Based Camp - September 18, 2025Nepal Just Had a Revolution Because of Social Media (Why This Matters to You)
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the protests in Nepal, and how the government is dealing with them, and why they are so bad. We talk about the government's crackdown on the protesters, the use of tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets, and the burning alive of the former prime minister's wife.
Transcript
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Hello Simone, I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we're going to be discussing the
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going on of Nepal because with all of the political stuff that's happening in the United
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States right now, I think we've sort of been like broadly aware like they had like a revolution or
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something in Nepal, right? Nepal is seeing an uprising led not by political veterans but by
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Gen Z. Like what happened with that? And what you're going to be surprised about is how relevant
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what happened in Nepal is to what's going to happen in most of the developed world as things
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continued on the pathway they're going now. Teenagers and young adults are flooding the
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streets, furious over a sweeping government ban on their digital lifelines. Last week,
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authorities abruptly cut access to major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
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And this is after what was happening in Indonesia. This is also like as there are huge protests in
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the UK. We're seeing there's unrest is the thing now. Well, yeah, unrest is the thing. And in many
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cases, it's for similar reasons. And so let's let's go in. What? Get your butt educated people.
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Why don't you know about what you maybe you do know about what's going on in Nepal, but this is
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interesting nonetheless. So police crackdown on September 8th, security forces fired live ammunition,
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live ammunition. So we're talking about like how bad things are getting firing live ammunition,
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tear gas and water cannons and rubber billets into crowds near parliament.
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So opening fire into a crowd. Okay. They killed 19 people and injured 200 people.
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And this was largely young students, wasn't it? I think this was also a lot of young people who
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were killed. Yeah. And there's videos of graphic scenes, including children who were shot in the
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head, um, sparking nationwide outrage and curfews. So this was extreme. And if you're like, well,
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when do we get this in the U S when does the UK, you saw this million man March on London that
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that, you know, anyone who's watching the videos can tell was giant. Like they're trying to report
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it like a hundred thousand people. And it's clearly the UK is pissed. It's gotten way more
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pissed since, since, you know, we talk about it being under occupation because we're like,
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you know, what kind of country bans the flying of their own flags, a country that's currently under
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occupation. That's the only time you would do that. Uh, a government would never be afraid of their
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own flag unless that wasn't who was represented by it anymore. So when do they open fire on a crowd in
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London or Germany or Berlin, you know, or, or, or France, I think it'll happen eventually.
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I mean, it helps that police officers in the UK don't have guns. They just have their little
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batons. Yes. Be beaten with their fabulous batons. Fabulous batons. Aren't you afraid the fashion
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police will come and beat you with their fabulous batons? Anyway. So protesters, this is September
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and 9th stormed and set fire to the parliament, the Supreme court, which burnt down the prime
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minister's office, Cigna Dubar administrative complex and politicians, private homes, private
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properties like the Hilton and Hyatt hotels, along with media houses, e.g. Kent and Pearl publications
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were torched incident. It involved the burning alive of the former PM's wife. Oh my gosh.
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So we're talking quite a bit of violence here. Carnage on both sides.
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Jail breaks and further clashes. September 9th and 10th, mobs broke into prisons in the
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Western districts, freeing over 12,500 inmates, including politician Rabbi Lament. I mean,
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one imagines the prisons just cracked open from the inside being that overstuffed. My God.
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The army was deployed with shoot on site instructions, assaults on officials. And there's a video of this
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that I saw. It was just wild. The deputy PM and finance minister was beaten by protesters. And you
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see him like trying to walk or run away and being like attacked by people as he tries to run.
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In the video that has gone viral, Minister Paudel, 65, is seen running through the streets in Kathmandu
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with the crowd of people chasing him. One of the protesters is seen kicking Paudel, who is also
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the country's deputy prime minister. Other protesters get hold of him as he seeks to escape through the
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river. Other politicians' residents were vandalized, heightening chaos before the army restored order.
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So what instigated this? Are you aware of what instigated this, Simone?
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I thought it was anger about widespread corruption, but I...
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No, no. That is what they moved to afterwards. But what actually instigated it was the government
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tried to heavily regulate social media to prevent anything negative about the government from being
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The UK did it right. You know, they did a whole like boil the frog where it sounds like Nepal.
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Well, no. They've been doing this for a while. They had under the former king just complete control
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by the state of media. So this is more like they had a period of more liberal media.
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But you can't close Pandora's box. The internet is, if anything ever was...
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A lot of corruption in the media, a lot of hiding stuff, which we'll go over.
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But the internet made it impossible. And so the government was trying to find a way to take
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control of that. And this is why, you know, I always say anyone on the right who says we should
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be banning pornography, I really look at them with skepticism as a left-wing infiltrator because
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you can't ban pornography without banning VPNs. And when you ban VPNs, you ban... You give the
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government total control of what people can see within your country. Because then the government gets
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to decide what's vulgar, right? You don't get to decide what's vulgar. The government gets to
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decide what's vulgar. And when the government changes, you lose control, right? They'll say,
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well, you know... Okay. Vulgar is a bad word. Forbidden. Because vulgar is basically just saying
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common or low class. Well, that's what I mean. Because they'll say, well, you banned this stuff
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because it could lead to... They'll say, well, you banned this type of pornography because it could lead
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to violence or because it could lead to, like, social ills. Why shouldn't we ban racism? We
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define racism, by the way. Why shouldn't we ban transphobia? We define transphobia, by the way.
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Because those things also lead to social ills and are vulgar and bad. No, no, no. Vulgar is not the
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word then. Violent or damaging or dangerous. Whatever. This is what we've seen in every country
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that goes down this pathway. Okay. It's a very bad thing to play around with, okay? Not a fun potato
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there. I'm just... Sorry. The word vulgar, like, it's vulgar to eat a roll by just taking a bite
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out of it instead of taking a piece and putting it in your mouth after buttering it, right? Like,
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vulgar is a word about class. It's not about government control and safety. Okay. You are a
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Nazi, a grammar Nazi. I am. Deal with it. Social media use in Nepal's widespread analysis from
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digital advisory firm, Kiopis, found that there were 14.3 million active social media identities
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in Nepal at the start of 2025. If each user were a distinct person, that would account for about
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half of the country's population. But many social media platforms have reportedly repeatedly rejected
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directives from the Nepal government to register with the country's Ministry of Communication and
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Information. On September 29th, last year, the Nepalese Supreme Court ordered all social media
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platforms in Nepal to register before operating so authorities could monitor undesirable content,
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which is, woo-wee! You know, you're getting into some problems when they're using those sorts of
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broad words. Seriously. With the text of the court verdict made public last month. To comply was the
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order. The ministry issued public notice to social media platforms on August 28th, giving them seven days
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to register. If they didn't, they would be deactivated in the country. Some companies like TikTok and
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message platform Viber did register before the deadline. TikTok had previously been banned to
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quote-unquote protect social harmony, but the ban was lifted after the company agreed to coordinate
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with law enforcement to address crimes related to the platform. But others repeatedly continued to ignore
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the order. So when the deadline passed, the government banned 26 social media platforms, including
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Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Google-owned platforms.
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YouTube. Not great. The sweeping ban threatened to upend Facebook's recent content monetization launch
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in Nepal, which could help Nepali creators earn money. So this is also about earning money for the
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people who are, you know, big career these days. Yeah. Our career, right? Yeah. Patreon, please!
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Yeah. Our career, if we are very lucky and we continue to work hard.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And also threatened to impact other Nepali businesses that depend on
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social media platforms. It also raised concerns about media freedom in the country. Recent attempts,
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2023 to 2025, the government increasingly targeted social media for political control. In November 2023,
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Nepal briefly banned TikTok, citing its role in spreading, quote-unquote, social justice harmony,
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amid videos exposing political corruption and inequality. So this is why they have banned things
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in the past, when things have started to spread, showing political corruption and inequality,
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especially with the political cause. The 2025 ban itself is a prime example, as it followed a Supreme
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Court ruling in August 2005 mandating the platform, register to monitor misinformation. What it
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incited was surging online criticism of Prime Minister KP Shama Olioli's administration over
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nepotism and economic failures. This led to violent protests, highlighting how such measures backfire,
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but underscore intent to curb anti-regime messaging. Companies like Facebook, Meta, YouTube,
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Google, and X, formerly Twitter, and others, did not comply for a few reasons. Because I was interested
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in why they didn't just comply. I was like, you can just get the... You don't care about the people of
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Nepal, you turds. So the first reason was resistance to local presence and data sharing.
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Establishing a local office could expose them to greater government oversight, including demands
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for user data, content takedowns, or backdoor access, raising privacy and free speech concerns.
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Big tech firms often avoid this to prevent setting precedents in other markets where similar laws could
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lead to authoritarian control. Basically, they can never back down unless it's China and the market's big
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enough. That's the way it works with these companies. You know what's up?
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Operational cost burdens. Compliance might involve significant resources for smaller markets like
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Nepal with around 30 million people, including hiring staff and attempting local regulations without
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clear benefits. For Meta, the ban disrupted recent initiatives like content monetization for
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Nepali creators. Principled stance and free expression. We all know that's not true.
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So, no, I don't buy that. From Facebook? Come on, buddy.
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So, let's talk about the Nepo kids and the corruption thing. Because the corruption complaints
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really come from the Nepo kids thing. So, apparently, there's like this...
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So, the thing... It's just the same issue with Indonesia, wasn't it?
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I guess I didn't look at Indonesia in preparation for this.
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Okay. My understanding was that another big issue also in Indonesia was that the Nepo babies of
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politicians who were ingratiating themselves were basically flaunting their extravagant lives on
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social media, causing a lot of resentment and anger. Justified.
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Yeah, apparently it's happening in Nepal. And you can look at the videos they post. I mean,
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they'd make me a lot mad if I was an average citizen not earning much and, you know, the
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government was taking my tax dollars and using it so that their kids could live like kings and get,
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you know, unique access to government positions.
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In some of these countries that are going through now corruption-related unrest,
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they are, for example, setting guaranteed incomes for their politicians that are like
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And they don't just own one house and live comfortably. They own like 5 houses. And,
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you know, during these protests, there are politicians fleeing to their home in Singapore
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just to kind of let it blow over. And it's just making people increasingly angry.
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Yeah. So these posts were shared using hashtags.
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Hashtag politicians, Nepo baby Nepal, and hashtag Nepo kids, and hashtag Nepo babies.
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One such post on TikTok has ranked more than 1.3 million views. It follows a similar trend in
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the Philippines where the Nepo baby children of public works contractors and officials have been
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shamed online for flaunting wealth and luxury amid concerns of corruption and growing scrutiny on
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unfinished flood control projects. In Nepal, one protester told the BBC that the social media ban
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served as a reason for the demonstrators to gather, but it wasn't the true, quote-unquote, focus,
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we want our country back. We came to stop the corruption, end quote.
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I mean, I think this is the way we feel, right? Like, when I,
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the reporter who we've been complaining about who came to do a
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documentary at our house for like a high, and we just had to scuttle a documentary project
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One of the reasons it always got to me is not only was she like a far left racist extremist,
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regularly talking like bad things about white people and men and stuff like this,
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but she had this whole narrative where she was this hugely disadvantaged individual who had
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overcome so much. And I believed it at first because she painted her picture like she grew up
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like a borderline homeless with like crack addicted parents. And then I look up and it was like, no,
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her parents were very successful in New York socialites. Her mom ran an art gallery and her
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dad was a New York times writer and a very accomplished writer for some really like high
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brow New York publication. No, it was in New York times. It wasn't even, it wasn't. Yeah. Yeah.
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I think he did a few publications, few high brow publications. Yeah. And them being crack addicts
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was more just like, my parents did drugs in the eighties girl. Like, what are you talking about?
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That's not all the socialites in New York were doing drugs in the eighties. Like whose boomer
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parents didn't do a ton of drugs. Yeah. Your parents were hippies. Of course they were doing
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drugs. Like, yeah. I mean, the reason why I probably don't have fetal alcohol syndrome,
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because my mom didn't know she was pregnant until her second trimester was because she had
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gotten really, really, really, really, really sick from drinking too much one night. And then just
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kind of was like, I'm going to take a break. And so, and she didn't drink that much.
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That could have been you making her sick, by the way.
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No, no. I mean, it could have been me, but I mean, what the way she put it was that like
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they were out for a night, they got a little out of hand and she was like, I'm going to step back
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my drink. Okay. Well, the, the, the wider point here being that she's like an influential person on
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the left. So, so you see this was in the left is the most disgusting type of Nepo baby in American
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politics, which is the Nepo baby that doesn't believe that they're a Nepo baby and believes
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they're a victim. Yeah. And a victim. There's nothing worse than somebody who has been given
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every advantage in life over other people and plays the card of a victim. Do you think these
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Nepo babies and like Nepal and Indonesia are doing that though? Because my, the impression I get is
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that they're not, they're just flaunting it. I mean, that would make them more insufferable.
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So to me, they're, I mean, look, we got like Nepo baby Gavin Newsom in the United States. He's
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like, I'm disabled. I have dyslexia. And we put on our episode, stop being retarded about
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disability. I've got dyslexia and I don't even like consider it a disability. It's like
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irrelevant in terms of my life story when contrasted with like 12 other more serious
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disabilities. It does make people angry when like they deal with these things and much worse
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things all the time. And yeah, well, this is the thing. Whenever you come out there playing this
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victim card, like this reporter who's like, Oh, you know, my childhood, all this. And it's like,
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you don't know our background with our parents. And maybe we don't talk about that because I don't
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want to cast my parents in a bad light. Like I could, I could talk much more detailed about that if I
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wanted to, but I actively choose not to, because I don't, I believe I have a strong relationship with
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my parents. I like them as people. And it's what people like that were doing in the eighties.
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Um, and yeah, it's culturally normative. And the reason I was so upset with her about it is she's
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doesn't even have like a terrible relation with her, her dad, right? Like she's got a really strong
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which is her surviving parent, a really strong relation. And I think the only reason I don't
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hold it against her that much is her dad has also written about this, you know, playing that I'm a
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victim card. So I don't think she was the one who outed him for this, but you know, again, trained to
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also maybe do things that way. So yeah, trained to do things that way. Instead of people are getting mad.
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And I think a bigger dynamic here is you've talked in other episodes, when you talk about
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dependency ratio cascades, how a really big undermining democracy issue that will arise
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as demographic collapse plays out, as older populations balloon and younger populations
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relatively dwindle, that people who become the majority of society and are net tax drains are going
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to only vote themselves more money, or at least the same amount of money. They're not going to scale
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things back for themselves. And they're going to be able to have that hold because they have more
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votes. I think this is showing a magnified version of the problem where government bureaucrats and
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policymakers are that, but worse as, as the world falls apart. And as the world burns and as dependency
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ratio cascades play out, even as for example, maybe say the U S government is going to just start
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an inflationary spiral by saying, Oh no, no, no, we're, we're keeping social security. We're not
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scaling it back. We're keeping Medicaid, but then just printing a ton of money and kind of devaluating,
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devaluing the dollar. So you are receiving what you were supposed to receive, but you can't,
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you don't have purchasing power anymore. At that point though, I still think that government
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employees and certainly to a greater extent, policymakers are going to make sure that they
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somehow are receiving inflation adjusted dollars, you know, and I think it's already happening
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even before for fertility or dependency ratio cascades play out in countries like Indonesia and
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in countries like Nepal, where maybe things are falling apart, but people who have policy control
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are making sure that they get theirs because they can. And that's, this is just a problem. It's a
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tragedy of the commons problem. Like the people who have the ability to steal the resources when
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the resources become increasingly limited, they're going to do it. And then people are going to get
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mad and then social order is going to fall apart. And we're going to see more of this, right? Like
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this is just, this is just the warmup. But I think the reason why I mentioned this is,
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is one of the things that I find most disgusting, and I see this increasingly on the left is the
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worst kind of Nepo baby institutional system is individuals who are Nepo babies pretend that they
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are discriminated either minorities or discriminate. Like if you are a Nepo baby, that trumps minority
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status in terms of. That's a survival tactic because they, they want to protect themselves. And if they,
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they think that if they frame themselves as victims, they won't be attacked for their privilege,
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because I think there's an understanding that as, as this unfair game is played out,
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people will want blood. They're going to want to, they're going to want to eat the rich and all in
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the name of victims. And so if you can masquerade as a victim while also unfairly appropriating
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resources, you can survive. And this is, you know, people, morality is going to fly out the window
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when people are starving and dying. People care a whole lot less about holding optics. Don't look
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good here. Like, Hey, maybe it's not that cool that I'm taking resources that I didn't earn,
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you know? Right. I mean, people already seem to have no qualms about that, but it's only going to
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get worse. And so of course people are going to do anything they can to make it look like they're
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innocent and to shield themselves from being targeted, how this shouldn't surprise you.
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And it's, it's inevitable and it's going to happen. And it's a survival tactic because we've evolved
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to do things to help us survive. Right. Yeah. So to continue here, what's the Nepo kid movement?
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So the specter of social media going dark in Nepal also coincided with a growing online movement
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calling out Nepali Nepo kids. Nepo kids appears to have been borrowed from the Hollywood popularized
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term Nepo baby, which refers to the nepotistic practice of children of celebrities getting
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opportunities because of their familial connections. In recent days, Nepali citizens took to platforms
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like TikTok and Reddit to post images and videos of children of political leaders, including those
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of the former prime ministers and ministers, according to the Kathamudo post, who they accused
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of using taxpayer money to fund lavish lifestyles and foreign trips. And I would note here, this,
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this for me is really important because a lot of people know I was born into a very wealthy family
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that very publicly lost all their money, but I was always told I was never going to inherit any of
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the family's money. And I could have gone to like, my family had a, like a gazebo that has our name at
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Harvard. And so I thought, you know, when I was applying to Harvard business school, because once
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you get into the interview, I'm like, Oh, you know, 50% chance of getting in and my family's ever
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going to help me. Now's the time, right. To call in the favor. This is, this is when you get to cash
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in your Nippo baby token. I was like, I really proved myself. And my dad's like, I'm going to
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send them a letter telling them not to accept you. No, I don't know if he did that, but he's like,
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it's really disgusting to attempt to get in through family connections to anything. And I ended up
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getting into Stanford where I didn't have the same family connections. And I will note my dad did go
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to Stanford undergrad. If you're not aware of how Stanford works, the graduate school of business
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is actually a separate institution than the undergrad. So being an undergrad legacy is completely irrelevant
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to being a graduate school legacy. You're still going to catch so much shit for this because at the
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same time, you're like, Hmm, university system is corrupt. And then, you know, you keep mentioning
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that you went to Stanford. Well, it matters because I beat their, like I was a Nippo baby in regards to
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having the educational background to even get into that. Like would I have been able to get into that
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if I had a side job like you did while I was in my undergrad? Almost certainly not. Almost certainly
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not. I mean, Simone is much more diligent than I am. So she was able to have a side job and graduate
00:22:43.620
top of her class from GW and get into Cambridge for graduate school. I ran like all the clubs at
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St. Andrews. Well, that's part of why I got into Stanford is because I ran all the clubs. I did run
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a number, like all the science clubs. I like ran the neuroscience society and the psychology society
00:22:57.760
and the biology society. You were just as busy as I was. Yeah, no, no. You were just as busy as I was.
00:23:05.240
I guess I was, but I was able to use all that for resume padding, Simone. That's like,
00:23:09.780
come on. And so was I. I suppose. But the point here being is I try to take ownership even when
00:23:16.980
I don't get the full advantages. Like even if I don't get the money or anything like that,
00:23:19.900
and I've had to make my own money, I still recognize the advantages I get from code switching.
00:23:24.240
And most importantly, I recognize the genetic advantages my family gave me. Yeah, that's,
00:23:28.160
that's key. You know, and I, I, that was the thing that really bothered me about the reporter
00:23:32.020
because, you know, obviously they're in this position of genetics don't matter because she's
00:23:35.140
taking this far left position. I'm like, Oh, really, really magnanimous of you famous,
00:23:40.540
you know, documentarian who has famous creative parents to, to pretend like you weren't born with
00:23:46.460
a deck astronomically stacked in your favor. And, and I, I admit that about myself as well. The deck
00:23:52.200
was astronomically stacked in my favor, but the biggest advantage I was born with was with the
00:23:56.780
genetic one. And I can like, even though my family lost all the money, right? Like the central
00:24:03.520
family where everyone, because parts of the money had been distributed before this, but then it was
00:24:07.280
stolen because one person was managing all of the pools, $45 million, by the way, if you're
00:24:12.040
wondering how much. This is what people get for outsourcing their services. I just like, don't.
00:24:17.600
What we didn't want to, you had to do is anyway, family politics. It was required like what per
00:24:22.960
trusts or something. No, it had to do with old people in the family being old people and not
00:24:26.840
listening to what all the young people were telling them. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no,
00:24:29.880
but they, yeah, I'm still saying that they made the mistake of, but the, the point I was going to
00:24:34.740
make here was even though they lost everything. So nobody in my family had cash transfers to the
00:24:39.240
next generation. I pointed out like one of my cousins created the technology behind the here
00:24:44.360
movie, the really cool, like AI technology that can fully create actors. Another one is running the
00:24:49.680
company in Texas that does automated trucks, self-driving trucks. Yeah. So no, admittedly,
00:24:56.580
she married into the family. Called Aurora. Yeah. Yeah. So she is not genetically related,
00:25:01.860
but I mean, her husband was genetically related and shows that, you know, women like her choosing
00:25:05.660
people like that. And then I forgot this last time I mentioned this, but three other members of,
00:25:09.660
of, of my cousins or siblings run. Well, I know one runs a fund that's over a billion dollars. And I
00:25:16.020
think the two other run funds that are probably at least half a billion. Yeah. They're all
00:25:20.020
wildly successful. Wildly successful. I am the, the big failure of the family. I am, I am nobody
00:25:25.880
failure, but this is what I mean. You don't get that kind of success over and over and over and
00:25:32.620
over again, even though they didn't have, you know, the cards in their hands to start. Right.
00:25:38.040
So how did that happen over and over and over again? It's likely genetics, whatever, you know,
00:25:44.100
that's, that's just. Ignoring that is, is deeply insensitive.
00:25:47.300
It's deeply insensitive because it's not saying people are like, Oh, are you saying they're genetically
00:25:50.960
superior? No, I'm saying that for one of them to pretend that other people had an equal chance in
00:25:56.020
life that they did is deeply insensitive because you are ignoring an advantage that you had that
00:26:01.100
other people didn't have. Ignoring a systemic bias in your favor is not magnanimous. It's psychotic
00:26:07.900
and evil, and it allows you to act in a psychotic and evil fashion. But what was the result of all of
00:26:14.120
this, right? Like what, what happened as a result of all the protests and everything like that?
00:26:17.540
Yeah. There was a reverse of the social media ban. The primary trigger, the government September
00:26:21.460
4th ban on 26 platforms was lifted on September 9th amid escalating unrest. The direct, this
00:26:28.140
directly addressed one of the protesters core demands, restoring access, allowing free or
00:26:32.140
communication. No other major laws were reversed, but the ban's rollback was framed as a regulatory
00:26:37.240
concession under new registration requirements. Leadership changes. The prime minister, KP Shama Oily
00:26:42.740
resigned on September 9th, marking the end of his fourth term and a significant
00:26:47.520
win against perceived corruption of his administration. Several cabinet members followed
00:26:51.100
suit, including the home minister who stepped down over the ban and others, including deputy PM
00:26:56.200
finance minister who was reportedly beaten during the chaos. On September 12th, former Supreme Court
00:27:03.100
Chief Justice Shalumi Karaki was sworn in as Prime Minister Nepal's first female PM, gaining support from
00:27:11.960
Gen Z leaders. Yeah, apparently it was like on Discord servers where the groundswell of support first emerged
00:27:18.540
for her, which I think just also goes to show how on social media the younger generation in Nepal is and
00:27:25.360
how influential things like Discord now are. Yep. The, the president, Ramachad Pali, refused to resign,
00:27:32.760
but the interim government is tasked with stabilizing the country and preparing for potential
00:27:35.980
elections in March, 2026. Other gains, the government announced compensation of 1 million Nepalese
00:27:42.080
rupees for the victims. I think this is for the death victims. Just, you know, how that is per
00:27:46.780
death. That's $7,000. Really big spenders there. Nepal's national day, September 19th, was canceled due to
00:27:53.960
unrest. Broader commitment include dialogue reforms, though critics argue that these are superficial without
00:27:58.740
addressing the root causes, like unemployment being 20.8% for ages 15 to 24. Oh, good lord.
00:28:04.840
Perks must highlight Gen Z's influence, with some use participating in post-unrest cleanups to restore
00:28:10.540
numeracy and boost tourism. Yeah, it's not gonna, the problem is still there. It's gonna get worse.
00:28:16.840
Although, let's, what's Nepal's 12 fertility rate? Nepal, TFR. How are they doing?
00:28:24.440
1.76. So they're better than the United States. That's good.
00:28:32.540
Well, they're also a lot poorer. Look at the average yearly income.
00:28:40.560
Acknowledged, acknowledged, fully acknowledged.
00:28:42.800
Nepal was where we were running that organization with a USAID or whatever that was trying to grow
00:28:49.500
atheist groups, right? Like convert people to atheism.
00:28:51.980
What? Yeah, if I remember correctly, it was in Nepal that the USA was funding that.
00:29:01.040
Yay. No, but we're going to see this more and more. We're gonna see this,
00:29:04.280
and it's interesting to me because I think a lot of people predicted as
00:29:07.100
the youth generation got smaller, we'd see less protests.
00:29:11.080
And I think what we're actually seeing is they're more angry that they're being increasingly
00:29:15.720
disenfranchised and the older generations are, just don't care about them.
00:29:18.760
And they're more agentic. So we'll see. Do they become more agentic or do they become
00:29:23.380
AI sloths? I don't know, right? What's your read on this?
00:29:28.540
I think it's going to be really hard to tell. I think we're, we are going to see in countries
00:29:39.820
that demand control, we'll, we will see violence and pushback. Case in point here with Nepal trying
00:29:49.380
to control social media. I think countries that basically resign control and allow for the creation
00:29:58.700
of charter cities and basically sovereign territories, because they'll acknowledge I can
00:30:04.600
no longer afford a police force here. I can no longer do this. I can no longer do that,
00:30:08.360
but I am going to allow basically sovereign states that are kind of like technically members of my
00:30:16.980
country to just step in and now provide those services under their own governance with a great
00:30:24.520
degree of freedom. I think that those countries will remain fairly stable, kind of going to a millet
00:30:30.140
system, like you saw in the Persian empire. Countries that devolve or evolve into a millet system or a
00:30:37.460
city state or charter city system will see stability and a transition to that's more or less as peaceful
00:30:47.580
as possible. And I think that countries that attempt to centrally control their population
00:30:53.280
and exploit them to maintain, to get resources, et cetera, are going to see increasing levels of
00:31:01.140
violence because people aren't going to stand for that. What are you, I mean, and I also feel like
00:31:05.200
culturally and based on historical precedent, the United States is well positioned to enter a millet
00:31:11.800
system era, a techno feudal era. I don't know if that's actually going to happen, but I feel like
00:31:17.720
that's kind of our best shot. What are your thoughts? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. What were you saying? I zoned out there.
00:31:26.580
I think our best shot at having a viable future is if the United States evolves into a millet system
00:31:33.300
or techno feudal empire. Oh, a millet system or techno feudal. Yeah. I mean, the techno feudal empires
00:31:37.200
are going to be the ones that survive. Yeah. And I mean, you can also see like the EU
00:31:41.820
is failing because they are trying to do the opposite of that. They're trying to use a centralized
00:31:47.080
bureaucratic body to control things, to regulate things. And that's not working. Nepal was trying
00:31:54.140
to centrally control its people. China, to a great extent. China is actually an interesting case
00:32:00.220
because it has set up some kind of charter city, like tech cities. Yeah. But they're like, you do
00:32:05.420
you. And I, that makes me think maybe you guys are going to figure this out. Like this could,
00:32:11.540
China could figure it out through, through those pathways. Who knows? So I, but yeah, that's,
00:32:19.180
that's what I think the leading indicator is going to be. Focus on AI, which is really important if
00:32:23.460
you're thinking about the future. So we'll see. Anyway, I love you to death, Simone. I love you too.
00:32:28.120
That's how we save the world. You just figured it out. You solved it. You're welcome. For dinner
00:32:32.600
tonight, we are reheating the bulgaki, the dish you made yesterday. It's Korean. The horrible
00:32:39.860
thing is I want to keep saying bulgaki and I don't. Rice noodles. Bulgaki. It means fire chicken.
00:32:46.680
U-L-D-A-K. And they put mozzarella on top and it's just spectacular. Yeah. It's like a very sweet,
00:32:54.660
spicy dish with a lot of cheese. Um, and just like a better. Yeah. It's basically marinated
00:33:00.140
tiny chicken chunks, which to which you can also add onion and out of the things, but we didn't
00:33:06.360
marinated in chili flakes, gochujang sauce, brown sugar, honey, pepper, like some other seasonings
00:33:16.260
and then sauteed and then broiled under mozzarella cheese. It's such fusion, right? Because it's not
00:33:26.140
like mozzarella. Are you going to put it in like a new bowl to broil it? Cause I don't know. I
00:33:29.620
refrigerated it in a ramekin and I'm going to put it in the air fryer to melt the cheese on top
00:33:34.240
after that'll work really well. I think. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to pop it in the microwave for like
00:33:40.700
one minute to get it warm from the inside because I don't want just like a burned top and then a
00:33:46.460
cold. Yeah. Well, I also, I also think that the, will it melt the cheese, right? I mean, it should,
00:33:51.240
you're doing wet cheese this time. And so the goals. Yeah. I'm going to do a low, I'm going to
00:33:56.880
do a low air fryer setting. And I wouldn't mind it dehydrating a little bit. I think that's mostly
00:34:02.740
going to just warm and dehydrate and melt, slowly melt the cheese. But yeah, I mean, as you know,
00:34:08.940
when you have, what's it called? Pizza margarita. That's the same kind of high moisture mozzarella
00:34:15.140
cheese circles that you see on that. I prefer grated mozzarella. It's low moisture, but like,
00:34:20.240
I think this will work perfect, especially for the ramekins in which I. I 100% agree. Yeah.
00:34:25.000
And people who are helping with the development of our like AI chat adventure engine on our fab.ai.
00:34:29.800
I really appreciate it. I know it's very buggy right now. All the feedback you give when you run
00:34:34.200
into bugs or run into issues or features that you want is incredibly helpful on us making this type
00:34:39.960
of project that we can then pay to advertise one day, like a real product. But I feel like we're
00:34:45.040
close to that. You know, people are like, why don't you, why don't you pay to advertise the school
00:34:48.900
because it works much better. And it's like, well, because the school is good. And I want you guys
00:34:53.180
to have access to that. And I want your kids to have access to that. That's parisia.io, but
00:34:56.560
it's very hard to make money off of educational products.
00:34:59.780
Yeah. You just don't. You don't. We learned after like doing a lot of venture capital outreach
00:35:04.700
and networking with other people who are working on schools and trying to sell them to school
00:35:08.340
districts and private schools and homeschooling groups that basically you don't, you don't make
00:35:12.160
money in this space. No one makes money in this space, unless you're like one of the really big
00:35:15.340
players that has spent, you know, five years in huge amounts of capital in a sales team and basically
00:35:21.500
just juicing the system and using weird arbitrage opportunities. Like schools have all these weird
00:35:27.600
funds that various laws have appropriated and you don't necessarily know where these existed.
00:35:32.900
Like there are some underperforming schools that have through various bits of legislation and policy
00:35:39.080
been basically given like slush funds of like, spend this money on this kind of tutoring to fix your
00:35:45.980
underperforming schools. And then, so there are these secret schools that you have to know how to look
00:35:50.100
for that just have money to burn on products that you can be like, this product is for that money
00:35:55.960
thing that we, you need to burn. And then you can sell to them. It's not based on merit. It's not
00:36:00.760
based on you actually like, I mean, you should have case studies showing that you can solve the
00:36:04.200
problem, but it's more based on finding these arbitrage opportunities. And I hate industries like
00:36:10.220
that. We, we, we just want a product that people find useful that they can use. So at least your NSFW
00:36:20.140
I thought the adventure mode is more fleshed out than the not safe for work section, by the way.
00:36:24.060
I know, but I'm much more interested in exploring more of the, the not safe for work.
00:36:27.580
I fixed the not safe for work engine creator, by the way, for people who were using it before,
00:36:30.920
it wasn't working very well because it still had safe for work language in, and that's all been
00:36:34.040
fixed and updated. And I'm, and I'm continuing to work on improving that. Like this is going to
00:36:37.840
improve something because I work on this every day. I want to, I want this to be good. And I want
00:36:41.140
people to see it and be like, that's a really solid product right there. I enjoy going on
00:36:48.740
Yes. I'm excited for it. Eventually, maybe you'll have a version that like literally creates the
00:36:57.680
I would love that. And I, we're looking at doing art creation next is the next feature we're going
00:37:02.360
to add. And not the very next, the very next one is we're going to do streaming responses. Cause right
00:37:06.920
now it outputs the entire response in a block. So it'll just feel like it's responding much quicker
00:37:12.640
to people. I don't mind the wait times, honestly, but anyway, I'm going to look for a missing plug and
00:37:19.980
then get the kids and make your dinner. And I love you so much. You are an amazing wife. I am so
00:37:25.940
excited for dinner. Oh, and use about 20% more cheese than you did last time. I will happily do
00:37:32.180
that. Cause the cheese is amazing. And we've got some fresh chives, chop up some chives and put them.
00:37:37.800
Yes. I forgot to do that last night. It was, it was a little chaotic. Another thing I'd put on as
00:37:43.380
an extra ingredient is poppy seeds. You mean sesame seeds? Sesame seeds. Yeah.
00:37:51.240
Words. Shut up. I love you in words. I love when you mispronounce things. I don't love you. I
00:37:56.320
actually think you're a disgusting monster. Well, that's accurate. That's, that's just the truth.
00:38:00.740
On the video we did today, you loved it so much. I've got to do this on multiple videos.
00:38:05.240
The Torsten being like, I just hear the beat and I have to dance. I can't stop dancing.
00:38:13.400
The beats in my body. Oh God. Torsten. Yeah. Must've heard that somewhere is all I can think.
00:38:20.660
I don't know, man. The kid has, he loves to dance. He loves EDM. I don't know where that came from.
00:38:27.200
He loves electro swing too though. And glitch hop. I just hear the beat. It's taking over my body.
00:38:32.800
That's great. I should play more music for him. By the way, we weren't playing music.
00:38:37.580
No, it was just in his head. Come on. He's, he's the originator of doot, doot, doot in our house.
00:38:43.700
Like he's always like got a tune in his head and he makes little sound effects for everything he does.
00:38:53.240
Yeah. We know when he's hitting someone, even if he's in another room. Cause he goes,
00:38:58.280
he's this like little cartoon voice. He's like a little cartoon human. None of our other kids are
00:39:03.300
cartoon humans, but he definitely. Anyway, love you to Destino. I love you too. Thanks for giving
00:39:09.520
birth to a cartoon. You're the one who gave birth to him. You nutter. Oh, I mean, he's both of us.
00:39:16.300
You know what I mean? He hatched out of the Malmone egg. By the way, are you ready for revolution in the
00:39:21.520
United States? Everyone says we're already in a civil war. I, we are killing each other.
00:39:28.700
The lamest civil war ever. There, well, there are flags. I was going to say, well, there are no flags,
00:39:35.260
right? But no, there are flags. There are leaders. There are battalions. Maybe they're right.
00:39:42.520
I saw another video of somebody who tore down a Trump flag.
00:39:49.000
Bye. Ah. Why can't you stop dancing? I, I just hear a beat and my body is hearing the beat.
00:39:58.260
Wait. So I can't stop dancing. You can't stop dancing? Because my, because I, because my body can't
00:40:07.040
still hear the beat. But there's no music playing, my friend. There is. I'm not telling that there's
00:40:14.880
music. Oh, it's like in your head? Yeah. So I can't stop dancing. But you're a really good
00:40:29.120
It sounds like, oh yeah, I'm dancing, I'm dancing, I'm dancing to the beat.
00:40:37.120
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm dancing to the beat. I'm dancing, I'm dancing, I'm dancing
00:40:44.680
to the beat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that the song?
00:40:47.960
Yeah. There's zombies outside. There's zombies. There's zombies. There's zombies. That's
00:40:52.920
the one. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm going to go. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm going to go. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:40:57.800
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, did you dance to so much you passed out?
00:41:01.140
Oh, the beat broke in your head? I just always dropped me. I swear I just always dropped me.