Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran'; • Hacker News Board

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#281

Post by raincole » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 9:09 AM UTC

wojciii wrote: post #138

aarroyoc wrote: post #19

These sanctions are not really effective. I think Cuba is the country that has had them for the most amount of time and... Nothing changed. Instead they force them to develop in house tech which may be better for them in the long term

Ukrainian sanctions work. Ask a russian about the price of fuel. The European sanctions are more of a joke. I you want to Ukraine to win donate to them directly instead of waiting for the cowardly politicians to get their act together.

Work?

Let's not kid ourselves. Russia is still killing Ukrainians right now. They're still occupying Ukraine's land right now. Is this what "work" looks like in your dictionary?

> Ask a russian about the price of fuel.

Oh I see. In your dictionary a working solution is not to stop the war or get lands back, but to ensure average Russian people suffer. Never mind then.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#282

Post by bambax » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 9:10 AM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #20

OP, some context from the other side might be helpful. Yes, there are fines for American companies if they do business with Iranians. That's how sanctions work as I'm sure you're aware. But the story doesn't stop there. If an American finds out they are transacting with a sanctioned individual, or citizens of a sanctioned country like Iran or North Korea, the stakes go up: $1M USD fine and up to 20 years in federal p…

> in federal pounding-in-the-ass prison

Ha ha ha, it's so funny and harmless to make fun of people in prison, because they all deserve it, right? And the US is a free country?

Sorry but this just makes me incredibly angry.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#283

Post by jjani » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 9:10 AM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #218

toolis wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is the exact same argument Bin Laden used for 9/11; that the US civilians were culpable due to their votes and taxes supporting what the US government was doing.

Correct! And he hit a nerve laying this logic bare, which is exactly why The Guardian took the unprecedented and absurd measure of removing his manifesto from a decades-old article when it went viral a year or 2 ago. Lest the populace get to see things for what they are. At the same time unmasking their veil that despite their pretenses, they're just as much of a capital interests-captured rag as their "competitors".

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#284

Post by sofixa » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 9:11 AM UTC

perching_aix wrote: post #107

slg wrote: post #64

>Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians. The "your decision" in that response is really off-putting. I know the law is what it is with sanctions like this. However, it is a failing of basic human empathy to blame other common citizens of a country for the actions of their government while we almost certainly do not endorse all…

This frustrates me as well. It is so incredibly common, yet it never passes even basic scrutiny. For one, even in typical modern democracies, the active administration is chosen by like a third of the voting population via a first-pass-the-post system or a close analog of it. It's easy to ignore this when things are going okay, but becomes very uncomfortable all of a sudden when that changes. And this is to say nothi…

> For one, even in typical modern democracies, the active administration is chosen by like a third of the voting population via a first-pass-the-post system or a close analog of it

"typical modern democracies" don't use the extremely terrible first past the post. It's mostly used in the UK and a few former colonies, but most of the world's democracies (even the flawed ones) have realised its shortcomings and have evolved past it.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#285

Post by andrepd » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 9:12 AM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #20

OP, some context from the other side might be helpful. Yes, there are fines for American companies if they do business with Iranians. That's how sanctions work as I'm sure you're aware. But the story doesn't stop there. If an American finds out they are transacting with a sanctioned individual, or citizens of a sanctioned country like Iran or North Korea, the stakes go up: $1M USD fine and up to 20 years in federal p…

> the stakes go up: $1M USD fine and up to 20 years in federal prison. Oh and that's a personal risk -- you, the manager or executive in charge, and anyone else who is in the know on the transaction is now facing 20 years in federal pounding-in-the-ass prison

If only this notion of personal criminal responsibility was applied to other types of private company criminality (2008 gfc, cartelization in many industries, the many private data "leaks", ...)

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#286

Post by trhway » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 9:12 AM UTC

jbstack wrote: post #194

trhway wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the sanctions weren't effective Russia wouldn't be insisting on the lifting of the sanctions as a part of any Ukrainian deal. The sanctions significantly slow down Russian development and are more and more making it into just a mineral mining satellite of China. With time the weakened Russia would just split, and the large eastern part will go to China. Some midparts, with Turkic speaking population may even fall…

> If the sanctions weren't effective Russia wouldn't be insisting on the lifting of the sanctions as a part of any Ukrainian deal. If the sanctions were effective Russia wouldn't be offering entirely one-sided deals that it knows nobody is going to accept, because it would be desperate enough to get those sanctions lifted that it would actually have to concede something in a deal.

Sanctions don't prevent the short-term behavior. Russia thinks that it is winning in Ukraine - thus the one-sided deals, it isn't about the other side accepting it, for Russia it is about Russia forcing such a deal, and it always includes lifting of the sanctions as a key element of a deal that Russia is trying to force because even with traditional lack of long-term vision they understand that the sanctions are crippling the country. They think that winning the war, forcing such a one-sided deal, is the only way to get the sanctions lifted "cleanly", and any deal with concessions, etc. would look less than victorious and would probably have the sanctions lift incomplete/incremental and boggled down with conditions, etc.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#287

Post by lukan » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 9:13 AM UTC

tgma wrote: post #226

lukan wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't think a jew would have gone back to Nazi Germany to visit family" Then I recommend some history books. Family ties can be strong and the persecution of the jews was not always as violent and open as it was during the war. It was more systematic discrimination in the beginning, so of course people still travelled back and forth. Uprooting a whole family is not a simple thing. "Some even line up to vote for sh…

> If that would be true, they would be a democracy. I am positing perhaps they are a democracy. Many of the "educated people" in question that the GP suggests "hate" the government, may say so but their actions nevertheless are directly and indirectly benefiting the Mullahs. Democracy does not mean good, or effective, or not evil. It might be a collective compromise towards mediocrity and stagnation.

"I am positing perhaps they are a democracy."

Then maybe take a closer look into how their system works.

Every candidate has to be approved by the Mullah's. So the Mullah's are effectivly in control. Still, there are differences with the candidates. Would I vote under such conditions? No idea, I am struggle to find a party representing my views and I am in a western democracy.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#288

Post by plumb_bob_00 » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 9:13 AM UTC

mvdtnz wrote: post #233

4gotunameagain wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should they do ? Stop working, or protest and risk getting killed ? It's easy to call for action from your comfortable life. No, the populace does not bear the same responsibility for the country's actions in all countries. Swiss with direct democracy bear much higher responsibility than systematically oppressed populace in other countries.

[flagged]

> It's because they support the regime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahsa_Amini_protests

> The protests were described as "unlike any the country had seen before", the "biggest challenge" to the government, and "most widespread revolt", since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

> ...

> Although the protests have not been as deadly as those in 2019 (when more than 1,500 were killed), they have been "nationwide, spread across social classes, universities, the streets [and] schools". At least 551 people, including 68 minors, had been killed as a result of the government's intervention in the protests, as of 15 September 2023. Before February 2023 when most were pardoned, an estimated 19,262 were arrested across at least 134 cities and towns and 132 universities.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34346192

> Tell HN: Farewell letter of M. Hosseini – executed 01.02.2023 by I.R. of Iran

> ...

> In the dawn of tomorrow, at the foot of the gallows, I will look up to the sky for the last time, see the last star and cry out with all my strength, "Woman, life, freedom". I will cry out in the name of justice and in the hope of a world without violence, a world that loves nature and that is safe for all the children of the world.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#289

Post by pessimizer » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 9:14 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #282

adastra22 wrote: post #20

OP, some context from the other side might be helpful. Yes, there are fines for American companies if they do business with Iranians. That's how sanctions work as I'm sure you're aware. But the story doesn't stop there. If an American finds out they are transacting with a sanctioned individual, or citizens of a sanctioned country like Iran or North Korea, the stakes go up: $1M USD fine and up to 20 years in federal p…

> in federal pounding-in-the-ass prison Ha ha ha, it's so funny and harmless to make fun of people in prison, because they all deserve it, right? And the US is a free country? Sorry but this just makes me incredibly angry.

It's simply bizarre that dreams of US "justice" involve interracial homosexual rape fantasies. Of course the interracial part that creeps in is a reminder that the US is not free. It still hasn't paid for hundreds of years of hard forced labor from many individuals. The guilt from this causes it to act strangely.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#290

Post by ivan_gammel » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 9:19 AM UTC

Schnitz wrote: post #38

ivan_gammel wrote: post #10

The stupid thing about those indiscriminate sanctions is that it goes against the very values the West is pretending to defend. EU charter of Human Rights is explicit about condemning collective responsibility, universal declaration of human rights demands justice to be applied reasonably and individually, yet here we are: punishing people without trial. Do those sanctions even work? North Korea still builds nuclear…

Sanctions work, but not in the way that is the common public perception. The expectation isn’t that Russia or whoever falls apart a few weeks after we lock them out of Visa payment rails or whatever. The reality is that the sanctions stifle economic growth and that effect is compounding. Even if sanctions only reduce growth by 1 percentage point, after ~19 years your economy is already 20% smaller than it would be wi…

> From a national security perspective, it makes Russia a lot less concerning if their industrial output is 20% less

Russian military industrial output has significantly increased and more importantly they demonstrated the ability to scale it up very quickly. The economy has grown during the war - the effects of the sanctions may become painful in the long term only if they will stay for decades, which is unlikely.