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Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban

nytimes.com

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Re: Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban

#31

Post by throw101010 »

jjav wrote: post #22
userbinator wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An IRC server or even a mailing list seems far better suited to the purpose than a notoriously closed and proprietary platform.

Absolutely. Discord is a scourge, a completely closed proprietary platform that is impossible to access via any standard compliant mechanism. Even for their website they demand a phone number just to read anything.

> Even for their website they demand a phone number just to read anything.

Does it currently? I have a couple Discord accounts that never got tied to a phone number and can still use them.

Telegram on the other hand does that, I've never managed to get my own account for it without a phone number... and all the anonymous (pay for temp number) end up giving you a shared "account" that anyone can take from you if they get attribued the same number (and they will).

Re: Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban

#32

Post by alephnerd »

kryptiskt wrote: post #14
FilosofumRex wrote: post #11

[flagged]

It's kind of ironic that a nominally communistic government doesn't believe that the people have agency to act on their own, guess it reflects their own fears. I hope Xi lies sleepless at night worrying about the Chinese people getting rid of him.

Historically, China backed the monarchy (the royal family excluding Gyanendra never really forgave Nehru and Indira Gandhi for abolishing and then nationalizing royal property, as the Shah family continues to only marry Hindu royalty within their caste along with their historic antipathy to a monarchist Hindu Rashtra leading to the INC backing the Nepali Congress and Vanarasi-raised and ideologically Gandhian Koirala brothers) and KP Sharma Oli's Marxist communist faction, while India backed the Prachanda Path communists and the Nepali Congress (NC).

After the move to democratization, India continued to back NC and Prachanda (eg. He and his wife are/were devoted followers of BJP-aligned Baba Ramdev [0][1][2]), but KP Sharma Oli's faction continued to lean pro-China, as he and his peers started their revolutionary path during the Naxalbari uprising [3]. The monarchists (RPP) on the other hand switched to being more India leaning after Yogi Adityanath - the religious leader of the Gorakhnath Math which is heavily patronized by the royal family and Pahari Hindus from Kathmandu to Kashmir - became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Last year, the NC surprised everyone by collapsing Prachanda's government and making an alliance with KP Sharma Oli.

Based on how prominent Maoist Center (Prachanda), RSP, and RPP party workers have been during the protests and even within the discord, I am starting to suspect this was a repeat of the Rajapaksa-Siresena episode in Sri Lanka in the sense that a significant faction was used to undermine the China leaning Oli government.

Sushila Karki is viewed as fairy pro-India - the town she's from is for all intents and purposes Bihar, and she studied at the PoliSci department at Banaras Hindu University during the JP Andolan and when several future Indian political leaders were studying at BHU as well. China also hasn't congratulated her yet but the Indian government did almost immediately after the announcement. Of course, we will only find out once Karki's cabinet is announced.

[0] - https://english.khabarhub.com/2019/20/63249/

[1] - https://english.makalukhabar.com/ramdev-arrives-at-prachanda...

[2] - https://www.hindustantimes.com/world/prachanda-fellow-maoist...

[3] - https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b959a806-fd27-4c20-bfb3-a2...

Re: Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban

#33

Post by griffzhowl »

perihelions wrote: post #9
fivestones wrote: post #5

This also makes me wonder what could be done to make discord (or something similar) a better venue for direct democracy. I know the circumstances in Nepal were exceptional, but I wonder if we will see other countries experiment with Discord for similar purposes. It seems like in Nepal they have essentially used it as a caucus, and I wonder if this could be shaped into a better way to elect leaders (or even legislate…

> "in some sense the most democratic thing any country has ever done" How is one faction holding an internal vote to impose rule on the rest of the people, who have no representation, anything at all like a democracy?

This wasn't to "impose rule". It was only to select an interim leader who will oversee elections. They've gone for a 73-year-old former chief justice who is famous for being steadfastly anti-corruption.

It was an open discord server that anyone sufficiently motivated with an internet connection could join. So not representative of everyone, but obviously more democratic than if the military had just appointed someone by themselves

Re: Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban

#34

Post by tokioyoyo »

userbinator wrote: post #10
fivestones wrote: post #5

This also makes me wonder what could be done to make discord (or something similar) a better venue for direct democracy. I know the circumstances in Nepal were exceptional, but I wonder if we will see other countries experiment with Discord for similar purposes. It seems like in Nepal they have essentially used it as a caucus, and I wonder if this could be shaped into a better way to elect leaders (or even legislate…

An IRC server or even a mailing list seems far better suited to the purpose than a notoriously closed and proprietary platform.

Do you want people to participate, or do you want to have the moral high-ground for using X, Y, Z? Nobody outside our fringe circles use IRC server/mailing lists. Younger people are all on Discord.

I have no skin in this game, but I get the general line of thought.

Re: Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban

#35

Post by deadbabe »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #34
userbinator wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An IRC server or even a mailing list seems far better suited to the purpose than a notoriously closed and proprietary platform.

Do you want people to participate, or do you want to have the moral high-ground for using X, Y, Z? Nobody outside our fringe circles use IRC server/mailing lists. Younger people are all on Discord. I have no skin in this game, but I get the general line of thought.

You guys are using IRC??

Re: Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban

#36

Post by close04 »

kryptiskt wrote: post #14
FilosofumRex wrote: post #11

[flagged]

It's kind of ironic that a nominally communistic government doesn't believe that the people have agency to act on their own, guess it reflects their own fears. I hope Xi lies sleepless at night worrying about the Chinese people getting rid of him.

The average Chinese who’s seen China progress by leaps and bounds continuously over the past 40 years probably wants this to keep up. So why change something that’s working?

It only sucks for the people who oppose the ruling party, the dissidents, which is true under any authoritarian government. But most people just go along, this is why such governments can exist. If you grew up barely able to afford a bike and now can afford to drive modern EVs through your modern city, it’s hard to argue the appeal of having it even better.

Re: Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban

#38

Post by fennecbutt »

fivestones wrote: post #5

This also makes me wonder what could be done to make discord (or something similar) a better venue for direct democracy. I know the circumstances in Nepal were exceptional, but I wonder if we will see other countries experiment with Discord for similar purposes. It seems like in Nepal they have essentially used it as a caucus, and I wonder if this could be shaped into a better way to elect leaders (or even legislate…

Yeah, a mob is a mob. Us human beings are despicable to each other tbh.

Re: Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban

#39

Post by baq »

FilosofumRex wrote: post #16
kryptiskt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of ironic that a nominally communistic government doesn't believe that the people have agency to act on their own, guess it reflects their own fears. I hope Xi lies sleepless at night worrying about the Chinese people getting rid of him.

Discord servers and its most active users were paid NGO workers of Samata Foundation and Hami Nepal, which are very well funded NGOs by The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is in turn funded by the US Congress and run by the CIA

Ni hao from every Confucius Institute establishment ever. Expect such behavior from everyone everywhere, it’s basic game theory.

Re: Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban

#40

Post by grumple »

A discord server with 150k people whose identity or nation of origin are not verified, where only 8000 people voted. This is as illegitimate an election as they come. Come literally just have been elected by Russian (or any other) bots.
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