This is by far the most cleaver solution I've heard of for North Korea. Certainly the only peaceful solution. Way to think outside the normal!

While this would work for those who were sent abroad and a fair number who might trust them when they returned I don't think it would make a dent in the overall condition of the minds of those who have been controlled for so long. If there was a method to let freedom seep in it might continue to grow but would always be opposed. The same for the U.S. I have fought this battle for over 50 years and have watched it become worse with each passing year. Even when I thought we had won a victory it was replaced by something worse and the masses continued on. While the U.S. may be vastly different because of what little freedom there is the country is on the same path and does not seem to want to avert its course.

I appreciate your essays Robt and this did not disappoint. What a world! Evil and good. Positive and negative. Evil is more aggressive and its consequences are deadly. See Venezuala , Cuba
N. Korea , 3/4 of Africa, the Mid East.
Time for good to go on the offensive.

Yes, send 25,000 North Koreans here while their families stay behind as hostages. Then watch them return and parrot the official line, as the North Korean government takes advantage of the lull to perfect its nuclear capability.

" Truth, information, and communication are as essential for human survival as food, shelter, and water. "
I think the Chinese gov't hopes that it can have truth and freedom about only the things needed to grow the economy and keep controls on everything else. They may think people care most about the comforts of wealth and see freedom either as one possible means to produce wealth or as something not as important as wealth. I hope they haven't found a long-term formula for wealth without freedom.

"The growth in nation-state governance and power has been so consistent and long-running that most people assume it will continue forever."
Indeed. I think people don't realize there was a long history before the nation state. The nation state as we know it has outlived its usefulness.

"Barren, state-run commissaries after shopping at grocery store and shopping mall cornucopias? "
Suppose you took them back to the US 150 years ago as a white male in the times of "Little House on the Prairie". There are no toilets. Some products you could get in North Korea haven't been invented or are only for the very rich. But you're free to do work, with most work being on farms, and keep the money. You can invest your earnings in telegraph and railroad, or blow it on laudanum or alcohol. If you don't like something the gov't is doing, you can write a letter to the newspaper condemning politicians without any fear. I think North Koreans who have not been brainwashed would risk their lives to get to be a dirt poor white person in a log cabin in Kentucky in the times of Abraham Lincoln rather than live in a nice apartment with running water in Pyongyang.

"Neither Brexit nor Trump would have happened without it. "
History of full of the same stupidity. Some aspects of it are new to our lifetime, but history is full of far stupider things. At least we sort of pretend to follow a Constitution that tries to prevent mobs from violating poeple's rights, which is more than can be said for most of history.

Super-volcano: "the just and unjust, prepared and unprepared, wise and foolish buried under lava flows and choked by ashes, reality beyond a hand in front of one’s face impossible to make out amidst the smoke and haze."
This same story appears as the Gilgamesh flood myth in the oldest story known to know humankind, and it crops up everywhere. I think it has no basis in reality, i.e. catastrophes alone do not lead to progress or purging the decadent, but we're adapted to like the story.

Awesome plan in a more 'Normal' world, however, my fear is that the western left would block any ascension into the mind and taint it forever worse.

But as you say, there is some truth to be found or at least the honest questioning still available on line...would that be enough to out weigh the lead of lies?

Interesting essay Robert. Kim boy is so involved in his own self aggrandizement. Some of the videos coming out of N. Korea show him clapping everybody claps or cheers. If someone doesn't do that their dead meat. There is no way he will let his people step outside the country. China or some other country have have to end him.

A dying mind?It will be interesting dying minds to die, and the population becomes useless. Only problem is that it might take too long.