Miscellanea: The War in Iran • Hacker News Board

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#541

Post by sysguest » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 11:31 PM UTC

Der_Einzige wrote: post #528

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and do what? Bomb shit. The Saudi and UAE militaries aren't anything to sneeze at. (The area cross the Strait from the UAE is majority Arab [1].) I think it's generally good strategy to not provoke new belligerents against oneself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicities_in_Iran

The Saudi and UAE militaries are indeed something to sneeze at. Go read the comments about them from anyone in the US military whose worked with them. https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/19ckc6l/saudi_a... https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/qhmbog/why_i... https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/hqfatn/why_are_... https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/fbd97k/is_...

well you don't expect them to fight bravely -- well, I don't even expect Saudis to even send their own citizens to iran

rather, you expect them to pay for the missiles and mercenaries like gurkhans

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#542

Post by cheema33 » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 11:35 PM UTC

aetimmes wrote: post #509

amarant wrote: post #278

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…

Only a small fraction of a typical barrel of oil is allocated to energy generation. The majority goes to transportation/industrial use-cases. The transportation usage can be allayed with sonar energy, but the industrial use-cases cannot.

I don't think anyone is making the argument that solar panels can completely replace fossil fuels in the short term. However, more electrification is better all around.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#543

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 11:38 PM UTC

scoofy wrote: post #471

goda90 wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It really is crazy that environmentalists were like, "hey look, free energy," and suddenly everyone started screaming "No, boo! We like the way things are!" I have a friend who has never used an induction range before that is dead set that he never wants one. I just don't get it.

> environmentalists were like, "hey look, free energy,"

It's not free. It costs trilliions of dollars to build and maintain. I think it's worth it. But one place where the climate-change movement lost the plot was in underplaying costs and overplaying the doom.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#544

Post by triceratops » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #338

amarant wrote: post #278

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…

> Need a new solar panel?

Recycle one of your old ones. You don't burn solar panels to make energy.*

I think people are still stuck in the fossil fuel mindset. I've started calling it gas brain.

* What happens if China stops selling you panels while you embark on electrification? Nothing. You already have enough electricity from your existing sources (presumably) so you just pause the PV rollout until they wise up. And other countries are starting to get into PV manufacturing. Exhibit A: https://solarmagazine.com/2025/08/india-solar-supply-chain-f... So you can always just buy from someone else.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#545

Post by mlmonkey » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

People often call this war "dumb".

IMO: this war is just the next step in the 1200-year old Shia-Sunni conflict. The Sunnis hate the Shia, and vice versa. Ever since 1979 when Khomeini came to power, the Sunnis have been on edge. The terrorist attack on Mecca shortly after made matters worse ( https://www.brookings.edu/events/terrorism-in-saudi-arabia-p... ). At first they thought they'd get Saddam to take out Iran; but that brutal war ended in a stalemate. Saudis and Kuwaitis gave billions to Saddam for this, and when it ended, they demanded refunds for a job not done.

This caused Saddam to try and take over Kuwait to wipe out his debts, which in turn freaked the Saudis out. They turned to the US to save them; which in turn pissed Osama off, who was riding tall after kicking the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Gulf War 1 happened, but that didn't placate Osama. Then USS Cole, Khobar Towers, 9/11 happened and US got dragged into the MiddleEast again, this time finally taking out Saddam.

When Trump got reelected, the Saudis and Qataris saw their chance to take out their archenemy Iran. They wined and dined him, invested billions into his and his family's shady schemes, gifted him a brand new jet. In that part of the world, every gift comes with strings attached. So, it was only a matter of time before the US would start trading blows with Iran.

And guess what? MBS is now pushing Trump to put boots on the ground: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-on-brink-of-groun...

The problem with the rulers of Iran was that they did not see the writing on the wall, and continued to poke at Israel via Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthies. They had already lost Syria (with the ouster of Basher Al Assad); they could have just cut their ties with Hamas and Hezbollah and made peace with Israel.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#546

Post by lesuorac » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 11:43 PM UTC

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #328

Dig1t wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>he is a white supremacists He says constantly that he is against blood guilt, the killing of innocents no matter their heritage, and even went so far as to say that he doesn't even necessarily think the large scale replacement of white people in their home countries is a bad thing. I don't know how you could consider that to be white supremacy.

Yeah, I mean, if you ignore maybe half of the things he says about Black Americans or immigrants, you could maybe not see him as a white supremacist. Tucker Carlson is a good political communicator, and he is clever. But he's still a bad person.

> But he's still a bad person.

But that doesn't make him a supremacist. Tucker knows his audience and gives them what they want. He's done content in support of both major parties in the US; he's a true capitalist not a supremacist.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#547

Post by ropable » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 11:44 PM UTC

amarant wrote: post #278

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…

As evidence supporting the "bright side" outcome of this conflict, two separate people I know here is Australia have fast-tracked a decision to replace their ICE vehicles with an EV. It only took a week's sticker shock at the fuel bowser to take them from "Eh, sometime next year" and "comparing a hybrid with ICE" to "Buying a BYD car ASAP". I'd be curious to know if there has been any significant effect of the market for electric scooters and bikes, also.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#548

Post by ahartmetz » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 11:44 PM UTC

andriy_koval wrote: post #418

buran77 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

there are pathways to produce synthetic oil from coal or using carbon capture if you have cheap energy. I hope they will catch up if fossil oil prices skyrocket.

Pretty much all chemical changes can be made with reasonable amounts of energy. That includes making "bioplastics" as well as the typical plastics we use today like polyethylene, polystyrol and so on, from biomaterials. What doesn't work in a way that's remotely economical is transmuting elements. It is, for example, possible to make gold today, the old dream of alchemists. But it's several orders of magnitude too expensive.

Common plastics are made from highly abundant elements, so running out of oil as a chemical feedstock is a quite surmountable problem given cheap enough energy.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#549

Post by triceratops » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 11:45 PM UTC

r2_pilot wrote: post #412

mememememememo wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A country that goes all in renewable is in a stronger positon. UK power grid doesn't give a fuck about this war. Sure China. But unless they send in an army to retreive previously sold panels, or block the sun they can only harm future increases to supply.

Or wait 20 years for the panels to degrade...

More than enough time to stand up a domestic PV industry.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#550

Post by cheema33 » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 11:47 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #466

watwut wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> An Iran that has beef with literally every single one of its neighbors other than Turkmenistan cannot provide that balance.

Well, is that better than Israel and its relationships with its neighbors?