In some sense that is still correct, i.e. the words are taken from some probability distribution conditional on previous words, but the key point is that probability distribution is not just some sort of average across the internet set of word probabilities. In the end this probability distribution is really the whole point of intelligence. And I think the LLMs are learning those.
I recently read a similar discussion in the context of AI in science and PhD students. And the point the author was making that the goal of having PhD students is NOT to produce academic research, but to train people. I think the same idea applies here.
Somebody still needs to train people, and the companies will probably need to ensure that they have resources for that, as there will not be enough senior people for all the tasks.
That's not how I am reading this. Here, the reaction seems mostly that Europe doesn't want to touch this mess. Which is weird, as Iran was clearly on our list of bad countries and Israel can do nothing wrong.
Local news publishes articles of Iranians in our countries being happy, political commenters indicating it can go both ways, and not much comments from politicians.
I can totally see why Europe doesn't want to touch this! I'm assuming that Europe doesn't mind the results, but also finds the means legitimately concerning. But they aren't in a position to do anything about the latter, so issue statements of concern about unilateral action, and quietly be relieved that somebody else gets stuck with the stigma.
Not even Russia really wants Iran to have nuclear weapons and a rocket technology that can hit targets 3000 km+ distant, though they obviously wouldn't attack Iran over that problem. The Middle East is notoriously hard to predict and governments change, while the nuclear capability endures.
Of all the countries that currently make any steps towards nuclear armament, Iran has by far the widest coalition of opponents.
Surely they will be sanctioning Israel like they sanctioned russia for attacking ukraine? After all aren't Canada and europe self proclaimed beacons of light?
Also weirdly they only came out in support once they saw that the operation was largely successful. It's almost like they prefer to ride on the coattails the same as they always have.
Yeah, because killing murderous dictators is helpful, and it doesn't matter that much who does it. In Europe, states aren't sacred – it is the freedom of people, and when people are freed, Europeans are happy even if it includes breaking the sovereignty of some terror state. I'm not saying I like Trump, but when he kills evil dictators, I can't complain. (There was 10k+ protesters killed in Iran recently)
There is huge potential hidden in Iran; it has always had a huge influence over the region and possibly the whole world.
Iran is not a sovereign state, the legitimate powers of government derive from the consent of the governed, without consent it’s not a sovereign state.
The power of sovereignty rests with the people who have given their consent in free and fair elections to have their leaders removed.
It does feel like we're on a slippery slope though. Normalizing and supporting the violation of international norms because 'they were bad guys and deserved it' is like turning a blind eye to corruption when its people you agree with. It doesn't lead anywhere good in the end.
I don't think killing democratic representatives has as big of an effect as killing authoritarians. You can't have cult of the leader without the leader, but in parliamentary systems you'd have to off quite a few people.
Typically jihadist denotes a militant sunni-salafist tendency, who are even more hateful against shia than non-believers.
This is reflected in e.g. Aaron Y. Zelin separating his surveilling of islamic militancy respectively into a jihadology and a muqawamology web site.
It is common for people in the occident to project the ideas they have about sunni-salafists onto the islamic republic, even though it is absurd. Same goes for the view that Khamenei supposedly were the one trying to achieve nuclear weapons, while his office has been the main blocker for this and secular nuclear researchers and political analysts in Iran has been the main proponents.
A year ago Ali Larijani said that if Iran was attacked they'd have no choice but to build deterrence through nuclear weapons, a proposal the US and Israel apparently thought was jolly good and since have crashed diplomatic alternatives to by the crime of aggression, not once but twice. The second time they also removed Khamenei, to really rub it in that they'd prefer for their allies in the region to have yet another nuclear armed neighbour.
Do you think that he was killed because of human right violations? I do not think so. The current US administration does not seem very concerned with those.
You realize that international law exists, right? Or are we now OK with devolving into a world where assassinating heads of state and cabinet members is applauded?
I don't understand Iran, Hezbollah's and the Houthis' patience with the US actually. It's absolutely shocking. After the US betrayed ALL of it's own fucking allies, in what world does it make sense to negotiate with them?
The Houthis are still "threatening" to do things today after already being decimated and Hezbollah's strength more than halved.
I don't support any of these creeps but if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US the minute they realized what Hamas was doing on October 7th. They look even more naive than Europeans at this point.
The Iranians are pragmatic. Look beyond their relationship with the US. There are other state actors that Iran wants to remain in good relations with.
They understand that a defensive war is not the same as an offensive war. Besides, going on the offensive isn’t something they - as a regional power - have the firepower or diplomatic “street cred” for.
They are already painted as a so-called irrational actor. Doing something reckless will only prove their detractors right.
The other part to this is keeping the negotiation door open. The idea is to demonstrate to other state actors that they are cool headed & rational - even in wartime conditions.
> The Iranians are pragmatic. Look beyond their relationship with the US. There are other state actors that Iran wants to remain in good relations with.
Which is why they're sending missiles and drone strikes on the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.
Rational negotiations have to be based on the relative power of the parties.
It made sense for iran to try to negotiate with the US because the alternative was a war they had no chance to win. Arguably it also made sense for them to not come to an agreement because USA wanted concessesions the Iranian regime probably couldn't do while still staying in power given how weak they are domestically.
> I don't support any of these creeps but if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US the minute they realized what Hamas was doing on October 7th.
Israel's ability to divide and conqour its enemies here has been pretty impressive.
> It made sense for iran to try to negotiate with the US because the alternative was a war they had no chance to win.
They have no chance of winning no matter what. At least inflict some damage on your enemy while you die like Hamas chose (although I disagree with the fact that they chose that for a lot of innocent people too.)
The US isn't ever going to leave anyone, let alone Iran, alone. The options are a) fight and cease to exist and b) don't fight and cease to exist.
> The US isn't ever going to leave anyone, let alone Iran, alone. The options are a) fight and cease to exist and b) don't fight and cease to exist.
Oh boy, I see we learned nothing from Afghanistan. The US will eventually leave you alone, There will be a power vacuum, and the local warlord will rise to that opportunity.
The "military operations" don't end in decisive vistory. They end with death and destruction for the young men sent into battle, and more enemies in the surrounding areas.
The US hasn't left Afghanistan alone. They were driven out of the country by force. They are still attacking it in multiple different ways and will continue to do so until they are defeated. Time did not end when the US was kicked out. They aren't just going to give up their goals.
I do not understand what argument you are trying to make. Nowhere do I say that time stands still or that the US doesn't still have a policy for Afghanistan. I'm saying that the US (and her allies, my country among them), with their war machine the likes of which has never been seen, could not bring peace and democracy to Afghanistan. Once we left, and we will always have to leave eventually, the existing structures of opression once again asserted themselves.
My country and my Government, sent people from my generation down there to die. My countrymen died in that war, and the only thing we got out of it was more enemies in the region. The Afghan is still getting persecuted for styling their beard wrong, and the Afghan woman is still getting opressed. We have nothing to show for that sacrifice.
I see no reason to believe the same thing isn't going to happen in Iran.
> Once we left, and we will always have to leave eventually, the existing structures of opression once again asserted themselves.
The US keeps coming back is what I'm saying. The US was kicked out of Iran in 1953. That's what all this is about. They will do the same to Afghanistan eventually. That's what I meant by time didn't stop. The Taliban isn't safe by any means. It's just a temporary reprieve.
> with their war machine the likes of which has never been seen, could not bring peace and democracy to Afghanistan.
As far as i understand, the US propped up an unpopular governmet that many of the locals did not like (there were rumours about turning a blind eye to moral impropriety because it was politically expediant).
The thing about democracy is its not really democracy when forced from the outside.
> As far as i understand, the US propped up an unpopular governmet that many of the locals did not like
From what I've read it's not that simple. The American system was more well liked in the cities than the alternatives. Outside the big cities, which is most of Afghanistan, the government really didn't matter much. They were still dominated by local malitias, "elders", and gangs.
To add insult to injury, the US led effort to build up an internal defense force in the country found that the only people willing to fight for the country were the very same people who had fought for the Taliban only years before.
The question left unsaid of course is if all of these problems could have been solved by a more competent actor. I would argue they couldn't have, that you can't bring peace through war, but reasonable minds can disagree.
> The US isn't ever going to leave anyone, let alone Iran, alone. The options are a) fight and cease to exist and b) don't fight and cease to exist.
Well i think this is true in the present moment, i think its also important to recognize that we got to this point by a series of decisions that Iran made. They boxed themselves into this corner via long term strategic blunders.
E.g. if they threatened US & israeli interests less (i.e. did not support proxy groups), US and Israel probably wouldnt find it worth it to go this far. Alternatively if they paid more attention to the home front and kept their people happy, there would be less pressure for them to not lose face during negotiations which might allow them to make concessions they cant currently.
> At least inflict some damage on your enemy while you die like Hamas chose (although I disagree with the fact that they chose that for a lot of innocent people too.)
Ultimately? If the people who are going to kill you were elected into power by those "innocent people", why would you not lash out at them too? Some twisted sense of morality or taking the high road?
I don't know what you're talking about. It sounds like you might be saying Israelis who elected Likud (and the supporting parties) are not innocent. If that's what you mean, then I agree, but that wasn't what I was referring to.
I was speaking of the Gazans who originally elected Hamas to protect them but where Hamas eventually decided to sacrifice masses of them to achieve some of their goals. They knew what would happen and did it anyway, without the people's consent.
No such thing as total war with the USA. Without the means to nuke the USA out of existence, actually engaging them is suicide. Even if by some miracle you start winning, they can just nuke you back to the stone age, thereby ending the conflict.
Better to play the long game, corrupt them from within and wait for them to destroy themselves.
Could very well be that, on a diplomatic level, they're far more reasonable and forgiving than we've been lead to believe. Maybe in order to justify an aggressively adversarial posture against them and their interests.
But that's hard to grok without corroborating evidence. Like maybe an analogous social dynamic where the American mainstream maintains a hostile posture towards a particular ethnic group, stereotyping them as violent and irrational and criminals and parasites, and doing things to them that have triggered sustained, armed uprisings in other times and places, but who, in fact, have historically and in-aggregate been steadfast in a commitment to non-violent resistance, integration, and endurance of oppression.
Safe to say that this is the first time America's ever encountered that kind of thing, though, so I guess that we can be somewhat forgiven for not recognizing it.
> Could very well be that, on a diplomatic level, they're far more reasonable and forgiving than we've been lead to believe.
If you have been following Iran over the past two years (and even before), you would know that this is empirically true and not just a hypothetical. American propag- sorry, media does its job well.
> The world in which America is a military superpower.
No, you missed my point. Iran dies no matter what happens. Better go down after eliminating Israel, taking out a huge % of the world's oil supply and banging up some Americans. Instead they were extremely restrained, squandering their capacities.
> They have been. They've been getting levelled. If the U.S. can staunch the flow of arms to the Houthis, they'll become irrelevant, too.
> Better go down after eliminating Israel, taking out a huge % of the world's oil supply and banging up some Americans
One, they tried. They don’t have the capability. Two, that means more Iranians die. Cultures that choose pointless vengeance over pragmatic survival tend to get weeded out.
> One, they tried. They don’t have the capability.
No, they didn't, not at the peak of their power. They waited until many of their tools were hit and THEN responded. Everything they've done is unfortunately in self-defense after their capabilities have been extremely degraded. They sat around and waited for Israel to strike first every time.
> Two, that means more Iranians die. Cultures that choose pointless vengeance over pragmatic survival tend to get weeded out.
Again, you're missing the point. They are going to be weeded out no matter what.
> They waited until many of their tools were hit and THEN responded
In part. Khamenei also pointlessly spent down Hezbollah supporting Hamas instead of writing the latter off and saving his firepower. If Hezbollah had maintained its massive-launch capability, instead of drip feeding rockets into interceptors as a messaging exercise, maybe this would have gone differently.
More broadly, if Iran ran itself without a C-list vengeance plot at its core and focused on its massive resources, it could have developed economically and geopolitically.
Houthi and Huzb do not have the organized armies to wage long-term war where they conquer territories. Their game plan is long term annoyance (at high casualty costs) and co-existence within a “neutral” state that provides cover and logistics for them.
> Houthi and Huzb do not have the organized armies to wage long-term war where they conquer territories.
Hezbollah did. They did it before and they were predicted by all analysts to be able to do it again, which is why Israel took the route they did with the espionage, assassinations and terrorism instead of confronting them on the battlefields.
> Tell that to the 30k+ iranian protestors that were killed.
> Are you actually using "in good faith" and the current horrendous iranian regime in the same sentence?
If US needs to intervene, why are they are not intervening in Ukraine? Far worse things has been happening there for 4 years.
Is the argument that the U.S. should only militarily intervene when conflicts are internal within another country, as opposed to when it’s one country invading another? As that’s the opposite of the established international laws around prohibiting one state from attacking another vs the principle of non-intervention.
1. The Russian position in 2014 was that the Ukrainian people in Donbas were being oppressed by the new Ukrainian central government.
2. There's a lot of domestic political/information suppression in Ukraine but I consider this somewhat normal for a nation in a pretty existential conflict.
3. The Ukrainian military is 70-80% conscripts, increasingly of the "forcibly mobilized" variety (look up "TCC busification" for examples), with almost all military-age males banned from leaving the country. Dudes are getting beaten up, stuffed into vans, and sent to trenches to eat Russian artillery and FABs (air-to-ground bombs)....against their will. I think that definitely counts as suppression.
Lose. Evacuate the government. Then mount a guerrilla, and wait for an opportunity. It'll come, most likely sooner rather than later.
Why is that unthinkable? I can understand people in the US being unable to process such a scenario, but here in Europe, there's not a single nation that wasn't off the map for some time.
I know why Ukrainians don't want that, but the demographic costs of tens to hundreds of thousands of "military age men" dying are so huge that any plausible alternative should be considered, even if it's very unpleasant.
> I know why Ukrainians don't want that, but the demographic costs of tens to hundreds of thousands of "military age men" dying are so huge that any plausible alternative should be considered, even if it's very unpleasant.
And you imagine they won’t die in your guerrilla war? Or the next invasion after an emboldened Russia regroups?
You're suggesting a decades long guerrilla movement under occupation will be better for the Ukrainian people than conscription during an existential defensive war?
In terms of the number of lives lost? Yes. Guerrilla resistance is a way of trading important advantages (like control of the territory or political legitimacy) for time and human lives. Guerrillas in a favorable environment tend to suffer much lower casualties per fighter per unit of time than trench warfare along a frontline.
It's a desperate measure, but so is snatching people from the street to bus them off to trenches.
Personally, I think people can live through almost any hell (and can make a comeback later) - unless they die, in which case they can't do anything anymore. Decades of hard times, in this view, are preferable to tens of thousands of excess deaths per year over a decade.
I understand why people are reluctant to consider this - I'm just trying to show that there are alternatives to the current situation; not strictly better, but at least presenting different trade-offs. In a situation of "existential defensive war," we should discuss all plausible options, even the most controversial ones.
Not necessarily, if Ukraine surrenders then Russia will disarm them. Then when they revolt Russia will be able to bomb them with impunity because the resistance will not have the air defenses and manufacturing that the Ukrainian military now has.
Not to mention that Russia will almost certainly genocide or atleast severely oppress the Ukrainians if they win
EDIT: important to note that abandoning the trenches and the frontline does not mean surrendering, and I never said they should surrender! I suggested evacuating the govt and continuing the resistance with other means - I don't believe the actual surrender would do any good.
You're right - the risks are, of course, very significant. And we've been through that here in Poland, historically, like 3 times already. We've had quite a few failed uprisings, and we've had anti-communist guerrillas here for a while after WW2 - they were quickly (it still took 3-5 years, though!) dismantled, and most of them were killed. So the risks are real, and it is a "desperate measure".
On the other hand, it worked quite a few times: Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan all proved that it's possible to win (or at least not lose) using guerrilla tactics. In case of Ukraine, I think the circumstances would favor the resistance: Russia's already not doing well economically; the "severe oppression" of the Ukrainians (which I agree would follow) would cement the support for the resistance, and it would cost Russia a lot; Russia had air superiority since day one, and it didn't really help them much (it would be much more of a threat had Russia have US-level intelligence capabilities - but they domonstrably don't).
Yes, as long as it's possible, the conventional war should continue. At some point, though, the costs (all kinds of them) of continuing to fight in the field become so high that it's better to stop and switch to other ways of defending.
I'm not saying that moment is now - and it's not for me to dictate when it happens - I'm just trying to say that there are other ways of dealing with the aggressor that may (in favorable circumstances) lead to lower casualties without forgoing the hope of eventually winning. Which I wish Ukraine with all my heart, BTW.
> Every country with conscription will do this if you refuse to show up.
Was that MP a draft dodger? The issue isn't them picking draft dodgers, it's them picking up anybody that looks like they might be a draft dodger and the tactics they employ to do it.
> Would the citizens of a sovereign nation being forced to violate their Constitution by Putin and Trump be a “violation of human dignity” too?
If Ukraine was worth defending they would have no trouble finding men willing to die to defend it. It’s one of the most corrupt countries in the Western world, its women are being allowed to flee so that they can prostitute themselves to Arabs and Europeans, and it hasn’t had an election in 7 years. Zelensky attempted to take control of the country’s anticorruption bureau in July of 2025: “Many suggest the attempted purges are payback for NABU pursuing charges of illicit enrichment and abuse of office against former deputy prime minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, a key ally for the Office of the President.”[1] In November of 2025, Timur Mindich, a former business partner and close friend of Zelensky, fled to Israel after being accused of orchestrating a kickback operation in cooperation with ministers of Zelensky’s own government. [2][3].
You have the opportunity to go die for these people right now. An increasing number of men in Ukraine have decided they would prefer not to.
> So defeating the Nazis wasn't worth doing, because we had to draft to accomplish it?
What you are implying is that condemning conscription as a violation of human dignity would necessarily lead me to condemn the actions that led to the downfall of a regime that itself engaged in conscription. Your mistake is in thinking that one necessarily follows from the other. I could condemn the specific act of conscription while considering the acts of the Allies in general as morally desirable, I could take a utilitarian approach and say that conscription is infinitely undesirable but the Nazis were infinitely undesirable + 1, or (as is my actual position), I can simply say that both regimes engaged in acts of evil that I am unwilling to dignify by calling “necessary.”
Issues of moral judgement are pass-fail. An act is good or it isn’t. This manner of thinking does not require you to create a gradation between the stranger who tries to rape you and the stranger that tries to kill you; they are both simply behaving immorally. The Rape of Nanjing was wrong; it did not justify the civilian deaths that occurred during the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
> Wouldn't the alternative be "A violation of human dignity"? Forced confinement in a war zone?
The discussion we are having is operating from the reality that Ukrainian men are being conscripted. If a man can be compelled to serve his country (I reject this premise), it follows that a woman ought to be compelled to serve as well. The conventional justification for exempting women from conscription has been that they are necessary for the nation to reproduce itself. But the majority of these women are not likely to return to Ukraine, so what is the point of treating them any differently from the men if they are already a guaranteed loss?
This is all tangential to the point I was making; you completely ignored the corruption scandals I mentioned.
> You really should make up your mind here.
You’ve been posting here too long to think that this sort of behavior conforms to the site guidelines. I have showed great restraint in writing this reply despite your inconsiderate behavior. My next reminder will not be polite.
What does the Iranian say? If we're all about respecting documents, we should make sure we assess them all equally. The U.S. constitution has a lot to say about many of the things that are happening right now, but those are being happily ignored. We can't even respect our own constitution, the idea that we'd respect others is laughable.
How do you even securely hold an election during a full scale war? Thousands are outside the country or on the front lines. You'd also be creating huge targets at polling stations. Luckily their constitution recognises it's a bad idea to try.
It's nothing to do with Iran being bad or good. US and Iran were negotiating. You don't attack mid negotiation when you're supposedly still trying to fix things by talking.
You might think Iran isn't owed the courtesy of fair negotiation but that's very shortsighted. Next country will not take US's negotiations seriously and will be, frankly, at some level justified in shooting first.
That is utter BS. If you stop negotiating in order to attack, then you are giving the enemy the advantage of knowing exactly when you will attack. This is one of the most incompetent takes I have ever heard - so much that I have to wonder if you are an Iranian agent
US sanctions, US/Moss instigates, makes the Iranis desparate. Irani regime (that is the result of US intervention decades ago) digs in and toughens up.
People die in the streets.
Who's to blame? The Irani regime? C'mon...
It's like crashing your car into a tree and and blaming the tree.
Also: you really think the US/Moss care about dead Iranis in the streets, other than it being a useful pretext to go to war?
It's a cuban-missle-crisis like moment for Russia. And they act accordingly.
I'm not in favor of one or the other: I just notice imperialism when I see it. And Russia+Iran have been much less aggressive than the "allied western forces" for the last 60 years, while they have a lot of reasons to dig in and toughen up not to become the next Libya/Iraq/Syria/etc.
I'd have been sympathetic to that argument up until a few hours ago.
But it turns out that they were actually negotiating in better faith than their counter-party, who have just launched a war whilst still claiming to be interested in a peaceful settlement.
> I'd have been sympathetic to that argument up until a few hours ago
These are somewhat independent variables. America was open about the fact that we were trying diplomacy before force. Either, one or no sides could have been negotiating in good faith and still wound up here with that setup.
If someone takes the first underhanded step, it’s not on the victim to make amends. Iran got burned on JCPOA. Whether we like them or not, you have to address that first before moving on to meaningful talks.
> ran got burned on JCPOA. Whether we like them or not, you have to address that first before moving on to meaningful talks
Sure. I think it was probably politically impossible for Iran to negotiate in good faith. That doesn't change that they were not negotiating in good faith.
no it doesn't "turn out that". They have a long history of hiding their nuke tech and lying while also issuing death threats to israel. Trust but verify doesn't work with this country.
> you don't need an analyst to see who strikes first (and the frequency of that pattern) while diplomats are still at the negotiating table
Of course you do. If the diplomats' job is to stall and never make any actual concessions, that's germane. My understanding is there was a genuine desire for diplomacy on the American side. But at least this round, Tehran never conceded on any material fronts.
> If the diplomats' job is to stall and never make any actual concessions, that's germane.
does this line of reasoning apply to the US only, or in general?
> My understanding is there was a genuine desire for diplomacy on the American side. But at least this round, Tehran never conceded on any material fronts.
they had an option to do it and still continue a diplomatic track, they aren't obliged to devote themselves to the US preferences at the US-preferred pace.
Ok, there's clarity on the side approaching negotiations in bad faith then. "Do as I say and when I say" is not a reasonable negotiating track, it's the final ultimatum and there's clarity on who's the aggressor too.
> does this line of reasoning apply to the US only, or in general?
Are you asking serious questions? I think the evidence shows the U.S. was negotiating in good faith in the beginning (and I'm scoping to this round of negotiations only). And then it concluded there was no deal to be had, and we probably started bullshitting as well. At the same time, I think the evidence shows the Iranian side was mostly bullshitting the whole time.
> they had an option to do it and still continue a diplomatic track
Well sure. We also had the option to terminate negotiations, ratchet up sanctions and walk away. None of that changes that the Iranians weren't negotiating in good faith. (Again, based on what I've seen. Open to changing my mind. But the lack of any discussion of what Iran did in this subthread seems to underline my point.)
> they aren't obliged to devote themselves to the US preferences at the US-preferred pace
War is politics by other means. They aren't obligated to accept the other's timeline. But I wouldn't say that's negotiating either realistically or in good faith–you can't just ignore material variables because you don't like that they exist.
Just answer the question whether it applies in general as a principle. Don't "stall and never tell any actual" position on the matter.
> We also had the option to terminate negotiations, ratchet up sanctions and walk away. None of that changes that the Iranians weren't negotiating in good faith
Only according to you, based on the premise that someone didn't meet random timings that only exist in your head.
> But the lack of any discussion of what Iran did in this subthread seems to underline my point
not really, please answer the initial question I asked.
> They aren't obligated to accept the other's timeline. But I wouldn't say that's negotiating in good faith.
Exactly why? You need to be home around 5 so anyone standing in front of you and blocking you in a traffic jam aren't acting in good faith?
> Only according to you, based on the premise that someone didn't meet random timings that only exist in your head
I literally opened the top comment asking for any credible analysis that said the Iranians were negotiating in good faith. I haven't seen anything in any English, European or Asian sources that seemed to suggest they were.
So far, the only one I'm seeing arguing Iran was ready to do anything material is the Omani foreign minister. (I'm keeping an eye out for his substantiation on this point.)
> please answer the initial question I asked
Read past "are you asking serious questions." I literally answer it.
> Exactly why?
Negotiating in good faith means negotiating with a genuine intent to reach a deal. That requires acknowledging what the other side is saying and respecting reality. Someone can intentionally bullshit. Or they can be forced to bullshit because their regime at home has to save face and doesn't think it can survive being seen as giving in to America. Either way, bad faith.
> You need to be home around 5 so anyone standing in front of you and blocking you in a traffic jam aren't acting in good faith?
Bad analogy. Here's a better one: you're my landlord and I'm your tenant. (Ignoring the power imbalance between Iran and America, particularly when America is parking warships, is delusional.) You say I have ten minutes to plead for not being evicted. I genuinely don't think I did anything wrong. But I spend ten minutes talking about why your shoes are stupid. That's not engaging in good faith.
> Read past "are you asking serious questions." I literally answer it.
ok, you evaded the answer, I asked specifically about generality of the principle, you kept saying "the US did this, Iran did that". You're stalling and refusing to tell the actual answer on the question I asked, so that's germane.
> I haven't seen anything in any English, European or Asian sources that seemed to suggest they were.
too bad, get better with search
> Negotiating in good faith means negotiating with a genuine intent to reach a deal. That requires acknowledging what the other side is saying and respecting reality. Someone can intentionally bullshit. Or they can be forced to bullshit because their regime at home has to save face and doesn't think it can survive being seen as giving in to America.
Negotiating in good faith means negotiating with a genuine intent to reach a deal. That requires acknowledging what the other side is saying and respecting reality. Someone can intentionally bullshit. Or they can be forced to bullshit because their political leaders at home have to save face before their donors and don't think they can survive elections being seen as giving in to Iran.
> Bad analogy. Here's a better one: you're my landlord and I'm your tenant. (Ignoring the power imbalance between Iran and America, particularly when America is parking warships, is delusional.) You say I have ten minutes to plead for not being evicted. I genuinely don't think I did anything wrong. But I spend ten minutes talking about why your shoes are stupid. That's not engaging in good faith.
Bad analogy, I walk barefoot and I don't talk to tenants, my representatives do and they end the contract with you on a legal basis of contractual terms and that's about it. That's my property after all.
Now, you in turn are still standing in a traffic jam and getting angry at me and people around you, you claim that we all don't respect your preferences and timings, so we must be acting in bad faith.
> I asked specifically about generality of the principle, you kept saying "the US did this, Iran did that". You're stalling and refusing to tell the actual answer on the question I asked
Uh sure, yes, it generalizes. Not sure what that does for you, but yes.
> get better with search
...do you have a source? The fact that nobody in this subthread has an answer to this and is instead, as you put it, evading the question by getting distracted by whether America is negotiating in good faith should speak volumes to anyone reading this.
> Uh sure, yes, it generalizes. Not sure what that does for you, but yes.
ok, let's see
> do you have a source? The fact that nobody in this subthread has an answer to this and is instead, as you put it, evading the question by getting distracted by whether America is negotiating in good faith should speak volumes to anyone reading this.
No it shouldn't, there's no substance in your position, let alone volumes of any meaning to derive from it: "the other side must be acting in bad faith, because I don't like getting home late".
First off, I'm waiting for you to apply your previously stated principle, that you admitted to be general, to Iranian diplomats' negotiating track. And right after that, let's discuss why you did omit commenting on the other part with the substitutions around "giving in to America or Iran" and the respective interest groups having to save face.
I, as a barefoot landlord, am still wondering: why do you think your timings and preferences are the only ones to be respected?
> I'm waiting for you to apply your previously stated principle, that you admitted to be general, to Iranian diplomats' negotiating track
I've applied it. (That's why you asked for a general principle. Because I'd applied it to this specific case.) They have not been negotiating in good faith.
A case you've sustained by being unable to find any credible sources arguing Iran was negotiating in good faith.
> I've applied it. (That's why you asked for a general principle. Because I'd applied it to this specific case.) They have not been negotiating in good faith.
> My understanding is there was a genuine desire for diplomacy on the American side.
> A case you've sustained by being unable to find any credible sources
Correction: you were unable to find any credible sources, that could be your intentional bias though, as there are other patterns in your replies that suggest it too.
Also, you didn't apply the principle, you sought external validation to your preferred understanding. You appeal to external voices because there's the evident apprehension to come to inconvenient conclusions if you begin applying the principle uniformly by using your own mind.
Actually, let's see it live. Please provide the line of reasoning, starting with "If the US diplomats' job is to stall and never make any actual concessions to Iran, then ..."
> there was a genuine desire for diplomacy on the American side
By the way, how does that "genuine desire" manifest in reality? I hope it's not "I got those people in front of me extra five minutes to get lost and free my way home"
Then the US can formally state that it is ceasing all negotiations. But it will never do that - it always wants to retain the ability to execute a surprise backstab. Done so several times now.
"If the diplomats' job is to stall and never make any actual concessions, that's germane."
As we have now learnt, this statement is utterly invalid.
Oman's top diplomat reported that negotiations were progressing quite well. They were dismayed at the American strikes. I am guessing Trump really wanted the negotiations to fail and was pissed off when Iran actually agreed to his major terms. So he launched the strikes, before the news could spread.
“Significant progress” had been made during talks in Geneva, Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi said on Friday. His country mediated negotiations between the United States and Iran, with the latter offering assurances that it would not seek to acquire nuclear material for the production of an atomic bomb. This commitment was a “very important breakthrough” that had “never been achieved any time before,” al-Busaidi told US broadcaster CBS News, in addition to making a similar statement on X.
Not a slight against you personally, but it's genuinely frustrating discussing this with people who don't actually follow the conflict. Thank you for probing in an inquisitive manner, but please question the state propaganda, which I'm sad to say includes just about every mainstream outlet.
They're interchangeable the USA and Israel, especially at this time.
Of course I mean at the state level. Individuals is a very different story.
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Hit the rate limit so I'm attaching my response to the comment below here.
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Fair enough. I let the current situation cloud my vision, but I genuinely mean they're interchangeable. You can look up the involvement of people like Kushner, Witkoff, Barak with Israel and see where they sit in our government. Leaving aside the major donors.
If you listen to statements made by the USG spokespeople, they literally throw US servicemen under the bus to shield the IDF. That goes both for this admin and the last.
In the previous admin, it was Biden and Blinken that made a break impossible, despite landing on different political sides from Netanyahu. Another president would have cut them off at some point.
Obama was the only one who charted an independent path in recent years (post Bush. Sr.)
> They're interchangeable the USA and Israel, especially at this time
If America and Israel are interchangeable, so are Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. That–I believe–is an overly simplistic approach, particularly when treating even Iran as a cohesive political entity is theoretically fraught.
It is still unhinged, but not because of nuclear weapons. Ukraine, and now Iran, showed the whole world what happens when you don’t have a nuclear deterrence.
I think the unhinged rhetoric is, in part, a necessary partner of the nukes. Because you need to not only have nukes but have your adversaries believe that you won't hesitate to use them. If North Korea had nukes, but the US didn't believe they would use them, then they'd be getting the Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc, etc, etc treatment.
The claim has always been made that attacking NK was off the table anyway, because they have obscene numbers of conventional artillery pointed directly at SK's capital and largest population centre, right across the DMZ; even the fastest decapitation strike wouldn't have prevented Seoul from getting flattened. Nukes definitely don't hurt but I'm not actually sure NK needed the bomb as an additional deterrent.
North Korea didn't acquire nukes to protect itself from the US, it got them to protect its regime from China. It began pursuing nukes in the 80s once its original safeguard against China, its alliance with the Soviet Union, started showing signs it would not be a viable long term strategy.
The anti-US spiel is just rhetoric. It helps save face when dealing with China, which it still utterly depends on, and it goes along with decades of internal propaganda lionizing China to its own people. Indeed North Korea wants heavy US military presence in the region, maintaining its status with regards to China as a strategically important buffer state which can act with plausible deniability instead of a resource rich neighbor with uncooperative leadership.
If North Korea only had conventional forces, what would stop China from installing a loyal puppet? The international community wouldn't lift a finger, threats to South Korea would only further alienate the regime, China could bring its full might to bear, the DPRK military would have no effective means to retaliate and would be more likely to turn on the regime than mount a credible defense, and North Korea's own people would probably welcome the change which would dramatically reduce oppression and increase prosperity. Nukes are the only way for a small number of regime loyalists to make such an operation too costly for Beijing to justify.
This is also why talks with the US have utterly "failed" for decades - there is nothing the US can offer that would provide the same security guarantee for the regime and the status quo is advantageous to the US for multiple reasons: justifying its large military presence in the region, justifying its efforts to develop and deploy ever more capable ballistic missile defense systems, and North Korea not being completely under China's control.
NK didn’t get nuclear weapons until several years after the invasion of Iraq, and it was probably longer still before they had a viable delivery system. The nukes clearly aren’t the only reason they’re left alone.
I mean, nothing unhinged here, nukes are only ever useful if other countries believe you will use them when attacked. Same thing for North Korea as the US, France, etc. (Well, nuclear war is unhinged, but...).
It’s good for them. That’s the point they’re making. All this shows that for many countries nuclear proliferation is the way to guarantee their safety.
The people arent being pppressed by the bomb, but by their leaders. The odea that the US would liberate all peoples from tyranical rulers is naive. The US routinely installs and supports tyrants who allign with their geopolitical goals. Pol pot, pahlavi, pinochet, marcos, suharto, seko, the banana republics. Nukes didnt enable those guys, the US did
Safety for whomever controls the nukes, whether autocratic (Iran) or democratic (Ukraine).
Russia would not have attacked Ukraine if they still had their nuclear weapons and Iran wouldn’t be under attack now if they had them too.
I’m not saying whether it’s goods or bad that any or specific countries have nuclear weapons, that’s beside the point. The point is that this attack sends the signal that the only way to guarantee your safety is to have them.
Maybe after the civil war, certainly not during it. If I had to pick where to live, I'd pick North Korea over Ukraine right now because it's a lot easier to live in a dictatorship than an active war zone. (This isn't me saying I want to live in NK, I don't).
But I'd also point out that a lot of what makes it really suck to live in the worst places in the world isn't often the government but rather the international relationships. Turkey has a particularly brutal government, but it's Nato and EU ally status means that the civilians enjoy modern trade and travel.
The worst times to be in NK was the 90s when there was an ongoing famine and the US refused to lift sanctions thinking it'd spark a civil war that overthrew the regime. It didn't.
>I'd pick North Korea over Ukraine right now because it's a lot easier to live in a dictatorship than an active war zone
You can live a perfectly normal life in Kiev. It’s not exactly an active war zone, you see luxury cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on every corner. You can buy bottles of Petrus in 24 hour supermarkets and eat decent food at countless fancy restaurants.
Goodwine in Kiev will also put US luxury grocers to shame. Ukraine might be at war, but the quality of life is hardly bad.
> I'd pick North Korea over Ukraine right now because it's a lot easier to live in a dictatorship than an active war zone
To each their own. I wouldn't. In part because once you're in North Korea, you're not getting out. That isn't the case for Ukraine, Syria or any of the other war-torn countries.
It'd depend on my status. There are a lot of people who can't just get out of Ukraine or Syria. The average citizen in Syria had no means to just flee. I'd assume in my above scenario that I'm one of the masses that can't escape.
NK does actually allow people to leave, mostly to china and mostly after they attain a high social class. A decent number of tourists, including US citizens, go on tours of NK.
You're making the mistake of correlating these proxy wars with any later improvements in these countries' living conditions. War is always detrimental to quality of life.
> You're making the mistake of correlating these proxy wars with any later improvements in these countries' living conditions
...nobody argued the proxy wars were good for those countries. Just that if you're turned into a random local in one of those theatres, chances are you're better off a decade or two later than if you're turned into a random North Korean.
> If you had to live in gaza or north korea right now, which would you choose?
Me as me? Gaza. Because I'd get out. That's a bullshit answer, though, so I'll answer as a local. And there, it's honestly a coin toss because Gaza is possibly the shittiest war zone outside Africa right now. But if you said North Korea or Syria during its civil war? North Korea or Myanmar? I'm going with not Pyongyang.
The only one where I'd honestly choose North Korea hands down is Sudan, because that's the one nobody really gives a shit about which means it's going to go on forever.
> How would you get out? It’s impossible. Every exit is shut.
Of course it isn't, it's entirely porous to the IDF. I'm an American citizen. If I were teleported to Gaza I'd probably be fine. At material risk of being fucked up. But I'd take my chances there over being an American teleported to North Korea.
Any attempt to walk towards a controlled point or border will get you shot inside 2-3km. Your passport will be removed from your body before it is destroyed. You were never there.
Sure. And yes, it's risky. But there are two million people in Gaza and half a dozen to a dozen, on average, being killed each day. If I, literally I, were teleported into Gaza, my primary operational concern would be avoiding Hamas. (My primary operational goal, getting to an internet-connected device.)
War isn't glamorous. It's mechanized death and torture destroying communities, families, and loved ones. And when it's powered by foreign governments, it's worse. Because the two colliding sides are armed to the gills with the best weapons in murder along with mercenaries and no oversight.
Living in a dictatorship is hard but doable, There are literally generations of people that have survived and thrived in that sort of an environment. It's not preferable, for sure, but you still have your family, friends, and neighbors. None of them are trying to actively kill you. So long as you follow the rules, life in a dictatorship is generally predicable and the odds of the state making you specifically an example are low.
The only people who thrive in a dictatorship are its enforcers. And by the way a dictatorship needs quite a lot of them. That's how, decades after its fall, you get voices saying it wasn't all that bad, there were some nice things actually, or we should do it again.
And also your neighbors absolutely will sell you out.
I agree. A foreign powered civil war is worse than that.
Thriving in a dictatorship, even not as an enforcer, is possible. It's a worse life in general but still a life you can live.
Generally speaking, the only life that truly sucks in a dictatorship is if you become an enemy of the state. That doesn't generally apply to all citizens because, if it did, a dicatorship would quickly end in revolt. That is the theory behind strong sanctions. It's believed that if you starve a nation eventually the citizens revolt. The problem is it takes little resources to keep people happy, ultimately.
So if a dictatorship decides to invade a neighboring democratic country, the people there should not fight and let them take over, because war is worse than dictatorship, right?
A authoritarian regime starting wars isn't one I want to live in either. That's why I don't want to live in Israel.
Iran has had civil unrest over the last year, they weren't in the position politically to be doing much of anything to the "democracy" of Israel.
The entire reason for the US Israel attack on Iran is because of that civil unrest, not because Iran was a threat, but because both nations see an opportunity to install a puppet government that does their bidding.
What remains to be seen is if Russia sees a similar opportunity and we end up with another Syria.
Sorry if my answer seemed evasive. I was reading into your question something not stated
> the people there should not fight and let them take over, because war is worse than dictatorship, right?
No, I think the people should fight back, obviously. A country being actively invaded has a right to fight back. The war isn't their choosing and laying down arms is a mistake because captured civilians are rarely treated well after a war.
I'm specifically talking about an established dictatorship vs war. Specifically, as I said, a civil war which is a proxy war for foreign agents. Starting a war to end a dictatorship is bad. A dictatorship starting a war is bad. However, a dictatorship not starting wars is ultimately a better place to live vs anywhere under and active civil war.
The fact that NK possess nuclear weapons strongly discourages external players from attacking it. It does not in any way change the tools NK has at its disposal domestically.
If you're trying to say that had NK not had nukes we would bomb it for 'humanitarian purposes' or 'on behalf of its people' then I have a couple of bridges for sale.
> If you're trying to say that had NK not had nukes we would bomb it for 'humanitarian purposes' or 'on behalf of its people' then I have a couple of bridges for sale.
You think the US would just leave them alone as a communist, sovereign country without nukes, bordering china???
Theyve had the bomb for a while and south korea still exists and is thriving. I have seen alot of batshit insane talk from them, but no real negative consequences for any other country. So it hasnt really been a negative for anyone. I dont think theyll use it first either because they know theyll be glassed if they do
Now if they didnt have the bomb, i dont think they would have lasted this long. I think the US would have gone and "democratized" them to smithereens a while ago.
Nuclear weapons have a very brief transition from “everything is fine and nothing bad has happened” to “we’re completely fucked.” The fact that nothing has happened yet isn’t very reassuring to me with all the ways things can go wrong. The threat of retaliation certainly puts a damper on a first strike, but there’s always the possibility of a mistake, someone feeling backed into a corner, or not believing the consequences, or just going a little crazy. The more countries that have them, the more likely this becomes.
Usually an invasion entails an intent to capture territory and occupy. A suicide terror attack is qualitatively different even if it’s large-scale. The boots on the ground could just as well have been rockets, whereas an invasion needs a longer term presence.
The last time Israel faced an existential threat from its neighbors was 1973. The timeline isn’t entirely clear, but that’s right around the time when they started to have operational nuclear weapons. Many factors contributed to their relative safety since then, but the timing certainly works out for nuclear weapons helping to make that true.
"In the world of strategic studies, there has been a return to ‘theories of [nuclear] victory’. Their proponents draw on the work of past scholars such as Henry Kissinger, who wondered in his 1957 book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy if extending the American deterrent to all of Europe at a time when the threat of total destruction hung over the US itself would actually work: ‘A reliance on all-out war as the chief deterrent saps our system of alliances in two ways: either our allies feel that any military effort on their part is unnecessary or they may be led to the conviction that peace is preferable to war even on terms almost akin to surrender ... As the implication of all-out war with modern weapons become better understood ... it is not reasonable to assume that the United Kingdom, and even more the United States, would be prepared to commit suicide in order to defend a particular area ... whatever its importance, to an enemy’.
One of the recommended solutions was to bring tactical nuclear weapons back into the dialectic of deterrence extended to allied territories, so as to give US decision makers a range of options between Armageddon and defeat without a war. Global deterrence was ‘restored’ by creating additional rungs on the ladder of escalation, which were supposed to enable a sub-apocalyptic deterrence dialogue — before one major adversary or the other felt its key interests were threatened and resorted to extreme measures. Many theorists in the 1970s took this logic further, in particular Colin Gray in a 1979 article, now back in fashion, titled ‘Nuclear Strategy: the case for a theory of victory’.
...
In 2018 Admiral Pierre Vandier, now chief of staff of the French navy, offered a precise definition of this shift to the new strategic era, which has begun with Russia’s invasion: ‘A number of indicators suggest that we are entering a new era, a Third Nuclear Age, following the first, defined by mutual deterrence between the two superpowers, and the second, which raised hopes of a total and definitive elimination of nuclear weapons after the cold war’" [1].
I think the chances we see a tactial nuclear exchange in our lifetimes has gone from distant to almost certain.
Now that the last generation with direct experience of the Nazis is leaving us, it seems like the populace is forgetting the horrors of that time. That also happens to be the last generation with direct experience of nuclear weapons used in war.
1. According to the US and Israel, Iran has been a week away from having nuclear weapons for at least 34 years [1];
2. It's quite clear Iran could've developed nuclear weapons but chose not to. I actually think was a mistake. The real lesson from the so-called War on Terror was that only nuclear weapons will preserve your regime (ie Norht Korea);
3. Israel is a nuclear power. It's widely believed that Israel first obtained weapons grade Uranium by stealing it from the US in the 1960s [2];
4. In a just world, people would hang for what we did to Iran in 1953, 1978-79, the Iran-Iraq War and sanctions (which are a sanitized way of saying "we're starving you"); and
5. The current round of demands include Iran dismantling its ballistic missile program. This is because the 12 day war was a strategic and military disaster for the US and Israel.
Israel has a multi-layered missile defence shield. People usually talk about Iron Dome but that's just for shooting down small rockets. Separate layers exist for long-range and ballistic missiles (eg David's Sling, Arrow-2, Arrow-3). In recent times the US has complemented these with the ship-borne THAAD system.
Even with all this protection, Iran responded to the unprovoked attacks of the 12-day war by sending just enough ballistic missiles to overwhelm the defences, basically saying "if we have to, we can hit Israel".
Many suspect that the real reason the US negotiated an end to the 12 day war was because both Israel and the US were running cirtically low on the munitions for THAAD and Israel's missile defence shield. You can't just quickly make more either. Reportedly that will take over a year to get replacements.
Thing is, pretty much all of this missile defence technology is about to become obsolete once hypersonic missiles become more widespread, which is going to happen pretty soon. I suspect that's a big part of why the US and Israel are now trying so desperately to topple the regime and turn Iran into a fail-state like Somalia or Yemen.
I'm not normally one to encourage nuclear proliferation but when it's the only thing the US will listen to, what choice do countries have?
Yes, because "what choice did Iran have" other than:
1. Routinely calling for death to Israel and America, turning it into part of the national curriculum and sowing hate
2. Funding, training, supplying and directing multiple violent proxy organizations around the region which attacked Israel and undermined their own countries (Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in West Bank and Gaza, other organizations in Iraq)
3. Enriching Uranium to clearly non-civilian grade in multiple militarily hardened facilities;
4. Directly attacking multiple Jewish targets around the world (like the AMIA and then embassy bombings in Argentina)
5. Attacking neighboring countries with ballistic and cruise missiles, like the attacks on Saudi Aramco in 2019
6. Holding international shipping and energy markets hostage by threatening to attack ships and tankers in the Persian Gulf
7. Abusing their own citizens, including public executions, persecutions and extreme violence
8. Providing support to Russia in their efforts in Ukraine, and especially drones used for indiscriminate dumb attack waves against civilians and infrastructure
Now we have people arguing that if they had just gotten nukes then they could have continued doing all of that.
Probably in all of it. Iran wouldn't have a MAD arsenal, they'd have a small handful that they could pop on a ballistic. We know we can shoot down Iran's missiles. And we know they can't reach America. I'm entirely unconvinced that we wouldn't have launched an attack on Iran even if they had nuclear weapons, because we think we can intercept them, and if we can't, they aren't hitting the homeland.
And on the off chance this defense doesn’t work? No system is perfect. Put another way, would the risk calculation for an attack on Iran be as easy as it is right now?
The point of having nuclear capabilities is to make the risk calculation more difficult. It doesn’t mean you need to have state of the art capabilities.
Assuming I get your point, I would nevertheless say I think most White House admins would care: would not one of those someones in the Middle East who gets hit perhaps include Israel?
I have no idea what strategic value the nation of Israel has for the nation of the USA, but there is clearly strong cultural and political relevant of the former to the latter.
The difference between shooting down a conventionally armed missile and shooting down a nuclear armed missile is that the former will explode in the air or not at all, whereas the latter is quite likely to still be able to detonate when it hits the ground.
There is a hardline element in the IRGC that personally profits from autarky. If the Iranian markets opened to the world, it would decimate their incomes.
> Thing is, pretty much all of this missile defence technology is about to become obsolete once hypersonic missiles become more widespread, which is going to happen pretty soon.
I think you'll have to be more specific.
Or I guess to compare with your other observation: """Even with all this protection, Iran [sent] enough ballistic missiles to overwhelm the defences""" -- It's not a binary of "have missile defense or not => every missile will be shot down". An amount of missile defense will make it harder for missiles to successfully hit a target.
Similarly with hypersonic missiles, it's not the binary of "I have a missile that's difficult to defend against, I win".
Having a sword which can defeat a shield isn't in itself sufficient to obsolete the shield. (Infantry can be killed with bullets, yet infantry remain an important part of fighting despite that).
> Considering the rationale for this war that kind of seems false
The spring to a nuke is riskier than ever. That doesn't change that nuclear sovereignty is a tier above the regular kind, this is something every one of the global powers (China, Russia and America) and most regional powers (Israel) have explicilty endorsed.
This is an incredibly facile take on the situation. Iran has been a destabilizing regional power with imperial aims for 47 odd years. They even murdered the PM of Lebanon via their proxy army. They’ve been poking the bear for decades, and there are serval occasions where it may have happened sooner in an alternative universe. Had McCain become president in ‘08 we may well have seen a land invasion from US positions in Iraq, as the Iranian Quds force was already fighting US soldiers in Iraq. The whole DoD is now full of Iraq veterans who hate the Iranian government to their bones. It’s shocking this didn’t happen sooner, and probably only didn’t because of luck.
More than taking control of Iranian petrol, this is probably more an attempt at cutting off China access to it (and also generally eliminating one of their allies), same as for the Venezuelan invasion.
I used to believe that, I think there are also some very ambitious people nearby who want to use US armed forces for their benefit - as any rational player who has influence over such power would attempt.
This is part of why we help defend Israel, to constrain wars to conventional means.
In the first Gulf War, we placed the Patriot batteries around Israel, as they said that if an Iraqi biological or chemical SCUD attack hit Tel Aviv, they would vitrify Baghdad.
Having nukes doesn't prevent _anyone_ from attacking you, but it does constrain those attacks to conventional means. And what if you pulled off a decapitation attack against Tel Aviv? Well their fleet of nuclear capable subs would make you pay.
Thanks for pointing this out. I hear people say this over and over, if Iran only had nukes it would be safe to continue propagating terrorism as it has been doing. It’s obviously wrong, as you point out. Russia has nukes. India has nukes. Having nuclear weapons doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want, if anything it brings a higher level of scrutiny. A nuclear Iran would be a serious problem for many and that’s why it’s so critical to make sure that doesn’t happen, not just for Israel but the entire planet.
There's only one country that has repeatedly attacked its neighbors and has decided to occupy and seize land from two of them while actively calling for and carrying out strikes in many others all in the last two years.
Iran effectively controlled Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq through its proxies and puppet regimes. Right, it didn't annex territory, but it complete subjugated these countries and their population to their goals.
Nothing racist or exaggerated in Hizbollah in Lebanon having far more military power than the country itself, and taking orders directly from the Iranians, dragging Lebanon into a war it never asked for.
My totally unsubstantiated conspiracy theory is that several of those are sitting in shipping containers in the US and Europe, and that is part of the reason that their interests drive all western foreign policy, despite their open hostility to their 'allies'.
How does that factor in here right now? We haven't used or threatened to use nukes, and at least the public case made is in part that Iran is trying to get nukes and shouldn't.
I say "public case" specifically here, I don't buy that justification but it is still the one being used.
It likely wouldn't be kinetic, but nukes didn't stop us from chipping away at the Soviet Union.
I could be wrong, but I don't buy the public story that this is about regime change. You don't topple a government with air superiority alone, and you don't do it in a matter of days. I also don't expect the US would be okay letting the Iranian people pick who comes next. We have a history of installing puppets and that similarly doesn't happen only via bombing runs.
> If Iran had deployable nukes, would they get invaded?
Honestly, maybe? Like if we had high confidence we knew where they were, and Israel consented to the attack, I could absolutely see the U.S. trying to take it out in storage.
If Iran had a nuke that could hit the U.S., I'd say no. But that's a stretch from "deployable nukes."
> Name a country that got bombed to credibly destroy the government, and had nukes
> if we had high confidence we knew where they were
That's a very big gamble. They only need to have hide one on a cargo ship and the attacker is going to have a Very Bad Day.
Nobody's made that gamble yet. Yes, there's been kinetics between India and Pakistan, and Iran sending missiles at Israel, but not a credible threat to the state.
> Pedantically, Ukraine.
Not sure when you mean. Did they get bombed while they had physical control in the early 90s? They never had operational control, but now that they're being bombed they don't have even physical control of nukes.
Okay, I can understand investment from SoftBank, and maybe somewhat from Amazon (if they plan to use OpenAI's models), but investment from NVidia who will then sell OpenAI the GPUs with X% markup doesn't make sense to me.
5000 stars. That's an interesting threshold.
I've checked and astropy -- the main python module used by pretty much every python user in astrophysics has 5100 stars. I would guess almost no open source code in science would pass the threshold.
EDIT: Just another test, one of the most used codes in astro -- an ensemble Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo sampler https://github.com/dfm/emcee has 1600 stars.
It just shows the 5000 stars is a bit PR, rather than a serious attempt to help open source.
Yeah, I was going to come here to say this. Apart from a) stars are a dubious metric b) 5000 stars is an insanely high bar, there is the issue that there are definitely lots of projects that choose not to partake in GitHub at this point.
That said, they do have a "contact us" line in there which implies some flexibility.
You can easily buy stars in bulk, like you can buy social media “likes” so they are kind of measuring the wrong thing and incentivizing the wrong behaviors.
I don't even star the vast majority of packages I use... I usually only star repos I don't use but find interesting and may want to refer back to in the future.
And completely excludes projects not hosted on Microsoft's GitHub or NPM (Though they do say you can contact them if you don't meet their insane criteria).
If you take investments, your investors will most likely own shares of the company (except in specific early-stage scenarios like YC's SAFE). Sometimes major investors will have board seats or voting shares. This happens in normal private companies, not just public ones.
Still has private investors it can't ignore, until it can buy them out, but it can't do that until it starts turning over a profit. Even then it may not be able to get rid of them if they own enough of a share.
The manage to find the money to sponsor an F1 team, so I don't think the money is the issue.
Also, if they'd increase things by 5%, or did yearly 2% increases or something like that, I'd be okay with that (to cover the inflation). But the 33% increase combined with the list of features I don't care about -- that's just taking users for granted. Thankfully I didn't start using passkeys, otherwise I'd be locked within 1p without ability to export them.
> Also, if they'd increase things by 5%, or did yearly 2% increases or something like that, I'd be okay with that (to cover the inflation). But the 33% increase combined with the list of features I don't care about -- that's just taking users for granted
The price has been unchanged at least as far back as mid 2018. According to the inflation calculator at bls.gov [1] inflation over those 8 years was 31%.
I think 20/yr is low enough and much cheaper than 1p anyway, so it seems fine to me. I have already cancelled my yearly 1p password subscription and will use the next couple of months to get familiar with bitwarden before the full switch.
I don't really want to deal with hosting, TBH. I was pretty happy to pay to 1password, but I don't want to be exploited... So I am fine to pay to bitwarden.
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