#196 – Yeonmi Park: North Korea

Yeonmi Park is a North Korean defector, human rights activist, and author of the book In Order to Live. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Belcampo: https://belcampo.com/lex and use code LEX to get 20% off first order – Gala Games: https://gala.games/lex – BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off – Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex and use code LEX to get special savings EPISODE LINKS: Yeonmi’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/YeonmiParkNK Yeonmi’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialyeonmipark Yeonmi’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/YeonmiParkOfficial In Order to Live (book): https://amzn.to/3wdtKfL PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (09:20) – Growing up in North Korea (14:45) – Animal Farm (21:00) – Search for meaning (25:48) – Love (28:05) – Language (32:28) – Yeonmi’s dad (34:30) – Escaping North Korea (39:47) – The world is ignoring the genocide in North Korea (51:49) – Evil (54:40) – Nuclear war (55:30) – Marxist origins of North Korea (1:00:43) – Famine (1:05:30) – Kim Jong-un is pure evil (1:12:06) – Freedom (1:15:18) – Michael Malice (1:18:57) – Diversity (1:26:18) – Political correctness (1:35:50) – Jordan Peterson (1:40:01) – Michael Malice book on North Korea (1:45:31) – Advice for young people (1:48:33) – Facing assassination (1:58:47) – Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (2:01:20) – Meaning of life

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Yoonmi Park, a North Korean defector, human rights activist, and author of the book In Order to Live. Quick mention of our sponsors, Belcampo, Gala Games, BetterHelp, and Aidsleep. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. Let me say a few words about North Korea. From 1994 to 98, North Korea went through a famine. Mass starvation caused primarily by King Jong-il, who at the time was the new leader of North Korea after his father's death in 1994. Somewhere between 600,000 and 3 million people died due to starvation.

• 0:45Lex Fridman?

  From all the stories of famine in history, including my own family history, I've come to understand that hunger tortures the human mind in a way that can break everything we stand for. In North Korea, during the 90s famine, many were driven to cannibalism. Imagine more than 10 million people suffering starvation for months and years, always on the brink of death. We don't know the exact numbers of people who died because the suffering was done in silence, in darkness. Very little information in or out. Most people had to survive without electricity, without clean water, medical supplies, sanitation, and food.

• 1:29Lex Fridman?

  The North Korean propaganda machine called this "the arduous march" or "the march of suffering", and words such as famine and hunger were banned because they implied government failure. And once again, now, in 2021, Kim Jong-un, the current leader of North Korea, is calling for his country to prepare for another arduous march or "march of suffering", another period of mass starvation as the country closes its borders. Looking at atrocities of the past decades and the encroaching atrocity there now, I think about the quiet suffering of millions of North Koreans. I think about the torture of the human spirit. I think about a North Korean child who could be a scientist, an artist, a writer,

• 2:14Lex Fridman?

  but who instead grows impossibly thin without food, their bodies slowly rotting away as their parents watch helplessly. I got emotional in this conversation with you on me. In part because I remembered my grandmother, who survived more the famine in Ukraine, intentionally created by Stalin, where four to 10 million people died and many, many more suffered. Imagine knowing that if you don't engage in cannibalism, you will die before your children did. And then they will be eaten. Imagine, because of this, deciding to murder and eat your own children, as many people did. Imagine the kind of desperation,

• 2:57Lex Fridman?

  torture that leads up to a decision like that. I'm not smart enough to know what evil is, nor where to draw the line between good and evil. But Stalin, King Jong-il, Kim Jong-un, are men who in the name of power are willing to make millions of people, of children, suffer and die from starvation. I rarely have hate in my heart, but I hate these men. I hate that such men exist in this world. I hate that the beauty I love about this life exists amidst such unimaginable cruelty. I have been haunted by this conversation, by memories of my grandmother's pain.

• 3:39Lex Fridman?

  But I've also been warmed by memories of her love. Love gives me hope. Hope for the perseverance of the human spirit, even in the face of evil. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of As Now. No ads in the middle. I think those get in the way of the conversation. If you skip the ads, please still support the sponsors. Check them out. It really is the best way to support this podcast. And they're pretty awesome in that we're very selective in the ones we take on. So hopefully, if you buy their stuff, you find value in it, just as I have. This show is sponsored by Belcampo Farms, whose mission is to deliver meat you can feel good about. Meat that is good for you, good for the animals, and good for the planet.

• 4:23Lex Fridman?

  Belcampo animals graze on open pastures and seasonal grasses, resulting in meat that is higher nutrients and healthy fats. Belcampo has honestly been the best tasting and obviously the best ethically meat I've been eating at home. In fact, that's all I've been eating. Their ground beef is delicious. So there's these one-pound packages and I eat two of them a day. And of course, it depends whether I'm doing 16, 8, or 24-hour fast. I'll either eat two meals of Belcampo or one with the same amount of calories. I've gotten a chance to visit Belcampo Farms and actually do a podcast with Anya Fernal, who ran Belcampo for many years, but she's also a chef and just a really interesting person to talk to.

• 5:07Lex Fridman?

  It's a really cool experience to do a podcast outdoors, but also just to take time away from computer and internet life and instead go out into nature. Anyway, you can order Belcampo sustainably raised meats to be delivered straight to your door, which is what I do, using code Lex at belcampo.com/Lex for 20% off for first-time customers. That's code Lex at belcampo.com/Lex. This show is sponsored by Gala Games, a fun new sponsor. They created a gaming ecosystem on a blockchain where in-game assets are NFTs that you can keep, trade in the game and outside the game. They are attracting big game designers, developers, and they are attracting big game designers

• 5:52Lex Fridman?

  and I think have a real chance to create totally new gaming experiences. Speaking of which, I really want to talk to a few game designers, especially for the games I've loved. Certainly John Carmack is on that list. We've agreed a long time ago to talk, and I'm actually pretty sure we'll talk many times. He's a brilliant engineer, brilliant designer, just brilliant mind, and a Judo black belt. I think might be a Jiu-Jitsu black belt, too. Just in many ways a kindred spirit. But back to Gala Games, I started playing the town simulation game called Townstar. I created a town called Lexington, because I'm very creative, not at all, and started building stuff. I love the game, wish I had more time to play it, but I certainly enjoyed it when

• 6:35Lex Fridman?

  I did play it. I will do my best to do a stream every couple of months of me playing a video game. Anyway, check it out at gala.games/lex. That's gala.games/lex. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp, spelled H E L P, help. They figure out what you need and match you with a licensed professional therapist in under 48 hours. I've been getting back out there in the grind of running in the Austin heat. Exercise, especially exercise in 100 degree weather, is a kind of therapist. Nature is a therapist. Struggle is a therapist. If you persevere, reveals the demons in your mind, the things that

• 7:20Lex Fridman?

  maybe you've been running from, that you've been afraid of, and you get to deal with them. Obviously, the more rigorous way to do that is by talking to somebody about it. So I think exercise, meditation, all those things help reveal the demons, but then you have to, I think, talk through them, process them, sort of find the light at the end of the tunnel, especially if you're struggling, and that a professional therapist can really help with. BetterHelp is easy, private, affordable, available worldwide. Check them out at betterhelp.com/lex. That's betterhelp.com/lex. This episode is sponsored by Aidsleep and its Pod Pro mattress. It controls temperature with an app and is packed with sensors and can cool down to as low as 55 degrees on

• 8:05Lex Fridman?

  each side of the bed separately. In the Texas summer heat, even with air conditioning, I can't tell you how awesome it feels to take a nap in a cold bed, or to get a really nice, full night's sleep in a cold bed. I tend to enjoy a lot of things about life, but this is definitely up there. Great sleep on a cold bed, and then maybe with a bit of a warm blanket, that's heaven.

• 8:32Lex Fridman?

  Anyway, they have a Pot Pro cover, so you can just add that to your mattress without having to buy theirs. But their mattress, I have it. It's pretty nice. If you want to know my opinion, it can track a bunch of metrics like heart rate variability, but cooling alone is worth the money. Go to eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings. That's eightsleep.com/lex. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast, and here is my conversation with Yoonmi Park.

• 9:20Lex Fridman?

  Can you tell your story from North Korea to today as you describe in your 2015 book? And with the extra perspective on life, love, and freedom you've gained since then?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Wow, that's a long story. So I was born in the northern part of North Korea initially. And my father was a party member, and my mom was a housewife. I had a one order sister. And I remember born in that country, I never thought I was in an unusual country. Now I'm thinking about it, it's like literally called the Harmeet kingdom. But I thought, I believed that I was living in the best country on earth. It was a socialist paradise, and everybody in the rest of the world worshipped my idea leader. And there was nothing to envy for me. So I had this enormous pride in my heart and grateful to be in that country.

• 10:17Lex Fridman?

  So it was love for the leader, not fear?

• 10:19Speaker 01

  For me at least, it was love. Yeah. It was admiration and gratitude. It changed lately, but for me was pure, pure like love.

• 10:31Lex Fridman?

  Was there any, like, looking back with the perspective you have now?

• 10:36Lex Fridman?

  Would you describe some of those moments growing up as full of happiness? Or was that delusion at the time? So not knowing the alternative, were you still be able to be happy?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  The fact that I did not know, like in North Korea, this is the only country in this 21st century has no internet. And they don't even know the existence of internet. Not only that, we don't even have this 20, like, you know, 24-hour electricity.

• 11:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  So not knowing definitely helped, I think, to be sane.

• 11:12Lex Fridman?

  So as a human being, you're still able to find moments of happiness?

• 11:17Speaker 01

  I think my happiness was from family, nothing else. Even though those days keep telling me that they were our source of meaning and happiness, I don't think I ever got happy by that. Maybe they're here and there in schools and like when I was learning propaganda, like, you know, the proud feeling, right? I'm in the greatest nation. Here and there, but like actually true happiness came from laughing with my family, my friends.

• 11:44Lex Fridman?

  Are there any childhood memories, pleasant or painful ones, that stand out to you now?

• 11:52Speaker 01

  I mean, like, you know, whenever I think about my North Korea, the interesting is there's no color. I mean, one is because North Korean country has no color, right? Most of things are unpaved and trees are cut down. We have no fear, so people cut down trees to make food. So by only that, like even what we are wearing was like no color. So it's an interesting memory to look back.

• 12:21Lex Fridman?

  What about fashion? I've noticed from sort of you now, you're, you're, you have quite an incredible sense of fashion. So contrast that with your time in North Korea. How do you remember fashion? Just or ways that people could express themselves visually? Was it all bland?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  There was no word for fashion in North Korea. We didn't even know, it was not even in our dictionary. So of course I did not know what Victoria, secret models, I didn't even know what models were. So when I came out, I learned a model was a job. And like, what is that? And I'm still confused. So there's so many jobs that we have here doesn't exist in North Korea.

• 13:03Lex Fridman?

  What was life like in North Korea compared to the rest of the world? So maybe you said there's no internet,

• 13:10Lex Fridman?

  24-hour electricity is a luxury you do not have. What about food? What about water? What about basic human rights?

• 13:19Speaker 01

  I think that's the thing like when people were asking me, can you tell me about like life in North Korea? And in the past, I was like, I cannot describe it to you. And initially, I thought, oh, because of my English that I cannot find the words. It's not that, it's just a different planet. The common sense that we have doesn't exist there. Like, people literally do not know the concept of romantic love or human rights or liberty. So when I'm thinking back to my country, it's, you know, like, as you cannot imagine your life on Mars right now. It's like that kind of difference. I grew up, never seen the map of the world. I never knew that I was Asian.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Like, the regime told me that I was Kim Yoo-sung, the first Kim race. And then our calendar doesn't begin when Jesus Christ was born. Our calendar begins where Kim was born. So we, and history was forgotten to us. They didn't tell us about, of course, Christianity or like the Big Bang. Like, our history began when Kim was born. So everything was forgotten to us. And it was a different meaning, I mean, feeling of existence. You know, it's not even like the same life. I literally think that was almost like my past life. And this is like a new life that I began.

• 14:41Lex Fridman?

  You're, you're almost like a different human being now.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

• 14:45Lex Fridman?

  So you've, I have to say, I often say that my favorite book is Animal Farm by George Orwell. I've read it, I don't know how many times. And so I was really happy to hear that that was, of the many books, excellent books that we'll hopefully talk about. You've mentioned that Animal Farm had a big impact on you. It was the book that kind of... Led to a kind of awakening for you. Maybe can you describe what impact it had?

• 15:17Speaker 01

  So after going through what I went through, right? And I arrived in South Korea after many years of journey. They were saying, so Kim's were dictators. And South Korea is now colonized by American bastards. And Americans, first of all, not bastards, they're good people. And then they said, everything that you believe in North Korea was a lie. It was a propaganda. Then at fifteen, I was thinking, so if everything that I believe was a lie, how do I know what you are telling me is not a lie? That was so hard. How do I trust ever again? And I just, it was chaos in belief, right? I did not know what was true anymore. And that's the moment, few years later, I read this book, like Animal Farm, just by mistake.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  It was a very short book in the library. I was like, OK, I can finish that quickly. And when they're ending that, like last chapter, right? They could not see between the pigs and humans anymore, right? That sentence. I just understood everything what happened. I just, it made every sense to me, what happened to me, my people, and to my country.

• 16:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's, there's so many things I could say about that book. Yeah, there's a haunting nature to the end. And I guess spoiler alert, but you should have read this already. If you're listening to this.

• 16:39Lex Fridman?

  At the end, the animals were looking to the humans and to the pigs, and they couldn't see the difference. And then there's this kind of gradual transition from the initial revolutionary steps of animals fighting for their freedom to slowly, the pigs gaining control, went from four legs good, two legs bad, to four legs good, two legs better.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  To legs even better, I think, something like that. They were.

• 17:13Lex Fridman?

  So like gradually transitioning the ideology under which the farm operates. And I think the gradual nature of that, where basically you have generations born not knowing.

• 17:27Lex Fridman?

  How things were in the past.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:29Lex Fridman?

  And that's, that's what makes the most kind of for me haunting transition from freedom to slavery, to suffering, to injustice. All those things and the animals don't know they're part of that. And also for me personally, I've always kind of found a kinship with boxer, the, the horse. Because I just, I'm kind of an idiot. I just work really hard.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  I just work hard.

• 17:58Lex Fridman?

  And I just love the idea of working hard for an ideal. And the tragic nature of to the end, that horse boxer, working his ass off for, for the pride, for others, but yeah, for the pride of the farm, you know. And then the, the pigs

• 18:23Lex Fridman?

  giving him sort of using that, but then just sending him to the slaughterhouse anyway. When he was no longer useful. I mean, there, there's so many tragic elements that echo everything I've seen in the Soviet Union. And many of the elements that you see in even harsher, more drastic way in North Korea. If there's something hopeful you pull from that book? Like within the suffering, within the gradual decline, the taking away the freedom, there were still moments of beauty, it seemed like.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  It can be, but I think for me was when I was ending the last page of the book. Until that point, I was angry towards the dictator. Why do you do this as a human being? I was so angry dreaming of killing him, right? Revengeing my father, the people that he cared. But when I was ending the last chapter, actually, everybody was responsible to create this dystopia in my country. That, that animals, initial animals, that when they're scared, I mean, they receive the first execution. And then they were not doing their jobs, picking out and keep questioning. Right? They had a question and then the essence, they see a fear, they silence.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Because of that, like that's when I was like, my grandma knew life could be different. I think the one thing about North Koreans are unique is that they don't know they are oppressed. They don't know that they are slaves to the dictator. And the fact that other people know they're oppressed, like in America, a lot of people think they are oppressed. Like, you are not oppressed. You don't even know the definition of oppression. And like, that's like when the new animals came, the new animals didn't even know what the life could be like. There's no alternative for them to compare even. And I was like, my grandmother knew. Why didn't they not do anything about it? And they were just scared. They kept silent. And everybody was responsible.

• 20:17Lex Fridman?

  So the people who knew were too afraid to say.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:21Lex Fridman?

  And then there's people that just didn't even know. And I don't know what's more terrifying about human nature.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:29Lex Fridman?

  Looking at this group of people who are afraid to say that things could be otherwise. And then the group of people that don't even know it could be better.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 20:40Lex Fridman?

  It's, uh, I don't know, that's the reason I return to that book often, because it's such, maybe because it's interesting using animals to represent ideas that were very human. It almost allows you to explore the darkness of human nature without sort of being broken by it. So you mentioned anger. When I watch your interviews, you're really calm and collected. Not just your interviews, you know, Instagram, the way you present yourself. You, um, I don't know, it seems like you're almost at peace with the world. Is there in private times when you're just angry? Do you feel fear?

• 21:24Lex Fridman?

  Do you go to dark places, depression, all those kinds of things? Are you, are you able to put that world that you were in behind you?

• 21:34Speaker 01

  It's a joke because I talk about North Korea every single day. And I still rescue people, like from China and Russia and other countries, right? And sometimes I'll rescue mission fakers and they get captured and sent back. I still have people in North Korea report to me. So like when I talk to my sister, who chose to not be in this life, activist life, she forgot most of things. And like, for the other hand, I like remember everything. So. Sometimes it's a it's it's a blessing to keep reminded of how because it's you know, they say happiness is a relative thing. It is sometimes. I mean, the thing is also people say

• 22:18Speaker 01

  because nobody was for when you're growing up, everybody was suffering. You should have been okay, right? But no, like if you are suffering in that degree, no matter even if there's no comparison, like if you're in Nazi Germany, in the Holocaust, right, in the in the concentration camp. I'm sure nobody was better than them. I'm sure they were suffering. It's the same thing. I suffered. But now, because I'm in this place, I can compare easily, right? Getting that perspective. But it is true, like I still have days that I cannot get out of bed. And I'm really hoping, like that was Elon Musk talking about downloading your brain, blah blah.

• 22:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  Like if maybe technology develops, that I can download some part of my memory and then I can erase your memory, delete it. And that would be so much better.

• 23:07Lex Fridman?

  What I this is a sorry for the tough question, but if I came to you, if Elon came to you and said, we can erase that part of your memory, would you do it?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Some days I would do it for sure. And my mom would do a hundred percent. My sister would do it. All other defectors, no, they do a hundred percent. For me, I really hesitated because I'm a witness. So if I delete that part, I don't know how real that can be. But it is painful, like after I talk, give a speech, right, I mean, I'm fine, but somehow I'm depressed. Sometimes if the talk was very intense, I'm like depressed for three weeks. It takes a while for me to be recharged. But I don't know why it is, you know?

• 23:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  I I just don't know. Yeah.

• 23:56Lex Fridman?

  Well, there's also the and there's a guy named Victor Franco who wrote the book Man's Search for Meaning. And there's some aspect.

• 24:05Lex Fridman?

  Well, so he talks about the Holocaust and that you can, in those moments of suffering, still discover meaning, still discover happiness in the simplest of joys. Like, while starving, you know, a little piece of bread could be a source of incredible joy.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:20Lex Fridman?

  And there's some aspect in which that experience gives you a clarity about the world. Like somehow experiencing suffering allows you to deeply experience joy.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:35Lex Fridman?

  And love, and also empathize with the suffering of others. And like, it's almost like brings you closer to other humans. So it's this double edged sword that

• 24:50Lex Fridman?

  that the highest of joys sometimes are catalyzed by suffering. And it's hard to know what to do with that. You see that with World War II, the stories of soldiers that have suffered, but some of the closest bonds of brotherhood, of just pure love, was experienced by them. And it sucks that our brains are like this.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 25:15Lex Fridman?

  That, you know, love requires hardship. I don't know why that is.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like, that's the thing. Of course, in my journey, I learned how to survive, right? When to not trust and when to run. But I think most of I was keep learning what it means to be a human being. I think that was like the ultimate thing, I was keep learning. And I still don't know fully what it means. But I do think it seems like suffering is an accessory for people to be grateful and even be joyful too sometimes. Yeah.

• 25:48Lex Fridman?

  So I talk about love quite a bit.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:51Lex Fridman?

  And you mentioned that romantic love. I'm fascinated about love in many aspects. But you mentioned romantic love was forbidden in North Korea.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:04Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about love? Now that you've kind of discovered it? What's the role of love in life? Why was it so? Why do you think it was forbidden in North Korea?

• 26:16Speaker 01

  So the tragic thing about North Korea is not only just banning Shakespeare. Like, we don't even know what Romeo and Juliet is, right? Our movies is never about love stories. But then also they banned the love between mother and daughter, wife and husband. And, you know? And between your friends, they deny you being a human. So only love that I knew was when I described my feeling towards the leader and in a written form. That was the only love that people know in North Korea. And now I'm like, there are many loves you can experience. I mean, I think you definitely love science, right? But imagine that if you're being denied that.

• 26:57Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  So there are so many loves in life, but in North Korea, all of those things are denied. And I think for me is love what makes you tick. Like, you know, love for your child, love for your parents, love for your friends, love for even yourself. That is denied. So, I mean, many people say like, love is an option. But like, then why do you live? I think we live to love. And it doesn't have to be romantic love. It can be anything. But finding love in any person or in any subject, I think that's a goal. I think that's when people find the meaning in something.

• 27:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I think love, romantic love is just one sort of...

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Part of it.

• 27:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, one echo of the some core thing. Yeah, science, I love science, I love robots, all of those things. And it sounds like deliberately or not, the North Korean regime wants to channel that very deep aspect of the human spirit all towards the leader.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  That's the only thing they allow us to fear and know about. So I remember, I mean, you read Nineteen Eighty-Four by Georgia Ware. It talks about double think and double speak. Who controls the language? Who controls thoughts? And why it does talk about as they go, they like eliminate a lot of words, right? Now, like later, one word can represent ten different things. And like what fascinates me is like how many vocabulary meaning people can have. And like when I literally came out, I remember I went to San Francisco and someone came to me and hugged me. And then he was a guy, he's like, oh, baby, don't worry, I'm gay. And I was like, what the heck is gay? I don't know, right?

• 28:44Speaker 01

  And then I literally had to go to a hotel and Google the gay. And I was like, oh, that's what you meant. And like that, like, they deny what that is. I'm sure there are gays in North Korea. I'm sure there is. But you don't know what it is. And like that, they eliminate words. So the fact that you know the concept, that is a stays much better than. And that's the thing a lot of people like when you're born, you somehow know what justice is, what liberty is. And it's all somebody taught you that. And like, that's the thing where people is like, oh, humans are inherently know what is right, what is wrong, what is oppression. And like, no, that's like BS. You gotta learn.

• 29:25Lex Fridman?

  That's fascinating that words give rise to ideas. So like, as a child, one of the ways to learn about justice and freedom is to first learn the word. And then to ask, well, what is it?

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, the concept, yeah.

• 29:40Lex Fridman?

  And if you don't have the word for it, then you never have the kind of first spark that leads to you trying to be curious about it. That's interesting, and controlling the words. And then, yeah, I mean-

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Turning your thoughts.

• 29:52Lex Fridman?

  And you control the thoughts. There's so many echoes. I mean, I have, uh, it's a, it's a very different, but perhaps a very similar experience, which is the journey of my family through the Soviet Union.

• 30:07Lex Fridman?

  Because there is a love of country, there is a pride of the people.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:10Lex Fridman?

  Like you are proud of your family in general.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:13Lex Fridman?

  But I wonder how much of that is polluted by the propaganda.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  It got a lot to do with it, for sure.

• 30:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  It is here this day, I'm like, my father who died in China and he was tortured and then he died. He wanted to go back before his death, right? And then it's like, that if you go back, you're gonna be executed. And like, I wanna be executed.

• 30:41Lex Fridman?

  He wanted to go back to North Korea.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  To be executed, so he can be buried in his own land. And then his last wish was, if I die, criminalize me and then bring my ashes back to my country. When I'm dead, I still wanna be in my country. And this is nationalism, this is a propaganda, right? And but now, like, it's the same thing, like, it's the same thing. If I die, I somehow buried in my land. And I still like, feel like I'm the outsider. I'm always longing for my home, it's a horrible home.

• 31:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Like my, like people say, what's your dream? Like, do you wanna be a president, do you wanna run for office? Like, I just wanna go home. That's my dream, right? And people here don't get it ever.

• 31:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. I, I don't know what to do with that. I, I love my country and I think for me, my country is the United States. And perhaps it will be for you too, one day.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  It is, I think it's becoming, the US has been a very special place in my heart. I think this is the first place I felt like I, I feel like home. And, I mean, I wasn't in South Korea longer and I didn't feel that way, so.

• 31:53Lex Fridman?

  So I think there, we have very different life stories, but I think it's almost two different people. The, for me, it's the person that was in the Soviet Union and the person that's here, those are two different people.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:05Lex Fridman?

  That previous person's home in the Soviet Union and he's part of me.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:10Lex Fridman?

  And I suppose in that same way, you're. You know, your first maybe two decades of life

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 32:17Lex Fridman?

  are somehow longing for the home.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:20Lex Fridman?

  That is North Korea.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:21Lex Fridman?

  And your next two decades of life might be finding a home in the United States.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:28Lex Fridman?

  Your dad, can you tell the story of

• 32:35Lex Fridman?

  of his struggle, of his death?

• 32:40Lex Fridman?

  Mind me first, do you miss him? Do you think about him?

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Oh, all the time, like. I had a son when I was twenty two and I had IVF three times. And I'm like, as you say, I'm like eighty pounds, but back then I was like seventy five pounds. Because of my severe malnutrition, somehow my body is very different.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  And so after three times of IVF, IVF after twenty three, I was still wanting family. And the reason I wanted him is because I felt so guilty for my father that he never seen this world. I somehow, like when you're so desperate, you become illogical. Like, I want to believe in the really like Buddhist idea, right? You come back to life. And I prayed, please come to me like as my son, so I will take care of you, like come back. And when I was pregnant with my son, even though I planted pregnant with a girl, doctor made a mistake, he became a boy. So I made his middle name like my father's name, Jinseok.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  I think he's the only American got North Korean name.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  It is.

• 33:52Lex Fridman?

  So he's, so part of your father is in your son?

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's how I, that's how I make the sense of it and that's how I move forward. Like if I, like as a logical human being, you, you know, when you're dead, you're done. Maybe that's what I at least used to think. But then life just becomes unbearable. And somehow, that's the thing, like, we tell ourselves stories in order to live. And that's how I came with my title of the book, In Order to Live. I had to tell myself a lot of stories to overcome a lot of things. I think I was a part of it.

• 34:30Lex Fridman?

  Can you tell the story of you escaping North Korea to China?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  It's a thing, it's amazing, um. Even though I was like thirteen, my, like. Life outside of North Korea is almost like went by like one second. And my life till that point was like eternity.

• 34:55Lex Fridman?

  Wow.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  I remember being in China, I arrived there at the end of March at thirteen. And by October, it was six months passed. And I literally felt like I lived eternity. And one day living in China felt like living one year. One day was a war, like surviving through one day was so hard. Every night I was like, I cannot believe I got done one day today. That was the thing I was grateful for before I went to bed. Okay, I survived, I didn't get captured, and I made it another day on earth.

• 35:34Lex Fridman?

  So the experience of the minutes is, is what, fear? Fear of being captured?

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Fear, loss, everything, it's, um. Because, I mean, I saw my own mom in China to survive, to.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  So it was more than that. And it's not feeling, I think that's the thing, in China. I learned not to fear.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  And after my escape was a challenging, I didn't feel anything. And it was hard. Not feeling anything is a torture, it's a bigger torture you can never feel like. Even if you fear sadness, that's better than not feeling anything. And I felt something when I had my son. That's when I started healing. So he was a miracle to save me, but. Yeah, in China, it wasn't even fear, like it was numb.

• 36:31Lex Fridman?

  You were numb, it was like paralysis?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:35Lex Fridman?

  Just overwhelming, the uncertainty of your future. Did you have a sense what your future held at the time?

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Like, what even future? I don't even know that word, right? Like, a lot of times, I was looking at myself, like, I left my body and like, just looking at me. And just not feeling any, it's not like I'm scared for her, I'm like sad for her, just looking at me like, huh, that's interesting.

• 37:00Lex Fridman?

  Wow.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Just not feeling anything. And me, like, being raped, going through every motion of life to survive, right? Like, but like, like somehow, I don't know, you say soul or something, like, looking at it, it's like, you feel nothing.

• 37:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  You don't feel anything for that person.

• 37:20Lex Fridman?

  So even with your mom, like, what was, was there some,

• 37:26Lex Fridman?

  I don't know, some warmth that you were able to extract from the connection with your mom?

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course, I think that made me survive. I had a very strong connection with my family. And I think that's what kept me going to do all of that. I think, as you said, I escaped at thirteen. My sister, at the age of sixteen, escaped with her friend first. And I was going to escape with her, but one day I got like really bad stomach ache. And my parents took me to hospital. And in North Korean hospital, they don't have like X-ray machines, like, they don't even have electricity. They like literally using one needle to inject everybody.

• 38:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  And people don't die from cancer in North Korea, you die from infection and fever and

• 38:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  hunger, right? It's most likely you're gonna die more by being treated by doctor than not being treated. I think I was lucky, even though they thought I had appendix, they, they operated on me without any painkiller. And I didn't get infection, I survived. So that's how I got delayed to escape with my sister. And she left me a note in my bedside saying like, follow this lady. And this is like another trick about human trafficking, right? She sold me to China as a sexual slave. And she executed for it later. And she had-

• 38:49Lex Fridman?

  She was executed for that later?

• 38:51Speaker 01

  She had five daughters. And she sold all her children to China. And we can now sitting here judging on like, how heartless you are selling your own children to China. And as a sexual slave, they were like, her children were like seven, ten years old. But that was the only way for her to save her children. And if she didn't sell me that day, I would be dead right now. So I'm grateful that she sold me. And I think that's the thing is like, life is so crazy. You cannot judge. It is so complex and yeah, that's how she changed my life by selling me. She sold my mom and myself in two thousand seven to China.

• 39:33Lex Fridman?

  So you're grateful for that? So you're grateful for that suffering?

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Of course, I am grateful.

• 39:39Lex Fridman?

  Because the alternative is worse?

• 39:41Speaker 01

  I would not be here with you. You would never knew I existed.

• 39:47Lex Fridman?

  What do you make of the others suffering in the world today? The people there in North Korea?

• 39:54Lex Fridman?

  So that is part of the, of your life's work, is helping those people? What do you think about them? What should people know about them?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  I think that's when I get angry, whenever I think about them, like, I know-

• 40:10Lex Fridman?

  Who's your anger directed at?

• 40:12Speaker 01

  At

• 40:15Speaker 01

  the heartlessness of people. The ignorance of people, like. So when I got out of North Korea, I going to all of them. And I went to South Korea one day. I was watching television. And there's like a famous Korean K-pop stars and crying and doing some fundraising concert. And I literally thought, I was like, oh my god, something is a horrible going wrong in this country. Why are these people crying? It was cheery like campaign. And then later was showing that it was an animal rights campaign. They're helping out cats and puppies in the shelters.

• 40:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Do you know anybody shed their tears like that to another human being right now? Like no, right? People rather give millions of dollars to save some dolphins than saving these children right now being raped in China. And I think I love Elon Musk. I read this, right? I love these people wanna like go the moon, Mars. And like people told them like, yeah, you went, we went to the moon like I did not know in North Korea. But I think that's what upsets me. Like, why there is not even one single human with that kind of brilliance in their brain? They, they can save so much suffering, but nobody does anything. I think that's when I, I feel like hard to find hope in humanity.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  And that's when I get so upset. Because think about like even Biden or Trump or Obama, they know what's happening in North Korea exactly, right? I mean, if we, we see satellite photos, there's probably executions. I mean, the U N says this is a holocaust happening again. And it's happening, if the holocaust is happening again, how, why? How are you okay doing nothing about it? But somehow humans are able to okay nothing, anything.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  And this is like, this is hard. Like when people say I'm gonna change the world, I wanna make a difference, like, it's hard to believe it, you know?

• 42:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that we can turn our back to human suffering at scale when it's right in front of us. I mean, that makes you think about the Holocaust. This is just, everybody was looking the other way.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:32Lex Fridman?

  Because it was almost too hard to look at it.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  No, it's not, it's an easier thing, like that's the thing. I was like here to speak at the South by Southwest few years ago. And like they're, everybody's talking about like Elon Musk project going to the moon, right? We're gonna be multi, like species. I was like, back then I did not even know who he was. So if you're guys trying to go after this earth, you haven't even explored our earth yet. You cannot go to North Korea right now. You haven't explored that part of our, our like planet. Can we do that first and then move on?

• 43:06Lex Fridman?

  Explore the landscape of human suffering, like alleviate suffering in the world. There's um, there's a lot of suffering happening in Africa that has to do with disease. And for some reason, it's, even though we turn our back to that kind of suffering too, we still can try to do something about it. And there's still efforts uh, in terms of healthcare, in terms of medicine, in terms of bioengineering, in terms of like, all these efforts to help people from disease. But like, that's almost like converting it into an engineering problem and trying to solve it. That somehow is easier for us humans. But when there's obvious sort of non-disease-related torture of humans,

• 43:51Lex Fridman?

  we look the other way.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:53Lex Fridman?

  Whether it's China or it's North Korea.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:59Lex Fridman?

  I mean, that has to be changed somehow. We'll have to change that somehow.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  It is the thing right now, like, the China, they bring the Xinjiang Uyghurs, right? They, they say, oh, there's a vitamin, take it. And then it kills their sperm and make them not reproduce.

• 44:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Their birth rate gone down something forty-seven to something fifty percent in the one year time. It's a genocide in twenty-first century. And they get those people and get their like organs out. Imagine if there's some people who do that with the cutie puppies and cats. There's gonna be insane amount of product, they're gonna destroy everything. And this is like a human nature that I don't get. Why there's so much anti-human sentiment in this modern world? We don't have to, like, the, the fact that I was saying, like, the fact that you care about animals, right? It's beautiful, because you care about something who cannot speak for themselves. The fact that we care about animals is because they cannot speak for themselves, right?

• 44:58Speaker 01

  They don't have that ability. And there are many people who cannot speak for themselves right now. And why do you refuse to be the voice for them? Because they're simply being a human. And maybe it connects to us not being proud of who we are. Like, maybe, I don't know what it is, why do they deny humans this way? Maybe they don't like themselves.

• 45:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's, it's almost, um, we, we would have to acknowledge some dark things about ourselves in order to start helping.

• 45:30Lex Fridman?

  What's the solution? So, you know, I see two solutions. One is on the military side.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:40Lex Fridman?

  It's assassination or the full-on invasion. And then on the activism side, which is figuring out ways to,

• 45:56Lex Fridman?

  like you said, sort of let people in North Korea understand their situation, sort of from within, try to reform. Or maybe there's others. Obviously, there could be activism from the outside to build up momentum for the entirety of the world, especially the world that it's not just the United States or Europe, but also is Russia and China and so on. What are your ideas here? How we can, what we can do as individuals and as countries?

• 46:28Speaker 01

  I think the first thing that we can do is speak about Chinese role in this sponsoring dictatorship in North Korea. Like, I have been had so much struggle talking about North Korea, right? They say, how North Korea is possible? Why is it like the way like this is? Ninety-nine percent of accountability going to CCP. Kim Jong-un cannot last without Chinese help in one week. This is completely funded. This holocaust is funded by CCP. But if you talk about it in the mainstream, of course, they don't buy it. And I think it's in a way, North Korea is a lot easier to serve than even in the Middle East. There's nothing conflict like between people. There's no ideology, no religion, nothing.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  People are peaceful, right? There's not even one civil, like any discontent among the people. Our problem is there's a dictator funded by the second economic power in the world. And even any military, they know if they kill Kim Jong-un, they're gonna get killed by Chinese. Nobody can dare to stand up against Kim Jong because of China is backing it. So somehow, here in the West, we collectively acknowledging that China is the responsible person for these crimes against humanity in North Korea. Then we can somehow. I don't know.

• 47:48Lex Fridman?

  Stand up to China.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 47:50Lex Fridman?

  We're failing to do that in a way, in all kinds of avenues of life, of public life. Because for many reasons, they're probably primarily financial. But it also, I'm against, I don't know, maybe you can correct me. I'm against sort of making China this evil enemy. Because I've seen this with Russia as well. And I don't think that leads to progress. I think you want to highlight, like, you basically want to help China, the Chinese people, become the best versions of themselves.

• 48:34Lex Fridman?

  So speak to the Chinese people and not fear, not making the leaders of China like into these caricatures of devils. I feel like the Cold War, the way it was done in Russia, I just, for both sides, they were caricaturing each other through propaganda, and the result was not productive at all. It did not help Russia become the best country it could be, did not help America become the best country it could be. And the same thing with China. I feel like making them into this enemy, like being afraid of China, being, making them into the thing that's going to spy on us, that's going to destroy the rest of the world. That's not going to help China, like, reform themselves. They're going to plant their feet.

• 49:17Lex Fridman?

  The dictators, the evil people will become more evil. The power hungry will become more, like, they will centralize the power more. It feels like, maybe naive, but it feels like it should be like, again, love, not violence, that solves this thing. Now, of course, in North Korea, it's like, long gone.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Eighty years, almost eighty years.

• 49:44Lex Fridman?

  You can't, love is not going to solve that problem. Or, I mean, I don't, it's very difficult.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  They have tried that.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Called the Sunshine Policy, which is there's two people walking down the street and the sun and the wind are made of battle. So who can take off that man, take off jacket? So wind tried blow as much air he could. And then that man was like putting more like his jacket on, right? Not taking off, but sunshine came, okay, I'm gonna give him a lot of worms. And then he took his jacket out and came out. So that was the theory, let's give North Korea as much love they want. Let's give them a lot of money, whatever they want, let's give to them, so they know that we are not here to attack them.

• 50:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  And North Korea, what they did was the guy who did the Sunshine Policy in South Korea, named Kim Dae Zung, won the Nobel Peace Prize for that. And Kim Dong-il used the money to build nuclear weapons. So that's how they came with the nukes. So I think that's the thing. I hope that love solves problems.

• 50:43Lex Fridman?

  But there's gotta be a way, and the hope is with the 21st century is you can directly speak to the people somehow. When there's no internet, when there's nothing like that, it's hopeless. I think China, there's a hope, that China is still connected to the internet.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  I love your optimism. I have seen the actual dark side of China on the underground. I hope. I think that's the thing, people in the West, right? They say, oh, how can it be that bad? They asked me like, I walking passing this young teenager man in near the world with my sister. He's like intestine coming out through his back, right? And even in that moment, what he want was, please give me food, he was hungry.

• 51:29Lex Fridman?

  His intestine is hanging out of his body and he's.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Asking for food. Do you know what humans demand when they die in North Korea? All they want is eating, right?

• 51:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  And people say, oh, nothing can be that bad. But people just here haven't seen an actual true evil.

• 51:49Lex Fridman?

  Would you say that the evil comes from a tiny minority of people? Or is it permeate much larger parts of the population? Like if we look at sex trafficking. How many people? Like, is it 99.9% of the people are, are um?

• 52:10Lex Fridman?

  Longing to do good in the world? Or is there, is it uh...

• 52:17Lex Fridman?

  Or do we all have the capacity for evil in certain kind of environment? Certain kind of governmental structures inspire a large percent of the population to do bad things?

• 52:28Speaker 01

  I think humans are capable of anything. There is no exception. I don't think there's any saint who born with a morality. I think in North Korea, you can say initially that there's few guys in the top wanted the power. And then doing this, but eventually it made a society where people don't even know what compassion is. We don't know the concept of, we don't know that you need to feel bad for another human being when they're suffering. The fact that you know compassion is in your knowledge, that's why you do that. Humans need to learn. It's not anything bad about human nature, it's just saying humans are capable of everything. We are the most adaptable species on the planet.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  That's why we created the internet, like talking this way, right? No other animals have done it because we are so adaptable. That is a good thing and that's a bad thing. So in that adaptive situation, they all can be, I mean during the Holocaust, right? Those people, they could have been capable of good too if they were exposed to different system.

• 53:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  And that's why when people underestimate evil, that's what scares me. Evil is evil. It's a different thing. It's a completely different thing. And of course, I probably get your idea. We don't want to isolate 1.3 billion human beings on earth by Chinese. But the thing is, we are talking about this regime, not the people. I love Chinese people, I speak Chinese, I love like all about that country. But this system does promote evil.

• 54:02Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's an optimistic view actually because we can fix systems.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:07Lex Fridman?

  Uh, it's harder to fix people. So if we fix systems, then the people are adaptable, as you said. I mean that, and then the question is, uh, first of all, you have to talk about it, just as you're doing. You're right now like this little flame that burns bright and it's really important for North Korea. But just keep talking about it. Until there's, until hopefully it leads to at the highest levels of power, revolutionizing the systems in the world. And then in China and in North Korea, do you see North Korea being a potential instigator of a nuclear war?

• 54:46Speaker 01

  They will not start a nuclear war as long as they can do whatever they want right now. Right? North Korea's army not designed to fight the enemy. They designed to prevent their own people, the Kuwaita, and the revolution with their own citizens.

• 55:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  That is 1.6 million of North Korea with a tiny country, the fourth largest armies in the world.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  So this, this country designed to fight with their own citizens.

• 55:15Lex Fridman?

  And the army, the fourth largest in the world, is designed to basically fight its own people.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Oppress their own people. That's what North Korean military is about.

• 55:29Lex Fridman?

  Okay, let me ask you some aspects about North Korean life. Can you describe the Sangban system of a scribed status used in North Korea?

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's a very interesting thing, right? Right now, there are a lot of people playing with this ideology of like democratic socialism, socialism, communism, whatever you call it, Marxism, Leninism, right? They have all like this similar features where we give collective power to a certain entity. And they will make the decision for the bigger good, right? And North Korea came up with the idea, the Kim Il-sung. He was the Leninist, he was Marxist, saying, I'm gonna create the most equal society on human face. So it was a communist North Korea. And then they came up with this Sangban system. It's like family caste system.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Three big categories, warrior, wavering, and hostile. And then in between three classes, they divide into fifty different classes. So a lot of people don't even know which exact class you belong to. That's a secret government document. And that's how they decide your future. So in a way, in North Korea, before you're born, your life is determined for you. And this is almost a joke, right? They dreamed of creating the most equal society. They ended up with became most unequal society in the face of humanity. So there are fifty different classes. And where the one guy on the top became a god. So when this animal farm, as we keep saying, like so many, all the animals are equal and some of.

• 57:05Lex Fridman?

  More equal than others?

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 57:07Lex Fridman?

  Oh, boy.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  But it's not only it's just more equal. One guy in North Korea became a god.

• 57:12Lex Fridman?

  So North Korea was born out of Marxist ideals?

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, from Stalin.

• 57:19Lex Fridman?

  Can you comment on Juche ideology? Which seems to be its own kind of socialism.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:30Lex Fridman?

  But with unique aspects here. It really does ideologically says the importance of having a great leader.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:40Lex Fridman?

  Is there some interesting similarities or differences that you can comment on? Between other implementations of communism throughout history? The Soviet Union, China, elsewhere?

• 57:51Speaker 01

  So Juche is very unique. It came on around the nineties after Soviet Union collapsed. So before that, North Korea was very still loyal to the Marxism and Leninism. Which is state takes care of you. We are gonna give you the right education, healthcare, your livelihood. You, everybody are gonna be equal. You're gonna have in the working collective farm, collective workplace. Everybody collectively do things together and let's work for the paradise.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  But nineteen ninety one, the Soviet Union collapsed. And until then, North Korea was heavily subsidized by Soviet Union's aid. And then Soviet Union didn't give them anything. So, not three million people dying on the streets. The regime then came up with the idea, okay, our goal is, what is successful ruling for us is keeping the ten percent of population alive, which is in the capital Pyongyang. So they designed the Hunger Games. There is a capital, thirteen other districts. Everybody on the countryside on purpose being starved. So those people were starving, cannot thinking about meaning of life, cannot thinking about shooting to the moon, right? They're not gonna think about anything, or they're gonna think it's like finding next meal.

• 59:02Lex Fridman?

  All on purpose?

• 59:03Speaker 01

  All on purpose, it's man-made famine. International community was begging to give North Korea food. Why not stood at the UN? They beg to give North Korea formula, medicine and food. They are begging, can you please feed your people? And Kim Jong-un said, no, thank you. Last year, like, when North Korea had a horrible, horrible flooding, South Korean president was begging, can you get, can I give you please some medicines? Like, no. Because he wants to be the one provider. He doesn't want people to think other people giving him the thing. So on purpose, other people starving. And that Juche idea is, that's when it coming from. So until that communism was about like, state is being a father figure, takes care of all your needs, right? Give the power to us and you are all good.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  But North Korean regime says, okay, now we cannot give people some ration. So which means, Juche means self-reliance. You need to take care of yourself, why are you giving every right to us? So now, in the nineties, the regime told us, okay, we are not gonna give you ration. You cannot trade, that's illegal, but you find your own way to survive. So be self-reliant, that's what Juche is. And, you know, but when you're a god, you can do whatever you want. You don't need to make a sense. That's the difference being a god and being a leader. When it is religion, it's not forsoifiable, you cannot challenge it. God's way is suspicious. God works in a mysterious way.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  So when you're a god, people not gonna say, oh, this doesn't make sense, right? You're gonna, okay, whatever God says, we, as a human being, we can never change his thought. It's unbelievable what regimes can do.

• 1:00:43Lex Fridman?

  There, there's something about famine.

• 1:00:48Lex Fridman?

  You know,

• 1:00:50Lex Fridman?

  that is another,

• 1:00:55Lex Fridman?

  is another level of evil to me. You know, what Stalin did in Ukraine in the 30s.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:05Lex Fridman?

  Fuck them.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:09Lex Fridman?

  This is what torture is. Cannibalism.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Lex Fridman?

  And.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  North Korea too, the humans. Right now, in 21st century. Seven billion people on this earth right now. You make enough food for 10 billion people. Nobody should be starving right now. It's worrisome to me. The humanity is moving forward with the technological advance, blah, blah. We are going so fast in advancement. And we are leaving this like 25 millions of human beings in the cage, completely leaving them behind. And North Korea is living like 16 centuries. I never, like this morning, I was taking a shower. Beautiful shower. Like one, never knew what shower was. I was bathing few, few times a year, going to the like river. How do you even know what shampoo is?

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  And this is how human beings in 21st century living. And it doesn't bother us and rather, most of people obsess being a vegan. And like, how, how do you reconcile this?

• 1:02:11Lex Fridman?

  I think we get used to stuff very quickly. We get used to comforts. That's just the way of human life. You, you take the beautiful things for granted. So I try to appreciate everything I have. So whether it's like the food I have now, or like the luxury to have a diet and be struggling with that.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Lex Fridman?

  Or just the basic, simple moments of being alive with the people I love. Or actually, I get like, I think I'm on drugs all the time because I feel like just even like this mug, everything on this table, it just brings me joy. But it's like, filling your life with joy in the full capitalistic American way, you can still, at the same time, not feel too bad about yourself.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:02:54Lex Fridman?

  And still focus on the, the suffering in the world. And I think there's some way.

• 1:03:02Lex Fridman?

  That in trying to build a better world in America, it has ripple effects elsewhere. Sort of like, so I'm a fan of rockets in space. It sounds perhaps counterintuitive, but sending rockets to space will help solve the North Korea

• 1:03:24Lex Fridman?

  a problem because it lets people dream and build cool stuff. So it's not the rocket, it's the other people that like are inspired by the rocket and then look to other problems in the world. I mean, that's what Elon did is like, he saw problems in the world and saw like, what can I do to help it? And I think the North Korea one is a tough one though, because that's ultimately has to do with revolutionizing government.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Change China.

• 1:03:57Lex Fridman?

  China.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  That's what it takes. Changing China's Communist Party is impossible. That's why we couldn't solve North Korea for that many decades.

• 1:04:04Lex Fridman?

  But it's China, well, for now it's China, but it's China, it's Soviet, it's Russia. It's certain aspects of the United States and struggling with that. One of the, you know, there's a bunch of technologies that are striving at this. For example, I don't know what your thoughts about cryptocurrencies.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 1:04:26Lex Fridman?

  So like, there's a idea that money could be a way to destroy or to challenge the power centers of the world.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Lex Fridman?

  So if you give, if you take away the power from fiat currency and give it to this thing that can't be controlled by government, this cryptocurrency, whether it's Bitcoin, Ethereum, all those kinds of things, that's a way to get money into the hands of people to where the government can't take that money away.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  But North Koreans don't have electricity, no internet. So we can do that with China. We can do it a lot of African dictatorship countries, right? I do think cryptocurrency is such a fascinating technology, right? I think this is an amazing experiment when that power is in our hands. I'm the huge African believer, but I think North Korea is too behind.

• 1:05:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  You know, I think that's what is unique about North Korea is that most of the things that we talk about is now, it's a different planet, literally. The common law that we have is now applicable.

• 1:05:30Lex Fridman?

  What about Kim Jong-un?

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Kim Jong-un, yeah.

• 1:05:34Lex Fridman?

  Is he intentionally evil? Or is he mindlessly propagating an evil system created by his ancestors? What's your sense of the man?

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  So with Kim Il-sung, I can give him more benefit of doubt. He was a initial true believer of communism. But then as later he gained the power, he realizing, I think, I guess back then he thought most of people are dumb, right? Individuals dumb, so therefore I need to make a decision for all of you. That pure arrogance came from out of him. Even that I can tolerate, okay, fine. And Kim Jong-il, who never like, yeah, fine, he grew up in that system too. But Kim Jong-un is very unique. This guy was educated in Switzerland, in the heart of democracy. He knew how human beings should be treated.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  As a child, he went, when you're a child, your brain is very susceptible. Right? You would change anybody, like why the Mao was so, that's like changing young people's minds. Like that's every revolutionary they do, right? They go change young people's minds first. This guy was so obsessed with the power, him being a god. Even starting in Switzerland didn't change him. And that's why I think that's a pure evil. You know, I can give him more benefit of doubt to his grandfather and father. But when it comes to Kim Jong-un, this is like what pure evil looks like. Pure selfish being. That's what it looks like.

• 1:07:09Lex Fridman?

  Is there, is there some sense where he's justifying everything he's doing to himself? Or do you think there's a psychopathic aspect to where he enjoys the suffering?

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  I think in his life, right? I read a lot of like North Korea, a lot of CIA documents, a lot of intelligence people worked there. And even like worked in North Korean type elites and escaped, I could hear about them. So Kim Jong-un, when they are born, they treat like gods.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  So they never have a sense of them being a human.

• 1:07:42Lex Fridman?

  Hmm.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  They're like equal with others. For them, like we are just any kind of tool, like that Napoleon, like thing does, right? Anybody's a tool, like once Boxer dies, get him slaughtered for my cause.

• 1:07:55Lex Fridman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  And they do not even feel guilty about it because they don't view us that you deserve, you are worthy of it.

• 1:08:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  So it's not like he even fears, he doesn't even recognize that's a suffering. Like, of course, you, you, this, this is what you do, serving me, because I am, I am this. So I think that's like beyond that, like it's not like suffering is enters his minds. He doesn't even think what we go through.

• 1:08:20Lex Fridman?

  He's, so he thinks of himself as a, as a god.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:23Lex Fridman?

  And then everybody else is just uh tools that they're disposable.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:27Lex Fridman?

  There was rumors several times of him dying.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Lex Fridman?

  Do you think he is um, obviously his health is not good.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:08:37Lex Fridman?

  Do you think he will die soon? What happens if Kim Jong-un dies?

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  Well, if, when it comes to North Korea, anybody knows what they're going, what Kim Jong-un does is lie, right? Nobody knows. I'm sure CIA knows, but they may never reveal that. CIA has enough intelligence to can tell where Kim Jong-un is, what he's doing. They just don't assassinate him because they don't see the means of it right now.

• 1:09:02Lex Fridman?

  You think they can assassinate him?

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  They can, they do have ability to assassinate.

• 1:09:06Lex Fridman?

  Why the hell did they not assassinate him?

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  Because they don't care. They don't care about the suffering of twenty five million people. They gotta pay the price if they assassinate Kim Jong-un, they gotta pay the price afterwards.

• 1:09:17Lex Fridman?

  There'll be financial, there'll be political price to pay. It'll, it'll anger China.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Yes, sir, absolutely, that is a huge piece for them.

• 1:09:24Lex Fridman?

  And then they'll have to deal, obviously, there'll be financial, military consequences of having to deal with the turmoil, the uncertainty.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:32Lex Fridman?

  Uh, the revolutions that will spring up.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the thing, like that's why they don't want to take that risk, they don't want to do anything. The US now became very passive when they pursue these moral values to the rest of the world.

• 1:09:45Lex Fridman?

  They did the same thing with the Holocaust in the early days, actually.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were like just, they didn't care, and that's what their always policy has been, they don't care, I mean. So if Kim Jong-un dies. It's gonna be very hard for North Korea to replace anybody in his position because Kim is a brand. It's not just like a leader for us, right? Whenever we think of Kim, who came with my mind, like who's like almost god figure. Like, North Korea is the number ten religions in the world. They copy the Bible. So if you believe that, if there are people believe in the god and just Christ, how do you not believe that North Korean believe in the same thing? So Kim Il-sung's grandfather and his parents were devout Christians.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  So Kim Il-sung was grew up this like Christian like word verses. So when he founded his country, he said, "I love my people so much that I'm giving you my son, Kim Jong-il. His body dies, but his spirit with us forever. Who can know how many hair I have, what I think, and when we suffer, we go to paradise with him." And when you block every single information going into country, of course, people gonna believe it.

• 1:10:58Lex Fridman?

  So who would be the successor if he dies?

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  He has a son, a first son born two thousand nine. And not, not old enough if he dies now. So either his sister might rule for a short amount of time as not like a leader, but like we play like temporary replacement. And then when the son is older enough, he might take it off, because it's a kingdom. That's most likely, and China will do everything they can to maintain that status quo for the North Korean regime.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  So North Korean people have no option here. We just need some leader to courageously come up and do the right thing.

• 1:11:40Lex Fridman?

  So we can't just wait this out?

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  No, we can't. It's not something that'll take its course and not gonna change. Like, we not even know that economic freedom does not bring political freedom. We know in China, it doesn't. That's the unique thing about freedom. You gotta fight for it, otherwise you don't never get it. Freedom is something has to be fought. And if nobody fighting for freedom, it's not gonna be there.

• 1:12:06Lex Fridman?

  Can we talk a little bit about freedom? What, what does it mean to you? Having had, we talked about love in that same way about freedom. Having sort of discovered it later in life, what does it mean to you?

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  I think every day I I get new definition of freedom. It is, it's a never ending journey, having this relationship with being free. And what it means to be free, right? I think.

• 1:12:38Speaker 01

  I think uh you definitely can live life without being free and also happy life too. I saw a lot of North Korean elites who were fat and have power but didn't have freedom or very happy. In a way happier than the people that I found in New York were like investment bankers and consultants in Manhattan. And seventy percent of them go like to talk to therapists. I was very confused. I remember writing my book in New York, like my editor were saying. Yami, you know, like you're traumatized, you need to go talk to therapist. And I was like, what is therapy? What is trauma? Because in North Korea, they don't have word for stress or trauma. Because how can you be stressed in a socialist paradise?

• 1:13:22Speaker 01

  So they don't let you be knowing what that is.

• 1:13:24Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  So, and then they were like, yeah, hearing people having problems, go talk to therapist. And I was like, like, how much is that? I said, two hundred dollars per hour and it's discounted rate too. I was like, no, thank you.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  You know, I was like, you know. And we know that freedom comes with responsibility. And in a way, it's not that easy to be free, thinking for yourself constantly. Like when you, in a way, I understand, like, let's give government every power we have. Let them decide what education that I get, let them decide where I live, like, you know, let someone figure that out for me. And that's how North Korea began, hoping the government can represent my own interest, believing that they were good. And with that benefit of that and good faith, it began the nightmare, right?

• 1:14:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  So, freedom is not like, oh, gay way to be happy at all. In a way, you can make life a lot more complex, but then it's fun, isn't it? You start being for yourself, you start making mistakes and it's so fun to be free. Even though you can be suffering way more than the people who are not free.

• 1:14:37Lex Fridman?

  The thing about freedom is, when you have freedom. You also have the responsibility for your actions and that could be a huge burden.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:45Lex Fridman?

  Because if you succeed, it's you. But if you fail, it's you.

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:52Lex Fridman?

  And if you do horrible things, it's you. If you don't do something, for example, if you don't help people in North Korea, it's you.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:00Lex Fridman?

  And that's a huge burden.

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:03Lex Fridman?

  And living with that burden is a kind of suffering. I mean, there's some aspect in which freedom is suffering.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  It is suffering.

• 1:15:10Lex Fridman?

  Because life is suffering. And then the freedom is you as an individual.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:16Lex Fridman?

  Fully living through that.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:18Lex Fridman?

  So you talked, you're friends with Michael Malice.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:22Lex Fridman?

  He believes, and so I want to kind of ask you about government. Uh, he believes he's an anarchist.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:29Lex Fridman?

  And he believes kind of in freedom fully implemented in, in human societies. Meaning that humans should, uh, all be free to choose how they, um, you know, transact with each other, how they live together. There shouldn't be a centralized force that tells you what to do.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:52Lex Fridman?

  Do you think there's some role for government in, um, in a healthy society?

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:59Lex Fridman?

  So if we look at North Korea, there's the most horrible implementation of government. But then if we look at what the United States strives to be, at least in principle, there's, um, there's an ideal of a government that represents the people and helps the people. Like, is there, is there a place for that kind of ideal? Or is government always going to get us into trouble?

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  I am not, I mean, I spoke to Michael Malice. I kept asking, why, why he's anarchist, right? And he doesn't even believe in military, none of that thing. And it's, I was like, I was like, I don't think I want to be in that world you're describing. That's pretty scary. I want the law enforcement. I want like, I don't. The in a way that so why equality makes no sense is that the fact that when you and I were born, we were born in a very different capability of thinking, different intelligence, different capability in our physics, right? So equality is nonsense, you can never achieve that, right? So to me, that's been is very scary.

• 1:17:05Lex Fridman?

  When the government tries to enforce.

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  Equality on everybody, that is impossible.

• 1:17:10Lex Fridman?

  Specifically equality of outcomes, so like, so given that we all started different places, enforce like measure in some kind of way where people stand and if they're unequal, enforce equality.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:23Lex Fridman?

  And that's what leads to the kind of things that you mentioned with the class system.

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:27Lex Fridman?

  Um, in North Korea.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think that's why government can be bad, they can be very dumb. And another, another thing is that they cannot know what you want. A lot of times, people don't even know what they want that individual. Like, how the heck do you assume government gonna know what is best for you? Nobody knows, we just all do our best. I do think though, some governments like in Switzerland, you know, have more power, give power to the different state, can be good. I think I'm more, you know, like giving power to the state. And let individual decide where they wanna go in within states, like, I mean, why did you choose Texas, right? There's no income tax, right?

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  Like, there's a lot of things people find Texas, like, you know, charming and they come here. So in a way that I don't wanna be in a one strong government to makes every single thing the same way. In a way, I wanna kind of experiment everything. We can have anarchy state, there's no police, nothing going on, you can be whatever you want. And you can go on a state where it's like abortion is bad, blah, blah, this is bad, all this like conservative values. And let the ideas compete and let them how they are being practiced in real, real life. But I think it's very scary when the youth government is getting bigger and bigger and then they try to, you know, make every state under one big government.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  And that's like when I get really alarmed.

• 1:18:57Lex Fridman?

  Are there things that you see in the United States in the current culture?

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:19:02Lex Fridman?

  That's kind of has echoes of the same things you saw in North Korea that that worry you?

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  So much. Absolutely. It's, it's, um, it's in America now, the meritocracy doesn't matter, right? It's evil. The white man's idea of like talking about if you're competent enough, they say, oh, if you're coming from which white family, you are gonna be competent. So other people don't have a chance, but look at Asians who came from nothing is competent and go to like Harvard Law School and Medical School.

• 1:19:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  So it doesn't almost is like there's no incentive for you to work hard anymore in the system right now. That is North Korea. There's no incentive because you're born with your class already. So no matter what you do, you can never, so the horrible thing about North Korean system is that there's nothing even calling marry up. So if you're coming from other cultures that like Meghan Markle joined a royal family and she became a lawyer, you go up. But in North Korea, if someone from high class is gonna marry somebody down, you only go down with them. That's how they prevent class mix.

• 1:20:11Lex Fridman?

  Right, that, that, that kind of enforces the separation because there's a huge disincentive to go to marry, to, to integrate between classes.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:22Lex Fridman?

  What do you do about this kind of, um, you know, especially in universities, but in companies?

• 1:20:28Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:20:28Lex Fridman?

  I'm thinking about starting a company. So I'm looking at this very carefully. There's these ideas of diversity and, and meritocracy, that's a tension. So

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:39Lex Fridman?

  I think there's

• 1:20:42Lex Fridman?

  There's a big way in which diversity broadly defined is not at all in tension with meritocracy. So having a variety of people backgrounds, way of thinking, all those kinds of things is a huge benefit to any group. But the way diversity is often defined is by sort of very crude classes of people, whether it's by skin color or gender, or some very kind of large group way. And that, that actually does two things in my mind. One, it drowns out real diversity, or not real, but the full spectrum of diversity,

• 1:21:23Lex Fridman?

  which is like within class diversity of like, are you, are you somebody who is,

• 1:21:34Lex Fridman?

  are you somebody who's exceptionally good at mathematics? Are you somebody who's exceptionally good at psychology? Are you good with people? Are you good with numbers? All that kind of stuff that I think spans or intersects in fascinating ways with these kinds of groups. So that's diversity. And then meritocracy is this thing that probably the reason I wanted to move to Silicon Valley and the reason I didn't is like having a fire to change the world within you. Like meritocracy is like, I want to be the best in the world at this. And I will strive and work hard, not stepping on others, but like purely within yourself, be the best version of yourself.

• 1:22:12Lex Fridman?

  That, that idea is in some ways being not celebrated or.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  Demonized. It's literally meritocracy is being demonized right now in America. Working hard is a symbol of you coming from some established family. The fact that you celebrate accomplishment, hard work is a sign of your patriarchal, whatever thing they call it, right? And. They wanna abolish that. They wanna like stop giving kids grades. That's what they're already doing, right? They wanna stop. They wanna like, we should abolish like SAT in America they take to go to college, right? They won't even abolish that. Yeah, some kids have no ability to do math. So why do you have to force them to learn math? And that's what comes with humans overcome challenges.

• 1:23:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  That's what makes us special. But then like, because these kids coming from this family, let's find the reason why they cannot. And then they don't have to do that thing. But they still deserve the same job. They need to be a lawyer and doctors.

• 1:23:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  And that's like what in North Korea was like not. There was not even meritocracy beginning, right? You did you born in the same family, the family, the blood, right? Like if one person does something wrong, it's like collective guilt. Because I spoke out, three generations of my family got punished, who are left behind. And then in America, I see the same thing. Like if you're somehow great, great grandfather or the slave, now you are privileged and you're guilty. Because you are white and guilted. But how do you change your ancestor? How did you have a saying on it? And that is where there's no way out. There's no forgiving, there's no moving forwards.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  And this current culture in America now, like I remember at Columbia, like before class, everybody have to go around of saying, tell us what your pronouns is. And my English, my third language I learned as adult. Even saying he and she, I'm confused. But this is pure mistake. And they say, call me they, because I'm gender fluid. Basically, I can be a girl, but next hour you talk to me, I'm a boy, right?

• 1:24:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  And if you don't do it right, they're like, look at you, why are you big? Right? It makes me so nervous. And this is where I come to, this is a regression of civilization. We are regressing as a humanity here. Like the enlightenment, all of those things made us so much brighter and looking forward. And now we are going backwards.

• 1:24:51Lex Fridman?

  Well, I think it's, there's a pendulum aspect to it, because it's my, it's my hope in terms of backwards. So pendulum goes backwards too, but it just goes back and forth, I think. And then in the long arc of history, we're making progress. I think all of the discussions of diversity and inclusion and all those kinds of things. I always thought that they're healthy in moderation. Like, they should be a small part of the conversation amongst other things. The natural aspect, like, it seems that they kind of have this way of just consuming all conversations. It's like the meetings, like diversity and inclusion meetings multiply somehow. Where it's like the only thing that you're talking about. And it's very kind of absurd.

• 1:25:34Lex Fridman?

  And when I look at, even at MIT, it's a strangely disproportionate amount of discussions about that. And also, to me, as an engineer, those discussions are very frustrating because they don't seem to actually do anything.

• 1:25:49Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 1:25:49Lex Fridman?

  So like, they want to bully people.

• 1:25:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:55Lex Fridman?

  Instead of creating systems that fix define, like, definitive problems. And that in itself, that kind of bullying, that's the same kind of thing you saw in terms of McCarthyism in America. Against the communists, you certainly saw that in Soviet Union against everybody who's not communist. It creates hate, not progress. When you talked to Jordan Peterson recently, and people should listen to that conversation, it was a fascinating one. I think he, he, he almost got emotional on the discussion about universities and your experience with Columbia.

• 1:26:35Lex Fridman?

  Because he, like myself, for perhaps different reasons, have a hope for our academic institutions. Some of the most incredible people, some of the most incredible engineering and idea development innovations happens in universities. And so, we both deeply care about them.

• 1:26:54Lex Fridman?

  Is there something, so the reason he got emotional, the reason he was kind of hurt is?

• 1:27:01Lex Fridman?

  The the the fact that you did not, you were not deeply inspired by your experience.

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  Not deeply, it made me dumber. It made me scared, it made me terrified that I had to censor myself in America. Like, are you seriously telling me that you don't ever censor yourself? And when you talk, do you, can you truly say whatever you want about race, about anything, gender? We all censor ourselves, let's be honest, right? We are all doing that. And that's what I learned, like, I thought I was coming to a country where never needed a censor. Like, first thing my mom told me, growing up in North Korea was, don't even whisper, because the birds and mice could hear you.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  And I thought, okay, now, America is truly the land of the free, home of the brave. You can say anything you want, and then you have freedom to change your mind and evolve, right? But the people now demand you to be the perfect version they demand you to be. You cannot change your mind. And then what is the meaning of life if you cannot grow? Right? You should be very safe to talk about anything. And then later, okay, I was wrong. But now, if you do that, you gotta like, get penalized for it.

• 1:28:17Lex Fridman?

  I mean, censorship is a funny thing, because you probably should not say dumb things. You should try to say things you want to say in the most eloquent, the most effective way you can. So, I mean, that's what editing is, right?

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:31Lex Fridman?

  So there's some level of like, being careful with what you say, not because you're afraid of some overarching kind of group of bullies, but you want to be the best version of yourself when you express stuff. But there's some sense where in the university setting, you can put that self censorship like leveled down more and say stupid stuff.

• 1:28:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:53Lex Fridman?

  And explain, and play, because you should be forgiven for that kind of play, especially when you're discussing difficult aspects of human history, whether that that include racism, that that include atrocities. I'm still nevertheless sort of hopeful, but at the same time. I'm surrounded by engineers.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14Lex Fridman?

  So I don't get to interact with people in humanities much. And it seems like there's getting worse.

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  It's a good thing. It's a good thing.

• 1:29:24Lex Fridman?

  I, yeah, I don't know. Well, I do sort of interact with psychologists, but they haven't touched on those kinds of topics yet. I still, sort of in defense of psychology, I still, I wish I had more numbers.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:39Lex Fridman?

  But I still feel like most psychology people don't partake in this kind of stuff either. They're just doing excellent research. We're just highlighting, that's what America does well. You're kind of highlighting anecdotal experiences and making a big deal out of them. But that's good because like it's a slippery slope. If those things start to overtake all of academia, it starts becoming a big problem, even in the engineering field. So we should be concerned. But it is truly tragic that somebody who's exceptionally well read, like you, whose fire was stoked first with Orwell, that fire should burn bright. Like this should not be, you should be writing many books.

• 1:30:24Lex Fridman?

  You know what I mean? Like, and you'll be, you talk to Jordan, you know, it's very possible, depending what you want to do with your life, that you'll be a future Jordan Peterson, right? So like that, and Columbia should be a place that enriches that your mind. And the fact that it didn't is tragic.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  I mean, I did the same, it's like, I was there four years. It wasn't like I had one class that was bad in a one semester.

• 1:30:51Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  That was the thing when Dr. Peterson was asking, is there any one class that had no sentiment of this virtue signaling politically right?

• 1:31:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  There was none.

• 1:31:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  Entire course, I think I took 126 credits total.

• 1:31:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  Not even one class. Doesn't matter whether you're talking about classic art and that's the thing. I literally thought, okay, I pushed it last, like the semester to call like the art and music, right? So I thought this is gonna be the least politically correct class I can take. And then it begins with, who has problem with calling this course the Western Civilization of Art and Music? And everyone was raising their hands. Cause like, why do you have to learning about this better than Mozart, the bigots? And all the people. Like, you know, everything ruined by white men.

• 1:31:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  And it's even music, even these paintings. And I was like, I didn't raise my hand. Everyone's looking at me. How do you not have the problem with West? Like, you used to hate West. You're Asian. You're so, I think that's the thing is, I think the problem's way deeper than what people think. And it's, it's a, that's what I, when I learned, it's like, it's not that safe in America. We can go complete to the south. And looking at even Europe, that is like, I used to be way more optimistic, like, you know, that, but now I actually see, wow, this country can go to south. And we might, if US forced that, right, this is the only country left to battle with the communist party in China.

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  We may lose a opportunity to be free ever again as a humanity.

• 1:32:32Lex Fridman?

  Wow. So I mean, that puts a lot of value on having these kinds of conversations. It is, I mean, I'm troubled, I'm troubled by a lot of things, but like censorship on YouTube, for example.

• 1:32:43Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:32:45Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it was very annoying to have to listen to Donald Trump all the time, like, just like great drama, like, news cycle was completely drowned out by Donald Trump.

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:54Lex Fridman?

  But like banning him from Twitter, it was like,

• 1:33:00Lex Fridman?

  that, I, that was, that was scary for me because it's like, that's a step towards a direction where you're going to, like, where's that take us? You're going to silence people, then it's like Jordan Peterson is next.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  That's why we need to promote freedom of thinking and speech, right? And one thing that I love about Dr. Peterson is humans, he's psychologist, right? Talks about we, we, we think by talking.

• 1:33:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:31Speaker 01

  That's why when you go to therapy, you talk and then you hear yourself and then you think and you come up to the answer. It's so important for humans to talk, so we can think. So when they say you cannot talk, means you cannot think.

• 1:33:45Lex Fridman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:46Speaker 01

  And they don't know the consequences of that. And this is why I promote, I want the freedom of speech, even though it hurts, ridiculous, you know. Sometimes it can, it can be dangerous. But the price, the alternative is so bad. That we should take the, you know, make this trade off. Everything has a trade off in this world. And it comes with a sacrifice, right? So I think that's, um, that's what I'm seeing in America, but it's unfortunately like the people like you say. The who decides what is hate speech, what is dangerous? That's what, what I've been getting scared. Cause everybody's imperfect.

• 1:34:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  Right? How do we wanna give that power to them and they're gonna decide? Today they might argue with me, say, okay, your speech is good, promotes good. And then they might come back next year and say, your speech is bad. What are you gonna do when that happens to you?

• 1:34:39Lex Fridman?

  We have to almost like get ideas out and then play with them. I think what's a really important component of that is forgiving each other for like realizing that we're a different person. Day by day and certainly years later. Uh, and I think some of that is both cultural mechanisms of saying like we forgive each other for wrong ideas. Or not wrong ideas, but for who we are, the, the full evolution of the human being, for the steps we've taken on that evolution. And also creating mechanisms that allow you to, um, allow us to forgive each other, like for example, on a Twitter is like horrible with this because

• 1:35:21Lex Fridman?

  the, one of the main viral ways that people create drama on Twitter is like pulling up an old tweet that somebody said, right? And then saying, oh, this is the guy that thinks that.

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:33Lex Fridman?

  And, but that's like the opposite of the mechanisms we need to forgive ourselves, forgive each other for the things we've said in the past. And, um, so part of that is the cultural part of this is, is, is the, um, the technological, um, mechanisms. You mentioned, uh, Jordan, Jordan Peterson, you had a great conversation with him. What, uh, what was chatting with him like? I'm just, I'm just curious because he's deeply passionate, especially on the Soviet Union side, about the atrocities of these kinds of systems. What was it like? What did you, um, what did you agree with him on? What did you disagree? Or were some? Things you both kind of learned from each other through that conversation, do you think?

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  So here, so my story to Jordan Peterson, very long one. So one day, I was walking down in Chicago. And they were like, huge theater or soda. He said, big letter, Jordan Peterson soda. And then it was a huge theater in the middle of Chicago, right? Like, doesn't like comedian, like, who can be selling this entire thing up at like seven P M? And then with my, like, ex-husband, we were walking the street. And then we saw people were like selling this, like, tickets, like, and for a very higher price, right? And then we want the ticket, and then he was like, yeah, sure. We ran in, it's packed.

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  And then I was just a keeper or like, but I wasn't able to understand his English that much. My English was still.

• 1:37:08Lex Fridman?

  And you didn't know who he was, really?

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:37:10Lex Fridman?

  You were just curious?

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was like two thousand.

• 1:37:12Lex Fridman?

  Who's the guy that sells out of the, uh, uh, theater, yeah?

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Yes, I, I saw David Rubin came up before him and make jokes. I still don't know who David Rubin is. Afterwards, I met them all, but back then I had no clue what that is. And then he was giving lessons, but what I got from that night was not what Jordan said, but what people did on the audience. These people like, I don't know, thousands of people in this big theater, crying like babies. And that was like, whatever that guy is doing is very special, right? He wasn't like making any jokes, he had no slides. Just a one simple person standing in the huge, gigantic theater talk. And long time too, and people cry. And it's like, wow, okay, whatever that is, I gotta check it out.

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  And then I got home, and then later, many years later, I got a book. And I was starting reading his book. And it talks about, it explains so much, right? Like now, at Columbia, I learned like everything gender is like made of concept, construct. Like the hierarchy is white man's idea, make the hierarchy. And then he begins with the number one, the, the last series, how the hierarchy is evolution of history that is within us. That we want a hierarchy, right? And then chapter five about socialization of child, you know, how do you raise them? And all of it, and then what's why telling the truth is matters, right? And. There's a white, like, in his entire twelve lessons, I read it, and it's like,

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  I'm, I was so grateful that I'm alive with this, like, there's people always say, if Socrates is alive, how much would you pay to have lunch with him? That kind of thing, right? So for me, it was like, okay, I'm like alive in the same contemporary world of the, one of the greatest thinkers of my entire generation. And then like, how much money?

• 1:39:06Lex Fridman?

  Get to hang out with them.

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  Exactly, right? How much money would I pay, right? No, no limit amount.

• 1:39:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  And I like reached out to Michaela on her podcast on Twitter and connected, and then one day she said, do you wanna go on my father's podcast? I was like, what?

• 1:39:22Lex Fridman?

  Wow.

• 1:39:23Speaker 01

  I was like, of course, and I was very nervous. But I didn't expect him to be like that connected.

• 1:39:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  Cause I thought he was psychologist, like he saw so much suffering in the world. He studied Soviet Union, his hobby is collecting those things to remind him of the suffering of a human being. So sometimes some people hear so much atrocity, they become like, very, you know, not engaged.

• 1:39:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, desensitized.

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  Desensitized.

• 1:39:53Lex Fridman?

  He felt, he was feeling, he was, it's always like he was living through the experiences with you as you were talking about it. It was an amazing conversation. So Jordan is one of the great thinkers of our time, but I would say the greatest thinkers of our time is Michael Malice. So you've also got the chance to talk to. Uh, so, well, so he wrote a book on North Korea.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:14Lex Fridman?

  It's an interesting style book. I learned a lot from it. I learned a lot from Michael about it. And it's interesting that he chose

• 1:40:22Lex Fridman?

  North Korea as a, as a, as a thing to study. That he, of all people, this fascinating human being that is Michael, chose this darkest of aspects of, of humanity to, to study. What, uh, what do you think of Michael? What do you think of his book on North Korea called Dear Reader that people should definitely check out?

• 1:40:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So back then, when I reached out, Michael turned me to friends in South Korea. I, my English wasn't good. So I got a copy in my hand. I tried to read and a lot of them I didn't understand. So, but I thought it was very fascinating how he explained North Korea through the leader's perspective. Right? There's nobody has ever done that. And you can reveal so much about the state and absurdity of entire situation. And also through humor. And that's what's amazing about Michael is he knows full gravity of tragedy. He knows of full suffering. He's not just like people here in America on the bus feet making fun of Kim Jong-un haircut.

• 1:41:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  They don't care what people go through. Michael cares.

• 1:41:31Lex Fridman?

  Deeply cares and then he still does ridiculous jokes. So that that kind of reveals in a dark way the absurdity.

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:41Lex Fridman?

  Of evil.

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:43Lex Fridman?

  And he does that masterfully. Do you?

• 1:41:45Speaker 01

  He's a genius. He is definitely a genius.

• 1:41:48Lex Fridman?

  Alright, let's, let's. If he watches this, uh, you know, let's not get, make his head too big here.

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:55Lex Fridman?

  Uh, but is there some aspect to?

• 1:42:00Lex Fridman?

  I mean, there is an absurdity to the whole thing.

• 1:42:02Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:42:03Lex Fridman?

  Uh, Kim Jong-un is this, I mean, he's almost like a caricature of evil, like.

• 1:42:08Speaker 01

  Joke.

• 1:42:09Lex Fridman?

  It's a joke.

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  A lot of people think it's a joke. They just think like this is too, too absurd. They just, they laugh. Like, can you imagine you laugh at Holocaust? This is that ridiculous.

• 1:42:21Lex Fridman?

  Can you maybe psychoanalyze that a little bit because? That, that's where my mind goes too. Like he's so ridiculous.

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:42:30Lex Fridman?

  That you can't, it's almost like hard to believe this is real.

• 1:42:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:37Lex Fridman?

  Is that just, is that just my kind of and people's? Desire to escape the cruelty of reality by just kind of making a joke out of it?

• 1:42:49Speaker 01

  I think it is a few things, right? Like, um, so North Korea as a nation. Uh, number one or number two smartest IQ people in the world. Despite their mathematician.

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:43:04Lex Fridman?

  So there's, I mean, that was, that's an interesting point. So in your sense, the people.

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  Are not dumb.

• 1:43:12Lex Fridman?

  Still carry the sort of the brilliance. There's a, there's a culture there that's like hungry to become realized. Like the people that were, like that, that are silenced by the electricity, by the actually having no food, all those kinds of things. Like if you add the electricity, if you add the food, you're going to have a cultural center of the world.

• 1:43:33Speaker 01

  Like South Korea. That's what they exactly did, right? The exact same Korea. One became world, like 11th largest economy. One became the world's most like populous nation, right? And this is a perfect example. Like if, I don't know if you read that book, Why Nation Fairs? The system. It's not about a culture. It is not about people. It is not about IQ. What makes us to different is the system. South Korea, North Korea is a perfect example of that. One is exact same capability. We are homogeneous like country. Same language, tradition, all of that. We gave them different system. One is free democracy, one is dictatorship.

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  And came up with the biggest different result. And I think North Korea reveals that to us. It's not because we are great that we are living in this prosperity. Free market. The ideas gave us to this. The system we built, our ancestors built, gave us this privilege. It's not us. Nothing is about us being special here, right? The system that we have is quite special. And North Korea proves that to us. It doesn't matter even if you're smart. It, that's all irrelevant. And I think that's why people just keep denying that they wanna feel special, like because I'm awesome, I got all of this. Like, no.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  It's not you, you got this. And when people say like, I hate capitalism, like without capitalism, how do you came up with this thing? Literally, how did you come up with this?

• 1:45:10Lex Fridman?

  The systems matter. And they matter like um way more than this individualistic society would like to imagine.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  It is the most important thing you can have in life, choosing the right system.

• 1:45:31Lex Fridman?

  Do you have advice for young people today? You've lived an incredible life and you have, I hope, an incredible life ahead of you. What advice would you give to young people today, high schoolers, college students? How to be successful in their career, maybe successful in life?

• 1:45:53Speaker 01

  Last thing I want them to feel is guilty.

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  It's, it doesn't do anything, right? So I hate when people talk about, oh, why guilt? It's like, that doesn't make even any sense, right? I think the fact that they're born with freedom is a blessing for all of us. It's not like I want them to wanna do something because they are guilty. I want them to do something because they are grateful. It is true, like, we are sitting here, the fact why I have children, we're suffering. Having kids, you don't sleep, costly, like so much work. Like, any like logical, rational mind, you should never want children, right? Why would you do that to yourself, especially as a woman, right?

• 1:46:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  You don't wanna do that to yourself. But think, think about, like, we are sitting here today, two of us, in this amazing technology, this country. Because somebody in Savannah, hundreds, thousands of years ago, they're hunting berries and surviving cold. Every suffering they can imagine, they fall for us. That's why we ended up here.

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  So life is ultimately bigger than us. And I think that's what I want them, it's not like I want them to do the right thing and be the best person themselves. It's like, I want them to feel grateful, and we should be feel grateful.

• 1:47:16Lex Fridman?

  For the freedom, and then take full advantage of that. I mean, it starts with the freedom to experience everything in life.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  And for your life, literally.

• 1:47:25Lex Fridman?

  Like life.

• 1:47:26Speaker 01

  Like how my father, like, you know, working, dying is a lot easier than living. Dying takes like few minutes, right, maximum? And living takes forever. So when I was facing this unbelievable challenge, I thought, okay, this most rational thing I can do is killing myself right now. But the hardest thing I can choose is choose to live. And my father did that, even in the concentration camp. Even no matter what he said, life is a gift. You need to fight for it. And I think that's what's missing here, that we don't think life is a gift. It's a gift, like, how many people had to fight for me to be here today?

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  Think about the sacrifice they made for many, many, many generations. I don't even know what they went through. I can't even fathom what they went through.

• 1:48:19Lex Fridman?

  They fought for life.

• 1:48:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that is my responsibility enough. So it doesn't make them, therefore, if I was not meaningless, right? It meant something, because now I'm carrying on that fight.

• 1:48:33Lex Fridman?

  You mentioned considering suicide.

• 1:48:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:48:37Lex Fridman?

  Do you think about your mortality now? Now that you're perhaps in slightly more comfortable place?

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:48:47Lex Fridman?

  Do you still think about death?

• 1:48:49Speaker 01

  I do, because I was informed, actually when I was twenty-one, that I was on the killing list of Kim Jong-un by South Korean intelligence. And then, and then I had to leave you that, right? But now I actually feel more because, I don't know, you follow Jamal Khashoggi's story, the Saudi journalist, who got chopped off in Turkey embassy, right? His reason why he got killed was he became very prominent on Twitter. He had a huge voice and Saudis followed him. Now I became very first North Korean to have this many social media followings.

• 1:49:29Speaker 01

  And recently, North Korea started investigation team to analyze whatever I do. Even though it's first time for them, so they don't even know what to do at this point. Like, they're like, this is so new, what do we do? We did Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-un, the half-brother of Kim Jong-un, got killed in Malaysia. That is another tragedy that I feel so sorry for the US government is that Kim Jong-un was giving information to the CIA for the past like ten years. That trip, when he got killed in Malaysian airport, he was meeting up with the CIA agent for two days on the Northern Ireland. CIA could have protected him. They didn't, they let him die. And

• 1:50:12Lex Fridman?

  Who killed them?

• 1:50:13Speaker 01

  North Korean Kim Jong-un killed them. Do you know that the Malaysian, the ladies, the VX, the nerve agent? North Koreans killed them. In Malaysian, in the international land. So even Jamar Khashoggi, who was a used resident, and the Washington Post journalist, when he got killed in Saudi like a lamb, they chopped them into pieces. In that most inhuman death, what was the consequences for the Saudis? Nothing. The word is, we think we're living in justice country. No, there's no justice. There is no accountability for killing any decent, no matter how big their names are.

• 1:50:49Lex Fridman?

  So you don't think your vast and quickly growing social media presence protects you?

• 1:50:56Speaker 01

  No, it does opposite. Because Kim Jong-un, initially when I spoke out, I don't know if you went through it, they did everything they could to character assassinate me, saying I'm a liar, I'm a CIA spy, I get paid. And then they reached out to Penguin, saying, we're gonna blow up, you cannot write this book. And they did it with Sony, they hacked the Sony studio for making that stupid movie interview, right? And then Penguin did their investigation. They met every survivor that I went through in the desert. They got the voice recordings of them, because they don't want them to change their mind later, right? People remember differently. So they got the voice recordings, the Penguin recording got the whole audience. And now we are ready for the lawsuit. We're gonna publish this book.

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  Because we checked, verified every single thing that was going in the book. And North Korea couldn't do anything anymore.

• 1:51:47Lex Fridman?

  But that's character assassination. Which, by the way, that's a whole nother conversation that you were able to survive that. I appreciate the kind of strength it requires to survive that, because you don't know. And your character being assassinated is, in some ways, can be as painful as actual assassination.

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  It's the worst. Everybody think you're a liar. Everybody think you're a liar. And now, everybody, like you said, the nature of internet is that As long as something is written internet, they think that's a fact.

• 1:52:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:18Speaker 01

  Any stupid person can start a blog and write about you.

• 1:52:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:22Speaker 01

  But they think, oh, because it's written on internet, it's legit.

• 1:52:25Lex Fridman?

  Especially negative stuff. That's the thing I was kind of trying to elaborate on. There's a viral aspect to calling somebody a fraud or a liar.

• 1:52:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:34Lex Fridman?

  That nobody questions whether it's true or not, it just spreads.

• 1:52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:38Lex Fridman?

  And it's a, it's a dark side of our human nature that we want to destroy.

• 1:52:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:43Lex Fridman?

  The people who are rising.

• 1:52:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. We cannot stand it.

• 1:52:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, any change maker in this world who wasn't controversial, right? Martin Luther King Jr., like Nelson Mandela, he was called as a terrorist. Right? So I just did not know. I.

• 1:53:00Lex Fridman?

  So the character assassination is a thing, it'll probably continue with you.

• 1:53:03Speaker 01

  It will continue with you forever.

• 1:53:05Lex Fridman?

  So you have to get stronger and stronger, I think, in the face of that. But actual assassination, and perhaps it's me being hopeful, because I have a situation with Russia that I hope I'm not under, well, I don't care, actually. But there's some aspect in which social media presence, I thought protects you a little bit. Because just imagine the outrage from an attempted assassination, assassination of you.

• 1:53:33Speaker 01

  But what was outrage when Zbigniew Kraszewski got killed like that?

• 1:53:37Lex Fridman?

  Was the social media presence large?

• 1:53:40Speaker 01

  Over one million people. I don't have that following. He was one point sixty million Twitter followers.

• 1:53:46Lex Fridman?

  And the outrage wasn't there?

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  No, because Saudis spoke to Amazon, the Prime Studio, Netflix. There were people made a documentary about him, but told everybody don't, cannot get that deal. So there was a huge censorship on that. And people, of course, like, I mean, they can talk about it one day. Some decent from Saudi got killed.

• 1:54:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  Horrible.

• 1:54:08Lex Fridman?

  But it just dissipates.

• 1:54:09Speaker 01

  So they, they move on to the next cute puppy, right? The next cute cat. Like, that's what the nature of this new generation does. They desensitize. It doesn't affect them. They keep following the instant pleasure, instant high. That's what Instagram does to you. It changes your brain. Like, that's, I was reading this book, the shallows. We became shallow and shallow, and our brain changed permanently. So this is in a generation, we can get them angry for like ten minutes, create hashtags for one day. But then, as quick as that was, it goes down like instantly. And I think that's the.

• 1:54:45Lex Fridman?

  Well, that means that, okay, so that means that there is, uh, it's an effective way to get rid of opposition is by murdering them. And that means, uh, uh, United States, if it stands for freedom, if it stands for the freedom of exchange of ideas, should be protecting people like you.

• 1:55:02Speaker 01

  But they don't, because they don't wanna be involved. They were, they, they, they, they didn't even protect Kim Jong-un, who was giving information ten years, risking his life. That's what is so, I mean, working for CIA is not bad. I'm, I'm, I'm, I don't, I hope, I mean, the thing is, he was giving information to bring down the regime.

• 1:55:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  That is valuable, that is something noble about him. But then you just don't go extra miles to that. That's when I lost my faith in the US system as well. Like, this country just cares about saving face. What is most minimum cost they pay for anything? And like, I went to South Korea, constantly, every single day, intelligence calling me. You're like, the North Korean agent going this place, where are you going? The US assistant came to US, nobody. That's when people said, are you a CIA agent? Like, I wish they called me. I wish they called me, I wish, I really truly do, but nobody, nobody does here. I'm sure they know what's going on.

• 1:56:03Speaker 01

  But the South Korean agent is more like, oh, my gosh, we don't want you to get killed, you're a South Korean citizen, right?

• 1:56:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  And now I'm trying to become a citizen. So it's, in a way, it's, I don't know what's worse.

• 1:56:15Lex Fridman?

  Are you, are you afraid for your life?

• 1:56:19Speaker 01

  I was afraid. For the several, three, four years, I was afraid, and it was, but I had to came terms with it. Like, my enemy is not some crazy psychopath. It's a state with a nuclear power to attack the most powerful country. If Kim Jong-un decides if I die, I'm gonna die. It's not up to me, right? So in a way, also it's liberating. That you, it's it's like if you are like afraid of some mobs or some like gangsters on the street. It's almost like you have power over it a little bit. You gotta be like thinking that's my fault. I I went that way, right? But when it comes to Kim Jong-un, I know like my enemy is so much bigger than me.

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  It's in a way like liberation and also it also, I just, I live a lot. So I have seen a lot. I seen everything. I don't have that much regret left here. Like, okay, I'm going too soon, you know? It's like, okay, maybe it's time. Like, death is a part of life, so.

• 1:57:19Lex Fridman?

  In some sense, you're willing to accept death to keep fighting for freedom in your, in at least in part, a place you call home.

• 1:57:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:57:30Lex Fridman?

  Do you hope that one day you can return to North Korea?

• 1:57:33Speaker 01

  I hope so. I hope I bring my son and tell him this is like where your ancestors from too.

• 1:57:41Lex Fridman?

  It would look very different than the place you came from in your, as you hope? Do you, do you, do you hope that there's a democracy one day? That North Korea looks like South Korea?

• 1:57:58Speaker 01

  Well, that would be in paradise, right?

• 1:58:02Speaker 01

  That's, but I'm a rational optimist. I'm not like just optimistic because I have to be. I think as long as there are people who have changed the world, right? Like who believed in something and worked for it. And like, I don't know, like there's a, like Alice Rose, a few people holding entire this world, right? I really believe in that. I think it, as long as that continues, that can happen in my country. As long as people like you someday will decide to do something while North Korea and working for it, using your brain power to solve this puzzle. How fascinating would that be? That's why I continue to speak, continue to recruit.

• 1:58:43Lex Fridman?

  To inspire millions to do something.

• 1:58:45Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:58:47Lex Fridman?

  The books you like are all the books I love. So I have to mention this. You mentioned briefly with Jordan Siddhartha by Herman Hesse is an incredible book. I mean, I don't, I don't know exactly what I want to ask here, but there's some. I think the book kind of through telling a story reveals that life is suffering and yet there's beauty in it. The beauty in every moment that he uses kind of a river. Painted metaphor. Is there, is there, um, is there something that you could say, speak to like how that book impacted your life and the way you live life?

• 1:59:30Lex Fridman?

  Maybe the way you see life, whether it's on the life is suffering side or that life is beautiful side?

• 1:59:37Speaker 01

  I mean, he goes through entire journey, right? He goes into state like I'm so enlightened that I cannot deal with the people who they're in love and cry about it. Right there like that's so like primitive. Once he has his own son, he actually being attached. He actually cares. He actually really does whole thing, right? That's the thing that he used to think not. Once his son comes finding, he looks at life differently. I think that's the thing I did have that kind of journey where, oh, nothing matters, right? So bitter, so, so like so cynical.

• 2:00:16Speaker 01

  And after I met so many incredible people, I was talking about that person who told me he was gay. He told me, I love you. And I was like, why do you love me? In the past, people when they wanted me was because they want to rape me. Everybody wanted something from me. That's why they wanted me. And I never understood you can love somebody unconditionally. And this gay guy, the last one was want to sleep with me, right? And he loves me. And I think I had a blessing after my journey, meeting people who loved me unconditionally because I was just being a human. And I think that's what it is now for me that like him. I live for love now. I live for love.

• 2:01:01Speaker 01

  Any kinds of love. Love for knowledge. I like, I read so many books because I love books, right? I love what I do. I love my people. I love humanity. You know, even it's sometimes annoys me. I love myself.

• 2:01:15Lex Fridman?

  And that's beautiful, too. The annoying parts are beautiful, too. What do you, let me ask the ridiculous question. What do you think is the meaning of this whole thing? Of, uh, what's the meaning of life?

• 2:01:27Speaker 01

  Well, I think at this point, I stop questioning why I'm here. Right, like, it doesn't matter. Someone put the atom there or the big bang. I'm here, that's truth, right? I'm gonna accept that fully. So what, instead of me keep asking the impossible question, why I'm here? I'm gonna let you do that. The science do that, right? You guys go out in the space and look for the evidence. I'm content.

• 2:01:50Lex Fridman?

  You accept that you're here and you're just going to enjoy, like, you're here for love, as you said.

• 2:01:57Speaker 01

  That's the thing. I think I'm here for the process of pursuing something bigger than me. Process of doing something. It's not like a model. It's not a virtue signaling thing. It just makes me happy that I fight for something bigger. Like than me, right? It's how boring is that? Every day you get up, oh, my God, I'm gonna buy myself this. I'm gonna get this for myself. It's so boring, isn't it? So in a way, I think that's what it is. I, I'm grateful that I'm in a state. I don't have to fight for myself anymore. But many people have to do that. And that's sometimes more than enough they have to do. And I salute them. They are doing fighting, saving themselves every day. But now I'm, I'm not there. I'm very blessed.

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  That's why I'm, I'm very grateful.

• 2:02:44Lex Fridman?

  So fighting for something much bigger than you. But do you still believe that you can change the world? That you can be a thing that?

• 2:02:56Lex Fridman?

  At least in part helps North Korea, or even broader, helps alleviate some suffering in the world.

• 2:03:03Speaker 01

  So that's the thing. Uh, I was reading this book, Fled by Randomness, right?

• 2:03:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:10Speaker 01

  I was like, they were here like, oh my God, you're so courageous, you're amazing. I was like, no, I'm not, I'm horrible, right? I know myself, you don't wanna tell me that.

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  It's random why I ended up here. Like, why did I pick up English so quickly? Why do I love books, right? I don't know why.

• 2:03:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:25Speaker 01

  It's random.

• 2:03:26Lex Fridman?

  Don't ask why, just enjoy it.

• 2:03:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just random. I think, I don't know how the history will remember me. Uh, I think only thing I have to at this point to make sure is like the people, after I consulting a lot of security teams, like now North Korea became a lot smarter. Like you said, they make it more disguised as a, like a suicide and a car accident.

• 2:03:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:49Speaker 01

  So when I die, they don't even know I got killed.

• 2:03:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:52Speaker 01

  I think that's a higher chance. So I think that's the thing, like, people are suffering, take it or not, it's your choice. And at least it's my responsibility for them to know what's going on. I think if you did not know and didn't do anything, you are not even guilty of a thing.

• 2:04:08Lex Fridman?

  Hmm.

• 2:04:09Speaker 01

  But once you know, then you are not doing it. Then you, something is like not right.

• 2:04:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:15Speaker 01

  So that's what I'm doing, like, I want the people to know. And then what they wanna do is not my, my problem afterwards, right? So my role is very small in that regards. And I just hope that we're humanized North Koreans for the first time, because we have been so dehumanized, right? Like, we are like looking like robots. If you look at us marching and cry like when they later dies, almost seems like we don't even have the same emotions. People cannot connect us in the same level.

• 2:04:51Speaker 01

  And I think that's something is uh we that's something media have done it to us.

• 2:04:58Lex Fridman?

  And you're you're shining a small light on this dark part of the world that I think and you make it you're so modest, but I think I think you will have that little light just might be a big thing that changes that incredible amount of suffering that's happening on that part of the world. Yeonmi, you're you're an amazing person. I'm so fortunate to get a chance to talk with you. I can't wait what you do in the future. You're I hope you write many more books. I do hope you continue making videos, continue having conversations. You're an inspiration to me and millions of others. I really appreciate you talking with me today.

• 2:05:42Speaker 01

  I'm so honored. Thank you.

• 2:05:44Lex Fridman?

  Thank you. Thank you for listening to this conversation with Yeonmi Park. And thank you to Belcampo, Gala Games, BetterHelp, and Eight Sleep. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. And now let me leave you some words from Bob Marley. Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.