Israel / Iran thread
Seems like this conflict is not going to end anytime soon and is worthy of its own thread.
they have been far better than the major European liberal endeavors in terms of human suffering and advancement.
I wouldn't go that far. I think most Americans were always doing better than most Soviets. But our bottom quintile probably would have had a better life over there than here. With STEM, equal in heights but we win in breadth, especially with applied tech. Then when we get into areas like figuring out what people want/need, making and delivering it to them... they never attained competitiveness. But that was largely due to their isolationism.
I don't know how far back you go to when things started falling apart but supposing Khrushchev stayed in power, significantly cut the imperialism and basically just opened the country up scientifically and commercially to the rest of the world -- I still don't think they would be doing as well as the US in an economic sense, maybe 90% of our GDP per capita. But their social services, healthcare, etc. I'd expect to be ahead of ours. So about the same as us, not some great utopia some make it out as.
I don’t think this level of analysis is being fair. In most of the world there is a lot more at stake than personal humiliation for not projecting strength adequately and letting slights go unanswered. In fact, WEIRD societies where projection of strength and not answering slights to honor is not important are the rarity. Even in WEiRD societies outside of upper middle cla
For almost the entire history of hom o sapiens protecting the reputation for a leading male was tantamount to protecting his own life in a very literal sense: failing to do so meant being assassinated by a replacement that was willing to defend his reputation.
Honor code (in the sense of honor = reputation as a leading man not honor = acting honorably) behavior is genetically wired to the point we see recurring patterns from hunter gathering tribes and the mafia to the Vikings.
And even people who sublimated this a little still live or die according to these principles when they reach actual power.
For almost the entire history of hom o sapiens protecting the reputation for a leading male was tantamount to protecting his own life in a very literal sense: failing to do so meant being assassinated by a replacement that was willing to defend his reputation.Honor code (in the sense of honor = reputation as a leading man not honor = acting honorably) behavior is genetically wi
do you have empirical data to back that up because my intuition is that this is more likely the higher complexity the society is, which sort of contradicts the notion that at biological equilibrium this is the case
ceasefire agreed. honestly incredible job by trump if it holds
I don’t think this level of analysis is being fair. In most of the world there is a lot more at stake than personal humiliation for not projecting strength adequately and letting slights go unanswered. In fact, WEIRD societies where projection of strength and not answering slights to honor is not important are the rarity. Even in WEiRD societies outside of upper middle cla
You are missing the point. There may be valid strategic reasons for projecting strength. But the decisions should be made for strategic reasons, not personal reasons.
I probably am just focusing on sloppy writing in news reporting.
do you have empirical data to back that up because my intuition is that this is more likely the higher complexity the society is, which sort of contradicts the notion that at biological equilibrium this is the case
It's actually more common in less refined societies.
Here they find a very strong correlation of honor culture with herding
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w...
Here they try to quantify how much an honor culture is THE determinant for conflict
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10...
Here they find that weak institutions and resource scarcity make a stronger honor culture rationally justified
https://www.researchgate.net/publication...
But my take is even more general, given it comes up in various moments in time and geography, it must be genetically driven.
Let me rephrase to clarify: a pulsion toward some significant extent of honor culture existing in every society must be genetical given how widespread it was in time and geography.
And as a corollary an outright criticism of honor culture always playing a significant role in any decision making process of any man with real power (see Rococo) is a denial of basic human biology
12 hour ceasefire? Lol
Good chance Netanyahu never actually agreed to this, but Trump is basically forcing him too now. And trump is giving him one more night to degrade the IRGC.
I am sure Netanyahu would prefer to keep degrading the IRGC military capabilities as much as possible while they are so vulnerable. They will probably never get a better opportunity to do this.
As far as “how good a job” this was, it depends on how the IRGC decides to act moving forward.
If they give up on their ambitions for dominating the Arab world and destroying Israel, this is probably an ok outcome, even if they develop nuclear bombs. They can just be another North Korea and terrorize their own people but leave the rest of the world alone.
But given they are motivated in large part by supernatural beliefs, who know what they will do.
They moved 400kg of uranium and other shiit out of the area due to Trump yapping about impending strikes, so he kind of screwed the pooch and they're probably going to convince him to level Iran.
US public position is that the iranians are lying about moving stuff
who knows. suspect the israelis would've blown the **** out of any trucks within 100 miles of fordo facility tho
You are missing the point. There may be valid strategic reasons for projecting strength. But the decisions should be made for strategic reasons, not personal reasons.
I probably am just focusing on sloppy writing in news reporting.
I am sure most leaders, especially dictators, rationalize their personal interests are also what is best for the cause, making this distinction very muddy at best.
I doubt Khameini believes there is any scenario where him appearing weak is what is best for Iran.
For almost the entire history of hom o sapiens protecting the reputation for a leading male was tantamount to protecting his own life in a very literal sense: failing to do so meant being assassinated by a replacement that was willing to defend his reputation.Honor code (in the sense of honor = reputation as a leading man not honor = acting honorably) behavior is genetically wi
I think it goes a lot deeper than reputation. Survival was really tough back in our hunter gathering days. At times and circumstances only adult males were capable of self-sufficiency. Everyone else needed them to live. So the fear wasn't only reprisal it was survival if something happened to them. And sometimes the environment was really brutal. There were times in our distant past when there were 10 females to every 1 male. That wasn't from hunting or fighting deaths, that was the birth ratio :shocked:
I am sure most leaders, especially dictators, rationalize their personal interests are also what is best for the cause, making this distinction very muddy at best.
I doubt Khameini believes there is any scenario where him appearing weak is what is best for Iran.
then you have people like macron who are mocked worldwide because even if the country they represent could project some strength if it tried hard enough, he projects such puny, redicolous personal strength that no actual leader can ever feel like a peer to him.
the personal is very relevant in relationships at the strategic level. low beta energy doesn't help
It's actually more common in less refined societies.Here they find a very strong correlation of honor culture with herdinghttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w...Here they try to quantify how much an honor cu
Herding societies are not necessarily considered low on the complexity scale. Also, isn’t that empirical data showing that nomadic tribal societies like vikings, Jews, gypsies, etc tend towards honor culture rather than just “simple” societies writ large?
They agreed? So Iran stops for 12 hours first, then Israel and then its declared game over.
They haven't yet said they've agreed, but it may be difficult to back out now. Both sides have depleted munition stocks. Iran's UNSC backers Russia and China want a ceasefire. Israel's UNSC backer the US now wants a ceasefire. Iran will have noted Saudi anger at the Qatar strike. Looks like time to stop.
They agreed? So Iran stops for 12 hours first, then Israel and then its declared game over.
To paraphrase Refaat , the English teacher that Israel murdered in a targeted assassination, ceasefire means one side ceases and Israel fires.
I try to avoid opening on what the righteous opposition should do, but agreeing to a ceasefire with Israel seems like a really bad idea unless you want to get thousands of people killed with no ability to retaliate.
Big oil price drop hours ago…..
I guess some people had prescient view about the conflict hours in advance ,
There is also a real chance this is just trump “negotiating” and neither side has actually agreed to anything.
Sort of like when Hamas kept announcing they were agreeing to various plans. And when the smoke cleared you realize they just changed all the wording so that it was just agreeing to their own plan no one else agreed to.
There is also a real chance this is just trump “negotiating” and neither side has actually agreed to anything.
Sort of like when Hamas kept announcing they were agreeing to various plans. And when the smoke cleared you realize they just changed all the wording so that it was just agreeing to their own plan no one else agreed to.
could be.
senior iran officials may be lying too.
all smoke and mirrors
as usual, Dun is wrong. Hamas routinely agreed to US proposals that were then rejected by Israel. it was all a charade anyway bc the whole point of Israel as a country is to murder indigenous people so they were never going to agree to stop doing what they believe G-d told them to do.
in this case, who knows, but it sounds like Israel doesnt want the smoke from rockets every night and would like to go back to blowing up families, sniping starving people seeking aid, and burning toddlers alive.
Victor should convert to Judaism so that he can avoid charges of antisemitism. 200IQ move.
