Awoo [she/her]

The government restricts citizens access to the Internet (among other things). I have talked to people from Russia, people from China, etc online. But I have never talked to someone from North Korea and that is a pretty big red flag for me.

And how many people from the DPRK have you actually tried to speak to? There are many in China and many in Russia, some as naturalised citizens, not to mention tens of thousands work officially in Africa.

You seem to accept that information about the DPRK is unreliable, but rather than allow this to create a position of neutrality in yourself you seem to instead default to vibes. The problem with defaulting to vibes is that those are specifically what propaganda is effective at manipulating. The vibes about the DPRK that you have are entirely a construction of western media and comment sections.

When I don’t know about something the first thing I do is take myself to the most neutral position possible - “I don’t know”. That is the starting point from which facts should be fed.

Hello @cole@lemdro.id you seem to have conveniently ignored my response?

Does every american have equally valid input on america and its politics?

When the next person says “I know someone from Britain and they said London is a no go zone” should I take them automatically seriously? Should I take their opinion on migrants and small boats seriously or should I maybe do some more serious investigation?

You dated a Korean, so what? Why should anyone take this one person’s take over serious investigation of the matter?

EVERYWHERE has its problems.

And yes, that is the DPRK too.

Sure, I don’t deny that. The issue here is what are they? You don’t know. I’ve actually visited and I could talk about some, but they’d be quite different to what you would talk about I suspect.

I’ve dated a Korean and been to Korea which has influenced me quite a lot.

Koreans in the south typically react with surprise whenever anyone on the left refers to what the US did in Korea as a genocide. Most of them have barely any knowledge of the five “republics” before the existing one, the sixth. Unless your partner was a trade unionist within the ROK I generally wouldn’t trust them to know what they’re talking about, much like I don’t trust the average liberal or magat to know what they’re talking about when it comes to the US, its history of barbarism or how it interacts with the world today. The trade unionists within ROK however do know their shit, I’ve spoken to a few of them and they’re cool comrades (but are legally not allowed to say they are)

if you can’t admit the obvious problems with the DPRK

The problems you’ve only ever absorbed through the lens of extremely dubious western media reporting whose sources for reporting come from either the CIA or NIS(formerly KCIA but renamed to make it less obvious the south is an occupied state) ?

You say “obvious” the same way the Dothraki say “It is known”. You consider this information obvious because a lot of people say it, you never consider whether a lot of people only say it because they too see a lot of other people saying it. You do not know the facts at all.

Calling anyone “insane” is always ableism.

You are using a mental illness as an insult.

Just like calling anyone gay as an insult is always homophobic.