Slashdot Mirror

I don't think many people would disagree with you that it's a hellhole but things like this make it easier for people to understand. It's not easy to comprehend what it's like to live in a true, card carrying hell hole.

There are a few hints available.

Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag

In the remote north-eastern corner of North Korea, close to the border of Russia and China, is Haengyong. Hidden away in the mountains, this remote town is home to Camp 22 - North Korea's largest concentration camp, where thousands of men, women and children accused of political crimes are held. Now, it is claimed, it is also where thousands die each year and where prison guards stamp on the necks of babies born to prisoners to kill them. . . .

Witnesses have described watching entire families being put in glass chambers and gassed. They are left to an agonising death while scientists take notes. The allegations offer the most shocking glimpse so far of Kim Jong-il's North Korean regime.

Kwon Hyuk, who has changed his name, was the former military attaché at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing. He was also the chief of management at Camp 22. In the BBC's This World documentary, to be broadcast tonight, Hyuk claims he now wants the world to know what is happening.

'I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber,' he said. 'The parents, son and and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.'

Hyuk has drawn detailed diagrams of the gas chamber he saw. He said: 'The glass chamber is sealed airtight. It is 3.5 metres wide, 3m long and 2.2m high_ [There] is the injection tube going through the unit. Normally, a family sticks together and individual prisoners stand separately around the corners. Scientists observe the entire process from above, through the glass.'

He explains how he had believed this treatment was justified. 'At the time I felt that they thoroughly deserved such a death. Because all of us were led to believe that all the bad things that were happening to North Korea were their fault; that we were poor, divided and not making progress as a country.

'It would be a total lie for me to say I feel sympathetic about the children dying such a painful death. Under the society and the regime I was in at the time, I only felt that they were the enemies. So I felt no sympathy or pity for them at all.'

His testimony is backed up by Soon Ok-lee, who was imprisoned for seven years. 'An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy female prisoners,' she said. 'One of the guards handed me a basket full of soaked cabbage, told me not to eat it but to give it to the 50 women. I gave them out and heard a scream from those who had eaten them. They were all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leaves started violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell. In less than 20 minutes they were quite dead.'

Kim curses defectors’ families for three generations

North Korea has ordered the “unconditional punishment” of three generations of the family of anyone escaping from the country and given border guards orders to shoot suspected fugitives on sight.

Inside a North Korean prison camp: satellite analysis reveals prison life and death

Not much is known about Camp 25, but one thing is sure – the innocuous name given to this North Korean political prison camp does no justice to the human suffering that goes on within.

Greenwald's Finale: Naming Victims of Surveillance
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/05/26/greenwalds_finale_naming_victims_of_surveillance_122747.html

The source article is paywalled

To agree with your point to some extent, I think Elysium (the movie set partially in a space habitat) would have been a much better film if Jodi Foster as a villain had made the point that the solar system would be "full" in 1000 years of unchecked growth, and so as a matter of policy, the "unworthy" breeders on Earth had to be kept down and away from Elysium. I'm not saying I'd agree, but it would have provided a justification of her actions on a larger scale -- a justification very similar to that made by many wealthy people today or in years gone by.

"Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation"
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.u...

"Scientists have created the ultimate GM crop: contraceptive corn. ... The company, which says it will not grow the maize near other crops, says it plans to launch clinical trials of the corn in a few months."
http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

Seven years later: "New Study Links Genetically Engineered Corn to Infertility"
http://www.organicconsumers.or...

Or maybe I've just watched too much "Star Gate: SG1"? :-)
http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki...
"The Aschen's intentions were eventually uncovered when members of SG-1 unearthed the remains of what used to be a thriving urban civilization on the Volian world, learning that the Aschen's Anti-aging vaccine had the effect of sterilizing the entire population, after which they were wiped out."

Robots, Terrafoam, and contraceptives in the water is probably more reliable though, as Marshall Brain envisioned in "Manna":
http://marshallbrain.com/manna...
"I replied, "We could change it now. Robots are doing all the work. Human beings -- all human beings -- could now be on perpetual vacation. That's what bugs me. If society had been designed for it somehow, we could all be on vacation instead of on welfare. Everyone on the planet could be living in luxury. Instead, they are planning to kill us off. Did you hear that women were trying to drink the water out of the river? Some people think they're putting contraceptives in the water.""

That reflects and aspect of my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity."

It may well be the case that there are always current limits. Perhaps everyone can't have their own private Caribbean island (yet, but maybe someday via SeaSteading or HoloDecks). There may always be some level of competition, including as young men and women struggle to show off for potential mates. But as a society we can shape how those competitive urges are directed to some extent, like James P. Hogan talked about in "Voyage from Yesteryear".

Still, there is a huge difference between people going hungry and being forced to take jobs they do not want versus people who can eat what they want and choose to spend their time how they want (subject to what other people are willing to do together with them). There may be many levels of abundance, but it seems that such a change in people being able to choose how to spend most of their waking hours without a direct need to earn money, such as via basic income, may be the biggest one.

And there may be dark sides to it too, like the potential for addiction, alienation, and isolation that can come with a wealth of material objects and personal space. Related items:
http://europepmc.org/articles/...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...

We'll show them the light ! Here they are, all of them in all their glory:

http://www.independent.ie/
http://www.irishexaminer.com/
http://www.irishtimes.com/
http://www.thestar.ie/
http://www.herald.ie/
http://www.independent.ie/
http://www.sundayworld.com/
http://www.businesspost.ie/
http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/fr/viewer.aspx (they don't even have a website, how funny)
http://www.farmersjournal.ie/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/
http://www.thesun.ie/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/
http://www.thesun.co.uk/

Most of them don't even have an irish dedicated website. They are pathetic. It's like passing a decree that makes people owing me $300 if they ever whisper my name in their car. There. Be warned.

maybe its the most clever link bait :)

We'll show them the light ! Here they are, all of them in all their glory:

http://www.independent.ie/
http://www.irishexaminer.com/
http://www.irishtimes.com/
http://www.thestar.ie/
http://www.herald.ie/
http://www.independent.ie/
http://www.sundayworld.com/
http://www.businesspost.ie/
http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/fr/viewer.aspx (they don't even have a website, how funny)
http://www.farmersjournal.ie/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/
http://www.thesun.ie/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/
http://www.thesun.co.uk/

Most of them don't even have an irish dedicated website. They are pathetic. It's like passing a decree that makes people owing me $300 if they ever whisper my name in their car. There. Be warned.

Sleeping with some disgusting old lard-arse who could never get a real date ...

Though of course, not everyone who can't get a real date is a disgusting old lard-arse.

An interesting angle on this debate is one that has received coverage in the UK recently: disabled people using prostitutes. There was a sympathetic (but pay walled) article in the Sunday Times recently:

"Some disabled people are cut off not only from sex but from any kind of gentle touch. People whose disabilities have prevented others ever being attracted to them are painfully conscious of the raw judgments of the sexual marketplace. ... It is impossible to read some of the joyous, grateful accounts of people who have just had sex for the first time without feeling that simplistic judgments about the evils of prostitution are an inadequate response to this need. A man who cannot talk wrote thankfully about his wonderment at not being made to feel awkward or stupid; another said his escort was gentle, intuitive and trying hard to make the whole experience special. In this surprising world, their pride is often matched by the prostitutes’ agencies, some of which advertise themselves as “being able to provide a genuine unhurried caring service for our disabled clients”."