HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Reminded me of this Onion report from a decade ago: https://youtu.be/rYaZ57Bn4pQ

The Onion has a good video about this phenomenon https://youtu.be/rYaZ57Bn4pQ

I'm a bit surprised that companies are even doing business with North Korea considering how unreliable they have been in the past. In the 70s, when they at least seemed to be on par with South Korea in terms of development [1], they imported mining equipment and 1,000 cars from Sweden but never fully paid for them [2].

I guess the risk is worth it for some companies/individuals if they're only spending a few thousand dollars to potentially save many more.

> “Let’s say you’re making a cartoon, and you are outsourcing the work. So you go to Romania, because you know it’s very cheap.” But the Romanian company knows of an even cheaper option. Its representative flies to Pyongyang and makes a deal for the same work at half the cost—and then gets 50% of the fee without employing anyone. “This has happened,” he says. He will not name movies. Nor popular video games. North Korean labor is also behind websites and crypto, he says. The shadow hands of globally sanctioned socialist labor are all around us.

The Onion was right all along [3].

And I know this is a pretty stereotypical nitpick, but I wish they (both the author and Cao de Benós) would be more specific and refer to DPRK's ideology as Juche [4], instead of just calling it socialism. Ignoring nuances in political ideologies just makes them more difficult to discuss.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_North_Korea#/media/...

[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/04/547390622/...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaZ57Bn4pQ

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche

Ha, that story reminds me of an old Onion video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaZ57Bn4pQ

Same concept taken to its extremes.

It's like life imitates satire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaZ57Bn4pQ [Onion video]

Actually, The Onion predicted this in 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaZ57Bn4pQ

And obligatory Dilbert: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2003-08-03/

(both via http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=ae0b37b2)