Dessalines on the "NK isn't actually a Dictatorship" soapbox again doesn't seem to want to live there, crazy ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠

Imagine the amount of cognitive dissonance you'd need to endure to think NK is not a dictatorship.

Enough to make me think they are well aware they are defending a dictatorship, but you never know. Something something Hanlon's razor and all.

I've said it before but it's ridiculous the complete conspiracy brain of tankies to believe that the whole world is being systematically lied to about these states in particular by every world government and news source but somehow the free, public forums where they get their information are the only right ones.
I mean, let's say its not as bad as our governments say. Its still verifiably a dictatorship, a hereditary one at that.
- I think it’s in many ways as bad as it is caricatured. Just our governments are far far far closer to it than most people realise.
Imagine the amount of cognitive dissonance you'd need to endure to think NK is not a dictatorship.
Setting aside dessalines' views on living in North Korea, probably goes the other way too, considering what Internet access is like in North Korea:
https://www.wired.com/story/internet-reality-north-korea/
https://archive.ph/lC0oi
“A librarian sits between two internet users and continuously monitors what people on both sides are searching up,” Kim said in testimony to the researchers. “Every five minutes, the screen freezes automatically, and the librarian must do a fingerprint authentication to allow further internet use.” A state security officer was also always nearby, they said.
People were allowed to use the internet for an hour, and if someone wanted more time, they would need to obtain new permission, Kim said. It took around two days to get permission from authorities to use the internet, a task requiring approvals from various officials. If someone applied too often, they would be made to wait, Kim said. “Every Korean website is blocked, and only Chinese or English websites are available.”
A few dozen families with connections to Kim Jong-Un and some foreigners have unrestricted access to the global internet, while a “few thousand” people—including government officials, researchers, and students studying IT—can access a surveillance-heavy version of it, according to the report and previous research. North Koreans like Kim who are allowed some foreign travel, usually for business, can sometimes access the global web while abroad.
North Korea probably considers Lemmy or anything like it to be a dire threat to state security, would never permit its people to see it or access information on it. Totally undermine state control of the information sphere.
- Isn't hexbear banned in China?

Imagine how much work could be done on Lemmy if Dessalines spent half as much time developing it as they do banning dissent and wrongthink. And then they wonder why people are so reluctant to donate to them.

I wouldn't get my phone fixed at a shop where half the hours billed are the owner shitposting on social media. Why should anyone pay for Lemmy development when the developers are scamming like this?
What this moron is a dev? Hahahaha
- Yup. Dessalines and Nutomic, both very problematic in their own stupid ways.

When I first joined lemmy I didn't know about the tankie triad so I wandered into a thread where all the hexies were telling me how much more propaganda Americans are fed than anyone else in the entire world, and when I tried to point out NK (because there's so much propaganda there the citizens aren't even allowed to see anything outside their country) I got told I was too brainwashed to understand how cool NK was.

Pretty sure there are still precisely 0 hexies who've moved to NK, despite it being the best country on Earth apparently.

Don't get me wrong, Americans really are fed an absurd amount of propaganda, and it's as likely (if not more so) to come from private sources as it is from the government. Watching American media from the outside is a wild ride, and it's no wonder everyone is so extreme.
That said, the DPRK is on another level entirely.
- They should bring their families to the best country on earth then.

But if we don't give them money Lemmy will die!!!

'pweese give us donations so we can censor you more'

This almost feels like elaborate satire.

Does Dessalines actually believe what he says? Or is this some sort of "end justifies the means" attempt at "counter-propganada"? I am genuinely curious what the story is here.

~~yes, they legitimately believe this.~~
- but then why don't they want to live there?
  do we even know roughly where does he live?

He sure is damn free arguing with people and then banning when people fires back.

Notice how he literally never posts outside of .ml, because he cannot handle anyone being free to argue against his edgy keyboard warrior bullshit without threat of the ban hammer. He's legitimately a fucking coward.
- I think his tiny little brain would explode trying to cope with actually having to consider other viewpoints and arguments. The cognitive dissonance would be spectacular.

Several things can be true at once. North Korea is absolutely a totalitarian dictatorship, where no one reasonable would choose to live on their own accords. But also, governments lie, there's a lot of propaganda about north Korea, and defectors especially are not the trustworthy sources we like to pretend.

There is a lot of propaganda about North Korea, mainly spread by hardliners in the South. I think a lot of older South Koreans have a bit of a chip on their shoulders from the days when the tables were turned.
Back when the Soviets were bankrolling the North and the South was led by a military dictatorship, the North was objectively a better place to live. A lot of older South Koreans like my parent's generation were raised on propaganda from the government, and a lot of them have a hard time letting go of it.
Which is bad, because there no real reason to make the situation in the north any more dire than it truly is. Their population is isolated from their families in the South, have cycles of severe food insecurity, and are at risk of inhumane punishment from a dynastic family that treat the country like a toy.

Okay with most communist/"communist" states being practicing heavy censorship tankies at least have their excuse with places like NK and China, but goddamn it takes a special kind of asshole to carry water for Assad's Syria.

Also from BBC: South Korea: Defectors from North struggle with debt

That "reward" is 1) for intel so not every NK defectors get that amount of reward and 2) not nearly enough to help them throughout their entire journey. They pay arms and legs to get out and they (obviously) struggle to settle even after all that. My favorite quote from an interview with a NK defector:

All NK defectors, even after they set foot in South Korea, had to escape from North Korea at some point. It haunts us.

As a South Korean myself, it's pretty revolting to think that this fake woke pos is calling NK defectors liars.

Just the fact that a refugee can be a "defector" is enough to make North Korea irredeemably evil.
Making it illegal to leave is wrong. It is inexcusable. It is evil.
Dessalines is a problem.
- well said. unfortunately they dismiss it as western propaganda

I know venezuelans. What they recount about the country is bonkers.

A person can build a small business from scratch. If someone rats on them or the business simply becomes noteworthy, get ready to have it seized by some high rank military or politian.

A person can have a house, they decide to rent a room to help ends meet. If they rent to someone that loses their job or with kids, they can deny paying rent and take the house from you.

There is little to no rule of law. Forget about courts. Schools are indoctrination camps: children will be requested to do assignments of manifestations, pro-government, that happened the day before; who cares about a formal curriculum? Corruption is rife, on all levels. Everyone has a state pension... 4 dollars worth. You can't buy anything with it.

Venezuela is not left wing: it's a cleptocratic authoritarian state, thinly veiled behind socialist rethoric.