I find it incredibly sad. It tugs at a lot of old memories, as we've been talking about an Iran war since I was in college. Plenty of friends on both sides.
Bloodlust is one thing, but the dehumanization is just far worse. Maybe they go hand in hand - you can't want to see someone die unless you think of them as inhuman.
There's something about social media where it has been amplifying this dehumanization as well. So another layer of sadness where it feels like we could have, should have prevented this. Like an asteroid strike or a global pandemic, it feels like one of those things that should never happen until it does. I remember looking at 80000hours and thinking, nah... nuclear warfare will never happen, let's focus on AI.
You have plenty of friends who are supporters of the regime in Iran and its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, or just plenty of Iranian friends? Those feel like very distinct categories.
They aren't. In the sense that, while a lot of Iranians are exasperated with their clerical elite under normal conditions and abscence of external threats, even domestic regime opponents tend to be very allergic to having their sovereignty destroyed by the US. Iraq should have been a lesson in that regard ("they'll greet us as liberators"), apparently it was not.
They do seem distinct. The ones who are Iranian are not the ones who support the Iranian regime. It's the anti-Israeli groups who support Iran's nuclear aspirations. Similarly, the Israeli friends are also not in support with Israel's actions.
I'm positive there's some selection bias here - ultra-nationalists don't hang out with other races.
But it goes with what we've been saying about bloodlust and dehumanization. The most excited ones are the ones who don't live anywhere near there.
But have you seen how cool the bunker buster bombs are? Like, how, incredible the engineering there is? It's going to be so awesome see those in action!
The same people would have drooled over the engineering of concentration camps. "Yeah it's sad there's some human casualties, but you have to appreciate the thought that went into it, and imagine doing that at that scale!"
Yes. I guess destroying a nuclear arsenal is a violent war act. However, I imagine this is probably less violence than using a nuclear arsenal. What do you think?
As usual, the people who like war are the people who've never gone to war.
They cower behind their the comfort of their home, AC, keyboards, western paycheck and standards of living while trying to be (seen) as "rational" and "stoic".
They talk like there is good sides and bad sides in war, right sides and wrong sides.
Most of them are these small powerless men who dream of power fantasy.
I wonder, will today's children who is seeing this spectacles of war in 4K, all gore and guts and destruction, will grow up to be better leaders for all?
Or are they going to grow up just like their parents, small powerless trigger-happy men filled with mid-life crisis.
The new generation is far more anti war than the 90s hippies. The social media might have set society back on some fronts, but on some fronts, like cross-border understanding and humanisation, it has been a blessing.
counter argument GDP of Baltic states has gone up by hundreds percents since 1990. But we are now closer to war thanks to our "great" neighbor (russia) than ever before. By the way GDP going up has not saved Ukraine from war either. So i would not discard moral superiority so fast.
It just a counterexample that helps me point out that your simplistic and unsupported claim should not be taken at face value.
There is a lot to be said about the practice of overusing the GDP metric, but in this case reminding everyone that the burden of proof is on you should be enough.
I don’t appreciate your analogy, and it strikes me as false.
If (if) this destroyed a nuclear weapons program, that is good for the world.
No one can predict the downstream consequences of today, but I fail to see an argument for why the world benefits from another nation getting the bomb.
I think the attacks aren't just about a nuclear weapons program. First, the program, according to US intelligence, does not exist. I'm inclined to believe them. [1] Second, unrelated infrastructure has been attacked, including energy infrastructure, hospitals, and state media.
All of that points not to the destruction of a nuclear weapons program, but of a country. The Israeli government claims to want regime change now... but that claim only came some time after the attacks started and there's no reason in that case to bomb hospitals. The Israeli government claimed the hospitals were "hiding" missle sites, but haven't presented any evidence of that, and have used that excuse many times before now, and were clearly lying.
Ah, plus the countries involved are engaged in a separate act of bloodlust at the moment. Which doesn't directly mean that the attacks against Iran are the same, but it certainly colors the picture.
Why do you take her testimony as gospel? As I understand it, the Israelis have infiltrated Iranian chain of command far more thoroughly than the US has. Maybe she didn't have all the info the Israelis had at the time? Maybe new information came to light? Maybe it was a diplomatic response attempting to get them to the bargaining table? Lots of possibilities here other than "the DNI testimony is was and will always be true"
I find it fairly suspicious to hear "Iran doesn't have a nuke program. Yes, they're enriching uranium to a point where it's only use is a nuclear weapon, but they have no plans to build a nuclear weapon"
The only nation in the middle east with a nuclear weapons program is Israel. Why not destroy that one? It's objectively more of a threat to the region than Iran's.
> only nation in the middle east with a nuclear weapons program is Israel. Why not destroy that one?
Put simply: they have it.
One of the unfair truths of nuclear geopolitics is the power asymmetry between nuclear and non-nuclear states. (And the collective interest of the former in nuclear NIMBYism.)
People have made the point that the world, relative to the time before the bomb, is a more peaceful place. So if a few countries having the bomb makes it peaceful, maybe more bombs make it more peaceful?
Empathy for the Iranian people, whose budding democratic movement was crushed by the United States, for oil. The ones who are trying to fight for their own freedom from a repressive government, in the middle of this whole mess.
All these events risk spiraling the whole region into chaos, and creating another ISIS-like militancy, the brutality of which is going to be felt by the Iranians first and foremost.
Internally theocratic countries can also be diplomatically reasonable when it comes to the use of arms. The measured retaliation against the unprovoked bombing of its Iranian consulate in Syria leads me to see that it is quite reasonable in its actions.
Incredible to see the people who have zero contact with extremist Muslims or familiarity with what the Quran and hadiths actually say or understand Iran in any way talking about how Iran is the victim or burying their heads in the sand with their coexist bumper stickers acting like we can just be nice and everyone will get along.
>extremist Muslims or familiarity with what the Quran and hadiths
You can easily find stuff in the Bible and the Torah or Talmud that would shock you. And Israel even acts on the latter. But conveniently it's just the Muslim world, one beset with colonial extraction for centuries, that you care about. Not the people in the US who supported wars killings hundreds of thousands over the last few decades for religious reasons. Hmm.
> the Muslim world, one beset with colonial extraction for centuries
Surely you mean on the side of extractors? The Ottoman Empire practiced mass movement of people (sürgün), basically settler colonialism; earlier Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates are among the largest empires in history, and their population was mass converted to Islam.
With intercontinental weapons and shipping, we're sorta all part of every region. In Zeeland I'm literally as far from New Zealand as humanly possible, but if another SARS pops up there or a war breaks out there, it's very likely to affect me in some way
So I guess we're on the same anti-war side, but for opposite reasons?
It feels disingenuous to talk of extremist muslims when we have extremist jews bombing 4 countries in 2 years, and committing a genocide.
Iran has killed a lot less civilians than Israel and it isn't even close. I'm much less worried about them getting the bomb than I am about the fact Israel already has it.
