Hacker News Reader

Comment by tjmc | Hacker News Reader

Are you glad to see North Korea develop its "space program" too? Yes, I know this is HN where discussions about politics are discouraged, but in this case it's bordering on farcical to ignore it.

I have a lecturer in fluid mechanics who used to be an engineer on the Indian space program. He interchangeably uses the terms "satellite" and "warhead" when discussing the work he used to do.

It may well be that Iran wants to develop orbital launch capability for launching satellites and people into space. But assuming that's the only reason is a little naive.

View on HN

I like the occasional reminder that Iran has never started a war. And it won't unless it plans to be obliterated, so don't worry about that.

That may be the case, but some of the rhetoric their leadership espouses indicates otherwise.

As opposed to "keep nothing off the table" America?

Iran is in a war with its own citizens and its own women especially.

Not true. Stop lying. Are you eg familiar with the actions taken by the Iranian government which made it possible for people in rural areas to send their daughters to school? Being extremely traditional they were afraid of sending their girls all alone to school. Iran has a very high number of educated women thanks to the policies of the Iranian government.

(edit: yes women still have advances to make in rights vis-a-vis men in Iranian society, but you can hardly call that "war" more than a natural struggle for power between the sexes in a society)

"natural struggle for power between the sexes"

There's nothing natural about such a struggle. It's cultural.

Yeah, I thought about that use of the word ("natural") after I posted, but decided not to edit it out.

I agree with you that it could be cultural. But the behaviour of men wanting to control women seems to be prevalent in many societies regardless of culture.

I think it's possible that it's actually just some people wanting to control other people (and setting their sights on weaker people to improve chances of success), and given the biological differences between men and women that leave women with significantly less muscle mass and mass in general, for any given male choosing to act in this way, women are on average easier targets.

Yeah downvote me, when confronted with a different set of facts, in the spirit of the free liberal society you advocate.

I have a feeling that your intentions are sincere, so let me try to help.

Your comment was probably not downvoted because of your views, but because you said "Stop lying", which violates this community's standard of civility. It also makes you sound boorish, which hurts your argument. I appreciated the informative part of your comment, but your tone unfortunately canceled it out.

(Your other comment, complaining about downvoting, violates the HN guidelines even worse. Please don't ever do that. It makes you look bad and is rude to everyone reading.)

On controversial topics, including Iran, HN has its share of zealots. One need not look far for an example: responding to a claim that Iran has started no wars by redefining "war" to mean "unsavory domestic policy" is mind-bogglingly contemptuous of fact. But there are also many fair-minded people who are not so excitable and denunciatory. Here is how to reach them: (1) supply good information; (2) stop. (2) is harder than it sounds.

Keep in mind that most Westerners have no way of distinguishing propaganda from fact in the many things they hear about Iran. That's not because they're bad or dumb, it's because they haven't specifically looked into it. But most don't want to, which means there are limits to how convincing you can expect to be even in your best-case scenario. The only way to optimize that is to be scrupulously polite.

Thanks. I suppose I kind of went too far in some places. And you're quite right, the "2nd" part is somewhat difficult...

"Keep in mind that most Westerners have no way of distinguishing propaganda from fact in the many things they hear about Iran. That's not because they're bad or dumb, it's because they haven't specifically looked into it. But most don't want to, which means there are limits to how convincing you can expect to be even in your best-case scenario. The only way to optimize that is to be scrupulously polite."

I know this. And I'm keeping your quote as a reminder.

I find this all a bit sad - just like the Cold War, ever step taken by each player looks completely rational from their perspective, but will we still end up in a position that is utter lunacy.

I imagine that HN crowd, being very rational and diverse, have adopted world-view perspective, rather than petty nationalistic views. Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot and all that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com