Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

tribuneindia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 504 posts

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#271

Post by mixmastamyk »

achenet wrote: post #261
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just there (waves at East Africa, where I used to live). I live in New York (Long Island). People are constantly telling me that I should be having jobs thrown at my feet, considering my skills and track record. That was not the case, which is why I'm retired. If I were an inexperienced young buck, living in Brooklyn, that might be the case, but not for an old expert, out on The Island. It's likely that it's diff…

er, sorry if this is a stupid question, but nowadays couldn't you just work remotely? Does location matter as much in 2025 when there are oodles of remote first companies out there?

Five years ago yes, today no.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#272

Post by titanomachy »

niteshpant wrote: post #251
andrepd wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the memories are no antidote. In the Philippines the memory of Marcos didn't stop autocrats from rising to power. Even in Europe, countries with relatively recent memories of autocracy and fascism, such as Portugal and Spain, have far-right parties with >20% seats in Parliament, just like in France or Germany. What is to be done?

It is not a question of what, but a question of why. Why do autocrats rise to power? Why are far-right parties rising in power in Germany, France, Spain and Portugal? I've come to see this as a fundamental human nature one can't go against. Some people are, just evil. Humans will always love self more than others. This love of self can turn into a hatred of others, or easily be turned into a hatred of others. Accepta…

If the closest you can get to understanding populists is “some humans are just evil and selfish”, a large part of humanity will remain mysterious and unreachable to you.

I think everyone understands tribalism to some extent. You would probably expend more effort to protect your child than you would a stranger. Populism just turns up the knob on this instinct.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#273

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cherryteastain wrote: post #241
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's a conspiracy theory that every revolution of the past 100 years was caused by the cia.

In their defense, quite a few were [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9ta... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9...

> quite a few were

Bay of Pigs wasn't a revolution, it was a failed invasion. The others, however, absolutely were instigated by the CIA.

You can compile similar lists for Iran, Russia, France and India. Reflexively dismissing every coup, much less protest, as the product of foreign involvement without evidence isn't thoughtful.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#274

Post by Quarrelsome »

tacitusarc wrote: post #252
Quarrelsome wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There’s an interesting book “What is Wong with the World”, which points out that despite everyone agreeing that things are broken and people should unite to fix them, there are many competing visions for what “fixed” looks like, and this is been the source of much of the contention. It was written in the early 1900s.

While I agree there is contention about "what's wrong", there's a bit of a difference between "I should put government money into my pocket" and "I think local district zoning laws need reform".

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#275

Post by jt2190 »

monkeyelite wrote: post #198
graemep wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess you’d disagree with Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights then, on the basis that these human rights are a “western” concept and the United Nations is a “western” institution?

> Article 19

> Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#276

Post by achenet »

isk517 wrote: post #260
screye wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

George Washington's single greatest feat was not making the office of the president just another way of saying 'king'.

yes, and he set a great example by doing so.

Honestly, would be nice for modern day leaders to have that kind of commitment to collaborative institutions.

I feel like some of them are just trying to openly accumulate power for personal gain.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#277

Post by jandrewrogers »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #81
ycombinete wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct term for these means is "less-lethal".

Also, it’s literally a war crime to use tear gas on the battlefield, yet it’s somehow OK to use it on civilians. (I understand part of the reason is to prevent a slippery slope from tear gas to chlorine, but it’s still telling.)

Tear gas is routinely used at scale on people for training purposes. One of the things you learn (and a major point of the training) is that it is largely a psychological deterrent, you become acclimated to the unpleasant effects pretty quickly upon repeated exposure.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#278

Post by jandrese »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #161
Quarrelsome wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

It's not the concentration of wealth, it is the concentration of power. Communism doesn't solve that problem. The less centralized your power is the more efficient your economy works. Pushing decisions down to the edge means the people deciding how to allocate resources are the closest to the information about what is needed where. The problem with highly centralized economies is that as an economy grows beyond a trivial size it's impossible for the centralized system to manage the flow of information from the edges. It doesn't scale. Also, honest competition is good for optimizing your resource allocation, if someone is ultimately in charge of both sides they will be inclined to try to choose just one and "avoid waste", which ultimately is just avoiding optimization. This is also why companies become less competitive as they grow and are always under threat from startups and a big reason why antitrust is about more than just "protecting consumers". That's also why big companies are always lobbying government for protection of their business models.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#279

Post by just-another-se »

sentinelsignal wrote: post #144
lionturtle wrote: post #10

It was absolutely not just social media ban, it was mostly youth protesting against the corrupt government and unfairness, social media ban was one element that was against the freedom of speech, but it was right around the time where everyone was documenting the rich politicians, their business connections and their families that have been living lavishly and just inheriting the election seats from generation to gen…

Has the country always been this corrupt? Has the corruption progressively risen or was it a drastic change? to openly plot is wild imo.

Fellow Nepali here. Corruption has always been blatant in Nepal, but in the past it was mostly limited to the monarchs and a small circle around them. With democracy, however, it feels like everyone in power has become corrupt. It’s reached a point where corruption is so normalized that people compare leaders based on the degree of their corruption, rather than whether they are corrupt at all. On top of that, the children of these politicians and officials openly flaunt their Gucci, LV, and Ferraris on social media—in a country where just one of their bags costs more than what an average Nepali earns in a whole year.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#280

Post by Quarrelsome »

seneca wrote: post #265
Quarrelsome wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think tax cuts are possibly a decent enough proxy for this subject? While there's certainly a case to be made for tax cuts in very specific use-cases (e.g. where they're strangling demand/innovation/living costs/government-corruption/etc); a general belief in tax cuts is a constraint that makes it very hard to believe in society. If you believe in tax cuts as a principle (i.e. 0% is a goal), then generally its hard…

I think this is a great example of a second-order disagreement. How about people who genuinely believe in a minimal state? They often believe in charitable giving and local community organization, in my experience. Maximal civil society vs maximal government. A good example of this type is people who believe in the ideas laid out in Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Even the more hard line Von Mises types are clos…

> How about people who genuinely believe in a minimal state?

I agree that its technically a position but while that venn diagram may well include people who believe in charitable giving and local community organization its those who do not believe in those things (which I would argue constitute the majority of that position) who are the problem here. Even so, the idea that everyone gets to choose themselves what the issues are, belies a lack of unity and community that is close to what I'm trying to define. To respect society, one must give up an aspect of control.

Again, its not about tax in general, its the desire to get to 0% that is indicative of the sort of selfishness that defines the line I'm trying to draw.

> Painting them as first-order opponents is a mistake, I think.

You might be right. I think the bigger problem definitely are those who think stealing public money is ok to do.

Post reply on HN