14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

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 generation and spinning beurocracy to their sides.

I was there a few hours ago. It was a class struggle, but it was bound to be spun up as "kids don't get facebook and throw tantrum".

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 do about it?" And, well, he was right. It wasn't like I could go report it to the police.

Years later the fixer was finally jailed for gold smuggling. https://english.khabarhub.com/2022/16/232667/

Edit: add link

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.

Rich vs Poor is the only division, and that happens when you allow for concentrations of wealth. So I would say capitalism vs socialism is the rich vs poor division as well.

hard disagree, many OG and influentual socialists came from rich backgrounds. There's also lots of poor people out there who are simply waiting their opportunity to be corrupt. Anecdotally I've experienced many people from working class backgrounds who are extremely proud of their tax evasion. The key dividing line is those who follow the rules and believe in the system and those that don't and are just looking out for their own interests.

This further explains corruption within socialist systems where everyone is effectively "equal" but some people are still looking out for themselves over everyone else.

The problem is when the rules are made to sustain and exacerbate the social divide, not to make the life better for everybody.

No need to go far, just look at the result of lobbying in the USA.

Btw, while there are many famines caused by despots (Stalin's, Mao's, Red Khmer's), there is also Bengal's famine of 1943.

One must also point out that China in the last 40 years have done perhaps more regarding the poverty mitigation than anybody else in the human history (capitalism, especially the wild one, has actually quite patchy record...)

> The problem is when the rules are made to sustain and exacerbate the social divide, not to make the life better for everybody.

perhaps "rules" was a poor choice of word. What I meant was more a belief in society in general, a belief in the nation, in fairness. I guess in one-word: selfishness. I believe the _real_ political divide is between those who are selfish and those who are not.