# North Korea has changed the conscription standards **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 16, 2012, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397 "2012-07-16T08:08:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Pazu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pazu/32/15522_2.png) [@Pazu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pazu)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/21 "2012-07-16T15:18:14Z")
Next item on the agenda: teaching them to sing “Oh-Eee-Oh!” while marching. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/22 "2012-07-16T15:47:08Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Moved to MPSIMS from Great Debates, and the OP has been banned. Posting in the wrong forum is now considered heinous? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/23 "2012-07-16T15:48:57Z")
Great News! My small stature was really the only thing holding me back from enlisting with the N. Korean army. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2012, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/24 "2012-07-16T16:25:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Actually, Goblin is just another word for Orc. Not in D&D geekverse 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/25 "2012-07-16T19:32:19Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > …I’m not sure if I’m remembering this correctly, but I thought I’d read that most, if not all, of the food aid NK receives goes to the elites, then to the army,… I didn’t even know North Korea had a military draft; I assumed that young men were lining up to join the military just so they (& their families) would be fed. I knew about the “Pleasure Squad” being conscripted from schoolgirls though. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/26 "2012-07-16T21:06:57Z")
> [@oclock](#): > > It’s been told that the North Korean regime is encouraging its people to exercise, but without nutrition and food supply, all the efforts are deemed to be fruitless. Refusing to grow on starvation rations? Obviously a counter-revolutionary traitor. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2012, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/27 "2012-07-16T22:58:42Z")
> [@Pazu](#): > > Next item on the agenda: teaching them to sing “Oh-Eee-Oh!” while marching. I always heard it as O-RE-o! which just adds insult to injury in this case. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2012, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/28 "2012-07-16T23:49:34Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > I always heard it as O-RE-o! which just adds insult to injury in this case. Nah; that’s the marching song for the Dread Legions of the Cookie Monster. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/29 "2012-07-18T16:55:49Z")
Are their lifespans increasing? Caloric deprivation has been touted as a way to extend human life…N Korea would be a good test case. ---
**Author:** ![Eurograff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Eurograff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eurograff)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/30 "2012-07-18T17:41:24Z")
> [@oclock](#): > > Machine guns are 1m long in average. I wonder how a 140cm tall soldier can carry and handle a weapon more than half his height. While the observations about the changing conscription standards and conscripts’ physique are indeed valid and serve as striking pointers to the generally appalling public health situation in North Korea, this one here is not a particularly effective comparison. After all, if machine guns are 1 m long in average, then even a 198 cm (which is 6 and half feet in american) tall soldier would need to carry and handle a weapon half his height. Most armies in the world don’t have large amounts of over 2 m tall soldiers, those tend to be [rare exceptions](http://www.thetallestman.com/vainomyllyrinne.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/31 "2012-07-18T17:49:37Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Are their lifespans increasing? Caloric deprivation has been touted as a way to extend human life… So the way the extend life is to make it no fun anymore? Bummer. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/32 "2012-07-18T18:18:21Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > So the way the extend life is to make it no fun anymore? Bummer. Reminds me of a story. There was a man with a documented age of 132. Usually when people are identified as over 110 they are discovered to be much younger. This man, however, had irod-clad evidence he really was 132. A medical journal dispatched a team deep in Siberia to talk with this man at his home. When the met him, he was healthy and chopping wood. They asked him what his reason for living so long and healthy was and he responded: - No Sex - No drugs or alchohol - Vigorous exercise - Work hard 80+ hours a week - No vacations - Eat only good wholesome, bad tasting foods. As he was talking, a huge ruckus came from the next room. The journalists, alarmed, asked him what was going on. He responded “Ahhh don’t worry about that. That’s just my dad coming home from an all night drinking and whoring binge again”. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/33 "2012-07-18T22:14:08Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Are their lifespans increasing? Caloric deprivation has been touted as a way to extend human life..N Korea would be a good test case. Not really; there’s a big difference between eating less but still having a balanced diet, and malnutrition. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/34 "2012-07-18T23:31:22Z")
Seriously, has any country ever been so fucked up for so long as North Korea? Nazi Germany only lasted twelve years, half of them at war. The Pol Pot regime in Cambodia barely lasted four years, twelve by a stretch of definition. China from Mao to Deng Xiaoping, thirty years. The Soviet Union from the Civil War to Khrushchev’s reforms, less than forty years. But after sixty four years, the Kim dynasty is in it’s third generation, and just as batshit insane as ever. Any other country in the world would have reformed, been crushed from without or collapsed by now; but it’s like North Korea is in a bubble of spacetime where the normal rules of reality don’t apply. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397/35 "2012-07-18T23:57:48Z")
That’s an interesting question - I guess it depends on your definition of fucked up. If ancient nations count I’ll nominate Sparta as a contender. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-has-changed-the-conscription-standards/628397.md?page=1)