Oh good, surely this means the companies are successful and the quality of life for all employees will increase. It couldn’t possibly mean that the execs will get new yachts while the rank and file struggle to pay rent.

Right?

Snakes becoming synonymous with evil/bad things has done so much damage to the poor critters. When I was last living in the west (a long long long time ago) I had two pet snakes there were rescues from people trying to kill them. They’re awesome animals that deserve a much better reputation than they get.

That is readily apparent just from watching him speak publicly. If you can’t even read a pre-prepared speech without losing your train of thouht or reading teleprompter cues you probably should not be working.

In this kind of situation I would normally say I feel bad for the elder abuse, but he has been such a piece of shit his entire life he isn’t worth the sympathy.

Probably way more than the 67 million, and this guy just got the scapegoat job. The fact that they didn’t even give him their lawyers on retainer initially and he was assigned a public defender is both hilarious and very telling.

I can’t imagine there is a single person at Epoch Times that is innocent. Maybe the janitors.

America, Land of the Free¹ and Staunch Defenders of the Free Market²!

¹ Except for TikTok

² Except for Chinese Goods

I am thoroughly envious that you have managed to avoid that meme this long. You aren’t missing anything.

We just gonna go full circle on original recipe Coca-Cola again soon?

Yup, all countries supporting them are lumped in as “bad/evil”. Honestly they don’t count any countries that aren’t predominantly white western powers to begin with. Anyone else is “misguided”/“taken advantage of”, like they aren’t capable of making their own decisions about those countries.

When your understanding of geopolitics is less nuanced than GI Joe, it doesn’t take a whole lot to persuade you. Which is exactly what they’ve been conditioned for. Critical thinking is the worst thing that could happen.

It always impresses me how hard the concept of countries acting in their own self-interest is for people to grasp. Instead they need “good guys” and “bad guys” in any kind conflict.

but they haven’t at all explained aside from “well Putin will attack NATO” despite them publicly saying numerous times that they have no intention or interest in attacking NATO.

The argument that they would make is that because Putin is a saturday morning cartoon villain, that obviously he is lying and will be staging an invasion of the rest of the world as soon as the Last Bastion of Freedom, Ukraine, falls.

I have talked to people like this. Their understanding of the background of the war is so poor that they see it as nothing besides a land grab. Which would already make no sense. It’s impossible to have any kind of real discourse because they believe the only motivation is either more land (for the largest country in the world) or just that “Putin is Evil”.

Somewhere between “balkanization of the entire country” and “elimination of every human being with any russian ancestry”.

EDIT: Sorry I also forgot. A huge vacuum in Ukraine that USian forces can drain the last remaining resources from as they make it a vassal state that only exists to house US military.

On one hand, we have a well documented campaign of murdreing civilians and trying to drive them out of their territory permanently, with constant video and photographic evidence to back it up.

On the other hand, we have some questionable anecdotes and blurry satellite photos of some schools and governmental facilities in a country with over a billion people walking around with video cameras in their pockets.

Guess which one the US considers a clear genocide.

“Okay kids, today we are going to learn about how freedom defeated the horrible authoritarian ideals of communism. But first, please stand and pledge your undying alliance to this flag.”

The meme will live forever, but at what cost??

I would be happy with just residency.

Which remains possible, our regional head office is there and I have been angling for a transfer for years. Hopefully in the next couple years it pans out.

Sorry comrade for the slow reply, I try not to look at my PC too much on weekends. Those are the “spend time with partner and/or community organising” days.

A large part of my daily living arrangements were provided for, including the dorm I stayed in, but I did have some time to head out a bit on my own. Mostly was dealt with DPRK won when I did have expenses to pay. I didn’t try to pry into anyone’s personal situation in great detail, my research was on security policy more than economics, but at the same time nobody seemed unduly burdened by their costs of living. I won’t try to say that everything was utopian, they are a country suffering under western sanctions after all and some things that were harder to manufacture locally were harder to get, but people seemed to have enough. My understanding is that a lot of people were participating in informal markets as a matter of course, especially in the countryside areas. Whether that was something they did out of necessity or not, I am not entirely sure on.

Hi, sure, be glad to. Pretty sure I have talked about it here before somewhere, but it was a while ago.

I went when I was in grad school, which was about 18 years ago at this point (Yes, you can do the math and figure out my age pretty well if you care to). I was there for a few months to do research back when it was maybe a little bit more feasible to make that kind of arrangement. I spent a few months there, at Kim Il Sung University. There were a number of other foreigners there working as faculty as well. Most people I talked to were fairly friendly, my Korean is not amazing but I got by (and many students at the university were studying foreign languages). They generally provided a lot of the materials I asked for, though since I was studying security there was obviously some military documents I requested that were denied. Which you get used to hearing in that particular field of study anyway.

To answer some common questions, I didn’t really have a government minder following me around or watching what I took pictures of/who I talked to. Basically as long as I behaved like a sane human being, there were no issues and little oversight was required. They did check what I brought with me out of the country, but literally nothing was a violation. I was notably, not considered a tourist because well…I wasn’t one. Pyongyang is a generally nice city, I loved a lot of the mosaics painted around, but I actually enjoyed the areas in the countryside I visited more, lots of really beautiful spots around the country. Paekdu is gorgeous and worth visiting. A lot of things have locally made versions because of sanctions, but like afforementioned pizza it does all exist.

Work-life balance is night/day compared to ROK, which has one of the worst in the world. People finish work/classes generally on time, a lot of adults go to community centers after work to learn different skills. Several people were excited to practice English with me. The ROK on the other hand (I spent a few months here as well, a bit longer overall) is basically work until late hours, drink until you pass out, and repeat.

If you have any specific questions I would be glad to answer them.

I love to cook, but prices have been getting steadily higher for less in my country too. These days I have largely stopped buying much food (my office supplies lunch, so I just make that my one meal for the day). Which sounds insane, but even if I can afford groceries it just feels painful to spend so much on a fairly small amount. When I do buy groceries now I jyst buy eggs and flour and make a lot of pasta, mostly cacio e pepe or aglio e olio. It’s the most cost efficient thing I can think of.

I spent a few months there (and ROK) when I was a grad student. I was studying international security and my thesis was about korean peninsula security.

Nothing too special, I went to an Italian restaurant when I was living there.

Good, traditional Italian style margherita. People just lose their shit that not only does food exist, but that there are a variety of cuisines.

I think that’s all of them actually. That is literally every ‘joke’ they have.