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An official atlas of North Korea

228 points by speckx 1y ago

DeathArrow 1y ago
Another interesting one is The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: https://bse.sci-lib.com/ https://bse.sci-lib.com/
monooso 1y ago
> According to the prevailing narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party. (Emphasis mine) TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction works (or doesn't) in practice.
- hk1337 1y ago
  Clearly, we were thinking the same thing or along the same lines.
- yostrovs 1y ago
  The book 1984 demonstrates how logical inconsistencies can exist and be believed in when you don't have much choice.
  - s0sa 1y ago
    And can in fact be a useful test of loyalty.
    - red-iron-pine 1y ago
      said loyalty tests become a purity spiral, e.g. who can clap the loudest or cry the most for Dear Leader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral
      - IAmBroom 1y ago
        By Vectron's claw! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icTrzUuWlHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icTrzUuWlHI
  - cedilla 1y ago
    It's a book, not a demonstration. In any case, North Koreans are not taught that South Korea is just like any other part of North Korea. The idea that the North Korean people and leadership are all buffoons who make the weirdest of lies possible is already Orwellian enough.
    - FridayoLeary 1y ago
      Well they do don't they? I read a couple of books about life in the soviet union. 1984 is satire, but it's not so far off from what reality was.
- ch_123 1y ago
  I'm also curious given the rhetoric that the North Korean media has about the "puppet" state in the south. I can understand that the North Koreans want to claim sovereignty over the whole peninsula, but the article makes it sound like North Korea pretends that the ROK does not exist.
  - the_af 1y ago
    This is easy to resolve: North Korea doesn't believe it has control over the South. The article is simply wrong, a variant of the trope of "those crazy North Koreans believe all sorts of things". They believe there's only one Korea, artificially split in two by their enemies, and that it should all be under the control of the current NK government, but they don't believe they control all of it now.
  - the_gipsy 1y ago
    Isn't it widely known everywhere in the world that SK is a total puppet government of the USA?
- strathmeyer 1y ago
  [dead]
- vkou 1y ago
  > TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction works (or doesn't) in practice. Very easily. There's an official account, which 'everyone'[1] knows is bullshit, but if you try to assert any logical consequences of it, you will immediately out yourself as a malcontent, and will get into serious trouble. (Because despite having all sorts of constitutional protections for your rights on paper, the executive has the power in practice to do anything it wants to you at any time, with no redress. Good luck exercising articles 67 through 79 of that constitution. If you're lucky, you'll be softly told to sit down and shut up. If you're unlucky, you'll be doing a few years in a camp.) It's the time-tested playbook that every authoritarian regime follows, and if you're interested in learning more about how it works in practice, just turn on Fox News. It's got the first half of the double-think process down, and is working hard on getting us to the second half. There is always a thin public justification for why rights don't apply to the enemies of the state, which is enough to convince ~half the country. (Because ~half of any country will happily accept whatever atrocities its leaders do. You can observe that sort of thing on this very forum.) --- [1] Not actually everyone, some people really are that fucking stupid, but most know there's something off[2] about it. [2] In this particular case, the official Atlas says they are one country, but the country's Constitution (updated last year on this very subject) says that the ROK is a foreign, hostile state. Anyone who can read or has eyes to see and ears to hear should easily be able to tell that the latter is the more accurate one.
  - red-iron-pine 1y ago
    > You can observe that sort of thing on this very forum. remember that 1) this forum skews to a very specific sort of person, and 2) that person notwithstanding, there is an incredible, shocking large amount of bots active here, owing to the fact that the people from 1) are also AI worshipping futurists (and/or techno-fascists)
    - cassepipe 1y ago
      Hi ! I am not a AI worshiping futurist nor a (techno-)fascist for that matter. I don't think bots are that active on such a small platform but I guess by "bots" you mean people who offer pushback on your opinions (they are a "shocking" number indeed, it seems I can hardly convince more than one person to rally my positions from time to time and I still have to pretend to be nuanced !) I also believe that "platform is skewed against X" (generally your own opinions) are utterly useless comments. You are just pretending everyone is against you so you don't have to take criticism addressed to you seriously. Now you can enjoy the ego boost of feeling like the virtuous online warrior against a world of techno-fascists that are ganging up on you or you can reflect and try to take into account the fact that people have different viewpoints and are mostly doing their best. I eventually chose the latter and I have to say I feel less grandiose but much better overall. Join the club, we have cookies.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  I mean, see American politics for a similar example. The Epstein files are simultaneously a "Democrat hoax" and full of prominent Dems. The Attorney General both has them on her desk, and they don't exist.
  - Volundr 1y ago
    And there's not enough in them to charge or investigate any 3rd parties, until some are made public and now there's enough to investigate Democrats.
    - Terr_ 1y ago
      And suddenly the unimportant records that don't exist but were also a hoax but also implicate the-other-guy are about to be made public... suddenly an "ongoing investigation" is the new excuse. > The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between the true and the false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist. -- The origins of Totalitarianism (1951), by Hannah Arendt
- sunaookami 1y ago
  Is the second part actually true though? I can't find any sources about this, in fact the opposite seems to be true. North Korea recently changed their constitution and describe South Korea as a "hostile state" which means they officially recognize it as a "state" at least[1]. Before that they explicitly had a goal for unification in the constitution which implies (or can be implied) that there never was such a view that "the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party". There is also this sentence: >This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing for example. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-reports-road-rail-links-cut-off-with-hostile-state-south-korea-kcna-2024-10-16/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-repor...
  - recursivecaveat 1y ago
    Yeah, I'm kindof skeptical. Another example I found was Kim referencing the south in a TV speech. I think their official position might be something closer to that the war was victorious by virtue of holding off the Americans and/or removing them from the area. Then the atlas doesn't show the south as a separate country because it's more of a Taiwan situation where they don't want to legitimize it as anything more than a rebellious province? At least in the early 2000s when this atlas was made. The language at the time definitely seems to emphasize that the whole peninsula is just "the nation": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_15th_North%E2%80%93South_Joint_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_15th_North%E2%80%93South_...
  - quicklime 1y ago
    >> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage > This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing for example. This is common in Australia too.
    - bad_haircut72 1y ago
      As a map of Australia sure but not a world map
hk1337 1y ago
> the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party. This makes me wonder what the reasoning is, or even if they officially do, for preventing North Korean citizens from migrating south? If it's all united as one country then why would someone be prevented from moving there?
- alibarber 1y ago
  From what I understand about North Korea - simply moving within (actual) NK itself is not really on the cards for a lot of people, so they might as well claim sovereignty over the whole peninsular.
  - hk1337 1y ago
    Yeah, my initial thought was something along the lines of all actions are subject to the approval of the party.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  I'd presume it's like the Soviets, where moving cities required permission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propiska_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propiska_in_the_Soviet_Union
- rzerowan 1y ago
  Id think this being the 'official' political position , it would be referring to the end of hostilities when the armistice was signed.Legally there was no ceasefire/capitulation etc and i would suggest as far as the North are concerned barring outside interference they would have prevailed. Hence the stressing of the position that they are one entity 'politically' - certainly not that 'physically' they are one untit , also why they would hold/reunification talks from time to time and family relatives exchanges between the two. They are cognizant that there is a DMZ , and that theere exists a polity on the south that keeps sending usb filled baloons , propaganda loudspeakes blaring on the Border. So mostly a poltical position being staked out , which is also why the maps only have Palestine and Western Sahara.Not because they are unaware of the situation insitu but geopilitically they are staking their claims.
BurningFrog 1y ago
[flagged]
- TulliusCicero 1y ago
  > According to Grok: Can we not do this?
  - BurningFrog 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - samtheDamned 1y ago
      reliable sources is a good start
    - philipkglass 1y ago
      Ask the LLM for information about your topic of choice along with supporting citations. Skim the cited publications to make sure that they exist and actually support the information produced by the LLM. Assuming that the citations pass your checks, post links to them here along with excerpts. Human-verified information from credible publications is a good thing to share here, whether you originally came across the information from books, search engines, or LLMs. Sharing LLM output by itself is discouraged here.
      - BurningFrog 1y ago
        Asking for supporting citations is a good LLM technique I was not aware of. Appreciate the tip! And of course the process you're describing would result in a much better post, after much more work. That said, those are good standards for scientific journals. To me, discussion posts in a hacker forum has a much lower bar, and I think I fulfilled my civic duties by saying it came from an AI. I'll probably avoid it in the future though.
        npteljes 1y ago
macintux 1y ago
My small-town public library growing up had a great resource that I did not appreciate at the time: an English translation of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia[0]. I really wish I had spent time with it. If nothing else it would have given me some questions to ask my history teachers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Soviet_Encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Soviet_Encyclopedia
- nocoiner 1y ago
  Wow! I would have been absolutely fascinated by this when I was a kid. I remember once wandering around my college library and finding the book “The Soviet Economy Through the Year 2000.” This occurred during the current millennium.
  - man8alexd 1y ago
    My grandpa had the full 50-volume edition of the encyclopedia published in the 1950s. I spent a lot of time digging through it in my pre-teen years.
- greenavocado 1y ago
  Anna has it in her archive
  - ForOldHack 1y ago
    Where is the Josun Encyclopedia? I would like to read it. Thanks
    - greenavocado 1y ago
      Can't find an ISBN for it but Anna tells me she has something similar 1-56591-070-2
mudil 1y ago
[flagged]
MiiMe19 1y ago
I wish there was a CD rip of the encyclopedia available so I could comb through the rest.
globular-toast 1y ago
I'm wondering what the infrastructure shown in red on the maps is. Railways? Roads? It's obviously very rough, whatever it is. I'm looking at the UK and it looks like Ipswich and Great Yarmouth (or Lowestoft) or on there, but not Norwich. It's interesting to see what is considered significant or strategic from their point of view.
retrac 1y ago
Since no one else has noted it: they show rail lines and only rail. No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure ones like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec. (It has almost no traffic and it serves a small town and a mine and it's not connected to the rest of the North American system.) Similarly they depict sections of rail in Canada that were out of service many years before this map was published. So they're quite out of date. To not show that Canada is linked by rail with the USA at Detroit is a definite oversight, too. Seeing through the lens of railroads is probably an artifact of both ideology and the economic reality in North Korea. And maybe also the implicitly military purpose of these maps.
- zippothrowaway 1y ago
  I thought that too, but the map for the UK is very weird - there is no direct connection between what looks like Birmingham and what looks like Manchester or anywhere in the North West of England. So, no West Coast Main Line? Instead they have the rail line veering off towards the peak district. I don't know whether they're decades out of date or just plain wrong - the West Coast Main Line was "opened between 1837 and 1881" according to Wikipedia.
  - dgl 1y ago
    Also the UK seems to include the Grand Union canal and River Severn but not the River Thames. It seems quite random.
- mig39 1y ago
  > No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure ones like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec. I guess the maps are old, because they show the Newfoundland Railway, which was removed in the 80s.
  - perihelions 1y ago
    At least the political maps are post-1992.
- 1y ago
shevy-java 1y ago
> According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists. Well - it depends on how one wants to call the result of the war. I think there was not necessarily a winner; there was a stalemate/truce, with China guaranteeing North Korea to not lose, but not necessarily win either. That does not mean North Korea won, but I don't think one can necessarily say that they lost the war either. I am fully aware of how the propaganda in North Korea works, but some articles are also heavily biased. The biggest danger to North Korea actually comes from the success model in South Korea, as well as the internet. The internet kind of nerfed Scientology (see what Ron Miscavige said and described how Scientology changed over the years, so if one of the big guys can quit, the whole business model they established decades ago, is dead and decaying). Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet. You can not permanently cut off million of people, with the assumption they won't be able to understand how strategic lies work. It also does not work in Russia either, though Russia is of course nowhere near as isolated as North Korea right now.
- ronsor 1y ago
  > Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet. North Koreans do not have any Internet, save for through computers at a few government-controlled and strictly monitored libraries, as well as through illegal imported Chinese smartphones if they live near the border.
- HeinzStuckeIt 1y ago
  None of what you are saying holds water. Scientology’s old business model became less effective, but the cult segued into a real-estate empire and still has several mega-wealthy members (so-called “whales”) it can milk for donations. And North Korea could see greater internet uptake but still remain a stable dictatorship, precisely on the model of Russia where, even if the population “sees through the lies”, that doesn’t challenge the regime itself; people who dislike the regime largely simply accept it as a fact of life, and might even disapprove of those people who make the effort to challenge it.
- goranmoomin 1y ago
  > According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists. According to the North Korean govt, the Korean war was started by the South who wanted to invade North (it was not, based on extensive studies). Therefore in their view (or at least from their propaganda), the communists "won" by successfully defending their part of the peninsula.
goranmoomin 1y ago
(I'm a South Korean.) > According to the prevailing narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party. This is either not true at all or the writer phrased strangely — both of the governments (South & North) recognize that the war is still on-going and they have an enemy that is controlling the other half of the peninsula that they do not control. However, both of the governments also argue that they are the only legal government that is ought to control the whole peninsula and does not recognize each other's legitimacy. For example, ROK(Republic of Korea, the government that controls the southern part of the peninsula)'s constitution writes that it's government governs the whole peninsula and it's islands. It's like how both PRC(People's Republic of China, i.e. China) and ROC(Republic of China, i.e. Taiwan) both argue that they are the only legal government over all of China (i.e. Mainland China and Taiwan combined). > Therefore, when looking at the maps in this atlas, it should come as no surprise that Korea is always shown as one country, with no reference to the other country that exists at the southern tip of the peninsula. It is universally agreed between the two governments (and their citizens) that a unification should happen at some point, so it is obvious that we should be using a map that covers the whole peninsula. We (as South Koreans) also learn 'our country' as the whole peninsula. > This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage. Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility that they might not be the center of the world…? South Korean maps do this, China maps do this, Japanese maps do this, I'm pretty sure South East Asia countries also do this, it's a normal thing to do. There's nothing special about having the Pacific Ocean centered.
- AndriyKunitsyn 1y ago
  Yes, that's complete nonsence. My friend was on a guided tour to North Korea, and they aware of a lot of things. For example, the population of the North and the South was somehow accurately described to the tourists as 25 and 50 million, and they don't question that fact.
- drdec 1y ago
  >> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage. > Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility that they might not be the center of the world…? Westerner who also thought this was a strange comment and that the centering of the Korean peninsula was a totally natural decision for this atlas
bamboozled 1y ago
From every account I’ve read, North Koreans suffer greatly, maybe not holocaust level but we’re totally fine to allow their suffering to continue unabated. If I was a North Korean I’d hope someone was coming to help me at some stage . Weird situation .
- man8alexd 1y ago
  In the late Soviet Union, there was a joke: "We should declare war on Japan and immediately surrender."
- TulliusCicero 1y ago
  > we’re totally fine to allow their suffering to continue unabated People aren't "fine" with it exactly, it's just that the alternative usually looks (potentially) much worse. Regime change would mean war with North Korea, and at the very least that'd be a ton of artillery shells landing on Seoul and killing a ton of civilians at the outset of the war. North Korea by itself would obviously be much weaker than a presumed SK+US force, but then you have to worry about China potentially getting drawn in, and now you have two nuclear superpowers fighting each other in all-out war. Nobody really wants that.
- jojobas 1y ago
  You'd sure be hoping that, while gripping your Type 58 and eyeing the border vigilantly.
- npteljes 1y ago
  "We" are absolutely not fine with the state of things there, but there is also not much to do for these poor people, aside from some non-political volunteer help. One of the reasons is the that, as I understand it, China and NK are diplomatically close, with them having a mutual defense treaty among other things. So if you meddle in NK, you also meddle with China, and "we" don't exactly meddle with China either, even in face of their most condemned actions like the treatment of Uighur, since they are a superpower. Another thing is that NK is very highly publicized in Western media, and people seem to have a kind of fascination with it. But regarding humanitarian catastrophes, other parts of the world are very busy as well. If you look at the HRI table, there are a lot of horrible places, and "we" don't as much talk about most of these. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-index-vdem?tab=table https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-index-vdem?t...
mlmonkey 1y ago
The Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (which China claims as "South Tibet") is not shown as a part of India in the Indian map, as a hat tip to their political masters the PRC. And the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is also shown as, I imagine, "disputed" with a dotted line.
- widforss 1y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it disputed, with heavy border tensions and all? I'm not claiming India doesn't control it, and as a Swede I don't know much. But that's about the one thing I thought I knew about Kashmir.
  - InitialLastName 1y ago
    Yes, heavily disputed, to the point that there are widespread campaigns on the internet to normalize the various sovereignty claims under the guise of day-to-day conversation about those locales (e.g. conspicuously referring to them as being "in India" or "in Pakistan" or "in China"). For example, see the Google maps reviews for any landmarks in the area.
- culi 1y ago
  Would you say India are their political masters if it was shown as being Indian? Even Google Maps in the US has dotted borders alongside both sides to show its disputed. Historically, geographically, culturally, the area was always part of Tibet. It was the British that drew the McMahon Line and claimed it was part of India. China never once recognized the line. When Mao won the civil war in China they went on to conquer Tibet and again considered the whole of Tibet theirs. India's claims to the area rest solely on the british-drawn lines. In reality, the whole of Tibet should be Tibet and allowed to either self-govern or choose which nation they should be a part of
koliber 1y ago
On the map of Europe, Poland has a strange nonexistent river flowing through it. It enters the Baltic Sea more or less where the Vistula river really does. But going south it mysteriously veers east into Belarus.
- seanw444 1y ago
  I know sometimes cartographers leave nonexistent landmarks on their maps to catch plagiarists blindly copying them. Not sure if that's something similar here. Could also be a method of identifying information leaks. Leave unique imaginary landmarks on different prints associated with certain people or groups of people that received that print. Or just wrong info. Who knows.
  - koliber 1y ago
    You're right that this happens. However, if I had to guess I would say that it's due to bad information / intel. North Korea is a closed country with limited access to information (think before the internet). On the flip side, I don't think catching copyright violators would be high on the list of concerns of the people making these maps.
sequoia 1y ago
What's the source of the particular singling out of Israel here? Is it because they're a US ally, or is there some other history between the countries? It looks like a singular designation in their atlas that Israel is referred to not as an enemy, but as "nonexistent." Anti-Israeli sentiment certainly creates strange bedfellows.
- tkel 1y ago
  It's anti-imperialism. It's not that complicated. There's many Israelis who will also claim that Palestine does not exist. It's colonization, and war. Israelis claim the land. Palestinians also claim the land. NK is united with Palestine via their anti-imperialist stance. There are many other countries that also do not recognize Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_I...
  - erulabs 1y ago
    To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine? Or is the idea that the US is the Empire? There is another `anti-` that I would use here instead.
    - xg15 1y ago
      > To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine? They very openly do both those things in the West Bank. Then you have the more extreme settler types talking about the biblical "Land of Israel" that would extend into modern Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. But as far as I understand it, Israel is usually not the empire itself, but a bridgehead or particularly glaring example of imperialism from the West, starting with the British Empire. > Or is the idea that the US is the Empire? So, yes. It were those countries that conquered those regions from the Ottoman empire and then decided among themselves to support the project of a Jewish state, against the wishes of the existing population of the region.
    - 1y ago
poszlem 1y ago
While looking at Google Maps’ satellite view of North Korea, I noticed something unusual in several areas: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8416379,124.6971993,599m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTExMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8416379,124.6971993,599m/dat... https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7064561,124.9519379,871m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTExMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7064561,124.9519379,871m/dat... https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7917888,127.4197521,1723m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTExMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7917888,127.4197521,1723m/da... Much of the landscape is divided into rectangular parcels, almost like a factorio layout, or something from sim city 3000, rather than natural terrain. Does anyone know the reason for this pattern?
- pkkim 1y ago
  Large scale collective farming I guess. The US' farmland in the central states was also organized by a centralized process (homestead act) leading to similar geographic patterns on a bigger scale. https://maps.app.goo.gl/idNBdXv5oKSF1oVo7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/idNBdXv5oKSF1oVo7
- infinet 1y ago
  Looks like farm land. Perhaps the land was assigned to individual in small pieces, and the individual get a portion of the harvest.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
pkkim 1y ago
The North Korean place names for foreign places reflect the native pronunciations, while South Korean place names reflect English pronunciation. Syria is "suria" vs "siria" for example.
Workaccount2 1y ago
An aside, but I cannot over emphasize enough my aggravation with mobile sites that lock pinch to zoom. I cannot fathom why you would ever want this.
sbinnee 1y ago
As a native Korean, every time I see something related to Korea, I am just amazed how much passion these people have. I briefly remember seeing a detailed map of the whole Korean peninsula from the elementary school, I think. I appreciate this finding! North Korea is kind of invisible if you live in South Korea. You may see some news that they launched some rockets and did some military actions. People are so used to these news that they don't pay attention anymore. You forget about the North one and just live your life.
tavavex 1y ago
Despite its age, this encyclopedia is an amazing window into North Korea - or, at least how its government saw it. I love niche media like this. But what I'm itching for most is to see the contents of the entire CD, rather than just a few chosen excerpts. The entire encyclopedia, all the maps, anything else that may be hidden on there. I wish the author made this find open for all to see.
tzfld 1y ago
Interestingly North Macedonia is also colored with the gray shade of the enemies. Wondering if that is deliberate or not.

228 points by speckx 1y ago

Another interesting one is The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: https://bse.sci-lib.com/ https://bse.sci-lib.com/

> According to the prevailing narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party. (Emphasis mine) TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction works (or doesn't) in practice.

hk1337 1y ago
Clearly, we were thinking the same thing or along the same lines.
yostrovs 1y ago
The book 1984 demonstrates how logical inconsistencies can exist and be believed in when you don't have much choice.
- s0sa 1y ago
  And can in fact be a useful test of loyalty.
  - red-iron-pine 1y ago
    said loyalty tests become a purity spiral, e.g. who can clap the loudest or cry the most for Dear Leader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral
    - IAmBroom 1y ago
      By Vectron's claw! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icTrzUuWlHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icTrzUuWlHI
- cedilla 1y ago
  It's a book, not a demonstration. In any case, North Koreans are not taught that South Korea is just like any other part of North Korea. The idea that the North Korean people and leadership are all buffoons who make the weirdest of lies possible is already Orwellian enough.
  - FridayoLeary 1y ago
    Well they do don't they? I read a couple of books about life in the soviet union. 1984 is satire, but it's not so far off from what reality was.
ch_123 1y ago
I'm also curious given the rhetoric that the North Korean media has about the "puppet" state in the south. I can understand that the North Koreans want to claim sovereignty over the whole peninsula, but the article makes it sound like North Korea pretends that the ROK does not exist.
- the_af 1y ago
  This is easy to resolve: North Korea doesn't believe it has control over the South. The article is simply wrong, a variant of the trope of "those crazy North Koreans believe all sorts of things". They believe there's only one Korea, artificially split in two by their enemies, and that it should all be under the control of the current NK government, but they don't believe they control all of it now.
- the_gipsy 1y ago
  Isn't it widely known everywhere in the world that SK is a total puppet government of the USA?
strathmeyer 1y ago
[dead]
vkou 1y ago
> TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction works (or doesn't) in practice. Very easily. There's an official account, which 'everyone'[1] knows is bullshit, but if you try to assert any logical consequences of it, you will immediately out yourself as a malcontent, and will get into serious trouble. (Because despite having all sorts of constitutional protections for your rights on paper, the executive has the power in practice to do anything it wants to you at any time, with no redress. Good luck exercising articles 67 through 79 of that constitution. If you're lucky, you'll be softly told to sit down and shut up. If you're unlucky, you'll be doing a few years in a camp.) It's the time-tested playbook that every authoritarian regime follows, and if you're interested in learning more about how it works in practice, just turn on Fox News. It's got the first half of the double-think process down, and is working hard on getting us to the second half. There is always a thin public justification for why rights don't apply to the enemies of the state, which is enough to convince ~half the country. (Because ~half of any country will happily accept whatever atrocities its leaders do. You can observe that sort of thing on this very forum.) --- [1] Not actually everyone, some people really are that fucking stupid, but most know there's something off[2] about it. [2] In this particular case, the official Atlas says they are one country, but the country's Constitution (updated last year on this very subject) says that the ROK is a foreign, hostile state. Anyone who can read or has eyes to see and ears to hear should easily be able to tell that the latter is the more accurate one.
- red-iron-pine 1y ago
  > You can observe that sort of thing on this very forum. remember that 1) this forum skews to a very specific sort of person, and 2) that person notwithstanding, there is an incredible, shocking large amount of bots active here, owing to the fact that the people from 1) are also AI worshipping futurists (and/or techno-fascists)
  - cassepipe 1y ago
    Hi ! I am not a AI worshiping futurist nor a (techno-)fascist for that matter. I don't think bots are that active on such a small platform but I guess by "bots" you mean people who offer pushback on your opinions (they are a "shocking" number indeed, it seems I can hardly convince more than one person to rally my positions from time to time and I still have to pretend to be nuanced !) I also believe that "platform is skewed against X" (generally your own opinions) are utterly useless comments. You are just pretending everyone is against you so you don't have to take criticism addressed to you seriously. Now you can enjoy the ego boost of feeling like the virtuous online warrior against a world of techno-fascists that are ganging up on you or you can reflect and try to take into account the fact that people have different viewpoints and are mostly doing their best. I eventually chose the latter and I have to say I feel less grandiose but much better overall. Join the club, we have cookies.
ceejayoz 1y ago
I mean, see American politics for a similar example. The Epstein files are simultaneously a "Democrat hoax" and full of prominent Dems. The Attorney General both has them on her desk, and they don't exist.
- Volundr 1y ago
  And there's not enough in them to charge or investigate any 3rd parties, until some are made public and now there's enough to investigate Democrats.
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    And suddenly the unimportant records that don't exist but were also a hoax but also implicate the-other-guy are about to be made public... suddenly an "ongoing investigation" is the new excuse. > The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between the true and the false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist. -- The origins of Totalitarianism (1951), by Hannah Arendt
sunaookami 1y ago
Is the second part actually true though? I can't find any sources about this, in fact the opposite seems to be true. North Korea recently changed their constitution and describe South Korea as a "hostile state" which means they officially recognize it as a "state" at least[1]. Before that they explicitly had a goal for unification in the constitution which implies (or can be implied) that there never was such a view that "the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party". There is also this sentence: >This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing for example. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-reports-road-rail-links-cut-off-with-hostile-state-south-korea-kcna-2024-10-16/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-repor...
- recursivecaveat 1y ago
  Yeah, I'm kindof skeptical. Another example I found was Kim referencing the south in a TV speech. I think their official position might be something closer to that the war was victorious by virtue of holding off the Americans and/or removing them from the area. Then the atlas doesn't show the south as a separate country because it's more of a Taiwan situation where they don't want to legitimize it as anything more than a rebellious province? At least in the early 2000s when this atlas was made. The language at the time definitely seems to emphasize that the whole peninsula is just "the nation": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_15th_North%E2%80%93South_Joint_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_15th_North%E2%80%93South_...
- quicklime 1y ago
  >> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage > This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing for example. This is common in Australia too.
  - bad_haircut72 1y ago
    As a map of Australia sure but not a world map

hk1337 1y ago

> the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party. This makes me wonder what the reasoning is, or even if they officially do, for preventing North Korean citizens from migrating south? If it's all united as one country then why would someone be prevented from moving there?

alibarber 1y ago
From what I understand about North Korea - simply moving within (actual) NK itself is not really on the cards for a lot of people, so they might as well claim sovereignty over the whole peninsular.
- hk1337 1y ago
  Yeah, my initial thought was something along the lines of all actions are subject to the approval of the party.
ceejayoz 1y ago
I'd presume it's like the Soviets, where moving cities required permission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propiska_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propiska_in_the_Soviet_Union
rzerowan 1y ago
Id think this being the 'official' political position , it would be referring to the end of hostilities when the armistice was signed.Legally there was no ceasefire/capitulation etc and i would suggest as far as the North are concerned barring outside interference they would have prevailed. Hence the stressing of the position that they are one entity 'politically' - certainly not that 'physically' they are one untit , also why they would hold/reunification talks from time to time and family relatives exchanges between the two. They are cognizant that there is a DMZ , and that theere exists a polity on the south that keeps sending usb filled baloons , propaganda loudspeakes blaring on the Border. So mostly a poltical position being staked out , which is also why the maps only have Palestine and Western Sahara.Not because they are unaware of the situation insitu but geopilitically they are staking their claims.

BurningFrog 1y ago

[flagged]

TulliusCicero 1y ago
> According to Grok: Can we not do this?
- BurningFrog 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - samtheDamned 1y ago
    reliable sources is a good start
  - philipkglass 1y ago
    Ask the LLM for information about your topic of choice along with supporting citations. Skim the cited publications to make sure that they exist and actually support the information produced by the LLM. Assuming that the citations pass your checks, post links to them here along with excerpts. Human-verified information from credible publications is a good thing to share here, whether you originally came across the information from books, search engines, or LLMs. Sharing LLM output by itself is discouraged here.
    - BurningFrog 1y ago
      Asking for supporting citations is a good LLM technique I was not aware of. Appreciate the tip! And of course the process you're describing would result in a much better post, after much more work. That said, those are good standards for scientific journals. To me, discussion posts in a hacker forum has a much lower bar, and I think I fulfilled my civic duties by saying it came from an AI. I'll probably avoid it in the future though.
      - npteljes 1y ago

macintux 1y ago

My small-town public library growing up had a great resource that I did not appreciate at the time: an English translation of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia[0]. I really wish I had spent time with it. If nothing else it would have given me some questions to ask my history teachers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Soviet_Encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Soviet_Encyclopedia

nocoiner 1y ago
Wow! I would have been absolutely fascinated by this when I was a kid. I remember once wandering around my college library and finding the book “The Soviet Economy Through the Year 2000.” This occurred during the current millennium.
- man8alexd 1y ago
  My grandpa had the full 50-volume edition of the encyclopedia published in the 1950s. I spent a lot of time digging through it in my pre-teen years.
greenavocado 1y ago
Anna has it in her archive
- ForOldHack 1y ago
  Where is the Josun Encyclopedia? I would like to read it. Thanks
  - greenavocado 1y ago
    Can't find an ISBN for it but Anna tells me she has something similar 1-56591-070-2

mudil 1y ago

[flagged]

MiiMe19 1y ago

I wish there was a CD rip of the encyclopedia available so I could comb through the rest.

globular-toast 1y ago

I'm wondering what the infrastructure shown in red on the maps is. Railways? Roads? It's obviously very rough, whatever it is. I'm looking at the UK and it looks like Ipswich and Great Yarmouth (or Lowestoft) or on there, but not Norwich. It's interesting to see what is considered significant or strategic from their point of view.

retrac 1y ago

Since no one else has noted it: they show rail lines and only rail. No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure ones like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec. (It has almost no traffic and it serves a small town and a mine and it's not connected to the rest of the North American system.) Similarly they depict sections of rail in Canada that were out of service many years before this map was published. So they're quite out of date. To not show that Canada is linked by rail with the USA at Detroit is a definite oversight, too. Seeing through the lens of railroads is probably an artifact of both ideology and the economic reality in North Korea. And maybe also the implicitly military purpose of these maps.

zippothrowaway 1y ago
I thought that too, but the map for the UK is very weird - there is no direct connection between what looks like Birmingham and what looks like Manchester or anywhere in the North West of England. So, no West Coast Main Line? Instead they have the rail line veering off towards the peak district. I don't know whether they're decades out of date or just plain wrong - the West Coast Main Line was "opened between 1837 and 1881" according to Wikipedia.
- dgl 1y ago
  Also the UK seems to include the Grand Union canal and River Severn but not the River Thames. It seems quite random.
mig39 1y ago
> No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure ones like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec. I guess the maps are old, because they show the Newfoundland Railway, which was removed in the 80s.
- perihelions 1y ago
  At least the political maps are post-1992.
1y ago

shevy-java 1y ago

> According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists. Well - it depends on how one wants to call the result of the war. I think there was not necessarily a winner; there was a stalemate/truce, with China guaranteeing North Korea to not lose, but not necessarily win either. That does not mean North Korea won, but I don't think one can necessarily say that they lost the war either. I am fully aware of how the propaganda in North Korea works, but some articles are also heavily biased. The biggest danger to North Korea actually comes from the success model in South Korea, as well as the internet. The internet kind of nerfed Scientology (see what Ron Miscavige said and described how Scientology changed over the years, so if one of the big guys can quit, the whole business model they established decades ago, is dead and decaying). Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet. You can not permanently cut off million of people, with the assumption they won't be able to understand how strategic lies work. It also does not work in Russia either, though Russia is of course nowhere near as isolated as North Korea right now.

ronsor 1y ago
> Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet. North Koreans do not have any Internet, save for through computers at a few government-controlled and strictly monitored libraries, as well as through illegal imported Chinese smartphones if they live near the border.
HeinzStuckeIt 1y ago
None of what you are saying holds water. Scientology’s old business model became less effective, but the cult segued into a real-estate empire and still has several mega-wealthy members (so-called “whales”) it can milk for donations. And North Korea could see greater internet uptake but still remain a stable dictatorship, precisely on the model of Russia where, even if the population “sees through the lies”, that doesn’t challenge the regime itself; people who dislike the regime largely simply accept it as a fact of life, and might even disapprove of those people who make the effort to challenge it.
goranmoomin 1y ago
> According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists. According to the North Korean govt, the Korean war was started by the South who wanted to invade North (it was not, based on extensive studies). Therefore in their view (or at least from their propaganda), the communists "won" by successfully defending their part of the peninsula.

goranmoomin 1y ago

(I'm a South Korean.) > According to the prevailing narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party. This is either not true at all or the writer phrased strangely — both of the governments (South & North) recognize that the war is still on-going and they have an enemy that is controlling the other half of the peninsula that they do not control. However, both of the governments also argue that they are the only legal government that is ought to control the whole peninsula and does not recognize each other's legitimacy. For example, ROK(Republic of Korea, the government that controls the southern part of the peninsula)'s constitution writes that it's government governs the whole peninsula and it's islands. It's like how both PRC(People's Republic of China, i.e. China) and ROC(Republic of China, i.e. Taiwan) both argue that they are the only legal government over all of China (i.e. Mainland China and Taiwan combined). > Therefore, when looking at the maps in this atlas, it should come as no surprise that Korea is always shown as one country, with no reference to the other country that exists at the southern tip of the peninsula. It is universally agreed between the two governments (and their citizens) that a unification should happen at some point, so it is obvious that we should be using a map that covers the whole peninsula. We (as South Koreans) also learn 'our country' as the whole peninsula. > This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage. Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility that they might not be the center of the world…? South Korean maps do this, China maps do this, Japanese maps do this, I'm pretty sure South East Asia countries also do this, it's a normal thing to do. There's nothing special about having the Pacific Ocean centered.

AndriyKunitsyn 1y ago
Yes, that's complete nonsence. My friend was on a guided tour to North Korea, and they aware of a lot of things. For example, the population of the North and the South was somehow accurately described to the tourists as 25 and 50 million, and they don't question that fact.
drdec 1y ago
>> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage. > Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility that they might not be the center of the world…? Westerner who also thought this was a strange comment and that the centering of the Korean peninsula was a totally natural decision for this atlas

bamboozled 1y ago

From every account I’ve read, North Koreans suffer greatly, maybe not holocaust level but we’re totally fine to allow their suffering to continue unabated. If I was a North Korean I’d hope someone was coming to help me at some stage . Weird situation .

man8alexd 1y ago
In the late Soviet Union, there was a joke: "We should declare war on Japan and immediately surrender."
TulliusCicero 1y ago
> we’re totally fine to allow their suffering to continue unabated People aren't "fine" with it exactly, it's just that the alternative usually looks (potentially) much worse. Regime change would mean war with North Korea, and at the very least that'd be a ton of artillery shells landing on Seoul and killing a ton of civilians at the outset of the war. North Korea by itself would obviously be much weaker than a presumed SK+US force, but then you have to worry about China potentially getting drawn in, and now you have two nuclear superpowers fighting each other in all-out war. Nobody really wants that.
jojobas 1y ago
You'd sure be hoping that, while gripping your Type 58 and eyeing the border vigilantly.
npteljes 1y ago
"We" are absolutely not fine with the state of things there, but there is also not much to do for these poor people, aside from some non-political volunteer help. One of the reasons is the that, as I understand it, China and NK are diplomatically close, with them having a mutual defense treaty among other things. So if you meddle in NK, you also meddle with China, and "we" don't exactly meddle with China either, even in face of their most condemned actions like the treatment of Uighur, since they are a superpower. Another thing is that NK is very highly publicized in Western media, and people seem to have a kind of fascination with it. But regarding humanitarian catastrophes, other parts of the world are very busy as well. If you look at the HRI table, there are a lot of horrible places, and "we" don't as much talk about most of these. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-index-vdem?tab=table https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-index-vdem?t...

mlmonkey 1y ago

The Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (which China claims as "South Tibet") is not shown as a part of India in the Indian map, as a hat tip to their political masters the PRC. And the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is also shown as, I imagine, "disputed" with a dotted line.

widforss 1y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it disputed, with heavy border tensions and all? I'm not claiming India doesn't control it, and as a Swede I don't know much. But that's about the one thing I thought I knew about Kashmir.
- InitialLastName 1y ago
  Yes, heavily disputed, to the point that there are widespread campaigns on the internet to normalize the various sovereignty claims under the guise of day-to-day conversation about those locales (e.g. conspicuously referring to them as being "in India" or "in Pakistan" or "in China"). For example, see the Google maps reviews for any landmarks in the area.
culi 1y ago
Would you say India are their political masters if it was shown as being Indian? Even Google Maps in the US has dotted borders alongside both sides to show its disputed. Historically, geographically, culturally, the area was always part of Tibet. It was the British that drew the McMahon Line and claimed it was part of India. China never once recognized the line. When Mao won the civil war in China they went on to conquer Tibet and again considered the whole of Tibet theirs. India's claims to the area rest solely on the british-drawn lines. In reality, the whole of Tibet should be Tibet and allowed to either self-govern or choose which nation they should be a part of

koliber 1y ago

On the map of Europe, Poland has a strange nonexistent river flowing through it. It enters the Baltic Sea more or less where the Vistula river really does. But going south it mysteriously veers east into Belarus.

seanw444 1y ago
I know sometimes cartographers leave nonexistent landmarks on their maps to catch plagiarists blindly copying them. Not sure if that's something similar here. Could also be a method of identifying information leaks. Leave unique imaginary landmarks on different prints associated with certain people or groups of people that received that print. Or just wrong info. Who knows.
- koliber 1y ago
  You're right that this happens. However, if I had to guess I would say that it's due to bad information / intel. North Korea is a closed country with limited access to information (think before the internet). On the flip side, I don't think catching copyright violators would be high on the list of concerns of the people making these maps.

sequoia 1y ago

What's the source of the particular singling out of Israel here? Is it because they're a US ally, or is there some other history between the countries? It looks like a singular designation in their atlas that Israel is referred to not as an enemy, but as "nonexistent." Anti-Israeli sentiment certainly creates strange bedfellows.

tkel 1y ago
It's anti-imperialism. It's not that complicated. There's many Israelis who will also claim that Palestine does not exist. It's colonization, and war. Israelis claim the land. Palestinians also claim the land. NK is united with Palestine via their anti-imperialist stance. There are many other countries that also do not recognize Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_I...
- erulabs 1y ago
  To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine? Or is the idea that the US is the Empire? There is another `anti-` that I would use here instead.
  - xg15 1y ago
    > To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine? They very openly do both those things in the West Bank. Then you have the more extreme settler types talking about the biblical "Land of Israel" that would extend into modern Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. But as far as I understand it, Israel is usually not the empire itself, but a bridgehead or particularly glaring example of imperialism from the West, starting with the British Empire. > Or is the idea that the US is the Empire? So, yes. It were those countries that conquered those regions from the Ottoman empire and then decided among themselves to support the project of a Jewish state, against the wishes of the existing population of the region.
  - 1y ago

poszlem 1y ago

While looking at Google Maps’ satellite view of North Korea, I noticed something unusual in several areas: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8416379,124.6971993,599m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTExMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8416379,124.6971993,599m/dat... https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7064561,124.9519379,871m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTExMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7064561,124.9519379,871m/dat... https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7917888,127.4197521,1723m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTExMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7917888,127.4197521,1723m/da... Much of the landscape is divided into rectangular parcels, almost like a factorio layout, or something from sim city 3000, rather than natural terrain. Does anyone know the reason for this pattern?

pkkim 1y ago
Large scale collective farming I guess. The US' farmland in the central states was also organized by a centralized process (homestead act) leading to similar geographic patterns on a bigger scale. https://maps.app.goo.gl/idNBdXv5oKSF1oVo7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/idNBdXv5oKSF1oVo7
infinet 1y ago
Looks like farm land. Perhaps the land was assigned to individual in small pieces, and the individual get a portion of the harvest.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

pkkim 1y ago

The North Korean place names for foreign places reflect the native pronunciations, while South Korean place names reflect English pronunciation. Syria is "suria" vs "siria" for example.

Workaccount2 1y ago

An aside, but I cannot over emphasize enough my aggravation with mobile sites that lock pinch to zoom. I cannot fathom why you would ever want this.

sbinnee 1y ago

As a native Korean, every time I see something related to Korea, I am just amazed how much passion these people have. I briefly remember seeing a detailed map of the whole Korean peninsula from the elementary school, I think. I appreciate this finding! North Korea is kind of invisible if you live in South Korea. You may see some news that they launched some rockets and did some military actions. People are so used to these news that they don't pay attention anymore. You forget about the North one and just live your life.

tavavex 1y ago

Despite its age, this encyclopedia is an amazing window into North Korea - or, at least how its government saw it. I love niche media like this. But what I'm itching for most is to see the contents of the entire CD, rather than just a few chosen excerpts. The entire encyclopedia, all the maps, anything else that may be hidden on there. I wish the author made this find open for all to see.

tzfld 1y ago

Interestingly North Macedonia is also colored with the gray shade of the enemies. Wondering if that is deliberate or not.