So what is true about the DPRK and what ain't?

So what is true about the DPRK and what ain't?
Is it some Off the mark sort of authoritarian state socialist hellhole or a secret paradise? How do I negate the whole "Oh but NK is a shitstorm thus communism/socialism = fucking shit" argument?

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vngiapaganda.wordpress.com/pro-dprk-propaganda/
rhizzone.net/articles/songbullshit/
treeofmamre.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/more-progress/
38north.org/2017/04/rfrank042817/
upi.com/Top_News/Opinion/Outside-View/2015/01/22/Voices-of-North-Korea-University-student-decries-lack-of-access-to-books/4101421859457/
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Neither.
There's unfortunately too little info on it making it very easy to spin your own thread but all I have to say on the matter is that it has an HDI of >0.7 (latest data is from fucking 2008, it must be higher now) which puts it above the average for asian countries

It's not real, nor was the Korean war.
Korea created "North korea" to get economic support from USSR while undermining communism at request from USA. Now they get "Kim" to trow a tantrum when the west needs to be distracted from something.
No one really lives in North Korea, it's just actors and fake buildings. Pic related.

...

Has anyone ever met a North Korean? Funny how you only ever see "defectors" (see: paid actors) on television, and everyone else that "escapes" supposedly changes their name and blends into society.
North Korea is a hoax.

Things I like about the DPRK:
- no private property outside the Special Econimic Zones which are marginal in terms of their economic importance
- production for use, no market
- gift economy in some areas
- workplace democracy (Taen Work System)
- only country in the world with no taxes
- no unemployment
- absolutely gorgeous futuristic socialist architecture
- cleanest streets in the world, no billboards, no ads
- triggers the fuck out of the USA by merely existing
- women are liberated
- free healthcare, education, housing, etc.

Things I dislike about the DPRK:
- the leader worship is fucking insane
- according to western media ships out workers to Eastern Europe for precarious labor, although I suspect they are convicts
- some minor ideological revisionism although Juche is supposed to be an expression of Marxism-Leninism

As you can see, the good outweighs the bad. I think they are still a socialist country. I refer to this accumulation of sources:
vngiapaganda.wordpress.com/pro-dprk-propaganda/
You should also watch this YouTube channel "Jaka Parker", he is an Indonesian diplomat in the DPRK and has freedom of movement, so you will see stuff the tourists never get to see. It's quite hilarious, in the comments everybody thinks this is not how it is, that it is the Truman Show, etc. despite this guy actually living there and recording his daily life in the DPRK. It's clean and actually quite decent, rural life is a little rough, what I don't understand (maybe somebody has more insight on that): Why the fuck don't they use bigger machines for their agriculture? When I look at Soviet videos, they had these massive automated agricultural collectives, why doesn't the DPRK which suffered from food shortage in the 90s do the same?

The DPRK doesn't even exist you mentalist! It was all made up by the CIA and Samsung!

bump for interest

it's a perfect fascist utopia with united nation, full military participation, self-sustainable independent economy and cult of grorious reader

and it can leave a crater hole in place of los angeles if usa continues rustling their jimmies

Its a racist ethnostate. Im not even joking. No wonder lots of Holla Forumsacks sympathize with them.

Their architecture sucks tbh.

They aren't starving. We know that because if they were they would be openly revolting.

their prisons are worse than american prisons though

Tbh, I think it's kind of cool that they do public executions, but a lot of their executions are done for the wrong reasons

upi.com/Top_News/Opinion/Outside-View/2015/01/22/Voices-of-North-Korea-University-student-decries-lack-of-access-to-books/4101421859457/

In North Korea we have philosophy books, but they only focus on the biographies of the philosophers, and not actually what sorts of things they thought. They don't contain anything that makes one question life or the societal system that they are living under. They do not make one think or doubt. Anything bordering on the realm of real philosophy only deals with the ideals of the party and the Kim leaders.

Do you have a source for that claim?

Source?

holy wew. Even Western Europe has drastically reshaped their curriculum to cut down on humanities.
Why do you think K-pop is so popular?

Is there something similar to the Jaka Parker channel that shows rural life?

AFAIK he does drive to the countryside one or two times, stops at a rest station, etc. I've seen another video of a bunch of bikers having a roadtrip through the DPRK, produced by vice, so it was pretty anti-DPRK in tone, but from what I've seen (and read) about rural life:

- roads are a little bumpy but everything is still very clean
- sometimes less traveled streets are not maintained
- sometimes lack of running water, farmers wash their clothes in rivers (which is kinda normal for lots of Asian countrysides)
- most houses use renewable energy such as solar panels

In general nothing out of the ordinary, stuff you would see in most Asian countries like Thailand or something. People keep saying "Ohhhh they showed you Pyongyang but the other towns look like crap!", then a video from, let's say, Wonsan is shown and they respond with "Rightttt but the countryside is a hellhole dude", but then when you look at the countryside it's not very wealth but far from being horrifying.

In the very same interview he says that South Korea does the exact same shit, like just having you memorize stuff but you don't debate it. All Asians do this. When I meet Chinese exchange students they are always very knowledgeable but absolutely lack creative or critical application of the content they've memorized.

How is that an argument for North Korea being good? A state can levy taxes or force you to sell stuff to it at prices it dictates (basically expropriation with partial compensation). Why should I prefer one over the other?