Korea Thread: Liberal Moon Jae In Elected

[jimmy olsen]

Your concern for my wellbeing is touching.

[Maximus]

Your concern for my wellbeing is touching.

It doesn't get much more concerned than hiring people to take care of you.

[grumbler]

BS

Don't make him sic the Ambassador on you!

Though it IS funny that Martim would post a line like

That everyone in the West just believes what they are told without any kind of critical thought says more about the state of mind of the West's populations than about North Korea, really... 

right after posting an article that says "don't believe that everybody in some group just believes..." does prove that irony isn't just the opposite of wrinkly. Some people may believe some of the unlikely stuff coming out of NK, but only Martim believes that he knows enough to state with assurance what "everyone in the West just believes."

[grumbler]

Your concern for my wellbeing is touching.

It doesn't get much more concerned than hiring people to take care of you.

[Valmy]

right after posting an article that says "don't believe that everybody in some group just believes..." does prove that irony isn't just the opposite of wrinkly.

Dude he always says shit like that. His stereotypes about Americans are uncritical facts to him. And man will he latch on to any possible evidence he can find to prove it to himself. It is hilarious.

Especially after his lame stereotype of all pre-modern societies.

[Razgovory]

BS

The article has a point, but a very limited one.  If people are more willing to believe that North Korea engages in bizarre and barbaric behavior it's because the North Koreans constantly make lurid and absurd threats.  If rumors about things in North Korea are printed in news it's because North Korea is such a closed state it's impossible to verify even the most basic facts about the country.  Rumors and statements from defectors is all we have to go on.  To Westerners North Korea is some enormous black joke.  It's an absurdist tragedy.  It's a country struts the world stage claiming to be the most powerful country in the world but can't provide basic amenities to it's own people.  A place where it's always 1953, and they are fighting a war that the world forgot about decades ago.

[Admiral Yi]

I was talking about the "no difference with previous states" nonsense.

[Razgovory]

I was talking about the "no difference with previous states" nonsense.

Oh, yeah, that's bullshit.

[Martim Silva]

I was talking about the "no difference with previous states" nonsense.

Then I can sure you could easily tell us about of one period in the last 2,000 years [barring the japanese times, and even then the Koreans got their ears full with the importance of a 'God-Emperor'] where the people living in the area now known as North Korea lived under a system that was truly different to the current one, right?

By that I mean a system where the ruler or ruling class did not have massive privileges, the people were not dirt poor and very vunlnerable to starvation, trade was not limited, foreigners were not distrusted (i.e. a very closed society) and the army did not absorb a huge amount of money, even in peacetime.

(after unification, the Koreans also were often a chinese client state, but let's skip that for now)

Some people may believe some of the unlikely stuff coming out of NK, but only Martim believes that he knows enough to state with assurance what "everyone in the West just believes."

Sorry, I kinda missed everybody's posts on how this was nonsense and could not possibly be true 

You love rhetological fallacies, don't you? Seem to spend your whole time using them.

Everybody with half a brain knows no opinion is ever 100% shared by a whole population, so you can always find examples to disprove any affirmations, regargless if they are true or not. References to the way of thinking or acting of a large group/state/organization always have to be generalizations, else we could never speak about anything ever.

For example, it can be said "Americans love their Freedoms", and you all would agree with that.

Then someone could point at some odd examples of Americans that hate freedom (either politically or just want to be slaves) and claim that the first statement is not true and just a "generalization" that cannot be used to describe Americans. But it would just be a fallacy - in their overwhelming majority, Americans do love the freedoms they are constitutionally given [or not taken away] and so the first statement is both a generalization and the truth.

Grumbler just loves to think he is a master of using these types of fallacies.

Especially after his lame stereotype of all pre-modern societies.

When did my statements moved to be about "all pre-modern societies", especially after I had written why I had excluded several types of pre-contemporaneous goverment from it?

Seems that you are the one that "will latch on to any possible evidence he can find to prove it to himself" regarding whatever incorrect ideas you very much want to have about me.

[Admiral Yi]

Then I can sure you could easily tell us about of one period in the last 2,000 years [barring the japanese times, and even then the Koreans got their ears full with the importance of a 'God-Emperor'] where the people living in the area now known as North Korea lived under a system that was truly different to the current one, right?

By that I mean a system where the ruler or ruling class did not have massive privileges, the people were not dirt poor and very vunlnerable to starvation, trade was not limited, foreigners were not distrusted (i.e. a very closed society) and the army did not absorb a huge amount of money, even in peacetime.

It's trivially easy to name a period when northern Koreans lived under a system that was truly different to the current one: always.

There are no other historical periods when hundred of thousands of people were imprisoned for ideological or economic crimes.  There are none in which the people were fed a constant stream of propaganda about the perfection of the leader and the workers' paradise.  There are none in which the constant threat of external aggression were used as justification for repression.  There are none in which a third of the economic output was devoted to the military.

If Korean monarchs were deified, I never heard about it.  Similarly, if any of the kingdoms maintained massive armies I never heard of that either.  Korean history is remarkably peaceful, aside from the Mongol invasion (when they just gave up) and the Hideyoshi invasion (when they totally kicked Jap ass).  Isolation was a relatively late phenomenon, only starting with the arrival of Europeans in the area.  Historically there were extensive trade contacts with China and Japan.  In fact Koreans like to brag that the art of pottery making was a transfer from Korea to Japan.  There was still a significant ethnic Chinese population living in Korea after the war, and there is a signicant ethnic Korean population living in Manchuria.

I imagine there were failed crops and starvation.  What pre-modern civilization hasn't had starvation?  That's like saying since rice was and still is the staple food, the governments are identical.

[grumbler]

Sorry, I kinda missed everybody's posts on how this was nonsense and could not possibly be true 

You love rhetological fallacies, don't you? Seem to spend your whole time using them.

Everybody with half a brain knows no opinion is ever 100% shared by a whole population, so you can always find examples to disprove any affirmations, regargless if they are true or not. References to the way of thinking or acting of a large group/state/organization always have to be generalizations, else we could never speak about anything ever.

So, you are simultaneously accusing me of using rhetological fallacies, with no evidence whatever presented, and conceding that you were using the fallacy of talking about what "everyone... just believes...?" 

Okay.  Nobody could make this shit up.  I used to think yoiu were a very clever person's sock puppet, but you've convinced me that you are just a fairly stupid person who vainly believes that he is the smartest guy in the room.  That's all good, though, because I love to read the posts of morons who think they are geniuses.  That's the best thing the internet can offer, bar high-quality porn.

*pops popcorn*

[DGuller]

You do know that he's Lucianus, a very earnest fascist, right?

[Razgovory]

You have to be a rare bird to defend North Korea.  Hell, you can defend almost every action in the Cold War committed by the Western Allies by pointing to North Korea and saying, "we were afraid it might end up like that".

[Monoriu]

There are no other historical periods when hundred of thousands of people were imprisoned for ideological or economic crimes.  There are none in which the people were fed a constant stream of propaganda about the perfection of the leader and the workers' paradise.  There are none in which the constant threat of external aggression were used as justification for repression.  There are none in which a third of the economic output was devoted to the military.

This sounds similar to Nazi Germany at least.

[jimmy olsen]

Flying from Incheon to Hanoi on August 8th, from Cam Ranh to Incheon via Hanoi on the 19th.

I will probably fit in a three or four day trip to Cambodia and Angkor Wat in there somewhere. Not sure where though yet.