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Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 3, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Nobody forced Iran to declare US a "Great Satan", build a vast collection of proxy armies, commit terrorist acts and pursue nuclear weapons, while openly declaring they are going to use them to perpetrate genocide. They chose to live this life. Now they are living the life they have chosen. Their choices led them to the situation where the only choices for their opponents would be either live under a permanent threat of nuclear attack or take measures to preclude this threat before it realized. Iranians had multiple opportunities to get off this train, instead they doubled and tripled down - because their apocalyptic ideology and their belief the West is weak and decadent and can be bullied if one is determined enough - mandated this strategy. Of course, the West did a lot to support that assumption, but this is not an excuse.

is the obvious and natural response.

As much obvious and natural response as shooting you is an obvious and natural response of a robber who is caught by you unexpectedly returning home in mid-robbery. Yes, it is obvious, and yes, it is natural for a violent criminal to resort to violence. I am not sure how you get from "obvious and natural" to "commendable and desirable". It is natural for a criminal to do crime. It is natural for a bunch of crazy apocalyptic cultists to behave like crazy apocalyptic cultists. How that "natural" is any good?

Some Americans seem to have got so fed up with being criticised unreasonably that they have lost the capacity to see when they are being criticised reasonably.

That's empty rhetoric. Of course everybody believe their criticism it the most reasonable one. It does not make it so. You have to actually prove it, you can't just state it and then stand and expect everybody to go "oh, how couldn't we see it before, the is the reasonable one, it's all different now!" Just because you call yourself "reasonable", does not score you any points in the actual reasonableness. On the contrary, when you engage in rule lawyering and defend your criticism with arguments like "oh, you just lost the ability to be criticized and that's why you are not agreeing with me" one is tempted to conclude you do not expect your argument to be strong enough to stand on its merits, without supporting it with attacks on the opponent's mental capacity, instead of addressing their arguments.