People always say this to but I don't think it's even true, or misrepresents greatly the situation.
North Korea was the better place to live until the collapse of the USSR and mid-90s famine. That's not up for debate. Their living standard and quality of life were overall much higher than ROK thanks to Russian subsidies.
North Korea has far less farmland than the ROK, which has many more river valleys and warmer latitudes. North Korea also lacks trading partners due to sanctions, while ROK currently imports around 80 percent of its food.
The US and ROK time their military drills specifically to fuck with DPRK's planting and harvesting seasons, forcing them to divert manpower to defense positions when they need able-bodied men to be on farms.
Given these three points, I think North Korean hunger is almost entirely due to the US and its policies. But nobody likes to hear that the Kims might not be horrible monsters
People who escape North Korea have zero prospects here in the ROK where I currently live. It's the most competitive economy and job market you can imagine.
Defectors have no professional certifications, no college degree, and no plastic surgery (pervasive in ROK where a photo is required to add to your CV).
Moreover, ROK people are highly judgmental toward anybody different. North Koreans "talk funny" so they are immediately outcast.
(Recently, to address the situation, the ROK government has started a program to get NK refugees jobs as bus drivers)
The best way for these refugees to make money is to tell their stories. And the more sensational, the better. They get speaking gigs, book deals, and small fame with their faces on TV.
Here's a news story addressing its directly: Why do North Korean defector testimonies so often fall apart? | North Korea | The Guardian https://share.google/fqpw81A1uZwXk0lR7
If it were phrased "they decimated the population" most would assume from the phrasing that it mean that you're saying that a large proportion was killed, because that's how that word is actually used in the English language. If it were phrased "they decimated 10 percent of the population" you're either using the word as people understand it wrong or your saying they killed 10 percent of the population twice right next to each other, which is you know, redundant.
The definition of words reflect how we use them. An interesting fact is that scientists use Latin for scientific names of things because no one speaks Latin so the meanings of those words will not change with time. It's the same in courts, you'll find that a lot of old English words that aren't commonly used in everyday conversation are used and that's so that the meaning of things stay consistent over time.
If you replace "wiped out" in the title of the OP with decimate then it'd be exactly as wasteful, would use the word as it's understood in modern English properly, and you'd get to use the original meaning too. Sure, it's redundant (sort of) but it doesn't take any extra time or space than what's already written.
Actually, after some further thought I've realised I was wrong actually. If you were to use the phrasing "decimated 10 percent of the population", it wouldn't be redundant it would just be straight up wrong. To decimate 10 percent of a population would mean either you killed 10 percent of 10 percent of the population (i.e. 1 percent), or it would mean you've killed a large proportion of that 10 percent of the population.
And of course my point about how using the phrase "decimating the population" on its own would lead to confusion for most people because when people think of "a large proportion of", people generally think that it's more than 10 percent.
Unnecessary or superfluous. For example: calling an ATM (automated teller machine) an "ATM machine".
You seem to have missed the example I gave.
If it were phrased "they decimated 10 percent of the population" you're either using the word as people understand it wrong or your saying they killed 10 percent of the population twice right next to each other, which is you know, redundant.
What would be redundant in this circumstance is saying decimate (e.g. to kill 10 percent of a group) 10 percent of the population. This is of course assuming that the person reading it knows the historical definition of decimate.
Furthermore I used the two different phrasings as examples because if you just wrote "they decimated the population", most people would assume a number larger than 10 percent. But if you try and clarify by stating "they decimated 10 percent of the population", and they know its historical definition, you're being redundant.
So in conclusion, using decimate would either confuse people or be redundant.
As an aside; when you're trying to report something, whether that be a current event or a historical one, you should be using language that the most people will be able to understand for the sake of clarity.
Read my original reply and do realize that it stood perfectly well on its own without captain obvious swooping in to give some grade-school tier lecture that nobody asked for.
Everything about you and your smarmy act is redundant. Can you shut the fuck up? Thanks.
Your original comment didn't stand "perfectly well on its own", actually. Decimate meaning to destroy or kill a large proportion of something is just as literal as the definition you're using, only the definition I'm using is much more commonly used and understood, so it generally takes precedence.
Everything about you and your smarmy act is redundant. Can you shut the fuck up? Thanks.
If you want someone to shut up on the internet, the best way to do it is to not engage them. Works just about every time in my experience. But you cared enough to engage and then engage again.
And if you don't like smarmy people explaining things with a holier than thou attitude, engaging in internet discussion might not be the thing for you, you little piss baby.
A few times a month, maybe? A lot of things come in ten packs and the bakery I work at sells five rolls for a discount, so I’ll get two of those relatively frequently
Very high number of posts, very few comments, for this user.
An average user with a genuine question or sharing will engage with other users. Although with LLMs, there are bots that reply too, in the writing you'll see AI failings, not human failings.
I don't think cm0002 is a bot. From what I remember, cm0002 makes a lot of posts to grow various communities, some of which are crossposts in between communities with similar topics. Although this account looks different from the one I remember, so maybe this one is an alt.
I personally don't find that behaviour to be harmful unless it's fully automated or a fire hose of low quality junk. If a human is picking out the content to post, then it gives people something to discuss and vote on.
I'm likely biased myself since I also schedule out posts with another account @otters_raft@lemmy.ca. I do that since this account is an admin account, and so I don't want to risk any issues if the scheduling tool goes haywire. I do check it about once a day and respond to comments when appropriate, but overall the post to comment ratio on that account is pretty lopsided.
We DO get harmful bots too, and they get downvoted/reported/banned very quickly. Those are pretty obvious since they post spam and ads in unrelated communities.
Anything I don't like or makes me uncomfortable is Russian bots, or Chinese weather/spy balloons, or North Korean propaganda. Everything I like is fact, evidence, and science-based because I said so, or someone I like said so.
hol up, Jeju island is a real place and a real massacre took place there? Doesn't that make it kinda fucked up that the manga Solo Leveling used it as a location and set a different, wholly unrelated massacre there? I just naively assumed they made up an island. There wasn't even a mention of the labor struggle in either the manga or the anime.
I've been trying to go through and see if there are any other allusions that would make it a political statement, but can't really find anything. Maybe that ants were chosen as the enemies who inhabited the island? but the "moral" of that arc was "hell yeah kill everything, even the kids" so I really hope that wasn't meant as an allusion. It's not like the manga makes any political statements in general, it's your typical generic shonen "helping people is good" and "get strong" kinda themes. I guess there's a bit talking about people trying to forget Jeju Island, but it's played entirely in-universe. Seems too strange to be coincidence though.
This is the kind of shit that either gives you a raging authoritarian boner or like in my case, radicalises you toward anarchism, because fuck the state, fuck absolute power.
85 Comments
bdonvr@thelemmy.club · 117 pts · 321d
Turns out South Korea was a brutal military dictatorship under the backing of the US way longer than you'd think
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 82 pts · 321d
USA and brutal dictatorships, name a more iconic duo!
protist@mander.xyz · 39 pts · 321d
Russia and brutal dictatorships? They're both up there
FundMECFS@anarchist.nexus · 10 pts · 320d
Lets just say “superpowers and brutal dictatorships”.
Whoevers dominating in a period in history generally didn’t get there by advocating for peace and self determination.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 321d
North Korea and brutal dictatorship
AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 321d
The Kims never killed 30 thousand people in a few days
sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 320d
The Kims did starve to death a magnitude more over a handful of years.
AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 320d
People always say this to but I don't think it's even true, or misrepresents greatly the situation.
North Korea was the better place to live until the collapse of the USSR and mid-90s famine. That's not up for debate. Their living standard and quality of life were overall much higher than ROK thanks to Russian subsidies.
North Korea has far less farmland than the ROK, which has many more river valleys and warmer latitudes. North Korea also lacks trading partners due to sanctions, while ROK currently imports around 80 percent of its food.
The US and ROK time their military drills specifically to fuck with DPRK's planting and harvesting seasons, forcing them to divert manpower to defense positions when they need able-bodied men to be on farms.
Given these three points, I think North Korean hunger is almost entirely due to the US and its policies. But nobody likes to hear that the Kims might not be horrible monsters
1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 307d
imagine simping for NK like this lol.
AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 306d
Why don't you directly address my points instead?
BrainInABox@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 306d
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 9 pts · 321d
How many regimes did NK install themselves?
StaticFalconar@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 320d
Democracy has been a relatively recent form of government in the grand scheme of things.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 3 pts · 320d
The way the US has been acting, they never seemed to think that democracy is a good form of government, either.
HikingVet@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 305d
The Ancient Greeks would like several words.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -22 pts · 321d
Okay, but have you heard the President of North Korea claimed he scored a perfect golf game and doesn't poop? That's pretty bad, too.
Deceptichum@quokk.au · 39 pts · 321d
AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 320d
Real question: Is this even true?
If it's true, how true is it? Who actually receives those punishment? For what crimes?
1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 307d
oh i forgot, the people who have escaped NK are all paid actors /s
AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 306d
Actually this is somewhat true.
People who escape North Korea have zero prospects here in the ROK where I currently live. It's the most competitive economy and job market you can imagine.
Defectors have no professional certifications, no college degree, and no plastic surgery (pervasive in ROK where a photo is required to add to your CV).
Moreover, ROK people are highly judgmental toward anybody different. North Koreans "talk funny" so they are immediately outcast.
(Recently, to address the situation, the ROK government has started a program to get NK refugees jobs as bus drivers)
The best way for these refugees to make money is to tell their stories. And the more sensational, the better. They get speaking gigs, book deals, and small fame with their faces on TV.
Here's a news story addressing its directly: Why do North Korean defector testimonies so often fall apart? | North Korea | The Guardian https://share.google/fqpw81A1uZwXk0lR7
TL;DR NK refugees are "paid actors" in a sense
1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 306d
Horseshoe theory in action.
AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 306d
Please address my points or stop replying 🤷🏻♀️
"horseshoe theory" is another thought-terminating cliché
Bloomcole@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 321d
Is that another one of the many ridiculous claims pulled out of the ass by by the CIA or do you have some proof
Transform2942@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 321d
Here's a fun game - try sourcing that absurd claim without using any media source funded by NED/USAGM
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 320d
Those are the only media sources that have freedom and liberty, though. We HAVE to trust them or we become Tankies.
Transform2942@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 320d
Liberty is when news sources are controlled by the security state
AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 306d
I gave him an article and he still hems and haws because he is full of shit
piccolo@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 320d
I would. But noone outside of NK can communicate to koreans to ask questions.
1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca · -1 pts · 307d
Here's a fun game - try sourcing unbiased news.
Transform2942@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 307d
There is literally no such thing
1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca · -2 pts · 307d
then why even ask someone to source a claim that's funded to make it biased when all media is biased?
Transform2942@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 305d
All media serves the funders and context from which it comes. There is no escaping this, only understanding and compensating
1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 305d
how do you compensate when you believe that all media is biased and all the news is fake?
Gork@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 321d
Not pooping sounds like an advantage though
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 321d
If poop somehow magically teleported from my colon to the sewer I'd save so much time and toilet paper.
:)
But then I'd have no excuse to be alone in an otherwise empty room 30 minutes every day
:(
naeap@sopuli.xyz · -3 pts · 321d
Ah, that's why he is so fat and instead of exploding, he just talks so much shit, to at least get rid of some of it
chloroken@lemmy.ml · 50 pts · 321d
So few opportunities to use the word "decimate" literally. And now, one fewer.
Tenniswaffles@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 321d
Most people don't know the historical definition of decimate, so using here it would be confusing or redundant.
chloroken@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 321d
It would be neither. It would be appropriate.
Can you define the word redundant for me?
Tenniswaffles@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 320d
If it were phrased "they decimated the population" most would assume from the phrasing that it mean that you're saying that a large proportion was killed, because that's how that word is actually used in the English language. If it were phrased "they decimated 10 percent of the population" you're either using the word as people understand it wrong or your saying they killed 10 percent of the population twice right next to each other, which is you know, redundant.
The definition of words reflect how we use them. An interesting fact is that scientists use Latin for scientific names of things because no one speaks Latin so the meanings of those words will not change with time. It's the same in courts, you'll find that a lot of old English words that aren't commonly used in everyday conversation are used and that's so that the meaning of things stay consistent over time.
Cethin@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 320d
If you replace "wiped out" in the title of the OP with decimate then it'd be exactly as wasteful, would use the word as it's understood in modern English properly, and you'd get to use the original meaning too. Sure, it's redundant (sort of) but it doesn't take any extra time or space than what's already written.
Tenniswaffles@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 320d
Actually, after some further thought I've realised I was wrong actually. If you were to use the phrasing "decimated 10 percent of the population", it wouldn't be redundant it would just be straight up wrong. To decimate 10 percent of a population would mean either you killed 10 percent of 10 percent of the population (i.e. 1 percent), or it would mean you've killed a large proportion of that 10 percent of the population.
And of course my point about how using the phrase "decimating the population" on its own would lead to confusion for most people because when people think of "a large proportion of", people generally think that it's more than 10 percent.
chloroken@lemmy.ml · -5 pts · 320d
Can you define the word redundant for me? You seem to have dodged the ask.
Tenniswaffles@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 320d
Unnecessary or superfluous. For example: calling an ATM (automated teller machine) an "ATM machine".
You seem to have missed the example I gave.
What would be redundant in this circumstance is saying decimate (e.g. to kill 10 percent of a group) 10 percent of the population. This is of course assuming that the person reading it knows the historical definition of decimate.
Furthermore I used the two different phrasings as examples because if you just wrote "they decimated the population", most people would assume a number larger than 10 percent. But if you try and clarify by stating "they decimated 10 percent of the population", and they know its historical definition, you're being redundant.
So in conclusion, using decimate would either confuse people or be redundant.
As an aside; when you're trying to report something, whether that be a current event or a historical one, you should be using language that the most people will be able to understand for the sake of clarity.
chloroken@lemmy.ml · -3 pts · 320d
Read my original reply and do realize that it stood perfectly well on its own without captain obvious swooping in to give some grade-school tier lecture that nobody asked for.
Everything about you and your smarmy act is redundant. Can you shut the fuck up? Thanks.
Tenniswaffles@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 320d
Your original comment didn't stand "perfectly well on its own", actually. Decimate meaning to destroy or kill a large proportion of something is just as literal as the definition you're using, only the definition I'm using is much more commonly used and understood, so it generally takes precedence.
If you want someone to shut up on the internet, the best way to do it is to not engage them. Works just about every time in my experience. But you cared enough to engage and then engage again.
And if you don't like smarmy people explaining things with a holier than thou attitude, engaging in internet discussion might not be the thing for you, you little piss baby.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 321d
Asking for the term decimate would have been more appropriate here.
chloroken@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 321d
I think you're right.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 321d
I use it in a mortal combat voice whenever I eat a tenth of something and it always makes my husband laugh (somehow)
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 321d
How often do you eat a tenth of something?
idiomaddict@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 321d
A few times a month, maybe? A lot of things come in ten packs and the bakery I work at sells five rolls for a discount, so I’ll get two of those relatively frequently
Furbag@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 321d
Separate the whole thing into 10 equal sized pieces and then eat one of them?
vin@lemmynsfw.com · 24 pts · 321d
All, it was more than a general strike. Also, fyi, OP is a bot
aceshigh@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 321d
How do you know? What are the lemmy telltale signs?
Nythos@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 321d
Highly disproportionate post to comment ratio is usually a good telltale sign
vin@lemmynsfw.com · 3 pts · 320d
Very high number of posts, very few comments, for this user.
An average user with a genuine question or sharing will engage with other users. Although with LLMs, there are bots that reply too, in the writing you'll see AI failings, not human failings.
otter@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 320d
I don't think cm0002 is a bot. From what I remember, cm0002 makes a lot of posts to grow various communities, some of which are crossposts in between communities with similar topics. Although this account looks different from the one I remember, so maybe this one is an alt.
I personally don't find that behaviour to be harmful unless it's fully automated or a fire hose of low quality junk. If a human is picking out the content to post, then it gives people something to discuss and vote on.
I'm likely biased myself since I also schedule out posts with another account @otters_raft@lemmy.ca. I do that since this account is an admin account, and so I don't want to risk any issues if the scheduling tool goes haywire. I do check it about once a day and respond to comments when appropriate, but overall the post to comment ratio on that account is pretty lopsided.
We DO get harmful bots too, and they get downvoted/reported/banned very quickly. Those are pretty obvious since they post spam and ads in unrelated communities.
vin@lemmynsfw.com · 2 pts · 319d
I feel in this case, "TIL" should be personal (it's not a cross-post too). But in general yeah, bots for things like news sounds like a good idea.
isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 321d
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · -16 pts · 321d
Anything I don't like or makes me uncomfortable is Russian bots, or Chinese weather/spy balloons, or North Korean propaganda. Everything I like is fact, evidence, and science-based because I said so, or someone I like said so.
There, I just summed up humanity for you.
NotSteve_@piefed.ca · 15 pts · 321d
OP has posted like the majority of their post history (119 posts) in the last 24 hours
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 321d
OP is very dedicated. Or maybe they're just a shell script.
elevenbones@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 321d
Prolly just describing yourself aka projecting
liuther9@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 320d
Are you going to apologize?
ikidd@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 320d
And yet I've had DM convos with them that were remarkably like talking with a human. Am I a bot?
vin@lemmynsfw.com · 1 pts · 319d
Maybe.. Are you able to tick the box?
quick_snail@feddit.nl · 1 pts · 320d
I wish we had more bots posting useful links to articles.
Humans just seem to post screenshots of headlines ;/
djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 18 pts · 321d
hol up, Jeju island is a real place and a real massacre took place there? Doesn't that make it kinda fucked up that the manga Solo Leveling used it as a location and set a different, wholly unrelated massacre there? I just naively assumed they made up an island. There wasn't even a mention of the labor struggle in either the manga or the anime.
JakenVeina@midwest.social · 14 pts · 321d
Seems more lile an explicit political statement, but yeah.
djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 321d
I've been trying to go through and see if there are any other allusions that would make it a political statement, but can't really find anything. Maybe that ants were chosen as the enemies who inhabited the island? but the "moral" of that arc was "hell yeah kill everything, even the kids" so I really hope that wasn't meant as an allusion. It's not like the manga makes any political statements in general, it's your typical generic shonen "helping people is good" and "get strong" kinda themes. I guess there's a bit talking about people trying to forget Jeju Island, but it's played entirely in-universe. Seems too strange to be coincidence though.
harmsy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 320d
Jeju Island is basically the Kenny of South Korean novels and webcomics. Place gets cooked pretty often.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca · 17 pts · 321d
The anti-socialist views of the southern government and worry about losing control to the north played more into it than the strike.
AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml · 13 pts · 321d
I live near one of the uncovered mass graves. They put a hauntingly beautiful memorial over it.
RedSnt@feddit.dk · 8 pts · 321d
This is the kind of shit that either gives you a raging authoritarian boner or like in my case, radicalises you toward anarchism, because fuck the state, fuck absolute power.
quick_snail@feddit.nl · 6 pts · 320d
Coming to NYC soon
Bloomcole@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 321d
Good old US installed fascists.