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Comment by jostmey | Hacker News Reader

Ha! The Iranians are trying to pretend to be a military superpower. Iran is so backwards that the country can barely keep their planes flying. It takes an open minded culture to achieve technological advancement. The brightest people may come from anywhere, from any background, sex, or sexual preference. If you don't embrace everyone an open mind, you will never have the top talent working for you.

Now I do believe that North Korea could make great scientific and technological strides on its own. Its economy may be faltering, but I suspect their culture seeks out the very brightest people & puts them to work on very hard problems.

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> "It takes an open minded culture to achieve technological advancement. The brightest people may come from anywhere, from any background, sex, or sexual preference."

The US managed to become a superpower despite excluding half of their potential work force (see HN post re: IBM from yesterday) and suffering from rampant, systemic racism. The USSR became a superpower despite incredible repression

This announcement by Iran may look like a joke, but I don't think an enlightened, liberal society is a prerequisite for acquiring power.

North Korea was only able to get as far as they did with Russian and the Chinese help. Iran cut ties with about everyone since the revolution in 79 and has been relatively too unstable for anyone to be a true supporter.

Plus we can be assured they are making the same presentation to their own people. Remember, its far easier to stay in power when you convince your own that the bogeymen "over there" are far far worse and its the sacrifices being made by everyday citizens that keeps us all safe.

You have an economy spiraling out of control, see http://www.cato.org/blog/value-iranian-rial-hits-all-time-lo... , as an example, so expect more boasting other similar redirects. Look at how Argentina, Venezuela, and yes North Korea, all employ similar tactics.

Then shudder when you realize how our own government does the same with us and how many fall for it. People inherently want to trust their government and governments exploit that

>>>It takes an open minded culture to achieve technological advancement

Were you alive in the 1960s when the Soviet Union and the US were in a space race?

EDIT for a typo

How much do you know about that country besides regular media propaganda? Now lets look at it from other side

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/np5dh/iran_some_...

> Now I do believe that North Korea could make great scientific and technological strides on its own. Its economy may be faltering, but I suspect their culture seeks out the very brightest people & puts them to work on very hard problems.

or kills them.

North Korea appears to have had at least partial success building a nuclear weapon. It is my personal belief that Iran is incapable of doing the same. I base this belief on the little that I know about the two cultures. One society is a communist government, that will presumably accept anyone provided that they tow the party line, and the other demands religious fanaticism, and disrespects over 50% of their population.

I am not saying I approve of the North Korean government (that said, I don't like most governments). But I do believe the North Koreans are better positioned to be a real threat.

  | One society is a communist government, that will
  | presumably accept anyone provided that they tow
  | the party line

You do realize that if you fail to tow the party line your entire family gets sent to a concentration camp (even if they were all towing the party line), right?

Yeah, and if the regime starts to need you for whatever reason, then you get picked right back from the concentration camp (at least Stalin did it many times). The parent post is claiming the efficiency difference from not repressing the people you need to do X; repressing/not repressing innocent people is somewhat irrelevant for that part.

The other difference is that North Korea is a Chinese buffer state and is explicitly enabled by the Chinese for their own purposes. The danger is that nobody really understands the power structure within the DPRK, if Kim or some crazy military faction decides that they can act unilaterally, anything can happen.

The Iranians at the end of the day are playing the 21st century version "the great game". They have strategic goals, and they aren't a 1984-style totalitarian state.

My father-in-law was a VP for Northrop Grumman's satellite and aerospace division whose primary customer was the US government. Needless to say, this put him in contact with many people and many defense secrets.

North Korea is the thing that keeps him awake at night. The combination of the capability you mention with egotistical insanity at the reigns is never a good combination.

"puts them to work" indeed. I'd imagine you'd be working more or less at gunpoint...

Just so you know, they were quite open minded and were doing very well, until the US came in for the oil:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_AHJQiMxIw

Photo of women in 1979, before Islamic Revolution:

http://i47.tinypic.com/eagiv9.jpg

That's an odd photo to use to support your claim. In 1979 Iran was under the leadership of the Shah, who was heavily supported by the US.

The shah didn't bring forth the current cultural state, but he was a cause of the revolution that in turn brought about the current cultural state.

Are you saying that what happened on and after 1979, would have happened anyway? How hypocritical. I can't understand that need to rewrite history to look good. I guess it's hard to tell your children stories of how you destroyed entire cultures. Fairy tales are nicer.

I think you're confused about Iranian history and US-Iranian relations.

I'm certainly no expert on the matter, but in broad strokes...

The US supported(propped up) that "free" regime of the Shah prior to 1979. They did that for cozy relations and cheap oil. That regime was actually quite brutal in its repression of dissidents (islamists mostly) and while it might look all pretty and western and "more like us" it was a brutal police state not unlike Egypt under Mubarak - which was also supported by the US.

There was a islamist revolution that took over the country in 1979 which ushered in the current situation - I'm sure the people that supported it then didn't envision it turning out the way it did but the whole thing is much more nuanced than black and white you seem to assume. And it wasn't the west trying to get oil that caused the 1979 revolution, it was a reaction AGAINST that western influence that caused the revolution.

Calm down. I'm not disagreeing with you.

What I'm saying is that you claimed Iran used to be a much better place before the US interfered and supported that by showing a photo from 1979. I just thought that was an odd way to support your claim since the photo is from a time when the US-supported Shah was in power. I take that as evidence that things were pretty good under the US-supported Shah.

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