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Miscellanea: The War in Iran

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461–470 of 1001 posts

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#461

A core trait of my personality can be summed up as "always look on the bright side of life". To that end: This war seems more than likely to drive up oil prices not only in the near term, but in the medium and long terms too! In addition, petroleum usage seems likely to become dependant on sucking Iran's proverbial dick, a notion that very few people in The West will find palatable. Optimistically then, perhaps this…

Self-sufficiency is a myth. Even if you wanted to try and be energy independent, for the short and medium term (and maybe longer, who knows?) you will be dependent on China and all the baggage that they bring because of their dominance of rare earth mineral processing. Need a new solar panel? Don't make a certain country mad (whether that's your local Ayatollah or CCP official). And that's just energy. What about pha…

There is a huge difference between buying a solar panel once and having it generate energy for the next 30 years vs. buying a barrel of oil now and consuming it by next week.

It's the same difference as buying a house now and owning it until it collapses vs. renting a house and being at the mercy of your landlord, or buying a piece of shrink-wrapped software and using it for the next 18 years vs. renting a SaaS subscription that provides a different product next month.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#462
"...it is not possible for two sides to both win a war. But it is absolutely possible for both sides to lose; mutual ruin is an option. Every actor involved in this war – the United States, Iran, arguably Israel, the Gulf states, the rest of the energy-using world – is on net poorer, more vulnerable, more resource-precarious as a result."

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#463

A core trait of my personality can be summed up as "always look on the bright side of life". To that end: This war seems more than likely to drive up oil prices not only in the near term, but in the medium and long terms too! In addition, petroleum usage seems likely to become dependant on sucking Iran's proverbial dick, a notion that very few people in The West will find palatable. Optimistically then, perhaps this…

In January, the youtuber Technology Connections did a whole rant about how ridiculous it is that we're not rushing as quickly as possible to get off of non-renewable energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#464

Author seems to not care about the prospect of the Iranian regime developing nuclear weapons, putting those weapons into the hands of its terrorist proxies, and sitting back while those proxies turn Western Europe and Palestine into radioactive wastelands (yes, Palestine, because it is not possible to restrict the fallout to just Tel Aviv, and the regime has shown itself to be far more anti-Israel than pro-Palestinia…

You seem to suffer from selective memory, your president declared Irans nuclear program "totally, totally destroyed" and your post "fake news". That was half a year ago. What necessitated another obviously useless strategic air campaign?

Its ironic it's not even discussed anymore in the US. A year in and you can't find a political post on HN, it's all blackholed - we've gone past "I didn't vote for him" straight to posts like this from alternative reality where he doesn't exist, doesn't say or do things.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#465
post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the dependency turns from a stop the world calamity to an annoyance. If you’re 95% self sufficient it will stay at headlines in the local press.

Losing 20% of your electricity supply is a calamity, not an annoyance. So unless you want the calamity, you're still dependent on imports. Personally, I don't see an issue with that, as long as the neighboring countries you're importing from are reliable and will be able to supply at the times you need (i.e., they don't have the same possibly spiky import dependency as yourself). The other option is massive storage c…

Dunno about you, but losing 20% of my electricity supply is an annoyance. I just don't run the clothes dryer and hang my clothes on a rack instead.

(And yes, I have solar + battery, and have lost 100% of my outside electricity supply on a half dozen occasions since having it installed, and my actual response has been to not run the clothes dryer.)

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#466
post #393
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, all these armchair "experts" are missing very obvious truths - 1) Every authority figure is telling the Iranian people to stay inside and wait. 2) Revolutions don't happen overnight, the same way that businesses don't succeed overnight, even though from far away it might seem that way. 3) Official Israeli statements estimate it could take up to a year after the war is over for a successful overthrow, even…

Israel does not want functional moderate goverment in Iran. It would bomb and kill anyone who tries that. Israels plan is to periodically bomb and keep Iran failed state. It is working on making itself larger cleansing whole areas around it and settling it.

> Israel does not want functional moderate goverment in Iran

Israel would probably be fine with a moderate government in Iran. A moderate Tehran doesn't encourage Hamas and Hezbollah to randomly lob rockets into Israel.

Even if Israel disagreed, a moderate Iran balances Israel in the region. An Iran that has beef with literally every single one of its neighbors other than Turkmenistan cannot provide that balance.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#467

A core trait of my personality can be summed up as "always look on the bright side of life". To that end: This war seems more than likely to drive up oil prices not only in the near term, but in the medium and long terms too! In addition, petroleum usage seems likely to become dependant on sucking Iran's proverbial dick, a notion that very few people in The West will find palatable. Optimistically then, perhaps this…

The petrochemical industry is huge we've yet to find alternatives for it. Half the stuff around you was made with something derived from oil, and you can't replace that with wind or sunlight in the foreseeable future.

A lot of what the petrochemical industry does took over from other stuff or isn't vital, there just hasn't been enough push back against it.

Stuff like medicine, sure, crucial and very hard to find replacements for.

But single use plastics can probably be replaced 95% (the environment would appreciate it if we banned them), dyes are mostly not vital, synthetic fibers can be replaced 95% with minor critical impact, just using natural fibers, etc.

The petrochemical industry is just the cheapest option in many cases in a world driven by conspicuous consumption of non vital items.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#469

A core trait of my personality can be summed up as "always look on the bright side of life". To that end: This war seems more than likely to drive up oil prices not only in the near term, but in the medium and long terms too! In addition, petroleum usage seems likely to become dependant on sucking Iran's proverbial dick, a notion that very few people in The West will find palatable. Optimistically then, perhaps this…

> war seems more than likely to drive up oil prices not only in the near term, but in the medium and long terms too

"This recovery period doesn’t just get pushed out by 24 hours each day it gets longer as more production is forced to shut down or is damaged in the fighting. As I write this, futures markets for the WTI seem to be expecting oil prices to remain elevated (above $70 or so) well into 2028."

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#470

A core trait of my personality can be summed up as "always look on the bright side of life". To that end: This war seems more than likely to drive up oil prices not only in the near term, but in the medium and long terms too! In addition, petroleum usage seems likely to become dependant on sucking Iran's proverbial dick, a notion that very few people in The West will find palatable. Optimistically then, perhaps this…

Pessimistically, this will lead to the return of old-school Imperialism to secure the necessary oil supplies and increased exploitation of known deposits.

Just because there's an obvious good choice for the average citizen doesn't mean we'll take it, as recent history has more than proven.

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