I watched a documentary about North Korean defectors that wanted to go back to North Korea, one of the many reasons was to be with their families. They never mentioned their family were imprisioned. And it wouldn't make much sense to want to go back if their family was imprisioned.

Again, I'm no North Korean supporter or whatever, I just think there is a LOT of propaganda and misinformation about NK, and I think we should take everything with a grain of salt... Unless you think the US is a saint and would never lie about enemy countries.

And about the sanctions, I dind't mention any sanctions, you are just assuming that I support X or Y, when I never said such thing.

You seem to think the USA is just a monolith, and as such can be modeled as what the face of our government says. This is silly.

While it's true that business and especially the media is "in bed with" our government quite a lot of the time, it remains true that all have distinct interests.

Jesus, the guy is saying people are indoctrinated into thinking the great leader "didn’t defecate ever". Do you really think North Koreans are that stupid and have zero biology knowledge? Or maybe, uh, this is just fake? Pure propaganda? Are you really that dumb to believe something like that?

Yoyre like someone who thinks gravity doesn’t exist. Literally everyone knows this, they’re not stupid, they’re lied to their entire lives. There are tons of defectors who will back this up and you can’t talk to anyone in North Korea outside of carefully guided tours set up by the state

"Hey, I have some doubts that the DPRK isn't Satan incarnate."

"You do realize that's the same as not believing in gravity right!?"

Alright, let me setup a experiment in my room to divine their mathematical _evil_ constant.

Or maybe even more mundanely, it's like Santa Claus. Adults don't believe that he lives at the north pole with flying reindeer. But we continue to teach children that he does - not because it's literally true, but because we seem to feel that having children believe this somehow makes our culture better.

I imagine that similarly, Kim is getting this reverence - but since it's channeled into a framework of him being their supreme leader, it reinforces his hold on the nation.

It seems disingenuous to try and brush off the well documented brutality that is the way of life in North Korea, as being something made up by US / South Korea..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeonmi_Park#Veracity_of_claims

We don't get tourists from North Korea because they aren't allowed to leave the country. We don't talk with North Korean people on the internet, because their access to the internet is tightly controlled.

There's no grand western conspiracy to suppress information about NK. It's North Korea itself that does that.

I know that on HN many consider blind contrarianism to be synonymous with rationalism, but seriously...

[1]: https://www.dw.com/en/north-korea-fake-news-on-both-sides-is...

[2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-25621324

[3]: https://www.youngpioneertours.com/top-five-best-fake-north-k...

Other sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_North_Korea#...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/01/true-or-false-...

Doesn't sound too much different from countries where the people are indoctrinated to believe their leader was born from a virgin, doesn't it? You'll say the difference is 2000 years into the history, so, we just need to give NK ~1925 more years.

Not a day goes past where I don’t see someone try to minimize commie atrocities…