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14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

tribuneindia.com

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Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#191

Post by graemep »

monkeyelite wrote: post #179
netsharc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's awkward isn't it, because following local laws could mean being a helping hand of the oppressor... For an extreme example, an email company that is forced by a new law to reveal all emails of citizens of country X, or a payment app that has to upload all transactions to the government (and where the supreme court has ruled in favour of the surveillance state). The "moral" company would probably rather shut their…

> And who has the last word on what's moral? The standard assumption in business is that you follow local laws and customs as they are a proxy for the moral system of the local people. Are you operating a business or promoting western ideas?

Freedom is a western idea? Justice is a western idea?

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#192

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #156
bhickey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corruption is simply incredible. About fifteen years ago I found myself in Kathmandu after getting altitude sickness. The team's fixer brought me to lunch with some government officials. The topic of discussion? How to steal from a hydroelectric project. One of his guests outright asked, "should we be talking about this in front of this guy?" The fixer shrugged it off saying "he's a Westerner, what is he going to…

I think its quite something that we all waste our time over divisions like left/right, capitalism/socialism, woke/not-woke when in practice; this is the only division that matters. Those who are trying to follow the rules and make the nation better, and those that are only active for their self-interest.

[flagged]

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#193

Post by fruitworks »

whimsicalism wrote: post #178
fruitworks wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you want to step in to save the capitol from armed right wing protesters? The police and the military are largely sympathetic to the right wing. The only solution is for the left-wing of US politics to stop disarming itself. The reason that voting power exists is because it represents the fighting power of the voters. When you decouple the two, you create a power imbalance that gangsters and tyrants can exploi…

jeez and you accuse me of LARPing online. call me when your revolution starts

How to win any argument on HN:

0. Start by moving the overton window to the edge of civility. Do not provide any justifications for your opinion. For example, "Protestors inside a government building should be met with violence"

1. Don't address any points they make

2. Make a snarky passive agressive response, thus winning.

3. Flag them for hurting your feelings. By discussing your ideas concretely ("who should perform the violence" "why?"), they have explored the "uncivil" aspects. This grounds for deleting their comment.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#194

Post by thevillagechief »

codeforafrica wrote: post #155
mothballed wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not terribly unusual to end up with random government officials if you're a white guy going into a non-touristy part of the 3rd world. I went to a village in Paraguay, first thing locals did was take me to some government project creating an industrial cow milking operation where I was promptly offered an engineering job. Low-level 3rd world officials love showing off whatever they're doing to whoever will liste…

Here in East Africa some people tell me that it should be easy to find a job for me, but I must be talking to the wrong people. Not lamenting, just sharing how different the experience can be...

East Africa is extremely competitive for labor, skilled or otherwise. So unless you're bringing capital, it's gonna be challenging.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#195

Post by jimbohn »

hopelite wrote: post #164
factorialboy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic color revolution — China and India will be watching intently.

It very much sounds like it; "grooming" and instrumentalizing the local younger generation's innate and legitimate frustrations for western (read: Israeli, British, and US "intelligence" cabal clowns) interests to foment instability and/or installing a more usable and pliable government. It smells of not only every moralizing "color revolution", but it is also an on-the-nose wedge between China and India (read: BRICS…

[flagged]

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#196

Post by screye »

cedws wrote: post #22
perihelions wrote: post #7

Hard-earned freedoms are wasted on societies who don't have memories of what it took to earn them. Freedom is a ratchet: slides easily and frictionlessly one way, and offers immense resistance in the other. This is all so disheartening.

I’m not aware of a single nation where the ratchet is loosening. It appears freedom is being eroded everywhere. The most disheartening thing is that nothing works to stop it. There are countries where millions of people have protested, but in time the protests always fizzle or are stamped out, and things continue on the same trajectory.

I've found it to be the other war around.

Protests succeed, and they crown (usually conservative) authoritarians as the new king. Arab spring & Bangladesh are the 2 recent examples.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#197

Post by graemep »

myrmidon wrote: post #28
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people in the West have been indoctrinated to trust their governments far too much to an unhealthy degree to actually think that maybe their government doesn't have their best interest at heart and to start protesting. And also because they're in the trap of a government provided cushy lifestyle which the government can terminate at will without violence (de-banking, de-pensioning, de-uneployment, de-social h…

> Because people in the West have been indoctrinated to trust their governments far too much to an unhealthy degree Can you give specific examples? I frequently find the US outlook to be exactly the reverse, where people pretend like "the government" is some conspiratorial shadow organisation undermining all the citizens at every step (which seems quite silly to me because it basically consists only of people that yo…

People will speak negatively of the government, but also have learned helplessness regarding things like surveillance.

An attitude that has become common in the UK is to say the government needs powers control the "gammon" (i.e. the hoi polloi) from themselves, and to protect their children from their terrible parents, etc.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#198

Post by monkeyelite »

graemep wrote: post #191
monkeyelite wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And who has the last word on what's moral? The standard assumption in business is that you follow local laws and customs as they are a proxy for the moral system of the local people. Are you operating a business or promoting western ideas?

Freedom is a western idea? Justice is a western idea?

If you’re suggesting you have distilled humanity to the essential rights and values that are obviously true and transcend culture. Yes that’s a western value.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#199

Post by ryandrake »

Spivak wrote: post #152
komali2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “No movement of people, demonstration, meeting, gathering or sit-in will be allowed in the restricted zone,” Chief District Officer Chhabi Lal Rijal said in a notice. This is what I'll never understand about neolib governments sliding towards authoritarianism: why push back so hard? Evacuate the parliamentary buildings, don't meet the protestors with police, and let them have the run of the place. Record every face…

You and me both. On some level I'm happy that governments push back so hard because it makes protests "work" but it seems like it would be way more effective for a government to simply ignore the protesters. It would be the ultimate flex by a corrupt government—we're so far above you that you have nothing to shake your fist at.

In general (with some per-country variance), the batons and tear gas will only come out when the one critical threshold is reached: rich people start making less money. So you can get ten or 100 buddies out on the street shouting and waving flags, and they’ll ignore you because no stores are losing business. But the moment those people disrupt the flow of profits, the brute squads will hit the streets.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#200

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

tomrod wrote: post #31
cedws wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not aware of a single nation where the ratchet is loosening. It appears freedom is being eroded everywhere. The most disheartening thing is that nothing works to stop it. There are countries where millions of people have protested, but in time the protests always fizzle or are stamped out, and things continue on the same trajectory.

I fear that your observations speaks more to protest being an inefficient catalyst for regime change more than it speaks to the efforts and initiatives to preserve freedom. The jetset class doesn't really care about a single nation. For good (trade binds fractious governments) or ill (neofeudalism), they try to separate themselves from the proles.

To be fair the people who care about a single nation, to the detriment of all other nations, are freaks
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