I would say that those same people, those that were part of the machine, wouldn't share the same views if they were part of society today.
If anything I think it shows peoples ability to see circumstances as normal (even if they are horribly out of whack with morals from other times) if it appears to be the prevailing wisdom of the group at the time.
I would like to think though that it was pretty much the last possible time that this could happen in history on such a large scale. Today we still have outliers like north korea but in general the world is too connected for the same effect to happen.
Respectively, that attitude is why these horrific events continue to happen. Writing them off as one-off events, outliers, which won't happen again in the modern world only serves to relieve our conscious for doing nothing to stop them. They happen frequently and will happen again. Internet or no internet.
The current forced labor camps in North Korea looks to be indistinguishable from how the nazi forced labor camps worked, except on a single nation scale.
The sad part is that there are no clear stop to it in any time soon. It seems that as long it is a powerful enough nation/allied nation, they can do what ever crimes they like. Only once it is all over will people be look back and wonder why they let it happen.
Going to war with NK right now, even if China withdrew support, would cause even more suffering to both NK people and SK/foreign people than we have now. It's really lose/lose -- the best hope is isolation and clear amnesty/reconstruction on offer, to encourage domestic political change.
Even somehow encouraging revolution could be dangerous, as long as the military stays intact, since one way to deal with a domestic problem is to start a foreign war against (what most of the population believe) is a serious adversary.
My evolving theory of intervention is that any militarily opposed action which can't be accomplished by a single brigade or smaller force in less than 3 months will bring more harm than good, and should only be executed in defense with all other options exhausted. Liberating the people of Equatorial Guinea or ending the MEND conflict (or destroying AQ presence in Afghanistan in 2001) probably would be a net win for humanity (and each could be accomplished by a very small force, maybe 500 + support); NK is at the extreme other end of the scale with occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
Not really. The world was pretty connected then too, at least Germany. Technology doesn't change human nature. Every society is one disaster away from turning on each other like the Germans did.
If anything I think it shows peoples ability to see circumstances as normal (even if they are horribly out of whack with morals from other times) if it appears to be the prevailing wisdom of the group at the time.
I would like to think though that it was pretty much the last possible time that this could happen in history on such a large scale. Today we still have outliers like north korea but in general the world is too connected for the same effect to happen.