(Emphasis mine)
TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction works (or doesn't) in practice.
Very easily. There's an official account, which 'everyone'[1] knows is bullshit, but if you try to assert any logical consequences of it, you will immediately out yourself as a malcontent, and will get into serious trouble. (Because despite having all sorts of constitutional protections for your rights on paper, the executive has the power in practice to do anything it wants to you at any time, with no redress. Good luck exercising articles 67 through 79 of that constitution. If you're lucky, you'll be softly told to sit down and shut up. If you're unlucky, you'll be doing a few years in a camp.)
It's the time-tested playbook that every authoritarian regime follows, and if you're interested in learning more about how it works in practice, just turn on Fox News. It's got the first half of the double-think process down, and is working hard on getting us to the second half.
There is always a thin public justification for why rights don't apply to the enemies of the state, which is enough to convince ~half the country. (Because ~half of any country will happily accept whatever atrocities its leaders do. You can observe that sort of thing on this very forum.)
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[1] Not actually everyone, some people really are that fucking stupid, but most know there's something off[2] about it.
[2] In this particular case, the official Atlas says they are one country, but the country's Constitution (updated last year on this very subject) says that the ROK is a foreign, hostile state. Anyone who can read or has eyes to see and ears to hear should easily be able to tell that the latter is the more accurate one.
>This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage
This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing for example.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-repor...
remember that 1) this forum skews to a very specific sort of person, and 2) that person notwithstanding, there is an incredible, shocking large amount of bots active here, owing to the fact that the people from 1) are also AI worshipping futurists (and/or techno-fascists)
In any case, North Koreans are not taught that South Korea is just like any other part of North Korea. The idea that the North Korean people and leadership are all buffoons who make the weirdest of lies possible is already Orwellian enough.
> This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing for example.
This is common in Australia too.
I am not a AI worshiping futurist nor a (techno-)fascist for that matter. I don't think bots are that active on such a small platform but I guess by "bots" you mean people who offer pushback on your opinions (they are a "shocking" number indeed, it seems I can hardly convince more than one person to rally my positions from time to time and I still have to pretend to be nuanced !)
I also believe that "platform is skewed against X" (generally your own opinions) are utterly useless comments. You are just pretending everyone is against you so you don't have to take criticism addressed to you seriously.
Now you can enjoy the ego boost of feeling like the virtuous online warrior against a world of techno-fascists that are ganging up on you or you can reflect and try to take into account the fact that people have different viewpoints and are mostly doing their best. I eventually chose the latter and I have to say I feel less grandiose but much better overall. Join the club, we have cookies.
> The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between the true and the false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.
-- The origins of Totalitarianism (1951), by Hannah Arendt
They believe there's only one Korea, artificially split in two by their enemies, and that it should all be under the control of the current NK government, but they don't believe they control all of it now.
All we need is some TikTok, YouTube shorts and some gullible right wingers, and I think we've got ourselves a product!
https://www.australianteachingaids.com.au/the-world-map
The first search result for "Australian world map" was for one of those novelty south-side up maps.
>gullible right wingers
Where in the discussion or article was the affiliation or relevance of the western political spectrum mentioned? Seems pretty gullible to insert your own frame into a discussion as a gocha towards political opponents you created inside your head.