I agree - this is closer to bonded labor though the paying employer doesn't know it. Instead most of their earnings go to their actual employer (which is the North Korean state). "slave" maybe is more appropriate? "prisoner"?

most of my earnings go to my employer too... we bill clients at X and I get a small portion of it

Exactly. As slave as them.

Not an apt metaphor because we can just walk away and never see our employers again if that’s our free will.

I know we're getting deep in the meta discussion but the free will that you're describing involves basically starving to death. Sure, you can walk away but unless you're well off, we all basically live in the same society that makes sure you are ALWAYS dependent on some kind of wage. You cannot live off the land, build housing, or eat food without some kind of income in the modern world. And thus the concept of wage slave.

But wage slavery, while bad, isn't slavery still. In slavery proper, the option of walking away straight up doesn't exist. In fact, in extreme cases, even the option of dying might not be available.

It is slavery. Chattel slavery is much more severe than what we normally consider slavery. Yet “slavery” and chattel slavery are both still slavery. The reason what you’re saying is so accepted is because we are currently living under a universal liberal world order that says wage slavery id freedom.

I hope you notice I didn't mention chattel slavery. Even prior to it, all forms of slavery were about removing the agency of person and subjugating the will of the slave to the owner. That requires an active action. Not hiring someone is a passive action. As said by many, you are not entitled to a wage. In fact, suggesting otherwise would actually require slavery. Wage slavery, instead, is a description of a particular material condition of destitution, not necessarily connected to the ethical evaluation to proper slavery. No one says "wage slavery is freedom". What the "universal liberal world", that is, the pro-free market side says is that people should be free to associate with each other as they see fit. Being hired to provide labor in exchange for wage, the basis for wage work, is merely an extension of this. While wage work is a requirement for wage slavery, at no point economic liberals said that everyone should live under wage slavery conditions.

needs moar meta…

cause it‘s a bitter sweet symphony that‘s life…

“destitution” I am not referring to this. I was referring to the political/economic meaning of the word. Not about not making a lot.

The common, orthodixical, sociological/economical meaning of the word "wage slavery" is about being paid, on average, barely enough to make a living, i.e. destitution in the conventional sense.

I suppose you are referring to the Marxist meaning, technically (at least as far as I know) original, meaning. First, Marxist economics are considered heterodoxical nowadays. Second, it is still about "destitution", in the sense that the working class is formally destitute of the means of production, requiring to sell their labor to have access to it. If that's the case, I hope you notice that weakens your point of "wage slavery being a form of slavery", as you lose the analogy of proper material conditions.

According to the dictionary, you are wrong. Somebody who works for a wage is not the property of their employer.

Wage slavery doesn’t literally only refer to wages. I was referring to the political meaning. Not something you can go to the dictionary for.

You said “it is slavery”; it is not slavery.

This is indeed what I often tell people. We don’t need to treat chattel slavery as anything special that requires reparations or any specific social rules around. We are all slaves, and my life is really quite as hard as the slaves in pre-Emancipation America. People make such a big deal about life was hard for them but they’ve never tried to pay AMT so they can’t relate to how hard life is for people like me.

You’ll lose your health insurance

Sounds like having a w2 is a pretty good deal for you then.

Slavery isn’t defined by “I don’t want to talk away because the deal is too good”, it’s more like “I’m unable to walk away because I’m threatened with force if I do so”

I moved to Canada instead of tying myself to a w2

This is one of those reasons I never took slave rebellions seriously. Instead of dying like that in the dirt why not just move to Canada?

Guess you were never a slave then.

I didn’t call myself that

Context of the thread is important

I agree

My dad used to refer to that as the golden handcuffs when he worked for GE. Wouldn't compare it to slavery though, he just felt trapped there because nobody else would pay him that well or give him as good of benefits

More realistically, your employer gets a small portion of your labour output.

Advanced Persistent Coworker

Advanced Persistent Telecommuter

The implication is that they're pretending to be legitimate employees whereas they are actually exfiltrating IP from a hostile nation state. Seems valid.

You mean like the DOGE team?

"Fake" seems fine. If I buy a fake watch, that might mean that it's a real watch that does its job of telling time, but it says "Rolex" on the front and that's a lie.

In that example it would be more common to describe the watch as a "fake Rolex", for the reason you give (it's a real watch).

The proper term in your example is “counterfeit”.

I believe that in this context they are referring to their fake personalities.

I agree that fake is an odd word to describe this. Most likely much of our IT infrastructure is extremely compromised. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the major password/healthcare/etc... leaks in the past 6 years were the result of someone "accidentally" setting a cloud bucket to public.

I actually turned down a fly-to-texas for an in person interview about a year back, but I do think in the age of the internet if we don't sacrifice some of the things we have taken for granted in the past, we're going to lose our country. Perhaps there should be a law that requires a picture of any employee standing next to their boss for continued employment - at some point in the future. (this is just an idea, not to start a flamewar, don't attack the specific idea, but attack the idea of some kind of extra checking if you don't agree with it)

I don't think we have a word for this. At best, it is disingenuous work.

we have many words for this Con, Fraud, Secret, Poseur, Imposter .. and after googling for more terms "Pseudonymist" seem a better fit

Labeling the actual worker negatively seems harsh - they are probably being forced into it by the state. You might say they can willingly underperform and not be used this way - but if the alternative is a much harder life, could you blame them for playing along?

Spies, at the end of the day they are spies.

Who cares what they're called. Main concern in this case is that the result of their work poses danger to the US. Like a spies. They often do legit work and meanwhile some "extra"

"the result of their work poses danger to the US"

I doubt it.

Saying this while there's literally a foreign parasitic entity controlling a significant chunk of our government is something

It's North Korea though and they're all eViL. Imagine a world where the U.S lifted sanctions on N.K. traded with them and stopped crying about losing a war 70 years ago. Ah well a boy can dream.

Edit: Lol saying anything positive about North Korea on hacker news and people instantly freak out. This fucking website man. North Korea isn't what I would call a free society but it's also not the hell on earth that most liberals want you to think it is. So much of the misery that normal North Koreans have to face is because of western imposed sanctions. We've tried punishing them for 30 years now, it hasn't destroyed the regime if anything they double down. I guess it's easy for a bunch of overfed over paid tech workers to not feel any kind of solidarity for a North Korean though and insist on punishing them even more. Hell the North Korean government would even be open for this kind of agreement if we would actually guarantee their sovereignty, sadly trusting the United States of America to hold up any kind of deal you make with them is fucking impossible.

Here is a quote I came up with but is attributed to Henry Kissinger

Having the United States as your enemy is dangerous, but having them as your friend is fatal.

That old bag liked it so much he had no problem taking credit for it.

Lot's of people have tried trading with North Korea, but they're politically unreliable. China and Russia both try obviously, but so has South Korea. These cooperations usually work for a while but eventually the unreliable reality of the North Korean government wrecks it for them. If it were all America's fault, as these sort of regimes always claim, they'd be able to get on well enough with their neighbors, but they can't.

The United States plays a large role in destabilizing them I went to a lecture at my university where a South Korean professor said as much. He was hardly a fan of the North Korean regime. At this point the regime has zero interest in cooperation, I'm sorry but your government is slowly becoming an authoritarian state in its own right and is currently causing chaos at the behest of Israel a country which just commuted a genocide with the blessing of both parties in your country. Imagine trying to get along with your neighbor when they have billions of dollars of military hardware on your border. No country is to willing to cooperate with North Korea because being in the good graces of the United States is 100x more beneficial. You claim that North Korea can't get along with its neighbors please remind me which country invaded and artificialy divided Korea when they elected some one The United States didn't like.

Okay, let me remind you then.

Korea was divided by both United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union organized elections, rigging towards a rather unpopular figure, even within the national socialist circles, for their imperialist purposes.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but where did OP state was american? How is their nationality even relevant here? How is the american descent to authoritarianism, which is still far from a autocratic socialist regime (at least yet), relevant to NK being distrusted even by USA's opposition (i.e. China and Russia)?

ah yes, its Americas fault NK citizens are starving and cannot freely leave the country lmao what kind of weird cope are you talking about here

The US has fuck all to do with it. Vietnam whooped America's ass in a war which was far more socially significant for the American public (the Korean War is called the "Forgotten War" in America), still has their communist government, yet has normalized (relatively) relations with America and certainly the rest of the world and trades with everybody. North Korea is economically isolated because they refuse to be normal even by communist standards.

I don’t think you know what “communist standards” means.

> “North Korea is economically isolated because they refuse to be normal even by communist standards.”

“Kim is isolated because she refuses to be normal like the other submissive housewives beaten by their husbands”

You are blaming the victim while acting like the aggressor oppressors actions are not their own responsibility.

Like they stated above, Vietnam exists.

> You are blaming the victim [...]

Pray tell, what crime did USA commit that motivated the abduction of 2 innocent citizens?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abduction_of_Shin_Sang-ok_and_...

I don’t get what you’re saying. There is a paused civil war due to outsiders (whites, UN, etc) interfering and still occupying half the country.

Not sure what you mean what crime did the current outsider occupiers commit after they did a genocide (and not using this lightly. There aren’t that many genocides)?

Sob stories are available against/for every major human conflict. The story you linked isn’t really relevant even to the severity of what we are talking about.

None of the sides are occupied, though, neither by UN, "white" people, etc. That's literally just propaganda. At best, by a large stretch too, one could say NK is occupied by Russia and China, the only countries currently vouching for NK, and, as previously stated, that's a stretch given their reluctance towards Kim' personal kingdom. It is more accurate to say NK serves as a buffer state to them.

What genocide are you referring to? The Shichon Massacre? The one only NK sources claim outsiders commit, for the sole purpose of promoting xenophobia and ultranationalism?

Finally, I think you straight up didn't read the reference. How exactly kidnapping 2 movie directors just to produce propaganda pieces are justifiably helpful to the war effort? I hope you have the decency to realize that this isn't a war tragedy, where innocents are killed/multilated despite best efforts. This is a large private corporation kidnapping 2 civilians from the other side for strictly private purposes.

If the relevance to the discussion isn't clear, the point is that North Korea, even as a Stalinist-inspired socialist country, doesn't need to commit the crimes it does to survive. You are just trying to dismiss NK's particularly rogue behavior under the excuse that "west"(which, in this context, is just a propaganda term, could've used just USA instead) oppresses them, ignoring even other socialist countries that do not have to stoop so low.

And now you've gotten to the crux of the problem either and pointed it out yourself. Either submit to the USA or be punished, lots of communist countries did some like North Korea or Cuba (or in Cuba's case they did just to have Trump destroy it for the Miami gusano demographic and Marco Rubios insane dream of being president of Cuba) don't want to and they suffer for it. Why should a nations sovereignty and welfare hinge on its willingness to cooperate with the United States? I also just want to point out that your shitty fascist vice president has threatened to other throw various European governments and install right wing dictatorships here.

Anyways my ability to comment has been throttled because apparently I'm posting to fast. Meanwhile you've made several posts in a much shorter timeframe. So I'm not going to bother replying anymore, so much for free speech aye? God Bless America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa8pyroTkcg

Vietnam didn't submit to America, they kicked Americas ass. You need to get a clue. I can't help but notice you're refusing to even acknowledge the point of Vietnam, because it makes you look like an idiot.

Come to think of it, what is a leftoid like you even doing defending North Korea? You should be disowning them. You should be pointing out that North Korea is a de facto monarchy and therefore definitionally Right Wing. You should be arguing North Korea as yet another failed extremist right wing regime. Why do I have to explain your own ideology to you? Is it that you like to get dominated? Come to me, dumb slut, we can be friends. I don't discriminate.

The US has been authoritarian for a long time. What else do you call a society that keeps on humming along while doing various genocides via a culturally embedded Monroe Doctrine mentality.

Sure, let's prop up a communist dictatorship so the leftists can run their concentration camps more efficiently.

Brilliant idea, comrade.

Even other communist dictatorships are pretty sick of North Korea's shit!

Wow so you guys don't have ideological brain worms at all. I can tell you guys have never studied international relations because you refuse to try an take North Koreas concerns seriously. Do I have to remind you that a South Korean attempted a fascist coup recently and that it was left wing organisations and trade unions that mobilised to stop him? Also which "communist dictators" are you talking about, and how do you know this? You do realise that the United States is also a one party state when it comes to foreign policy right?

If you love freedom so much shouldn't this be worrying more? https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5340753/trump-democracy...

For any one interested in learning a bit more about North Korea and how it got to be the country it is I'd suggest Noah Kulwins series Blowback.

> Do I have to remind you that a South Korean attempted a fascist coup recently

By "fascist", I suppose you mean right-wing. Going by the average RW authoritarian dictatorship, that's still better than the documented NK conditions, specially given that most fall later.

> ...[...] and that it left wing organizations and trade unions that mobilized to stop him?

Nice cherry picking. Even Yoon's own party turned against him. But even ignoring the right wing here, said left wing organizations are also in opposition to NK.

> You do realize that the United States is a one party state when it comes to foreign policy right?

That sentence doesn't make sense. There's no such thing as "one party state foreign policy". The idea of a one party state is specifically about a state that is intolerant to any other ideas other than those accepted by the one true party. If you are referring to USA's aggressiveness, may I remind you that that switches between presidents.

> If you love freedom so much shouldn't this be worrying more?

Whataboutism.

> Do I have to remind you that a South Korean attempted a fascist coup recently and that it was left wing organisations and trade unions that mobilised to stop him?

Those "left wing organizations" encompass the majority of South Korea, almost 2/3 of the current parliament, and the current sitting government. And may I remind you that South Korea's current "leftist" president recently gifted Trump a golden crown to get favorable deals?

He's about as leftist as Joe Biden.

Those scholars are blowhards. Trump is basically the same as any other time. As you state the US is unipolar in how it treats Others. Aka authoritarian.

Blowback was great I should finish that season.

> Wow so you guys don't have ideological brain worms at all.

You have to remember that the supermajority of this site are ultra AnCaps who believe that anything which infringes upon the right of companies to kill people is Communist satanism and a significant minority agrees wholeheartedly with Peter Thiel's weird brand of techno-accelerationism and actively participates in NRx movements.

Like, I understand what you want to get at and I wholeheartedly agree! Just don't be too surprised at the pushback.

Oh yeah you don’t know what you’re talking about haha. The west isn’t a dictatorship! Only the Others.

While one could scrutinize the accuracy the of the west being a dictatorship (which will likely devolve into a discussion of semantics), I prefer to call attention to the fact that calling North Korea a dictatorship does not require to speak well of the west. Likewise, one can simultaneously criticize the west without protecting its "enemies". Such a binary, poorly critical, way of thinking is ill-suited in pursuing better material conditions for all.

Have you read Escape from Camp 14? It absolutely is a dire human rights catastrophe

You said it yourself "they often use stolen identities to conceal information about themselves", fake identity.

Fraudulent is the right word imo. And I believe it's the term used in the recruiting industry