Human Experimentation in North Korea: BS or No?

[MustCrushCapitalism]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_human_experimentation

I'd really like to get into a discussion hearing both sides of the story on this. Shoot ahead.

[RedMarxist]

Well seeing as how North Korea is the most "secret country on Earth," how can anyone know for sure?

I'm conflicted when it comes to North Korea. No matter how many justifications I hear about how it is actually a democratic, socialist republic blah blah blah, I can't help but think that it is also a Stalinist dictatorship. It's too...secret.

I will say this. It is most likely exaggerated. If the only evidence of the camp is alleged satellite pictures, some teary eyed survivor stories, etc. then how can we know for sure that it is real?

I'll buy that is a political prisoner's camp, but a camp where they gas babies? why would you build something like that? It doesn't even make any practical sense to build a camp like that.

I went on a website just this moment called free Korea or something like that, that claims to give a "tour" of the camp. Most of the people in the comments section were drooling morons, claiming that Kim Jong Il is the second coming of Adolf Hitler. If it's on a website called free Korea, I'm sure it has to be non biased, right?


In my perfect view of the world, and if North Korea was not so paranoid due to isolation and fear of U.S-South Korean invasion, then there would be no need for camps or tight control of the nation. It would be a more free society. People who claim north Korea is an evil, "Communist" state don't realize that decades of isolation from both allies and trade partners can really make a leader, and a country wacko.

The only reason Cuba hasn't turned into a North Korea yet is because it isn't really isolated very much. Sure, a U.S citizen like me can't travel there, and my country's government puts a few trade restrictions on them, but that's nothing compared to what North Korea has been dealing with.

[LeftAtheist]

Well there are some horrendous stories from North Korean citizens who've defected to the South, as well as impressions of Westerners who've been allowed a holiday there. I suppose one could argue that they're lying, but that doesn't seem too likely. If we're not going to believe eyewitnesses, who are we going to believe? The propaganda ministry?

[Grigori]

NK deserves no support. They stopped being even nominally commie long ago

[Grigori]

Well seeing as how North Korea is the most "secret country on Earth," how can anyone know for sure?

I'm conflicted when it comes to North Korea. No matter how many justifications I hear about how it is actually a democratic, socialist republic blah blah blah, I can't help but think that it is also a Stalinist dictatorship. It's too...secret.

I will say this. It is most likely exaggerated. If the only evidence of the camp is alleged satellite pictures, some teary eyed survivor stories, etc. then how can we know for sure that it is real?

I'll buy that is a political prisoner's camp, but a camp where they gas babies? why would you build something like that? It doesn't even make any practical sense to build a camp like that.

I went on a website just this moment called free Korea or something like that, that claims to give a "tour" of the camp. Most of the people in the comments section were drooling morons, claiming that Kim Jong Il is the second coming of Adolf Hitler. If it's on a website called free Korea, I'm sure it has to be non biased, right?


In my perfect view of the world, and if North Korea was not so paranoid due to isolation and fear of U.S-South Korean invasion, then there would be no need for camps or tight control of the nation. It would be a more free society. People who claim north Korea is an evil, "Communist" state don't realize that decades of isolation from both allies and trade partners can really make a leader, and a country wacko.

The only reason Cuba hasn't turned into a North Korea yet is because it isn't really isolated very much. Sure, a U.S citizen like me can't travel there, and my country's government puts a few trade restrictions on them, but that's nothing compared to what North Korea has been dealing with.

NK deserves no support and no sympathy. They stopped being nominally commie long ago

[MustCrushCapitalism]

Well there are some horrendous stories from North Korean citizens who've defected to the South, as well as impressions of Westerners who've been allowed a holiday there. I suppose one could argue that they're lying, but that doesn't seem too likely. If we're not going to believe eyewitnesses, who are we going to believe? The propaganda ministry?
That's what I was thinking.

I'm a bit more interested in hearing the pro-NK reaction to that.

[Thirsty Crow]

Well there are some horrendous stories from North Korean citizens who've defected to the South, as well as impressions of Westerners who've been allowed a holiday there. I suppose one could argue that they're lying, but that doesn't seem too likely. If we're not going to believe eyewitnesses, who are we going to believe? The propaganda ministry?
Refrain from judgement and conclude what we can: that the DPRK represents a dictatorship over the North Korean working class?

[Nox]

It's probably either total bullshit or extremely exaggurated.

[Commissar Rykov]

It's probably either total bullshit or extremely exaggurated.
^This. I have no doubt that the DPRK is a shithole but I have a hardtime taking many South Korean websites seriously especially for a nation that was rather proto-fascist itself. I mean it isn't like the KCIA killed their own political leaders...oh wait.:lol:

[piet11111]

We need only look at germany during WW2 to know that such horrors are possible.

North korea's military must be convinced of their own safety to be able to carry out such things otherwise the fear that they may be subject to similar treatment in the future would have forced them to rebel.
And we know that the use of atrocity's creates the "there is no going back" mindset that binds the soldiers that do these things to the state.

However the listed experiments sound very illogical.
Why use living people for training doctors ? cadavers are a more suitable alternative.
Why gas people when WW2 data is available ?
Why use people for target practice when pop-up targets are just as effective.

[RedMarxist]

exaggerated. I read on free Korea that they gas babies to learn what gas does to people of all sizes(again, WWII data exists for that).

I mean, the minute I hear about baby gassing, I have a hard time believing its true, even for a totalitarian hermit kingdom.

Another thing I find hard to believe, and can someone please clarify this for me, is that North Korea apparently has a 99% literacy rate, excellent healthcare, and housing for everyone. This was coming from MaoistRebelNews2 so you KNOW it has to be true.

[tir1944]

Another thing I find hard to believe, and can someone please clarify this for me, is that North Korea apparently has a 99% literacy rate, excellent healthcare, and housing for everyone. This was coming from MaoistRebelNews2 so you KNOW it has to be true.
What's so unbelieavable about that?

[BE_]

I wouldn't be surprised if it's true. Fuck the DPRK!

[Tim Cornelis]

exaggerated. I read on free Korea that they gas babies to learn what gas does to people of all sizes(again, WWII data exists for that).

I mean, the minute I hear about baby gassing, I have a hard time believing its true, even for a totalitarian hermit kingdom.



There was this former camp guard from North Korea that defected that claims he was operating glass gas chambers and put entire families in them.

I doesn't seem too far fetched.

[LeftAtheist]

What's so unbelieavable about that?

The fact that they spend a vast portion of their GDP on their military and their healthcare system is terribly underfunded.

Source: I can't supply the link I wanted to here (not enough posts yet), but google "the crumbling state of healthcare in North Korea" for the PDF I was going to link.

I suppose this rides on whether or not you want to trust Amnesty International, but they're not an enemy government, they're a human rights organisation. I'm inclined to trust them.

[ZeroNowhere]

Maybe it's just a typo and they meant 'proletarian experimentation'.

[Rooster]

However the listed experiments sound very illogical.
Why use living people for training doctors ? cadavers are a more suitable alternative.

For one, cadavers aren't alive.


Why gas people when WW2 data is available ?

Chemical weapons weren't used during the second world war. Even if they were, 66 years have passed and the chemical warfare industry is still active.

[piet11111]

For one, cadavers aren't alive.

What is the added value of using a living person from the start ?
The use of cadavers can give you almost all the training for how to do procedures after that you are skilled enough to perform on actual patients.
No need to be butchering people along the way.




Chemical weapons weren't used during the second world war. Even if they were, 66 years have passed and the chemical warfare industry is still active.

Zyklone B ?
Sarin was used in a metro attack in japan https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_subway
Then there is the Halabja gas attack where several chemical agents where used.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack

Either way the north Koreans probably have more then enough documentation from chinese or ex soviet sources to determine the lethality of their chemical weapons and how best to use them.
You would only need to be a part of some UN panel on banning chemical weapons to get all the required literature anyway :laugh:

[Apoi_Viitor]

Was Nazi human experimentation logical or rationale?

[piet11111]

Was Nazi human experimentation logical or rationale?

There where Germans that wanted to try these experiments and up until then had no way of actually testing their ideas on people.
Think about those high altitude simulations where they decreased pressure until death.

Absolutely sickening yes but there was something to be learned this way.

But the tales about the North Koreans and what they are doing read more like a horror story then actual human experimentation i can not think of anything that could be learned this way.
Hit people on the head with a hammer to make them zombie like for target practice ? really ?

[∞]

North Korea has proved time and time again, that it is even worse than imperialism and capitalism.

[kurr]

North Korea has proved time and time again, that it is even worse than imperialism and capitalism.christ you are an idiotAnyways its probably bullshit. North Korea is not a country I'd want to be a hundred miles from never mind support but they get a lot of shit flung at them by the bourgeois press all the time.

[∞]

No. People who've actually been there are better evidence to me then some teenagers on a leftist forum. As bourgeois these sources may be.

[thefinalmarch]

North Korea has proved time and time again, that it is even worse than imperialism and capitalism.
Implying North Korea isn't capitalist, and that it doesn't depend on the imperialist PRC.

[Koba1917]

99% literacy rate
I know this is a terrible source but it's the only one I can really find.
CIA Fact Book DPRK (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kn.html)

excellent healthcare
MRN Never stated that, he said that they had a good system for a underdeveloped country that others would be envious of. For a short time they have a higher Life Expectancy then their Southern Counterparts. But after the fall of the Eastern Bloc the DPRK and many others took a hit with their trade.
Google Public Data on DPRK (http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=it_net_user_p2&idim=country:IDN#ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:KOR:PRK&ifdim=country&hl=en&dl=en)


housing for everyone
This claim would be hard to figure out knowing the nature of the DPRK. But if you Youtube videos of the rural areas of the DPRK you always see some form of housing, good or not.

[Ocean Seal]

North Korea isn't Stalinist. It follows Juche and is openly anti-Marxist. It is very secretive, and in general we don't support it here, but let's be honest this kind of sounds like scaremongering.