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After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

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Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#131

Post by nradov »

jrjeksjd8d wrote: post #117
breppp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far I remember a large reason for the water crisis is subsidizing water for agriculture which does not fit the local climate This is based on some ideological pillar of being autarkic, as the Islamic Republic was generally built upon the fear of outside influence sounds like if 90% of their water goes to agriculture, mostly export, and their country is cash strapped due to their habit of kidnappings, then maybe th…

Their country is cash strapped and needs to be independent because of US sanctions. The CIA overthrew the democratically elected government in the 50s which led to the Islamic Republic.

That's true, but on the other hand the CIA today isn't forcing Iran to sponsor terrorist organizations or arrest women for being immodest or keep Islamists in charge. If they want to eliminate the sanctions then the path to doing so is clear and would have tremendous benefits for the Iranian people.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#132

Post by nradov »

MangoToupe wrote: post #125
worldsavior wrote: post #111

Not surprising. A country that invests all of his money on nuclear weapons and threatens the West with bombings- will actually care if it's capital is drying up?

I used to think people didn't actually believe the propaganda they were fed, but now I've come to realize it's the only thing many know about the world.

It's not completely wrong, though. Iran has spent significant resources on a nuclear weapons program, as well as sponsoring foreign terrorist organizations and other military activities. We can argue about whether those things are right or wrong but they really happened and consumed resources that could have been used to improve water infrastructure. Guns or butter.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#133

Post by MangoToupe »

nradov wrote: post #132
MangoToupe wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think people didn't actually believe the propaganda they were fed, but now I've come to realize it's the only thing many know about the world.

It's not completely wrong, though. Iran has spent significant resources on a nuclear weapons program, as well as sponsoring foreign terrorist organizations and other military activities. We can argue about whether those things are right or wrong but they really happened and consumed resources that could have been used to improve water infrastructure. Guns or butter.

Believe it or not, other things do happen in the country aside from what is reported on in western media. Claiming this is all they do is heinously ignorant.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#135

Post by gpjt »

est31 wrote: post #61
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like machine translation is the unsung hero of the recent AI wave. Gone are the days of just barely being able to discern the meaning of Google Translate. Now I can just read it. I don't know how useful LLMs will ultimately turn out to be for most things, but a freaking universal translator that allows me to understand any language? Incredible!

Machine translation has certainly become better, and that's amazing and wonderful to see. Definitely an amazing thing that has come out of the AI boom. However, it has led to many websites to automatically enable it (like reddit), and one has to find a way to opt out for each website, if one speaks the language already. Especially colloquial language that uses lots of idioms gets translated quite weirdly still. It's…

Not sure that every browser advertises English, but mine certainly does. However, as I'm in Portugal, many websites ignore what my browser says and send me to translated versions, I assume based on my IP. That causes problems because the translations are often quite bad, and they do it with redirects to PT URLs so I can't share links with people who don't speak the language.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#136

Post by wat10000 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #51
Waterluvian wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. That’s a hydrological feature I’ve never come across in my studies. Thanks for sharing. Short tangent: I want to stop and admire that you shared an article in Portuguese and in seconds I could read it with Safari’s translation feature. It even translated labels on the images, and got the hydrologic cycle figure right! (However, I think “Rio de 28 Old Women” is probably an error.) This makes me feel connected wit…

I feel like machine translation is the unsung hero of the recent AI wave. Gone are the days of just barely being able to discern the meaning of Google Translate. Now I can just read it. I don't know how useful LLMs will ultimately turn out to be for most things, but a freaking universal translator that allows me to understand any language? Incredible!

A nice thing with LLMs is that you can ask them for a more comprehensive and detailed translation, and explain the nuances and ambiguities rather than trying to match the style of the original. This is great for things like group chats in a foreign language, where it’s full of colloquial expressions, shorthand, and typos.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#137

Post by heisenbit »

motoboi wrote: post #17
Someone wrote: post #12

> However, unpublished national observations revealed groundwater depletion in some plains from as early as the 1950s. This coincided with the gradual replacement of Persian qanats, which were sustainable groundwater extraction systems and UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites9, with (semi)deep wells. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/irn/ira... says Iran’s population today is over five times that o…

The article interviewed some actual hydrologists from Iran. I’m pretty sure they are aware of population growth in their homeland.

"How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." - Hemingway

Humans are notoriously bad heading off long term consequences.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#138

Post by nradov »

MangoToupe wrote: post #133
nradov wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not completely wrong, though. Iran has spent significant resources on a nuclear weapons program, as well as sponsoring foreign terrorist organizations and other military activities. We can argue about whether those things are right or wrong but they really happened and consumed resources that could have been used to improve water infrastructure. Guns or butter.

Believe it or not, other things do happen in the country aside from what is reported on in western media. Claiming this is all they do is heinously ignorant.

Don't presume to put words in my mouth. No one is claiming that military activities is all that Iran does. But the reality is they do choose spend a fortune on military aggression. These are optional activities. They could choose to stop and devote those resources to civilian infrastructure if they wanted to.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#139

Post by mhb »

Europas wrote: post #36
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #27

Sounds like it would be cheaper to build desalination plants on the coast, and pipe the water in. Iran certainly has the technology and brainpower to do that.

No it has not and due to sanctions of USA, they struggle getting the equipement they need.

And what are the sanctions due to?

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#140

Post by wat10000 »

Someone wrote: post #12

> However, unpublished national observations revealed groundwater depletion in some plains from as early as the 1950s. This coincided with the gradual replacement of Persian qanats, which were sustainable groundwater extraction systems and UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites9, with (semi)deep wells. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/irn/ira... says Iran’s population today is over five times that o…

Clicking through the link to the original paper, the point seems to be that qanats are inherently sustainable because they only produce as much as goes in. You may gradually exceed their capacity, but there won’t be a sudden “oops, no more water” crisis as can happen when you pump an aquifer dry.
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