Do you think they are household names in major Chinese labs?
I don't have any insight into the Chinese AI ecosystem. But just from how they act on the English speaking internet, I don't see the influence of these Bay Area visionaries.
Speaking of China, people say we can't stop developing AI even if it will kill us because China won't stop and we have to keep up with them or maintain superiority.
China probably looks at these people as a good reason why they have to keep going no matter what.
If you have a kid who ask you for a toy and you give him, and then he throws a tantrum and smashes the toy on the floor, you don't just pretend nothing happened and buy him the same toy again.
Why? Because what you are teaching him is he can throw as many tantrums he wants and face no consequences. It gets worse if you have other kids — if he can throw a tantrum and get away with it, why not me too?
He can have that toy again, but not before he learns the lesson and knows his place.
Not communism, just cold hard game theory. Sorry your feelings got hurt.
You’re projecting about my feelings. It seems a strange paradox that associate membership is on the table for Canada when it was a hard no to any idea like that where it came to the UK. As hard as the Brexit was, the EU refused to budge and the UK offered to be either in or out. Now Canada is offered to be half in.
Putting aside whether or not being an "associate member" counts as being "half in" the EU, of which there were already examples during Brexit, it should not be forgotten that the UK did not want to be "half in" the EU. The people who wanted to remain in the EU probably did want to stay "half in", but they did not set the agenda, so what the UK got was a hard exit
Look to Birmingham in the UK for evidence of the same deference. Many have been on strike since 2025. The city was a rat infested public waste dump for nearly 3 months until the government hired private firms to do the waste handling while the public worker strike action continued.
Rubbish. They don't want to. The tractors have license plates, allowing them to be pursued after the fact, and the NL police have firearms if they want to get spicy.
There have been a number of attacks in Europe of the form "deranged person drives vehicle into crowd". I'm sure the police wouldn't sit back and shrug if that was done with a tractor. The vehicle doesn't have magic properties, the driver has police protection.
The protestors tape their license plates. And I'm happy to report Dutch police generally doesn't draw guns on people who are no direct threat.
And how is the "vehicle driven into crowd" even relevant here? Nobody's using these tractors to kill (intentionally), but they're just many and hard to stop.
> If the garbage men started dumping the contents of garbage bags in public places I bet they will not be given a free pass.
I mean, they wouldn't have to, they just need to stop cleaning it up. Such an action likely will be given a free pass, anything other than that is strikebreaking which is either illegal or heavily discouraged depending on jurisdiction.
Sanctions on Iran are justified. But I worry this kind of action will just lead to the eventual rise of an alternative tech ecosystem in the long term, probably led by china and Russia. It will be bad for us, bad for people living under those regimes, but good for the regimes themselves because they will have the fullest control over their technology, without having to compromise with the West.
Another example of why maximalist political hostility can be counterproductive. Leave an olive branch in sight, and you may work towards a mutually beneficial resolution, like the previous Iran nuclear deals. If push your opponent into a corner, then don't get upset when they jump over the wall into the wild where you can't catch them anymore. See also Chinese chips and AI.
US sanctions alone are responsible for nearly 565,000 deaths/year around the world.[1]
The UN Human Rights Council just confirmed US blockade against Cuba violates human rights and international law, citing Article 33 of Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits collective punishment.[2]
They can only do that through an "SSL added and removed here ;-)"-like 'cooperation' and not through passive listening because with forward secrecy a certificate key doesn't secure the transport encryption directly. They could actively MITM outside the perimeter of the target by issuing a new certificate, but that would show up on CT logs.
tls1.3 you can fully mitm with nice green padlock, its much easier if you have access to CAs where most big 'trusted' are US based. that being said a lot of govt for their services use their own ones and what is trusted and not trusted in CA land is highly dubious at best. try looking at all those weird nooneheardofthem names in the CA bundles on modern systems.
besides that its quite likely they will have intercepted most key exchanges since thats still a problem and pretty easy to see happening if you say, tap the backbone -_-.
US and few other have really futuristic capabilities here. its hard to imagine snowden was 14 years of secret innovation ago... it has only gotten much worse friend.
> - Threatened to exterminate Persians civilization, blown up bridges, killed children and destroyed civilian infrastructure
Iran threatens that all the time "Death to America" so if they don't like someone saying it back to them maybe they should stop?
If you want to make these kinds of body count claims, well for starters Iran killed over 30,000 of its own people recently (who knows maybe they've killed tens of thousands more over the years).
Iran also made the Iraq war worse by funding insurgents, which opposed the US and the government of Iraq (which is doing much better now as a country than it was under Saddam anyway) so they are partially responsible for some of those deaths.
But let's continue with this logic. While we're at it why don't we sanction China? Common estimates suggest 10s of millions dead from the Great Leap Forward (no it's not any different when you kill your own people, arguably much worse). Dramatic repression in places like Hong Kong, and continuing to threaten democratic Taiwan.
Why aren't you clamoring to sanction China if you're going to bring up Japan and Vietnam? Well that's because your logic is unsound, never mind the continued hyper-focus on being critical of the United States only. Maybe all of these deaths are actually on the hands of Europeans who partitioned these gulf states in the first place. Why was France in Vietnam? Why was the UN in Korea?
> Iran threatens that all the time "Death to America" so if they don't like someone saying it back to them maybe they should stop?
Have you ever thought to pause and wonder why they say that?
Suppose you discovered that a UK oil company on your soil had been robbing you blind, and so you decided to nationalise your oil industry. In response to this, the UK and the US overthrew your government and installed a puppet regime. In this situation, I’m sure you would form a highly unfavourable view of the United States.
> Have you ever thought to pause and wonder why they say that?
Yes I have, it's because authoritarian regimes need eternal, external enemies to mask their own failures as they pilfer the country. You talk about Iran being robbed blind, nobody forced them to spend all of their oil revenue funding militants in other countries that kill people while Tehran runs out of water and their people suffer.
You seem to have this Euro-centric view that countries like Iran aren't responsible for their behavior or that they must be innocent because of some activities going on 70+ years ago (never mind, well, general history +- 30 or more years) but given that there are only a select few countries who are experiencing such circumstances (Iran, North Korea, Cuba) while most countries are just getting along peacefully, it makes more sense to understand that these countries are simply by virtue of their repressive governments the ones who are the actual problem. Iran can stop trying to build nuclear weapons and funding militants and then their problems will be solved.
The world doesn't have to tolerate bad behavior now just because of alleged American or British bad behavior in the past. If you want to argue that Iran gets to be forever mad about 1953, then maybe the US gets to be mad at Canada for 1812?
Why does this sound as much about Team Trump's behavior as about Iran?
Also, Iran isn't as bad as you make it sound. Broadly, it's an okay-ish country.
It would likely have become a liberal country by now if not for the sanctions... Their leadership's lifestyles certainly don't suggest that they want to be living in a country dominated by religion – even if they maintain that for the masses still.
Being under attack makes people more conservative on average.
> Why does this sound as much about Team Trump's behavior as about Iran?
My guess would be because you're bringing in some prior baggage and over-indexing on Trump and not looking at the broader history and geopolitical situation. For example, Trump wasn't even president in 2023 when Iran launched an attack on Israel via it's proxies and later launched ballistic missiles at Israel. Now that's not absolving Israel of any wrongdoing or anything, but attacking them was never going to solve the problems in Palestine and it only pushed forward predictable responses. Diplomacy and international pressure are the only real options there, but once Iran attacked Israel you sort of lose that leverage as being peaceful.
To your point about Iran becoming a liberal country if not for the sanctions, I don't see evidence for that. The west really tried and while I think it's stupid we did the JCPOA only to find Iran was still behaving poorly, funding militants to destabilize countries like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and more, never mind arguably still pursuing a nuclear weapon (remember they enriched uranium to 40% - 60%) under the JCPOA, again not that we should need a special snowflake agreement with Iran they can just not do these bad things.
Liberal, democratic protestors even prior to the US attacking were killed. Over 30,000 of them. The sanctions that are there are there for a reason, and unfortunately there doesn't appear to be much evidence that Iran was liberalizing.
> Being under attack makes people more conservative on average.
Maybe but what does that matter? You can be conservative, which means respecting traditions and having different views without being hostile since quite literally billions of people around the planet in many countries do that every day. Also being conservative isn't a bad thing by definition despite what arrogant liberals think (which is itself a self-inflicted wound and has led to many setbacks toward their own goals).
I'm liberal about some things, conservative about others and don't particularly align with either camp but I do reject these sorts of narratives.
But you can take a step back and ask, well, what's the guiding framework here?
Is it arbitrarily picking certain time periods to make a point? Why do we go back to "Japan" and World War II when Japan started the war and was massacring and colonizing people throughout east Asia?
Why wasn't Germany mentioned in the body count? Dresden is a popular one that comes to mind.
Why do we only focus on lives lost? Maybe America saved 10,000,000 Chinese from Japanese occupation so on balance we're saving lives?
Yeah lets take a step back to 1953 when the British overthrew their government for wanting more profits from their oil. This lead directly to the revolution in 79, in the meantime the western "aligned" leader had suppressed all opposition except religions leaders so they were able to take over.
Now you know why they shout death to America. Would you also like to know that al qaeda didn't just hate american "freedom"?
Why stop there? Why not go back to when the Greeks made Darius mad and started the Greco-Persian wars?
If you want the Iranian people to engage in a forever war against the West, this is the kind of attitude you must hold.
“Some arbitrary injustice done by dead people forever justifies us to do whatever we want” isn’t a viable political or culturally progressive route to go down. Vietnam got over it. Why can’t Iran? Do they need a nuclear bomb to get over it? Will they stop hanging gay people, helping Russia, and providing militia support to destabilize Arab countries once they get what they want (whatever that is)? What date or specific thing do they need?
Can anyone say?
Of course not. Because totalitarian regimes always have to obsess over past injustices, perceived or real, to drum up support for the regime so that it can continue to hold power against the best interests of their people. It masks their own failures, like Tehran running out of water because their government spent all their money bombing innocent people.
> Why stop there? Why not go back to when the Greeks made Darius mad and started the Greco-Persian wars?
People often ask these questions as if they're unanswerable or as if any answer would essentially be arbitrary.
What you need to do is look at contemporary global systems of inequality and consider their roots. For this it would seem British imperialism is often a sensible place to go to, in this case almost certainly.
That seems like a different kind of criticism, one that unfairly singles out the United Kingdom and ignores the global systems of inequality and injustice that were instantiated by broader colonial powers and conflict, whether that's the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, or Persian, for that matter.
We're not talking about global systems or inequality which have innumerable reasons, but talking about Iran and their specific bad behavior and how authoritarian governments point to random historical injustices to justify their own repression.
> one that unfairly singles out the United Kingdom and ignores the global systems of inequality
The UK was spoken of in the particular because of its long and violent history in Iran. We could point to any number of things like Anglo-Persian oil, the 1941 occupation or the 1953 which was previously mentioned.
Countries like Portugal and the Netherlands simply don't have that history in the Iranian context. Of course if we were speaking about somewhere like Indonesia then we would foreground other colonial powers.
There is also of course much that should be said about broader colonial history but the question above was why do we bring up British wrongdoing rather than ancient Persian history.
> but talking about Iran and their specific bad behavior
"Bad behaviour" is your terminology. We're talking about why they have sanctions imposed on them.
> and how authoritarian governments point to random historical injustices to justify their own repression.
No-one else was talking about this but you, and it feels like it was only raised in an attempt to undermine genuine concerns about legacy issues.
> The UK was spoken of in the particular because ...
> Countries like Portugal and the Netherlands simply don't have that history ...
Totally fair! But then you (or whoever made the point) can't drag in the US and Vietnam war or World War II into this and drum up some random body count and try to use that as a main point, nor can you bring up "global systems of inequality" and simultaneously try to limit additional discussion around an Iran context when we start talking about, well, global inequality and how other countries are huge contributors to that.
> "Bad behaviour" is your terminology. We're talking about why they have sanctions imposed on them.
I'm not following the distinction here. The reasons sanctions are imposed on them is because of their bad behavior. They're killing people in the region, trying to build nuclear weapons which we won't tolerate, and have been building up this capability to hold global oil supply hostage less they have some concessions that they want.
> No-one else was talking about this but you, and it feels like it was only raised in an attempt to undermine genuine concerns about legacy issues.
We're not speaking about historical facts for the sake of historical facts. You and others are speaking about why Iran is justified in some action, so it's fair to point out how those facts are weaponized.
Since you are doing that, it's fair game to also explain how those past injustices (which themselves are complicated and nuanced in ways that nobody here is discussing) are used by Iran and other authoritarian regimes to create external enemies to maintain power. This is extremely well understood.
You are trying to use events from antiquity to dilute or excuse events done within living timeframes. You realize lots of Iranians lived during the Iran-Iraq war, yes? You know the US supported Saddam as he was gassing them, yes? These are things people who still live experienced. I hope that provides some insight as to why Iran hates the US.
> Vietnam got over it. Why can’t Iran?
Vietnam hasn't been sanctioned for decades following the war. Why can't the US and Israel get over the Shah being overthrown?
> Vietnam hasn't been sanctioned for decades following the war. Why can't the US and Israel get over the Shah being overthrown?
We've tried but then they fund all these militias and kill lots of people and keep trying to build nuclear bombs. What if they stop doing those things?
> You are trying to use events from antiquity to dilute or excuse events done within living timeframes. You realize lots of Iranians lived during the Iran-Iraq war, yes? You know the US supported Saddam as he was gassing them, yes? These are things people who still live experienced.
By that logic Iran should thank us for getting rid of Saddam. Do you remember (or are you even aware) of things like the Atoms for Peace program? Why does/did Iran have F-14 fighter jets? Arab nations also supported Iraq during the war. You are over-simplifying and cherry-picking while ignoring the fact that international relations is a lot more complicated than "country did X, therefore enemies for all time". USS Cole, Lebanon, it's not like Iran is innocent. And before you go and say well what about 1953, well then you can just keep going back to some other slight or injustice. If you want to live in a world of forever wars, by my guest. I think we should give peace a chance but that requires Iran to stop certain activities that simply do not serve anyone but a tiny minority of theocrats and despots.
> I hope that provides some insight as to why Iran hates the US.
Iran and the Iranian people don't hate the US and we don't hate them. Iran's autocratic government hates us and they can't pursue a path of peace because authoritarian regimes need external enemies to direct popular anger against to cover up for their own shortcomings. It's a common playbook that we're all well aware of.
No we didn't. Well, we tried the JCPOA eventually, but that got nuked by Trump.
> By that logic Iran should thank us for getting rid of Saddam.
Yeah, thanks for killing the guy you used to gas and slaughter our people. All water under the bridge now, even though you provided that support for him to gas and kill us.
> Atoms for Peace program
How is this relevant?
> Why does/did Iran have F-14 fighter jets?
They seized them when they overthrew the Shah.
> I think we should give peace a chance
Then the US should show some good faith and release frozen funds and lift sanctions. To expect Iran to weaken themselves when the west has shown perfidy time and time again is, frankly, ridiculous. The war going on now has only made that more impossible.
> Iran and the Iranian people don't hate the US and we don't hate them.
They may not hate the average American, but they hate our ruling class. And I assure you, our ruling class hates them all. They are racist fascists, it's what they do. You are naive if you think people like Rubio or Trump give two shits about Iranians. They want to destabilize a regional power and exploit natural resources. The best way to do that would be to throw Iran into chaos so no one faction controls power. It would be another Iraq situation and millions of Iranians would die.
> No we didn't. Well, we tried the JCPOA eventually, but that got nuked by Trump.
Yes we did try. We shouldn't have needed a JCPOA, Iran should just not have pursued nuclear weapons. Atoms for Peace program, for example. Why did/does Iran have F-14s? Iran had the JCPOA and was still funding militants who were going around and killing people. Package deal.
> They seized them when they overthrew the Shah.
When did they overthrow the Shah?
> Then the US should show some good faith and release frozen funds and lift sanctions. To expect Iran to weaken themselves when the west has shown perfidy time and time again is, frankly, ridiculous. The war going on now has only made that more impossible.
We can do that once Iran commits to dismantling their nuclear weapons program among other things.
> They may not hate the average American, but they hate our ruling class. And I assure you, our ruling class hates them all. They are racist fascists, it's what they do. You are naive if you think people like Rubio or Trump give two shits about Iranians. They want to destabilize a regional power and exploit natural resources. The best way to do that would be to throw Iran into chaos so no one faction controls power. It would be another Iraq situation and millions of Iranians would die.
If you want to argue this point of view, then I would just argue that we don't hate Iran's people but we hate their ruling class. They're all murderous theocrats and they don't give two shits about peace they only want to destabilize the Middle East so they can export their mafia control over oil to enrich themselves. They want to destabilize the region so that they can exert power, enslave people, rape women, and murder at will.
Where does this get us? Forever war. Is that what you want? If so, maintain this perspective.
> It would be another Iraq situation and millions of Iranians would die.
Millions of Iraqis didn't die. Though many thousands did because of Iran. Iraq is a lot better off now than it was in 2002 before the war. They have a functioning parliament, for example.
> Yes we did try. We shouldn't have needed a JCPOA, Iran should just not have pursued nuclear weapons. Atoms for Peace program, for example. Why did/does Iran have F-14s? Iran had the JCPOA and was still funding militants who were going around and killing people. Package deal.
Are you trying to say that the AfP program and the F14 sale were the attempts to try? You realize those were done prior to the Islamic revolution, right? What attempts outside of the JCPOA have been tried during the rule of the current government?
> When did they overthrow the Shah?
You might want to do some basic research before you speak on a topic. The shah was overthrown in 79. After Atoms for Peace, after the F14s were delivered (79 of 80, the last not delivered because of the revolution).
> We can do that once Iran commits to dismantling their nuclear weapons program among other things.
They did when they committed to the JCPOA. Then the US backed out. Perfidy, same as the negotiations during this war.
> If you want to argue this point of view, then I would just argue that we don't hate Iran's people but we hate their ruling class.
Yes, I said that. Our ruling class and their cronies hate them because they are dirty savage muslims who embarrassed the US multiple times.
> They're all murderous
People adapt to the environments they are in. The US forces violence on these people, they are violent in return. Tit for tat.
> theocrats
Our Secretary of (losing) War has Deus Vult tattooed on him and is in an insane catholic fascist offshoot. They have referenced this war on Iran as being a religious crusade many times. Our ruling class is largely zionist and support them because of end time prophecies.
> and they don't give two shits about peace they only want to destabilize the Middle East so they can export their mafia control over oil to enrich themselves.
The only thing they are destabilizing is the US imperialism in the ME and the various fascist Arab rulers that support it. "Mafia control over oil" doesn't even make sense. States are entitled to control over territory and waterways near them. If you don't want them to assert their control don't start a fucking war.
> They want to destabilize the region so that they can exert power, enslave people, rape women, and murder at will.
Ah yes, there it is. Mask off chauvinism. Not that it was hard to tell to begin with. Funny, of course, coming from a citizen of the nation who still has slavery, exports death globally, and runs torture black sites (not to mention supports the Israelis who rape people with dogs).
> Where does this get us? Forever war. Is that what you want? If so, maintain this perspective.
The US can surrender and admit defeat. Food for thought.
> Millions of Iraqis didn't die. Though many thousands did because of Iran. Iraq is a lot better off now than it was in 2002 before the war. They have a functioning parliament, for example.
Please read, I said millions of Iranians. Nearly a million people died from the GWOT, and that was before genocide was deemed normal and kosher. The suffering will be greater.
Anyway, it's clear you think Iran should have no sovereignty or free will and should just acquiesce to any and all US demands. Not much else to be said here.
> Are you trying to say that the AfP program and the F14 sale were the attempts to try? You realize those were done prior to the Islamic revolution, right? What attempts outside of the JCPOA have been tried during the rule of the current government?
> You might want to do some basic research before you speak on a topic. The shah was overthrown in 79. After Atoms for Peace, after the F14s were delivered (79 of 80, the last not delivered because of the revolution).
What happened in 1953?
I'd encourage you to develop an understanding of the timeline of events before commenting further.
> They did when they committed to the JCPOA. Then the US backed out. Perfidy, same as the negotiations during this war.
That's partly because Iran was arguably not adhering to the JCPOA and even so they were still killing people in the region and undertaking other nefarious actions which called in to question adherence to the JCPOA. But all of that is pointless because we shouldn't have to have a special snowflake agreement with Iran to not build nuclear weapons. They can just not build them and then there's no need for this like pretty much every other country.
> Yes, I said that. Our ruling class and their cronies hate them because they are dirty savage muslims who embarrassed the US multiple times.
Ok then they're just at fault too and they weren't following the JCP
> People adapt to the environments they are in. The US forces violence on these people, they are violent in return. Tit for tat.
Iran forces violence on people in the region including the US so tit for tat again.
> Our Secretary of (losing) War has Deus Vult tattooed on him and is in an insane catholic fascist offshoot. They have referenced this war on Iran as being a religious crusade many times. Our ruling class is largely zionist and support them because of end time prophecies.
Ok then we should just pursue this holy war given both countries are intent and believe it is a holy war. Whatever.
> The only thing they are destabilizing is the US imperialism in the ME and the various fascist Arab rulers that support it.
No Iran's fascist and theocratic regime is actively attacking most other countries in the Middle East and destabilizing it. Everyone else is being peaceful.
> "Mafia control over oil" doesn't even make sense.
Sure it does. The profits flow to the IRGC.
> States are entitled to control over territory and waterways near them. If you don't want them to assert their control don't start a fucking war.
This just sounds like complaining. It's like if Iran doesn't want to get bombed stop building nuclear weapons. Ok.
> Ah yes, there it is. Mask off chauvinism. Not that it was hard to tell to begin with. Funny, of course, coming from a citizen of the nation who still has slavery, exports death globally, and runs torture black sites (not to mention supports the Israelis who rape people with dogs).
We don't have slavery so that's wrong. We don't export death globally.
> and runs torture black sites (not to mention supports the Israelis who rape people with dogs).
Well they deserve it then.
> The US can surrender and admit defeat. Food for thought.
Nah
> Please read, I said millions of Iranians. Nearly a million people died from the GWOT, and that was before genocide was deemed normal and kosher. The suffering will be greater.
I did read what you wrote. First Million != millions. Second Iran killed a lot of those people. Finally was no Genocide nor would millions of Iranians die. Iran does murder its own people though. Iraq is much better off now than it was, and the Iraqis themselves will tell you that since they can now that they have a functioning parliament and no longer live under the yoke of a despot like Iran does today.
> Anyway, it's clear you think Iran should have no sovereignty or free will and should just acquiesce to any and all US demands. Not much else to be said here.
No that's your own invention that has no basis in reality. Iran is a sovereign nation but being a sovereign nation doesn't entitle you to do whatever you want without repercussions. The Iranian people will do much better if they remove the despots who rule them. I'm cheering for them, despite you and your sycophantic behavior toward the IRGC.
Your argument is incoherent at this point. You think Iran should just bend over after the US attacked them, and if they don't they are morally wrong. Thinking that the Iranian government should fight to maintain its sovereignty means supporting an endless war. But the US not surrendering is a-okay. Iranians deserve no agency according to you.
Anyway, enjoy not being able to buy gas in a few weeks.
> Anyway, enjoy not being able to buy gas in a few weeks.
haha ok - exactly how many weeks? That way I can come back and tell you that you were wrong. :)
I'm rich and drive an EV anyway so I don't really care.
> Your argument is incoherent at this point.
No it's not.
> You think Iran should just bend over after the US attacked them, and if they don't they are morally wrong. Thinking that the Iranian government should fight to maintain its sovereignty means supporting an endless war. But the US not surrendering is a-okay.
The key difference here is that the US has no real care in the region besides making sure the oil continues to flow since that's important to the global economy. Iran is the only country in the region that is disrupting that for their own benefit. If they stop trying to build a nuclear weapon and stop funding militias which violate the sovereignty of other countries, nobody would be here. The way you know this is true is because other countries don't try to build nuclear weapons or fund militias which destabilize lots of other countries (perhaps outside of Africa) and so there is no conflict.
"The Arabs did this! Israel did this! USA did this!" No - that's just a tool used by autocratic regimes to mask their own failures as they steal money and stuff. This is well known and understood.
Notice how it's everyone's fault but little ole' Iran? Poor Iran, if only they didn't take all the money they had and give it to militias for the US and Israel to use as target practice Tehran would have running water and inflation wouldn't be turning their currency into toilet paper. Oh well, I guess you can chant death to America and have nuclear weapons facilities bombed if that's what you want. Whatever.
> Iranians deserve no agency according to you.
I'd prefer they have agency by removing their theocratic government who is murdering protestors and attacking everyone in the region.
But with sovereignty comes responsibility, and Iran cannot simultaneously have what they have today and then deny others their rights. My recommendation to their government is that they stop trying to build a nuclear weapon, stop their weapons programs, stop murdering innocent civilians in their country and elsewhere, and work with the United States and others to get their country back on its feat and leave the IRGC to rot in prison cells.
Your comment chain is rather laughable, full of falsities and showing an immense ignorance if history. It's like you're mainlining fox news or Zionism.
I don't watch Fox News or care about Zionism so that's false. The only comment chain that is laughable is yours. You don't know anything about history and your comments clearly reflect that. You didn't even know about 1953!!! lol
No I don't care about usernames. You can respond to the points and debate them or you can toss around ad hominem attacks and I'll just parrot them back to you. Up to you.
The United States have been effing up in the Middle East since 1947. We can’t seem to get anything right, and with every involvement, we just get weaker eventually like the British we’re going to run out of money and resources, and Russia is following the same path.
That’s a completely fair take. Countries are free to enact sanctions against the us just like they are free to enact sanctions against Iran if that’s what they want to do.
Most of the problem there is an adaptation resulting from the long sanctions and bad security posture.
Iran is much like Israel as a country... Their territory isn't safe, and so they maintain a forward defense strategy that keeps enemies from directly reaching their borders where they are vulnerable.
It's more a result of the international order being primitive, and there being a lack of intelligent leadership on the global level that can establish trust.
Plus, one has to be realistic about the sheer amount of harm the US has caused internationally – and even on Americans in the past (chemical weapon tests? the outrageous number of people in prison?).
Pretending that Iran is somehow especially evil is childish.
It's more that that's also a "human government".
Unfortunately for them, they're not ruled by super geniuses...
The US is starting to have more countries look to other avenues and several of our closest friends are leading the charge. I would like to believe that after the current nightmare is over, we can put several things right but that’s a big if.
Sanctions for human rights violations would be justified only if they would be applied equally towards any country where certain human rights violations happen.
Unfortunately, USA has never applied any sanctions equally against countries with equivalent human rights violations, which proves that "human rights violations" have never been the true reason for those sanctions, but only a cover story.
When I was young and I was listening the US propaganda emitted through "Voice of America", I actually believed a good part of it. Unfortunately, history has proven that practically none of it was true and many listeners like myself were too naive if they believed any of it.
Moreover, the so-called "sanctions" of USA are not true sanctions. True sanctions would identify a precise behavior of the sanctioned country that is the cause of the sanctions and USA would promise that the sanctions would be terminated whenever the sanctioned country would stop those actions. Those would be true "sanctions" because they would have a chance to alter the behavior of the sanctioned countries.
As it is now, no sanctioned country would change anything in what they do, even when they are "sanctioned", because they know very well that the official reasons for the sanctions are not the true reasons and whatever they do about "human rights violations" and the like will not influence in any way whether the sanctions will be terminated or not.
Many of the official reasons for various US sanctions are so ridiculous that I wonder how the US politicians are able to utter them with a straight face.
For instance, there are many Chinese companies which are sanctioned because they might provide services or products for the Chinese Army or for the Chinese government.
??? Of course they do that. Any US company that makes anything of value will also provide services or products to the US military and government. The same will do any company in any country for their military and government.
In reality, the sanctioned Chinese companies have always been those which make consumer products that provided too much competition for US companies, like those that make DRAM modules and SSDs, so we have to thank the US sanctions for the huge price increases that have stolen money from people all over the world.
Regarding "sponsorship of extremism abroad", that is also questionable. Iran has supported various organizations which want to fight against Israel, but Israel has remained at war since its creation and the reason why they are still at war and they have never made peace with their enemies is because this was the wish of the Israeli government, who prefers to be at war than at peace.
There have existed opportunities of peace for Israel, but whenever there were chances for peace the forces within Israel that are against peace have prevented it, e.g. by the murder of the prime-minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 or by the sabotage of the prime-minister Ehud Barak by Ariel Sharon and Likud in 2000.
As long as Israel will not implement an acceptable closure for the events from its creation and for their consequences, there will be people willing to fight against it, and because Israel has a crushing military superiority, the only form of fight are the "terrorist" actions. The existence of the "terrorists" is a choice made by Israel, more precisely by certain elites from Israel, for whom the continuous state of never-ending war has been extremely profitable.
I have worked for many years in Israel and more than 90% of the people that I encountered there were very nice people, but I have also seen some very bad people, who of course, like in any country, were concentrated in the government and in the management of companies, so they had much more influence than the majority.
I pitied a lot my Israeli co-workers, because they were exploited to a degree that would not be possible in most countries. Only USA might come close with its "employment at will", which gives disproportionate power to the employer.
In Israel, employees have to work much harder than in most other countries and nobody could protest against that, because that would be considered as unpatriotic, i.e. the priority for everybody is to work as hard as possible, to maintain the technological and military superiority of Israel, for fear that otherwise their neighbors would come and cut their throats. This kind of work discipline is of course very desirable for the owners of the companies, so for them it is good that Israel is permanently at war and under the menace of "terrorist" attacks.
The term "terrorist" is just an euphemism for enemies with which Israel is at war and with which it desires no peace. Moreover, even if there have been a lot of more or less innocent Israeli victims (but all have chosen willingly to be part of a military conflict), Israel has always succeeded to kill a much greater number of "terrorists" or persons related to them or persons who just happened to be close to them. Israel does not want to make any concessions for peace, because it reckons that peace will be obtained eventually, over the dead bodies of all enemies, but there is no hurry for that, because war is good for the economy.
In these circumstances, applying "sanctions" against countries who "support terrorists" has no legal basis, but it is just joining the conflict between Israel and its enemies, as an ally of Israel.
Of course any sovereign country may do this, but they should present it as what it is, i.e. as taking sides in a conflict, and not as something which has any legal or ethical reasons.
The difference is that in America, they don't torture and imprison the mother of a murder victim for an Instagram post on charges of disturbing national security and public unrest.
The one-party-state and leader-for-life thing is a bit more substantial than egg eating habits. It's all fun and games while they're increasingly productive and not very internationally assertive but that won't last forever.
It's not "their" president, Iranians didn't elect him. Khomeini was a religious extremist who only months ago presided over the murder of ten thousand protesters and we should shed not one tear.
He was elected by a so-called council of experts. Those experts are elected by the people, although screened by the council of constitutional guards. The council consists of six lawyers assigned by the leader and six lawyers elected by the parliament. (There's a parliament and a civil president.)
Iran is a republic. It became a republic in 1979 on a national referendum. Before that it was a monarchy. That monarchy used to be limited since 1941, but in 1953 it was restored as a result of an overthrow backed by US and Britain. The cause of that was that the civil government tried to nationalize oil companies. The last monarch is in exile but, apparently, hopes to return to power if the US wins.
The West is a fantastic liar and a tremendous used car salesman. There's a short story by Mark Twain how he tried to run for a governor. Satirical, but truthful. Yet somehow the West managed to sell the idea that a regular shitshow of this kind is a pinnacle of state development, that states who do not run it are, of course, oppressors and oppressed, and that any means against them are thus justified.
Human rights violations, violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, violations of related UNSC Resolutions, sponsorship of terrorism, and many others.
We can wholeheartedly disagree with the US's war on Iran without pretending Iran is a 'good' international actor. It's a rogue state and has been for decades.
This is not a good question to ask. It's not for what. It's to prevent what.
Even if you don't care about how Iran treats its own population, you should care about how it treats others because one day it might be you.
Iran's ideology is expansionalist. They want to export their ideas far and wide. While also physically suppressing their opponents.
Since the emergence of two global superpowers after WW2, most armed conflicts were, essentially, between those two. Directly or indirectly. If the two could find a peaceful solution, the world at large had a good day. And for a while it seemed like we might be left with just one superpower, and so no conflicts at all. Only policing.
The whole "multipolar" spiel you might hear from powers that challenge this policing is what is going to result in a long and bloody struggle for world domination. It won't be like the world wars we remember, where most of the world had to choose one of the two sides. It will be a quagmire of more local conflicts with very volatile alliances and a lot more casualties overall. More like Italian city states.
It's necessary to police Iran and similar bad countries because if their challenge of the power monopoly succeeds, the world will be hurled into anarchy equipped with very deadly weapons...
> Your comment is so bizarre I don’t know quite how to respond and I’m left wondering what your news feed looks like.
I keep hearing from consumers of Islamofascist narratives about the “aggressive expansionism” of Israel. Can you tell me by how many square miles Israel expanded control over in total in the past 50 years?
I live (with a short intermission when I lived in the EU) in the Middle East, so, outside of reading the local news, sometimes I can just look out of the window.
I don't understand the question about Russia vs China: bigger in what sense? Geographically, it surely is, but that's not likely what you were going for.
To comment on expansionism: there are several ideologies in the region that seek to establish some sort of a "center of gravity" to attach more territory / resources to it. Islamic Revolutionary Guards is one of them, it's been "copied" by others s.a. various Hezballah organizations in different countries or Ansarallah. If eg. Hezballah wins in Lebanon, they will become a sort of a copy of Iran. Think like Warsaw Pact countries were "copies" of the Soviet Union.
Another such ideology / force is Muslim Brotherhood. Broadly, any Al-Qaeda affiliates belong there. This is a more popular / organic Arab thing as opposed to Islamic Guards, who are a foreign influence. They, however, lack a "center of gravity", but, potentially, they can take over Egypt as the current government is unpopular, while Muslim Brotherhood is. Eventually, there might be a popular revolt that will topple the current military government and then it's very likely that Egypt will try to expand its influence over the Middle East by violent means.
And there's a list of failures / non-threats, s.a. BAAS (Arab Communists, essentially): they used to be popular during the Cold War but now nobody cares about them. Wahhabi ideology that was propped by Saudis for a while, but now it's basically forgotten. Western liberal news like to mention "Greater Israel": this idea is about as popular in Israel as Scientology is in the US. It does exist in some form in the very fringe part of Israeli society, but it has zero chance of having a popular support. It makes the news domestically mostly because of how unrealistic and out of touch it is. It has about as much influence on Israeli foreign policy as Scientology does in the US.
Multipolarity is inevitable. You can’t forcefully hold most of the world’s population down, especially when you already shipped off your manufacturing capacity to earn a few bucks.
As always, the question for the declining hegemon is whether a new order can arise peacefully or not. The UK managed to go peacefully in the end, but only after two brutal and deadly world wars sapped them of their remaining strength. Still, their acquiescence allowed them to retain an outsized seat at the table.
China doesn’t seem interested in becoming a unipolar hegemon, at least based on public statements and openly published policy/position papers, so perhaps they have learned that it’s bad to be the hegemon from watching both the UK and the US take it on the chin. Rather than the Yuan becoming the default international currency, it’s possible that Keynes’s Bancor (or something like it) may finally replace the notion of a singular reserve currency, which always fails in predictable ways.
Well, if it's inevitable, then we are facing a long stretch of history when everybody is having a bad time... And by that I mean that it's going to be worse than it is today. War will become a new normal for most people in the world, just like it was before the world wars.
War is the historical norm. The relative quiet of the Cold War across Western Eurasia, Japan, and Anglo nations was an aberration. Most of the world still experienced major conflicts during and after this period, including Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, Central and South Asia, the Philippines and Indonesia, and of course the Middle East. After the Cold War, conflict spread into Russia and Eastern Europe.
The false “norm” of peace and quiet in Western suburbs will finally be ending, that’s all. We may even have our own Yugoslav moment, although I hope that’s not the case.
I'm not disagreeing with you. I just don't like where this is going :)
Oh, and I have an anecdote, somewhat relevant to the situation.
So, my grandma lived through the Nazi occupation of the Western Ukraine. She died in the early 90s, so, the events I'm describing must've happened some time between the Chernobyl disaster and the fall of the Soviet Union. I was an elementary school student and had a very simple picture of the Great Patriotic War: Nazis were bad, we were all around good, and we showed them...
One day she took me to the local farmers' market. On our way there we had to come by a liquor store, and there was, prostrated on the ground alcoholic who must've fallen asleep waiting for the store to open.
Holding her nose, my grandma uttered "had Germans been here, this would never have happened!"
Her admiration for Nazis came to me as a bit of a shock, but I made this mental trick, explaining it away by describing my grandma as "strict and law-abiding" and didn't think much of the incident until much, much later. Eventually, by talking to others who lived through the occupation and trying to understand what was so attractive about the Nazis that a lot of people welcomed them with open arms, I realized that the Nazis, beside the bad things they are known for today, leaned heavily into upholding law and order. In a Doctor Doom sort of way, but still. A lot of people were willing to give away their freedoms in exchange for the very "radical" law enforcement... And this is the aspect that doesn't get a lot of attention when the Nazis are mentioned in the history class...
So, there's a part of me that wants law and order at any cost, be it the US bombing the shit out of some country (it could be my country, if necessary! although, understandably, I'd rather it be some other country, better yet none at all). Just so that, by and large, there'd be peace and stability... On the other hand: fairness and all that... :)
Maybe I wasn’t clear, I mean that singular, nation-state issued (but internationally held) reserve currencies always fail, whether they are backed by “hard” currency or not. Keynes’s idea is an attempt to solve the problem, and as you mentioned it has not been tested.
the whole point of economic sanctions, as besset himself said, is to make people frustrated in order to create chaos and uprisings, people fighting each other, having a failed nation, and ready to be targeted by US/israel to turn it into all other israel neighbors. since israel existence is only through killing and destruction. stealing its oil like Venezuela is another goal.
human rights is just an excuse. how many millions US has killed in west asia you think?
good news is that nothing last forever. one day it gets back to you.
The point of economic sanctions is to act like a several % ball and chain around economic growth so over a generation or two whoever you've applied them to is impoverished, relatively speaking, and don't have much of a surplus to spend really resisting whatever you (or your regional buddies) are trying to do that they wouldn't like.
> "Israel’s neighbors Jordan and Egypt have made peace with Israel"
The governments may have, but I can assure you the average citizen of those countries haven't, as they still have morals and haven't got US funding to buy their morals.
No one is claiming that there isn’t plenty of hate for Israel in the Middle East. Those citizens, OP, and you buy the Islamofascist narrative of “Israel attacks all its neighbors” when in reality Israel has had peace with half its neighbors for decades - the neighbors who have agreed not to attack Israel and handle their own terrorists themselves.
Much worse, this will greatly improve their position with regards to wiretapping their own citizens.
Depending on who you are, Western CAs can come with some availability problems, but thanks to certificate transparency, you don't even have to trust the CA if you mostly care about security. Take a wild guess as to whether an Iranian CA will support that...
I doubt Iranians needed sanctions as an excuse to install their own CAs and require their citizens to use them. Many authoritarian regimes require their citizens to use domestically produced networking software that is different degrees of compromised.
Is the implication that those who impose these sanctions can MITM anybody in the world except for countries under sanctions (which have to use their own root CAs)?
> But I worry this kind of action will just lead to the eventual rise of an alternative tech ecosystem in the long term, probably led by china and Russia. It will be bad for us, bad for people living under those regimes, but good for the regimes themselves because they will have the fullest control over their technology, without having to compromise with the West.
I'm not sure that isolating Iran in particular has much of an effect because countries don't want to be in Russia's orbit, China's orbit is Only Good for China, and so aside from a European-only/led system the best option would still be the current state/system.
The best solution to all of these problems is for Iran to just behave like pretty much all other countries, but in lieu of that and in lieu of us having a desire to really go to war in Iran, we're just going to have to take actions like this because we can't have this regime opposed to us and western values and pursuing nuclear weapons (prior to, during, and after JCPOA) but then enjoying the benefits of the American-led financial system.
If Iran, China, North Korea, and Russia want to get together and create their own crappy Intranet that nobody uses, well, more power to them. Hope they have fun.
> If push your opponent into a corner, then don't get upset when they jump over the wall into the wild where you can't catch them anymore. See also Chinese chips and AI.
I think this is a gross mischaracterization of the evolution of these arrangements. There's a lot of nuance here, but the United States helped get China into the WTO based on the premise that they'd liberalize and then what happened? State-directed investment, banning of competitor products, subsidized over-capacity to deindustrialize other countries, artificially cheap currency to boost exports. Russia? They were part of the The NATO-Russia Founding Act and then decided they'd rather do war and stuff. Iran? Won't stop pursuing nuclear weapons for no reason (among other things), so now their economy is going to tank. So it's really the opposite. Even when you think about the JCPOA, let's say it wasn't torn up. Why was/is Iran still funding militant groups that are destabilizing other countries in the region? The west, not just the US mind you, did its damned best to include these specific countries into the western rules-based order, allowed gross injustices and breaches of good conduct, and still tried only to now itself be backed into a corner (Iran, Russia invading Ukraine, Chinese economic destruction) and has to finally respond.
As a civilization, and yes that includes folks in the EU even if you are mad at the current president, we need to stop assuming we're the problem or we're the bad guys by default and start holding other countries to account.
Because Iran is a member of BRICS and BRICS establishes its own payment system as an alternative to SWIFT: https://observerdiplomat.com/brics-officially-announces-fina... on top of which they have digital payment systems with globally the most users - all of that bypassing US banks, so that the US no longer has a means to control/sanction trade and payments.
TL;DR the world is leaving the premises where the US unilaterally decides which population should starve.
You say that, but then when you look around in reality it's not true. Nobody is using an alternative payment system, nor does it have the most users. Even if it did, having the most users isn't the same as having the most money.
> TL;DR the world is leaving the premises where the US unilaterally decides which population should starve.
They're not. The US doesn't unilaterally decide to starve a population. Dream on.
> As a civilization, and yes that includes folks in the EU even if you are mad at the current president, we need to stop assuming we're the problem or we're the bad guys by default and start holding other countries to account.
I remember your handle, ericmay, because you have been showing up in almost every thread about the tariffs or Iran and following this logic. Something Must Be Done, therefore Anything That Is Being Done Is Good. How dare you question if the Thing Being Done is actually against our interests? Do you not feel the warm fuzzy feeling of Something Being Done?
It's a frankly childish view of politics where virtue is all you need no matter the outcome. Time to grow up.
I'm highly interested in the topic, and folks continue to write and respond to things that I disagree with. That's why you see my posts. This site (and life) shouldn't be an echo chamber.
The main problem with sanctions is that it's the wrong people on the receiving end. Russian oligarchs and military businessmen have exactly zero problems managing their money, while ordinary people who flew russia into the EU - they face unsurmountable piles of unsolvable problems due to sanctions.
No disagreement. It is very unfortunate that our policymakers seem to like the spectacle hurting the average person who happened to have been born in the wrong country more than going after the ones actually holding power.
Yes, Russian oligarchs use London and Dubai for laundering. Ironically, Iranians elites use Dubai, too while launching occasional missiles at UAE.
The only thing that would work is bribing the Iranian military (perhaps the non-IRGC part) like they did in Syria. Exile Iranians of course won't fight but they rather talk and demand that others fight.
Yes, this bungling approach to misusing the financial system is why alternate systems are being developed.
Like freezing Russian assets and breaking faith internationally... Gotta know what is not actually worth doing.
They need some Alexander Hamilton like people to teach them the basics that only through establishing trust and predictability can the US be strong and have access to international money at scale.
... The lack of talent among these people is disturbing.
But then, Team Trump is really a bunch of rebels. They have no respect for the US Government or how it functions.
The Democrats recently don't either.
They're basically going to just give up the advantages the US gained after WW2.
Off topic, but I have always wondered if the real advantage of an AI therapist is it has little power over you and will not snitch you to the authorities if you say something "wrong." People walk on eggshells when talking to human therapists because they know if they say something about hurting themselves or others, they can end up in a mental institution, losing their jobs, the custody of their children, their home, everything. AI companies seem to just not care enough to monitor the chats for these kind of things. For better or worse.
> will not snitch you to the authorities if you say something "wrong."
What makes you believe this? We had this story[1] just a few days ago where Waymo up and decided to pull over and hand passengers who had guns on them over to the police. If anything, I would trust AI less to keep a conversation private and not flag me for one of its many programmed "safety" triggers.
There should be a law mandating government agencies to not limit their electronic communications to private third party platforms.
If they post something on Twitter, or worse, Facebook, they must also provide a copy of the post on their own website. Some kind of online government gazette, if you will.
ISPs and infrastructure in the Internet are generally considered common carriers unlike social media platform who can do whatever they want. I don't understand why you think this would be hard to define at all.
I want to read stuff from twitter not because I like the twitter culture but because sometimes something happens and the only place you can learn about it is twitter. Like it or not Twitter is still the most relevant platform for tech related information.
Sorry but I don't understand this line of reasoning. You worry about a smart TV going online without your permission and yet you trust it enough to keep it around your home and keep it online???
I don't mean to be rude but it sounds like you just don't want to confront the rest of your household about taking the TV offline and are coming up with excuses to tell yourself this is actually fine.
I don't have any insight into the Chinese AI ecosystem. But just from how they act on the English speaking internet, I don't see the influence of these Bay Area visionaries.