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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

#261

As someone of Turkish origin with Kurdish, Bulgarian, and Greek roots (somehow my genes don't fight each other!), I'm deeply saddened by the current state of the region. Growing up in western Turkey, I didn't give much thought to the eastern part of the country, let alone Iran. Funnily, my first real interactions with Iranian culture didn't happen until I moved to Germany. Aside from their cuisine being the only one…

Regarding > We share similar struggles, though I recognize that Turkey's situation involves much less external interference than Iran's... ours is mostly our own doing. Can you explain what you mean by Turkey having issues "of it's own doing"? Do you mean something like corruption, or some other factor? I know very little about Turkey or the issues it faces, other than some cataclysmic earthquakes.

I don't know much about Turkey, but I assume they are referring to Erdogan. Turkey was a pretty solid democracy and he turned it into an authoritarian regime.

Erdogan also has some interesting ideas about the economy. A quote from his Wikipedia article: "He has pushed the theory that inflation is caused by high interest rates, an idea universally rejected by economists. This, along with other factors such as excessive current account deficit and foreign-currency debt, in combination with Erdoğan's increasing authoritarianism, caused an economic crisis starting from 2018, leading to large depreciation of the Turkish lira and very high inflation."

The resulting crisis has its own article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_economic_crisis_(2018%...

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

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I asserted that datacentres dont consume clean water, then that would be incorrect, but I did not, I said water. Water is evaporated and not consumed. Also, I hope you apply same standard and scrutiny to the water impact of the food you consume.

Being overly pedantic doesn't help make your point. And, yes, our food supply also has an impact on water availability in areas where food production occurs.

I am not being overly pedantic, I am merely pointing out the obvious fact that datacentres have +- 0 bearing on water problems in Iran, and even bringing them up in this conversation while ignoring corn or beef is ignorant at best and malicious at worst.

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

#263
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding your retelling of history is a minority view. For instance, it is in conflict with Wikipedia. It’s commonly accepted that Mossadegh was thrown out by a coup and that Khomenei seized power through a revolution.

"it is in conflict with wikipedia" is a wild thing to read.

To be fair, the entire chain of this thread is lacking any sources. Wikipedia at least contains sources, despite its relative inaccuracies and questionable authenticity of those sources. "in conflict with wikipedia" seems somewhat reasonable at this junction until someone rises above that bar.

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

#264
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is true, why have I heard about data centers demolishing local water supplies? Is this incorrect?

Its a thing that cannot be generalized. However, many datacenters use evaporative cooling. Especially when the DC is built in a region with relatively warm outside temperatures, it‘s basically the only viable way to get rid of all that heat.

It seems weird then that they are not locating data centers around northern rust belt areas where the industrial land use would not be an issue and rivers/lakes are plentiful (being the main reason those cities and industry developed there in the first place).

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

#265
I'm not sure if people realize this, but Iran suffered more than any other nation during WW2, including Poland, Japan, the Philippines, China, and that's saying something. As a neutral country, I believe they have had something like 25% fatality rate during the war.

This can be seen as the knock on effects from the downfall of the Persian and Ottoman empires, and to a greater extent the destruction of the Persian civilization as the leader in the Middle East, replaced by the British and later American empires.

Water depletion and failure is but one small symptom of their civilizational decline. These issues wouldn't have been circumvented by better planning, it was to some extent written in the sky that this would come to pass. How can they support the needed infrastructure spending and policy goals, not being a leading global power? For example, not being able to control inflows from neighboring countries, or have the USD or trading partners available to pay to import food.

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

#266
post #254
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a matter of values. Some would argue that appeasement of and being subdued by colonial powers is a much to high price to pay for whatever material wealth you're referring to.

That’s an ideological issue. Many people if they could would move to one of such ‘imperial powers’ which means it’s not much of an actual issue. Most Europeans seem to be fine being under the EU where they don’t get to vote those bureaucrats in.

> Most Europeans seem to be fine being under the EU where they don’t get to vote those bureaucrats in.

The political power in the EU comes from the national governments (directly and via the European commission) and the EU parliament. The members of parliament are elected. The national governments are also formed out of elected parliaments. There's also a body of administration and bureaucracy that comes out of these power structures, just like there is, by necessity, in any government ever, democratic or not.

Insinuating that this somehow equates to authoritarian forms of government appears deeply ignorant or dishonest to me.

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

#267
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.

It's genuinely hard to parse reality from propaganda when it comes to Iran. There are plenty of travel vloggers on youtube who visited over the past few years (before the June war obviously).

The state of the country seemed quite beautiful to be honest. I have a hard time thinking it's a total disaster right now

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

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suggest you read the article I wasn't talking about what they were discussing (desalination for farming). I was talking about moving an entire city, as opposed to getting enough water to deal with just that city. I suggest you read this: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments

Actually it says the desalinated water is too expensive even for farming, it’s only used for heavy industries, so it’s certainly not a solution for the domestic supply of 9 million people. And don’t confuse moving the capital city with actually relocating Tehran. Tehran’s not going anywhere. What they’re proposing is building a new capital city, but it’ll be the rich and the political and religious elite who move the…

What's unique about Iran that makes it not feasible? Israel makes more than half of its drinking water from desalination.

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

#269
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not absolutely. > not because the facts of the US backed coup damaging Iran are at all in dispute. I mean, they are, GP just admitted they stand corrected[0] and "democratically elected government" of Mossadegh is factually incorrect. Other comments have pointed out he was installed not by the people, but by the Shah and Majles, stopped 1952 elections when they didn't go his way, then tried to dissolve parliament and…

You're leaving out a lot of detail. Yes, Mossadegh stopped counting votes, claiming the election was corrupted by foreign influence, which it to some extent was. Less than half the members of the majlis that had thus been elected belonged to his own party, so that wasn't exactly a power grab for himself. In the events that followed his popularity rose and he tried to gather a government but was blocked by the shah, w…

I have no issue with the details, and appreciate the nuance here. I just object to people who frame the situation as "there is no dispute the US and UK overthrew a democratically elected Iranian government"

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

#270
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it says the desalinated water is too expensive even for farming, it’s only used for heavy industries, so it’s certainly not a solution for the domestic supply of 9 million people. And don’t confuse moving the capital city with actually relocating Tehran. Tehran’s not going anywhere. What they’re proposing is building a new capital city, but it’ll be the rich and the political and religious elite who move the…

What's unique about Iran that makes it not feasible? Israel makes more than half of its drinking water from desalination.

actually 90% of potable water in israel comes from desalination. in addition, a bunch of desalinated water supplied to jordan and PA.

also 90%+ of waste water is recycled and used for irrigation

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