asokkalypsenow

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[asokkalypsenow]

what i’ve failed to understand since i was a kid is why these ghouls want war with iran so badly. is it resources? do they have money in defense contracting? is it just that iran is too strong an opponent to us hegemony? why specifically do they want to see iran destroyed?

There is not one singular motivation behind the drive to send the US to war with Iran. There are multiple motivations which often overlap, but which are held in different orders of prioritization by different advocates of war. Most of these motivations are irrational and/or immoral, while others are legitimate complaints that could be addressed through diplomacy far more easily than they could through militarism.

Here's ten common motivations and arguments for a US war with Iran which you might encounter:

Independence from the US: The Iranian government is among the world's least-willing governments to obey US demands and subjugate themselves to the US-led order. For certain US primacists, this independence means that their very existence poses an existential threat to US dominance (similar to North Korea, Cuba, etc.) To a particular type of US militarist, it is necessary for the Iranian government to fall in order for the US to remain the unquestioned leader of the world.

Real Fear of their Nukes: There is a substantial contingent who really does believe that Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon and that they could well use it if they were to develop it. Logically, the best way to address this concern would be through a diplomatic deal similar to the 2015 JCPOA, which Iran complied with! But the intensity of anti-Iranian sentiment among US hawks tends to convince them that direct military confrontation is somehow a better option, thus explaining why Trump decided to break this deal.

Desire for Revenge: Many older foreign policy hawks in the US have never forgiven Iran for 1) the 1979 US Embassy hostage crisis, and 2) the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Lebanon, which was orchestrated by a terror organization with ties to the Iranian government. In their minds, both of these incidents were embarrassments to the US' military prestige which we have never properly gotten revenge for. (These people tend to ignore the massive wrongdoings which the US has carried out against Iran during this same time period, like the US destruction of Iran Air Flight 655). There are people in and around the Pentagon who have wanted to bomb Iran over a grudge for more than 40 years now.

Iran's Regional Proxies: Over the last several decades, Iran has engaged in an aggressive campaign to expand their influence throughout the region by supporting proxy paramilitary forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, etc. Many of these proxies have undeniably engaged in acts of terrorism. This strategy is both opportunistic (taking advantage of the power vacuum caused by the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein) and defensive (countering the regional influence campaigns of Saudi Arabia and Turkey). This is probably the most legitimate cause of US anger towards the Iranian government, but it is a grievance which will only be worsened by backing Iran into a corner militarily.

Israel (and Saudi Arabia) Hates Them: Iran is unfriendly with two of the US' closest partners in the region: Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Israeli government, in particular, has long been laser-focused on the overthrow of the Iranian government, and they are fully committed to dragging the US into such a regime change operation. For the most fervent defenders of Israel in the US, overthrowing the Iranian government is near the top of their wishlist.

They Got Oil: Oil is a factor which is often overstated in these discussions, but it definitely is one of the factors. Iran currently produces 5% of the world's oil and has the potential to produce far more were the current sanction regime against it to be removed. They also have the ability to shut down the Straight of Hormuz, an important chokepoint through which 25% of the world's oil flows. Regime change in Iran would significantly increase the leverage that the US and its allies hold over global oil markets and further weaken the strength of OPEC.

And Other Commodities Too!: Though the separation between the US and Iranian economies hurts the US economy as a whole, there are certain sectors of US industry that benefit enormously from having Iran so heavily sanctioned. Some of the big names in the US pistachio industry have lobbied heavily to keep US-Iranian relations unfriendly, because the elimination of US sanctions on Iran would allow the massive Iranian pistachio industry to compete with the US industry. As long as these two governments hate each other, a few politically-connected US businessmen make way more money.

Diaspora Pressure Campaigns: Most Iranian-Americans hold the following two opinions at the same time: 1) they hate the current Iranian government and want to see it replaced, but 2) they strongly oppose US efforts at regime change in Iran. However, there is a vocal minority of Iranian-Americans that do support regime change efforts, and they tend to cluster into two well-organized groups that wage pressure campaigns against the Iranian government. The first are the monarchists, who want to see the son of the former US-backed Iranian dictator restored to power. The others are those who are loyal to the MEK, a cult and former terrorist organization which has been extremely effective at building relationships with US politicians. Both of these groups work full-time to push the US towards overthrowing the Iranian government so that they can step in and take over; it's fairly easy to find both of these groups in online social media threads about US-Iranian relations.

Who Cares, We Want War: As I have written about many times before, the US military-industrial complex encourages the US government to engage in militarist behavior in order to boost their profits. Iran is one of their favorite boogeymen to justify increased levels of US military spending, second only to China. These companies fund think tanks and other policy initiatives to argue that Iran is an immediate threat to us, and then they fund political candidates who want to spend more money preparing for this "threat."

They're Crazy! You Can't Trust Them!: We are led to believe that the Iranian government cannot be negotiated with because they are irrational, they're anti-Western religious zealots incapable of reasoned decision-making. This is a convenient excuse for war, but it's entirely incompatible with the restraint that the Iranian government shows in responding to Israeli attacks, their continued willingness to sit down for diplomatic talks with their aggressors, the way that they helped the US government deal with al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11, and a million other indications that the Iranian government is just as rational as any other government in its geopolitical decision-marking.

Add all of that together, and you get a deranged political ecosystem obsessed with inflating the scale of foreign threats, finding excuses for maintaining the trajectory of our militarist status quo, increasing regional tensions, and rejecting obvious opportunities for diplomacy and a peaceful resolution of our differences.

[asokkalypsenow]

i strongly believe that it's better to take aspirin of a known dosage than to take some willow bark with an unknown amount of active compound that could also just be sawdust from an unrelated tree. like that's just factually correct. medical science is real and the supplement industry is an unregulated nightmare of mostly scams. but. the thing is. if, in order to get aspirin, i had to schedule an appointment where i tell my doctor that my friend said i might have a headache (because i can't just say i have a headache without being treated like a googlemad hypochondriac). and then the doctor nodded and ordered a bunch of expensive tests that have very little to do with my head and a lot to do with the size of my ass. and the tests all came back fine so he shrugged and asked if my head hurt and when i said yes he prescribed me some aspirin while emphasizing he didn't know if it would help but i could give it a shot if i really wanted. and if i had to do that every time i wanted some aspirin. i would probably start eyeballing the willow bark. to be perfectly honest with you.

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They’re the same picture

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"this character is so specifically coded as [x] idk how the author can tell us that it was unintentional" tbh most of the time it's probably something a lot simpler than the author being cowardly or duplicitous and not wanting to admit they wrote a certain kind of character, they likely just based that trait on someone they know (or themselves lol) and didn't consciously realize that trait was in any way non-average or implied anything else. it's still free real estate dgmw, if the text suggests that a character is (for example) super mega transgender then the text suggests that character is super mega transgender, but it doesn't necessarily mean the author knew that the text was suggesting that the character is super mega transgender.

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Flipping the narrative here i love small talk and i’m very good at it. I love saying “thank god we had that rain!” And “the construction downtown is CRAZY” it gives me a rush

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Notpla, the company which makes seaweed-based packaging to replace single-use plastics, started with its two French and Spanish founders, Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, experimenting in their student kitchen while at Imperial College London.

Now, Notpla has replaced more than 21 million items of single-use plastic across Europe, and is aiming to displace 1 billion units by 2030. In partnership with Just Eat, Notpla’s packaging was used at the UEFA Women’s Final at Wembley Stadium, London in 2022. From seven types of folded carton board boxes that year, it has grown into a catalogue of over 50 different designs. 

And the company is launching a new deli range, featuring plastic-free windows so people can see their sandwiches before buying. Honsinger hopes this will help Notpla branch out into office catering and museums, where that sneak peek is important. 

[asokkalypsenow]

He means a little squeeze bottle with brine shrimp inside but… bottle feeding the loblings…

[asokkalypsenow]

the assisted dying debate is so crazy

because i do fundamentally believe everyone should have the right to die when they want.

BUT if they legalise assisted suicide in the UK right now i don't trust our ableist fucking government to not just start coercing disabled people into suicide to save money. they already won't give them enough money to live.

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damn people rly hate type 2 diabetics don't they

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the thing with large language models and other "AI" technologies is that I think they're mostly overhyped, kind of disappointing, and generally a solution in search of a problem. unfortunately the most vocal of its critics seem to base their arguments on pure thought-free vibes, naive views of intellectual property, and the sort of interactionist dualism i usually associate with sunday school teachers

[asokkalypsenow]

also. slightly inspired by my beautiful mutuals posts but an issue i come across all the time in fantasy books is like. the "cozy" fantasy genres where there's a society that's suddenly very open and accepting of trans people and gay relationships but for some reason misogyny still exists. i'm not nearly as eloquent as my mutuals but it's always been something that really bothers me where like... it's fine for these two women to be in a relationship together but both of them still have to deal with repeated instances of misogyny from society, whether that's being belittled for presenting "masculine" and pursuing a career as a knight versus being belittled because she wears dresses and is considered "weak" for being "feminine." women are often still being put into arranged marriages and used by people in power but everyone is accepting suddenly if they marry each other...? even if it's for a political advantage, the fact the society is misogynistic implies that the political advantage comes from controlling women and reproduction, to ensure a (male) heir to retain the family's power. so how can two women have a politically advantageous marriage?

it just betrays such a fundamental lack of understanding of how oppression works (also the fact that it's usually two cis white women in these stories isn't lost on me. in those instances it simply comes across as an oppression fantasy, especially when otherwise the society is So accepting)

like there's a reason these systems of oppression are in place in our world because they reinforce the power of the patriarchy and white supremacy. interracial marriages, gay marriages, and the existence of trans people directly challenge the supposed "inherent hierarchy" these powers try to enforce; you have to understand what including certain types of bigotry in your story (or excluding them) implies about your society. i beg authors who are trying to make "queernormative" worlds to actually consider how these structures work and how power is held and shared within your fantasy world, before writing something that contradicts itself or reinforces ideas you didn't intend.

i also want to enjoy fantasy and scifi stories without the usual male power fantasies and bigotry, but you can only subvert it if you understand why it exists in the first place

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do you think that a certain genre of queer person is so obsessively weird about pride flag discourse becuase their flags fill the gaping hole in their personality where a hogwarts house used to be

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Komodo Dragon

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another amazing thing about adult autism is learning that the answer to 'why does this social cue/expectation fucking suck?' is most often either 'because society is very racist' or 'because society hates women' or 'because society hates disabled people'

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with love. you have to fact check shit. yes you. you still have to fact check shit. a lot of people are great at fact checking stuff they don’t want to be true, but somehow are still absolute ass at fact checking stuff that’s rhetorically convenient to them. even people my age, who I KNOW grew up doing internet/bibliography literacy workshops, and being warned not to believe anything that isn’t reliably sourced, people who DO harp on fact checking conservative output or whatever, are still kneejerk sharing unsourced shit that is partially or wholly untrue or misleading, because it suits whatever narrative they’re pursuing in that moment, without even a “take this with a grain of salt”. fact check!!!!!! look at the sources!!!!! yes it’s a drag!!! do it!!!!!