First of all, knowing well that the US has been looking for excuses to attack Iran for the past, I don't know, twenty years at least, I am extremely suspicious of information about the numbers of these massacres. I know perfectly well that a media campaign filled with horrific reports is going to precede an attack by the US to either reduce the country in ruins or to a puppet state. I am also quite suspicious that these protests might be somehow encouraged by the US precisely for the same purpose. I mean, if Russian propaganda can influence foreign countries, I can't put a limit to what USA's power in the IT and social media space can do.
Besides this, of course when atrocities are perpetrated by an ally with whom you entertain friendly diplomatic, commercial and military relationships, it makes a lot of sense to protest: you have some leverage. When they are committed by an enemy country with which you have already severed any relationship, protests are pointless.
Because Iran claims foreign-backed terrorists were behind all the murder and destruction - backed by Israel, the US and UK.
Mossad has openly said they have people in Iran, and Israeli media has said they've sent weapons to the "protestors" in Iran. Senior figures in the US government have alluded to the same.
Many videos have been published by Iranians online, which certainly do not show "peaceful protestors" - they show gangs of masked men beating random civilians to death, fire-bombing buses and ambulance; they show leaders dishing out weapons and satellite comms devices, and trained men using assault rifles to attack civilians and the police.
We've also seem video of over a million Iranians marching in Tehran in support of the government, and in protest of the foreign-back terrorists.
And we have the MSM happily parroting any death figures they get, from anyone... even if they are literally from Pahlavi's mate or a CIA "human rights" group based in Langley!
We should all be more sceptical when our media and governments try to gain consent for war, and we should be asking who stands to gain - it's certainly not us, the people.
The Islamic theocracy in charge of Iran is deeply unpopular due to its repression and severe mismanagement of the Iranian economy. It has cut Iran off from the Internet.
"We should all be more sceptical"
This is very ironic coming from someone who actually believes anything the Iranian theocracy says. They are even less honest than Trump.
> The Islamic theocracy in charge of Iran is deeply unpopular due to its repression and severe mismanagement of the Iranian economy
Here's a way of saying that in a less propaganda'y way: "The Iranian government is unpopular because of the impact of US sanctions, which have made the lives of ordinary citizens mucher harder than they need to be."
> It has cut Iran off from the Internet
Because foreign-backed terrorists were using Starlink terminals to communicate, and the security services needed to find them, and stop them; at least, that's what Iran claims, and it at least makes sense.
Iran's economic problems include massive resource diversion to IRGC enterprises, funding for foreign militias (Hezbollah, Houthis, Iraqi PMFs), and systemic corruption that predates the harshest sanctions. The Rial was already collapsing under Ahmadinejad's mismanagement. They have refused to invest in modern water distribution infrastructure. Attributing it all to sanctions is the regime's own preferred narrative.
Iran has cut internet access during every major protest 2017, 2019 (where they killed 1,500+ protesters in a week), 2022 after Mahsa Amini. The pattern correlates perfectly with domestic unrest, not with any "terrorist" incidents. The Starlink justification appeared after they'd already established the shutdown. You're taking their post hoc rationalization at face value.
You accused me of propaganda, then in the same breath presented the Iranian government's exact talking points as reasonable alternatives. That's the irony I was pointing out. You're not being skeptical you're being selectively skeptical, which is worse than being credulous because it masquerades as critical thinking.
If you want to argue the US has done bad things in Iran (1953 coup, shooting down IR655, etc.), sure. But "the regime isn't that bad, actually" requires ignoring their own documented behavior.
The Iranian government is unpopular because of the impact of US sanctions, true, but those sanctions did not come out of nowhere. They are largely caused by the actions of the Iranian government. So that government does not get a pass because the pain comes from sanctions. It's still the consequences of their own actions.
The principle we ought to follow is the principle we expected Soviet dissidents to follow.
What principle did we expect Andrei Sakharov [a Soviet scientist punished for his criticism of the U.S.S.R.] to follow? Why did people decide that Sakharov was a moral person?
Sakharov did not treat every atrocity as identical-he had nothing to say about American atrocities. When he was asked about them, he said, "I don't know anything about them, I don't care about them, what I talk about are Soviet atrocities."
And that was right-because those were the ones that he was responsible for, and that he might have been able to influence. Again, it's a very simple ethical point: you are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions, you're not responsible for the predictable consequences of somebody else's actions.
Conversely, how do we view the protests in the USSR against jim crow laws under stalin? They surely existed, but of what consequence were they? None whatsoever.
I want people to be REAL careful about "Israel obviously committed a genocide"
All those people brutally murdered on October 7 don't just disappear. Whatever you think about Israel's response it's kind of amazing the main focus is on the "big bad" of Israel
There were pro-Pally protests on October 8! If not October 7. Before the bodies were cool, so to speak
If you were pro-Palestine it is absolutely your moral duty to not just be silent. There is absolutely no ambiguity here. The Islamic Republic is slaughtering Iranians
Edit: And I don't give a damn if this is "construed as hostile", if you downvote me for this (Already one in the last minute) you do not deserve the 500 karma you have to be able to downvote me. I, in fact, suggest that you delete your account
Whether or not Israel was provoked has nothing to do with whether or not Israel is committing genocide. How many eyes need to be claimed to repay those that were lost? They have gone far beyond the 1:1 ratio everyone is familiar with from the ancient saying.
There’s no magic right to kill n people for n deaths. If 1 person killed a 1000 people, that doesn’t give you the right to kill 1000 people.
If an army of 100,000 attempts to kill as many people as they can but have only managed 1000 so far, you can kill as many as many of them as you need until they stop trying to kill you.
Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park is absolutely stunning (and safe, away from the closed area). It's like being on a different planet. If you haven't been to the Big Island and the park, you should add it to your bucket list.
Decades ago, my wife and I visited the Big Island during a fairly sedate eruption. We drove down Chain of Craters Road, got to see a tiny lava flow (talking like a couple feet of glowing honey), but were wanting more. In the distance, we could see a huge steam column where a lava stream was reaching the sea. We asked one of the ever-attendant Park Rangers if we could walk over there. He said no.
But then he said - we close at 5pm, and there are no gates. OK, we can take a hint.
We drove to Hilo and bought cheap tennis and flashlights, then scurried back down Chain of Craters after 6. As the sky darkened, we walked towards the steam column. The rocks beneath our feet showed incandescent glows deep in the cracks, and we started to smell burned rubber from our cheap tennis. Eventually, we came to the lava outfall.
We watched nearly an hour as a river of molten rock cascaded into the ocean. We used our water bottles on our shoe soles, turning back when we ran dry.
I now understand that we were stupid - apparently the park loses a few tourists to shelf collapse each year - but we lived, and the memory is a treasure. Thank you, Mr. Ranger.
And yes, it's like being on a different planet - like being on our own, maybe 4 billion years ago.
Not stupid. Just experiencing life and sometimes amazing experiences have a chance of danger. You get to choose what risk levels you are okay with. Props to that ranger who agreed with that belief.
Choosing your risk level and working within it isn't stupid. Not knowing the risk when it's easy to gather some more info and then acting in ignorance is, which is what GP was describing, and likely why they called their own actions stupid.
At that time, we had no kids & no pets, nobody directly dependent on us. That figured in our conversation on the drive to Hilo. Nowdays, we might come to a different conclusion, but I'm glad for the path we chose then.
That's completely irrelevant. Rescuers can encourage people to be safe, that's expected. they chose that job , despite it's dangers, because they care about those people being safe.
They know the danger and chose the job. That's the relevant bit.
> The rocks beneath our feet showed incandescent glows deep in the cracks, and we started to smell burned rubber from our cheap tennis.
When I was there, this happened in the area that the rangers guided us to. There was an active flow of pāhoehoe at the time, which we could get as close to as we wanted - the heat was a strong disincentive to doing anything dumb. We were warned at the start that shoes with rubber soles would be ruined, but that warning was too late for me and I had no alternative. It was certainly worth the price of a pair of sneakers though.
Haleakalā is like this as well. Don't just drive up the crater - hike through the thing. It's a ~12 mile hike. It's a remarkable experience because the landscape changes so frequently and dramatically from desert to tropical forest.
The only comp to this is like the transition in Max Max from the desert to the oasis.
Tourists that drive to the crater, take pictures, and drive down have no idea what they're missing.
Highly recommend camping in the crater on a clear night around new moon. Some of the best stars you'll see. Seeing the sun rise in the crater gap (where you can sometimes see the big island) is stunning.
Park in the lower lot, hitchhike to the top (or get someone else to drive you), and then you can hike back up to your car the next day on the switchbacks.
Do not attempt to hike up the sliding sands trail you took down, it's *very rough*.
> Tourists that drive to the crater, take pictures, and drive down have no idea what they're missing.
And for some reason blather on and on loudly up there when the most mind blowing sunsets are happening. Can we not be silent for 15 minutes and look at the universe doing it's thing?
Sadly there was an ongoing eruption when me and my SO visited the Big Island, so the entire park was closed. Was a bit bummed out, on the other hand people lost their homes so keeping it in perspective.
That said, I second visiting the Big Island and visit various sites. Driving less than an hour and going from barren volcanic landscapes to lush rainforests was something else, and watching the sunset from Mauna Kea was magical. And lots of great beaches, and most that weren't next to a resort had very few people.
While the island is big relative to the other Hawaiian islands, its small enough that you can drive around it in a day.
I'd recommend staying on the Kona side, which is the dry and somewhat barren side. The Hilo side has rainforests for a reason.
What struck me about the big island is that it has 8 of the 13 climate zones, and you can go around the perimeter of the island in about 5 hours.
I loved going up Mauna Kea visitor center and stargazing. At ~11,000 feet, it's one of the best places in the world for naked eye stargazing. You're literally above the clouds, the island has strict rules about exterior lights at night to minimize light pollution, and you're above the thickest air. I wasn't expecting to see the Milky Way so easily.
The Big Island has good B&B's in many parts of the island so I recommend staying in multiple places, to see the local sights without a long drive afterwards.
Definitely a place to visit if you can. I traveled there in 1983 just as it was starting to erupt and visited a lot of places that are now under lava rock! In a later visit we were walking out to see one of the "peep holes" where you can see the lava down below and the rocks started getting slippery, except they weren't slippery it was our shoe soles melting, oops.
How would you compare it to Iceland regarding volcanoes and all? Thats what we Europeans have in our backyard and its a properly stunning and otherwordly experience.
having been to VNP watching Kilauea burp lava, as well as to Iceland and watching one of the fissures burp lava near Grindavik - each experience had a lot of similarity, but also each uniquely different.
You could be dropped in either island near the active eruption areas on some roads and if you didn’t have anything other than landscape clues you’d be hard pressed to tell which one you were on. The fresh-ish lava fields (less than 100 years old) look the same, big black rocky expanses of volcanic rock with little or no vegetation. Iceland’s mosses and grass would be a tell, whereas in Hawaii when life starts to take hold it has a much more jungle look to it. But otherwise, the sulfur smells, steam vents in the active areas, etc are very similar.
I have to say the big island of Hawaii and Iceland are two of my most favorite places on the planet, alongside Alaska. All very rural, not over developed, and an immersion in a raw version of the natural world that is largely abstracted away from us where most of us live.
Went there a little over a year ago. The steam vents were active, but no eruptions. The exhibits are wonderful and the birdsong in the evening is amazing.
There are a half dozen or so different species of birds in the lava tube jungle areas. If you ever get a chance to go there just after dusk, you will be amazed. (Yes, the frogs make noises too.)
Excellent news, but also: Let's see the penalties, and let's see the vigorous enforcement. If this doesn't have teeth, it'll be pointless. Let's see a serious fine that puts a scumbag company out of business.
I really don’t like this kind of cynicism. You could use the same argument to say California will never pass a bill to enable universal opt out, which they did.
Assuming part time work (approximately one day every two weeks) at 10% of the yearly ~2000hr worked per year that equates to about $3300 per year, which seems sensible to me.
If by one day, you mean one day and night, since elected officials make all the important decisions at 3 a.m. When you give someone the job of managing billions of dollars of resources and pay them less money per year than their mortgage costs each month, what do you think they're going to do? Be a hero who protects the people from corporations? That's what everyone on this site seems to think politicians do. But the people don't pay them anything. So what makes you think they're looking after you, and not themselves? The only way they can survive is by feeding off the public. Unlike corporations, they do it through force and involuntary exchange.
When I replied to the above comment it said _five_ (not nine as it does now) figure budgets. So I assumed something akin to a person helping a community group, minor league sports team, and definitely not a billion dollar public entity.
And in that case it would certainly require a full time job. And it ought to be well paid.
But, no, I still do not subscribe to your related conspiracy theory. Can you provide any tangible examples?
I copied and pasted that line from a tweet I made a while ago. Why don't you Google "san francisco elected official pay school board" ($6000/year) and "san frascisco school board budget" ($1.2 billion). So they actually manage 10 figures up there and they get paid even less than European e-commerce developers. The President of Y Combinator is a died in the wool conspiracy theorist. He tweets all the time about his belief that they're removing algebra from curriculum. Another one of my favorite conspiracy theories is that the SF school board secretly does arms trafficking. You should google it. But at least they're better than european politicians, who are putting larvae in your food supply and want to spy on literally everyone with chat control.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding but even if each business can only ask you once a year, couldn't that still result in most individual sites implementing a nag?
I noticed that too. The cynical part of me observed it's a Sinclair-owned news station, and I can't help wondering if they made it unavailable because it doesn't support the position of their corporate owner.
If you want to be part owner of agricultural land, I couldn't recommend AcreTrader more. I've been investing with them for a few years now and the overall experience has been great. Too early to discuss profits yet as most investments are on a 5-10 year horizon.
It baffles the mind that people decry the death of a dog while munching a burger. Cows (or chickens, for that matter) are not less precious than dogs, and yet the vast majority of us eat as much and as many of them as they can afford.
> Cows (or chickens, for that matter) are not less precious than dogs
You can feel that way, and that's fine, but people are allowed to decide what they do or don't find precious. They are allowed to rank species and members within a species in order of most to least precious. There's no inherent rule that all life must be valued the same. Would you not be more sad about a human child dying over a cow? Would you not be more sad about a loved one dying about a random person you don't know a few thousand miles away?
The person you're responding to didn't mention "feeling". They made a moral statement. Feelings are something we deal with, morals are something we work to build. Confusing the two will lead to a very confusing life.
Additionally, your examples are passive. A more appropriate comparison would be "Would you not be more sad about killing a human child instead of a cow?" Of course you would be! But what if you didn't have to do either?
Humans are remarkably skilled at extending-reducing the range of their empathy, often deep compassion is reserved only for the carefully selected in-group members. It’s even easier to withhold it when it comes to other beings.
Yeah. They hijacked our maternal instincts and our productivity instincts. Dogs have evolved to the point where they now have humans handling artificial selection for them instead of relying on natural selection.
It's a 1000x speed up to have humans picking out the cute ones and deliberately forcing this forward to make money.
You have to realize that it's our own instincts driving this forward and if it detriments humanity then the traits of "seeking profit" or "seeking cuteness" become subject to natural selection. These traits will go away with time.
If you're just eating a burger, you're not personally slaughtering the cow. Secondly, the relationship of humans and dogs is far different than humans and cows, dogs have evolved alongside us as companions, and cows are food.
If you had to choose between a family member dying or a totally random person dying, even though objectively they're both just humans, you're going to kill the random person, because you have feelings and emotions, and they are part of the equation. For the same reason you'd kill the random person, people would kill the cow, and want to save the dog.
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