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Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 14, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Just finished Nothing to Envy, about life in North Korea as told by defectors. It's remarkable how the Kim dynasty managed to keep things going despite such drastic mismanagement. The craziest example, I think, when it became necessary to use human feces as farm fertilizer - you're probably assuming they just had the sewage treatment plants compost it, or had feces composted wherever it was being collected previously, or something else sane and reasonable, but no! That is not the North Korean way! Instead, citizens were commanded to bring feces in themselves, with not only a quota to fill but an unreasonably high quota at that, such that feces-theft became an actual thing.