RES: a trip to North Korea

[Brad De Long]

>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>  >>  No, I'd criticize North Korea more freely, *if* I were a North
>>  >>  Korean, but I'm *not*.
>
>Dennis:
>>  >I'll believe that the precise moment you can find me a North
>>  >Korean who openly criticized their own government and lived
>>  >to tell about it.
>>  >
>>  >As a general principle, First World radicals shouldn't nail their
>>  >flags to the masts of Third World one-party states of whatever political
>>  >provenance. That's not our job.
>
>Brad De Long:
>>  Plus it causes most everybody else you talk to to conclude that you
>>  are a monster raving loon...
>
>Isn't there an epistemological problem here?  How do we know
>things about North Korea?

We know relatively little because the North Korean government tries 
hard to make sure that we know little.

Thus North Korea falls into the class of Communist-ruled regimes 
desperate to keep what is going on secret. The other members of this 
class are Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia...

Brad DeLong