Before the cost of flying very heavy shit and dealing with all the problems of operating that shit in space goes to zero, the cost of doing it terrestrially will go to zero. The idea that shooting any amount of payload into space could some how be more economical than just not doing that is completely bonkers and laughable.
It's like people completely forgot that there was 15+ years of connectivity infrastructure build out on earth before Musk did his shittier space version, not the other way around.
> The fact that they alienated Qatar last week is truly mindboggling though
I mean Qatar did just give a really expensive plane to the guy who unilaterally assassinated the Iranian supreme leader and is bombing their country to smithereens.
First, your argument makes Iran a valid target because Iran has been directly supplying weaponry for Russia to use against Ukraine. If Iran is justified to strike Qatar for supporting the US via basing and financing, then the US is justified in striking Iran as they are supporting Russia against Ukraine with financing and armaments.
Secondly, Iran had very few allies in the region, and Qatar was their last major one who could act as a good faith interlocutor.
Now Iran has to negotiate with the US via Pakistan, whose leadership has been setting the US's Iran policy [0][1][2] in favor of an armed approach following the short Pakistan-Iran War in 2024 [3].
We can keep perpetually striking Iran. It doesn't matter to us and midterms be damned. But Iran has lost their last contact with whom they could negotiate an offramp, and will have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and at least decade to rebuild.
The maximalist approach (which was always stupid) won't occur, but the realistic win (ie. a deindustrialized Iran that cannot threaten a nuclear program for at least a decade) is successful. I even mentioned this would be the end result before this happened [4].
Qatar was the last major Gulf State that was pushing against this approach, but they have now silently aligned with Israel, Saudi, and the UAE.
And as I've mentioned before, HNers heavily overestimate the influence and power civilian leadership such as a President let alone their cabinet members and other Senate confirmed members have on actual policymaking. In action (and even in this administration) policy is managed upwards.
Well now he'll be remembered for associating with pedophiles, infidelity, and walking back things he allegedly stood for, like climate change, as soon as they become inconvenient or he stops caring or whatever.
How so, will Iran be less likely to send rockets and drones at their enemies? Or will they ramp up as soon as they are able? They might be okay with it taking days, weeks, months or even years to rebuild and redeploy their munitions. Has the oppressive regime changed over, or are they more angry than ever for yet another violation of their sovereignty? Iran contains one of the longest running civilizations on earth, you seem to be assuming a lot after ~3 weeks, especially since the U.S. and Israeli sides are dishonest in their proclamations of accomplishment.
Thinking about it from a first principles pov, the regime lost many of its key people, officers, and a lot of infrastructure and resources.
This 100% had some effect on its ability to function. The question is what effect.
Since it is a religious ideological movement, it has very strong cohesion, so its not going to break apart, demoralize or change its core principles.
It will also maintain the support of the highly religious Shias, however,while millions, they are a minority in Iran.
What its probably going to lose is its logistical capabilities, and its ability to exercise power and to make decisions in the periphery.
So it might still hold Tehran and places where it is strong, but Iran is a huge country, with an enormous population and mountainous geography. Places farther from the center might slip out of the regime's control. And it will need to work much harder to maintain the same level of control that it had before the war in Tehran and large cities.
This means that when the dust settles it will be either challenged by oppositional forces, or be forced to make concessions to gain back authority.
If it will try to massacre itself back to power, there will be a civil war.
Israel has a (recent) history of bombing hospitals, and committing warcrimes and I believe they are also engaged with Iran. This attack on Iran is wrong from both parties and all targets are unacceptable, but do you have any articles or evidence that the U.S. damaged these hospitals?
> At least 13 hospitals and other health facilities have been hit during the US-Israel attacks on Iran, global health chiefs have said.The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was checking reports that four medics had been killed and 25 others injured.
> The Iranian Red Crescent chief said that at least 3,090 homes, 528 commercial centres, 13 medical facilities and nine Red Crescent centres have been hit in Israeli-US strikes. Officials reported damage to major medical facilities, including Khatam Hospital, Gandhi Hospital, and various rehabilitation and welfare centres.
> Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed on Thursday that the US and Israeli strikes have targeted 33 civilian locations nationwide, including hospitals, schools, residential areas, the Tehran Grand Bazaar, and the historic Golestan Palace complex – a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
That show is 100% fiction, bullshit and propaganda, nothing in it should be believed or taken at face value. The examples, stats or stories Billy-Bob tells are contrived, false or otherwise misleading. It is entertainment, a soap opera for adult men.
People are saying this now because Benjamin Netanyahu has vocally and persistently been trying to get into a full scale war with Iran for 40 years. The Trump Administration is the first administration corrupt, gullible, dumb enough to agree and commit. All other U.S. Admins have primarily postured or done limited retaliation based engagements with Iran or engaged in soft power activities and got comprehensive deals.
I think you are misunderstanding the situation "The majority of Christians are not in an end times death cult" sure maybe, but the majority of people in the "end times death cult" would loudly and proudly proclaim they are christians and represent christians. It is a failing of "real christians" to not reject and excise this.
'If <religion x> isn't awful then why aren't more of <religion x> followers in my timeline calling out <someone else>'s actions? Those people of that religion are complicit because they don't vocally enough denounce <someone else/trait I assigned them> in the way I require therefor they and <religion x> too are responsible for <random thing/person/trait I assigned>'
isn't really the 'I'm not bigoted on this' reply you might think it is. It's more just the bog standard 'this is why I am bigoted against X group' justification of bigotry.
Would it surprise you to learn I am a christian, have been my entire life? Maybe not the kind of "christian" you are/are think of though...which I guess was my point entirely. I'm more of a "respect and love thy neighbor kind of guy", than a "we should love our new christ Donald Trump, and go to war on everyone else" kind
OK. I'm not really christian (but grew up catholic) but know a lot and they are all like you. All hate Trump. All seem to hate war (but they do do fundraisers for Ukraine so I don't know if that is supporting war, it's not to me). And all work hard supporting our poor rural community. There's trump christians here too, but they don't define the religion or mean you can make blanket christian belief claims.
Condemning a religious group based on a few is bigotry. We criticize it when it happens to Muslims, but seem to support it for Christians. Demanding a group denounce other peoples actions or a trait you define to be 'inherent to them' is classic bigotry. Saying a religious group is your political enemy has never led to anything good in history. 'I think trump supporting evangelics who want to bring about armageden blah blah' could be a valid point but 'Christians are a doomsday death cult' isn't.
Fuck it you guys are right, let's endorse bigotry against religions/groups. That should work out great.
Evangelicals aren't all Christians and 80% isn't all. But fuck it, assigning traits we don't like to all members of a community? That is 100% cool for Hacker News discussions. Trash take from all of you. But I'm glad you went hard so it can't be denied.
Hacker News has a blatant bigotry problem against Christians.
> None of this is what people voted for, and is almost directly the opposite. That isn’t a new thing, of course, but this seems like a pretty huge turnaround from what the campaign was about.
Citation needed. I think there is demonstrable evidence that this is exactly what people voted for and they will continue voting and behaving exactly as they have been for the foreseeable future.
Around ~30-40% of the U.S. population is basically subject to the whims of of the other 60-70% who are either A. Cult members B. Completely apathetic or C. Stupid/Insane and openly hostile to any techniques that could be used to bring them around.
It's seemingly impossible to get off this progression, and no the apathetic people being shocked into making an opposition based choice every ~4 years before they go back to fucking off is not going to pull us out.
Before the cost of flying very heavy shit and dealing with all the problems of operating that shit in space goes to zero, the cost of doing it terrestrially will go to zero. The idea that shooting any amount of payload into space could some how be more economical than just not doing that is completely bonkers and laughable.
It's like people completely forgot that there was 15+ years of connectivity infrastructure build out on earth before Musk did his shittier space version, not the other way around.
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