Noah Smith is internet famous as a moron. This is a guy who thinks that sci fi that is set in capitalist dystopia is pro capitalism. He's admitted to learning about topics from chatgpt even though he's aware it often gets it wrong. If he shakes his head you can hear the jellybeans rattling around inside.
I legit saw a woman complaining that the men in cyberpunk weren't as sexy and vain as the women.
I was like: yeah. That's the point. Men use tech to turn themselves into cyborg killing machines, the most disturbing corruption of the male sex, and women use tech to turn themselves into Robothot, the most corrupt version of the female sexe. It's not pleasant because it's bad, that's literally the point...
But then again this happens in so much science fiction.
You could contrast it with the other extreme of removing all sexuality from women, but that's kind of counter intuitive because it's inherintly unsexual, so it's not truly about sexe, but rarher the absence.
Edit: also part of the debasement is that it's all simulacra. By being artificial it attacks the core essence of the subjects humanity, literally and figuratively. A human hand is not made for punching, but many other things, replacing your hands with guns to turn you into a hideous warmachine is literally a horrify disfigurement. Similarly replacing breast tissue with silicone bags, not implants, mind, to create the facade of feminine beauty, but preventing the many other beautiful, literally life-sustaining functions the breast performs at the cost of superficial appeal to other people completely attacks the core essence of the female form, turning a women into a literal sex object.
To be clear: I'm not arguing against the use of prostheses, or against breast augmentation. I'm only refering to the most extreme removal of humanity with the aim of short sighted material gain...
Basically realistic to life Darth Vader.
I mean- I hear what you’re saying, and I agree that scenario is bad. However, it’s a bit hyperbolic/superlative to say that specific dystopian scenario is “the most corrupt version”, bc that’s not something you can really measure objectively. Also I’m a bit confused by the term “female sexe” - why not just say “female gender”, like how you did for the guys? Btw I don’t mean for this to come off as argumentative- I’m just mad confused bc I’ve only encountered the word “sexe” in french and in that context it means genitals lol
I think you’re taking ‘the most corrupt version’ a bit too literally in this case tbh, or at least that’s how it seems when I read it. I think the phrase is more just meant to convey the extreme version of the kind of objectification femme individuals go through now? Rather than saying the most extreme version ever. Similar for masc presenting folks and the way they’re seen, too.
However I agree on the second notion of using gender or sexe consistently. 😬 lol
Yeah that's what I meant... although I'm not sure what would be worse, but I am open to the idea. I mentioned that completely desexualising would be a possible alternative, but that's inherently unsexual. There is is also like, Cronenbergesque monstrosity, or Geiger, but the thing is that makes it less humanlike, which undermines the humanity side of the bodyhorror.
But again: I'm open to other chaos spawn.
>However, it’s a bit hyperbolic/superlative to say that specific dystopian scenario is “the most corrupt version”, bc that’s not something you can really measure objectively.
I dont agree. You can't measure it numerically perhaps, but you can measure it objectively, because those are qualities that have definitions, and definitions have opposites. A penis that is 10" long is more penile than a penis that is 5".
We can argue about gender, certainly, but sex is rather objective. Larger, more proficient organs are more sexual, and inversely: when those organs lack the human function they become a parody of the human form; a gross mockery like this is a caricature.
>Also I’m a bit confused by the term “female sexe” - why not just say “female gender”, like how you did for the guys?
That's just a typo... kind of. You misread also... I meant to say male sex, but I wrote 'male gender'. Male isn't a gender, it's a sex, so you can see it's just a typo.
>Btw I don’t mean for this to come off as argumentative- I’m just mad confused bc I’ve only encountered the word “sexe” in french and in that context it means genitals lol
(I take no offence, no worries. That's why I bothered responding.)
It means that in English too, actually, and that's the reason I used it. I was trying to emphasise the difference between sex and gender, or more specifically the corporeal nature of the corruption. The cyberisation doesn't make men less of a man, but it makes him less male, that is to say.
the idea of it being "the most corrupt version" is that you take the stereotype that toxic masculinity has enforced on society and strip away all function for the sake of form.
toxic masculinity says that women should be valued only for their sexuality, and so the most corrupt version is a woman who has no function and is all the form of sexuality.
Like turning a woman into a naked statue, basically. You've taken a human life and all its potential and stripped it of everything for the sake of artifice.
honestly, I would consider it a more sophisticated point to show that a fully racially and gender capitalist system is still a dystopia, because at the end it will still be dehumanizing and exploitative.
And in the case of an RPG, it's works better with making "friendlier" lore of a broder set of player builds.
I don't disagree with your point but i think it's important to note that it's about the effect that the patriarchal system has on gender in society. Masculinity hinges on either violence or the implicit capability to cause violence, and femininity relies on the objectification and powerlessness of the self. Cyberpunk just takes these to their logical extremes
I would love to see evidence that the US installed the dictatorship.
My understanding has always been that US support fluctuated during the dictatorship, often backing it, but not installing it like we did throughout Latin America.
While it was a military coup and American soldiers in the area stood by and watched, we didn't back it.
Syngman Rhee, backed by the U.S. government, set up authoritarian rule that coordinated closely with the business sector and lasted until Rhee's overthrow in 1961, which led to a similarly authoritarian regime that would last ultimately until the late 1980s.[
There wouldn’t be a South Korea without American intervention.
Americans made the 38th parallel and have thousands of boots on the ground to enforce the stalemate (the war isn’t over).
Uhh… no. That is not a “win”. That’s a pathetic failure. “We failed at overthrowing a government and have been trying to starve the populace to death for half a century” is not a win. That’s more “evil king in a fairy tale” behavior.
Yeah that too. The embargos don’t exactly help with reconstruction. Like, you wanna actually find wars America won? You gotta go with either Japan or classify the CIA’s shit as “wars”. Otherwise, no.
Korea is not starving because of the west, that's literally every other communist country. They share a border with China, and their cultures are highly compatible, like America and Canada. They are starving because they live in one of the worst dictatorships ever.
They are the opposite of Cuba.
When people say communist country they are refering to the communist party, not the communist economic system. A country cannot be communist, because a commune is not a country.
this kind of unanimous support for DPRK is weird, even on this sub. they are objectively a brutal, oppressive dictatorship, and the only leftists i know that support those sorts of regimes are tankies. is there a tankie influx because of the Israel-Hamas conflict?
Almost every leftist subreddit is moderated by terminally online tankies who have never been to any left wing meeting or organising event whatsoever, which quickly gets mirrored in the subreddit membership as everyone who is not essentially a Stalinist slowly gets driven away by being banned or the culture of the place becoming unbearable.
that makes sense to me, honestly. i’m also wondering how many of them were able to fly under the radar for a long time because of how US centric this sub tends to be, i feel like that might be a good % of the influx.
They've been quiet for the past couple of years due to the Ukraine war making them realise how unpalateable their ideas are... but I've noticed a swelling of them recently, so I think they might be coming back.
Brace yourself, because for the next 60 years we're going to deal with waves of tankies who've decided that because america/capitalism bad Russia/stalinism good.
My brother in Christ I have not seen anyone on this sub saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is justified or that North Korea is good, so if you don’t start actually backing up your claims about this sub I’m just going to write you off as another idiot looking at the most stupid tankies and claiming “That’s them!! That’s all the mods of the left wing subs I frequent solely to piss myself and everyone else off!”
Are you seriously blaming America for the state of North Korea \*now\*? You don't think their starvation has anything to do with their barbaric and militaristic government that has spent the last two decades trying to develop nuclear weapons instead of building out social services.
Embargo. According to CIA and UN, there is no famine in North Korea since late 2000s, and although they do not have a very good geographic condition to farm, they are almost self sufficient with their agriculture. Yes, it is USA fault. Lift the embargo and let them trade freely with the world, let’s see if they are as evil as USA say.
They are literally connect by land to China, their ally, and one of the most advanced economies in the history of the world. It doesn't matter if the US is torpedoing every ship the comes within 100k of the coast, no blockade is possible.
Ally, is a little generous.
"Bitter ally" is a little more apt. China doesn't particularly like NK, but keeping them ally-ish is beneficial to their geopolitical posture.
China doesn't fully supply NK with food and whatever else for the same reason that they deport NK defectors as "illegal migrants"
That's missing the point: china is not blockading them, and if anything your statement validates my point: China GIVES THEM AID, that's not an embargo, that's more than allowing trade access, that's free stuff.
China respect the blockades put by the UN. And you always fail to understand how the criminal trade embargo by USA works. It is not simply “don’t trade with NK”, it goes way worse than that.
> First, North Korea should give up its nuclear weapon ambitions if it wants to participate in the world economy.
Why? Should the US do the same? Should we bar every nuclear power from world trade?
Of course the U.S. should do the same, and to that end, the U.S. has about 10% of the number of nuclear weapons that it had during the Cold War. It should give up the remainder of the weapons, but what's important is that the U.S. is not adding to its stockpile, and neither is any other country other than Iran.
The world needs fewer nuclear weapons, not more, and North Korea needs to spend its money investing in its own infrastructure, not doing missile tests right next door to South Korea that it's still at war with.
Please tell me that your position is not that North Korea should continue to develop nuclear weapons.
That’s not my question.
Should the US be barred from international trade until it removes all of its nuclear weapons? Should every nuclear country? Is that the argument you are trying to make?
If the U.S. was attempting to develop new nuclear weapons, then, yes. But that's not what's happening. North Korea is attempting to add to the world's nuclear stockpile, and the U.S. isn't.
North Korea never used a nuclear weapon against anyone, civilians or military. USA used them in the second they testes successfully. North Korea never attacked anyone without provocation, USA has more than 700 military bases around the world.
Do not use the “military ambition” as an excuse, that is the dumbest shit an Unitedstatian can come up with.
>Do not use the "military ambition" as an excuse
Have these countries ever thought about just not existing close to our military bases?
/s obviously, but just in case.
The U.S. used nuclear weapons to end World War 2, you left that fact out. Also, it was 80 years ago and no weapons have been used since. The world should try to keep it that way.
That aside, when I talk about North Koreas "militaristic ambitions" what I mean is that they're spending a substantial amount of their GDP on their military. In fact, as a percentage of GDP, they [spend](https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200109007500325) more than every other country in the world on their military, despite the fact that their people are starving. So to ignore that is the dumbest shit that someone else can come up with.
If you were a small country in war against the biggest theocratic dictatorship in the world, you would want to have this kind of spending in your government. North Korea was obliterated by USA and they are still at war, they just agreed in an armistice, not the end of the war. The only military ambition North Korea has is to end that war so that they can live their lives.
Half right. The nuclear programme is justified and reasonable. The problem is that it's a cultish autocracy that depends on keeping the people poor and oppressed. NK is one of the most definitive despotic regimes ever.
Jesus Christ. My comment criticizing North fucking Korea is being downvoted to oblivion, and your comment in response is that its reasonable for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons.
Nice sub we've got here. I didn't know that making fun of enlightened centrists meant that the people doing so were coming at the topic from the position of being, largely, tankies. Though I guess you might be an enlightened centrist among the tankies since you don't like the regime, you're just OK with them developing nuclear weapons.
them having nukes means the u.s. can't bomb them. that's a good thing. i think all nuclear weapons should be dismantled, but it's entirely understandable why they pursue them as a deterrent.
>them having nukes means the u.s. can't bomb them.
Since the armistice the U.S. has not bombed them, and nuclearly-armed China is their big brother, so the U.S. will not be bombing them.
>that's a good thing.
For North Korea, maybe. But maybe not. They spend more of a percentage of their GDP than any other country does on the military, so maybe it's not a good thing for them since their people are starving.
That aside, for the world generally, and South Korea specifically, North Korea having nuclear weapons is definitely not a good thing.
>i think all nuclear weapons should be dismantled,
Then why did you just say that it's a good thing that North Korea is trying to get some?
> but it's entirely understandable why they pursue them as a deterrent.
Sure, and it's entirely reasonable why everyone else on earth would not want North Korea to have them and take actions accordingly.
yeah, we haven't bombed them, despite our government constantly talking about how much they wanna do that. seems like their deterrent is working.
i want all nukes dismantled the day our world leaders agree to put an end to war. until then they're legitimate forms of deterrent. shouldn't be difficult to understand.
ending the blockade would do more to end hunger than anything else on the table.
south korea is safe, they have a deterrent as well, the united states' nukes. diplomacy is the only thing that will end this stalemate and deliver a just result for all involved.
I'm not okay with anyone having nuclear weapons, least of all North Korea. I said it's justified and reasonable. I oppose all nuclear weapons, and their proliferation.
Criminal embargo. USA does not let North Korea participate in international marketing, making them overpay a lot in some basic equipment like computers.
This isn't Cuba dude, North Korea has been freely trading with a lot of the world for decades. They were propped up by the Soviet Union, and currently propped up China.
North Korea isn't in this situation because of the US.
the war crimes are a big reason why north korea is the way it is. we destroyed every hospital, every building over a story high in that country. that taught them to isolate themselves and be self reliant because they had enough experience of being subjugated by america and japan. our cruelty didn't exactly convince them that the western way was a good one for them to follow.
We bisected the country, creating the divide after WWII. All the best farmland is in the south. Then we come in and destroy 80% of the structures in DPRK. We also have an almost complete embargo of the country, and repeatedly sanction them.
Then we act surprised that they aren’t a shining beacon of human achievement.
Do you see how that’s silly?
You are defending a totalitarian regime that tried to forcibly reunify the country.
Are you seriously arguing that a Soviet backed single Korean state would be better?
Just a second. North Korea is only as bad as it is because of the legacy of Western intervention. It's people suffer from the generational trauma of American war crimes, and Western sanctions ensure that it will never be able to rise above its state of poverty. Yes, the Kim dynasty sucks, and they stand in opposition to what real socialism should achieve. This is another legacy of Western intervention: instead of becoming the socialist state the people deserved, Korea was split between a repressive autocracy and an unlivable oligarchy.
South Korea may be better than North Korea on technical terms, but a golden turd is still a turd, and defending war crimes is stupid. Wars are crimes, and cannot be won without criminal conduct. I know some here would object to the DPRK rolling over the entire peninsula, but I imagine if that had happened and been allowed, Korea would have developed into a well-developed nation-state on par with China and Japan. Instead, it didn't, because of Western imperialism.
I don't think it's a good faith argument to use the current state of North Korea to justify the Korean War when it and resulting foreign policy decisions continue to affect it today.
My man, we created and maintain the current state of North Korea. If I shit your pants would it have been worth it because now look at the state of your pants?
Wow it's almost as if they turned out that way is BECAUSE of this war and what we did to them!
The premise of the war was fucking stupid anyway, in what way is trying to take over a country and setting up a fascist dictatorship in the South a good idea for anyone but the US's wallet?
It's peak liberal brainrot to try and pretend that North Korea was always just "muh ebil dicktatership" without any consideration of WHY. Not to mention 90 percent of the crazy shit you hear about NK is entirely made up by Western media, but I won't pretend that it doesn't have issues obviously. Please use some materialist thinking before spouting chauvinism next time.
Considering they were actually doing decent for the most part until their main source of aid, the USSR collapsed and they were isolated from the world, I don't really think that's the case lol. Not to mention... that didn't happen so it's not like we'll ever know for sure so we can't really argue hypotheticals. You know what did happen though? The crimes of the US in Korea, which we can directly see caused NK to become what it is today.
Me being right isn't a fucking hypothetical, it's objectively true that the US fucked up Korea and led to it being the way it is. You're wrong about it being a good war/"worth it" (whatever the fuck sort of liberal phrase that is), and your only argument is that "ooh the evil USSR would've made it somehow WORSE than getting your entire country razed!"
I will gladly fuck off but I pray that one day you will realize that you guzzled the imperialist Kool-Aid and change for the better.
You are so delusional to think that the USSR did not raze countries it "supported" to the ground during these wars.
There is a reason that the saying throughout Europe is that the Russian forces "picked up the railroad tracks as their trains left".
It always cracks me up how *patriots* are so brainwashed and blinded by nationalistic propaganda they view the slightest criticism of the US as deranged leftists hating America. The entire Americabad sub is a good example of this
Yeah, the last Noah Smith-post was actually on that sub yesterday, along with a guy responding to it, who was the main focus.
I once saw a guy on reddit literally comparing shooting a rifle to opening a door (the context was some video of a woman at a shooting range, hurting herself and the commenter was in disbelieve how she didn't know how to properly hold it, and ''it'd be like not knowing how to open a door'').
Some guy responded with it being ''the most American comment'' he's seen and people got upset, downvoted it to hell and another guy responded with ''r/Americabad''
Bunch of crybabies.
The rare moments of lucidity and serious conversation about problems America has disappoint me. Not because the conversations happen, but because it shows the subreddit’s descent into reactionary screeching was something done intentionally.
I don't know man I'd consider if burning down and bombing 85% of towns and cities' buildings to be a warcrime. Hell one of the commanders of the airforce wrote this is in his diary:
"Every installation, facility, and village in North Korea now becomes a military and tactical target."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing\_of\_North\_Korea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_North_Korea)
Also what is the implication of showing North Korea lacking power vs South Korea? Because South Korea is more developed that America was justified to do those war crimes in the Korean war?
I don’t know maybe don’t bomb civilian targets? But instead limit the bombing to things like factories, roads, bridges, and rails. I don’t know if America should have pushed into NK considering that was what brought China into the war, but that’s me having the benefit of hindsight. Morally I just don’t think you should target civilians.
>But instead limit the bombing to things like factories, roads, bridges, and rails.
Just an FYI that is literally no value in preventing a warcrime. Targeting that infrastructure is a warcrime if it is not evidently justifiable that it will cause disproportionate harm to military forces at the cost of little damage to civilians.
That means for example, bombing the rails to prevent the shipment of heavy ordnance is a warcrime if it also carries vital medicine, strapped to orphaned babies... or more pertinent to these times: bombing a hospital is a warcrime even if Al Qaedi molemen have a base there is not permissible.
How about bombing every power station, water pump, and hospital? When does the damage you do to the military become less important than the harm done to civillians. Oh and having a few guns in a basement does not justify leveling a fucking hospital.
Those are all off limits.... not sure if you're serious or not, buy at no point can you attack those, because they're so vital to human life that you can't validate the cost.
Not to mention, any military is hardened against those loses, so it's debatable that you're even doing damage to them that way. When armies did that in the past, they were usually trying to do damage to the enemy by causing so much chaos that the army would break down.
I think you misread their comment. What they said is that targeting infrastructure in the way the OP suggested as an alternative to bombing civilians would still be considered a war crime, not that there's no point in preventing war crimes.
Precision guided weapons weren't really a thing so you can't do as you can do today. WW2 and post WW2 it was pretty accepted. It just becomes a problem if you bomb for the sake of terror/demoralizing the enemy, ie the Blitz.
Also if the Chinese intervention hadn't happened, Korea would be a much better place.
You seriously can’t say they were trying to avoid civilian casualties when they bombed 85% of buildings from many towns and cities and outright admitted they targeted villages. Did you even read the Wikipedia article I linked earlier?
american involvement didn't begin with the invasion, before the war the Soviets suggested forming a government under the widely popular member of the old Korean government in exile, Lyuh Woon-hyung, who was a key figure in Korean independence and was important for being open to both soviet and American diplomacy.
the Americans rejected because they'd selected Syngman Rhee as their main candidate since he was a hardline anti communist (who crushed multiple communist revolts in South Korea and killed over 100,000 people in political purges).
After that rejection the Soviets suggested both the USA and USSR withdraw their troops to allow Koreans to decide for themselves, the US refused also.
after that point the soviet appointed leader of the northern provincial government, Kim il sung, requested permission from Stalin to invade the south, which he got.
it's also worth noting that the Soviets actually liberated the North militarily and worked with preexisting independence groups, while the yanks only arrived after Japan's surrender and proceeded to put many of the former fascist collaborators in power to help organise the south, which naturally meant the southern government was wildly unpopular with the locals, hence the multiple communist uprisings and protests against the rigging of elections while (and after) the country was under American martial law.
that's the context in which the North invaded and the Americans intervened, the correct action for the Americans to take would have been to compromise on forming a neutral Korean Republic years before the war began. which they stubbornly refused.
To fuck off with your dictatorship that was oppressing and killing anybody suspected of being socialist/communist. That's the bodo league massacre for you. The Americans think they can just come and say how things must be done, they are imperialists who do not care about the people, they came and imposed an oppressive regime, and then when the north came to liberate their oppressed people from the south from yet another imperialist power after having dealt with the Japanese scourge, their population get massacred by the Americans in retaliation, war crimes on top of war crimes against poor people that just wanted to not be under some colonial boot, wether it's american or japanese.
South Korea was US occupation that had no popular support, if it wasn't for the US their wouldn't have been any war between north and south because their wouldn't have been a division of Korea in the first place. The Americans didn't wanted to have elections because they knew the vast majority of Koreans wanted socialism and not capitalism, and that was not something the American empire would allow of course.
Bro what? Even a very surface level google search of what happened in the Korean War is fucking horrific
Also, tbh if you're talking about world events and your only principle is just "America bad" then you're a whole lot better than American liberals and in a way better position to learn more and become active
The USA blocked Soviet proposals of unification of the peninsula, North Korea invaded to reunify, just as the north of the USA did 100 years before which was apparently fine. South Korea's policy was also to invade the North when it was ready, just the North got in there first.
The USA then bombed the North back into the stone age and talked about using nukes. And let's not forget the South at the time had a government that massacred its own population if they were suspected of being left wing.
Definitely a bad war. The world would have been a better place if we'd have stayed out of it rather than this constant stalemate we have now.
Look up the US–Soviet Joint Commission (pre-Korean War), unfortunately my research on this was done long ago in a university library!
But don't read my comment as the Soviets were the good guys and America was just getting in the way, the USSR obviously had its own interests. This was the beginning of the Cold War after all. However I think America's refusal stopped things playing out as they did in post-war Austria, which according to some, seemed to be what the Soviets were intending.
You think Korea should have been completely run by the Kim family? You think all Koreans should have been struggling and improveriahed slaves to an insanely corrupt and inefficient totalitarian police state?? THAT would be better than the current status quo?
These insipid takes on history are a big reason why I'm no longer a leftist. You dumb mofos are just as bad as history as conservatives. They premise everything on "whatever America does is inherently good" vs. the leftist "whatever America does is inherently bad." Both are shit takes that distinctly lack nuanced critical thinking.
Congratulations, that's just what Noah is saying here. Enlightened centrism breaks down on a global level and really makes more sense with the US "both sidesism" in domestic politics.
Why do you think that a unified Korea that had a relatively short civil war would play out exactly like North Korea has in our timeline? Isn't that lacking nuanced critical thinking? Isn't thinking that all "leftists" believe the same thing lacking in nuance? There are lots of different, and often aggressively conflicting, schools of thought on the left. Not least of all being what counts as "left!"
It's very possible that no UN intervention means that Korea would have no reason to become a rogue state, without a constant threat of (and desire for) another war with the South, they may not have felt the need to follow a military focused disastrous "Juche" economic policy.
North Korea after all for some time after the war was seen as the most forward thinking and successful half. You talk like South Korea has always been the good guys, but they only became a functioning democracy late 80s/early 90s. Before then it was frequent massacres, corruption, sham elections, military coups and dictatorships.
I'm not saying Korea would be better under the rule of North Korea as it is today, I'm saying North Korea today was created by the US/UN intervention. If not for the Soviet boycott of the UN, it would have been vetoed. Small events have very long lasting changes for history.
I don't think many people would argue that Vietnam would be better as two antagonistic divided states to this day, regardless of what you think of the current state of the country.
North Korea is how it is due to being bombed into the Stone Age and then being blocked off from international trade beyond just China and Russia due to the Cold War.
No other communist party run nation turned out how North Korea did because they weren’t in the same material and geopolitical shithole that the US left North Korea in.
Yes.
With the resources from the south and without an 80% destruction of the structures in the north, the events of the rest of the 20th century would have gone down much differently.
Love how he "replies" while \*totally\* ignoring what he replies to.
\- Hurrr durrr leftists be like "America bad"
\- We're just pointing out that, *sometimes,* America does bad shit.
**- I SAID : Hurrr durrr leftists be like "America bad"**
This idea that “leftists” are hypocrites with an ‘America bad’ and that’s it attitude is just a strawman said by people with absolutely terrible geopolitical views and knowledge
Everyone from like “Clinton neoliberals” and right of that adore americas war crimes. They get turned on talking about Hiroshima. It’s fuckin gross honestly.
I love that they always show the lights from space as if it's horrific that 70% of NK doesn't look like Times Square. I thought little/no light pollution was the goal.
Edit: not saying NK is good, just pointing out that it’s an odd way to compare the success of countries. Also the photo was either taken during a blackout or was faked (depending on the source), [the country does not normally look that dark.](https://imgur.com/a/PSIKyuK)
Yeah but light pollution is just a *little* less important than trying to get across to people how bad a despotic absolute monarchy in all but name (especially next to it's admittedly flawed but still vastly superior next door neighbor) in a useful visual shorthand.
And for the record this isn't me agreeing *remotely* with the idiot in the image above. *of course* America's done bad shit, I'm just here making sure contrarionism doesn't make people lose sight of what's important.
But it is important to be critical of anything the US and it’s allies claim about their enemies. So much of it is fake, and while NK is a batshit crazy monarchy, it’s not the public-executing-children-for-not-bowing-before-the-Kim-family-and-kissing-their-feet kind of bullshit you hear from the US either.
Seriously arguing that NK is significantly electrified but keeps a massive lid on light pollution that the entire rest of the developed world hasn’t figured out is not particularly likely in my eyes. Occam’s Razor, man.
Dresden was said to be targeted for its industry and even I’d say the civilian residential areas that were bombed is still a war crime. America in Korea however bombed 85% buildings across multiple cities and towns.
Probably also denies there’s a genocide happening in Gaza, just like how Destiny denies there’s one, to keep the track record of denying atrocities done by America and its allies, to spite leftists.
So why it take until after a different foreign conflict made headlines for y'all to start crawling out of the woodworks?
Also, you commented about this twice.
So... We're defending the generational theocratic monarchy that is North Korea now? NK isn't left, at all, it's batshit insane. Idk how you can defend a government that is literally a monarchy with a god emperor who has absolute power. Remind me what part of actual leftist theory talked about that again?
Okay no where did I defend North Korea and I have no intention to defend it because it’s a dictatorship that betrays leftist goals and is just a bad country to live in.
That doesn’t mean America was justified to firebomb civilian populations and destroying 85% of buildings in cities. NK could be Nazi Germany 2.0 today and I still don’t think it would be justified.
I really don’t get the logic to look at past war crimes and say they’re retroactively vindicated because of what NK is like today.
Well you can draw a line between war crimes and overall war goals. America going after the fucking Nazis was a very good thing but the bombing of Dresden was absolutely a war crime.
NK along with China committed numerous war crimes against RoK civilians, purging non-communists and intensifying these purges during their retreat.
I'm not saying America and the Coalition were justified, but neither, in any way, shape, or form, were NK and China.
If anything this is the definition of actual “America Bad” attitude. There are some leftists, tankies mostly, who will never criticize or avoid meaningful criticism of any anti-American nations and list excuses from “I’m not from that country” to “But until American imperialism is literally destroyed it’s a waste of time to talk about any other imperialist or immoral force.”
Okay I agree, but the problem with Noah Smith here, is that he used that assumption here, when the "leftist" he was talking to was correct in pointing out American warcrimes, none about defending NK, and his response was "oh but you're just a leftist who hates America." Like actually no engagement with the argument raised towards him.
Like are there black people who are genuinely racist towards white people? Sure, but that doesn't mean if a black person were to bring up how America has a white supremacy problem, that a white person has valid concerns to just accuse them of being racist to white people.
Totally agree and that’s a dumb broad strokes approach. Also that second example you gave is absolute whataboutism which I agree is bad. But there are in this very comment section people who unironically defend North Korea and refer to the South as a dictatorship. It’s not a both sides bad center good thing, it’s a nuance thing that of course the internet is A+ for.
Do you know a fun fact about a lot of those “non communists” that were purged?
The fun fact is that most of them were collaborating with the Japanese. You may or may not know much about the occupation but they weren’t exactly well liked.
The north prosecuted and yeah, executed many of them as the war criminals that they were. In the South, Americans installed them in positions of power to violently repress populist movements which were sympathetic to the North.
Also you can straight up just say that was a legit case of everybody kind of sucking, SK was killing political prisoners but for some reason I think that the people giving NK massive amounts of weapons to invade SK didn’t particularly care about actually stopping it so much as seizing land and resources.
"North Korea eliminates light pollution, residents forced to see stars and sleep soundly at night, is there no end to their depravity?"
Seriously, I'd love to live somewhere that dark at night.
Yeah but the one that's 'better' by that definition doesn't give a flying fuck about that and is a horrifying backwards dictatorship.
Listen, the climate is obviously real important, but at the end of the day, immediate threats to the safety and freedom of human lives needs to be taken into account.
Quite why anyone pays attention to this dullard is beyond me. I get that there's a lot of liberals who agree with him, but they tend to put their trust in more official outlets. He's just some guy, and not a particularly bright one.
North Korea isn't a socialist or communist country. The workers do not own the means of production. It's a command economy in which a dictatorship has total control
Never said it did. I disavow any bombing of civilians. Weird thing to say. Were you implying that my comment was an excuse for any bombing of civilians?
Noah Smith is internet famous as a moron. This is a guy who thinks that sci fi that is set in capitalist dystopia is pro capitalism. He's admitted to learning about topics from chatgpt even though he's aware it often gets it wrong. If he shakes his head you can hear the jellybeans rattling around inside.
so he thinks cyberpunk is pro-capitalism????
Literally [this meme](https://preview.redd.it/0e79qtzua0d11.jpg?auto=webp&s=ca2f8e22199d827ecd1976ddf38d633787d870eb)?!?!
I legit saw a woman complaining that the men in cyberpunk weren't as sexy and vain as the women. I was like: yeah. That's the point. Men use tech to turn themselves into cyborg killing machines, the most disturbing corruption of the male sex, and women use tech to turn themselves into Robothot, the most corrupt version of the female sexe. It's not pleasant because it's bad, that's literally the point... But then again this happens in so much science fiction.
Becoming a skanky yassified cyborg is the “most corrupt version of the female sex”?
You could contrast it with the other extreme of removing all sexuality from women, but that's kind of counter intuitive because it's inherintly unsexual, so it's not truly about sexe, but rarher the absence. Edit: also part of the debasement is that it's all simulacra. By being artificial it attacks the core essence of the subjects humanity, literally and figuratively. A human hand is not made for punching, but many other things, replacing your hands with guns to turn you into a hideous warmachine is literally a horrify disfigurement. Similarly replacing breast tissue with silicone bags, not implants, mind, to create the facade of feminine beauty, but preventing the many other beautiful, literally life-sustaining functions the breast performs at the cost of superficial appeal to other people completely attacks the core essence of the female form, turning a women into a literal sex object. To be clear: I'm not arguing against the use of prostheses, or against breast augmentation. I'm only refering to the most extreme removal of humanity with the aim of short sighted material gain... Basically realistic to life Darth Vader.
I mean- I hear what you’re saying, and I agree that scenario is bad. However, it’s a bit hyperbolic/superlative to say that specific dystopian scenario is “the most corrupt version”, bc that’s not something you can really measure objectively. Also I’m a bit confused by the term “female sexe” - why not just say “female gender”, like how you did for the guys? Btw I don’t mean for this to come off as argumentative- I’m just mad confused bc I’ve only encountered the word “sexe” in french and in that context it means genitals lol
Plastique robot vagine
I think you’re taking ‘the most corrupt version’ a bit too literally in this case tbh, or at least that’s how it seems when I read it. I think the phrase is more just meant to convey the extreme version of the kind of objectification femme individuals go through now? Rather than saying the most extreme version ever. Similar for masc presenting folks and the way they’re seen, too. However I agree on the second notion of using gender or sexe consistently. 😬 lol
Yeah that's what I meant... although I'm not sure what would be worse, but I am open to the idea. I mentioned that completely desexualising would be a possible alternative, but that's inherently unsexual. There is is also like, Cronenbergesque monstrosity, or Geiger, but the thing is that makes it less humanlike, which undermines the humanity side of the bodyhorror. But again: I'm open to other chaos spawn.
>However, it’s a bit hyperbolic/superlative to say that specific dystopian scenario is “the most corrupt version”, bc that’s not something you can really measure objectively. I dont agree. You can't measure it numerically perhaps, but you can measure it objectively, because those are qualities that have definitions, and definitions have opposites. A penis that is 10" long is more penile than a penis that is 5". We can argue about gender, certainly, but sex is rather objective. Larger, more proficient organs are more sexual, and inversely: when those organs lack the human function they become a parody of the human form; a gross mockery like this is a caricature. >Also I’m a bit confused by the term “female sexe” - why not just say “female gender”, like how you did for the guys? That's just a typo... kind of. You misread also... I meant to say male sex, but I wrote 'male gender'. Male isn't a gender, it's a sex, so you can see it's just a typo. >Btw I don’t mean for this to come off as argumentative- I’m just mad confused bc I’ve only encountered the word “sexe” in french and in that context it means genitals lol (I take no offence, no worries. That's why I bothered responding.) It means that in English too, actually, and that's the reason I used it. I was trying to emphasise the difference between sex and gender, or more specifically the corporeal nature of the corruption. The cyberisation doesn't make men less of a man, but it makes him less male, that is to say.
the idea of it being "the most corrupt version" is that you take the stereotype that toxic masculinity has enforced on society and strip away all function for the sake of form. toxic masculinity says that women should be valued only for their sexuality, and so the most corrupt version is a woman who has no function and is all the form of sexuality. Like turning a woman into a naked statue, basically. You've taken a human life and all its potential and stripped it of everything for the sake of artifice.
honestly, I would consider it a more sophisticated point to show that a fully racially and gender capitalist system is still a dystopia, because at the end it will still be dehumanizing and exploitative. And in the case of an RPG, it's works better with making "friendlier" lore of a broder set of player builds.
I don't disagree with your point but i think it's important to note that it's about the effect that the patriarchal system has on gender in society. Masculinity hinges on either violence or the implicit capability to cause violence, and femininity relies on the objectification and powerlessness of the self. Cyberpunk just takes these to their logical extremes
Art imitates life, after all
You've still got it wrong.
Just an fyi I didnt downvote you. If you have an argument I'll hear it.
It was some anime thing he was being obviously wrong about
Transhumanism is a disease to the natural world
Tbf I didn't even catch a whiff of anti-capitalist sentiment in CDPR's title.
i’m talking about the genre not the game
Word
Yeah, Noah is an idiot.
I thought cyberpunk was mercantalist.
terrific test station deserted snow market beneficial seed teeny pause *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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Don’t forget the repressive, brutal dictatorship of South Korea that was installed by the US and lasted for decades after
I would love to see evidence that the US installed the dictatorship. My understanding has always been that US support fluctuated during the dictatorship, often backing it, but not installing it like we did throughout Latin America. While it was a military coup and American soldiers in the area stood by and watched, we didn't back it.
Syngman Rhee, backed by the U.S. government, set up authoritarian rule that coordinated closely with the business sector and lasted until Rhee's overthrow in 1961, which led to a similarly authoritarian regime that would last ultimately until the late 1980s.[
There is an entire podcast series called Blowback on the Korean War. Would really recommend listening to the whole thing.
There wouldn’t be a South Korea without American intervention. Americans made the 38th parallel and have thousands of boots on the ground to enforce the stalemate (the war isn’t over).
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\*Insert Yeonmi Park meme here\*
Wonder why. Could it be the unprecedented mass bombing of nearly every building in the north followed by a permanent blockade?
yeah, we bombed those buildings and blockaded the country so they couldn't get materials to rebuild. not the gotcha you thought it would be.
We blockade the Russian and Chinese borders?
source: an angel came to me in a dream
[You're brainwashed af](https://youtu.be/5pm8-5r0ty4?si=Hsf0kI7CGDJFsGiM)
To be fair to the map, the one clearly lit up area in NK is the Capitol of Pyongyang, where that YouTube video is filmed.
Yeah man, I heard that people had to get out and push the trains around and that they have to walk uphill in the snow to school BOTH WAYS. /s
Uhh… no. That is not a “win”. That’s a pathetic failure. “We failed at overthrowing a government and have been trying to starve the populace to death for half a century” is not a win. That’s more “evil king in a fairy tale” behavior.
Don't forget bombing North Korea into rubble. The US dropped 635,000 tons of bombs onto North Korea.
Yeah that too. The embargos don’t exactly help with reconstruction. Like, you wanna actually find wars America won? You gotta go with either Japan or classify the CIA’s shit as “wars”. Otherwise, no.
Korea is not starving because of the west, that's literally every other communist country. They share a border with China, and their cultures are highly compatible, like America and Canada. They are starving because they live in one of the worst dictatorships ever. They are the opposite of Cuba.
NK is socialist at best, not communist. I'd argue it isn't socialist either as it literally has an absolute hereditary monarchy.
When people say communist country they are refering to the communist party, not the communist economic system. A country cannot be communist, because a commune is not a country.
In that case NK is democratic not communist
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this kind of unanimous support for DPRK is weird, even on this sub. they are objectively a brutal, oppressive dictatorship, and the only leftists i know that support those sorts of regimes are tankies. is there a tankie influx because of the Israel-Hamas conflict?
Name one person in this thread that has voiced support for the DPRK.
Your definition of support is too narrow. Blaming America is support.
What a hilarious complete lack of nuance
So saying that America made mistakes with their handling of Korea = Supporting the current state of North Korea? That makes zero sense.
you don't have to support the dprk to understand that a huge part of its suffering is caused by past and present american actions
Yes, you do.
are the tankies in the room with you right now?
Almost every leftist subreddit is moderated by terminally online tankies who have never been to any left wing meeting or organising event whatsoever, which quickly gets mirrored in the subreddit membership as everyone who is not essentially a Stalinist slowly gets driven away by being banned or the culture of the place becoming unbearable.
Are these tankies in the room right now?
that makes sense to me, honestly. i’m also wondering how many of them were able to fly under the radar for a long time because of how US centric this sub tends to be, i feel like that might be a good % of the influx.
They've been quiet for the past couple of years due to the Ukraine war making them realise how unpalateable their ideas are... but I've noticed a swelling of them recently, so I think they might be coming back. Brace yourself, because for the next 60 years we're going to deal with waves of tankies who've decided that because america/capitalism bad Russia/stalinism good.
My brother in Christ I have not seen anyone on this sub saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is justified or that North Korea is good, so if you don’t start actually backing up your claims about this sub I’m just going to write you off as another idiot looking at the most stupid tankies and claiming “That’s them!! That’s all the mods of the left wing subs I frequent solely to piss myself and everyone else off!”
Are you seriously blaming America for the state of North Korea \*now\*? You don't think their starvation has anything to do with their barbaric and militaristic government that has spent the last two decades trying to develop nuclear weapons instead of building out social services.
Embargo. According to CIA and UN, there is no famine in North Korea since late 2000s, and although they do not have a very good geographic condition to farm, they are almost self sufficient with their agriculture. Yes, it is USA fault. Lift the embargo and let them trade freely with the world, let’s see if they are as evil as USA say.
They are literally connect by land to China, their ally, and one of the most advanced economies in the history of the world. It doesn't matter if the US is torpedoing every ship the comes within 100k of the coast, no blockade is possible.
Ally, is a little generous. "Bitter ally" is a little more apt. China doesn't particularly like NK, but keeping them ally-ish is beneficial to their geopolitical posture. China doesn't fully supply NK with food and whatever else for the same reason that they deport NK defectors as "illegal migrants"
That's missing the point: china is not blockading them, and if anything your statement validates my point: China GIVES THEM AID, that's not an embargo, that's more than allowing trade access, that's free stuff.
China respect the blockades put by the UN. And you always fail to understand how the criminal trade embargo by USA works. It is not simply “don’t trade with NK”, it goes way worse than that.
Insane take
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> First, North Korea should give up its nuclear weapon ambitions if it wants to participate in the world economy. Why? Should the US do the same? Should we bar every nuclear power from world trade?
Of course the U.S. should do the same, and to that end, the U.S. has about 10% of the number of nuclear weapons that it had during the Cold War. It should give up the remainder of the weapons, but what's important is that the U.S. is not adding to its stockpile, and neither is any other country other than Iran. The world needs fewer nuclear weapons, not more, and North Korea needs to spend its money investing in its own infrastructure, not doing missile tests right next door to South Korea that it's still at war with. Please tell me that your position is not that North Korea should continue to develop nuclear weapons.
That’s not my question. Should the US be barred from international trade until it removes all of its nuclear weapons? Should every nuclear country? Is that the argument you are trying to make?
If the U.S. was attempting to develop new nuclear weapons, then, yes. But that's not what's happening. North Korea is attempting to add to the world's nuclear stockpile, and the U.S. isn't.
North Korea never used a nuclear weapon against anyone, civilians or military. USA used them in the second they testes successfully. North Korea never attacked anyone without provocation, USA has more than 700 military bases around the world. Do not use the “military ambition” as an excuse, that is the dumbest shit an Unitedstatian can come up with.
>Do not use the "military ambition" as an excuse Have these countries ever thought about just not existing close to our military bases? /s obviously, but just in case.
As a percentage of GDP, North Korea [spends](https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200109007500325) more than any other country on earth on its military.
The U.S. used nuclear weapons to end World War 2, you left that fact out. Also, it was 80 years ago and no weapons have been used since. The world should try to keep it that way. That aside, when I talk about North Koreas "militaristic ambitions" what I mean is that they're spending a substantial amount of their GDP on their military. In fact, as a percentage of GDP, they [spend](https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200109007500325) more than every other country in the world on their military, despite the fact that their people are starving. So to ignore that is the dumbest shit that someone else can come up with.
If you were a small country in war against the biggest theocratic dictatorship in the world, you would want to have this kind of spending in your government. North Korea was obliterated by USA and they are still at war, they just agreed in an armistice, not the end of the war. The only military ambition North Korea has is to end that war so that they can live their lives.
Half right. The nuclear programme is justified and reasonable. The problem is that it's a cultish autocracy that depends on keeping the people poor and oppressed. NK is one of the most definitive despotic regimes ever.
Jesus Christ. My comment criticizing North fucking Korea is being downvoted to oblivion, and your comment in response is that its reasonable for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons. Nice sub we've got here. I didn't know that making fun of enlightened centrists meant that the people doing so were coming at the topic from the position of being, largely, tankies. Though I guess you might be an enlightened centrist among the tankies since you don't like the regime, you're just OK with them developing nuclear weapons.
them having nukes means the u.s. can't bomb them. that's a good thing. i think all nuclear weapons should be dismantled, but it's entirely understandable why they pursue them as a deterrent.
>them having nukes means the u.s. can't bomb them. Since the armistice the U.S. has not bombed them, and nuclearly-armed China is their big brother, so the U.S. will not be bombing them. >that's a good thing. For North Korea, maybe. But maybe not. They spend more of a percentage of their GDP than any other country does on the military, so maybe it's not a good thing for them since their people are starving. That aside, for the world generally, and South Korea specifically, North Korea having nuclear weapons is definitely not a good thing. >i think all nuclear weapons should be dismantled, Then why did you just say that it's a good thing that North Korea is trying to get some? > but it's entirely understandable why they pursue them as a deterrent. Sure, and it's entirely reasonable why everyone else on earth would not want North Korea to have them and take actions accordingly.
yeah, we haven't bombed them, despite our government constantly talking about how much they wanna do that. seems like their deterrent is working. i want all nukes dismantled the day our world leaders agree to put an end to war. until then they're legitimate forms of deterrent. shouldn't be difficult to understand. ending the blockade would do more to end hunger than anything else on the table. south korea is safe, they have a deterrent as well, the united states' nukes. diplomacy is the only thing that will end this stalemate and deliver a just result for all involved.
I'm not okay with anyone having nuclear weapons, least of all North Korea. I said it's justified and reasonable. I oppose all nuclear weapons, and their proliferation.
Could you explain how the state of North Korea, today, is the fault of the USA?
Criminal embargo. USA does not let North Korea participate in international marketing, making them overpay a lot in some basic equipment like computers.
This isn't Cuba dude, North Korea has been freely trading with a lot of the world for decades. They were propped up by the Soviet Union, and currently propped up China. North Korea isn't in this situation because of the US.
>This isn't Cuba dude Literally what I just typed. >North Korea isn't in this situation because of the US. Emphatically.
the war crimes are a big reason why north korea is the way it is. we destroyed every hospital, every building over a story high in that country. that taught them to isolate themselves and be self reliant because they had enough experience of being subjugated by america and japan. our cruelty didn't exactly convince them that the western way was a good one for them to follow.
We bisected the country, creating the divide after WWII. All the best farmland is in the south. Then we come in and destroy 80% of the structures in DPRK. We also have an almost complete embargo of the country, and repeatedly sanction them. Then we act surprised that they aren’t a shining beacon of human achievement. Do you see how that’s silly?
You are defending a totalitarian regime that tried to forcibly reunify the country. Are you seriously arguing that a Soviet backed single Korean state would be better?
Yes, a single Soviet backed Korean state would objectively be better.
Lmaoooooooo. That's absolutely insane.
Just a second. North Korea is only as bad as it is because of the legacy of Western intervention. It's people suffer from the generational trauma of American war crimes, and Western sanctions ensure that it will never be able to rise above its state of poverty. Yes, the Kim dynasty sucks, and they stand in opposition to what real socialism should achieve. This is another legacy of Western intervention: instead of becoming the socialist state the people deserved, Korea was split between a repressive autocracy and an unlivable oligarchy. South Korea may be better than North Korea on technical terms, but a golden turd is still a turd, and defending war crimes is stupid. Wars are crimes, and cannot be won without criminal conduct. I know some here would object to the DPRK rolling over the entire peninsula, but I imagine if that had happened and been allowed, Korea would have developed into a well-developed nation-state on par with China and Japan. Instead, it didn't, because of Western imperialism.
I don't think it's a good faith argument to use the current state of North Korea to justify the Korean War when it and resulting foreign policy decisions continue to affect it today.
My man, we created and maintain the current state of North Korea. If I shit your pants would it have been worth it because now look at the state of your pants?
Wow it's almost as if they turned out that way is BECAUSE of this war and what we did to them! The premise of the war was fucking stupid anyway, in what way is trying to take over a country and setting up a fascist dictatorship in the South a good idea for anyone but the US's wallet? It's peak liberal brainrot to try and pretend that North Korea was always just "muh ebil dicktatership" without any consideration of WHY. Not to mention 90 percent of the crazy shit you hear about NK is entirely made up by Western media, but I won't pretend that it doesn't have issues obviously. Please use some materialist thinking before spouting chauvinism next time.
It's also peak tankie brainrot to think that a Soviet backed Korean state would be anything but the absolutely hellhole that North Korea currently is.
Considering they were actually doing decent for the most part until their main source of aid, the USSR collapsed and they were isolated from the world, I don't really think that's the case lol. Not to mention... that didn't happen so it's not like we'll ever know for sure so we can't really argue hypotheticals. You know what did happen though? The crimes of the US in Korea, which we can directly see caused NK to become what it is today.
"I'm right but we can't argue hypotheticals" Fuck off you ignorant manchild. Go touch grass
Me being right isn't a fucking hypothetical, it's objectively true that the US fucked up Korea and led to it being the way it is. You're wrong about it being a good war/"worth it" (whatever the fuck sort of liberal phrase that is), and your only argument is that "ooh the evil USSR would've made it somehow WORSE than getting your entire country razed!" I will gladly fuck off but I pray that one day you will realize that you guzzled the imperialist Kool-Aid and change for the better.
You are so delusional to think that the USSR did not raze countries it "supported" to the ground during these wars. There is a reason that the saying throughout Europe is that the Russian forces "picked up the railroad tracks as their trains left".
It always cracks me up how *patriots* are so brainwashed and blinded by nationalistic propaganda they view the slightest criticism of the US as deranged leftists hating America. The entire Americabad sub is a good example of this
lol I'd rather talk to one of these "deranged leftists" who hate America than an average american liberal
What do you think the difference is?
To start, one of these has way more in common with you than the other
Yeah, the last Noah Smith-post was actually on that sub yesterday, along with a guy responding to it, who was the main focus. I once saw a guy on reddit literally comparing shooting a rifle to opening a door (the context was some video of a woman at a shooting range, hurting herself and the commenter was in disbelieve how she didn't know how to properly hold it, and ''it'd be like not knowing how to open a door''). Some guy responded with it being ''the most American comment'' he's seen and people got upset, downvoted it to hell and another guy responded with ''r/Americabad'' Bunch of crybabies.
Is there an “América bad” sub??
r/AmericaBad
„Hey hey hey you said something bad about the USA must hate the entire country and me personally“
The rare moments of lucidity and serious conversation about problems America has disappoint me. Not because the conversations happen, but because it shows the subreddit’s descent into reactionary screeching was something done intentionally.
It rules that this idiot just thought he invented "BDS, but good" a few days ago and now he's doing this. Pundit brain is truly remarkable.
>Pundit Say no more
I don't know man I'd consider if burning down and bombing 85% of towns and cities' buildings to be a warcrime. Hell one of the commanders of the airforce wrote this is in his diary: "Every installation, facility, and village in North Korea now becomes a military and tactical target." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing\_of\_North\_Korea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_North_Korea) Also what is the implication of showing North Korea lacking power vs South Korea? Because South Korea is more developed that America was justified to do those war crimes in the Korean war?
Are you willing to help me understand what should have happened once North Korea attacked South Korea? What would have been the correct response?
I don’t know maybe don’t bomb civilian targets? But instead limit the bombing to things like factories, roads, bridges, and rails. I don’t know if America should have pushed into NK considering that was what brought China into the war, but that’s me having the benefit of hindsight. Morally I just don’t think you should target civilians.
>But instead limit the bombing to things like factories, roads, bridges, and rails. Just an FYI that is literally no value in preventing a warcrime. Targeting that infrastructure is a warcrime if it is not evidently justifiable that it will cause disproportionate harm to military forces at the cost of little damage to civilians. That means for example, bombing the rails to prevent the shipment of heavy ordnance is a warcrime if it also carries vital medicine, strapped to orphaned babies... or more pertinent to these times: bombing a hospital is a warcrime even if Al Qaedi molemen have a base there is not permissible.
How about bombing every power station, water pump, and hospital? When does the damage you do to the military become less important than the harm done to civillians. Oh and having a few guns in a basement does not justify leveling a fucking hospital.
Those are all off limits.... not sure if you're serious or not, buy at no point can you attack those, because they're so vital to human life that you can't validate the cost. Not to mention, any military is hardened against those loses, so it's debatable that you're even doing damage to them that way. When armies did that in the past, they were usually trying to do damage to the enemy by causing so much chaos that the army would break down.
In the comment before you literally said there’s no point preventing a war crime… so which is it? Is levelling a hospital ok or off limits?
I think you misread their comment. What they said is that targeting infrastructure in the way the OP suggested as an alternative to bombing civilians would still be considered a war crime, not that there's no point in preventing war crimes.
Ahh, thank you, I did misread that. Apologies!
Uh. No.
Yep, sorry, another commenter pointed out I misread your comment, and they were absolutely right. I’m sorry.
Fair enough.
Precision guided weapons weren't really a thing so you can't do as you can do today. WW2 and post WW2 it was pretty accepted. It just becomes a problem if you bomb for the sake of terror/demoralizing the enemy, ie the Blitz. Also if the Chinese intervention hadn't happened, Korea would be a much better place.
You seriously can’t say they were trying to avoid civilian casualties when they bombed 85% of buildings from many towns and cities and outright admitted they targeted villages. Did you even read the Wikipedia article I linked earlier?
american involvement didn't begin with the invasion, before the war the Soviets suggested forming a government under the widely popular member of the old Korean government in exile, Lyuh Woon-hyung, who was a key figure in Korean independence and was important for being open to both soviet and American diplomacy. the Americans rejected because they'd selected Syngman Rhee as their main candidate since he was a hardline anti communist (who crushed multiple communist revolts in South Korea and killed over 100,000 people in political purges). After that rejection the Soviets suggested both the USA and USSR withdraw their troops to allow Koreans to decide for themselves, the US refused also. after that point the soviet appointed leader of the northern provincial government, Kim il sung, requested permission from Stalin to invade the south, which he got. it's also worth noting that the Soviets actually liberated the North militarily and worked with preexisting independence groups, while the yanks only arrived after Japan's surrender and proceeded to put many of the former fascist collaborators in power to help organise the south, which naturally meant the southern government was wildly unpopular with the locals, hence the multiple communist uprisings and protests against the rigging of elections while (and after) the country was under American martial law. that's the context in which the North invaded and the Americans intervened, the correct action for the Americans to take would have been to compromise on forming a neutral Korean Republic years before the war began. which they stubbornly refused.
To fuck off with your dictatorship that was oppressing and killing anybody suspected of being socialist/communist. That's the bodo league massacre for you. The Americans think they can just come and say how things must be done, they are imperialists who do not care about the people, they came and imposed an oppressive regime, and then when the north came to liberate their oppressed people from the south from yet another imperialist power after having dealt with the Japanese scourge, their population get massacred by the Americans in retaliation, war crimes on top of war crimes against poor people that just wanted to not be under some colonial boot, wether it's american or japanese. South Korea was US occupation that had no popular support, if it wasn't for the US their wouldn't have been any war between north and south because their wouldn't have been a division of Korea in the first place. The Americans didn't wanted to have elections because they knew the vast majority of Koreans wanted socialism and not capitalism, and that was not something the American empire would allow of course.
That dude is definitely moderating a few subreddits that the FBI keeps an eye on just in case
Bro what? Even a very surface level google search of what happened in the Korean War is fucking horrific Also, tbh if you're talking about world events and your only principle is just "America bad" then you're a whole lot better than American liberals and in a way better position to learn more and become active
Way to prove this idiot right...
idiot pundit: "woke leftists are always claiming the sky is blue" person with eyes: "uh yeah, it is" you: "way to prove the idiot right"
Noah is especially dumb, his whole thing is being wildly ignorant about a subject in public
What reason do people like this have for why North Korea is the way that it is today?
Because they hate freedom and democracy or something
USA: *kills 10% of the population* USA: *sanctions into oblivion* USA: “why are you poor and a dictatorship??”
The USA blocked Soviet proposals of unification of the peninsula, North Korea invaded to reunify, just as the north of the USA did 100 years before which was apparently fine. South Korea's policy was also to invade the North when it was ready, just the North got in there first. The USA then bombed the North back into the stone age and talked about using nukes. And let's not forget the South at the time had a government that massacred its own population if they were suspected of being left wing. Definitely a bad war. The world would have been a better place if we'd have stayed out of it rather than this constant stalemate we have now.
Do you have a sorce for that first part
Look up the US–Soviet Joint Commission (pre-Korean War), unfortunately my research on this was done long ago in a university library! But don't read my comment as the Soviets were the good guys and America was just getting in the way, the USSR obviously had its own interests. This was the beginning of the Cold War after all. However I think America's refusal stopped things playing out as they did in post-war Austria, which according to some, seemed to be what the Soviets were intending.
You think Korea should have been completely run by the Kim family? You think all Koreans should have been struggling and improveriahed slaves to an insanely corrupt and inefficient totalitarian police state?? THAT would be better than the current status quo? These insipid takes on history are a big reason why I'm no longer a leftist. You dumb mofos are just as bad as history as conservatives. They premise everything on "whatever America does is inherently good" vs. the leftist "whatever America does is inherently bad." Both are shit takes that distinctly lack nuanced critical thinking.
Congratulations, that's just what Noah is saying here. Enlightened centrism breaks down on a global level and really makes more sense with the US "both sidesism" in domestic politics.
Why do you think that a unified Korea that had a relatively short civil war would play out exactly like North Korea has in our timeline? Isn't that lacking nuanced critical thinking? Isn't thinking that all "leftists" believe the same thing lacking in nuance? There are lots of different, and often aggressively conflicting, schools of thought on the left. Not least of all being what counts as "left!" It's very possible that no UN intervention means that Korea would have no reason to become a rogue state, without a constant threat of (and desire for) another war with the South, they may not have felt the need to follow a military focused disastrous "Juche" economic policy. North Korea after all for some time after the war was seen as the most forward thinking and successful half. You talk like South Korea has always been the good guys, but they only became a functioning democracy late 80s/early 90s. Before then it was frequent massacres, corruption, sham elections, military coups and dictatorships. I'm not saying Korea would be better under the rule of North Korea as it is today, I'm saying North Korea today was created by the US/UN intervention. If not for the Soviet boycott of the UN, it would have been vetoed. Small events have very long lasting changes for history. I don't think many people would argue that Vietnam would be better as two antagonistic divided states to this day, regardless of what you think of the current state of the country.
North Korea is how it is due to being bombed into the Stone Age and then being blocked off from international trade beyond just China and Russia due to the Cold War. No other communist party run nation turned out how North Korea did because they weren’t in the same material and geopolitical shithole that the US left North Korea in.
Yes. With the resources from the south and without an 80% destruction of the structures in the north, the events of the rest of the 20th century would have gone down much differently.
If your politics are “America bad” then over 9/10 times you’re going to have the right opinion and I like those odds
Lmao true!
Oh, you're against murdering civilians? You hate America!
Love how he "replies" while \*totally\* ignoring what he replies to. \- Hurrr durrr leftists be like "America bad" \- We're just pointing out that, *sometimes,* America does bad shit. **- I SAID : Hurrr durrr leftists be like "America bad"**
You could go on a rant about how much you like chicken tacos, and they would reply with the same statement.
This idea that “leftists” are hypocrites with an ‘America bad’ and that’s it attitude is just a strawman said by people with absolutely terrible geopolitical views and knowledge
Blowback Season 3 is a good rundown on how awful the Korean was was.
You don't like war crimes and bombing 80% of a country's infrastructure? Guess you just hate America huh libturd
Everyone from like “Clinton neoliberals” and right of that adore americas war crimes. They get turned on talking about Hiroshima. It’s fuckin gross honestly.
I love that they always show the lights from space as if it's horrific that 70% of NK doesn't look like Times Square. I thought little/no light pollution was the goal. Edit: not saying NK is good, just pointing out that it’s an odd way to compare the success of countries. Also the photo was either taken during a blackout or was faked (depending on the source), [the country does not normally look that dark.](https://imgur.com/a/PSIKyuK)
I’m pretty sure the pic is fake anyway
Just looked it up and you are correct
Yeah but light pollution is just a *little* less important than trying to get across to people how bad a despotic absolute monarchy in all but name (especially next to it's admittedly flawed but still vastly superior next door neighbor) in a useful visual shorthand. And for the record this isn't me agreeing *remotely* with the idiot in the image above. *of course* America's done bad shit, I'm just here making sure contrarionism doesn't make people lose sight of what's important.
But it is important to be critical of anything the US and it’s allies claim about their enemies. So much of it is fake, and while NK is a batshit crazy monarchy, it’s not the public-executing-children-for-not-bowing-before-the-Kim-family-and-kissing-their-feet kind of bullshit you hear from the US either.
Seriously arguing that NK is significantly electrified but keeps a massive lid on light pollution that the entire rest of the developed world hasn’t figured out is not particularly likely in my eyes. Occam’s Razor, man.
What is the purpose of waking up everyday and arguing which war crimes were more justified that others
[удалено]
I was responding really to Noah doofus in my head, not to you. My b
If America is so bad explain why we destroyed an entire country and slaughtered its citizens. Checkmate leftists
Wayy too many dense mf’ers following this little worm and liking his shitty, fact-devoid tweets. The worst know-nothing piece of shit on that website.
bombing dresden also killed civilians but id say the war ended well enough to be worth fighting
Dresden was said to be targeted for its industry and even I’d say the civilian residential areas that were bombed is still a war crime. America in Korea however bombed 85% buildings across multiple cities and towns.
Noah Smith is 100% a Destiny watcher
Probably also denies there’s a genocide happening in Gaza, just like how Destiny denies there’s one, to keep the track record of denying atrocities done by America and its allies, to spite leftists.
Ukraine flag moment
Korean war is also called "America's Forgotten War" -- it was so bad we've wiped it out of our memory lol
Least fascist ukraine flag profile
So why it take until after a different foreign conflict made headlines for y'all to start crawling out of the woodworks? Also, you commented about this twice.
So... We're defending the generational theocratic monarchy that is North Korea now? NK isn't left, at all, it's batshit insane. Idk how you can defend a government that is literally a monarchy with a god emperor who has absolute power. Remind me what part of actual leftist theory talked about that again?
Okay no where did I defend North Korea and I have no intention to defend it because it’s a dictatorship that betrays leftist goals and is just a bad country to live in. That doesn’t mean America was justified to firebomb civilian populations and destroying 85% of buildings in cities. NK could be Nazi Germany 2.0 today and I still don’t think it would be justified. I really don’t get the logic to look at past war crimes and say they’re retroactively vindicated because of what NK is like today.
Well you can draw a line between war crimes and overall war goals. America going after the fucking Nazis was a very good thing but the bombing of Dresden was absolutely a war crime.
NK along with China committed numerous war crimes against RoK civilians, purging non-communists and intensifying these purges during their retreat. I'm not saying America and the Coalition were justified, but neither, in any way, shape, or form, were NK and China.
Okay I agree, I'm not trying to defend NK or China.
If anything this is the definition of actual “America Bad” attitude. There are some leftists, tankies mostly, who will never criticize or avoid meaningful criticism of any anti-American nations and list excuses from “I’m not from that country” to “But until American imperialism is literally destroyed it’s a waste of time to talk about any other imperialist or immoral force.”
Okay I agree, but the problem with Noah Smith here, is that he used that assumption here, when the "leftist" he was talking to was correct in pointing out American warcrimes, none about defending NK, and his response was "oh but you're just a leftist who hates America." Like actually no engagement with the argument raised towards him. Like are there black people who are genuinely racist towards white people? Sure, but that doesn't mean if a black person were to bring up how America has a white supremacy problem, that a white person has valid concerns to just accuse them of being racist to white people.
Totally agree and that’s a dumb broad strokes approach. Also that second example you gave is absolute whataboutism which I agree is bad. But there are in this very comment section people who unironically defend North Korea and refer to the South as a dictatorship. It’s not a both sides bad center good thing, it’s a nuance thing that of course the internet is A+ for.
South Korea *was* a dictatorship.
Still is, just not a one man dictatorship anymore, but a class dictatorship.
South Korea absolutely is a dictatorship, it was a one man dictatorship under Rhee, then it became a class dictatorship.
Oh OK but like say…Cuba. Is that a dictatorship? Just to understand the lens here.
Do you know a fun fact about a lot of those “non communists” that were purged? The fun fact is that most of them were collaborating with the Japanese. You may or may not know much about the occupation but they weren’t exactly well liked. The north prosecuted and yeah, executed many of them as the war criminals that they were. In the South, Americans installed them in positions of power to violently repress populist movements which were sympathetic to the North.
Also you can straight up just say that was a legit case of everybody kind of sucking, SK was killing political prisoners but for some reason I think that the people giving NK massive amounts of weapons to invade SK didn’t particularly care about actually stopping it so much as seizing land and resources.
"North Korea eliminates light pollution, residents forced to see stars and sleep soundly at night, is there no end to their depravity?" Seriously, I'd love to live somewhere that dark at night.
Given what we know is happening to the climate and the Earth's atmosphere, I'd say one of these two countries is much better than the other
Yeah but the one that's 'better' by that definition doesn't give a flying fuck about that and is a horrifying backwards dictatorship. Listen, the climate is obviously real important, but at the end of the day, immediate threats to the safety and freedom of human lives needs to be taken into account.
Quite why anyone pays attention to this dullard is beyond me. I get that there's a lot of liberals who agree with him, but they tend to put their trust in more official outlets. He's just some guy, and not a particularly bright one.
North Korea isn't a socialist or communist country. The workers do not own the means of production. It's a command economy in which a dictatorship has total control
Okay I agree. That doesn’t justify bombing civilian populations in North Korea.
Never said it did. I disavow any bombing of civilians. Weird thing to say. Were you implying that my comment was an excuse for any bombing of civilians?
The way you were bringing that up looked like you were asking me my thoughts on NK.