this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2023
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Communism
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It seems like you assume there is a direct relationship between how brutal a dictatorship is and how often people revolt, but I don't see why that would be the case.
An important factor in how people resist their government is the risk/reward of doing so. Do they understand that revolt can create change? Do they fear for their lives?
My understanding is that in North Korea, it is very likely that speaking out against the government will result in years or decades of jail time. Information there is also tightly controlled, so people do not believe such action would be productive anyway. I think a person would not want to revolt given those conditions, even if they are not happy with their government.
Simply put, they do not know things can be better, and they wouldn't know how to make them better if they did.
well...maybe we should ask the russians in 1917, or people under pinochet, cubans under batista et al
I would argue the people in every case you just listed were far more aware of the reward of revolt, which is half the equation. All of those dictatorships had existed for less than 15 years before another revolution or similar event had taken place. The people remembered a better life.
North Korea has some of the most effective information control seen this century, and their government has held uninterrupted power spanning 50 years. They are arguably the single most extreme case in modern history of a population that is ill-equipped to revolt.
"All of those dictatorships had existed for less than 15 years before another revolution or similar event had taken place. The people remembered a better life" oh c'mon now...what about french revolution? what about the change into capitalism from feudalism? "North Korea has some of the most effective information control seen this century" yeah, because north koreans are too stupid to know about the world under the eye-that-sees-everything of ~~sauron~~ kim family
This sounds like the White Man's Burden. The people who live in DPRK are well-equipped to know what makes a happy and healthy life. They're not any more brainwashed/blindly obedient to "the party" than people in the West are.
What a strangely intentional choice of words. I was talking about their awareness of how their government could/does treat them. You've changed the subject to their awareness of...happiness and health?
Part of living a happy life is not living in fear of your government. To deny that North Koreans live in fear of their government is to basically ignore all of the information we have from the people who lived there.
The only standard that applies is the happiness and health of the people. Saying that they "don't know" or "wouldn't know how" dehumanizes the people who live there.
There's disgrace in describing people this way. Do better.
It's fun to nibble the bait sometimes, just to see how strongly their line is set. :)
The worst part is when you fall for it and think there's someone with a brain on the other end, so you waste time treating them like a human being instead of just pointing and laughing at a clown.
Yeah, it can be frustrating. I think it's worth treating it like a bit of theater.
You're not talking to a person, trying to convince them (that doesn't work). You're showing the couple of lurkers here how silly that viewpoint is, and how rad we are.
Or just taking the time to be a feral weirdo to a lib who's used to the usual liberal fetish of politeness in tone over everything else. Either way works! 😁
Yeah, I'm all out of patience at this point, probably just going to do more of the latter, it's way more fun.