Based Camp - Nepal Just Had a Revolution Because of Social Media (Why This Matters to You)

00:00:00.000 Hello Simone, I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we're going to be discussing the

00:00:03.160 going on of Nepal because with all of the political stuff that's happening in the United

00:00:07.860 States right now, I think we've sort of been like broadly aware like they had like a revolution or

00:00:13.740 something in Nepal, right? Nepal is seeing an uprising led not by political veterans but by

00:00:20.320 Gen Z. Like what happened with that? And what you're going to be surprised about is how relevant 0.97

00:00:25.800 what happened in Nepal is to what's going to happen in most of the developed world as things

00:00:31.300 continued on the pathway they're going now. Teenagers and young adults are flooding the

00:00:35.700 streets, furious over a sweeping government ban on their digital lifelines. Last week,

00:00:42.240 authorities abruptly cut access to major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

00:00:47.980 And this is after what was happening in Indonesia. This is also like as there are huge protests in

00:00:52.500 the UK. We're seeing there's unrest is the thing now. Well, yeah, unrest is the thing. And in many

00:00:58.160 cases, it's for similar reasons. And so let's let's go in. What? Get your butt educated people.

00:01:06.520 Why don't you know about what you maybe you do know about what's going on in Nepal, but this is 0.95

00:01:09.900 interesting nonetheless. So police crackdown on September 8th, security forces fired live ammunition,

00:01:14.920 live ammunition. So we're talking about like how bad things are getting firing live ammunition,

00:01:19.080 tear gas and water cannons and rubber billets into crowds near parliament.

00:01:21.940 So opening fire into a crowd. Okay. They killed 19 people and injured 200 people.

00:01:31.000 And this was largely young students, wasn't it? I think this was also a lot of young people who

00:01:35.260 were killed. Yeah. And there's videos of graphic scenes, including children who were shot in the

00:01:40.240 head, um, sparking nationwide outrage and curfews. So this was extreme. And if you're like, well,

00:01:47.240 when do we get this in the U S when does the UK, you saw this million man March on London that 0.97

00:01:51.860 that, you know, anyone who's watching the videos can tell was giant. Like they're trying to report

00:01:54.980 it like a hundred thousand people. And it's clearly the UK is pissed. It's gotten way more

00:02:00.680 pissed since, since, you know, we talk about it being under occupation because we're like,

00:02:03.880 you know, what kind of country bans the flying of their own flags, a country that's currently under

00:02:07.920 occupation. That's the only time you would do that. Uh, a government would never be afraid of their

00:02:11.880 own flag unless that wasn't who was represented by it anymore. So when do they open fire on a crowd in

00:02:18.780 London or Germany or Berlin, you know, or, or, or France, I think it'll happen eventually.

00:02:27.380 I mean, it helps that police officers in the UK don't have guns. They just have their little

00:02:34.880 batons. Yes. Be beaten with their fabulous batons. Fabulous batons. Aren't you afraid the fashion

00:02:41.660 police will come and beat you with their fabulous batons? Anyway. So protesters, this is September

00:02:46.820 and 9th stormed and set fire to the parliament, the Supreme court, which burnt down the prime

00:02:52.920 minister's office, Cigna Dubar administrative complex and politicians, private homes, private

00:03:00.180 properties like the Hilton and Hyatt hotels, along with media houses, e.g. Kent and Pearl publications

00:03:06.180 were torched incident. It involved the burning alive of the former PM's wife. Oh my gosh.

00:03:12.800 So we're talking quite a bit of violence here. Carnage on both sides.

00:03:18.460 Jail breaks and further clashes. September 9th and 10th, mobs broke into prisons in the

00:03:24.040 Western districts, freeing over 12,500 inmates, including politician Rabbi Lament. I mean,

00:03:32.500 one imagines the prisons just cracked open from the inside being that overstuffed. My God.

00:03:38.240 The army was deployed with shoot on site instructions, assaults on officials. And there's a video of this

00:03:45.760 that I saw. It was just wild. The deputy PM and finance minister was beaten by protesters. And you

00:03:51.580 see him like trying to walk or run away and being like attacked by people as he tries to run.

00:03:55.560 In the video that has gone viral, Minister Paudel, 65, is seen running through the streets in Kathmandu

00:04:02.960 with the crowd of people chasing him. One of the protesters is seen kicking Paudel, who is also

00:04:09.060 the country's deputy prime minister. Other protesters get hold of him as he seeks to escape through the

00:04:15.080 river. Other politicians' residents were vandalized, heightening chaos before the army restored order.

00:04:20.240 So what instigated this? Are you aware of what instigated this, Simone?

00:04:23.440 I thought it was anger about widespread corruption, but I...

00:04:28.100 No, no. That is what they moved to afterwards. But what actually instigated it was the government

00:04:35.140 tried to heavily regulate social media to prevent anything negative about the government from being

00:04:39.820 shown on social media. Oh boy.

00:04:42.240 Oh boy. Now do you see why...

00:04:44.480 The UK did it right. You know, they did a whole like boil the frog where it sounds like Nepal. 1.00

00:04:49.260 You can't just crack down all at once.

00:04:53.200 Well, no. They've been doing this for a while. They had under the former king just complete control

00:04:58.040 by the state of media. So this is more like they had a period of more liberal media.

00:05:04.680 But you can't close Pandora's box. The internet is, if anything ever was...

00:05:09.300 A lot of corruption in the media, a lot of hiding stuff, which we'll go over.

00:05:13.040 But the internet made it impossible. And so the government was trying to find a way to take

00:05:16.580 control of that. And this is why, you know, I always say anyone on the right who says we should

00:05:22.400 be banning pornography, I really look at them with skepticism as a left-wing infiltrator because

00:05:28.160 you can't ban pornography without banning VPNs. And when you ban VPNs, you ban... You give the

00:05:34.360 government total control of what people can see within your country. Because then the government gets

00:05:38.700 to decide what's vulgar, right? You don't get to decide what's vulgar. The government gets to 0.98

00:05:44.680 decide what's vulgar. And when the government changes, you lose control, right? They'll say,

00:05:49.540 well, you know... Okay. Vulgar is a bad word. Forbidden. Because vulgar is basically just saying

00:05:54.300 common or low class. Well, that's what I mean. Because they'll say, well, you banned this stuff

00:06:00.140 because it could lead to... They'll say, well, you banned this type of pornography because it could lead

00:06:04.120 to violence or because it could lead to, like, social ills. Why shouldn't we ban racism? We

00:06:09.400 define racism, by the way. Why shouldn't we ban transphobia? We define transphobia, by the way.

00:06:13.760 Because those things also lead to social ills and are vulgar and bad. No, no, no. Vulgar is not the

00:06:18.900 word then. Violent or damaging or dangerous. Whatever. This is what we've seen in every country

00:06:23.940 that goes down this pathway. Okay. It's a very bad thing to play around with, okay? Not a fun potato

00:06:32.060 there. I'm just... Sorry. The word vulgar, like, it's vulgar to eat a roll by just taking a bite

00:06:38.760 out of it instead of taking a piece and putting it in your mouth after buttering it, right? Like,

00:06:42.860 vulgar is a word about class. It's not about government control and safety. Okay. You are a

00:06:49.520 Nazi, a grammar Nazi. I am. Deal with it. Social media use in Nepal's widespread analysis from 0.99

00:06:57.660 digital advisory firm, Kiopis, found that there were 14.3 million active social media identities

00:07:03.580 in Nepal at the start of 2025. If each user were a distinct person, that would account for about

00:07:08.740 half of the country's population. But many social media platforms have reportedly repeatedly rejected

00:07:14.520 directives from the Nepal government to register with the country's Ministry of Communication and

00:07:18.580 Information. On September 29th, last year, the Nepalese Supreme Court ordered all social media

00:07:25.180 platforms in Nepal to register before operating so authorities could monitor undesirable content,

00:07:31.480 which is, woo-wee! You know, you're getting into some problems when they're using those sorts of

00:07:37.040 broad words. Seriously. With the text of the court verdict made public last month. To comply was the

00:07:43.100 order. The ministry issued public notice to social media platforms on August 28th, giving them seven days

00:07:49.020 to register. If they didn't, they would be deactivated in the country. Some companies like TikTok and

00:07:53.740 message platform Viber did register before the deadline. TikTok had previously been banned to

00:07:58.560 quote-unquote protect social harmony, but the ban was lifted after the company agreed to coordinate

00:08:02.480 with law enforcement to address crimes related to the platform. But others repeatedly continued to ignore

00:08:08.460 the order. So when the deadline passed, the government banned 26 social media platforms, including

00:08:14.660 Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Google-owned platforms.

00:08:19.420 YouTube. Not great. The sweeping ban threatened to upend Facebook's recent content monetization launch

00:08:28.120 in Nepal, which could help Nepali creators earn money. So this is also about earning money for the

00:08:33.380 people who are, you know, big career these days. Yeah. Our career, right? Yeah. Patreon, please!

00:08:39.160 Yeah. Our career, if we are very lucky and we continue to work hard.

00:08:45.480 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And also threatened to impact other Nepali businesses that depend on

00:08:51.380 social media platforms. It also raised concerns about media freedom in the country. Recent attempts,

00:08:57.320 2023 to 2025, the government increasingly targeted social media for political control. In November 2023,

00:09:04.480 Nepal briefly banned TikTok, citing its role in spreading, quote-unquote, social justice harmony,

00:09:09.180 amid videos exposing political corruption and inequality. So this is why they have banned things

00:09:15.860 in the past, when things have started to spread, showing political corruption and inequality,

00:09:21.980 especially with the political cause. The 2025 ban itself is a prime example, as it followed a Supreme

00:09:27.820 Court ruling in August 2005 mandating the platform, register to monitor misinformation. What it

00:09:33.280 incited was surging online criticism of Prime Minister KP Shama Olioli's administration over

00:09:39.140 nepotism and economic failures. This led to violent protests, highlighting how such measures backfire,

00:09:44.920 but underscore intent to curb anti-regime messaging. Companies like Facebook, Meta, YouTube,

00:09:51.940 Google, and X, formerly Twitter, and others, did not comply for a few reasons. Because I was interested

00:09:56.440 in why they didn't just comply. I was like, you can just get the... You don't care about the people of

00:10:01.780 Nepal, you turds. So the first reason was resistance to local presence and data sharing. 1.00

00:10:08.220 Establishing a local office could expose them to greater government oversight, including demands

00:10:12.360 for user data, content takedowns, or backdoor access, raising privacy and free speech concerns.

00:10:18.060 Big tech firms often avoid this to prevent setting precedents in other markets where similar laws could

00:10:23.720 lead to authoritarian control. Basically, they can never back down unless it's China and the market's big

00:10:29.540 enough. That's the way it works with these companies. You know what's up?

00:10:35.500 It is. No, it totally is.

00:10:38.480 Operational cost burdens. Compliance might involve significant resources for smaller markets like

00:10:43.440 Nepal with around 30 million people, including hiring staff and attempting local regulations without

00:10:48.820 clear benefits. For Meta, the ban disrupted recent initiatives like content monetization for

00:10:54.280 Nepali creators. Principled stance and free expression. We all know that's not true. 1.00

00:10:58.840 So, no, I don't buy that. From Facebook? Come on, buddy.

00:11:06.720 So, let's talk about the Nepo kids and the corruption thing. Because the corruption complaints

00:11:11.400 really come from the Nepo kids thing. So, apparently, there's like this...

00:11:14.840 So, the thing... It's just the same issue with Indonesia, wasn't it? 0.96

00:11:18.800 I guess I didn't look at Indonesia in preparation for this.

00:11:22.060 Okay. My understanding was that another big issue also in Indonesia was that the Nepo babies of 1.00

00:11:26.960 politicians who were ingratiating themselves were basically flaunting their extravagant lives on

00:11:32.480 social media, causing a lot of resentment and anger. Justified.

00:11:36.720 Yeah.

00:11:37.120 Is this also happening in Nepal?

00:11:39.760 Yeah, apparently it's happening in Nepal. And you can look at the videos they post. I mean,

00:11:43.560 they'd make me a lot mad if I was an average citizen not earning much and, you know, the

00:11:47.220 government was taking my tax dollars and using it so that their kids could live like kings and get, 0.99

00:11:52.540 you know, unique access to government positions.

00:11:54.640 Yeah.

00:11:55.040 Which is what you're seeing here.

00:11:56.900 Yeah. What I'm reading is like they're...

00:11:59.200 In some of these countries that are going through now corruption-related unrest,

00:12:04.020 they are, for example, setting guaranteed incomes for their politicians that are like

00:12:07.640 5x the average income in the country.

00:12:10.720 And they don't just own one house and live comfortably. They own like 5 houses. And,

00:12:16.440 you know, during these protests, there are politicians fleeing to their home in Singapore

00:12:19.640 just to kind of let it blow over. And it's just making people increasingly angry.

00:12:25.240 Yeah. So these posts were shared using hashtags.

00:12:30.940 Hashtag politicians, Nepo baby Nepal, and hashtag Nepo kids, and hashtag Nepo babies.

00:12:36.660 One such post on TikTok has ranked more than 1.3 million views. It follows a similar trend in

00:12:42.120 the Philippines where the Nepo baby children of public works contractors and officials have been 0.74

00:12:48.500 shamed online for flaunting wealth and luxury amid concerns of corruption and growing scrutiny on

00:12:54.380 unfinished flood control projects. In Nepal, one protester told the BBC that the social media ban

00:13:02.500 served as a reason for the demonstrators to gather, but it wasn't the true, quote-unquote, focus,

00:13:07.940 which was on broader corruption. Quote,

00:13:10.640 we want our country back. We came to stop the corruption, end quote.

00:13:15.440 Hmm.

00:13:16.540 Thoughts.

00:13:18.280 I mean, I think this is the way we feel, right? Like, when I,

00:13:22.440 the reporter who we've been complaining about who came to do a

00:13:24.620 documentary at our house for like a high, and we just had to scuttle a documentary project

00:13:29.280 and just be like, I can't work with you.

00:13:30.700 One of the reasons it always got to me is not only was she like a far left racist extremist, 0.66

00:13:35.140 regularly talking like bad things about white people and men and stuff like this,

00:13:39.280 but she had this whole narrative where she was this hugely disadvantaged individual who had

00:13:45.060 overcome so much. And I believed it at first because she painted her picture like she grew up

00:13:52.140 like a borderline homeless with like crack addicted parents. And then I look up and it was like, no,

00:13:58.960 her parents were very successful in New York socialites. Her mom ran an art gallery and her

00:14:04.920 dad was a New York times writer and a very accomplished writer for some really like high

00:14:10.360 brow New York publication. No, it was in New York times. It wasn't even, it wasn't. Yeah. Yeah.

00:14:13.880 I think he did a few publications, few high brow publications. Yeah. And them being crack addicts

00:14:18.660 was more just like, my parents did drugs in the eighties girl. Like, what are you talking about?

00:14:23.440 That's not all the socialites in New York were doing drugs in the eighties. Like whose boomer

00:14:28.600 parents didn't do a ton of drugs. Yeah. Your parents were hippies. Of course they were doing 0.93

00:14:32.960 drugs. Like, yeah. I mean, the reason why I probably don't have fetal alcohol syndrome,

00:14:37.340 because my mom didn't know she was pregnant until her second trimester was because she had 1.00

00:14:41.840 gotten really, really, really, really, really sick from drinking too much one night. And then just

00:14:47.280 kind of was like, I'm going to take a break. And so, and she didn't drink that much.

00:14:52.940 That could have been you making her sick, by the way.

00:14:56.340 No, no. I mean, it could have been me, but I mean, what the way she put it was that like

00:15:00.600 they were out for a night, they got a little out of hand and she was like, I'm going to step back

00:15:06.480 my drink. Okay. Well, the, the, the wider point here being that she's like an influential person on

00:15:13.580 the left. So, so you see this was in the left is the most disgusting type of Nepo baby in American 1.00

00:15:18.260 politics, which is the Nepo baby that doesn't believe that they're a Nepo baby and believes 0.93

00:15:22.840 they're a victim. Yeah. And a victim. There's nothing worse than somebody who has been given

00:15:29.600 every advantage in life over other people and plays the card of a victim. Do you think these

00:15:35.660 Nepo babies and like Nepal and Indonesia are doing that though? Because my, the impression I get is 0.85

00:15:40.060 that they're not, they're just flaunting it. I mean, that would make them more insufferable.

00:15:45.260 So to me, they're, I mean, look, we got like Nepo baby Gavin Newsom in the United States. He's

00:15:50.480 like, I'm disabled. I have dyslexia. And we put on our episode, stop being retarded about 1.00

00:15:54.900 disability. I've got dyslexia and I don't even like consider it a disability. It's like

00:15:58.500 irrelevant in terms of my life story when contrasted with like 12 other more serious

00:16:03.960 disabilities. It does make people angry when like they deal with these things and much worse

00:16:08.500 things all the time. And yeah, well, this is the thing. Whenever you come out there playing this

00:16:13.000 victim card, like this reporter who's like, Oh, you know, my childhood, all this. And it's like,

00:16:16.900 you don't know our background with our parents. And maybe we don't talk about that because I don't

00:16:23.500 want to cast my parents in a bad light. Like I could, I could talk much more detailed about that if I

00:16:27.380 wanted to, but I actively choose not to, because I don't, I believe I have a strong relationship with

00:16:33.100 my parents. I like them as people. And it's what people like that were doing in the eighties.

00:16:37.740 Um, and yeah, it's culturally normative. And the reason I was so upset with her about it is she's

00:16:42.960 doesn't even have like a terrible relation with her, her dad, right? Like she's got a really strong

00:16:47.580 which is her surviving parent, a really strong relation. And I think the only reason I don't

00:16:51.040 hold it against her that much is her dad has also written about this, you know, playing that I'm a

00:16:54.620 victim card. So I don't think she was the one who outed him for this, but you know, again, trained to

00:16:59.640 also maybe do things that way. So yeah, trained to do things that way. Instead of people are getting mad.

00:17:05.540 And I think a bigger dynamic here is you've talked in other episodes, when you talk about

00:17:09.240 dependency ratio cascades, how a really big undermining democracy issue that will arise

00:17:14.580 as demographic collapse plays out, as older populations balloon and younger populations

00:17:19.420 relatively dwindle, that people who become the majority of society and are net tax drains are going

00:17:27.080 to only vote themselves more money, or at least the same amount of money. They're not going to scale

00:17:32.340 things back for themselves. And they're going to be able to have that hold because they have more

00:17:37.540 votes. I think this is showing a magnified version of the problem where government bureaucrats and

00:17:43.660 policymakers are that, but worse as, as the world falls apart. And as the world burns and as dependency

00:17:50.820 ratio cascades play out, even as for example, maybe say the U S government is going to just start

00:17:59.460 an inflationary spiral by saying, Oh no, no, no, we're, we're keeping social security. We're not

00:18:04.660 scaling it back. We're keeping Medicaid, but then just printing a ton of money and kind of devaluating,

00:18:09.580 devaluing the dollar. So you are receiving what you were supposed to receive, but you can't,

00:18:13.500 you don't have purchasing power anymore. At that point though, I still think that government

00:18:18.680 employees and certainly to a greater extent, policymakers are going to make sure that they

00:18:25.640 somehow are receiving inflation adjusted dollars, you know, and I think it's already happening

00:18:31.720 even before for fertility or dependency ratio cascades play out in countries like Indonesia and

00:18:38.460 in countries like Nepal, where maybe things are falling apart, but people who have policy control

00:18:45.640 are making sure that they get theirs because they can. And that's, this is just a problem. It's a

00:18:51.840 tragedy of the commons problem. Like the people who have the ability to steal the resources when

00:18:56.540 the resources become increasingly limited, they're going to do it. And then people are going to get

00:19:01.440 mad and then social order is going to fall apart. And we're going to see more of this, right? Like

00:19:06.880 this is just, this is just the warmup. But I think the reason why I mentioned this is,

00:19:13.140 is one of the things that I find most disgusting, and I see this increasingly on the left is the

00:19:17.520 worst kind of Nepo baby institutional system is individuals who are Nepo babies pretend that they 1.00

00:19:23.960 are discriminated either minorities or discriminate. Like if you are a Nepo baby, that trumps minority 1.00

00:19:30.580 status in terms of. That's a survival tactic because they, they want to protect themselves. And if they,

00:19:37.320 they think that if they frame themselves as victims, they won't be attacked for their privilege,

00:19:41.660 because I think there's an understanding that as, as this unfair game is played out,

00:19:46.880 people will want blood. They're going to want to, they're going to want to eat the rich and all in

00:19:53.760 the name of victims. And so if you can masquerade as a victim while also unfairly appropriating

00:20:00.240 resources, you can survive. And this is, you know, people, morality is going to fly out the window

00:20:06.060 when people are starving and dying. People care a whole lot less about holding optics. Don't look

00:20:11.960 good here. Like, Hey, maybe it's not that cool that I'm taking resources that I didn't earn,

00:20:17.200 you know? Right. I mean, people already seem to have no qualms about that, but it's only going to

00:20:22.440 get worse. And so of course people are going to do anything they can to make it look like they're

00:20:27.860 innocent and to shield themselves from being targeted, how this shouldn't surprise you.

00:20:34.340 And it's, it's inevitable and it's going to happen. And it's a survival tactic because we've evolved

00:20:37.920 to do things to help us survive. Right. Yeah. So to continue here, what's the Nepo kid movement? 1.00

00:20:45.000 So the specter of social media going dark in Nepal also coincided with a growing online movement

00:20:49.420 calling out Nepali Nepo kids. Nepo kids appears to have been borrowed from the Hollywood popularized

00:20:54.940 term Nepo baby, which refers to the nepotistic practice of children of celebrities getting

00:20:59.120 opportunities because of their familial connections. In recent days, Nepali citizens took to platforms

00:21:04.100 like TikTok and Reddit to post images and videos of children of political leaders, including those

00:21:09.720 of the former prime ministers and ministers, according to the Kathamudo post, who they accused

00:21:15.940 of using taxpayer money to fund lavish lifestyles and foreign trips. And I would note here, this,

00:21:21.420 this for me is really important because a lot of people know I was born into a very wealthy family

00:21:26.820 that very publicly lost all their money, but I was always told I was never going to inherit any of

00:21:30.980 the family's money. And I could have gone to like, my family had a, like a gazebo that has our name at

00:21:36.940 Harvard. And so I thought, you know, when I was applying to Harvard business school, because once

00:21:39.660 you get into the interview, I'm like, Oh, you know, 50% chance of getting in and my family's ever

00:21:43.040 going to help me. Now's the time, right. To call in the favor. This is, this is when you get to cash

00:21:47.900 in your Nippo baby token. I was like, I really proved myself. And my dad's like, I'm going to 0.91

00:21:51.440 send them a letter telling them not to accept you. No, I don't know if he did that, but he's like,

00:21:54.860 it's really disgusting to attempt to get in through family connections to anything. And I ended up

00:21:58.800 getting into Stanford where I didn't have the same family connections. And I will note my dad did go

00:22:02.320 to Stanford undergrad. If you're not aware of how Stanford works, the graduate school of business

00:22:06.920 is actually a separate institution than the undergrad. So being an undergrad legacy is completely irrelevant

00:22:11.960 to being a graduate school legacy. You're still going to catch so much shit for this because at the 0.96

00:22:17.180 same time, you're like, Hmm, university system is corrupt. And then, you know, you keep mentioning 1.00

00:22:21.680 that you went to Stanford. Well, it matters because I beat their, like I was a Nippo baby in regards to 1.00

00:22:28.680 having the educational background to even get into that. Like would I have been able to get into that

00:22:32.960 if I had a side job like you did while I was in my undergrad? Almost certainly not. Almost certainly

00:22:39.580 not. I mean, Simone is much more diligent than I am. So she was able to have a side job and graduate 1.00

00:22:43.620 top of her class from GW and get into Cambridge for graduate school. I ran like all the clubs at

00:22:48.720 St. Andrews. Well, that's part of why I got into Stanford is because I ran all the clubs. I did run

00:22:53.080 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 1.00

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 1.00

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 1.00

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. 1.00

00:28:32.540 Well, they're also a lot poorer. Look at the average yearly income.

00:28:36.060 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:28:38.280 So, you know, not great.

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.

00:28:57.520 Surely that made them like us more.

00:28:59.920 Yay.

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 1.00

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 0.56

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 0.98

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 0.72

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 1.00

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. 0.92

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

00:36:16.140 AI will, will give the people what they want.

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

00:36:46.780 Izekiah adventures in AI worlds.

00:36:48.740 Yes. I'm excited for it. Eventually, maybe you'll have a version that like literally creates the

00:36:54.360 manga, like the illustrated panels as you go.

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 1.00

00:37:56.320 actually think you're a disgusting monster. Well, that's accurate. That's, that's just the truth. 1.00

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.

00:38:50.220 Even chewing. He does. Hitting. Yeah.

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 1.00

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. 0.96

00:39:42.520 I saw another video of somebody who tore down a Trump flag.

00:39:46.280 The school bus is not. I got to go. Bye. Bye.

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

00:40:24.280 dancer. What does the music sound like?

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.

Based Camp - September 18, 2025

Nepal Just Had a Revolution Because of Social Media (Why This Matters to You)

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