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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

#141

Post by Waterluvian »

gpjt wrote: post #135
est31 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does "advertises" in this context mean what's put in the "Accept-Language" HTTP header? Might be worth seeing what that value specifically is the next time this happens. A "clever" IP-based language choice server-side seems far too complicated and error prone, but I guess that's what makes it so "clever."

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

#142

Post by filleduchaos »

nradov wrote: post #138
MangoToupe wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The comment that starts this chain is quite literally "A country that invests all of his money on nuclear weapons"

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

#143

Post by pjc50 »

stainablesteel wrote: post #23
dkga wrote: post #5

I grew up in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, a region full of natural resources and, thankfully, aquifers and natural water reservoirs. However, centuries of extraction mismanagement and, more recently, over exploration of mineral resources puts these water resources into jeopardy. (Other problems include mining in open pits and with sludge dams that led to two of the worse environmental disasters in the world i…

this same problem is one of the side effects of mining for the metals used in things like solar panels it comes at the sacrifice of many non-western countries and this conversation is never on the table it's such a shame things that could otherwise last for thousands of years will get destroyed by a few decades of mismanagement

Always interesting when people select an environmentally friendly technology that will help the transition away from destroying the environment somewhere or indeed everywhere else as the "villain" in this discussion. As if oil or coal extraction were without their controversies.

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

#144

Post by scythe »

bonzini wrote: post #105
vintermann wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the reason qanats weren't sufficient anymore, was that they pursued a policy of food independence, due to sanctions/a desire for political autonomy. I'm not so sure they could have done much different.

Sanctions in the 1950s?

Sanctions, including an attempted blockade [1] of oil exports, imposed by the British Empire, still in existence at the time, in response to a dispute over the ownership of Iranian oil fields, which were a primary factor in the fall of Mossadegh. See e.g.:

https://harpers.org/archive/2013/07/the-tragedy-of-1953/

It should be noted that while the Shah obviously benefited from the coup, he remained suspicious of the Western powers who had supported it; he was not foolish enough to believe they were honest allies. Consequently, he was inclined to support attempts at autarky.

1: https://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/new-york-times/march-...

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

#145

Post by concinds »

Waterluvian wrote: post #54
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!

Yeah! I don't know what methods Safari on iOS uses, but in general translation has become pretty magical. It feels like we've kind of slepwalked through the invention of the Universal Translator. I just haven't heard as much gushing about it as I feel it deserves. I can just effortlessly read a sciency news article originally written in Portuguese!

In terms of translation quality, it's still DeepL > Google > Apple, with Apple a fair bit behind and generally more stilted (and far fewer languages).

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

#146

Post by [deleted] »

meteyor wrote: post #87
timcobb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What simple solution are you referring to? Depopulating Tehran?

I like the idea of working with nature to solve problems. As a start, instead of, as you suggest, depopulating Tehran, they could populate it with trees. Chad is a perfect example of how to turn a deserted landscape into a "Great green wall of Africa" as they call it. And they did in only two years.

[deleted]

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

#147

Post by pjc50 »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #119
mrits wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American "regime" has a country that people are literally fighting in line to get into.

Iran has 3 million illegal immigrants, FYI. (Or had; they recently implemented mass deportations.) Immigration inflow is caused by lax border control, not by being a great place to live. No matter how bad it is, there's always someone worse off willing to try their luck.

3 million from where? Is that by any chance refugees from the collapse of nearby Syria?

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

#148

Post by jncfhnb »

I’m surprised that Iran can contemplate affording this. There must be such immense losses of all the land, homes, and capital assets in Tehran. And then operational costs of moving people around, building new homes, etc.

$100B is such a high number that it becomes funny money but… idk, doesn’t it still feel like a lowball in terms of losses?

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

#149

Post by YC3498749387 »

immibis wrote: post #129
baxtr wrote: post #73

Maybe it’s selection bias but: The saddest thing about Iran I’ve noticed is the stark contrast between the current state of the country and the intelligence of the people I’ve met from this country.

Iran used to be a very prosperous country only a century ago, and then it democratically elected a totalitarian theocratic party. Don't think that it can't happen here too.

That doesn't sound correct. My understanding of the history is that Iran democratically elected a socialist who wanted to nationalize Iran's oil fields so they could keep the oil revenue inside their country instead of giving it away to BP and Exxon. The British orchestrated a coup to install the old monarchy (the Shah), who brought back the British extraction companies and harshly repressed Shia Muslims. Then in 1979 the Shia hardliners toppled the government in the Islamic Revolution which is where the current government originates from. The last real democratically elected president of Iran was the socialist one, Mohammad Mosaddegh.

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

#150

Post by dkga »

neves wrote: post #90
dkga wrote: post #5

I grew up in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, a region full of natural resources and, thankfully, aquifers and natural water reservoirs. However, centuries of extraction mismanagement and, more recently, over exploration of mineral resources puts these water resources into jeopardy. (Other problems include mining in open pits and with sludge dams that led to two of the worse environmental disasters in the world i…

You forgot to mention what may be the most serious water problem in Brazil. Agribusiness invests heavily in the Cerrado, the Brazilian savanna. In the Cerrado originate the vast majority of Brazilian rivers, which supply water to almost all of Brazil. Its trees, with deep roots, retain the scarce water of the region. This entire region has been deforested for the production of soybeans and cattle ranching. Brazil is…

Yes, that is right. I didn't forget to mention it, just thought the Minas Gerais case was the most unique geologically as opposed to the far-too-common negative externality problem as is the agricultural excessive use of water + deforestation. But you are completely right. I actually live deep in the Cerrado region now, in Brasília, and I can see first-hand the negative effects of over exploration of water in the region.
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