4 ms·

Would you care to elaborate why, if you feel like it? When I try to cognize the word "evil", I get hazy connotations in my mind. Why North Korea in particular,

by wfn 13y ago

Would you care to elaborate why, if you feel like it? When I try to cognize the word "evil", I get hazy connotations in my mind. Why North Korea in particular, what are your criteria? (genuinely curious.)

tptacek 13y ago
I'll let someone else elaborate why.
hga 13y ago
Let's just mention some bottom line things: Due to pervasive malnutrition, North Koreans are on average a foot shorter than South Koreans, and significantly less intelligent (IQ/g), which is one very good reason the latter don't want reunification. They are by far the largest of the last unrepentant Communist counties, so all the inevitable evils that come with that are in their greatest effect there (although China is just so big it's GULAG very possibly has more inmates). How about their still being in a state of war with, well, everyone else in "the West", and regularly reminding us of that with overt lethal attacks?
- wfn 13y ago
  I agree that what the NK regime is and has for a long time been doing to the people of NK is brutal, atrocious and nigh-unimaginable, at least when you try to understand the scale of it all / of the labour camps where people are born and live their lives inside the camps, and so on. I don't want to be that guy arguing semantics, but just a small remark: > How about their still being in a state of war with, well, > everyone else in "the West", and regularly reminding us of > that with overt lethal attacks? I dare speculate that this must be how (in a sense) the U.S. looks/sounds like to many people from the countries it has deemed to be its enemies (say, Iran and Iraq); the difference being, the U.S. did actually go ahead and commit lethal attacks. But this line of strictly consequentialist reasoning (however one may call it, not sure) is not without its flaws, of course. Thanks for the comment.
  - hga 13y ago
    But compare the nature and focus of the lethal attacks. Have we done anything like (and this is just from memory): Randomly, not as part of a campaign or anything, shelled an island. Randomly torpedoed a naval vessel. Brought down a civilian airliner as an act of terror. Attempted to assassinate a country's leader and take out a good fraction of his cabinet with an indiscriminate bomb on foreign soil (foreign to both; and this is a debatable point, we certainly hit with 2,000 pound bombs any place we thought Saddam was during the war in the last decade. These details, including the lack of an all out hot war, are frequently used to label this act as terrorism, plus it wouldn't have made much difference to South Korea vs. taking out someone who'd been the Maximum Leader of a country for around 3 decades). In the save vein as the above, we might debate their regular landing of commandos (especially given the fairly random violence they then engage in) and perhaps their regular naval skirmishes. My bottom line is that they're batshit crazy in a way we simply aren't, whatever the bottom line is in those killed and wounded. Generally you can divine a fine grained rational cause and effect from our lethal actions, the DPRKs' only in a much broader way.
    - foobarqux 13y ago
      > North Korean news sources alleged that the North Korean actions, described as "a prompt and powerful physical strike", were in response to provocation from South Korea that had held an artillery exercise in the disputed waters south of the island The US tried to assassinate Castro without even a declared war, they assassinated Gaddafi and have instigated various coups. On the other hand North and South Korea are actually at war. United States brought down an Iranian civilian airliner. North Korea is desperate and does terrible things but I don't think there is any reason to believe they are as completely irrational as everyone tries to paint them. One problem is that the extremely aggressive military actions by the United States often go unreported while far more benign military action by North Korea are disproportionately reported (e.g. moving missile launchers and missile tests a few months ago). I am in no way saying North Korea is "better" than the United States or that they are not evil, only that there are significant distortions in the way each is viewed, especially by Americans.
      - 13y ago

by wfn 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

I'll let someone else elaborate why.

hga 13y ago

Let's just mention some bottom line things: Due to pervasive malnutrition, North Koreans are on average a foot shorter than South Koreans, and significantly less intelligent (IQ/g), which is one very good reason the latter don't want reunification. They are by far the largest of the last unrepentant Communist counties, so all the inevitable evils that come with that are in their greatest effect there (although China is just so big it's GULAG very possibly has more inmates). How about their still being in a state of war with, well, everyone else in "the West", and regularly reminding us of that with overt lethal attacks?

wfn 13y ago
I agree that what the NK regime is and has for a long time been doing to the people of NK is brutal, atrocious and nigh-unimaginable, at least when you try to understand the scale of it all / of the labour camps where people are born and live their lives inside the camps, and so on. I don't want to be that guy arguing semantics, but just a small remark: > How about their still being in a state of war with, well, > everyone else in "the West", and regularly reminding us of > that with overt lethal attacks? I dare speculate that this must be how (in a sense) the U.S. looks/sounds like to many people from the countries it has deemed to be its enemies (say, Iran and Iraq); the difference being, the U.S. did actually go ahead and commit lethal attacks. But this line of strictly consequentialist reasoning (however one may call it, not sure) is not without its flaws, of course. Thanks for the comment.
- hga 13y ago
  But compare the nature and focus of the lethal attacks. Have we done anything like (and this is just from memory): Randomly, not as part of a campaign or anything, shelled an island. Randomly torpedoed a naval vessel. Brought down a civilian airliner as an act of terror. Attempted to assassinate a country's leader and take out a good fraction of his cabinet with an indiscriminate bomb on foreign soil (foreign to both; and this is a debatable point, we certainly hit with 2,000 pound bombs any place we thought Saddam was during the war in the last decade. These details, including the lack of an all out hot war, are frequently used to label this act as terrorism, plus it wouldn't have made much difference to South Korea vs. taking out someone who'd been the Maximum Leader of a country for around 3 decades). In the save vein as the above, we might debate their regular landing of commandos (especially given the fairly random violence they then engage in) and perhaps their regular naval skirmishes. My bottom line is that they're batshit crazy in a way we simply aren't, whatever the bottom line is in those killed and wounded. Generally you can divine a fine grained rational cause and effect from our lethal actions, the DPRKs' only in a much broader way.
  - foobarqux 13y ago
    > North Korean news sources alleged that the North Korean actions, described as "a prompt and powerful physical strike", were in response to provocation from South Korea that had held an artillery exercise in the disputed waters south of the island The US tried to assassinate Castro without even a declared war, they assassinated Gaddafi and have instigated various coups. On the other hand North and South Korea are actually at war. United States brought down an Iranian civilian airliner. North Korea is desperate and does terrible things but I don't think there is any reason to believe they are as completely irrational as everyone tries to paint them. One problem is that the extremely aggressive military actions by the United States often go unreported while far more benign military action by North Korea are disproportionately reported (e.g. moving missile launchers and missile tests a few months ago). I am in no way saying North Korea is "better" than the United States or that they are not evil, only that there are significant distortions in the way each is viewed, especially by Americans.
    - 13y ago