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The corruption is simply incredible. About fifteen years ago I found myself in Kathmandu after getting altitude sickness. The team's fixer brought me to lunch w

• robertlagrant 1y ago
  Just went to look you up on your profile to see why you might be hanging out with government officials, and just fyi your website link seems gone.
  • mothballed 1y ago
    It's not terribly unusual to end up with random government officials if you're a white guy going into a non-touristy part of the 3rd world. I went to a village in Paraguay, first thing locals did was take me to some government project creating an industrial cow milking operation where I was promptly offered an engineering job. Low-level 3rd world officials love showing off whatever they're doing to whoever will listen. They usually don't have much else to do. It is best to accept their offer and drink the tea with them or whatever, get on their good side and talk about how modern their little village is, and get on their good graces.
    • sombragris 1y ago
      I'm from Paraguay. Can you elaborate? Which village? TIA.
      • mothballed 1y ago
        It was close to "New Italy" (in Spanish), somewhere within 50 miles of Asuncion. I don't know much about Agriculture Engineering but there were a bunch of big milk vats, a couple electricians, and then a bunch of officials sitting around drinking the cold Yerba Matte stuff. I assume they brought me because they heard I was an electrical engineer and I saw they were wiring the place up.
        • sombragris 1y ago
          Oh yeah, I know Nueva Italia. Will try to locate the project. Thanks for the specifics!
        • marcosdumay 1y ago
          > I assume they brought me because they heard I was an electrical engineer Yeah, that adds up. Small cities in South America usually have difficulty attracting qualified people to work there. It's a bit better now than it was 10 years ago, though.
        • sombragris 1y ago
          > they heard I was an electrical engineer Just an add to what has been said. This might be because they heard you are an electrical engineer. I really don't know your qualifications, but here (in Paraguay), electrical engineering is a different degree than electronical engineering. You might be versed in electronics as your primary field, but since they heard you are an electrical engineer, they thought you could check out the facility's electrical wiring setup. Thus, if you do mainly electronics, you might want to present yourself here (in Paraguay) as an electronics/electronical engineer.
          • mothballed 1y ago
            Yes I was totally unqualified for what they were doing. Also pretty big language barrier because my Spanish is pretty bad. And Guarani, forget it. I could probably "fake" it enough to do it now, but not back then. They were extremely nice though and it was cool to check out a farming project. I would have liked to see some of the more remote farms but never got around to it. Paraguay felt very much to me like the midwest / "Iowa/Ohio" of South America. Extremely practical hidden gem that is easily overlooked, but makes you feel right at home. Even in Asuncion I felt quite safe. Seems like the country is very active in fostering getting agricultural investment and development.
    • codeforafrica 1y ago
      Here in East Africa some people tell me that it should be easy to find a job for me, but I must be talking to the wrong people. Not lamenting, just sharing how different the experience can be...
      • thevillagechief 1y ago
        East Africa is extremely competitive for labor, skilled or otherwise. So unless you're bringing capital, it's gonna be challenging.
      • optimalsolver 1y ago
        Kenya?
      • ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
        Not just there (waves at East Africa, where I used to live). I live in New York (Long Island). People are constantly telling me that I should be having jobs thrown at my feet, considering my skills and track record. That was not the case, which is why I'm retired. If I were an inexperienced young buck, living in Brooklyn, that might be the case, but not for an old expert, out on The Island. It's likely that it's difficult to get capital in East Africa. I knew many very smart, educated people, when I lived there. On Long Island, it's easy to get capital for non-tech stuff, but tecchies are kind of ghetto, out here.
        • achenet 1y ago
          er, sorry if this is a stupid question, but nowadays couldn't you just work remotely? Does location matter as much in 2025 when there are oodles of remote first companies out there?
          • mothballed 1y ago
            Just a guess but "east africa" while refusing to name country likely means someplace that theoretically you can wire money to, but in practice the AML control will start flagging like crazy and you get all your account shut down for even trying and no US based employer is going to touch with a 10 foot pole. If it were someplace like Kenya they would say, I'm guessing it's more like Somalia or Eritrea.
    • incone123 1y ago
      The first world version is local politicians getting their photo in the town newspaper.
  • bhickey 1y ago
    One of my college friends is a documentary filmmaker. He dragged me along as he followed a group of glaciologists up to a high-risk melt lake in the Himalayas. Somewhere above 16,000 feet I got altitude sickness and headed back to Kathmandu ahead of the group. I got stuck in the city for two or three days waiting for my flight, under the supervision of the team's local fixer. This guy had his finger in every pie: tourism, automobile importing, etc. I wound up at lunch with him because his assistant wasn't available to play tour guide. Edit: I'll add that I got lucky getting sick. Shortly after my flight out a large earthquake struck, stranding the rest of the group in the Khumbu for nearly a week.
    • sillysaurusx 1y ago
      That actually sounds like a documentary I’d like to watch. Was it ever released? You managed to make melting ice sound exciting.
      • bhickey 1y ago
        I don't think he ever released it as a feature. Here's some footage he shot on an expedition earlier the same year: https://youtu.be/ZN8a-pP60wk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/ZN8a-pP60wk?feature=shared
  • wavemode 1y ago
    I mean, it's not an uncommon job. Hasn't everyone hung out with a "government official" at some point? Even the people who work the counter at the DMV are government officials, technically. (And are perfectly capable of engaging in corruption, if there is insufficient oversight.) It doesn't sound like the parent commenter was having lunch with the president. Just some random bureaucrats overseeing a construction project.
• 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 1y ago
  re corruption: I was flying from Kathmandu to Bangkok in 2000 and I couldn't book a ticket on the plane until the day it flew as 'half the plane' was reserved for 'Government Officials' 'just in case'. Amusingly they were all on one side of the plane too, the side that can see Mount Everest during the flight.
  • barbazoo 1y ago
    I don’t quite see how this is indicative of corruption
    • brendoelfrendo 1y ago
      I believe the implication is that those seats would in fact be available to you if you knew who to bribe. And the fact that they were all on the Everest-facing side of the plane suggests that whoever controlled those seats realized that they could get a premium for them.
      • tocs3 1y ago
        Also, (speculation warning) it could be the government paying for airline seats to "keep them available" is a kickback. That is, lobbyist paying government officials for a contract that is not needed.
    • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      It’s a shadow tax on non-government consumers. Imagine if you ran a restaurant and had to always keep a table free for the mayor’s family.
      • barbazoo 1y ago
        You used the word "always", the person I responded to didn't. > I was flying from Kathmandu to Bangkok in 2000 and I couldn't book a ticket on the plane until the day it flew as 'half the plane' was reserved for 'Government Officials' 'just in case'. The "just in case" sounds like speculation to me so all it sounds like is the flight they were on was reserved.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• Quarrelsome 1y ago
  I think its quite something that we all waste our time over divisions like left/right, capitalism/socialism, woke/not-woke when in practice; this is the only division that matters. Those who are trying to follow the rules and make the nation better, and those that are only active for their self-interest.
  • FollowingTheDao 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • Quarrelsome 1y ago
      hard disagree, many OG and influentual socialists came from rich backgrounds. There's also lots of poor people out there who are simply waiting their opportunity to be corrupt. Anecdotally I've experienced many people from working class backgrounds who are extremely proud of their tax evasion. The key dividing line is those who follow the rules and believe in the system and those that don't and are just looking out for their own interests. This further explains corruption within socialist systems where everyone is effectively "equal" but some people are still looking out for themselves over everyone else.
      • don_esteban 1y ago
        The problem is when the rules are made to sustain and exacerbate the social divide, not to make the life better for everybody. No need to go far, just look at the result of lobbying in the USA. Btw, while there are many famines caused by despots (Stalin's, Mao's, Red Khmer's), there is also Bengal's famine of 1943. One must also point out that China in the last 40 years have done perhaps more regarding the poverty mitigation than anybody else in the human history (capitalism, especially the wild one, has actually quite patchy record...)
        • whatshisface 1y ago
          The Chinese people did all of the work, their government simply allowed them, returning some of their own money in the form of state investment. Who pays for "state" investment?
• mulakosag 1y ago
  You don't know how incredible the corruption is. It goes from all levels. From president and prime minster to all the way down to a lowly clerk in your local government office. Nothing works without bribes. The big heads are raking out millions. I left the country only a few years ago. It is the sole reason I never want to be back there. The desperation from the youth is so heart breaking when there is no jobs creation, no industry. Depending on their ability they go and work in middle east doing all those dangerous work in the desert heat. The country is empty of youth. If you go to the airport you will see thousands leaving the country each day. Coffins of workers who died in middle east. The political parties? They are profiting for everything. In the last 10-15 years there were basically 3 guys who would become the prime minister in round robin always blame opposition when in government and always blame government when in opposition. Its like 1984 but without the surveillience but that also caught up with the ban of social media.
• Yeul 1y ago
  The corruption is a cultural issue and each of those protesters would ask for bribes if they ever get into power.
• rixed 1y ago
  And they were discussing all this in English, or can you speak Nepali?