Why interrupt content though??? I mean this is one of the few commercials I'm exposed to, hell I literally pay to no see these. No hate towards you, and I know that you gotta put food on the table. I just know that their paying for such a slot is why I'll never use great courses. As an aside in your position I'd have a frank sitdown video style video. It's the same thing I'd reccomend to any and every large UA-camr really. Just have an open discussion with your audience and say "look, it's no secret that I make a living here. This is my passion and I want to procuse it, but my family needs to eat. More than that these videos aren't free to create. The overhead may be less than sitcom's in the 90's, but none the less it costs more than food stamps. If I can find enough support from the community then we can survive with recused or even without sponsorship." It may even be advantageous to provide rough metrics. I'd even point out that a few patreon supporters help doesn't pay come corporate bigwig, but real people with real lives... and that it sure beats cable companies extortion rates 🤣 Just a thought man, nothin but love for you and yours ❤ keep up the stellar content!
No thanks, Simon. I'll never use them, mainly because of the ways in which they take over a channel. You're missing out on many more subscribers too. You should have at least ten times the number you have gleaned by now with your otherwise high standard of presentation and content. Why? Because this channel has been reduced to just an advertising mouthpiece for 'Great Curses Pus'. Lots of people scrub through the ads, or stop watching the videos altogether. I used to watch all of your videos, years ago, but stopped when the ads became the reason for the videos. That's sad, because the information in this channel is often very educational, and you're very skilled at your job.
Hi Kim, I'm very impressed by your horseback climb of Mount Paektu, but how did you manage it wearing a suit? Also, have you ever thought of changing your harstyle, being a man-of-the-world type, I would've thought you'd try something a bit more.....grown-up?
My favorite part is bungee cord elevator ride from the top floor rotating restaurant, and the non edible dog statues that look so real the have fork marks in them.
Kim Jong sounds like me in minecraft. Eager to jump into ambitious mega structures, he neglects the early necessities like food farms, creates a gigantic cobblestone frame, then realizes he doesn't know how to do interior decorating and gives up with this massive empty shell.
I know the kims personally.... Really down to earth and very generous people. I have a great holiday every year when we visit uncle kim and have BBQ and pool parties...
"The Ministry of Truth - Minitrue in Newspeak - was startingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enourmous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred metres into the air" George Orwell 1984
@@cmdrflake Every apartment in the capital has a radio hardwired into the wall that broadcasts propaganda all the time. You can turn it down, but never off.
Could you imagine if one day, and yes I know merely in saying this it's highly unlikely, the hotel is transformed into an agricultural center. Indeed the interior floorplan is estimated at a 89 acres. Using similar technology to the Dutch for interior growing, you'd have 1.3 million vertical grow systems capable of producing a staggering 71,500,000 plants every 35-60 days (depending on species). This would go a tremendous way not only to feeding the people but to making the cause of so much suffering into a symbol of hope.
@@lannamama2034Kimberly and her waistline and the whole damn family gone...wiped out... exterminated, I personally would wish nothing less for North Korea.
North Korea don’t have the most fertile environment or enough soil to support that much growth. If they did, they wouldn’t need the interior growing plan, and with heavy sanctions on just about everything, I doubt they’d be able to fill the bottom floor.
Honestly, growing up we are taught about how North Korea has separated themselves from the modern world and how behind the times they are. However, I have never heard about any of this, truly fascinating and horrifying how gruesome of a life this country has experienced.
They did being it upon themselves in large parts.. Refusing to admit they need aid, letting ego and stubbornness get in the way of their own best interest.. The people should've overthrown that sick family ages ago but they live in fear over it. A life like that is no life at all..
@@garygraham4679 TRUMP in 2020. UNLEASH the FULL POWER OF LAW ENFORCEMENT and MILITARY MIGHT AGAINST THESE CRAZY LOOTERS, RIOTERS, ANARCHISTS, HOMEBOYS, LAW, ORDER, and PEACE, MUST DEFEAT, ANARCHY, CHAOS, LAWLESSNESS. TRUMP IN 2020, SEND HIDEN BIDEN, KRAZY KAMALA and that other LUNATIC KATHY GRIFFIN ON A 1 WAY TRIP TO PLUTO. WITH PLENTY OF DIET PEPSI AND DORITOS. AMEN.
Me at the beginning: That building's not actually that ugly Me at the end, after learning about the famine: You're right, that's the ugliest damn building I've ever seen in my life
@@goldenhawk352 I doubt that North Korea wants to open its border for tourism. Remember that they closed off their country to feed propaganda to their people and to make their people believe that NK is the best country in the world and the supreme leader can do nothing wrong. Having millions of foreigners coming in the country and telling the North Korean people about how good life is outside of NK, and how NK is actually just a 3rd world country is a no-no. As long as NK is being ruled under a dictatorship that is built on lies, they will never open their country up for tourism.
@@Aliens1337 North Korea is open to tourism rn. You can litteraly go anytime you want. They are actually really desperate to get people to visit. They even have a tik tok page where they advertise how “great”North Korea is and how people should visit.
@@suzanadee8252At least the US will more than likely outlive the fall of the DPRK. Since it's already heavily reliant on China and all of the illegal stuff like drugs, counterfeit cigarettes and money being sneaked across the border. North Korea would be even less well off without help from Xi Jinping and Putin
I like the frank description of the Kim family's blunders, the sense of outrage over the needless deaths of so many North Koreans. Too often, in trying to be objective we sugar-coat history. This video avoided that, and is much more powerful for that reason.
@@parakrambasnet6317 The United States history is riddled with the worst of societies malfeasance, and as a citizen it disheartens me just how few of it is taught to us in public education. Clearly we are bound to repeat these travesties in order to protect our ego and self image from teaching children about our dark past.
@@parakrambasnet6317 not even that , I mean ofc the country started out as a mass genocide of the natives , but then the country was worked by slaves , and then the whole system in the country ( political , social etc) was based around slavery It’s so horrible the things USA has been throughout , the so called land of the free was paved entirely on slaver
Man between this and Stalins Cannibal Island I need to have a hard drink. Thanks for all the research and work you put into these videos. Your teaching history that so many either want to cover up or forget.
He didn't mention it, but in case you didn't know, even though it's kinda obvious: most Asian cultures put the family name first. And "Kim" is like the Korean version of "Jones" -- 21.5%of South Koreans have that name, and are only very distantly, if at all, related to the ruling family in the north. (Lee is 15%, and Park is 8.5%. There aren't many family names in Korea, is the joke.)
I would hope people would have common sense to think that everyone in the family doesn’t have the same first name, Kim, and then all different last names…
Considering the Kims almost literally murdered their country, I’d say he more polite than should be expected. For me THAT is the greatest irony of all of this. One of the last ‘communist’ nations of the world has become nothing more a that a autocratic Monarchy
@@Not-Great-at-Gaming Right. The Vulcans are having more fun at the Vulcan compound. (Trip Tucker) Too bad they really don't exist, but no one's having fun at this hotel anyway.
@ I think you missed the joke here. See he went "AH-" on an image of the Nazi flag proudly being flown next to British and french flags while thousands of spectators, likely including many foreign ones, are casually Nazi saluting, which in hindsight is horrifying. Of course this is all known only because of hindsight - they wouldn't be DOING that if people at the time had any inclination of what would happen with the regime, but it's funny because of future context.
@@sedanwheel4146 It's strange though because I was very shocked to recently learn of a black American who participated in those Olympics and he had said the Germans were very respectful and gave him a standing applause, and that he experienced no negative treatment there. I also learned that Hitler and Gandhi were friends, and Hitler spoke admiringly about Japanese and Chinese culture. I'm not defending the Nazis but damn those facts are hard to integrate into what I've been taught about the man.
@@larealidad6695 And? Hitler was also a vegetarian and an animal rights activist (which was hilariously poked at by one of Soviet cartoonists: "I don't need the blood of lambs, I need the blood of humans!"), doesn't make what he did any less henious. Vice versa, Gandhi had many controvesial statements - opposing building hospitals *because* they reduce suffering and make repaying karmic debts harder comes to mind - but that doesn't change the fact that he is the father of modern India. There are no absolutely evil people, there are no absolutely good people. The sooner you cast off black-and-white thinking and hero worship, the better.
It feels like a punch right on the guts to think all the money wasted making this hotel, all the people that died of starvation and in the end it doesn't even serve its purpose, no one can even go there.
In the same way that an activity often ceases to look so much fun, when you have to do it for a living; a subject can cease to look as interesting, when you have to learn it as an obligation. Rigid syllabus, exams, time tables, deadlines, a teacher you don't like, dull readings... All of these, put together, can well spoil the best part of any knowledge area.
well I'm not very fond of cultural distinctions in terms of "quality" info e.g reading a book vs watching a 20minute video but this is certainly NOT a history lesson and not because of the medium. pretty good and entertaining piece of condensed information on some topic but not scientific
Well Germany brought the world the first modern day olympics and it invented what has become tradition today, like bringing the Olympic fire to the Olympics from Mount Olympus. People are just ignorant, panem et ludos works with basically 99,99% of humanity. All hail from Germany
I was watching videos on the Paris Catacombs and stumbled on your channel which covered the topic by far the best and in the most entertaining way. Now i’m on a rabbit hole and watching all your videos and wanted to say you make learning history fun again! Thanks
I highly recommend the book "Under the Same Sky" by Joseph Kim if you'd like to learn more about the famine. It's about his experience growing up during the famine and eventually escaping to freedom. It's...horrifying, to be honest. But I think it's important for us to be aware of the realities in NK. And there is hope, because Joseph Kim and others like him have escaped to freedom with the help of organizations like Liberty in North Korea.
Have you read "The Kite Runner"? Because that was the most depressing book I have ever read and I'm an avid reader and 66 years old. I wanted to relax in a warm tub of water and slit my wrists after that book. Is "Under the Same Sky" as depressing?
Country is wholly dependent on food imports to feed itself. “This is a problem! We must be selfsuficient in case we get cut off” Builds agricultural system wholly dependent on fertilizer imports to feed itself “Great! Now we need nothing from outside sources” Not how that works Kim...
@@hoodagooboy5981 You really don't know much about the American economy, it costs more money to make things on US soil. Hence why most companies rely on imports for some of their biggest economic investments.
@@abbie_joan You do realize the majority of things are manufactured in america that america uses. We manufacture a greater proportion of goods here then from the 1960s, 1970's, and 1980s. The loss of jobs in manufacturing plants is largely due to automation. Low skill consumer items are what has largely moved overseas and is why there is this perception of a complete lack of manufacturing base.
“He couldn’t manage the economy. He couldn’t even mismanage the economy like his father, that would have required a basic grasp of how the economy worked in order for him to screw it up” Damn! I haven’t seen you worked up like ever! Haha
If one does not find it difficult to contain any form of disgusts or disdain for the failed country that is North Korea, there may be something wrong with that certain individual.
Sarz93 I thought you were talking about Scotty From Marketing (AU Grime Sinister, former treasurer). He doesn't even bother to mismanage Australia - he leaves it for his equally useless colleagues to balls it up X-P
16:00 Unfortunately, it wasn't just villages. Basically any place aside Pyongyang and the most prestigious families were starving. Popular port cities like Chongjin, which used to be a very prosperous port city, had starving children right outside the train stations. It's important to talk about children here because famines usually have the same symptoms: first the sick die, then the elderly, then the poor, then the young and then the children. It has to do with health. Healthier people are more resistant to dying from hunger, as it deeply damages your health. It's interesting, if a bit morbid, to think about famine in that way. If you ever hear about famines, think about how many younger people die from it, that will show you some of the extent of the famine. Anyway, Everything in North Korea was closing down all at once as the famine struck, worsened by NK's obsession with isolating itself from a world that was "dangerously" turning capitalist (as Russia and China, their closest allies, were also "succumbing" to capitalist ideology). That, included with the military seizing resources wherever they could, lead to such a massive famine that the stories still linger with me today. If you want to read more about it, I can highly recommend Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. It's about the lives of seven North Korean defectors, some of which were there from the very inception of North Korea. Very interesting, but also very sad. Also, the rumors about cannibalism are just that: rumors. I bet there were some cannibalism, considering the scale of the famine, but I think that saying there was cannibalism implies that it was on a much larger scale than in reality. After all, there'd be more people surviving the famine if they'd have eaten each other as much as some people like to imply.
@Tyler Braden he meant what he said, fasting is voluntary hunger involuntary and leads to malnutrition and he was making a serious point about a tragedy that had nothing to do with being fat in the USA
That's a long story dude. Let me shorten it for you: ALL periods of modern famine are perpetuated by governments. THATS ALL FAMINE. We expect this from Communist nations, as they do this in order to ENFORCE EQUALITY. Or you can have a free market economy and have some inequality. In short, you can have some INEQUALITY or you can have MASS STARVATION. When I see a Democratic voting bloc in America that would gladly vote for Bernie Sanders, that tells me that liberal voters should be watching this video.
My dad was actually in high school in Romania when they overthrew Ceaucescu. I had a really interesting conversation with hiim and my uncle about it; it's crazy to think what happened there, with Ceacescu's slow decline into madness. Apparently, it wasn't even that bad when they were kids in the 70s; it was mostly the 80s where things really started going bad for the average person. Funny enough, that was after Ceaucescu visited North Korea, saw what Kim was doing, and wanted to emulate that in his own country.
Born and raised in Romania, my parents were there during the revolution. From their tellings what I gathered is that while Ceausescu managed to completely pay back the debt our country owed to any and all external parties, and even lent out oil to arab countries in turn having them be indebted to us, in the latter years of the regime his ego and descent into insanity pushed him to sacrifice many Romanian youths for some of the stupidest things. As it usually happens under communism, human life comes second to the interests of the Great Leader, and when teenagers died due to exhaustion while toiling away at shitty canals or gianormous buildings, in workplaces with little to no safety regulations, Ceausescu wouldn't even bat an eyelid. When people would starve in their homes and shiver during winter due to him enforcing a curfew for electricity and gas services, he didn't bat an eyelid. In the end, he crawled meakly on the ground begging for forgiveness, but the Romanian people didn't bat an eyelid. When people preach communism they always tend to forget that human nature is easily bent by power, and communist regimes will always create a power vacuum. All it takes is one Great Leader and the whole thing goes to shit within, at most, two generations.
My dad's a historian, Serbian/Hungarian, he said the most insulting thing for the Romanian populous was the wealth the dictator and his family hoarded. Well, to be exact the dictator only. The dictator's son lived in an apartment downtown. They found that he had a microwave and an electric iron, which were paraded on the street when he was caught, to show his neighbors what treasures he was hoarding in his apartment. That's how poor the poor were in Romania during that time.
There's a game called "Stay! Stay! Democratic People's Republic of Korea!", itself a parody of "Go! Go! Nippon! My First Trip to Japan", which is pretty much based around that joke.
@@nanahuatli2144 funny enough I saw this joke on a late night comedy show years ago (I forget the name of it). An actor playing Kim Jong Il (yeah it was that old) is frolicking on the beach with a young Korean girl in her bikini, and he says what I posted earlier joyfully to the camera (except he said “...and I will make you stay”), it was a travel promotion parody for North Korea.
I feel bad for all the North Koreans because of what they have to go through on a daily basis and it’s by far the strictest, yet poorest country and the fact that it they have banned some everyday things that other countries have is pretty sickening
"The ugliest building in the world" - My first initial impression was, - wow! look at that. Impressive. - After your story I was like, - eylf!! Horrifying.
Its actually the tallest concrete building in the world. Because they only used concrete they had to built it in a pyramid shape, because for a "classical" skyscraper you need steel, which is much lighter and more stable. As each floor needs to be able to carry all the following floors, they had to become smaller the higher you go up: pyramid.
@Don Duke I read somewhere that after all these years exposed to the environment the structural integrity is considered to be permanently damaged. Apparently to repair it, you would need to dismantle and rebuild large sections of the top, probably even the entire building.
Geographics strictly based on design it isn’t terrible. Quite good for a country of such magnitude actually... now for the money that’s funded it, and the lives that have been sacrificed for its construction, well that’s a different story.
Today we all realise that the us wants to destroy all the places where people have better lives. iran , nk, syria, iraq or afghanistan were devoid of the modern day slavery of living precariously paycheck to paycheck. To think their fuel generated all western progress and they get sanctions for gratitude.
I have watched a million channels on youtube but time and time again i come back to this one, This channel is pure quality and the narrator is just simply brilliant, you guys just get better and better, thank you for this channel.
I see your comments everywhere and I just wanted to say that you're such an insightful person and it's such a breath of fresh air in the comment section.
The "never being allowed to leave" isn't the main problem... the main problem would be the room service. Or the catering. In the other Korea, there's a speciality, called Naengmyeon. A cold soup, with noodles, meat and vegetables. Very refreshing in the summer. The northern variation is similar... but comes without the noodles, meat or vegetables...
@@Zamolxes77 nobody wants abuse. However, after years of conditioning through fear, death penalties, starvation, and executions, people can be fooled and convince themselves accepting abuse is the better option than opposing it.
Simon, great video, albeit sad story. Very informative- I’m finding myself watching more & more randomly-selected videos from your many channels, literally learning something new everyday🤘🏽. I appreciate the insight you offer, keep up the good work.
Everything you do, Biographics, Today I found out & TopTenz net,I Love. Insightful and entertaining.Please keep making all of the above & keep the beard.
And now you're a country of success? 80% of your working capable population is doing worse jobs in western Europe, otherwise in homeland they would starve to death.
@@hammertiming8423 Depends on how you define success, but the simple fact that I can watch anything and say anything means that it is better. A lot of people have migrated to work in other countries, not 80% but it is a phenomenon. This is what happens if you increase the population artificially as the communists did, and to imagine they wanted 30 million people...
I kinda like it. It seems very stable in the case of an earthquake, and access to sunlight is nicely optimized. From the aestethic point of view, it blends nicely in the general landcape. Had it been built in Dubai or such, nobody would have called it ugly.
@Douglas Bull Vaders fortress looks more like what Barad Dur looks like. The Korean hotel reminds me of something ive seen before in a sci-fi movie but cannot remember where. Maybe it was Flash Gordon movie, Ming the Merciless's tower r something. It does look like something out of old Art Deco design.
I’m a little surprised you gave a summary of the birth of the two modern Koreas without mentioning the Korean War (1950-53). That was kind of a big deal.
In the grand scheme of things, the Korean War was a stalemate. Both independently declared Koreas stayed in tact with the same borders from before the war. With or without the war, the north still would have been rocky and infertile while the south would still have all the farmland.
@@noelv1976 uhh.. it kinda created the split btw the two koreas lol.. along with fueling further wars and conflicts across Asia btw the US and USSR for influence
Fun Fact: this structure made a cameo appearance in the 2003 video game Mercenaries: World Of Destruction which was set during a second korean war. It's where the first "ace card" boss battle happens and you have to destroy it with a fuel-air bomb in order to access the boss.
@@sublimacy7639 Most of them know the West isn’t dog shit like the government tells them. Notably, their grandparents tell stories of American troops being kind and caring in the Korean War.
I have never thought this building is ugly, and still don't. Yes, the circumstances behind its construction are disgusting, but from an architectural perspective, I find the Ryugyong far more interesting and compelling than most skyscrapers in the United States.
Communism's greatest enemy is communism. I was going to say 'the people', because all socialists hate people, which is why they want max power over them; so they can cause max suffering. But communism can never survive because it is an ideology of abuse. That can never last (I am now reading Gene Sharp's ""from dictatorship to democracy" about non-violent resistance, and enjoying ever minute of it; it offers hope.)
Mitchell Adams not: "I wanna be super duper equal" But: "I am in charge, and I want you to do exactly as I say: you are all equal, ya hear! I am telling you, you are all equal under me." (Apart from the political prisoners, they deserve special maltreatment, because they are displeased at my abuse.)
@Mitchell Adams It has more to do with ego. In the USSR, Ukranians starved to death because Stalin wanted to be able to brag about how much food the Soviet Union could export. In China, the Great Leap Forward was Mao's attempt to "revolutionize" agriculture and industry. He likely wanted to prove Communists could come up with a better way to feed a nation. Since he didn't know much about agriculture or industry, it was a huge disaster.
Ultimately it was trade between nations. The communist nations and capital nations initially embargoed one another. Communist nations seeking trade for goods started to play one upsmanship with each other. When USSR fell apart Russia's dictators went for the big payout.
“It only took three generations to make North Korea into George Orwell's 1984." Yeonmi Park - North Korean Defector and Human Rights Activist (Her UA-cam channel is called Voice of North Korea by Yeonmi Park)
The building is a very interesting case from almost any angle you look at it: it is one of very few ego-based supertall skyscrapers, it represents a government that is disgusting, it also shouldn’t be demolished if/when the government falls, but it also shouldn’t be valorized if/when that were to happen. It’s one of those edge cases in history where history meets contemporary ethics and getting rid of it would be more destructive to culture and understanding than keeping it around
8:58 Actually, it was different. Since South Korea was where the main battles took place, it was severely bombarded as either side tried to take control. Even the mountains had no trees, no grass not to mention important infrastructure. On the other hand, North Korea still had infrastructure and factories which gave them the upper hand for several decades before finally falling behind. Of course South Korea would have never recovered if it wasn't for economic aid from the U.S. mainly, and compensation from Japan for its prior colonial rule of Korean peninsula.
On the other hand, the North was still very scarred. Until Vietnam, NK was the most bombed country in the history of the world, with more tons dropped than the entire Pacific theatre of WW2. 85% of buildings were destroyed. Maybe they never mentally recovered from the fear of American bombing. I bet it feels good knowing you have nukes to retaliate if you ever need to.
The US bombed the crap out of the north during the Korean war, until there was nothing left to bomb. There was no infrastructure left in the north at all.
Mind boggling. Like a real life Stephen King horror novel. So terrifying for the people that live there, they have never attempted to overthrow the dictatorship
Because enough of them are ideological communists and the remainder of the population actually the entirety of the population lives in fear of being ratted out by their fellow people. They are communists members of their own family will report them to the authorities for wrongthink.
They’re brainwashed from birth. They think that the supreme leaders are practically god. Even if you tried to overthrow to dictatorship, you’d be killed, hence why those who thought differently escaped north korea through China.
They think they are still the best nation in the world. Like their shitty living conditions are still better than the rest of the world. And suddenly being shown otherwise doesn't give these people hope, it just makes them more depressed to the point of not being able to work anymore at all. It's like every single citizen has been in an extremely abusive relationship for their whole life.
Je découvre ta chaîne ! Merci c passionnant et super bien raconté ! Curieux quand même que le Kim actuel, avec tous les building qu'il a construit, ne se soit pas attelé à achever cet hôtel... affaire à suivre...
Not to mention that it would also be a functioning hotel if it were to be in either of those cities, otherwise it wouldn't have been built in the first place.
@zain mudassir Unfortunatly we seem to live in a world where those ideas are seen as positive. Hopefully we can change before we become a world of hermit kingdomns ruled by ego-driven idiots. Sadly no current political idea on any part of the spectrum of left to right has any new answers, only old ideas, dead rethoric and trying to solve modern issuse by engaging in extreme navel-gazing.
I was born in 1992. I cant belive I spent the 90s on ice pops and playing outside with friends. and on the other side the world a country was eating itself. That's truly unfathomable. That doesnt feel real.
Santa Klaas Really? A criticism of socialism disgusts you? Not the millions starving to death? But the criticism of a system that allowed this regime to exist in the first place?
North Korea really is hell on earth. I feel awful for those who are trapped in that horrific nightmare. Hitchens said it was the most evil place he’d visited. An absolute hell hole. And from what I gather, I agree.
I love how people in the West like to fantasize about dystopias when North Korea exists Edit: aight y’all need to calm tf down. This comment was meant to be a comedic statement not a debate hall for a bunch of people with vastly differing ideas
14:48 "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rule the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!"
I don't know what lead me to find this channel but I'm pleasantly surprised by the production value and quality editing. The content itself is great for satiating morbid curiosity.
I've also seen this man on two other channels with the exact same style of video for various topics. They're called "Biographics" and "Into the Shadows" and they both have morbidly interesting videos just like this one. Really gotten into these channels lately.
Signup for your FREE trial to The Great Courses Plus here: ow.ly/bJh530qdmJM
I wish I could be like this guy
Simon, over the years you seem to be slowly sliding to the right....welcome friend!
@@clifforddang5947 bald?
Why interrupt content though??? I mean this is one of the few commercials I'm exposed to, hell I literally pay to no see these. No hate towards you, and I know that you gotta put food on the table. I just know that their paying for such a slot is why I'll never use great courses.
As an aside in your position I'd have a frank sitdown video style video. It's the same thing I'd reccomend to any and every large UA-camr really. Just have an open discussion with your audience and say "look, it's no secret that I make a living here. This is my passion and I want to procuse it, but my family needs to eat. More than that these videos aren't free to create. The overhead may be less than sitcom's in the 90's, but none the less it costs more than food stamps. If I can find enough support from the community then we can survive with recused or even without sponsorship."
It may even be advantageous to provide rough metrics. I'd even point out that a few patreon supporters help doesn't pay come corporate bigwig, but real people with real lives... and that it sure beats cable companies extortion rates 🤣
Just a thought man, nothin but love for you and yours ❤ keep up the stellar content!
No thanks, Simon. I'll never use them, mainly because of the ways in which they take over a channel. You're missing out on many more subscribers too. You should have at least ten times the number you have gleaned by now with your otherwise high standard of presentation and content. Why? Because this channel has been reduced to just an advertising mouthpiece for 'Great Curses Pus'.
Lots of people scrub through the ads, or stop watching the videos altogether. I used to watch all of your videos, years ago, but stopped when the ads became the reason for the videos.
That's sad, because the information in this channel is often very educational, and you're very skilled at your job.
The Ryugyong, that’s my favorite hotel. Love that place
I buy it for a dollar
Will leave the light on. Maybe
Hi Kim, I'm very impressed by your horseback climb of Mount Paektu, but how did you manage it wearing a suit?
Also, have you ever thought of changing your harstyle, being a man-of-the-world type, I would've thought you'd try something a bit more.....grown-up?
no u Sarcasim;)
My favorite part is bungee cord elevator ride from the top floor rotating restaurant, and the non edible dog statues that look so real the have fork marks in them.
Kim Jong sounds like me in minecraft. Eager to jump into ambitious mega structures, he neglects the early necessities like food farms, creates a gigantic cobblestone frame, then realizes he doesn't know how to do interior decorating and gives up with this massive empty shell.
saaaaaaaaaaaame
@@chaosultimamage but do you fard and shidded and coom?
ikr?
Exactly
damn you are so right lol. I once literally built a 50,000 concrete block pyramid that I was too lazy to finish
Protagonist: The villain's lair could be anywhere
The villain's lair:
Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated up in this b
BAHHAA
Lol
G O N K
@@fpcooper95 was gonna say the exact same thing lmao
The hotel that perfectly represents the Kim's in their entirety, flashy, overbearing, looming over its populous, but hollow, empty and souless inside.
Well said.
I know the kims personally.... Really down to earth and very generous people. I have a great holiday every year when we visit uncle kim and have BBQ and pool parties...
I'm sure Kim is a delightful person.
I’m pretty sure they don’t bbq in North Korea
@@catherinemarchand3555 you'd be right...
"The Ministry of Truth - Minitrue in Newspeak - was startingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enourmous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred metres into the air"
George Orwell 1984
Best comment ever for this Hotel
I thought all three ministry buildings looked like that. Been a while since I read the book.
I wonder if any one in the Kim dynasty read 1984.
@@cmdrflake Every apartment in the capital has a radio hardwired into the wall that broadcasts propaganda all the time. You can turn it down, but never off.
@@pyromania1018 yes all four buildings are pyramidal but for some reason I fought of the Minitrue when I watched the video
It looks like a supervillain's headquarters
Seriously and truly. I posit that it probably actually is.
I was thinking of Dr. Evil
Adam Nothing a few cruise missiles can’t fix.
xsailor85 nah they got a death ray on top where the helipad is
Its actually pretty cool.
One day an aged Gordon Ramsay will once more grab the UV light and the sleeping bag for a last and very special episode of Hotel Hell.
this is extremely ominous and gives the vibe that he will die there ✌️😳
@@mushrump He knows he will. That's why it will be the last and most special episode. He will go all in, and then he will disappear.
And find that nothing lives in there, not even cockroaches
@@I.am.Sarah. not even bacteria lives there
@@grunkythegrandpaofcheese5241😅
Could you imagine if one day, and yes I know merely in saying this it's highly unlikely, the hotel is transformed into an agricultural center. Indeed the interior floorplan is estimated at a 89 acres. Using similar technology to the Dutch for interior growing, you'd have 1.3 million vertical grow systems capable of producing a staggering 71,500,000 plants every 35-60 days (depending on species). This would go a tremendous way not only to feeding the people but to making the cause of so much suffering into a symbol of hope.
Kim isn't interested in food production unless it's going directly to his waistline.
@@lannamama2034Kimberly and her waistline and the whole damn family gone...wiped out... exterminated, I personally would wish nothing less for North Korea.
thats hella of a weed grow
North Korea don’t have the most fertile environment or enough soil to support that much growth. If they did, they wouldn’t need the interior growing plan, and with heavy sanctions on just about everything, I doubt they’d be able to fill the bottom floor.
This is in a dictatorship
Honestly, growing up we are taught about how North Korea has separated themselves from the modern world and how behind the times they are. However, I have never heard about any of this, truly fascinating and horrifying how gruesome of a life this country has experienced.
They did being it upon themselves in large parts.. Refusing to admit they need aid, letting ego and stubbornness get in the way of their own best interest.. The people should've overthrown that sick family ages ago but they live in fear over it. A life like that is no life at all..
Yes which makes me feel so bad for these people
@@Ai-kichona Don't! Way things are going you will get to experience it here in America soon!
Nah. Communism always leads to a thriving economy that benefits its citizens. 🤪
@@garygraham4679
TRUMP in 2020.
UNLEASH the FULL POWER OF
LAW ENFORCEMENT and MILITARY MIGHT AGAINST THESE CRAZY
LOOTERS,
RIOTERS,
ANARCHISTS,
HOMEBOYS,
LAW, ORDER, and
PEACE, MUST
DEFEAT,
ANARCHY,
CHAOS,
LAWLESSNESS.
TRUMP IN 2020,
SEND HIDEN BIDEN,
KRAZY KAMALA
and that other
LUNATIC
KATHY GRIFFIN ON A 1 WAY TRIP TO PLUTO.
WITH PLENTY OF
DIET PEPSI AND DORITOS. AMEN.
15:54
To know how bad it was:
in the 90s "fled for the safety of China"
unbelievable😅😅
@Zedant
Yup, it’s like jumping from the frying pan and into the Fire…
It was super bad. At least a million North Koreans starved to death in the 90s and 00s.
Yeah I got to this line, and I had to pause the video for a moment and just sit with that. Just. Oof.
Safety they thought anyway
Me at the beginning: That building's not actually that ugly
Me at the end, after learning about the famine: You're right, that's the ugliest damn building I've ever seen in my life
@@goldenhawk352 good idea for a post Brexshit UK theme park.
@@goldenhawk352 I doubt that North Korea wants to open its border for tourism. Remember that they closed off their country to feed propaganda to their people and to make their people believe that NK is the best country in the world and the supreme leader can do nothing wrong. Having millions of foreigners coming in the country and telling the North Korean people about how good life is outside of NK, and how NK is actually just a 3rd world country is a no-no. As long as NK is being ruled under a dictatorship that is built on lies, they will never open their country up for tourism.
@@Aliens1337 North Korea is open to tourism rn. You can litteraly go anytime you want. They are actually really desperate to get people to visit. They even have a tik tok page where they advertise how “great”North Korea is and how people should visit.
A monument to represent socialism. Looks great on the outside, but totally useless on the inside....
@@sammy080798 big ambitions, no results
The Ryugyong is the perfect metaphor for the nation itself, shows that its shining to outsiders but dying, empty and sad inside
Sort of like the US.
@@suzanadee8252At least the US will more than likely outlive the fall of the DPRK. Since it's already heavily reliant on China and all of the illegal stuff like drugs, counterfeit cigarettes and money being sneaked across the border. North Korea would be even less well off without help from Xi Jinping and Putin
@@suzanadee8252 sure bud.
I like the frank description of the Kim family's blunders, the sense of outrage over the needless deaths of so many North Koreans. Too often, in trying to be objective we sugar-coat history. This video avoided that, and is much more powerful for that reason.
Hi. I did not describe this but i will gladly take credit.
I agree but also the humble beginnings of America started from the genocide of the natives.
@@parakrambasnet6317 The United States history is riddled with the worst of societies malfeasance, and as a citizen it disheartens me just how few of it is taught to us in public education. Clearly we are bound to repeat these travesties in order to protect our ego and self image from teaching children about our dark past.
@@parakrambasnet6317 not even that , I mean ofc the country started out as a mass genocide of the natives , but then the country was worked by slaves , and then the whole system in the country ( political , social etc) was based around slavery
It’s so horrible the things USA has been throughout , the so called land of the free was paved entirely on slaver
In Pyongyang (Mordor), the LED flag (Eye of Sauron) gazed down upon a wasteland (a wasteland).
even Mordor had fertile lands for agriculture
Ok, the "a wasteland (a wasteland)" bit had me cracking up.
'Lone and level sands stretched far away.'
Ah yes the Wasteland(A wasteland)q
@@joehart6030 I met a traveler from a Commie land
Who said: a large and empty concrete tomb
Stands in Pyongyang...
Man between this and Stalins Cannibal Island I need to have a hard drink. Thanks for all the research and work you put into these videos. Your teaching history that so many either want to cover up or forget.
Literally just watched those two videos back to back. Heavy lifting indeed, Bro
He didn't mention it, but in case you didn't know, even though it's kinda obvious: most Asian cultures put the family name first. And "Kim" is like the Korean version of "Jones" -- 21.5%of South Koreans have that name, and are only very distantly, if at all, related to the ruling family in the north. (Lee is 15%, and Park is 8.5%. There aren't many family names in Korea, is the joke.)
It’s because heir surnames come from clan names and there was more than one Kim clan.
More like "Pak" than "Park." The character doesn't have a "B" sound and it isn't a "P" sound, but right between them.
@@Gail1Marieq
I would hope people would have common sense to think that everyone in the family doesn’t have the same first name, Kim, and then all different last names…
1:30 - Chapter 1 - Sibling rivalry
5:00 - Chapter 2 - One last , shining moment
7:55 - Chapter 3 - A taste of armageddon
11:55 - Mid roll ads
13:00 - Chapter 4 - The disaster begins
16:30 - Chapter 5 - Don't sleep outside
20:00 - Chapter 6 - A modern building
chapter 6 - without description
@@slovenianoaktree8853 wow
@@PedroFinGuitar damn, I totally ~forgot I made this comment
@@slovenianoaktree8853 I have recently sat trough EATEOT, that hit hard 😂😂
@@PedroFinGuitar good job dude, I never managed to go beyond stage 4 or 5, I just couldn't
This man spent almost 25 minutes roasting the shit out of the Kims
Joe Kaz not that hard to do lol
Heh he literally just stated facts
Considering the Kims almost literally murdered their country, I’d say he more polite than should be expected.
For me THAT is the greatest irony of all of this. One of the last ‘communist’ nations of the world has become nothing more a that a autocratic Monarchy
Lmao he better never visit NK
If you were a starving kid in NK during the height of the famine, you might've been roasted too.... om nom nom nom
"Welcome to the hotel Ryuguong,
such a lovely place,
such a waste of space..."
Dangerosu - I can name that tune in three notes....
They're living it up at the hotel Ryuguong
You mistaken their official bird bro: it's not the Eagles...it's the crows to them :)
@@Not-Great-at-Gaming Right. The Vulcans are having more fun at the Vulcan compound. (Trip Tucker) Too bad they really don't exist, but no one's having fun at this hotel anyway.
Ready a room at the hotel ryuguong,
Anytime of year,
You can't stay here.
Mary Antoinette -"Let them eat cake"
Kim Jong Un - "Let them eat grass"
More like "Let's eat grass!"
Scotty From Marketing (AU Crime Minister) - "Let them eat coal!"
Yeah. Only she got her head chopped off. The Kim's still have theirs.
That's how N Korean landscape outfits pay their workers.
14:00 "He couldn't manage the economy. He couldn't even mismanage it, like his father..."
Dang!!!! That's a brutal family burn. XD
It always the case: the son will almost always be worse than the father. In this case, a bad man was replaced by an even worse man.
@@nathanseper8738 speaking about any one in particular? 🤔😉
That is such a funny remark
@@nathanseper8738 more like a pathetic excuse for a man
do you think Simon dislikes that family?
"If that sounds unlikely, well . . . I mean, so does everyone flocking to the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany."
"AH-"
@ I think you missed the joke here.
See he went "AH-" on an image of the Nazi flag proudly being flown next to British and french flags while thousands of spectators, likely including many foreign ones, are casually Nazi saluting, which in hindsight is horrifying.
Of course this is all known only because of hindsight - they wouldn't be DOING that if people at the time had any inclination of what would happen with the regime, but it's funny because of future context.
@ I was literally quoting the video and the sound effect he used. Did you make it that far, or?
@@SplitMaw He just got the Impulse to defend nazi germany, give him a break. Smh my head.
@@sedanwheel4146 It's strange though because I was very shocked to recently learn of a black American who participated in those Olympics and he had said the Germans were very respectful and gave him a standing applause, and that he experienced no negative treatment there. I also learned that Hitler and Gandhi were friends, and Hitler spoke admiringly about Japanese and Chinese culture. I'm not defending the Nazis but damn those facts are hard to integrate into what I've been taught about the man.
@@larealidad6695 And? Hitler was also a vegetarian and an animal rights activist (which was hilariously poked at by one of Soviet cartoonists: "I don't need the blood of lambs, I need the blood of humans!"), doesn't make what he did any less henious.
Vice versa, Gandhi had many controvesial statements - opposing building hospitals *because* they reduce suffering and make repaying karmic debts harder comes to mind - but that doesn't change the fact that he is the father of modern India.
There are no absolutely evil people, there are no absolutely good people. The sooner you cast off black-and-white thinking and hero worship, the better.
I feel like if you took off his glasses, the nose would come off with them.
Yeah
I’ll now see this every time I look at him
Roni, prkl 😅
I'll never unsee this
Well yeah it’s a disguise he’s actually a block of cheese
It feels like a punch right on the guts to think all the money wasted making this hotel, all the people that died of starvation and in the end it doesn't even serve its purpose, no one can even go there.
@Therashofshay WHAT?
Me as a kid: "I hate history. Why the hell do I need to learn every damn nation's history?"
Me as an adult: "MORE HISTORY, UA-cam!!"
History is amazing, It was badly taught in schools and probably still is. I hated that class too.
I agree. Badly taught in my school too. History is boss.
In the same way that an activity often ceases to look so much fun, when you have to do it for a living; a subject can cease to look as interesting, when you have to learn it as an obligation. Rigid syllabus, exams, time tables, deadlines, a teacher you don't like, dull readings... All of these, put together, can well spoil the best part of any knowledge area.
I agree. I hated history, now I love it.
Funny how that works.
well I'm not very fond of cultural distinctions in terms of "quality" info e.g reading a book vs watching a 20minute video but this is certainly NOT a history lesson and not because of the medium. pretty good and entertaining piece of condensed information on some topic but not scientific
Thought this was a hotel, but actually got the best summary of North Korea's history that I've seen! Horrifying, thank you.
If you’ve never seen it you should watch Americans going to North Korea and staying. It’s like a scary hotel
@@bobbythomas6520 Shameless propaganda do be like that
The cutaway to the German olympics and the quick “Ah!” cracks me up 😂
same lmaooo
i was looking for a comment on this
People just siegin
Well Germany brought the world the first modern day olympics and it invented what has become tradition today, like bringing the Olympic fire to the Olympics from Mount Olympus. People are just ignorant, panem et ludos works with basically 99,99% of humanity.
All hail from Germany
Gosh that absolutely killed me
Boy that did not age well.
I was watching videos on the Paris Catacombs and stumbled on your channel which covered the topic by far the best and in the most entertaining way. Now i’m on a rabbit hole and watching all your videos and wanted to say you make learning history fun again! Thanks
No one:
Ryugyong: Feeling lit, might blackout the entire nation later
We still making nobody memes?
@@SeSmokki Still not officially dead
Omg lmfao
IDK
@@SeSmokki still better than "laughs in _________".
I highly recommend the book "Under the Same Sky" by Joseph Kim if you'd like to learn more about the famine. It's about his experience growing up during the famine and eventually escaping to freedom. It's...horrifying, to be honest. But I think it's important for us to be aware of the realities in NK. And there is hope, because Joseph Kim and others like him have escaped to freedom with the help of organizations like Liberty in North Korea.
Have you read "The Kite Runner"? Because that was the most depressing book I have ever read and I'm an avid reader and 66 years old. I wanted to relax in a warm tub of water and slit my wrists after that book. Is "Under the Same Sky" as depressing?
It’s sad how these people live and are being lied to.
@Allie Unfortunately you might be right
@Allie Maybe foreign aid shouldn't have been given to them. If it had just collapsed as all communist states do, the regime wouldn't still exist.
escaped to freedom lmao
Country is wholly dependent on food imports to feed itself.
“This is a problem! We must be selfsuficient in case we get cut off”
Builds agricultural system wholly dependent on fertilizer imports to feed itself
“Great! Now we need nothing from outside sources”
Not how that works Kim...
Kinda like the US relying on imports instead of making everything on US soil.
Hooda Gooboy No not really. The US does not attempt to be selfsuficient and not require imports
@@hoodagooboy5981 You really don't know much about the American economy, it costs more money to make things on US soil. Hence why most companies rely on imports for some of their biggest economic investments.
@@abbie_joan You do realize the majority of things are manufactured in america that america uses. We manufacture a greater proportion of goods here then from the 1960s, 1970's, and 1980s. The loss of jobs in manufacturing plants is largely due to automation. Low skill consumer items are what has largely moved overseas and is why there is this perception of a complete lack of manufacturing base.
Imagine how bad it was in NK that China was considered a safe place
Indeed.
And sadly still is...
What's wrong with China?
China is safe as long as you keep your mouth shut
@@SaskoSam nothing less wrong with China than the fake democracy in the west.
“He couldn’t manage the economy. He couldn’t even mismanage the economy like his father, that would have required a basic grasp of how the economy worked in order for him to screw it up”
Damn! I haven’t seen you worked up like ever! Haha
I know Simon's utter disgust with North Korea just drips from this whole video, as it should
As an economist, that's my favorite line ever.
If one does not find it difficult to contain any form of disgusts or disdain for the failed country that is North Korea, there may be something wrong with that certain individual.
Sarz93 I thought you were talking about Scotty From Marketing (AU Grime Sinister, former treasurer). He doesn't even bother to mismanage Australia - he leaves it for his equally useless colleagues to balls it up X-P
16:00 Unfortunately, it wasn't just villages. Basically any place aside Pyongyang and the most prestigious families were starving. Popular port cities like Chongjin, which used to be a very prosperous port city, had starving children right outside the train stations. It's important to talk about children here because famines usually have the same symptoms: first the sick die, then the elderly, then the poor, then the young and then the children. It has to do with health. Healthier people are more resistant to dying from hunger, as it deeply damages your health. It's interesting, if a bit morbid, to think about famine in that way. If you ever hear about famines, think about how many younger people die from it, that will show you some of the extent of the famine.
Anyway, Everything in North Korea was closing down all at once as the famine struck, worsened by NK's obsession with isolating itself from a world that was "dangerously" turning capitalist (as Russia and China, their closest allies, were also "succumbing" to capitalist ideology). That, included with the military seizing resources wherever they could, lead to such a massive famine that the stories still linger with me today. If you want to read more about it, I can highly recommend Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. It's about the lives of seven North Korean defectors, some of which were there from the very inception of North Korea. Very interesting, but also very sad.
Also, the rumors about cannibalism are just that: rumors. I bet there were some cannibalism, considering the scale of the famine, but I think that saying there was cannibalism implies that it was on a much larger scale than in reality. After all, there'd be more people surviving the famine if they'd have eaten each other as much as some people like to imply.
I did not know that - judging the level of a famine by what groups are starving...but it makes perfect sense.
@ Alex Ambriz Soto, come talk to us about nutrition/diet when you’ve finish puberty.
@Tyler Braden he meant what he said, fasting is voluntary hunger involuntary and leads to malnutrition and he was making a serious point about a tragedy that had nothing to do with being fat in the USA
If the people they ate were starved to the point the had no fat on them, the cannibals still would have starved. It's like rabbit starvation.
That's a long story dude. Let me shorten it for you:
ALL periods of modern famine are perpetuated by governments. THATS ALL FAMINE.
We expect this from Communist nations, as they do this in order to ENFORCE EQUALITY.
Or you can have a free market economy and have some inequality.
In short, you can have some INEQUALITY or you can have MASS STARVATION.
When I see a Democratic voting bloc in America that would gladly vote for Bernie Sanders, that tells me that liberal voters should be watching this video.
Honestly, the "Don't sleep outside" sounds like some creepypasta title.
I mean, what happened in North Korea was basically a real life creepypasta, only it was actually horrifying and creepy.
Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, because fiction is inevitably bound by plausibility... Truth is not....
My dad was actually in high school in Romania when they overthrew Ceaucescu. I had a really interesting conversation with hiim and my uncle about it; it's crazy to think what happened there, with Ceacescu's slow decline into madness. Apparently, it wasn't even that bad when they were kids in the 70s; it was mostly the 80s where things really started going bad for the average person. Funny enough, that was after Ceaucescu visited North Korea, saw what Kim was doing, and wanted to emulate that in his own country.
Dashamburger -- Interesting. Always good to get information from people who were 'there'.
Born and raised in Romania, my parents were there during the revolution. From their tellings what I gathered is that while Ceausescu managed to completely pay back the debt our country owed to any and all external parties, and even lent out oil to arab countries in turn having them be indebted to us, in the latter years of the regime his ego and descent into insanity pushed him to sacrifice many Romanian youths for some of the stupidest things. As it usually happens under communism, human life comes second to the interests of the Great Leader, and when teenagers died due to exhaustion while toiling away at shitty canals or gianormous buildings, in workplaces with little to no safety regulations, Ceausescu wouldn't even bat an eyelid. When people would starve in their homes and shiver during winter due to him enforcing a curfew for electricity and gas services, he didn't bat an eyelid. In the end, he crawled meakly on the ground begging for forgiveness, but the Romanian people didn't bat an eyelid. When people preach communism they always tend to forget that human nature is easily bent by power, and communist regimes will always create a power vacuum. All it takes is one Great Leader and the whole thing goes to shit within, at most, two generations.
My dad's a historian, Serbian/Hungarian, he said the most insulting thing for the Romanian populous was the wealth the dictator and his family hoarded. Well, to be exact the dictator only. The dictator's son lived in an apartment downtown. They found that he had a microwave and an electric iron, which were paraded on the street when he was caught, to show his neighbors what treasures he was hoarding in his apartment. That's how poor the poor were in Romania during that time.
Wow thanks for sharing that's why I love this Channel all kinds of people and they add to the video thank you
Same should happen to the Clintons.
This didn’t matter when Mao was essentially a mustacheless Stalin tribute act...” lmao best line I’ve ever heard
Bro, get with the format.
It’s, “quote here” followed by 😂😂😂🤣
@@kaydog890 THANK YOU
I got to this comment EXACTLY when he was saying it! Sigh, I need to get a life.
With the LED lights on it, it sort of reminds me of the Eye of Sauron.
Yikes
I can't express how happy I felt watching him roasting the Kim
"It's exterior gleaming, it's interior empty and dead, a handy metaphor for the regime it was commissioned by."
It's = it is
It's like you cut the words in half and stick them together and the apostrophe is like a friendly little piece of tape to hold it :D
@@jamesmcinnis208 Actually in this case an apostrophe is correct as it denotes possession rather than contraction.
@@mickey4125 "Actually" you're wrong.
@@jamesmcinnis208 Care to explain in what way?
“Come to North Korea! Where you will WANT to stay! And we will MAKE you stay!” 🇰🇵
😂😂😂
*Looks at Otto Warmbier*
There's a game called "Stay! Stay! Democratic People's Republic of Korea!", itself a parody of "Go! Go! Nippon! My First Trip to Japan", which is pretty much based around that joke.
C O M E T O B R A Z I L
*or else...*
@@nanahuatli2144 funny enough I saw this joke on a late night comedy show years ago (I forget the name of it). An actor playing Kim Jong Il (yeah it was that old) is frolicking on the beach with a young Korean girl in her bikini, and he says what I posted earlier joyfully to the camera (except he said “...and I will make you stay”), it was a travel promotion parody for North Korea.
Harsh but true "He couldn't even mismanage the economy."
Hard to mismanage something that barely exist
I feel bad for all the North Koreans because of what they have to go through on a daily basis and it’s by far the strictest, yet poorest country and the fact that it they have banned some everyday things that other countries have is pretty sickening
"Spewing radiation like an atomic kettle."
Hey! just because my kettle glows blue doesn't mean it doesn't boil tea quicker than everybody else's
Maybe he said cattle ?
Completely normal phenomenon.
And I for one appreciate that you knew it would glow blue. Most people think radiation makes green light thanks to pop culture.
The world's spiciest tea.
The tea that keeps on boiling, even after you drink it.
The gamma changer!
The tea for Generation X.....ray!
@@duddude321 I often wondered about that. I learned about Cherenkov radiation before I ever heard about the "green glow."
"The ugliest building in the world" - My first initial impression was, - wow! look at that. Impressive. - After your story I was like, - eylf!! Horrifying.
That's propaganda for you…
Its actually the tallest concrete building in the world. Because they only used concrete they had to built it in a pyramid shape, because for a "classical" skyscraper you need steel, which is much lighter and more stable. As each floor needs to be able to carry all the following floors, they had to become smaller the higher you go up: pyramid.
@Don Duke I read somewhere that after all these years exposed to the environment the structural integrity is considered to be permanently damaged. Apparently to repair it, you would need to dismantle and rebuild large sections of the top, probably even the entire building.
It still looks pretty cool. What it was used for doesn't necessarily override its appearance.
I thought it was a joke lol. The Dildo in the UK is by far the ugliest
With it lit up, I immediately thought of the Eye of Sauron.
You should see the Kingdom Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
mark randall -- Tolkein fan, huh? He was Illuminati, I hear.
Marilyn Guinnane still wrote great books though.
@@lisamac1986 -- Oh right. Here are other alleged members of the Illuminati: Lewis Carroll, Frank Baum, George Orwell
@@marilynguinnane4663 Don't forget Jay Z
You can completely level this building to the ground in the game "Mercinaries: Playground of Destruction" on PS2 and og XBOX
Ugliest building in the world? That’s debatable... There’s some ugly buildings out there.
I think the millions of dead people, and the potential cannibalism of children, greatly adds to its... atrociousness.
@@danese1636 Yeah, there's is more than one way for it to be ugly.
Geographics strictly based on design it isn’t terrible. Quite good for a country of such magnitude actually... now for the money that’s funded it, and the lives that have been sacrificed for its construction, well that’s a different story.
did you see that giant hotel in mekka? now thats ugly. but at least its functional.
Today we all realise that the us wants to destroy all the places where people have better lives. iran , nk, syria, iraq or afghanistan were devoid of the modern day slavery of living precariously paycheck to paycheck. To think their fuel generated all western progress and they get sanctions for gratitude.
I have watched a million channels on youtube but time and time again i come back to this one, This channel is pure quality and the narrator is just simply brilliant, you guys just get better and better, thank you for this channel.
Well thank you for saying so :). Glad you are enjoying it.
Ahh... there’s a HUGE difference between never needing to leave the hotel vs. never being ALLOWED to leave. 😳
There's plenty of room in the Hotel California
I see your comments everywhere and I just wanted to say that you're such an insightful person and it's such a breath of fresh air in the comment section.
Erin Thor -- Hotel California.......
Gracie Abbots - I never thought I commented THAT much! LOL! But thanks, I think! 😁
The "never being allowed to leave" isn't the main problem... the main problem would be the room service. Or the catering. In the other Korea, there's a speciality, called Naengmyeon. A cold soup, with noodles, meat and vegetables. Very refreshing in the summer. The northern variation is similar... but comes without the noodles, meat or vegetables...
Thanks for doing all the research that you do and making all these videos
the ryugyong is going to be finished before yandere dev adds osana
i like how yandere dev transcends fandoms and interests lmao
Lmfaooo
The Hotel is not an eyesore. North Korea as a whole is though.
Have you been there?
The regime is an eyesore. The country is not.
@@bennyce5430 I have. He's right.
I think you mean HOLE.
North Korea is an Eyehole?
It’s hard to believe that a place like this actually exists.. I hope for their freedom.
Hope is something that doesn't exist there. You see, their citizens WANT this abuse.
@@Zamolxes77 nobody wants abuse. However, after years of conditioning through fear, death penalties, starvation, and executions, people can be fooled and convince themselves accepting abuse is the better option than opposing it.
Don't forget about the 3 generations rule. They're living the modern dark ages
@@nayomie.e That's not the only catch. They literally couldn't live without the abuse at this point.
"actually"
Simon, great video, albeit sad story. Very informative- I’m finding myself watching more & more randomly-selected videos from your many channels, literally learning something new everyday🤘🏽. I appreciate the insight you offer, keep up the good work.
I’m learning of a new Simon channel every day.
When you go there they tell you it's still in construction and will soon be a five stars hotel LMAO
Honestly Simon, I dont think anybody on UA-cam today works as hard as you do on so many different channels man, good to see, keep it up
There are definitely people who work harder on error checking/quality control lol, spotting the errors in videos is something of a spectator sport xD
If his just the hoste it's not to bad. Research , scripting and editing are the real demanding stuff.
Everything you do, Biographics, Today I found out & TopTenz net,I Love.
Insightful and entertaining.Please keep making all of the above & keep the beard.
Once again, does Simon ever sleep?
@@WHix-om4yo Yes because I imagine being the host that others do the research and video editing. Not to take away from Simon. He is an awesome host.
Looking at this from Romania, I realise that this is where we were heading to if not for 1989.
Interestingly, Ceauşescu was inspired by North Korea's political system: he wanted to implement it there.
Great work guys! Thank god for that
And now you're a country of success? 80% of your working capable population is doing worse jobs in western Europe, otherwise in homeland they would starve to death.
Looking at this from the USA, I realize this is where we’re headed if the Republican obstructionists, Q-anon lunatics and Dominionists have their way.
@@hammertiming8423 Depends on how you define success, but the simple fact that I can watch anything and say anything means that it is better. A lot of people have migrated to work in other countries, not 80% but it is a phenomenon. This is what happens if you increase the population artificially as the communists did, and to imagine they wanted 30 million people...
I kinda like it. It seems very stable in the case of an earthquake, and access to sunlight is nicely optimized. From the aestethic point of view, it blends nicely in the general landcape. Had it been built in Dubai or such, nobody would have called it ugly.
I love the look of it, Shame it is in such a fucky spot in the world
It really is beautiful. I want to stay a week inside.
You're the kind of guy who would like the Palace of Culture in Warsaw...
very , very fucky.
Yah it is totally right out of a sci-fi cityscape. Could fit right in, in a large city in starwars universe.
@Douglas Bull Vaders fortress looks more like what Barad Dur looks like. The Korean hotel reminds me of something ive seen before in a sci-fi movie but cannot remember where. Maybe it was Flash Gordon movie, Ming the Merciless's tower r something. It does look like something out of old Art Deco design.
I’m a little surprised you gave a summary of the birth of the two modern Koreas without mentioning the Korean War (1950-53).
That was kind of a big deal.
I was waiting for they too but it is a subject on its own.
Haha impressive really. So seemless. I barely thought of it.
In the grand scheme of things, the Korean War was a stalemate. Both independently declared Koreas stayed in tact with the same borders from before the war. With or without the war, the north still would have been rocky and infertile while the south would still have all the farmland.
It really didn’t change anything
@@noelv1976 uhh.. it kinda created the split btw the two koreas lol.. along with fueling further wars and conflicts across Asia btw the US and USSR for influence
So apparently North Korea houses a Sith Temple, that's rather hilarious
not that hilarious since the NK gov is evil like the sith.
@@VeryProPlayerYesSir1122 that is exactly why it's hilarious
@@ojpistorius6369 Not for its citizens.
@@pyromania1018 nope that still makes it hilarious
And with Kim Jong Un's obsession for weapons, I wouldn't be surprised if he's secretly building the Death Star.
Fun Fact: this structure made a cameo appearance in the 2003 video game Mercenaries: World Of Destruction which was set during a second korean war.
It's where the first "ace card" boss battle happens and you have to destroy it with a fuel-air bomb in order to access the boss.
@Hammerhead547 I love that game
Praying that someday, people in North Korea will finally get their freedom 🤧😭
Me too.
I hope that too, but I can't figure out how they won't hate us, they are trained to hate everything close to capitalism...
@@sublimacy7639 Most of them know the West isn’t dog shit like the government tells them. Notably, their grandparents tell stories of American troops being kind and caring in the Korean War.
meanwhile brain dead college students in the West praise socialism and communism
@@zwan1886 I just saw someone said communism is preferable to death…. they’ve obviously never seen any of these videos
“The ugliest building in the world” I’m sorry, but that distinct honor goes to the Boston City Hall
That brutalist design architecture is actually really interesting.
Nah man you mean the Kotka city hall in Finland. Atleast the Boston shitshow has some style...
I dunno, there’s a LOT of contenders. For example, every oil refinery ever made
@@222oree The Kotka hall has some slav in it. I feel it.
Nah it has to be the Bundstag in Berlin. 🤮 no pride at all. We should remake it to its former glory.
who else thinks that giant empty labyrinth would make for a great game of airsoft or paintball?
It would be sick if it was zombie map in COD
That's a great idea , just try selling it to the North Koreans.
Yes paintball but north korean style, with rocks. The losers get to stay in a well defended "resort". And the winner gets to eat the rocks yaaay!!
A great airsoft game. Just with real guns... And real bullets...
Airsoft
With real guns
I have never thought this building is ugly, and still don't. Yes, the circumstances behind its construction are disgusting, but from an architectural perspective, I find the Ryugyong far more interesting and compelling than most skyscrapers in the United States.
Could’ve been epic, especially since I believe the cone up top could rotate??
Not that bad. Plenty worse in stevenage and Milton Keynes!
It looks like a spaceship/jet inspired building!!
It looks like a spaceship/jet inspired building!!
Top 3 floors were meant to be restaurants
North koreans: “it’s so bad, we have to eat frogs”
French: “so?”
It’s OK until you run out of frogs.
@@censusgary dude it's easy af to breed em
Louisianans: "wtf I'm communist now?"
Lmfao did the n Koreans eat snails as well?
The American state of Louisiana would be game to join in too. And if there were squirrels thrown in, all the better.
it was North Korea's version of tanacon
I can’t believe I read this comment with my own two eyes LMAO
I laughed at this more than I’d like to admit 😂
I like how the greatest enemy communism ever faced was agriculture. You know the most basic thing in civilization.
Communism's greatest enemy is communism. I was going to say 'the people', because all socialists hate people, which is why they want max power over them; so they can cause max suffering. But communism can never survive because it is an ideology of abuse. That can never last (I am now reading Gene Sharp's ""from dictatorship to democracy" about non-violent resistance, and enjoying ever minute of it; it offers hope.)
Mitchell Adams not: "I wanna be super duper equal"
But: "I am in charge, and I want you to do exactly as I say: you are all equal, ya hear! I am telling you, you are all equal under me."
(Apart from the political prisoners, they deserve special maltreatment, because they are displeased at my abuse.)
@Mitchell Adams It has more to do with ego. In the USSR, Ukranians starved to death because Stalin wanted to be able to brag about how much food the Soviet Union could export. In China, the Great Leap Forward was Mao's attempt to "revolutionize" agriculture and industry. He likely wanted to prove Communists could come up with a better way to feed a nation. Since he didn't know much about agriculture or industry, it was a huge disaster.
Big Rikki lolololololokololololololooolololololololol yeah right
Ultimately it was trade between nations. The communist nations and capital nations initially embargoed one another. Communist nations seeking trade for goods started to play one upsmanship with each other. When USSR fell apart Russia's dictators went for the big payout.
I can’t be the only one that thinks it looks kinda cool
Superficially, sure it looks kinda cool, but the reason it's ugly is because it essentially ruined millions of people's lives
“It only took three generations to make North Korea into George Orwell's 1984."
Yeonmi Park - North Korean Defector and Human Rights Activist
(Her UA-cam channel is called Voice of North Korea by Yeonmi Park)
YESS I LUV HER CHANNEL
“There was no trash because there wasn’t anything to throw away” oof. Her story is amazing. Love her
We are doing it here in one-and-a-half years
The building is a very interesting case from almost any angle you look at it: it is one of very few ego-based supertall skyscrapers, it represents a government that is disgusting, it also shouldn’t be demolished if/when the government falls, but it also shouldn’t be valorized if/when that were to happen. It’s one of those edge cases in history where history meets contemporary ethics and getting rid of it would be more destructive to culture and understanding than keeping it around
Same goes to every BLM movements that vandalized every historical statues or sites just because they're represent slavery or they were slavers
North Korea: we allow 600 tourists a year. Let's build a hotel that can accommodate 6 times that much.
8:58 Actually, it was different. Since South Korea was where the main battles took place, it was severely bombarded as either side tried to take control. Even the mountains had no trees, no grass not to mention important infrastructure. On the other hand, North Korea still had infrastructure and factories which gave them the upper hand for several decades before finally falling behind. Of course South Korea would have never recovered if it wasn't for economic aid from the U.S. mainly, and compensation from Japan for its prior colonial rule of Korean peninsula.
thank you. Very helpful point.
On the other hand, the North was still very scarred. Until Vietnam, NK was the most bombed country in the history of the world, with more tons dropped than the entire Pacific theatre of WW2.
85% of buildings were destroyed.
Maybe they never mentally recovered from the fear of American bombing. I bet it feels good knowing you have nukes to retaliate if you ever need to.
The US bombed the crap out of the north during the Korean war, until there was nothing left to bomb. There was no infrastructure left in the north at all.
i really feel bad for the people living there 😞
Mind boggling. Like a real life Stephen King horror novel. So terrifying for the people that live there, they have never attempted to overthrow the dictatorship
Because enough of them are ideological communists and the remainder of the population actually the entirety of the population lives in fear of being ratted out by their fellow people.
They are communists members of their own family will report them to the authorities for wrongthink.
They're too damn hungry and weak to revolt.
They’re brainwashed from birth. They think that the supreme leaders are practically god. Even if you tried to overthrow to dictatorship, you’d be killed, hence why those who thought differently escaped north korea through China.
Nice 1984 reference
They think they are still the best nation in the world. Like their shitty living conditions are still better than the rest of the world.
And suddenly being shown otherwise doesn't give these people hope, it just makes them more depressed to the point of not being able to work anymore at all.
It's like every single citizen has been in an extremely abusive relationship for their whole life.
Hotel Ryugyong: where all rooms are room 101
and the problem is?
Bloody Hell this is clever
And every floor is the 13th.
@@jesuszamora6949 dammit I'm two months late
More like room 404 - Oops! There's nothing here!
“Before we get into this catastrophe, I’d like to thank our sponsor”
Je découvre ta chaîne ! Merci c passionnant et super bien raconté ! Curieux quand même que le Kim actuel, avec tous les building qu'il a construit, ne se soit pas attelé à achever cet hôtel... affaire à suivre...
Funny how if this building was in Dubai or NYC, the perception of beauty would be wildly different
And London; some truly ugly buildings have been thrown up in the last twenty years.
Not to mention that it would also be a functioning hotel if it were to be in either of those cities, otherwise it wouldn't have been built in the first place.
The "Shart" comes to mind...
Brutalism isn't bad at all, its a really cool design
It would look marvelous in say Berlin
@@ghostoflazlo soulless.
I think it's actually a retro styled rocket for glorious leader to escape in.
It blows my damn mind that there's people who will defend North Korea. I mean, people in the West.
@zain mudassir Unfortunatly we seem to live in a world where those ideas are seen as positive. Hopefully we can change before we become a world of hermit kingdomns ruled by ego-driven idiots. Sadly no current political idea on any part of the spectrum of left to right has any new answers, only old ideas, dead rethoric and trying to solve modern issuse by engaging in extreme navel-gazing.
I would pay you handsomely to point to one person. Stop politicizing everything.
G Merkin who would not defend the Great Leader and the miracle of Juste! You go to camp for treason!
Those people are either very uneducated about the region, or just don't care about human rights.
Dario, you are a special kind of stupid aren't you.
Hey, that single turnip is very important. That's an entire month's supply of food for the nation!
I was born in 1992. I cant belive I spent the 90s on ice pops and playing outside with friends. and on the other side the world a country was eating itself.
That's truly unfathomable. That doesnt feel real.
It looks like a supervillain's corporate headquarters
Imagine how many mouths could have been fed with the cost of construction 🤔
All goverments waste MONEY
20 million ordinary citizens or one Kim Jong-Un could be fed for at least a decade!
@JOE SANCHEZ you disgust me.
Nit as many as you think, when you consider slave labor.
Santa Klaas Really? A criticism of socialism disgusts you? Not the millions starving to death? But the criticism of a system that allowed this regime to exist in the first place?
North Korea really is hell on earth. I feel awful for those who are trapped in that horrific nightmare. Hitchens said it was the most evil place he’d visited. An absolute hell hole. And from what I gather, I agree.
It's a fairly normal country when you learn about what it's actually like instead of shameless propaganda like this.
@@kristoffer3000nice try
@@fraxizztv6433 Ok, thanks I guess.
Let me guess, you're immune to any sort of logic?
@@kristoffer3000 yes
@@fraxizztv6433 Good on you for admitting it. :)
"It's been called the ugliest building in the world."
The Spire of Dublin: "Hold my alcoholic beverage."
*_it technically isn't_*
Edit: a building it technically isn't a building
@@1nickyross Yeah, it's a structure, but according to Google most people don't seem to know the difference, so I was playing off that.
@@stefanm.734, ooohh... *_So who are you vo-_*
@Gavin Powell The Rhynnog Hotel is also a monument. It is a monument to North Korea's failure.
The addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto: "I got this"
I love how even their most iconic building looks like some sort of warhead.
The Ryugyong reminds me of some of my home improvement projects.
The 'don't sleep outside' segment actually happened in the USSR as well. Children were abducted by people to be cannibalised.
I love how people in the West like to fantasize about dystopias when North Korea exists
Edit: aight y’all need to calm tf down. This comment was meant to be a comedic statement not a debate hall for a bunch of people with vastly differing ideas
I don't think anybody fantasizes about dystopia lol
@@abeltesfayeslefttesticle4004 some people do
@@abeltesfayeslefttesticle4004 try chatting with your local 20-year-olds. They all think capitalism is evil
captainthrall Is it not?
Tom Huff ll no, it’s not perfect but it’s not nearly as bad as basically any other form of economics.
I'd like to believe this hotel is based off of Minitrue's building.
So what you're telling me is that I won't get my deposit back for my room.
Welcome to the hotel Ryugyong! You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.
14:48
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rule the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!"
I always said. Whe god gives you lemons. Find a new god
OMG. Love Portal.
@@ffernandoc who doesnt? :'D
@@davidtownsend6092 We give ourselves the lemons.
I don't know what lead me to find this channel but I'm pleasantly surprised by the production value and quality editing. The content itself is great for satiating morbid curiosity.
I've also seen this man on two other channels with the exact same style of video for various topics. They're called "Biographics" and "Into the Shadows" and they both have morbidly interesting videos just like this one. Really gotten into these channels lately.
@@custardpup6385Simon works on many channels, man must have 0 free time lol
Absolutely
@@clamcrewcarclub6017hes just the host, other people do the rest of the work, not to oversimplify it
You gonna get hit for that pep talk at the end there Simon. Those are some strong words.