The economics of where you live are very different in a communist (Or whatever NK calls itself now) state. I would assume that the people with these jobs don't have an American-style commute.
Honestly if N Korea had a cheap/low-barrier remote visa it might be attractive. I would imagine having an oppressive authoritarian regime looking at you as a prime tax slave might mean none of the prols would risk getting their head chopped off to mess with you. Meanwhile labor/rent/food gotta be hella cheap.
You go there to work remotely. Food/labor/rest are super cheap.
Everyone is starving to death there, to the point where meth is casually used by most people to stave off hunger pangs.
Not to mention, if they decide they may just get some fun leverage out of a foreign hostage, they may just decide to claim you committed a crime and beat you half (or 3/4's) to death.
This is just the news stories I can recall off the top of my head as well...
Not everyone all the time of course. There would just be barren earth instead of a country.
The food supply is prioritized for the military. Food insecurity is frequent for civilians.
A pattern we have seen play out many times: NK makes a threat of some sort. The West and its allies try to talk them down. As part of negotiations they demand food. Sometimes they get it.
If a nation demanding food not to blow up its neighbor is not dealing with food insecurity in its society at large I will eat my hat.
North Korea doesn't have a great history with respect to foreign "guests"[1].
Here's a choice quote:
>The four lived together in a two-bedroom house outside of Pyongyang, where they were forced to study the writings of then-leader Kim Il Sung and were subject to regular beatings. They were also featured prominently in propaganda magazines and movies.
Totally agree, but I'll point out they entered as technically enemy combatants, not with a visa.
And dresnok said the opposite and retired fat and with alcohol cirrhotic liver and a nice stolen wife and downtown apartment, which is far more than he would've got in USA as such a lazy, stupid, criminal that he was. He even become a local celebrity as a movie star playing as a white devil.
It’s not like people are regularly entering as anything other than defectors and the one guys wife said she was tricked into going there and held against her will.
Yes "stolen" wife. Great for dresnok as his worst fear was broken homes (he came from one and experienced divorce) so the held against will was a huge selling point for him. From watching docs in his final days I sincerely believe the stolen wife who couldn't divorce was his biggest selling point in staying.
I kind of see the idea but... I don't think it's worth the risk. Authority figures in dictatorships just aren't always rational. They're by definition not capitalists anyway.
Most North Koreans face starvation on a regular basis, and being excited about the prospect of having a cowed population that serves you is either sociopathic or psychopathic, or both. Seek some help.
All of that being said that when those in power think you made a single mistake, you're dead.
