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So how does DPRK survive? How do they keep sending (or trying to send) missiles, exploding nukes, etc.? Surely there are _some_ people there who know that DPRK

So how does DPRK survive? How do they keep sending (or trying to send) missiles, exploding nukes, etc.? Surely there are _some_ people there who know that DPRK is all make-believe? Also, I didn't get how she was able to access the 'net, but not her students?

matthewwiese 12y ago
In the article it mentioned the teachers were allowed internet access only, probably for research for class assignment or keeping up with family outside the country. I'm assuming they didn't allow the students to have access because they're a Google search away from finding information that could shatter their entire idea of the Supreme Leader. The university was mentioned to be a private one, but it's hard to imagine the North Koreans didn't force them to use some kind of monitoring software to keep track of what the teacher's were looking up.
EliRivers 12y ago
The computer with the net access is simply forbidden to them, and not accessible. Teachers may use it. They may not. It's that simple.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  Even if they did find stuff on said computer somehow, they have been taught it is lies.
dominotw 12y ago
>Surely there are _some_ people there who know that DPRK is all make-believe? According to the defector AMA on reddit recently, most people know all about the make believe and very few people actually beleive the official mythology.
readme 12y ago
What I know about the DPRK: - There are North Korean work camps in Russia, where exported North Koreans perform slave labor such as cutting down trees, for literally nothing. - They engage in weapons trade with foreign countries. - If you are a dissenter of any sort, it's possible that your entire family can be threatened with punishment, such as working in a labor camp. If you skip the country, it's possible that they'll kill your whole family. With the above, I can see how it floats.
soylentcola 12y ago
Not familiar enough with geopolitics or global economics to comment on how the regime survives physically or financially but I can hazard a guess as to how they keep up the cultural and intellectual "blinders". Reading this article I started to wonder how it would read if you replaced the North Korean students with fundamentalist Christians (or Muslims) in a majority-fundamentalist society. Then consider if the teacher was a secularist trying to find ways to sneak messages about evolution or atheism or even material that treated different belief systems with equal weight or validity. While I don't know of anyplace in my own country where a fundamentalist ideology is as entrenched as the North Koreans' is in Pyongyang, it's still easy for me to conceptualize. In the U.S. there are no doubt schools where a teacher speaking about secularism would prompt students to resist and parents to complain. With a country like DPRK, I just imagine it as if the most conservative, fundamentalist parts of the US were cut off from the rest of the country and never even had anyone try to argue that man probably didn't walk with the dinosaurs or that gay people didn't murder babies or whatever. Even if there were people who thought it was all bunk they'd probably keep quiet or risk getting fired. Add to that the fact that in DPRK you run the actual risk of being sent to a prison camp for questioning the accepted ideology and I can see why it might just be easier to play along. Normal people anywhere are typically more concerned with making a living and taking care of their families, not raging against the machine.

matthewwiese 12y ago

In the article it mentioned the teachers were allowed internet access only, probably for research for class assignment or keeping up with family outside the country. I'm assuming they didn't allow the students to have access because they're a Google search away from finding information that could shatter their entire idea of the Supreme Leader. The university was mentioned to be a private one, but it's hard to imagine the North Koreans didn't force them to use some kind of monitoring software to keep track of what the teacher's were looking up.

EliRivers 12y ago

The computer with the net access is simply forbidden to them, and not accessible. Teachers may use it. They may not. It's that simple.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
Even if they did find stuff on said computer somehow, they have been taught it is lies.

dominotw 12y ago

>Surely there are _some_ people there who know that DPRK is all make-believe? According to the defector AMA on reddit recently, most people know all about the make believe and very few people actually beleive the official mythology.

readme 12y ago

What I know about the DPRK: - There are North Korean work camps in Russia, where exported North Koreans perform slave labor such as cutting down trees, for literally nothing. - They engage in weapons trade with foreign countries. - If you are a dissenter of any sort, it's possible that your entire family can be threatened with punishment, such as working in a labor camp. If you skip the country, it's possible that they'll kill your whole family. With the above, I can see how it floats.

soylentcola 12y ago

Not familiar enough with geopolitics or global economics to comment on how the regime survives physically or financially but I can hazard a guess as to how they keep up the cultural and intellectual "blinders". Reading this article I started to wonder how it would read if you replaced the North Korean students with fundamentalist Christians (or Muslims) in a majority-fundamentalist society. Then consider if the teacher was a secularist trying to find ways to sneak messages about evolution or atheism or even material that treated different belief systems with equal weight or validity. While I don't know of anyplace in my own country where a fundamentalist ideology is as entrenched as the North Koreans' is in Pyongyang, it's still easy for me to conceptualize. In the U.S. there are no doubt schools where a teacher speaking about secularism would prompt students to resist and parents to complain. With a country like DPRK, I just imagine it as if the most conservative, fundamentalist parts of the US were cut off from the rest of the country and never even had anyone try to argue that man probably didn't walk with the dinosaurs or that gay people didn't murder babies or whatever. Even if there were people who thought it was all bunk they'd probably keep quiet or risk getting fired. Add to that the fact that in DPRK you run the actual risk of being sent to a prison camp for questioning the accepted ideology and I can see why it might just be easier to play along. Normal people anywhere are typically more concerned with making a living and taking care of their families, not raging against the machine.