess mortality in Wuhan city and other parts of China during the three months of the covid-19 outbreak: findings from nationwide mortality registries"? Are you saying that since we know that Chinese statistics are accurate, Cuban statistics must also be?

mrtksn 5y ago

I don't know about DPRK but I have been to Cuba for a 2 weeks vacation, so I had time to go out of the default tourists spots. What I've seen is this: Those who have access to tourists or to the government are rich. Corruption is rampant as I've seen people bribing police right at the airport to have their things sorted out. The mainstream corruption in society revolves around casa particulars and taxis. Essentially, you have right to rent a room and you have right to ride a taxi but there are strict limits on how much you can do it. So what more entrepreneurial people do? Simply distribute the business ownership to their friends and relatives on paper and keep growing and running their enterprises. Also, there are two different types of shops and businesses: Locals only shops, locals only restaurants, locals only buses that are at very poor quality and I believe they are free or heavily subsidised and there are better quality versions that have prices similar to the European countries(prices way beyond a person with a salary can afford). So who do you think eats at these expensive restaurants? Yes, tourists - but also people who have access to tourists and people who work for the government. One day a wandered around my casa particular in Havana and ended up in a place with very nice houses quite close to governmental buildings. I took some photos, enjoyed the place and ate at a restaurant. Then I noticed that the restaurant got very busy with military personel and well dressed people. Those were definitely not tourists, those were people from the nearby governmental buildings having a dinner after work. Very interesting experience overall. Almost completely positive, full of life lessons about so many things including classes in the society where they are not supposed to exists. I'm also convinced that consumerism is not the only way to a happy life and abundance and excess are not necessarily the answer. The first week was hard, the second week I was completely happy to have only 2 options for beer and 1 option for chocolate.

germandiago 5y ago
You described quite well a few things here.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
darkwater 5y ago
You missed to clarify that tourists use pesos convertibles which are artificially tied 1:1 to USD (1USD, 1 convertible) and that are basically what casas and taxi drivers accept. But you can totally go to local restaurants as a tourist (we did it a few times during our 3 weeks stay). And yeah, it can be sad to see how people lives there, and many try to flee but as you said makes you think about the real, deep impact of consumerism.

wruza 5y ago

Being illegal is crucial to citizens of a totalitarian dictatorship.