If anyone is curious, as I was, where this misinformation came from: it appears to be a criticism of the Food Compass rating system from Tufts University. The connection to "past administrations" seems to be added by the person I'm replying to. They've also swapped Cheerios with Cheetos.
>On social media, I have seen graphics showing certain breakfast cereals scoring higher than eggs, cheese, or meat. Did Tufts create these graphics?
>No. Food Compass works very well, on average, across thousands of food and beverage products. But, when this number and diversity of products are scored, there are always some exceptions. These graphs were created by others to show these exceptions, rather than to show the overall performance of Food Compass and the many other foods for which Food Compass works well. But, as objective scientists, we accept constructive criticism and are using this to further improve Food Compass. We are working on an updated version now – see our versions page for more information.
They already have uncensored unfiltered sim cards they issue to their own people, we found that out when X (Twitter) started showing which country you made the accout from and thousands of people had Iran which normal people can't access X without VPN. Its just that they shut off the internet for normal people now, which they hadn't done before.
In "normal" filtering situations, we can connect to most VPNs and do our stuff.
When blackouts like these happen, EVERYTHING is blocked. It gets almost impossible to connect to a VPN. They have advanced tech that detects and blocks all VPNS and proxies. The internet speed is also now at crawling speed so you really can't upload download anything.
Also, in each blackout, people find ways to work around the censorship. And each time, they detect them and patch them. We have almost ran out of ways to prevent the censorship now.
And countless human rights and freedom activists completely absolutely silent. They chose to be silent about Iran, it feels like iranian blood is worth less than other places apparently.
As someone very vocal on Iran, I find these recriminations shallow and generally intended to be punitive about those positions in those others places.
By the same precedent, it opens up Iranian human rights activists to the same endless accusations — when were you vocal on M23, Haiti, Kashmir, Kurds, Muslims in India, etc etc. I don't think it's countless silent organizations, and those organizations or activists are generally not in position to be able to influence the IRI or IRGC.
I think you have distinguish between feckless organizations like the ITU, and say, college student campus activists.
I think it's a fair criticism though because of the general vitriol about Hamas and Gaza.
The same folks are very much in a position on college campuses to protest about numerous injustices going on in the world, from Iran to Somalia to Haiti to Cuba, yet they're silent.
Why is that? It's a fair question.
I don't think there's some moral failure for caring about one issue affecting one group of people more than another, but you really have to wonder why we care so much about Palestine over other issues, even more gruesome injustices.
This isn't to diminish of course the plight of Palestinians or any group for that matter, but it's a very clear outlier in the American, and dare I say entire western psyche.
“it's a fair criticism though because of the general vitriol about Hamas and Gaza.”
Ok, you’ve convinced me. I now firmly support reducing billions in American aid to Iran, curtailing Iranian use of American bombs, and diplomatic cover America gives to Iran in the UN. I am now also calling strongly to remove all these state laws we have that ban government business with companies that don’t support Iran!
Is your argument that if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel which are used on Gaza, Americans and Europeans wouldn't care about what's going on in Palestine as much?
Are you calling for Iran to cease supplying Hamas and other regional organizations with weapons as well?
I don’t know if you are American, but I am. Sure, I don’t support Iran giving Hamas weapons. The issue is that Iran isn’t my government and they certainly don’t give a fuck about my opinion.
The human tragedy in Gaza is enabled directly by MY representatives and funded with MY tax money and given diplomatic cover for atrocities again and again by MY government. Nothing my country is doing enables what is happening in Iran right now.
The situation is less pronounced with Europeans, but not dissimilar. The EU has sanctions on Iran, unless I’m missing something? And frankly yes, if American support for Israel ceased I think Europeans would complain less because Israel would have to stop a lot of their behavior.
> The issue is that Iran isn’t my government and they certainly don’t give a fuck about my opinion.
This seems like a cop-out and I’ve noticed a similar “Iran isn’t my country” pattern amongst others. Let’s be very clear, Iran needs to stop funneling weapons and money to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. They’re complicit in this war and the blood of Palestinians is on their hands too, never mind the thousands killed peacefully protesting this week.
Iran doesn’t need to be your country to call for them to stop initiating and supporting violence and genocide in the Middle East, or to stop repressing their own people. Just like Ukraine doesn’t need to be your country for you to call for Russia to stop their war.
It’s one thing to say well I’ve only got time and energy to protest my country doing XYZ, but that argument doesn’t hold water when having a discussion on the Internet which requires little effort and no sacrifice of any kind.
If the US wasn't selling weapons, Israel wouldn't be able to do what it does. It wouldn't be happening like this. So that's right, the level of caring would be lower because the genocide would not be possible.
> If the US wasn't selling weapons, Israel wouldn't be able to do what it does.
It's hard to really draw up the counterfactual but I'm not really sure that's the case. But there are many other players here besides just Israel that are helping to ensure that this conflict continues to fester, chiefly Iran.
It's a fair point to say that the counterfactual is hard to draw up.
I will point out the main reason it's hard to come up with, is the fact that American aid, weapons sales, and diplomatic support for Israel has been so constant and unchallenged over the past several decades that we don't have many good examples of what Israel would do without impunity.
Sure, but Israel has also been continuously attacked so we're not sure how Israel would act if it weren't continually being attacked. The counterfactual is hard but it's not hard just because the United States has supported Israel, but also because other nations in the region have always attacked Israel and continue to do so.
I think there's an inclination on the Internet to lean toward one side or another, but just like with Democrats and Republicans, at least in my view, everyone sucks here.
Without western support, it is quite possible Israel will simply lose and the conflict will go away, leaving a possibility of building a democratic secular state in Palestine that treats people with equality.
Correct, Iran shouldn't fund Hamas. I don't pay taxes in Iran, I am not a member of their society.
I'm American. I pay taxes in the US. I could do some math and figure out how many deaths of innocent kids I've directly funded, how many Palestinian families I've helped displace. I get to live with that knowledge.
I'm not funding Hamas terrorist attacks, but I am funding a genocide.
People around the world don't pay taxes to the United States yet protest its actions even when their country isn’t involved. There's no reason you can't do the same.
You're taking the easy way out here instead of engaging with the world head on. You don't want to criticize Iran because you don't live there, yet their actions helped Hamas kill like around 2,000 other innocent people. But you're silent because you don't live there? Are you also silent on Russia invading Ukraine since you don't live in either country? Give me a break. What you and others who have made similar claims have presented are really bad, isolationist-style arguments.
Iran's government is rogue and I don't support them in any sense. They are committing crimes against their own people and funding terrorism elsewhere. The world would be better off if there was a different regime. Therefore, the US should stop selling them weapons, sharing intelligence, and sending them aid. Oh wait...
> Iran's government is rogue and I don't support them in any sense. They are committing crimes against their own people and funding terrorism elsewhere. The world would be better off if there was a different regime.
Yes you got that right.
It's interesting how you just can't leave it at that. Any criticism of a country besides Israel or the United States has to be couched in sarcasm or outright refusal to criticize other belligerents. It's tribalism. And so you can't get mad at other tribes for being tribal too.
I appreciated your exchange in this subthread about the difference of the U.S.'s involvement versus Iran. However, I want to push back even without drawing that distinction, so I do it here.
I think private individuals and even civil society organizations, no matter how noxious or loud they can be, have a right to have specific passions without being expected to be universalist in application or having to account for why. Particularly when it comes down to the individual, people have a right to say, I find this cause very moving for whatever reason and I don't think then there's an obligation to answer for everything else going on in the world. Especially outside of governments, international organizations, and civil society groups that claim to be universalist in their cause. If anything we should be glad people have passions outside their narrow world.
I believe that as a general principle, but also because in practice that criticism tends to get waged, dare I say weaponized, against particular causes. I don't tend to see people focused on Somalia, Haiti, or Cuba being denigrated for not caring about Iran. I don't see people shouting down advocates for Christians in Nigeria over supposed silence on the Rohingya. I think its punitive for believing in a cause, generally specific causes, rather than about integrity.
I would venture to guess you can also find ample examples across the world, and that selectivity is simply a part of human nature rather than some defect of western psyche.
> I think private individuals and even civil society organizations, no matter how noxious or loud they can be, have a right to have specific passions without being expected to be universalist in application or having to account for why.
I don't disagree at all, just to be clear for anyone reading.
> I don't tend to see people focused on Somalia, Haiti, or Cuba being denigrated for not caring about Iran. I don't see people shouting down advocates for Christians in Nigeria over supposed silence on the Rohingya. I think it's punitive for believing in a cause, generally specific causes, rather than about integrity.
Sure, and I think that's fair and I'm not denigrating those who are protesting in favor of action w.r.t Palestine/Gaza, but more so interested in why that particular issue seems so important over others. The most compelling reason I've read so far is that because the US sells weapons to Israel, though I think there's some good reasons to sell weapons too so it's not all negative.
> The most compelling reason I've read so far is that because the US sells weapons to Israel, though I think there's some good reasons to sell weapons too so it's not all negative.
Some of it is also memetic: a couple of decades ago Tibet was the cause celebre, after that it was Darfur and recall Kony 2012. Issues become important because there's active conflict and human cost, and then people discuss the issues that are getting discussed. And then sometimes those become signifiers for larger issues, e.g. anti-system politics as whole, liberal hopes, or conservative culture wars.
I don’t remember all of how society has reacted to various issues but the protests and discourse around Palestine seem to be an outlier in terms of engagement. But that’s just my interpretation.
I think it's been a mess a lot longer than British involvement, though certainly one can argue the British helped precipitate this current version of the mess.
But at some point it's like, yea you guys all need to just stop fighting and let bygones be bygones and just stop fighting.
I think most of those students would answer that they are protesting the US government's complicity in this particular injustice -- which doesn't apply to the other injustices you list. I have a hard time imagining that most people asking this fair question can't think of that obvious answer.
I hadn't really thought about it from that angle. But it's certainly reasonable.
Do you think if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that there wouldn't be protests and a lot of social media posts similar to how other humanitarian disasters are treated today? I guess would it be on the same level?
I wonder if there's a correlation across western countries with respect to protests and a given country's participation in selling weapons to Israel. I recall there were/are a lot of protests going on in Ireland with respect to the conflict but I know Ireland doesn't sell weapons to Israel. But there have been of course other cases in Europe where the country does sell weapons and there are protests. Maybe there's a rhyme and reason here, I'm not sure.
Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.
Because of this, it's entirely rational to NOT protest with equal opportunity for every injustice that occurs around the world. Those American campus students aren't just protesting to make noise, they are hoping that their government leaders - that DEPEND on their votes - will cease enabling atrocities.
The American government hates Iran with bipartisan support and has it sanctioned to hell and back, I have no idea what I'd protest American leaders to do here?
> The American government hates Iran with bipartisan support and has it sanctioned to hell and back, I have no idea what I'd protest American leaders to do here?
Well you could rally in support of more action, or protest outside an Iranian embassy for example to put pressure on them. I was reading that something on a small scale happened in the UK and they took down the Iranian flag from the embassy.
> Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.
Sure, I don't disagree. But let me ask, do you believe that if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that the public would react to this particular conflict in a way that's similar to how it reacts to other conflicts around the world? It's obviously hard to speculate about because it's just the world we live in and counterfactuals around these things are incredibly difficult and inaccurate, but something tells me there's something unique about this conflict and even in countries that don't sell weapons to Israel we do still see rather large scale protests and rallies and such.
>Well you could rally in support of more action, or protest outside an Iranian embassy for example
You're describing methods of protest, but not demands. What specific action do you believe Americans should demanding from their representatives re: Iran, that the US government isn't already doing? We bombed Iran just this past summer, are you saying we should go back for round 2?
>obviously hard to speculate about because it's just the world we live in
The world we live in is the world where the US gives huge financial, material and political support to Israel. Your statement feels akin to saying "Sure there is a gigantic elephant in this room right now, but something tells me there's some unique reason why everyone is complaining about the room being cramped. Especially compared to these other rooms that don’t have a giant elephant inside.”
> You're describing methods of protest, but not demands. What specific action do you believe Americans should demanding from their representatives re: Iran, that the US government isn't already doing? We bombed Iran just this past summer, are you saying we should go back for round 2?
Well this action puts pressure on Iran, and in the case of the UK maybe more pressure for the UK to do something. You're right that the US government is already opposed (rightfully) to the Iranian regime and so additional rallies or protests might not have much effect but it could reinforce the government's stance and to show support. You can rally in favor of something, and protest against something, can you not?
> The world we live in is the world where the US gives huge financial, material and political support to Israel.
Yea but then you have to balance that with Iran giving huge financial, material, and political support to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups who take up arms and fight and kill people and stuff too.
But the point wasn't to suggest that the US doesn't give these things to Israel, which if you want to introduce "the real world" you have to include Iran and friends (Russia too now that I think about it, they've been helping Iran), but to just speculate on whether we would still see the level of protest we do today even if the United States didn't give weapons to Israel. I'm unsure. But it's a hard counterfactual to run, and I'm just mentioning it because the primary argument I see for the reasoning that more people care about this issue is specifically because the US sells/gives weapons to Israel. That's all.
The US government doesn't hate Iran, the US government hates that Iran doesn't have a compliant government in an oil rich state, near Russia which is another resource rich state.
Every action of the US can only be understood if there is wealth to be stolen.
Yea. You know when I joined the military and went to Iraq I was pretty upset I didn’t get to bring home any gold or my own barrel or two of oil. Or even a washing machine! Disappointing.
Sheer coincidence, this came out a couple of days ago.
"Iran (1953), Iraq (2003), Libya (2011), Russia (2022), Syria (2024), and now Venezuela (2026). The common denominator underlying the U.S. attacks and economic sanctions against all these countries is America’s weaponization of the world’s oil trade."
What is it that you say to each other: "thank you for your service." Service to whom is left unsaid.
Sure, care to elaborate on what exactly these protestors are protesting, or how protesting works and why that's uniquely different for Palestine versus other equally horrible injustices?
Seems simple to me. The Palestine/Israel protests were demanding change from an ally. It was a call for "you guys are supposed to be good but what you're doing is bad."
I suppose there could be rallies of support for the Iranian people, but it would seem silly for US protesters to demand change from the Iranian government, given that our opinion is probably not regarded highly by them.
If you're going to use anti-semitic online trolling tropes at least spell them right. It's "Hasbara" and no Israeli under 80 years old uses this word on any day to day basis.
This is classic whataboutism. You don't have to criticize every single atrocity in the world in order to criticize one. I often find that people who take your stance don't care about any issues. They're simply weaponizing other problems to avoid engaging with the one they actually oppose.
There is also a key difference between the Palestine issue vs the others you listed. The fact that our country is deeply in bed with the country that is committing these crimes against humanity and actively funding it, along with the strange level of undue influence that country has on our government.
I intentionally didn't do a whataboutism, but just asked why it seems that westerners care about what happens in Gaza, as bad as it is, more than they do other equally horrific injustices.
It's undeniable that our society cares more about Gaza and the future of the Palestinian people, so what makes them unique that's different? Or are you suggesting that Americans, for example, care equally about what's going on in other conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes? If so, why don't we see campus protests for example?
I answered your question, if you read my response fully.
Generally though, I find your line of inquiry fascinating. There are people out there actively protesting a particular issue because they genuinely care about it and the people affected. Meanwhile, you—presumably from the comfort of home—are criticizing them for not addressing other issues, all while doing nothing about ANY of these issues yourself. It reeks of apathy and malintent.
Personally, I do care about Gaza more because my government is complicit in it. So it's my duty, especially in democratic country, to oppose that. I don't know how to influence Iranian government, if anything, I think my government could offer them lifting sanctions in exchange for easing domestic policies.
The difference you see is between a sponsored protest and unsponsored. Basically, bleeding heart liberals have been successfully convinced to align with Hamas without them explicitly realizing it either. This is a good primer on Hamas in the US and their general media strategy:
Kind of interesting to keep in mind when people protest for a ceasefire instead of say, Hamas removed from power and free open elections resumed for Palestinians.
Do you sincerely believe that financial sponsorship is the primary impetus causing Americans to voice dissatisfaction in US support for Israel? That is a fascinating perspective.
Well, why would it not be? For information to be put in front of americans requires advertisement. Very few people seek out information organically versus simply being served information for consumption through a usually visited channel. Stories aren't written for free. This is probably why no one is protesting about Sudan or Yemen, very little in comparison is written about these conflicts, streamers and internet personalities aren't picking them up as much and putting them in front of their audiences.
>when were you vocal on M23, Haiti, Kashmir, Kurds, Muslims in India...
That is the entire point, Gaza protests have been very vocal (and in many cases very misinformed). Human right abuses in Iran are but another example of this blindness.
It's very obvious what they are trying to accomplish: ethnic cleansing. The idea is to make life so miserable to Palestinians that they will give up their national liberation struggle and venture into the punishing Sinai desert, allowing Israel and Trump to build a riviera and a gas pipeline on the sea.
If they can't get them to leave, the partial genocide will escalate into a full blown mass murder campaign.
Is not that Israel wants a genocide, is that it's pretty obvious that they are ready to commit one in order to get the ethnic cleansing that they want.
This is obvious. In fact, I suspect that they are going to success, and in a few years we will have to hear how that was a terrible mistake, but, of course, never again. Maybe, even you will be saying that.
RobertoG's comment is a good one, but I will add that the definition of genocide is defined in the genocide convention as:
Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as:
... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[9]
I was sloppy in saying "partial genocide" as a colloquialism, because "partial genocide" is the crime of genocide full stop.
Yeah. Let's pile on enough definitional nuance in order to apply it to a situation in which it is clear that the previous, universal understanding doesn't fit in order to stoke outrage.
Besides, that's clearly not Israel's intent or it would have already been accomplished.
Maybe the reason for your "sloppiness" is that you instinctively understand the absurdity?
This is the definition. People thought long and hard about what genocide is, because people are quite creative in finding ways of trying to destroy other people.
Israel is committing genocide because they have tried to destroy part of the population. Their goal is enthic cleansing. If they do not achieve it, they will continue to escalate, especially now that international law is shown to be toothless.
If you're an American, what could protesting Iran possibly accomplish? They are already sanctioned out the wazoo and our government already doesn't like the government there.
In fact, I believe if the U.S. wanted to really help the Iranians, they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws.
I don't think sanctions are that helpful in establishing democracy, and even if they were, taking the population hostage in order to instigate an uprising is morally quite dubious.
In any case, U.S. has recently proven to be a dishonest actor, so even if above was correct I would still not want them to do it.
P.S. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. So I have seen an organic regime change, and the Iranian one is IMHO too violent to be the moment.
> they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws...
No authoritarian regime wants to go down the same way Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker did by meeting the opposition halfway.
Most regimes learnt from how China cracked down in Tiananmen and how SK cracked down in Gwangju, especially countries like Iran that are much more structurally similar to Maoist China than the 1980s Eastern Bloc, as much of the Iranian economy is owned by the Bonyads (Islamic charities), State Owned Enterprises, and regime affiliated conglomerates who wouldn't expect to retain economic control if Iran didn't remain an Islamic Republic, and the footsoldiers of the Cultural Revolution (yes, Iran had one too called the Inqilab e Firangi or "Revolution against the West") are the ones in charge.
The current violent crackdown is similar to that which the Iranian regime used during the Green Movement back in 2009-10.
The IRGC has a headcount of around 100k, the Police 300k, the PMF in Iraq (which have now been mobilized across Iran) have 200k, the Liwa Fateymoun (Shia Afghan militia) have around 3k-10k, and Liwa Zainabiyoun (Shia Pakistani/Pakhtun militia) have around 5k-8k personnel.
That's around 600k personnel who are ideologically aligned with the regime, have seen combat in Syria or Yemen, have had experience cracking down on anti-regime protests on multiple occasions, and have the means for a violent crackdown in a country of 90 million people. And that's ignoring personnel that the Houthis or Hezbollah can send despite being battered by Israeli strikes.
On the other hand, the SAVAK during the Iranian Revolution only had 5K personnel in a country of 40 million.
A lot of people will refer to Syria as an example of a counter-revolution, but the Syria's population was significantly better armed during the Assad regime compared to Iranians today. Before the Arab Spring it was common for the then Syrian government to send disaffected Sunni troublemakers across the border to Iraq to take potshots at the Americans and let them solve the problem [0][1][2][3]. This was how Jolani/al-Sharaa and a number of anti-Assad revolutionaries got their start as well.
I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand.
> No authoritarian regime wants to go down the same way Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker did by meeting the opposition halfway.
What "regime wants" is irrelevant. "Regime" is a collective construct, and people can collectively change it. Which is what happened there, and I think it shows that peaceful transition is possible. The way these regimes have changed was by people collectively realizing they don't want it, without foreign interference.
In this case, authoritarian U.S. (and possibly also Russia) projecting power into Iran is making things worse. (Czechoslovakia was in that situation - on the way to peaceful transition - in 1968, but it was externally interrupted from Russia.)
> I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand.
I agree with you, and I said above that I believe it is too violent (and you confirm that). There is decent amount of research that shows that nonviolence is a more reliable way to change regimes towards democracy.
> The way these regimes have changed was by people collectively realizing they don't want it, without foreign interference
Not really.
Every single regime change has happened because a veto player decided to withdraw support for the incumbent regime. This has been documented for decades by Kuran, Karelian & Peterson, Ulfelder, and Hummel.
Once the incumbent regime begins shooting, they have no choice but to double down because statistically incumbents in an authoritarian regime will not continue to retain their positions if they back down.
For incumbents, you either do a managed transition (eg. Pinochet) or you double down on repression (eg. Deng). Vacillating in the middle ends up leading to mass mobilization and shows internal stakeholders that there is little downside to defecting to the protesters side. And that was the mistake Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker made.
I have family in VN and go there fairly often, and given the nature of business in Asia have often bumped into their decisionmakers often. Much of their leadership was in Czechoslovakia, GDR, and Poland from 1986-91 on internal security or military scholarships, and the primary takeaway they took was to
1. Sustain economic growth to buy support and increase the revolutionary threshold by adding an increased economic cost
2. Dramatically expand the size of internal security bureaus (most Warsaw Pact members had 0.01-0.25% of their population be members of internal security organizations, but states like Iran and Vietnam are trying to maintain a 0.5-1% population ratio instead)
3. Double down on repression once the bullets start flying. My SO grew up in the Central Highlands during the ethnic tensions turned protests in the 2000s [0]. Once two protesters died after arrest, the BCA decided to double down. They began summarily executing protesters on the street, ambushed protesters in side streets and opened fire, hunting protestors using unfed dogs, and openly distributing small arms and ammunition to trusted party members and US-Vietnam and/or Sino-Vietnam War veterans, and giving them a blank check to enforce "discipline". That said, she was from a Bac 76 family so they were in a better position.
I guarantee you Iran's leadership thinks the same way. And from the looks of what is happening in Iran, their leadership is using the exact same playbook.
> There is decent amount of research that shows that nonviolence is a more reliable way to change regimes towards democracy.
Yes, but this is because an authoritarian regime allowing non-violent protest to occur means they have lost control, becuase the revolutionary threshold has been hit such that mass mobilization by civil society has happened and does not have a high cost - thus implying their grip on power and monopoly on violence has decreased. This is what Kuran highlights.
First, Oct 7th was not the start, but it can seem like that to those that regard Palestinians as subhumans who do not deserve liberation and instead are destined to live under the shackles of apartheid, blockade, and occupation.
Secondly, there are various reasons why there is no protesting in this case. Maybe it’s because Israel is the child of US foreign policy? Or perhaps it’s because US veto protection is what has allowed Israel to get away with so much across its history? Or heck, maybe it’s because our taxpayer dollars fund the Israeli gov to the tune of billions of dollars annually (and don’t come with the “it is just weapons” bullshit; money is fungible).
On the other hand, what exactly would be accomplished by protesting against Iranian government repression on US soil or on US campuses?
This post was about Iran. Do a Google search for "impact of a sharp object to the face" with quotes and tell me again it's not worth 5 minutes of protest.
To demand the US invades Iran? Do you think the Iranian fuckheads killing their own citizens care about the words of a group of people in a different country? A country which already sanctions Iran to the point that a protest doesn’t change anything for them unless the demand is for the US to invade them?
>The voices that are silent are the ones that are shouting from the rooftops when Israel does this to Palestinians.
Depends on the protester and what they are protesting but many of Israel protests have been against US continuing to support/fund Israel and want US government to do something different.
Iran on other hand is US sanctioned and US actively works against it, very different relationship then with Israel.
> The voices that are silent are the ones that are shouting from the rooftops when Israel does this to Palestinians.
When Israel does this to Palestinians with US made planes and US made bombs, bought largely by US tax dollars? Over and over again for more than 2 years? Shielded from consequences in the UN by the US? Seems pretty sus that Americans would protest that in particular.
The purpose of protesting Israel's human rights abuses is that lack of awareness, misinformation, and propaganda, are key pillars in the policies that make them possible. Protests (and online complaints) are ineffective enough already, we don't need to layer an unclear goal (what would you be hoping to accomplish?) on top of it all.
> The voices that are silent are the ones that are shouting from the rooftops when Israel does this to Palestinians.
As the comment you just replied to says, Iran is already sanctioned and bombed, while Israel gets billions in military (and other) aid from US and the rest of the West. It's abundantly clear that there's a difference.
And furthermore, so you have to have a decibel meter perfectly calibrated for every tragedy that happens on planet earth, or your arguments are nullified? Preposterous.
Should we talk about all of the victims on October 7th that were killed with munitions Hamas doesn't possess as well? I wouldn't call leveling Gaza "targeted strikes". Seems more like wonton destruction to me.
I think there are voting rings and bots downvoting anything that goes against a certain agenda here on HN. I read many posts about it here as well, nothing we can do, but I don’t think the downvotes are organic.
One government is committing a genocide against a neighboring sovereign state. Why does a person have to condemn every atrocity to condemn genocide without being accused of being an anti-Semite? They don't need to, is the answer.
Our sanctions are the reason why their situation is difficult. They are having the intended effect. And the protests plus the calamity are wanted by the west.
Not too long ago (three months ago?), either here or on Lobsters, an iranian programmer was basically pleading for help because he had built some type of A.I. system, but there is zero market for it in Iran, and he is blacklisted from working with / for anyone in the US.
> A group of Iowa State University students gathered recently, standing in solidarity with the Iranian people and in opposition of the Middle Eastern government.
I think this gives further evidence that these huge campaigns and marches/protests/street graffiti are very deliberate manipulation by certain groups and a lot of money.
Read the Wikipedia page for the Internet Research Agency. This was a Russian propaganda outfit that organized half a dozen Black Lives Matter protests, one of them attended by Michael Moore.
Troll farms were found to control half of the largest ethnic and religious Facebook groups before the 2020 election.
The tactic here is to use social media as a weapon to stoke every possible division in society.
> half a dozen Black Lives Matter protests, one of them attended by Michael Moore.
A whole half dozen, you say? And who could forget those iconic Michael Moore protest videos from 2020.
For anyone who wasn't paying attention somehow, these protests happened day after day for weeks in many major cities. And many smaller cities and towns had protests and vigils as well. This statistic is so unimpressive it makes this sound irrelevant.
Organizing protests is one thing, but troll farms to agitate and turn the population on itself is the story here too. It helps explain the daily protests.
The troll farms can't hold a candle to the first-party algorithmic engagement farming/rage baiting being conducted out in the open by Alphabet/Meta/X/etc.
You don't need a conspiracy theory to explain the social dysfunction being created and monetized as part of these firms' core business strategy.
And a government run identity verified social media would solve both those problems. Let the government build the digital town square, not the tech billionaires.
Precisely! They were leveraging said algos and the troll farms couldn't exist without your social media list. It's definitely not a conspiracy, but part of the logic of the tactic.
Well, for starters, one person really can’t care about every possible issue, even if they wanted to. So people and groups may get very passionate about one thing that really pulls on the heartstrings, hits close to home, or is more related to their own country’s policies. (For example, those protesting Palestine may protest US’s typically very strong support of Israel.)
What am I going to do when I wake up to the news that yet another country under the control of religious fanatics is abusing their people? Demand the US invades them? Go to the streets every single day for every new issue (of which there are countless)? Demand sanctions against their government (already broadly exists)? Fly there myself? (Not sure if possible, and what help would that do?)
Who is choosing to be silent about Iran? Lack of knowledge, maybe, but deliberate planning? That would be the fault of media and perhaps the wealthy controlling the media, if it’s happening. Not the everyday person. I guarantee you, next to no one wakes up and decides “hm, I will choose to not talk about X atrocity today.”
I think a lot don't really know what to say beyond killing people is bad. I'm quite glad some people don't feel the need to noisy weigh in on situations they don't know much about.
That's funny in a morbidly ironic sort of way. what was their rational for countering the Iranian demonstrations? Free Palestine but subjugate Iran doesn't seem rational.
Which orgs are you talking about specifically? Don't sling mud in such a vague way. Here's Amnesty's homepage https://www.amnesty.org/en/. The UN has already issued statements. What do you mean exactly? Random nobodies on social media?
After 10 days they put those banners up. After enormous pressure from people online and political from USA republicans. They were silent mostly. Also BBC, NYTimes, WPost, they only ran articles after 10 days of continuous killings in Iran were happening.
What on earth... Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have reported on the escalation of repression in Iran. BBC, NYTimes, WPost, and well, virtually every major media outlet in the World has been reporting on Iran at least since the major escalations around 5-6 January.
That's just such a bald-faced set of obvious lies that can be debunked with a 5-second google search... I struggle to see what your aim is in all this.
Human lives have the same value, but does Iran suppress the protesters with the tacit approval or active support of the West? If not who to protest against then? The Ayatollah?
> I mean...how about we just not kill each other. Kept the drawn lines, make "settlers" illegal and be done with it.
Israel did exactly that on 2015. Then, the Arabs (that’s what they actually are: Arabs from Egypt and Lebanon left behind by their own nations after they tried to destroy Israel in the very next day after the state was formed in 1948) went on to elect a government that specifically had as their campaign banner “the destruction of Israel” and kept sending dozens of rockets against Israel every day.
You forgot the voting rings, any post or comment that goes against some people's politics or opinios immidiately gets downvoted and removed, and its making me come to HN and spend time less and less each time.
I do so as well, especially if there is any discussion of AI models.
If it's Claude someone says how Qwen is better, if it's Codex, someone says Claude is better, if it's Gemini someone says OpenAI is better. I get it, it's all a battle of the most users as more users=more finetuning, but goodness lord.
Everything is one overfitted mess and I can't bear read the comments anymore. Shill after shill
do you think they are really bots / automated or might it be that due to growing user-base quality might level down towards a more general internet platform quality? (i have no idea how to distinguish the two without logs / metrics so i have no clue, just a thought)
i dont think its general internet platform quality, especially on political stuff hacker news feels more like bluesky rather than X thats why i feel like its bots just commenting not real humans. ofc theres no metric, just how i feel. and humans like if ur comment has basic common sense in it, it gets down voted haard
If its a dumb idea, why waste billions of dollars on it? Do you know how much pollution that shutted down plant is? It was HugE I've gone past it. So much waste for a "dumb idea"
This is what's wrong with Americans in one succinct example. "Look at all the pollution from this field of mirrors" he thinks while driving on the freeway to Las Vegas.
Agreed. When cloudflare (ugh, aka the internet) goes down, we can't access information to think and work through. ("the fuel" in some metaphor)
But what about when LLMs go down and a good chunk of a whole generation won't even know how to think, when the remote system goes down? (Is the ability to think "the engine" of self and agency in this metaphor?)
We are building a wildly irresponsible context to exist in.
This joke is getting old kinda Opus4.5 handles all the bugs in one go and also doesn’t introduce new ones at least for me. Very rarely i get stuck with it like i did with past generations of AI
Just a warning for those not on the max plan; if you pay by the token or have the lower tier plans you can easily blow through $100s or cap your plan in under an hour. The rates for paying by the token are insane and the scaling from pro to max is also pretty crazy.
They made pro have many times more value than paying per token and then they made max again have 25x more tokens than pro on the $200 plan.
It’s a bit like being offered rice at $1 per grain (pay per token) or a tiny bag of rice for $20 (pro) or a truck load for $200. That’s the pricing structure right now.
So while i agree you can’t easily exceed the quota on the big plans it’s a little crazy how they’ve tiered pricing. I hope no one out there’s paying per token!
Some companies are. Yes, for Claude Code. My co used to be like that as it's an easy ramp up instead of giving devs who might not use it that much a $150/mo seat; if you use it enough you can have a seat and save money, but if you're not touching $150 in credits a month just use the API. Oxide also recommends using API pricing. [0]
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