North Korea

the whole point of a 'moral dilemma' is that you have to reckon with two extremely-difficult choices

just saying "nope, turns out the aliens were just testing us" is just ducking the difficulty of it

yes, torture is horrible

but are there things that are worse than torture, whereby torture would be preferable?

(saying "torture is bad" is not a solution to this)

Whenever moral philosophy encroaches on contemporary politics, people seem to go bananas. This is unfortunate, as ideally tools like moral philosophy would be used to help inform our choices in the world.

Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote a highly-insightful essay on the matter called Politics is the Mind-Killer.

yeah but limpy how dumb would you feel when after 24hrs you found out you were just on alien punk'd

  On 7/17/2015 at 8:59 PM, DerWaschbar said:

yeah but limpy how dumb would you feel when after 24hrs you found out you were just on alien punk'd

how dumb would you feel if you just assumed it was a prank but then the aliens killed everyone?

(i mean, you'd be dead so you wouldn't feel anything)

sounds like i wouldnt feel to bad

pls quantify how dumb you feel

you loose hot shot lol

shrodinger put two cats in a pillow case and swung it around his head. they were both happy and sad about it.

Why does the raccoon hate cats?

its a realistic plan thought experiment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-5-BsWk-yU

(thanks to tri for linking)

Surprisingly terrible from John Oliver.

a (somewhat) golfer just returned from N Korea, and smuggled out over 100 photos. fascinating, but as always, extremely depressing.

http://www.earthnutshell.com/100-photos-from-north-korea-part1/

fix'd

I really like the waiting room at Pyongyang Train Station

i hope aliens do destroy earth

i hope they murder us all

Thanks for posting that link by the way. Really fascinating!

He's not a professional golfer. I don't know why that set of pictures would make you extremely depressed. It's the same garden variety pics that every tourist takes, with the exception of a few of people in trucks piled on crazily (like how they do in India, Myanmar, virtually every third-world country).

  On 8/7/2015 at 11:09 AM, chenGOD said:

I don't know why that set of pictures would make you extremely depressed. It's the same garden variety pics that every tourist takes, with the exception of a few of people in trucks piled on crazily (like how they do in India, Myanmar, virtually every third-world country).

Exactly my thoughts. Beautiful photo's nonetheless, but I've almost seen every location before in documentaries on YouTube, the DMZ, empty hotel / restaurant rooms, the subway, murals everywhere, park, funfair, the typical communist concrete buildings, etc..

The most suprising photo's of the lot were that of the drink with an actual snake in it and the North Korean buddhist, I always assumed NK was an atheistic state in which religion was not condoned (at least not in public), like in the USSR. Of course Buddhism is not as dogmatic of course, but there is still a very small Christian community too I see now. Also:

Is it me or could this easily pass as a Fox News article? Hilarious how it's just the otherway around, says a lot of about the constant mud slinging from both countries. I literally read that last paragraph as if it was Bill O'Reilly who wrote it.

  On 8/7/2015 at 7:01 AM, Rubin Farr said:

a professional golfer just returned from N Korea, and smuggled out over 100 photos. fascinating, but as always, extremely depressing.

 

http://www.earthnutshell.com/100-photos-from-north-korea-part1/

Actually don't think they're particular depressing, it actually don't looks as awful as you might think, most of the photos makes the place look kind of peaceful in a strange way. But the ones of desolated Pyongyang and propaganda stuff are pretty gloomy though.

But I know what you mean of course, it's surely not a place anybody would want to live. These photos don't paint the whole picture though, they're really great anyway.

  Quote

 

Elliott dreams of cultural enlightenment, and has nightmares of monotony and lost travel photographs. He's a poor golfer, software developer and has grown alongside one of Australia's oldest wombats. Off-the-grid destinations fascinate him. He'll traverse and document every country on earth. Eventually.

Just messing with you. Actually a really good link with a bunch of interesting photos. Nice find.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/07/asia/north-korea-time-zone/

So Pyongyang is definitely nicer than Philadelphia, right? This is the impression I'm getting.

  On 8/7/2015 at 12:53 PM, Herr Jan said:

 

The most suprising photo's of the lot were that of the drink with an actual snake in it and the North Korean buddhist, I always assumed NK was an atheistic state in which religion was not condoned (at least not in public), like in the USSR. Of course Buddhism is not as dogmatic of course, but there is still a very small Christian community too I see now.

 

 

The snake soju is not common in Korea, much more common in China. Religion is tolerated under strict state control as a propaganda means. The Christians especially. It serves a purpose so the leadership can say "look how tolerant we are". Of course if you go and try and distribute a bible...well it'll be the last we see if Herr Jan on these boards for a long time.

  On 8/7/2015 at 3:17 PM, doublename said:

So Pyongyang is definitely nicer than Philadelphia, right? This is the impression I'm getting.

Cleaner lol. And less gun crime. I'm not sure if "nicer" is the correct adjective.

Christopher Hitchens has a lot of colorful things to say about NK:

  On 8/7/2015 at 6:19 PM, chenGOD said:

 

  On 8/7/2015 at 12:53 PM, Herr Jan said:

 

The most suprising photo's of the lot were that of the drink with an actual snake in it and the North Korean buddhist, I always assumed NK was an atheistic state in which religion was not condoned (at least not in public), like in the USSR. Of course Buddhism is not as dogmatic of course, but there is still a very small Christian community too I see now.

 

The snake soju is not common in Korea, much more common in China.

had this in Vietnam also. It was everywhere.

Christopher HItchens opinions on North Korea are about as worthwhile as compson's.

  On 8/7/2015 at 7:17 PM, chenGOD said:

Christopher HItchens opinions on North Korea are about as worthwhile as compson's.

lol how so?