An official atlas of North Korea

There's the San Bernardino Museum located at the train station in SB. Its next to the ATSF yards, so its sort of a combined SB and ATSF museum. On the wall there was a map of the US with all sorts of lines on it.

Under closer scrutiny, all of the lines were railroads, and not highways. In fact, (I don't think) there were no highways at all. And it was all railroads, not just ATSF. I don't recall the date on the map.

Just a fascinating "other view" of the world to look at the US through that lens.

I thought that too, but the map for the UK is very weird - there is no direct connection between what looks like Birmingham and what looks like Manchester or anywhere in the North West of England. So, no West Coast Main Line? Instead they have the rail line veering off towards the peak district.

I don't know whether they're decades out of date or just plain wrong - the West Coast Main Line was "opened between 1837 and 1881" according to Wikipedia.

Hmm, if those red lines are meant to be rail lines than someone's definitely made some errors. E.g. the Europe map shows a red line in Iceland, perhaps between Reykjavík and Akureyri. But there's no railway between Reykjavík and Akureyri and in face there's no rail in Iceland at all.

I just assumed the red lines were "major routes" of some sort, maybe rail, maybe roads.

> No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure ones like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec.

I guess the maps are old, because they show the Newfoundland Railway, which was removed in the 80s.

Yes,I noticed Kansas City is prominently featured on all the maps, which makes sense for rail hubs.

But strange, then, that the north/south line (Kansas City Southern / Canadian Pacific) is not there.

Wow! I would have been absolutely fascinated by this when I was a kid.

I remember once wandering around my college library and finding the book “The Soviet Economy Through the Year 2000.” This occurred during the current millennium.

Anna has it in her archive

Yes, that's complete nonsence.

My friend was on a guided tour to North Korea, and they aware of a lot of things. For example, the population of the North and the South was somehow accurately described to the tourists as 25 and 50 million, and they don't question that fact.

Is the second part actually true though? I can't find any sources about this, in fact the opposite seems to be true. North Korea recently changed their constitution and describe South Korea as a "hostile state" which means they officially recognize it as a "state" at least[1]. Before that they explicitly had a goal for unification in the constitution which implies (or can be implied) that there never was such a view that "the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party". There is also this sentence:

>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...

I'm also curious given the rhetoric that the North Korean media has about the "puppet" state in the south. I can understand that the North Koreans want to claim sovereignty over the whole peninsula, but the article makes it sound like North Korea pretends that the ROK does not exist.

Clearly, we were thinking the same thing or along the same lines.

I mean, see American politics for a similar example.

The Epstein files are simultaneously a "Democrat hoax" and full of prominent Dems. The Attorney General both has them on her desk, and they don't exist.

The book 1984 demonstrates how logical inconsistencies can exist and be believed in when you don't have much choice.

> 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.

[dead]

> Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet.

North Koreans do not have any Internet, save for through computers at a few government-controlled and strictly monitored libraries, as well as through illegal imported Chinese smartphones if they live near the border.

> According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists.

According to the North Korean govt, the Korean war was started by the South who wanted to invade North (it was not, based on extensive studies). Therefore in their view (or at least from their propaganda), the communists "won" by successfully defending their part of the peninsula.

None of what you are saying holds water. Scientology’s old business model became less effective, but the cult segued into a real-estate empire and still has several mega-wealthy members (so-called “whales”) it can milk for donations.

And North Korea could see greater internet uptake but still remain a stable dictatorship, precisely on the model of Russia where, even if the population “sees through the lies”, that doesn’t challenge the regime itself; people who dislike the regime largely simply accept it as a fact of life, and might even disapprove of those people who make the effort to challenge it.

From what I understand about North Korea - simply moving within (actual) NK itself is not really on the cards for a lot of people, so they might as well claim sovereignty over the whole peninsular.

It's more than that, it's probably a ideological thing from the very top. Just like how the PRC insists that Taiwan is just another weird territory like HK or Macau.

Id think this being the 'official' political position , it would be referring to the end of hostilities when the armistice was signed.Legally there was no ceasefire/capitulation etc and i would suggest as far as the North are concerned barring outside interference they would have prevailed. Hence the stressing of the position that they are one entity 'politically' - certainly not that 'physically' they are one untit , also why they would hold/reunification talks from time to time and family relatives exchanges between the two.

They are cognizant that there is a DMZ , and that theere exists a polity on the south that keeps sending usb filled baloons , propaganda loudspeakes blaring on the Border. So mostly a poltical position being staked out , which is also why the maps only have Palestine and Western Sahara.Not because they are unaware of the situation insitu but geopilitically they are staking their claims.

I'd presume it's like the Soviets, where moving cities required permission.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propiska_in_the_Soviet_Union

> According to Grok:

Can we not do this?