I thought it was super ironic that after the government of Nepal banned almost all social media platforms last week, this week the Gen Z protesters who overthrew the government used one of those platforms, discord, to choose a new prime minister.
The person they picked is 73 year old Sushila Karki, who used to be a Cheif justice of the Supreme Court until she retired at age 65, and is the only woman to have ever held that position. She is also now the first and only female to run the country. The protests that overthrew the Nepali government this past week were started to protest corruption in government, and Karki is known for being fiercely against corruption as a judge. She was sworn in on Friday. Good luck to her. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c179qne0zw0o
This also makes me wonder what could be done to make discord (or something similar) a better venue for direct democracy. I know the circumstances in Nepal were exceptional, but I wonder if we will see other countries experiment with Discord for similar purposes. It seems like in Nepal they have essentially used it as a caucus, and I wonder if this could be shaped into a better way to elect leaders (or even legislate directly) than what most of the world is doing.
My wife and I were talking about this today and we thought it's possible that what has just happened in Nepal is at least in some sense the most democratic thing any country has ever done.
Taiwan has been trying to develop web platforms explicitly for facilitating democratic decision-making. Might be something to look into.
Discord is a spectacularly bad fit for that, it was probably only used because the timetable was short and "it was there" and "everyone already had it".
> My wife and I were talking about this today and we thought it's possible that what has just happened in Nepal is at least in some sense the most democratic thing any country has ever done.
I don't see that argument at all. What was so democratic about it? Violent overthrowal of the government may sometimes be justified, but it is not an act of democracy.
i ve been waiting for democracies to go digital for ages. We should be electing mayors like that too. there s no reason for all this gatekeeping and secrecy in politics other than to enable corruption
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's two competing issues here:
1) You could make digital elections secure with issued digital IDs, and simply recording everyone's vote and it would be easily auditable.
But no one wants elections where (the contents of) your vote is recorded somewhere.
So 2) You use your digital ID to be able to vote once, but if you're no longer connected to your vote, it would be much more susceptible to tampering if you can't establish a double blind chain of custody of the votes, which is what expensive in person voting is doing very well.
The first option would be great if you could somehow guarantee a corruption free future of your country where no one will come after you for your vote (hint: you can't).
A discord server with 150k people whose identity or nation of origin are not verified, where only 8000 people voted. This is as illegitimate an election as they come. Come literally just have been elected by Russian (or any other) bots.
I'm hereby announcing my candidacy for world leader. I'll be running on a populist platform of self-enrichment. My first executive order will be to give myself access to unlimited money. Then I will use the money to acquire and/or launch tech companies and use price-gouging and predatory lending techniques to run all major corporations out of business. Then I will proclaim myself "The most cunning entrepreneur in the world" and I will write a book and give inspirational talks about how I did it all by myself without any special advantage. Then I will offer compulsory business advice to all the CEOs of the corporations (which I would have bankrupted) to explain to them that it's their fault they went bankrupt and should have worked harder.
It's unclear if interim leaders should exist at all
Wouldn't it be best for the country to be leaderless, with no laws being made and all existing government departments continuing their work under the same set of budgets and instructions as before until a new leader is selected by the election department?
I highly recommend anyone interested in these processes read “The Democratic Coup”.
It tries to explain the circumstances where a coup such as this can lead to democracy.
Key interesting example include Portugal in 1974 ... and the American Revolution against the British.
It’s happened before and it could well happen again here. My heart goes out to the protestors. May they fill the power vacuum with strong leaders who can make their country better for future generations.
17 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 43.9 ms ] threadThe person they picked is 73 year old Sushila Karki, who used to be a Cheif justice of the Supreme Court until she retired at age 65, and is the only woman to have ever held that position. She is also now the first and only female to run the country. The protests that overthrew the Nepali government this past week were started to protest corruption in government, and Karki is known for being fiercely against corruption as a judge. She was sworn in on Friday. Good luck to her. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c179qne0zw0o
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/world/asia/nepal-protest-...
My wife and I were talking about this today and we thought it's possible that what has just happened in Nepal is at least in some sense the most democratic thing any country has ever done.
Discord is a spectacularly bad fit for that, it was probably only used because the timetable was short and "it was there" and "everyone already had it".
I don't see that argument at all. What was so democratic about it? Violent overthrowal of the government may sometimes be justified, but it is not an act of democracy.
1) You could make digital elections secure with issued digital IDs, and simply recording everyone's vote and it would be easily auditable.
But no one wants elections where (the contents of) your vote is recorded somewhere.
So 2) You use your digital ID to be able to vote once, but if you're no longer connected to your vote, it would be much more susceptible to tampering if you can't establish a double blind chain of custody of the votes, which is what expensive in person voting is doing very well.
The first option would be great if you could somehow guarantee a corruption free future of your country where no one will come after you for your vote (hint: you can't).
Wouldn't it be best for the country to be leaderless, with no laws being made and all existing government departments continuing their work under the same set of budgets and instructions as before until a new leader is selected by the election department?
It tries to explain the circumstances where a coup such as this can lead to democracy.
Key interesting example include Portugal in 1974 ... and the American Revolution against the British.
It’s happened before and it could well happen again here. My heart goes out to the protestors. May they fill the power vacuum with strong leaders who can make their country better for future generations.