"If being on board with your program is uncritically accepting distortions of the historical truth, count me out"

I'm fine with agreeing to disagree. If you are convinced that things like...

"Stalin's power was restricted by the Political Bureau to an extent much greater than any American President"

...are the undistorted truth, and that accepting that truth is a prerequisite to improving society, there's no convincing you of any practical, common-sense plan.

I guess I am against compromise when the opposing argument seizes on the most extreme position as it's starting point.

The three generations of punishment claim is based on what serious source? Google has longstanding ties with the (obviously very reliable ) US intelligence community, I'm sure that doesn't bother the 'progressives' around here. I'm sure they'd think the same way if google was run by Russian intelligence.

"I guess I am against compromise when the opposing argument seizes on the most extreme position as it's starting point."

You've always had a very narrow view of what constitutes acceptable opinion. You spend more time berating people for not adopting your narrow view of the world than actually trying to convince anybody of anything. All the time while trying to portray yourself as moderate, reasonable, and compromising.

Correctness of opinion isn't, contrary to popular belief, directly proportional with how mainstream and conventional your opinion is. You're going to have to do better than that, especially if you want to convincingly show that you are as moderate, compromising, and open-minded as you continually portray yourself, rather than an ideologically-minded person who unthinkingly repeats what he is told.

"You've always had a very narrow view of what constitutes acceptable opinion."

Well, you've got to have a cutoff point someplace. I'm not sure if excluding "Stalin's power was restricted by the Political Bureau to an extent much greater than any American President" necessarily means my view of the world is "narrow" though. Anyway it's certainly not *you* who decides if my boundaries for what's reasonable are too narrow.

"You're going to have to do better than that"

Not really, I think I've done well enough. I'm not going to let you arbitrarily raise the price of disagreeing with you until I can produce a deductive proof using geometry that you're wrong.

Because it's easier to propose something than it is to refute. I can't keep refuting what you throw out there, it'll take forever. I'm simply not convinced that "Stalin's power was restricted by the Political Bureau to an extent much greater than any American President". I *exclude* that from reasonable discussion.

Very well, if I'm the 'cut off point' then your litany of lectures about how I need to be more to revision and open-minded can be thrown in the dust-bin, since they're transparently hypocritical examples of intellectually dishonest posturing from somebody who never intended to engage in a serious exchange of views.

*open to revision

"Because it's easier to propose something than it is to refute. I can't keep refuting what you throw out there, it'll take forever."

You've got it precisely backwards. You keep proposing things and then taunting me when I try to refute them. I agree it takes forever. It is very tedious. Which is why I have no respect for people who throw accusations out and then whine about having to substantiate them when somebody bothers to reply. That's the height of intellectual laziness and bad faith debate.

"I *exclude* that from reasonable discussion."

Then stop demanding special treatment for yourself and your opinions.

The main problem I have with accepting the things you say as reasonable is that on their face, they stand as a shocking revision to conventional wisdom. That doesn't mean they're wrong by itself, but all the things you offer in support of your proposals are *also* shocking revisions to conventional wisdom. It just never comes back to anything that you and I and the other people you contend with here actually agree is true. It's always an arbitrarily deep regression of shocking "supporting evidence" that never corresponds to the world that most other people are living in, and never arrives at a statement that everyone can agree is true. It's neverending!

Yes, conventional opinions are self-evidently true and you never have to challenge yourself, while others must.

I get it.

You rigged the game to benefit yourself, while decrying others for not playing by the rules you don't follow.

@ Putin: the Three Generations of Punishment rule and practice is quite well documented, starting with the actual statement of the principle by Kim Il Sung in 1972. I agree with tendmote here. It's fine to give a viewpoint that falls out of the realm of conventional wisdom. But if your goal is to convince other people, the onus is on you to demonstrate where 'conventional wisdom' is wrong.

As for the impartiality of information, I agree with the fact that English-speaking sources are one-sided, and that those using the sources often don't recognize this. I'm a pretty receptive audience for this particular point, and have often been educated that what I held as true is actually a viewpoint. I live in Vietnam, so enough material to work with.

But simply stating this systemic bias of information, and offering equally unsubstantiated conspiracy theories as an alternative is not convincing to me.

Where is the statement of principle? The documentation for this is not in anything serious, it's just op-eds.

"But if your goal is to convince other people, the onus is on you to demonstrate where 'conventional wisdom' is wrong. "

That's fine. I accept that 'onus', however unfair the burden is, but not if you're going to simply dismiss everything I say out of hand because it isn't the conventional wisdom, which is what Tendmote is doing, and not if you accept uncritically any information so long as it is conventional, feeling that you don't have to substantiate any of the accusations you make.

Yes, the Enligh ones are mostly op-eds. And reports by *every* respectable human rights organisation on the planet. And reports coming from those fleeing DPRK.

If I could Google (or Yandex if you prefer) in Korean, then I would. But I'm willing to bet you'll find more circumstantial evidence of the three generation rule than sources that say it doesnt exist.

Don't reverse the burden of proof. There is documentation pointing to one side and none pointing to the other side. Does this mean that this first side is correct? Nope. Do I think that there should be more investigation on this? Hell yes. Does DPRK allow this? Hell no. Does that mean we have to reject anything published on this matter? Nope.

You give me some evidence that the 'three generations of punishment' is a fabrication, or we accept that it is true *until proven otherwise*. Bear in mind, i's not like the information from DPRK is more reliable than the ones from various western sources.

That's an absurd way to go about investigating truth claims, and this isn't done with anything else. You're making the accusation, sorry your sources are shitty, but don't go around claiming that there is "ample documentation" and then make excuses for why crappy politics-laden documentation should suffice to justify your claim. You made the claim, you back it up.

"Does that mean we have to reject anything published on this matter? Nope.
"

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. People have an interest in seeing North Korea destroyed, not least of which is the western media and human rights organizations. These are the same people who lied about Iraq leading up to the 1991 Iraq war. Sorry if I don't take your word and their word for it.

May be a bit late to the proverbial party, but the biggest developments to technologies like the computer etc. have predominately come from the military, not corporate greed. Corporate greed hasn't done much but increase the wealth gap even faster, and cause a few more of capitalism's periodic crises to happen sooner.

I'm taking the word of Amnesty, FIDH, HRW. I see no claim to the contrary, do you?

"I'm taking the word of Amnesty, FIDH, HRW. I see no claim to the contrary, do you?"

Considering much of the rest of what these groups say about North Korea are lies, why should we believe them?

Where are the sources that claim they spread lies? Please point me to them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10665964

Amnesty's "report" on the state of North Korean healthcare in 2010 was based on a small number of people who had left the country, some as many as 10 years prior.

"Garwood said hundreds of field missions have been conducted in North Korea.

"None have come back reporting the kinds of things in the Amnesty report in terms of payment for services," he said."

HRW claimed that North Koreans were "paid" to mourn the death of Kim Jong Il.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/22/opinion/sifton-korea-tyranny/

North Korean expert BR Myers disputed this absurd claim.

http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2011/12/27/21899/north-korea-allegations-of-fake-mourning-and-self-/

And of course, such intense expressions of grief have been demonstrated in South Korea.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/south-korea/111219/north-korea-kim-jong-il-brainwashed-mourning

Media reports have claimed that North Korea had a former high official "eaten by rabid dogs". This turned out to be a hoax. Media reports claimed North Korea claimed to have discovered unicorns (I remember debating about this on the forum). That turned out to be a hoax. Media reports claimed an orchestra was executed by North Korea. That turned out to be a hoax. The media reported that North Korea "cheated" the 1994 Agreed Framework, when actually it was the opposite.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/60431/selig-s-harrison/did-north-korea-cheat

Amnesty is the same organization that backed the NATO intervention in Libya, and repeated the bogus reports about Libyan "mercenaries".

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/libya-organization-calls-for-immediate-arms-embargo-and-assets-freeze

AI also admits in their "report" on North Korean prisons that they have no idea what is going on at any camp except Yodok, because they only spoke to a handful of prisoners, all of whom allegedly came from Yodok. They invented the 200,000 number out of whole cloth, claiming that they can estimate this number based on satellite images.

"Apart from the political prison camp in Yodok (Kwanliso 15), Amnesty International has very
limited information on the conditions in the other camps – we knew only their locations, and from
satellite imagery an estimate on the numbers of people who are held and the goods that are
produced.
Nearly all the information available to Amnesty International comes from those who have been
released from political prison camps in North Korea and have managed to leave the country. These
are primarily former detainees of the Revolutionary Zone at Yodok.
"

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA24/001/2011/en/2671e54f-1cd1-46c1-96f1-6a463efa6f65/asa240012011en.pdf

Here's Amnesty International putting up billboards enthusiastically endorsing NATO's military intervention in Afghanistan.

http://www.interventionism.info/en/CSI-comment:--Does-Amnesty-International-campaign-for-NATO

Here's an article AI director wrote for CFR's journal in 2004 in favor of military intervention

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/59716/suzanne-nossel/smart-power

Here's the head of AI talking about how when she worked for the US government she helped block the Goldstone Report because the report made "inferences that weren't supported by the facts". Sounds familiar!

http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/2521?in=11:30&out=15:10

Amnesty International has also held summits in which they invited war criminal Madeline Albright to speak.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/former-secretary-of-state-madeleine-albright-ambassador-melanne-verveer-and-congresswoman-jan-schako

While many of those links are quite interesting and refreshing, I think one in particular is relevant to the actual topic at hand:
"Apart from the political prison camp in Yodok (Kwanliso 15), Amnesty International has very limited information on the conditions in the other camps – we knew only their locations, and from satellite imagery an estimate on the numbers of people who are held and the goods that are produced. Nearly all the information available to Amnesty International comes from those who have been released from political prison camps in North Korea and have managed to leave the country. These are primarily former detainees of the Revolutionary Zone at Yodok."

This is key. We don't *know*. I don't. Amnesty doesn't. And *you* don't. Having spoken to some survivors myself, I know anonymity is key for most of them, just to safeguard their families. I believe the stories I have heard and the scant evidence we have of large-scale mistreatment and torture. Scant evidence, but evidence nonetheless.

You can criticize the data, yes, but that does not mean or prove that the opposite is true.

@Putin33

Separately from the AI thing, you said...

"conventional opinions are self-evidently true and you never have to challenge yourself"

I did not say that. Conventional opinions are what they are; what people generally believe to be true. They of course can be challenged, but at some point the contrary opinion needs to follow from something that is evidently and uncontroversially true. Building one shocking revision on top of another is not a credible way to challenge conventional opinion. And contending with the arbitrarily deep stacking of "shockers" takes an arbitrarily long time; at some point it stops being worth considering, which is where the cutoff point comes in.

My own opinions are rarely wildly unconventional, it is true. But accepting any of your revisionist history involves accepting *so many other* revisions offered in support that it strains credulity.