I agree that it's a scary argument. That's why I was careful in how I put it forth. The problem is that many skills are dual-use. At some point, a threshold is reached where a student is more likely to use the knowledge to harm than to help. This threshold depends on the skill and the student.
To use a hypothetical: Would you condone someone teaching particle physics in North Korea? How about biology? Chemistry? Turbine engineering? Teaching any of these would probably increase North Korea's ability to threaten and harm its people and the rest of the world. It's sad that this is the case, but it's hard to argue otherwise.
Unfortunately, I seriously doubt education will help free North Korea. If you read the stories of defectors, you'll find that almost everyone in universities is indoctrinated. Also, because of how people are encouraged to report each other, no underground network of dissenters can exist. Even if 90% of North Koreans wanted to overthrow the government, anyone who voiced dissidence to a few friends would likely be reported and thrown in a prison camp (if not outright executed), along with their family. It doesn't take much to control many.
I really wish it was as easy as, "Education is good." But there can be dire consequences to actions, even ones as typically benign as teaching others. It's important to have a finely-tuned sense of ethics, otherwise we risk harming people who we mean to help.
You aren't exhibiting a finally tuned sense of ethics.
Exactly which ethical principle(s) are you following?
This seems like a 5 minutes of thought kind of solution to an incredibly complex problem.
North Korea can buy/steal/grow the knowledge they need. They already have nukes, and are working on missiles. I think the notion that we should sanction education (on top of the existing sanctions) is just playing by the already broken playbook we (the rest of the world) have been to date. We are feeding their propaganda machine on how evil we are.
Just a question, how is the DPRK any MORE evil than other states the US happily does business with? (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, China, etc) What in particular makes them evil?
I agree that it is a messed up situation and some horrible shit is going on. But I also have a feeling we are being manipulated by the media.
>I think the notion that we should sanction education (on top of the existing sanctions) is just playing by the already broken playbook we (the rest of the world) have been to date. We are feeding their propaganda machine on how evil we are.
We are not obligated in any way to provide education to North Korea. Saying we are "evil" for not educating another country is quite a stretch.
Which is why we're discussing denying them education, rather than merely not educating them. Denying or obstructing their education is pretty darn evil.
What's scary is the level of your indoctrination. North Korea has been surviving decades in almost complete world isolation, because it opposes capitalism. It's not mordor, it's a society with a structure that is not compatible with western capitalism. Everything you think you know about has been filtered to hide any positive aspects of such a society and to exacerbate the negatives. This was done to Vietname, to China, USSR. This was done to Obama during the healthcare "debate".
North Korea has withstood decades of economic isolation, and yet it lives and its people live much better than citizens of Somalia and other great capitalist nations, not that anyone would let you know. You're not freeing North Korea by isolating it and starving it, you are killing it, and the people. You say it doesn't tame much to control many, but this applies to the West as much as it does anywhere. You have a set of values, and you are in harmony with enough people, you can work for them, with them. The same applies in North Korea, and USSR (where I'm from). The country is a single company, the CEO might be eccentric, but people do have jobs, work hard, have education, healthcare and believe in communism. What they don't have is Hollywood, McDonnalds and Fox News. And this is why you want to "free them". They have nuclear weapons not because they are evil, but because they know what US does to countries people like you believe need to be freed.
Well, the US didn't have much issue with European fascism in Spain, or with supporting fascism in Chile and otherwhere in Lat. Am., not to mention the horrendous state that Saudi Arabia is...
It is foolhardy to defend North Korea so the only option to argue is that America is bad too, but what you are arguing is the way of the world. If the US thought they could play NK against China they certainly would.
North Korea is not a fascist or nationalistic regime. And it's only been turned into a concentration camp by the West through sanctions. It's not even any more antithesis to democracy either. The party members are elected. The institution members are promoted by performance like anywhere else. The 'supreme leader' being some sort of a Sauron is a fantasy. Since you're comparing to Nazi Germany, you should also know that Hitler wasn't some sort of a god who bent everyone to his will. He was a leader of a party and a movement with the fascist ideology. Please don't equate Nazism and Communism.
Unfortunately, every country has prison colonies. USA has more than anyone, including abroad. You choose to believe 'Database Center for North Korean Human Rights' from which this article is sourced, that it seeks to publicize the truth and isn't funded by CIA. I believe otherwise, after comparing activities of human rights organizations in countries all over the world. It makes me quite sad that the human rights cause and genuinely well meaning people are used to further US imperialism.
Sure. My country(Poland) used to be communist for nearly 50 years, and you know what we called ourselves? Democratic Republic of Poland, just like North Korea calls itself democratic. There were elections, party members were elected - but it was all corrupt through and through. The same party would win with 99.9% of the votes, party members were chosen by who gave the largest bribe or who was closest family member. And the secret police didn't make people "disappear" because of any Western sanctions on the East - it's because they were bad people with bad morals. North Korean government is a bad government, where people at the top have everything and people below them have very little to nothing. Just because they are not starving like people in Africa are, doesn't mean that their system "works". It doesn't.
I love how american and european chauvinism continues to conquer reason in the 21th century. Why mention Africa when most of the world's malnourished people are in Asia? With the great variance that can occur on a continent why mention continents at all? If one must it is irresponsible to omit that both continents were forced into producing cash crops for export to Western Europe.
Does that mean that the Western European models of governance work? Duh!
>Why mention Africa when most of the world's malnourished people are in Asia?
Because in the US, at least in my experience, 'starving people in africa' is kind of a colloquial trope - it is more readily referenced than starving people in asia, since we don't see charity organizations constantly using asian faces to advertise their foundations.
>forced into producing cash crops for export to Western Europe
Who exactly went around the the countries in africa and asia and disallowed them from growing their own food instead of cash crops?
My bet is that these places found economic incentive in growing these crops rather than what they would consume locally - whether the global economy is a net benefit or net loss for a poor country is an entirely different discussion
Ok, most of world's malnourished people are in Asia, so now I can't say that people are starving in Africa without being accused of European chauvinism. Got it.
Everyone is saying that North Korea is a bloody dictatorship where people are starving to death. Medias, scientists, tourists who were there (yes, you can actually go there), geopoliticians, ... There is just some evidence everywhere. There is no conspiracy about North Korea and this has nothing to do with capitalism.
They have giant statues of their leader and a massive painting of him in the most prestigious place of the country. On official articles, the leader is mentioned everywhere. They manufacture 'pins' with the face of the leader on it and everyone is wearing it. There is painting of the leader in almost every house. (do I need to continue ?)
I am pretty sure they were mentioning that in the sense that North Korea has a full blown cult of personality around their leader (who is an unelected life-long dictator).
You'll note that there isn't a giant statue of Obama on the White House lawn and in every town square. In N. Korea this is the case.
Adult Americans are not legally required to wear lapel pins featuring prominent past presidents, nor are they required to have images of those presidents in their homes with nothing else permitted on the wall that hosts those images, while in N. Korea they must.
Americans can freely speak a poor opinion of Obama or the Congress or the SCOTUS and not fear that they and their family will be imprisoned and tortured, unlike N. Korea.
The press can say what they like about Obama/other branches of the government without fear of censorship and imprisonment, unlike N. Korea where there is only state-run media that fawn over their leader.
I think that was what they were trying to get at even if they didn't fully expand it.
They don't have a free press either, and political or social dissent tends to result in people being "disappeared". And they have rather a lot of artillery pointed at Seoul.
Where was the free press in the lead up to the Iraq war? How would you know of all the 'disappeared'? There very well might be, but just by stating that like a fact, you're repeating something you simply heard in the 'free press', helping spread the narrative. I'm sure there is ideological cleansing there, so is there in any society, especially one under ideological attack. And I'm sure there is way more artillery pointed at North Korea than exists in North Korea.
I have no doubt that western media loves to play up the stereotypes of that region, but having read a few personal accounts from people who have escaped North Korea, those defectors opinions tend to align with a lot of the negative reporting on the DPRK.
North Korean concentration camps, for example, are several orders of magnitude more horrific than the US prison camps you compared them to. And it's significantly easier to end up in an NK concentration camp than it is in prison too.
Families being rounded up and taken away and/or killed is a common theme discussed by the defectors as well.
Now I'm not saying that America (nor any other country for that matter) is perfect. If anything, I happen to agree with you that the US has some hugely hypocritical tendencies. But for all America's faults, the DPRK is still in a whole other of league of bad.
let me guess - you have this Putin guy as a personal hero and the best thing that happened to Russia for decades, right? :)
Black & white world you live in, I think some time outside your home country would do you good.
>To use a hypothetical: Would you condone someone teaching particle physics in North Korea? How about biology? Chemistry? Turbine engineering? Teaching any of these would probably increase North Korea's ability to threaten and harm its people and the rest of the world. It's sad that this is the case, but it's hard to argue otherwise.
How's NK different from the US to that regard?
You know, the one country among those two that actually blasted two civilian cities with atomic bombs, sprayed Agent Orange over Vietnam, and has chronically had leaders who "speak with god"...
To use a hypothetical: Would you condone someone teaching particle physics in North Korea? How about biology? Chemistry? Turbine engineering? Teaching any of these would probably increase North Korea's ability to threaten and harm its people and the rest of the world. It's sad that this is the case, but it's hard to argue otherwise.
Unfortunately, I seriously doubt education will help free North Korea. If you read the stories of defectors, you'll find that almost everyone in universities is indoctrinated. Also, because of how people are encouraged to report each other, no underground network of dissenters can exist. Even if 90% of North Koreans wanted to overthrow the government, anyone who voiced dissidence to a few friends would likely be reported and thrown in a prison camp (if not outright executed), along with their family. It doesn't take much to control many.
I really wish it was as easy as, "Education is good." But there can be dire consequences to actions, even ones as typically benign as teaching others. It's important to have a finely-tuned sense of ethics, otherwise we risk harming people who we mean to help.