The Ethics of Visiting North Korea

[Northern Davincia]

People visit China, don't they? Why visit one creepy secretive dictatorship and not another?

not to mention North Korea should be very safe because the police force is so large and no one except the government (which wants to ensure your safety and future tourism) has guns; you would be protected by law enforcement

I think NK may have even more police than the United States, at least per capita, I don't know if that's still true or not but it's impressive

North Korea is a police state, it makes sense that they'd have a large number of police.

[Thermodolia]

China at least has Internet (gotta be careful with VPNs though). And I'd argue that religous fascist (which is what Juche arguably is) shithole of DPRK is worse than authoritarian capitalist less-of-a-shithole that is PRC.

well you wouldn't really visit NK for the wi-fi

it's more to see how the people live under the system of Juche/NK communism

They won’t actually let you see how it really works.

Still I’ll say you can go over there if you promise to be the front for a CIA/Spec Ops operation I have planned.

[LiberNovusAmericae]

People visit China, don't they? Why visit one creepy secretive dictatorship and not another?

not to mention North Korea should be very safe because the police force is so large and no one except the government (which wants to ensure your safety and future tourism) has guns; you would be protected by law enforcement

I think NK may have even more police than the United States, at least per capita, I don't know if that's still true or not but it's impressive

It's not like the police can victimize you right?

[Vivolkha]

People visit China, don't they? Why visit one creepy secretive dictatorship and not another?

not to mention North Korea should be very safe because the police force is so large and no one except the government (which wants to ensure your safety and future tourism) has guns; you would be protected by law enforcement

I think NK may have even more police than the United States, at least per capita, I don't know if that's still true or not but it's impressive

Actually, no. For example, the Spanish government's travel advisory includes a explicit warning over violent crime and recommends never going out at night even if you were allowed to. North Korea's murder rate is 7 times higher than that of South Korea and well above most developed nations.

[Auze]

Yikes

I have never seen that cartoon in any American newspaper in my entire life.

That's because it's Australian.

[Rosmana]

I would not visit, it scares me.

I would probably end up in a prison camp.

[Rosmana]

It would be perfectly ethical - as much as some people here will hate me saying it, North Korea is not Nazi Germany. People do not get torn to pieces by dogs outside of the pages of the South Korean far-right press (I know the name that's commonly used but I'm not taking my chances with the mods) (stories that are then reported uncritically by Western news outlets). What exists there today is a drastic improvement on what has existed there before.

Would I want to? I remain proud in never having voluntarily left my island of birth, Great Britain.

North Korea is worse than Nazi Germany ever was.

Why is that?

[The Rich Port]

What's especially problematic about visiting North Korea is that the way the country is and the way visitors are controlled to the country means that there can be no such thing as a genuine interaction between a visitor and a resident North Korean.

Visitors are not allowed to roam freely, at all, whereas literally every other country on Earth except countries with equally xenophobic views on outsiders allows tourists to roam freely, they just need to have a tourist's visa, the police would only hound you once you haven't renewed your visa. You can't just "hang out" in North Korea. Last I checked, tourists are required to have government "minders" follow them everywhere they go. You have to ask them permission to to go to the bathroom in public places, let alone going out in the middle of the night to go buy a snack at a restaurant or something.

You can't go bar-hopping or restaurant-hopping in North Korea, you can't go for a stroll in North Korea, you can't tour the countryside, you can't visit friends or family (besides the fact that nobody really knows North Koreans outside of the country, since, you know, North Koreans are also not allowed to leave), you can't fall in love with and marry a North Korean (even mixed-nationality marriages are looked down upon apparently: https://www.nknews.org/2015/08/can-fore ... h-koreans/), and you definitely can't move in or move your spouse out.

Nothing about North Korea is something that other nations do. They don't have citizens so much as they have serfs, and their country isn't so much a country as a museum of serfdom, and you can only interact with the exhibits in pre-approved ways.

Compare NK to a somewhat comparably authoritarian country like Iran. I could ostensibly convert to Islam, move to Iran, get a tourist's or a work visa, hang out with local Iranians, get a job there, buy a house, become a resident, and eventually become a citizen.

One does not simply move to or tour North Korea, one defects to or is allowed within North Korea.

Also, what kind of tour of a country only takes place within the capital city and a mountain? Pretty sure civilian areas in Iran are also free to explore and traverse.