MeanwhileOnGrad

Just the fact that a refugee can be a "defector" is enough to make North Korea irredeemably evil.

Making it illegal to leave is wrong. It is inexcusable. It is evil.

Dessalines is a problem.

Don't get me wrong, Americans really are fed an absurd amount of propaganda, and it's as likely (if not more so) to come from private sources as it is from the government. Watching American media from the outside is a wild ride, and it's no wonder everyone is so extreme.

That said, the DPRK is on another level entirely.

There is a lot of propaganda about North Korea, mainly spread by hardliners in the South. I think a lot of older South Koreans have a bit of a chip on their shoulders from the days when the tables were turned.

Back when the Soviets were bankrolling the North and the South was led by a military dictatorship, the North was objectively a better place to live. A lot of older South Koreans like my parent's generation were raised on propaganda from the government, and a lot of them have a hard time letting go of it.

Which is bad, because there no real reason to make the situation in the north any more dire than it truly is. Their population is isolated from their families in the South, have cycles of severe food insecurity, and are at risk of inhumane punishment from a dynastic family that treat the country like a toy.

I've said it before but it's ridiculous the complete conspiracy brain of tankies to believe that the whole world is being systematically lied to about these states in particular by every world government and news source but somehow the free, public forums where they get their information are the only right ones.

I mean, let's say its not as bad as our governments say. Its still verifiably a dictatorship, a hereditary one at that.

Imagine the amount of cognitive dissonance you'd need to endure to think NK is not a dictatorship.

Setting aside dessalines' views on living in North Korea, probably goes the other way too, considering what Internet access is like in North Korea:

https://www.wired.com/story/internet-reality-north-korea/

https://archive.ph/lC0oi

“A librarian sits between two internet users and continuously monitors what people on both sides are searching up,” Kim said in testimony to the researchers. “Every five minutes, the screen freezes automatically, and the librarian must do a fingerprint authentication to allow further internet use.” A state security officer was also always nearby, they said.

People were allowed to use the internet for an hour, and if someone wanted more time, they would need to obtain new permission, Kim said. It took around two days to get permission from authorities to use the internet, a task requiring approvals from various officials. If someone applied too often, they would be made to wait, Kim said. “Every Korean website is blocked, and only Chinese or English websites are available.”

A few dozen families with connections to Kim Jong-Un and some foreigners have unrestricted access to the global internet, while a “few thousand” people—including government officials, researchers, and students studying IT—can access a surveillance-heavy version of it, according to the report and previous research. North Koreans like Kim who are allowed some foreign travel, usually for business, can sometimes access the global web while abroad.

North Korea probably considers Lemmy or anything like it to be a dire threat to state security, would never permit its people to see it or access information on it. Totally undermine state control of the information sphere.

I wouldn't get my phone fixed at a shop where half the hours billed are the owner shitposting on social media. Why should anyone pay for Lemmy development when the developers are scamming like this?

What this moron is a dev? Hahahaha

~~yes, they legitimately believe this.~~

the point is to make communists look extreme, crazy, scary, and authoritarian… that way someone mildly interested will go check out hexagonal and say “fuuuuck that communist shit!”.

Notice how he literally never posts outside of .ml, because he cannot handle anyone being free to argue against his edgy keyboard warrior bullshit without threat of the ban hammer. He's legitimately a fucking coward.