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Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

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Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#451

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dataflow wrote: post #369
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why on earth would they believe him? One, we have no evidence they did. The claim that kids put themselves in front of guns forty days ago and again today because of Trump's tweets is extraordinary. Two, if they did, it's because they're desperate. I can't imagine Iranians actually want the shah back. But they know rallying around the shah's image pisses off the regime. In that way, it's actually smart to wave his…

> One, we have no evidence they did. What? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/why-protesters...

No, The Guardian interviewing a single protestor in Iran isn’t an open-and-shut case. We have plenty of people tweeting just about everything from Iran. But we don’t yet know how these protests were formed and led, who did the organizing, et cetera. That means we don’t have the data to build a counter factual with yet, and anyone pretending they do is revealing their credibility.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#452

Post by JumpCrisscross »

buran77 wrote: post #328
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> feel like promoting non-violence outside the context of western democracies is misleading and potentially dangerous The article discusses "efforts, in a sense, directed against the state itself, both violent approaches (what we might call ‘terroristic insurgency’) and non-violent approaches (protest)" ( Id. ). > Maybe he addresses it somewhere in the article but I have yet to read it "The ‘center of gravity’ – the…

His is a very idealistic take which weirdly omits that every major example of non-violent protest working to topple a regime involved some foreign super power spending trillions of dollars to wage very much violent wars for the purpose. The insight that he's missing in so many words is that you need to crack the door open just enough for a foreign (super)power to want to come barging in for some reason. Non-violent p…

> insight that he's missing in so many words is that you need to crack the door open just enough for a foreign (super)power to want to come barging in for some reason

No foreign superpower barged into the Civil Rights or the Indian independence movement. Not directly. (If we’re counting hypothetical foreign involvement that’s a geopolitical constant.)

> sounds like a cop-out to the original blanket statement

And no excerpt from an article will do a full reading justice. The article makes no blanket statements, its entire thesis is armed insurgency and protest are strategic twins.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#453

Post by dataflow »

remarkEon wrote: post #447
dataflow wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying you're wrong (or right), but that you're simply jumping to a much more complicated explanation than what I'm seeing. My point was much more straightforward than that. All I'm saying is: you addressed (b), but what about (a)? That is, if you believe this comparison is merited, then surely Iranians would at least be making it themselves reasonably frequently? Now I don't know I'm living in a bubble, or i…

In fairness (to myself, I guess) I did start this thread out by saying that I do think this is more complex. With regard to your question, my mistake I thought I implied an answer to (a). Of the people I see complaining about this, a very very small fraction are actually Persian. It's really just one person, and she's someone I met through my wife while living in LA. There's not that many Iranian ex-pats living in th…

There's a very critical bit in my comment that is missing in your response unfortunately -- I'm not sure if I'm communicating it poorly, so I'll try again, with more emphasis.

> I'm not sure how meaningful it is to try to discern the exact percentage of "Iranians not living in Iran are upset the media isn't covering the regime murdering its own people". This would be par for the course, no?

I'm lost here, because that was not at all the percentage I was talking about -- and it didn't need to be even remotely exact, either. I was asking what percentage of Iranians (whether local or expat, although local would be even more relevant here) you see/hear about that compare the global reaction to their situation to the global reaction to Palestinians' situation.

This comparison bit is absolutely critical. It's one thing to be upset the media isn't covering some situation you feel deserves more coverage. It's a whole 'nother thing to be pointing toward the Palestinians as if whatever is happening regarding them has any bearing on another case. (And, let's be clear, it carries an implicit accusation of bias/hypocrisy/etc. in the media and/or public.)

> So, what does it matter if the percentage of Iranians complaining about this issue is high, or low?

Assuming "this issue" refers to what I meant and not what you described:

It matters a ton because my entire point is that for the argument to stand on its merits, Iranians themselves would have to agree with you. And yet I have not even heard of one single Iranian (and I assure you I know n > 1) who has even brought up Palestine in the discussion, let alone drawn a comparison between the two. Given the conflation above in your comment, it's not even clear to me whether your n = 1 data point was doing so either, but perhaps they were.

Again: this could be my bubble, but your experience seems to confirm what I'm saying too.

If hardly anyone in the population itself finds such a comparison apt enough to draw, then I'm sorry, that means it simply isn't. At that point, you have a perfectly sufficient explanation of why "all [one's] friends who posted non-stop about supporting Palestine have NEVER made one mention of supporting the Iranians protesting that regime": because they the situations aren't comparable to begin with, regardless of any biases one may allege.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#454

Post by fortzi »

ebbi wrote: post #393
fortzi wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of genocide has been fluid lately. Can you clarify what you mean, exactly?

> The definition of genocide has been fluid lately. Has it? Interesting. Wasn't aware of this phenomenon.

Yes indeed. I picked the first few search results for “usage of the word genocide lately”, assuming that you haven’t bothered to do that yourself, in hope that you’ll spend a few minutes getting educated on a subject you talk about with such conviction.

[1] https://forward.com/opinion/805648/genocide-has-become-meani...

[2] https://www.maxim.org.nz/article/genocide-shouldnt-be-over-u...

[3] https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2024/09/the-dilution-of-ge...

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#455

Post by fortzi »

smashah wrote: post #426
fortzi wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epstein regime? Sure enough, the rest of your comment maintains the same line of incoherent meme fueled rant.

It's a very funny meme when the The Worldwide Epstein Regime sends it's Satan's Chosen Einsatzgruppen to sacrifice tens of thousands of children in Gaza? Just because you consider those children as subhuman cattle? Please clarify your position on the Holocaust of Children in Gaza.

The entity that is choosing to sacrifice children in Gaza is Hamas. When you send kids as scouts to spy on enemy forces you assume they’re gonna get hurt. When you set up military commands inside schools and hospitals you choose to sacrifice your population.

please clarify your position on using civilians as sacrificial cannon fodder in war.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#456

Post by dataflow »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #451
dataflow wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One, we have no evidence they did. What? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/why-protesters...

No, The Guardian interviewing a single protestor in Iran isn’t an open-and-shut case. We have plenty of people tweeting just about everything from Iran. But we don’t yet know how these protests were formed and led, who did the organizing, et cetera . That means we don’t have the data to build a counter factual with yet, and anyone pretending they do is revealing their credibility.

> No, The Guardian interviewing a single protestor in Iran isn’t an open-and-shut case. We have plenty of people tweeting just about everything from Iran. But we don’t yet know how these protests were formed and led, who did the organizing, et cetera. That means we don’t have the data to build a counter factual with yet, and anyone pretending they do is revealing their credibility.

Have you read the news about this? Do you seriously think there's only one protester claiming this that we have any knowledge of, with one outlet reporting on it? Just because I gave one link to get you started that doesn't mean there isn't more if you look for it.

Nobody ever said "this is an open-and-shut case" either. Nor was anybody expecting a scientific proof. The sentence was "there is no evidence," and I produced one such, and you moved the goalposts.

I'll leave one more link here but you can believe whatever you want, it's a waste of time arguing here.

https://time.com/7347090/iran-protesters-trump-help/

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#457

Post by dataflow »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #450
dataflow wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> They were provoked by the U.S. president, who promised support to take on the institutions, but that support never materialized > Lots of Americans think the world revolves around us. The truth is we have less influence than we think. We didn't provoke these protests, though we did give them false hope. Sorry, but you're just wrong in this case. The US president absolutely had a huge impact here. Meaning it wasn't…

> if he hadn't said and done what he did, the protests and deaths absolutely would not have occurred at the same scale The Guardian interviewing a handful of people, one of whom is a random protester in Iran, doesn’t establish this absolutely in any serious framework. The fact that the protests have recurred should give pause to your hypothesis.

> The fact that the protests have recurred should give pause to your hypothesis.

First, the fact that they have recurred while the US has been building up military forces there should give you pause on your hypothesis.

Second, just because a fire grows and shrinks after being started, that doesn't mean there was no initial fuel.

Third, nobody said they wouldn't have recurred. The sentence was "they wouldn't have occurred at the same scale."

Finally, I replied to your other comment to avoid duplicating the discussion, and this is going to be my last comment on the matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47117884

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#458

Post by fortzi »

thrance wrote: post #441
fortzi wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should ask a few Palestinians before making such statements. Polls made by respected Palestinian surveyors show immense support for Hamas by Palestinians [1]. If you dig inti the polls, you’ll find great support in continuing the armed conflict. I’ll add: to the last man standing. While I agree with you that Hamas and the Palestinians are not one thing, Hamas would not be able to operate the way it did (and…

Yes, and if you poll Israelis about their views of Palestinians, you'll find that the majority want to exterminate them all. What does that say about Israel? Fucking nothing except that we shouldn't be funding either of them. And we aren't arming Hamas. What matters is that pro-Palestinians aren't calling for the extermination of Israel, while Zionists are clearly calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Wanting the…

I don’t know, these chants of “river to the sea” accompanied by signs with maps of israel fully covered with a Palestinian flag tell me the opposite.

> if you poll Israelis about their views of Palestinians, you'll find that the majority want to exterminate them all

Can you point me to that poll, or is that just your opinion?

> Zionists are clearly calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza

First of all, you clearly don’t know what Zionism is. Hell, it means different things for different people. Let me help you out: for most Israelis, Zionism is about independence and sovereignty for the jewish people. While there are Israelies who want the Palestinians out, only the crazies are actually considering it as a plausible reality. These crazies gain more political power the more the general population loses its faith the Palestinians are wanting peace, as opposed to fighting to the last man standing. You should read about the Oslo accords and the later failed talks at Camp David.

Lastly, wanting to vote for Hamas is absolutely not about wanting the war to end, as Hamas is a perpetrator of it. How did you make this astonishing logical leap?

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#459

Post by pinewurst »

ViktorRay wrote: post #304
injidup wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only viable solution becomes giving the movement its demands. This interpretation reeks of Western naivete. Students were not merely arrested — they were gunned down en masse in the streets and even in hospitals. They were provoked by the U.S. president, who promised support to take on the institutions, but that support never materialized. The likely endgame of this current gunboat diplomacy is similar to Venez…

”This interpretation reeks of Western naivete.” The essay you are responding to was written by a historian. The ideas actually described in the essay were not developed by a Western person. They were first implemented successfully by a non-Western person. Mahatma Gandhi. And Gandhi developed these ideas from reading the writings of another non-Western person. Leo Tolstoy. More information can be found here. https://e…

Gandhi also suggested, “But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife.”

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#460

Post by fortzi »

Hikikomori wrote: post #403
Rover222 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Palestinians voted Hamas into power by a large majority. It's not some fringe extremist group. It's mainstream Palestinian culture.

"Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."

Right, the current Israeli administration is horrible, especially the far right that keeps it alive. I invite you to oppose that government and help the opposition take power. Instead, you’re making the opposition weaker by putting all the Israelis in one basket.

You should read about the Oslo accords and the failed talks at Camp David. This is to say that Israel has been trying for a long time to make peace with the Palestinians. Them not wanting has led most to give up and stop fighting the extremists.

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