Joe

Big Beautiful Bill, obviously AI

Clearly the solution is to have one almighty military power, capable of enforcing peace in every corner of the world and in every living room. We could call it God Inc… or Musk Robotics… Let us outsource our humanity to a higher power, for surely it can’t do worse than petty wannabe dictators like putin and trump. Right? Right?

Ugh… maybe it’s easier to create a another silly meme instead. Perhaps with enough silly memes, we can change the world…

Censorship / free speech is hard to get right, especially in the online world.

I’m for an individual standing on a pulpit and expressing their views, so long as they can be held to account. If they put the lives of others at risk, spread dangerous lies or harrass others unjustly, and there is legal recourse through an independent legal system(s) … no problem, because there are checks and balances. Many countries have a healthy foundation to support free speech.

OTOH, I am for restricting mis/dis-information campaigns by governments (also my own), corporations, special interest groups, and billionaires. We know it’s possible to effectively manipulate people and it’s really just another form of psychological warfare. The challenge is how to police such things (and when/what/how to educate/censor/fine/ban), with so much money and influence working against it … all without infringing on citizen’s rights.

This was similar to a trick that a few smaller (less serious) hobby-ISPs did back in the days of 14.4k/28.8k modems to take advantage of the “reasonably priced” business plans for ISDN. They’d register multiple businesses at a single address to qualify for the plans, then balance new egress connections across the pool using squid and other magic. Fun times…

With DPRK it seems pretty simple: Are citizens permitted to leave the country of their own accord? The answer of course is no, and that is extremely telling. Combined with choreographed & escort-only tourism, one really has to question it.

My opinion: Odds are likely that it really is a shithole in many ways and in many places (and for many reasons, sanctions included). That said, people will still live their lives within those constraints, because that’s what people tend to do. We won’t get accurate and verifiable information from their government about citizen health and longevity, causes of death, etc. so OP’s propaganda must be taken as just that.

At some point NK’s system will fall, and some historians and archeologists will get to do their thing, and we’ll gain some more insights.

I find it pretty useful to help get me over mental hurdle of starting something. So it’s faster than me procrastinating for another day. ;-)