Broken Toys

Runescape in the top 5. It always amuses me when that pops up. The little MMO that could.

It’s odd that labor is cheapest in North Korea. I thought making contact outside the country could be punishable by death. Some big businessman was recently publicly executed for doing such a thing. I know if I had a chance of dying for my job that I’d want a raise in pay.

“Another stark reminder of the different worlds both Koreas now inhabit, is this map, a picture of the night-time illumination on the Korean peninsula….the only speck of light north of the DMZ is the North’s capital of Pyonyang, a single, neat pinprick of white punched through an otherwise completely black canvas.”

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/218-koreas-dark-half/

I did a search, and there’s allot of very interesting reading about N. Korea and new technology, and how it’s breaking down the heavy government control. Smuggling, lotteries, games, and business connections, from the south, Japan, and interestingly, from China.

Also of interest is that Kim Jong-Il has named his second son, Kim Jong-Chul, as his successor. And he happens to be a huge fan on NBA basketball, so much so that his father has built basketball courts at their estates around the country.

There’s hope.

MMORPGs, spreading freedom throughout the world.

When a game is all about unfun cat ass action… People are going to pay someone else to cat ass so they can have the fun post cat ass.

I love Guild Wars due to the “no cat ass required” game play.

Bonedead wrote: It’s odd that labor is cheapest in North Korea. I thought making contact outside the country could be punishable by death. Some big businessman was recently publicly executed for doing such a thing. I know if I had a chance of dying for my job that I’d want a raise in pay.

Sadly, I’m guessing this is slave labor. I don’t think “real” businesses really exist in North Korea.

“Sadly, I’m guessing this is slave labor. I don’t think “real” businesses really exist in North Korea.”
No, it seems more likely that this is from the “elite” who are allowed access to the internet, and maybe from others who might have “smuggled” access.
North Korea isn’t what we read about through the major news networks. It’s more complicated than that. Yes, what’s often talked about seems to be very true, but that is only a part of the picture.

North Korea and South Korea have some sort of internet connection set up that allows access between the two. Both sides go back and forth on what they try to control on this connection. The North because of their views on social controls, and the South because of laws such as gambling (which they are strongly against). Other businesses evidently use this internet connection too. They also have a monetary exchange that’s active, evidently. This connection may be the means of the gaming RMT, I don’t know for sure though.

Some interesting things I’ve taken from doing some searches:
-North Korea has internet cafes, but run by and heavily controlled by the government. They use this also as a means to send out control propaganda. They don’t allow it to connect outside the country, except with the connection to South Korea for business reasons. They also have a good internet system built within their country, I’ve read, for e-mails and business, but calling it good may only be because of very low usage on a decent system.
-North Korea has smuggled DVDs of South Korean soaps, and they view these as “western influence” and try to fight this influence. If they have these DVDs floating around, then there are DVD players too, as well as an undergroud economy for such smuggled things.
-North Korea’s telephone system is archaic, still relying on someone actually plugging in the connections for every call. They don’t allow cell phones or any means of telephoning that takes complete social control out of their hands. That complete control of social interactions is why they don’t have a more advanced system. People in the Northern areas near China were smuggling in cell phones from China, and local law enforcement people evidently were “on the take” to not do anything about it. Until the government found out and it seems that these local law enforcement officials were executed. But it’s hard to say how accurate that is.
-Much of what we know about North Korea comes from groups who are actively trying to bring about it’s downfall. There are groups in South Korea, Japan, and I think China too, who are involved in this. I don’t doubt the majority of what they say, but they don’t seem to give the whole picture either. That leaves us with a false impression of a country that’s dying outside of Pyongyang (the capital). But a more detailed look shows that’s not quite the case. The bigger cities probably are much like the capital minus the government efforts to build showcase constructions.

It’s worth doing a search on North Korea, and seeing what’s going on. It opens up some new ideas on what it’s really like.

Well I have meet some North Korean students while in China, and while they might tell you privately that some car looks nice, some stuff is cool, in front of each other they will always refer those as capitalist junk.

The government’s grip is lessing, because with their key communist ally China tuning 98% capitalist and a 2% thing shell of communist surface (that is more capitalist than US, the only difference is it is still not a democracy, which limits its capitalist potentials), people are starting to notice the lies from party leaders, and things change.

It is amazing how fast things change (to the better) when people are give even a small amount of freedom to do what they want, or been allowed incentive for their works. I think that is what is happening in NK. It might end up like China, from iron fist communist to corrupted socialist Monarch to corrupted capitalist and then some hope of democracy.