BahRamYou
3hr ago
Well, the short argument is that it worked quite well in Venezuela 3 months ago. It also worked pretty well in Libya and Syria, if you'll overlook the civilians who died in the ensuing civil war. But it accomplished its strategic goals.
But my longer argument is that this is something unprecedented, qualitatively different from any air war the world has seen before. The US and Israel have had decades to plan this war, plus months to build up forces in the region. They have satellite and drone intelligence to locate all targets, complete air dominance, vast numbers of precision bombs, and now bunkur buster bombs to attack underground sites. They're striking something like 1000 targets per day, which is roughly equal to all the bombs dropped over the entire Bosnian air campaign. There really isn't much a ground force could do that isn't already being done from the air, unless you just want that political value of a man in uniform raising a flag. These days we could even deepfake that too.
BahRamYou
7hr ago
but they don't really have a good way to compel the Iranian government
Don't they? I feel like blowing up all of their leadership and military is pretty compelling. There's many reports of desertion in their army ranks already.
Also, the pressure to resolve things quickly seems to come mostly from foreign countries like Japan and India that rely heavily on Persian Gulf oil. The US is a lot more independant, and oil prices haven't really risen that badly, so there's no particular need for Trump to resolve this immediately. The only real threat is that he'll get distracted by something else and lose interest.
BahRamYou
1d ago
Also, Afroman doesn't seem that rich.
I vaguely remember him having a commercial that ran on late-night 2000s TV, hawking his CD with a really low budget ad. It ran alongside that guy in the crazy suit ranting about how to get free money from the government. So yeah, I'm not surprised that he's not super rich... actually I'm kind of impressed that it actually launched a successful career for him, in the days before youtube or spotify.
To assume that he smokes weed? Of course, though it's legal in Ohio.
Only since 2023. His song came out in 2000, so he's had a long career of signing songs about how he breaks felony drug laws. edit: also still illegal at the federal level, and a felony if he had more than 3 ounces, sold it to anyone, or moved it across state lines.
BahRamYou
1d ago
Ha! Sounds like a real-life case of rap album confessions! No real evidence but... isn't it safe to assume that the guy who made "because I got high" was probably in posession of narcotics?
Turns out, jury trials are there to protect the people from corrupt judges.
And to add a wildly unpredictable element. Usually biased towards charismatic, famous people.
BahRamYou
2d ago
I'm still getting up to speed on the details of this. But uh... grooming a 12 yr old is wildly different from winniing the attraction of an adult woman. What he did there was horrible.
BahRamYou
2d ago
Maybe something about soft power vs hard power? These types of leftist leaders tend to attract a lot of poor people as followers. Chavez was leading immigrant farm workers, so he had lots of votes but not a lot of money. That also tends to attract a lot of young student types, and idealistic women. If I can speculate uncharitably here, that would put him in close proximity to a lot of young women who believe in his cause, but aren't really attracted to him personally at all. Same with a lot of the modern male feminist types- they might be politically popular, but they still look like dirty hippies or weaselly student activists.
With the right wing leaders, it's the opposite- they don't get nearly as many female followers. But when they do, they've got all the traditional trappings of power that make them more attractive to women, so they can easily find someone willing to sleep with them.
BahRamYou
2d ago
So this is a good writeup of what the problem isn't, but I notice you don't actually say what the problem is that's creating such a shortage of doctors. Is it just that there's so much medical knowledge now, compared to the past, that it's impossible to find enough people who can learn all of it?
BahRamYou
2d ago
What about the things that are not so easily quantified in economic models?
eg:
- status- we want a job to make our social status higher than other people. Sometimes jobs can pay well but still be low status, like an oil roughneck
- sense of fulfillment- we didn't evolve to just sit around doing nothing, even if our needs are met. We need useful work to make ourselves feel psychologically fulfillfed. A lot of people struggle with this in early retirement.
- Darker traits- a lot of people really enjoy having power over other people. We might hire a human just to enjoy humiliating them and bossing them around, even if it does nothing useful. And there's certainly no need for the richer people to share all the wealth with people on the bottom.
But it all together and this might make for an ugly sort of cyber-feudalism, where a rich few control all the wealth and the vast underclass can only find work in humiliating servant type roles for the rich.
BahRamYou
2d ago
I agree. I always thought it was weird that they pushed so hard to get stuff named after Chavez, but never really made much effort to explain who he was or why he was important. Of course they needed a leftest Latino American to go along with MLK and Harvey Milk in the sainted trilogy of street names, but it seemed like they just rushed out the first semi-famous name they could find, and only later had an "oh crap" moment when they realized how bad he was.
BahRamYou
3d ago
Interesting. I don't really know much about their system, just that they have a "president" who doesn't do much and a "Supreme Leader" who sounds scary. But that all sounds pretty good. Just more evidence that Iran has some really good parts under the surface, its just ruined by an oppressive government.
BahRamYou
3d ago
Sounds good to me. And there's no need to rewrite their constitution- they already have some democratic elements on paper there.
BahRamYou
3d ago
First off what does winning look like, in the eyes of team Trump?
Ideally, Iran makes a credible and verifiable commitment to dismantling their nuclear weapons program and stop supplying arms to HAMAS, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Russian Federation, Et Al. Less Ideally, we turn them into a failed state that wouldn't be able to muster up a nuclear weapons program even if they wanted one. If the choice is between reducing Iran to Afghanistan-esque hodge-podge of pre-industrial warring tribes and giving the IRGC access to nuclear missiles we choose to turn Iran into another Afghanistan.
They've always been a bit vague on that. My guess is what they want is to use people from Iran's existing regime to run the country but take orders from Washington, similar to what the US did in Venezuela. As long as they stop selling weapons to terrorists they're free to run the country as they see fit, though of course we'd like to see some progress on human rights too. It's a good strategy, it just doesn't sound good in a press briefing.
BahRamYou
3d ago
Right now prices are a bit high, but volatility (as measured by VIX and options prices) is super high, suggesting there's a huge range of ways this could go. Sound reasonable to me.
My main opinion is still that the US military is giving an absolute master class of dominance right now. They've recently destroyed everything on Kharg Island except the oil facilities, so that Iran can still sell its oil while limiting its ability to attack oil tankers. If this goes on much longer, Iran just isn't going to have anything left, and the strait will be open again. Then oil will crash back to where it was before, at historically relatively cheap prices.
Of course, it's also possible that this all blows up tomorrow. In that case oil shoots up again. Bad news for China, and anyone else who relies on imported oil. But everyone is scrambling to find workaround for that, too. Rationing, strategic oil reserves, the Saudis sending oil to the Red Sea, nonconventional oil increasing production, coal... there are options, even if it's painful in the short term.
BahRamYou
3d ago
I agree that "readily available" is weesel wording, but 9% is a lot! Even 1% could swing an election. I went through this myself once when I let my driver's license expire while moving. I had to go through an annoying 3 step process: first buy something online with my new address, then use that to get a cell phone bill at my new address, then use that to get a new Drivers license. All of which involves hassle and waiting.
BahRamYou
4d ago
Well, in my memory (admittedly it's been a long time) there was hardly any line. You could pretty much just show up to the airport and walk right onto the plane, just pausing briefly to walk through a metal detector. It's still like that for busses and trains, so it's not impossible.
BahRamYou
4d ago
They still had some basic security in the 90s, like metal detectors. They just didn't have weird sweaty guys giving you a pat down, or confiscating your nail clippers. The real security upgrade is the locked cabin doors + better background screening and counter-terrorism in general. We could go back to a more relaxed boarding process. They've already given up some of the worst bits of security theater, like making people take off their shoes and belt. I don't know how much they even search people's carry-ons anymore, I always put a ton of junk in mine and they hardly ever stop me.
BahRamYou
6d ago
Takes longer than a couple months to train elite pilots! Those guys who died in Midway all had years of experience. I dont see any realistic way for them to replace that. If anything, they should have switched to Kamikazes sooner.
BahRamYou
6d ago
Yeah, it makes sense. Reading Bean's blog, i got the sense that the reason the Burke class was so successful was that they designed it with enough space to handle decades of future upgrades, but that's really tapped out now.
BahRamYou
6d ago
I think this piece from Ross Douthat is the most likely explanation. Trump is a bully, and while he's obviously no military expert, he has an uncanny sense for knowing when someone is weak. Iran was weaker than they'd been in a long time, so he seized the chance.
Ah, the "purist" view. So it's not a "real" strategic air win unless it comes 100% from the air, we're not allowed to make use of commando raids or friendly local factions. In fact, it was over before it began, since the mass protests in Iran disqualified the Air Force from being able to win "fairly." I suspect most military commanders don't see it that way though.
Unlike decadent Iran, which fights with large expensive ballistic missiles that are in short supply, the US fights with cheap mass produced drones like the LUCAS. There's really no need for the bombing to ever stop, unless Iran has one of those force fields from Dune that can only be penetrated by a slow-moving knife attack.
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