So, I've got a chance to go to North Korea for a few days in November. But, I'm having some moral qualms about it...
I mean, in a way, I'd be fascinated to see North Korea (although I'm aware that it won't be the "real" North Korea, just what the Gov't wants me to see... but even that would be fascinating, like a post-modern Rome, so to speak).
However, I have serious qualms about my money being used to support such a brutal regime.
Final question: if I do go, shall I wear my LVMI Austrian-Economist series t-shirts? "Free markets or serfdom", anyone?
I wouldn't worry too much about if your money is going to be supporting their government. Their economy has already collapsed, it's only a matter of time before that regime caves in on itself.
And how the duce do you even get to go?
I personally would not go, no. I would not put my hand into the open jaws of an alligator either.
To enter their jurisdiction is to accept their rightful power over you, should they choose to clamp their jaws >_>
You're probably entering as a journalist, so you can expect to be returned unharmed, but it's still a gamble imo.
I recently read an article in my county's local paper about an American teacher who went to the DPRK to teach. She said that in her hotel lobby, there were actually all of these newsletters saying how in capitalist countries, people are starving, and that Americans might even be cannibals.
Oh yeah, have you ever realized how Kim Jong-il and his "il" son are the only fat people north of the DMZ?
I posted the following two articles in the May 2012 low content thread. You guys might find them interesting:
And just for the fun of it:
How the hell did you manage to secure a trip to NK?
I would love to go to either Koreas. And lighten up it's just a country, it's not Mordor.
1. Go
2. Do not wear anything like that or talk about your views while there.
And I second Malachi. Tell us of the wonders of the socialist Utopia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba3dgDUtE9A — Bruce Cumings
Anenome:To enter their jurisdiction is to accept their rightful power over you[...]
???? So when I enter Canadia's jurisdiction, I am accepting their rightful power over me?
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
It depends very much on the motivation of your visit. If it's for work I'd say go, keep a low profile but open eyes. One of my contractors went to the DPRK a few times to repair Western-made machines the locals don't know how to fix (because the regime finds hiring people from abroad to do the job, pay them and send them on their way more convenient than teaching the locals anything beyond the bare minimum). He described it as a surreal place. When he's doing his job he's left completely alone inside the workshop. This is of course to keep contact with local workers to the bare minimum: who knows what he may be telling them?
If you want to go on a fact gathering mission, the above stands: avoid antagonizing the locals, keep your mouth shut at all times but your eyes open. If you somehow manage to keep your mobile and camera (they are often confiscated from foreigners upon arrival) be very careful how you use them. Also remember DPRK officials don't like their propaganda works being exported, although sometimes rules get inexplicably relaxed and you may be allowed (or even encouraged) to take propaganda posters, postcards etc home with you.
One last thing: do not attempt to make contact with the locals unless your guide allows you to do so. While you will get away with a stern warning, the local you talked to will be "debriefed", Soviet style, even if he/she didn't understand a lick of what you said. No need to make their lives even more miserable.
You may want to smuggle video camera glasses.
Unless they scan your body and luggage for such things.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HD-720P-Spy-Camera-Glasses-Eyewear-DVR-Camcorder-Video-Recorder-DV-5m-pixels-/170919988771?pt=US_Surveillance_Digital_Video_Recorders_Cards&hash=item27cba00e23
Do not talk about the free market or any capitalism while you are there. Not even in the hotels. The hotel rooms are bugged.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
And get thrown into a North Korean prison?
I'll pass.
You wont if they dont scan for those types of glasses.
And even if you do, youre a reporter anyway.
Did anyone watch the vice guide I posted?
I did. Good stuff, very entertaining, but, at the same time, depressing.
+1 Neo
Please do go. Please come back and tell us what you saw. Keep your mouth shut beyond the minimum to be polite, etc. and don't get any locals there in trouble or antagonize the minders. Don't wear any kind of statement clothing. Dress respectfully.
Clayton -
seconded, go, but be careful about what you do.
Schools are labour camps.
it's not Mordor
True, the orcs didn't have to eat each other to avoid starvation. : /
... Personally, I don't think I would go. I'd love to see a socialist dystopia first-hand, but then....well....I'd have to actually be present in a socialist dystopia. Regardless, I'll certainly be interested in hearing about it if you do go.
It's not Mordor in the sense it's not a staging ground for world conquest. OP's country ("airstrip one") fits the bill much more closely here. If I were OP I'd be much more worried about the money going to the satanic government he is living under. If you're British and really concerned about the situation the North Koreans are in then be a man and try to do something about the UN, EU and UK sanctions on North Korea up and to refusing to pay your taxes to the British state. Don't patronize and insult them by offering them false pitty by ostensibly worrying about where your pitiful contribution to the North Korean state budget is going to end up and how is it going to cause the poor little, hapless and agentless Northern Koreans to be further repressed by their evil, foreign, Asiatic government. Fuck your white burden and your self-righteous boicotts. Establishing your righteousness by refusing contact with exotic, foreign governments? How fucking refreshing. Why don't you get a pair of sandals and a Free Tibet sticker and boicott Brazilian coffe because they're cutting down the Amazonian, all the while your own government milks you for money to help fund bloodletting from Libya to Afghanistan? When you pay your taxes in Liechtenstein then you can worry about stuff like this, until then you're already paying for worse so at least don't be a hypocrite and shut the hell up.
Marko, for one, I've moved. I live in Hong Kong.
For two, I'm 21 (just), I've contributed hardly anything in tax, and it will stay that way for the rest of my life.
Three, do you live in a black and white world? Just because (of circumstances of which I have no control) of X, I'm not allowed to think Y? I don't know where you're from, but unless it's Rapture, you're not allowed to have any kind of opinion or second thought about those living in a 100% state society. If you do, you best head out with your "occupy" gear, now. Wouldn't want your false pity.
Douche.
EDIT: Not that I want to rag on about this shit, but I found your post so enraging, that I'd like to point out that thanks to me, my granddad hasn't paid income tax in over a year, and I've encourage my parents to pay as little tax as possible. Hell, when I worked at McDonald's I even worked for less-than-minimum wage for about 4 months, why? Because I still valued by earnings more than my free time, and I wasn't going to use the state to coerce them into paying me more. In the end, I worked hard enough, and got a pay rise.
google vice north korea
you can see the vice journalists document their trip. its bizarre. I think the vice journalist might have banged some north korean women....who worked at this place where they hadn't had human contact in 6 months. she was very cute.
I'd go, but I personally value curiosity a lot higher than personal safety. I'd keep my beliefs to myself, though. Nothing good could possibly come from being explicit. In terms of encouraging eventual change, I'm convinced that'll happen on its own.
Thanks, so it was effective. I like moving people in my posts.
Not now but they will be at an advantage if my vision was correct. They're going to be neutral in the coming war while the Final Communist countries are going to kill each other after they defeat the Neo-Fascist countries or part of them. It will kind of be like the second enlightenment, but it won't be everywhere at the same time. I believe that the pro-secession countries will be the place to be. However, there will be disagreements on them because they'll become statists when they aren't as pure as they thought they were... for example, the Paleo basques were simply more Basque than the modern basques... if they use violence to secede, they may become the Neo Basques. I believe the modern basques want to secede. See my thread about Bibil and it may get you thinking. It may just turn into a fight between the muslim and non-muslim world as I think Israelites are coming to reason after seeing "Netanyahu". I hope I'll never be a sword or even a tool like George Washington was and I worry about that... I don't want to become the next statist like Romney I'm less than 1/4 natural and I hate myself for it.
Yes, you should visit North Korea. When you go, the government will assign two "escorts" to you. Two, to make sure that the other isnt bribed by you. You can only visit certain parts of the country, so don't expect much. The escorts are in fact to prevent you from taking pictures or socializing with the common people. Go spread LVM ideas through your clothing. Great idea.
Actually, it doesnt matter about what you speak. The two escorts assigned by the government will block any attempt from you to talk to the common people. Pictures are rarely allowed outside of Pyongyang, the city of the elite, and the city in which it is pampered to please the visitor's eyes. If you are allowed by thye government to visit other regions (rarely happens), keep a camera in you bag with a hole in it and covertly take pictures. Cameras ARE allowed, but only in the capital city. And seriously, don't worry about bugging. China has cut off fuel supplies to North Korea years ago, and they don't even have electricity to spare for bugging. Therefore, intelligence and monitoring is done by the people and neighbors with the incentive of food and rewards if you snitch someone out.
If you feel like your safety is personally threatened, do not go. Otherwise, I've had some friends who have gone there and have returned unharmed. So I would do it. Also, no talking smack or anything like that - stay strictly within the lines.
From what I saw in a documentary - pay your "respects" to "the dear leader." That will lighten up your experience by 2000%.
It's not Mordor in the sense it's not a staging ground for world conquest.
Ok.
OP's country ("airstrip one") fits the bill much more closely here.
If I were OP I'd be much more worried about the money going to the satanic government he is living under.
Money to Satanic government A, money to Satanic government B. Meh.
If you're British and really concerned about the situation the North Koreans are in then be a man and try to do something about the UN, EU and UK sanctions on North Korea up and to refusing to pay your taxes to the British state. Don't patronize and insult them by offering them false pitty by ostensibly worrying about where your pitiful contribution to the North Korean state budget is going to end up and how is it going to cause the poor little, hapless and agentless Northern Koreans to be further repressed by their evil, foreign, Asiatic government.
How exactly does one "man up" and try to influence his government? Is the likelyhood of the success of such a venture more or less pitiful than the influence which a tourist's budget would have on N. Korean state finances?
Fuck your white burden and your self-righteous boicotts.
White guilt? Huh?
Establishing your righteousness by refusing contact with exotic, foreign governments?
LOL, exotic? Like "win an 3 day 4 night vacation in exotic Hades."
How fucking refreshing. Why don't you get a pair of sandals and a Free Tibet sticker and boicott Brazilian coffe because they're cutting down the Amazonian,
...why?
all the while your own government milks you for money to help fund bloodletting from Libya to Afghanistan?
Most folks prefer not being in federal prision to being in federal prision, and therefore pay their taxes. It follows they shouldn't comment on the injustice of foreign political arrangements? I don't see why...
When you pay your taxes in Liechtenstein then you can worry about stuff like this, until then you're already paying for worse so at least don't be a hypocrite and shut the hell up.
Again, why should someone forced to fund Western injustices avoid commenting on Eastern injustices. Non sequitur. How is there any hypocrisy? Is it hypocrisy when a rape victim talks about how bad other rapes are?
Before I waste my time answering your vapid and unecessary questions, I'll give you a day to re-read my post, this time actually in context. Maybe you'll succeed in seeing how superflous and tiresome they are and I won't have to waste my time thinking for you.
The point of my questions was to capture the sillyness of your little temper-tantrum. Feel free not to answer the questions, as they were essentially rhetorical anyway.
Yeah, I have double standards, so what?
Daniel Muffinburg: Anenome:To enter their jurisdiction is to accept their rightful power over you[...] ???? So when I enter Canadia's jurisdiction, I am accepting their rightful power over me?
In the sense that they won't fail to apply their laws to you, yeah :P It may not be 'rightful' necessarily tho. Probably should've left that qualifier out.
I would go. Provided you are assured of your security. The moral questions are irrelevant. You are not joining their army. You should go and try to learn anything and everything you can about them. Especially since you have the perspective of an Austrian. Its a rare opportunity and you should not miss it. Just ask Avery Jessup for precautions before you go.