At first I was like “Oh, well a DNR is not that crazy a thing to hav-oh.” I would probably take my chances with bleeding out too.

I love checking the byline on these opinion pieces.

The author is a member of the “Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong” and has based most of his career on fearmongering Tiananmen Square. He was banned from entering China years ago, so obviously is extremely unbiased.

He is actually Juche Bot, nobody would suspect him if he posts a photo of himself.

or liberalism, socialism, communism or any number of other -isms.

I would put money on many of them not really being able to define a democracy or republic. Their level of political awareness is [generally] staggeringly low.

They pretty much glaze over with anything more complicated than “blue team left, red team right”.

They are making it sounds like they are unearthing ancient progenitor weapons to subjugate the population. Man, I knew I should have gone into archaeology.

My father made the mistake of telling me I would become less liberal, instead of more conservative.

He was right, but unaware of the monkey paw curling.

Just for the fun of it, let’s grant that Russia has some secret mind-scrambling ray that can pinpoint a single person in a crowded studio, undetected. That premise is ridiculous enough, but let’s just run with it.

Where did they deploy it from? Was there a guy in the studio? Building nearby? Biden has security service protection that is going to be screening all those places, nobody would even be able to use a handheld mind ray.

Or does Russia have mind-melting space lasers now? From which satellite are those being beamed down?

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.

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

Obviously the US invented freedom, it did not exist historically.

Therefore it is an obvious requirement that you be American to be a free-thinker, so only American news outlets can be free. If they say something wrong, then they have obviously been subverted by China/Russia and are no longer free.

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 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.

Only once? I have been accused of being a Russian agent, a DPRK agent, a Chinese agent, and once a CIA agent for some reason.

Interestingly I hear the DPRK one the most. Maybe because I live in Asia, not sure. You can sometimes get away with saying something positive about China, but absolutely no positivity is ever allowed about the DPRK. I think I said I had a pretty good pizza there (I did) and people lost their shit.

I must be pulling quite the paycheque for all the world governments I work for.

They are probably workshopping “Government mandated daycare facilities” next.

Nobody can say that he wasn’t given ample opportunity and more than reasonable responses prior to his just sentencing.
He got more nuanced feedback in a post in Memes than he probably will ever see again in lemm.ee