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Comment by drewmol | Hacker News Reader

Any good sources on what it’s actually like?

There are probably no good sources for what your average North Korean's life is currently like. There are a handful of famous accounts from a few of those who escaped the country and they're obviously pretty grim (particularly those describing prison camp life) but the stereotype is of this primitive country, which is backwards both ideologically and technologically. I'm not an idiot, I don't believe there's a little hidden Wakanda going on there. But we can at least observe that if they're able to hack that quantity of crypto there is some kind of tech operation going on there, however small it might be. So they're not entirely shut off and they're able to penetrate at least a bunch of western crypto-startups.

If you're motivated, don't mind a very on-rails, restricted and relatively pricey tour, you can actually visit yourself: https://koryogroup.com - I've wanted to for a while, but I've spent less money to travel in other interesting places with fewer restrictions for longer, so it's hard to justify the expense.

An interesting read you might like is by a couple of Austrian guys who decided to hop on a train there, confusing and irritating border officials who didn't expect an invasion from the northern direction :) http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com

Probably the most accessible and interesting thing though, is a podcast series called "Blowback" (it's Season 3, the previous two were on the Cuban revolution and the Iraq war). Now obviously this isn't the current day but it presents a slightly more balanced view of the events leading up to and throughout the Korean War than your average American or Brit might have picked up through osmosis. It's fascinating, well-produced, well-sourced and has a very good soundtrack. Here's ep 1: https://www.stitcher.com/show/blowback/episode/s3-episode-1-...

As I said, there will be no good way to get any kind of verifiable account of how awful or how ok-ish is it is there. And I'm deliberately putting "ok-ish" as the upper limit because while I'm sure that all the ~20 million inhabitants aren't all living the prison camp lifestyle, I don't imagine your average North Korean has a particularly pleasant life.

Sorry, maybe not the answer you were hoping for but I hope you enjoy any or all of the things I suggested :)

I'm sorry, but any society that has 60% living below the poverty line, and is ran by a totalitarian regime with minimal respect for basic human rights is absolutely backwards. South Korea, one of the most advanced societies in the world, is basically what North Korea could be if not for its brutal dictatorship.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0417-4

I think you're missing the point here. The expectations are through the floor, people think of the country as effectively useless and laughable, and yet it's been able to stake out a niche in cryptocurrency attacks, there may be some reasonable competency in cybersecurity attacks too. It doesn't mean it's developed (it's not), it doesn't mean it's to a country to be admired (it's not), it simply means you need to look at the world with a bit of nuance, and not with the FOX News "NORTH KOREA BAD" viewpoint because it's clearly not quite that simple. If you want to boil it down that way you need to think "NORTH KOREA BAD BUT WITH SOME SURPRISING NICHE COMPETENCIES"

You're quoting articles about poverty in North Korea at me as if I'm in denial about this, which is weird because I start and end my comment talking about how shit life is probably like there. It's a bit like you read a couple of words, got excited that you spotted one of The Reds and decided to call in an airstrike

You're not making any point, you're just trying to shut down any criticisms of North Korea as not being "nuanced enough". It's a backwards country with a few niches which yes includes international theft of billions of dollars. You can find the good in anything, even a steaming pile of shit can still provide nutrition to soil. Every country has nice things about it (however few), that's stating the obvious.

I’ve tried to use the story to suggest people look beyond simple stereotypes and think about a country and a people without the prejudice we may have casually accumulated through our lives. I’ve tried to empathise a bit with the people, and I’ve shared a couple of resources that might help do the same.

I don’t know what you’re doing, feels a little bit like you’re trying to beat a statement out of me, or tell me I’m guilty of WrongThink.

> You're not making any point, you're just trying to shut down any criticisms of North Korea as not being "nuanced enough".

He is making a point: it's foolish to assume North Korea is just a bunch of starving people with no heat, living in dilapidated Soviet-style buildings.

They've built nukes. They're pretty successful at hacking. It has capabilities the defy the stereotype.

And I acknowledged that. We all know NK has a small social elite that does these things, no one has said otherwise. It's not an excuse to shut down their criticisms as a backwards country.

Criticizing North Korea here is like saying water is wet or something. It's so incredibly boring. People aren't trying to "shut down criticism", they're trying to have an interesting conversation, hopefully without some bore saying "you do know that water is wet, right??" over and over again.

Reread the original conversation. It was about how North Korea was able to achieve some rather impressive technical achievements. It wasn't until the conversation was derailed by a "well akshually NK is not that bad" that we started having to go in detail on why NK is a, yes, poor and backwards country. I didn't want or expect to have to discuss this, but if someone wants to challenge the notion, I'm going to respond.

> But we can at least observe that if they're able to hack that quantity of crypto there is some kind of tech operation going on there, however small it might be. So they're not entirely shut off and they're able to penetrate at least a bunch of western crypto-startups.

I once read a blog post or something from someone who claimed to have gone to North Korea to teach Computer Science or something. This article sounds like it covers similar ground: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z4m8qx/how-to-teach-computer....

Also, North Korea also has an elite. IIRC, a significant chunk of North Korean imports are luxury goods and modern consumer products to keep this elite happy.

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