jeroboam
20d ago
Iran doesn’t have the logistics to mobilize large groups of soldiers to the front or to arm, equip, or feed them. It’s a mythical man month problem. Mobilizing more soldiers would actually lead to worse outcomes.
Yeah, it's weird. To me there doesn't seem to be that much difference between Ukraine and Russia. They're both poor, corrupt, Slavic-speaking countries that share a lot of culture. Sure, a European-leaning Ukraine is probably better than a Russia-leaning one, but it's not a huge difference.
But nationalism fucks with people's brains. No one wants to be ruled by a foreign race, even if that foreign race is only superficially different.
I'm reminded of how Bosnians, Serbians, and Croats all speak the exact same language but insist that they speak different languages. I've heard of courtroom trials where the defendant insists on getting a translator because, as a Bosnian, he can't understand Serbian. And then the translator just recites the exact same sentence back.
The differences between Ukraine and Russia are much smaller than the differences between Ukraine and Germany. And that's perhaps why nubile Ukrainian women vastly prefer to stay in Germany.
Yes, I believe the IDF's numbers. I think they say 103 of 110 ballistics were intercepted, and 100% of drones. Potentially the 7 that got through were let through deliberately as a cost/benefit calculation.
Iran remains completely incapable of affecting Israeli warfighting capability. They are not able to accurately target Israeli military installations.
They could, of course, overwhelm Iron Dome if they shot their wad all at once at densely populated areas.
jeroboam
21d ago
Is the Iranian military truly this incompetent?
Yes. They look like clowns. Keep in mind this is a country which fought Iraq to a standstill for ten years, the same Iraq which the U.S. defeated in a week with a 1000-1 casualty ratio during the Gulf War.
It is going to be very tempting for Israel to attack their nuclear sites now after this demonstration of "strength" by the Iranians.
If the Israelis were smart, they might have let some of the missiles get through, lol. This is just too comical.
jeroboam
21d ago
Most likely you're right.
But I do believe that Israel is at least able to hurt Iran if they wanted to. The same is not true of Iran. Getting all your missiles shot down does not project the message of strength they intended.
jeroboam
18d ago
If a plantation has 60% free workers and 40% slaves, that hardly excuses the plantation owner does it?
jeroboam
18d ago
Or comparing Belarus with Estonia.
Yeah, that's the fantasy. But it won't be the reality. Ukraine is a Slavic country that is culturally similar to Russia. Whether they are politically part of Russia that won't change.
Estonia, on the other hand, is demographically most similar to Finland. That's why they got rich and Ukraine didn't.
jeroboam
19d ago
Great minds think alike I guess. Still, it's probably easier to kill some scientists when you have a green light to bomb as opposed to being sneaky.
In case anyone is reading this far down. You said: "SGOV dividends are largely federal tax exempt since it's 90%+ treasuries."
Now you posted a link that said the opposite.
I'll concede that states might not tax the dividends of SGOV. CA appears not to. https://old.reddit.com/r/tax/comments/1194lbk/treatment_of_treasury_income_in_etf_for_state/
Other states might. ChatGPT-4 thinks they do, but could be hallucinating.
In any case, in order of tax advantage, for high earnings, it's pretty clearly:
BOXX > SGOV > Bank interest
jeroboam
10d ago
Yes, I do think conscription pushes the balance in favor of surrender.
"Surrender" implies something like Hirohito in 1945. This doesn't represent the current reality of the conflict. No one is talking about surrender. Some people are talking about peace, which means a negotiated peace. It means Russia would get some of what they want, but certainly not all.
jeroboam
10d ago
Why keep fighting and not offer more territory? Putin, in any case, seems to believe he doesn't need to settle yet.
Because, like most rationalists, I believe that calculating risk and reward has actual value. This, but unironically:
https://www.theonion.com/no-blood-for-oil-vs-exactly-how-much-oil-are-we-talkin-1819594284
If your only condition for ending a conflict is absolute victory, then yes, you are in fact "pro-war". I am against that. But I am willing to tolerate some limited war in order to achieve limited goals so long as the goals are justified by the costs (which they almost never are).
jeroboam
18d ago
This seems to be about what to expect for a topic that attracts agenda posters but lies outside of the specialisation of anyone producing the sort of deep dives that tend to cause productive discussion around here.
As the person who made the initial post, I'd like to push back on this. I guess I might have an "agenda". You'll have to take my word for it that my agenda is peace and the preservation of human life.
I think Ukraine is an important topic and one in which mainstream opinion is wrong. The intersection of these two makes it a great topic to discuss here. That's why I've posted about it twice now.
And, yeah, it seems to generate some heat, but I'd argue the amount of light is greater. How many people are even talking about conscription, either on the Motte, X, or on (shudder) mainstream media?
On the other hand, what I don't love about this forum is 5000 word "deep-dives" on some random game developer no one has ever heard of or cares about. I don't view those as productive in the slightest. The stakes couldn't be lower.
Since I think what gets said in places like this matters, I think it's important to discuss real issues.
jeroboam
19d ago
I think you're right, but it's not super obvious to most people. I'll spell it out to save people time.
Let's say both sides are equal. In that case, "deterrent to future attacks" is equivalent to "tit for tat forever". This obviously doesn't work.
However, since Israel is much stronger than Iran, deterrence actually works since they can impose costs on Iran which Iran can't impose in return. I'll assume this is what you meant.
jeroboam
19d ago
Agree on all counts. I retract all my baby boom statements about Ukraine.
Maybe Russia.
jeroboam
19d ago
Yeah, it might be that rising expectations (off a low baseline from the Great Depression and WWII) could explain part of the boom in Western countries.
jeroboam
21d ago
It was already known by people who closely follow modern war that Iran's missiles and drones have very limited ability to impact Israel's war-fighting capability. I'm not even that much of a war nerd, but I knew it. What happened today is not news in that sense.
Yes, I agree with most of this. Iran's actions demonstrate great military weakness and lack of desire to expand the conflict. But I'm not sure everyone knows this. I just responded to a comment that argued the opposite in fact. I'd argue the consensus is Iran is a true regional power.
Iran's missiles and drones do, however, have the power to close the Persian Gulf down for a long time if Iran wanted to.
Probably, but as this isn't 1990 it matters a lot less. They'll just be hurting themselves. The U.S. is the world's largest oil producer and there are large reserves in South America waiting to be developed. Oil trades at $85/barrel, down 60% from 2008 levels in inflation-adjusted terms. Lots of wiggle-room there.
These recent back-and-forth airstrikes are a side show anyway. The key thing for the Iranians is, or at least should be, to build a nuclear deterrent as soon as possible.
Yes. That's the meat. Will Israel attack Iran's nuclear capability? It will be good for the world if they do. Terrorists should not have nukes.
jeroboam
21d ago
Not to mention that this is a country roughly the size of the eastern United States with a population of 90 million.
90 million poor Iranian people are not an asset. They are a liability. Zergrush is not a viable strategy in the 21st century. If Israel and Iran shared a land border it might be different, but only because the millions of Iranian casualties would affect public opinion.
Israel has just show that Iranian missiles and drones are essentially worthless. Yeah, if they launched their entire arsenal in one night, they'd do some damage. But they wouldn't affect warfighting ability.
You can't generalize from that and say "oh I guess invading Iran would be a cakewalk."
I didn't say this. No one is saying this. What I am saying is that Iran is powerless to hurt Israel directly. I'll go further. Iran is also powerless to stop Israel from flying over it and bombing whatever it wants. The reason that the U.S. "failed" in Iraq and Afghanistan is that it was trying to invade countries and make those countries like them. This is impossible. On the other hand, killing people is easy. Unless you're Iran of course.
jeroboam
21d ago
Fair point about observational studies.
But I'll still take a huge effect with an unknown mechanism vs a tiny effect with a known mechanism.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. When the effect size is large, we can get still get use from observational studies. For example, I believe that observational studies would be fully sufficient to demonstrate the harms of smoking, even with no other knowledge.
jeroboam
22d ago
What percentage of Texas's power comes from storage? Worldwide, it is negligible.
If it were feasible, we would see it in China which unlike the United States (including Texas) is actually able to build things.
jeroboam
22d ago
Why aren't these being built? Certainly this seems like the thing that governments would love to throw money at.
Most likely it's not feasible except in areas with very specific geography.
Great post and I think it provides valuable context.
powerusers farming karma
But... why? There is no use to karma. I have lots of karma on Reddit. Trust me it's useless. This isn't Twitter. Posts from users with 1 million karma are not given more visibility than posts from users with 100 karma.
The game is not farming karma for $$$. The game is trying to capture Reddit for the left. And it worked.
Mods of even the largest subs are given no tools to identify bad users. We were never told by admins when a brigade was happening, we had no method of specifically detecting brigades
As to those random subs popping, the paid users either start new ones or take over dead ones, then upvote bot submissions in their critical windows so they're pushed to wider visibility and actual users start upvoting.
It's just so easy. 0.01% of users can control the narrative quite easily. Just create a bunch of accounts to upvote/downvote during the critical window right after posts or comments are submitted. They aren't even "bots". They're real people using VPNs.
Trump supporters did it back in 2016. Then they got banned. Now only the left is allowed to do it.
So... don't walk in a bad neighborhood if you don't want to be raped?
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