Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

gist.github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 891 posts

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

#411

Post by potato3732842 »

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…

Nobody who hasn't very a) clearly done wrong or b) actually chooses to fight the feds in court actually going to prison though.

It's just a threat the fedcops get to use to force you to take a plea deal. It's basically a big boy version of how your local prosecutor behaves. Instead of filing BS charges that will never stick in an attempt to "mark it up to mark it down", the fedcops are more equal so they have

Every time you see someone on HN screeching about how we ought to have federal regulation and stiff penalties for whatever their pet issue is remember that this is what that looks like.

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

#412

Post by jiggawatts »

ajuc wrote: post #311
chabska wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody should be expected to take that risk I've seen this sentiment so many times from westerners. You all say this, and yet at the same time you levy economic sanctions on countries like Iran, Cuba, and North Korea, with the justification that by making their citizens lives horrific, you encourage them to rise against their government. Their authoritarian militaristic government that doesn't care for human rights…

You misunderstand the goal of the sanctions. Sanctions are there to cut off 1-2% of GDP each year from the dictatorships' economies. Over 30 years that turns countries into harmless (to the West) backwater shitholes. The consequences towards the local populations are just a side-effect (sometimes wanted, sometimes not). You cannot expect people outside of your dicatorship to prioritize your well being over their own…

This is the right answer, and it's sad to see it so far down the list.

This is the precise realpolitik of international sanctions, it's just not spoken out loud that often.

Don't believe me, some random commenter. Listen to the Professor of History and Grand Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College explain it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/B0k5ToABH7o

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

#413

Post by fvgvkujdfbllo »

junon wrote: post #368
chabska wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody should be expected to take that risk I've seen this sentiment so many times from westerners. You all say this, and yet at the same time you levy economic sanctions on countries like Iran, Cuba, and North Korea, with the justification that by making their citizens lives horrific, you encourage them to rise against their government. Their authoritarian militaristic government that doesn't care for human rights…

"We" don't do anything. We have a very out-of-touch government at the moment. A lot of us would like things to be very, very different.

Iran or United States?

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

#414

Post by koonsolo »

chabska wrote: post #221
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…

> Nobody should be expected to take that risk I've seen this sentiment so many times from westerners. You all say this, and yet at the same time you levy economic sanctions on countries like Iran, Cuba, and North Korea, with the justification that by making their citizens lives horrific, you encourage them to rise against their government. Their authoritarian militaristic government that doesn't care for human rights…

So your proposal is that we do business with all these countries so they have thriving economies with more money they can invest into their government and military?

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

#415

Post by [deleted] »

cess11 wrote: post #336
ajuc wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand the goal of the sanctions. Sanctions are there to cut off 1-2% of GDP each year from the dictatorships' economies. Over 30 years that turns countries into harmless (to the West) backwater shitholes. The consequences towards the local populations are just a side-effect (sometimes wanted, sometimes not). You cannot expect people outside of your dicatorship to prioritize your well being over their own…

No, they're there to kill people. It's war by non-military means, and the US is waging such a war on a very large portion of the world. There is a recent study concluding that sanctions kill half a million people per annum: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1... > I don't know what you mean by dictatorship but I'm not exactly adverse to applying the same term to the US, it being a one-party s…

[deleted]

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

#416

Post by orphea »

itake wrote: post #315
pessimizer wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So being an elite who escapes the consequences of what elites have done is a virtue that should be rewarded? Why would people look up to a runner? Most people don't have anywhere else to go, and love where they're from.

The USA is full of people that left their home country with nothing because they disagreed with how their home country is managed. For example, the Vietnamese boat people. I hardly consider that cohort of immigrants 'elite'. Taiwan is another example. Taiwan wouldn't exist if it wasn't for mainlanders voting with their feet. > love where they're from yes. that is the problem...

  > yes. that is the problem...
Is the concept of opposing the government but loving the country (aka people, culture, nature, cuisine) alien for you?

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

#417

Post by ACCount37 »

ajuc wrote: post #311
chabska wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody should be expected to take that risk I've seen this sentiment so many times from westerners. You all say this, and yet at the same time you levy economic sanctions on countries like Iran, Cuba, and North Korea, with the justification that by making their citizens lives horrific, you encourage them to rise against their government. Their authoritarian militaristic government that doesn't care for human rights…

You misunderstand the goal of the sanctions. Sanctions are there to cut off 1-2% of GDP each year from the dictatorships' economies. Over 30 years that turns countries into harmless (to the West) backwater shitholes. The consequences towards the local populations are just a side-effect (sometimes wanted, sometimes not). You cannot expect people outside of your dicatorship to prioritize your well being over their own…

This. The point is, and always was, to exert economic pressure.

Some sanctions aim at military capabilities directly - but most just aim to throw a wrench into a country's economy overall. Which does hurt the population - but it also hurts a country's capabilities, which is the goal.

If North Korea wasn't sanctioned to shit, it would have had the resources to build not dozens but hundreds of ICBMs. This is undesirable, so North Korea remains sanctioned to shit.

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

#418

Post by School-Cotton »

Xelbair wrote: post #345
School-Cotton wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and yet at the same time you levy economic sanctions on countries like Iran, Cuba, and North Korea No, I don't do this. I'm not in charge of the government. Who is "we" ?

'You' elect the government. Even if you didn't vote for ruling parties, majority did. Also it seems to be a common thing in Europe to refer to other's country populace OR government as plural 'You'. From my small sample size of 3, Americans were always confused by this and thought they were personally attacked.

> 'You' elect the government. Even if you didn't vote for ruling parties, majority did.

So what? Even if 99% of the population agrees with doing something, that has no bearing on whether I agree with it or am responsible for it.

And, anyway, no major candidate would have lifted sanctions on those countries, so nobody could have voted against them even if they wanted to.

> Also it seems to be a common thing in Europe to refer to other's country populace OR government as plural 'You'. From my small sample size of 3, Americans were always confused by this and thought they were personally attacked.

Perhaps Europeans, with their higher-quality parliamentary systems, are more likely to uncritically accept the idea that governments actually represent their people, whereas Americans are more likely to realize it's a sham.

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

#419

Post by squigz »

elAhmo wrote: post #163

> Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians. USA is lucky to be in position where others are too afraid to apply this reasoning to them, knowing they do literally the same with their closest ally.

It would be interesting to see someone try to use the Internet while blocking all American IPs

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

#420

Post by grumple »

bambax wrote: post #296
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…

It's also interesting if the comment comes from a US person, given that the US are primarily responsible for the political situation in Iran.

This is not true and is nonsensical. The Iranian regime is explicitly anti-American, and it was American inaction that allowed them to rise to power. If America had intervened during the revolution, they could have eliminated the regime in its infancy and saved half a century of headaches and many lives lost due to Iranian wars and terror proxies.

The US also did not create political Islam, which predates the US by over 1000 years. Blaming the US for the problems of this region which has always had these problems is counter-factual. The problems of this part of the world - poverty, violence, religious oppression and dictatorships - predate western civilization as a whole, and in fact the oppressive empires from the Middle East / North Africa spread earlier and wider than western empires.

Post reply on HN