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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

#281

Post by seneca »

jorgen123 wrote: post #269
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 you are downvoted because your first sentence is misinterpreted, or the rest of your argument is not being read? You are giving an example of a position and later on discussing the people who have this position as their first and main principle. Seems like a valid example to me, but perhaps people can explain why not.

Yeah, it's unfortunate. I disagree with this portion of the point he's making, but I don't see why people would treat it as not being valuable to the conversation at hand. I think it actually highlights the point of disagreement really well.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#282

Post by panic »

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.

This sounds nice until you think more closely about the framing implicit in “follow the rules and make the nation better”. Who makes the rules and defines what is good for a nation?

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#283

Post by achenet »

niteshpant wrote: post #246
somenameforme wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when people, particularly in America, think "protest", they think of people walking around with placards and other such relatively low effort involvement. That article is talking about incidents where you have 3.5% of people (that would be 12 million people in the US) engaging in things like organized and real boycotts (as opposed to 'Yeah I'm boycotting [this place I've never even heard of, let alone shopped…

> I think when people, particularly in America, think "protest", they think of people walking around with placards and other such relatively low effort involvement. Growing up in Nepal and witnessing some large non-violent and violent protests, I was frankly, baffled to see people standing on the sides of the streets and holding sign boards as protests Where's the rallies? Where is the mass involvement needed for a s…

> Do it for one day nobody cares Do it for a week, people notice Do it for a month, you've got regime change

Occupy Wall Street lasted longer than a month, and I'm not sure they achieved regime change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street

You could argue that it's below the 3.5% of the total population threshold mentioned in the previous comments tho.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#284

Post by krior »

kogasa240p wrote: post #177
alephnerd wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China and India are meddling in this. Nothing in Nepali politics happens without either China or India's hands or implicit blessing. Heck, regional Nepali politicans will literally vie for Nitish Kumar or Lalu Prasad Yadav's (the two perpetual CMs of Bihar) backing. Even the Armed Forces(pro-India) and the Armed Police Force (pro-China) are at each others throats. Whenever India feels Nepal is getting too close to Ch…

>WhatsApp is heavily used by Nepalis both domestically and abroad (a large portion of Nepalis work abroad in India, the Gulf, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, and Japan as migrant workers) so people are cut off from communicating with each other. People need to start learning XMPP, cutting off of centralized services is only going to get worse.

Easier said than done for the tech-illiterate majority of the population.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#285

Post by achenet »

martin-t wrote: post #167
whamlastxmas wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also irrefutable fact that pro-state or pro-cop agitators throughout history will pretend to be a demonstrator and throw a single brick to give the cops an excuse to break some skulls

In primitive societies where people are expected to resolve their own problems because everyone is roughly equal, violence is the principal currency, for better or worse. But in "civilized" societies with multiple layers of power structures, you are not supposed to solve your own problem, you are supposed to show somebody in a position of power that you are the victim so they solve the problem for you. This means vic…

> Yet how many of those governments were created by violent armed revolt against a previous authoritarian government? How many by "peaceful" protests?

This is actually an interesting question.

Many post-colonial governments, notably India, were create through what might be called non-violent means. Would be interesting to have someone properly research that.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#286

Post by JumpCrisscross »

martin-t wrote: post #167
whamlastxmas wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also irrefutable fact that pro-state or pro-cop agitators throughout history will pretend to be a demonstrator and throw a single brick to give the cops an excuse to break some skulls

In primitive societies where people are expected to resolve their own problems because everyone is roughly equal, violence is the principal currency, for better or worse. But in "civilized" societies with multiple layers of power structures, you are not supposed to solve your own problem, you are supposed to show somebody in a position of power that you are the victim so they solve the problem for you. This means vic…

> you are supposed to show somebody in a position of power that you are the victim so they solve the problem for you. This means victimhood is the principal currency of power

This doesn't describe how legal systems evolved at all.

They evolved to protect the powerful from each other. You went through the legal system because if you didn't you escalated your problem from a dispute with one powerful person to a dispute with the system of power.

The only way this victimhood notion works is if we describe all claims of damages as claims to victimhood. Which, I guess, they sort of are. But those pleas are made by the powerful, too. If you aren't the victim of something, if you haven't been harmed, what the fuck is the case you're bringing?

> how many of those governments were created by violent armed revolt against a previous authoritarian government? How many by "peaceful" protests?

Since mechanised warfare, I think there have been more peaceful revolutions than (non-state backed) violent ones. The latter tend to just result in failed states.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#287

Post by Quarrelsome »

darkwater wrote: post #255
Quarrelsome wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misunderstanding my point. Either you believe in the society you live in, or you don't. The story specifically speaks of people high up within that society that do not believe in it and are using their position to undermine that society in order to benefit themselves.. That, for me, is the #1 problematic archetype of person. Its not just about the rules and if you follow them or not, its about the beli…

> Either you believe in the society you live in, or you don't. This makes GP even more correct. One can believe (and like) part of the society one lives in but not like other parts, or plainly think they are wrong and should be changed at all costs.

GP?

> One can believe (and like) part of the society one lives in but not like other parts, or plainly think they are wrong and should be changed at all costs.

Sure but I mean in terms of the abstract. The idea that those most successful may have to pay more in taxation, the idea that justice should be blind and that everyone deserves a trial. I guess the tipping point is when your belief in the part of society that are wrong are so extreme that you think its ok to undermine society (e.g. steal public money, push infront of queues, etc) in order to combat that "wrong".

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#288

Post by MichaelDickens »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #120
mananaysiempre wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

> it’s literally a war crime to use tear gas on the battlefield Chemical weapons are banned because they’re useless for a modern military [1]. [1] https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

That explanation sounds fishy to me. If something doesn't work then there's no need to ban it.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#289

Post by dmix »

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.

I believe OP is saying the most fundamental thing is people working in government acting moral and in the interest of the country, and not using the power position for self enrichment or engaging in petty corruption for social gain. If you have that then it doesn't matter if your system is capitalist or socialist or a bunch of competing variations where no one agrees. The outcome will always be severely hampered by their constant interference in business, plundering of tax money, and repression of dissent.

Most people probably universally agree on the topic of corruption, unlike economics or social policy. But it requires a well designed political system and a strong culture, which is difficult to do retroactively.

Re: 14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

#290

Post by throwaway29812 »

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...

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