At the same time, the same government, mysteriously, has no problem building a vast network of roads reaching everywhere and spanning the whole country.
If the US government neglects a section of highway until a city becomes unreachable by roads, there will be riots. The same city losing a train service? Totally expected, trains are supposed to suck.
The sorry state of American public transport is a self-fulfilling prophecy: everybody knows that public transportation sucks, and therefore nothing is done to improve it, because it's a waste of resource.
>the same government, mysteriously, has no problem building a vast network of roads reaching everywhere and spanning the whole country.
Our road-building has slowed dramatically since the 1980s. The Interstate Highway network would be much more expensive and slow to build today.
>If the US government neglects a section of highway until a city becomes unreachable by roads, there will be riots.
Consider John's Island, South Carolina. The highway that was supposed to go there has been delayed for 33 years. Access to the island/town is through two two-lane roads that get backed up to a standstill every night. There's a running "joke" about how everyone is going to die if there's a major hurricane.
That's great, but I think Herbert had a vision of this incredible galaxy teeming with truthsayers, human computers, and space travel, and just needed a convenient excuse to explain away the total lack of computing devices.
The flip side of the flip side is that poor people in traditional societies are often trapped in toxic interpersonal dynamics from which there's no escape, because they live in the same household.
Like, in Korea, "mother-in-law vs daughter-in-law relationship issues" used to be so common that there's a single word for that. Nowadays they're getting harder to witness, unless you're a fan of weekend k-dramas.
I keep saying this, but do you remember a single political remark made by owners of Toyota or BMW? Do you even know who owns these companies without looking it up?
People aren't raking through Musk's obscure remarks to find something objectionable. Musk has been force-spraying his political opinions onto everyone for quite a while, and people have gotten tired of it.
The number of comments here trying to argue that this is anything other than utter humiliation for Trump and America ...
I guess I should get used to it now. At least 1/3 of Americans will be swayed at nothing and will stand behind their beloved leader, whatever happens. I wonder what will happen to the price of oil in the coming months and whether that will cause some people to change their minds.
Counterpoint: Japan committed some war crimes back in the 40s, and almost a century later, a lot of East Asians still think maybe Japan shouldn't have a regular military that can project its power. And that includes a large portion of Japanese citizens themselves.
"a lot of East Asians" if you exclude China and those on the far left end of the political spectrum, you have the rest who adore Japan.
Unfortunately the anti-Japanese folks are the loudest in the room and loves to manipulate online opinions that that is the mainstream consensus.
They don't pause to ask, who benefits from this manufactured crisis that is aimed at driving a wedge between Korea and Japan in particular, both close US allies.
> Japan committed some war crimes back in the 40s, and almost a century later, a lot of East Asians still think maybe Japan shouldn't have a regular military that can project its power
I'd actually say that's a decent corollary versus counterpoint. The folks you attack will hate you. Regardless of whether you genuinely change. But we aren't directly attacking our allies right now. The folks who weren't directly war crimed by Japan, e.g. South Asia, have moved along just fine.
We officially threatened to invade Greenland (and therefore the EU) and Canada. The former we threatened again, what, two days ago?
Not to mention the tariffs against our allies we levied. Or the fact we personally insult them from our highest office WRT things like calling their dead service members cowards.
They're not going to just forget how the US population and half it's legislative body just... Doesn't care at all. Will just let all of this happen.
Maybe the attacks on allies aren't being done with bombs but the attacks are landing anyway and the hate is growing too.
It's not like America was super popular before all of this, it was more tolerated then celebrated. This very large straw broke the camel's back and everyone is working on moving away and after that's done, why come back?
Everything Trump has done since he was re-elected made Democrats hate him more, and more publicly, and you know what, despite that Trump's ratings have steadily fallen.
If your thesis is true, you'd expect Trump's ratings to go up.
As far as I can see, partisan hatred doesn't matter, because pretty much everybody speaking and listening to such rhetorics have already made up their minds. The battle is fought in the middle, and these people don't care about latest Truth Social posts. They care about the price of gas.
Trump fucked with the one thing people will not forget about, because their livelihood depends on it. It's going to be... interesting.
> there's a big difference between (a) following the clues to reach a conclusion, and (b) reaching a conclusion and then gathering up some factoids to support it.
> The latter is very easy to spot
Well, you know, that's some premium grade irony sitting right there.
The threat of Japanese people all waging guerrilla warfare was considered real enough that the US decided to keep the Japanese Emperor as figurehead (even though the US had enough power to sentence or even execute him for war crimes), just so that the Emperor could order his people to surrender and obey US forces.
Something the current US regime might have forgotten.
> Something the current US regime might have forgotten.
Nah, it wouldn't have worked with Khamenei after a few decades of destroy America and Israel rhetoric. It was a good decision to eliminate him and most of Iran's hardliner senior leadership. Now maybe they can make a "deal" with whoever they're replaced with, but I doubt it. The trouble was going all in without a clear plan. Or maybe they have one but they keep it to themselves?
Second, Khamenei in fact presided over Iran who exercised restrain in their responses to attacks and was willing to enter international agreements. And followed them to reasonable level. They did cause destabilization by proxis, they were still regime they were. But like, what Iran regime learned was that restraint makes them look weak and makes them be bombed every couple of months. And that negotiation and international agreements mean nothing.
Third, frankly, as evil regime was, American history and role in Iran was destructive one. You cant take down elected president, put cruel monarchy in power and then play victim when revolution happens. And yes, who ends up winning bloody revolution does not tend to be nice pro-democratic side either. It tends to be the side willing to kill and risk more.
The zionists do not want an economically prosperous Iran. They actually want Iran to descend into civil war and starvation.
Also the reason why Europeans hate this war- we all know were the refugees will end up.
Maybe it's related to the fact that every missile, drone, bullet or bomb used to attack Israel over the past two decades came from, was paid by, and operated in behalf of Iran.
Had Israel treated Palestinians better and remained within their territorial limits afforded by UN that may not have come to pass. Recall Iran was one of the very few ME countries that supported the UN charter for creation of Israel. Israel then became the long arm of the forces that wanted to turn Iran into a vassal. Not surprised why they did not like it much.
Until the Islamic revolution Israel and Iran were the best friends in the Middle East, long after Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza (1967 vs 1979). It's not the Palestinians that are the issue here, rather an excuse by Iran to constantly attack Israel and rally their population around a cause.
Irani people's relations soured when Israel was recognized as the long arm of US and Britain's meddlesome interest, and if course the treatment of the Palestinians. Shah's personal feelings was a different matter.
You're talking as if hating Israelis is the normal course of action and it's just because of the Shah that the populations tolerated each other. That's a very grim world view.
Not taking anything just describing when and why the hating started.
That the revolution was and is against Jews is a lie.
Tehran hosts Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center, a Jewish charity hospital, the largest charity among the religious minorities in Iran. It is doing well, thank you.
Ayatollah Khomeini himself wrote a personal note thanking the hospital for its help after the revolution succeeded.
Synagogues in Tehran are doing very well in the Islamic regime, thank you.
In fact Irani Jews have often criticized Israel when Israel has acted against Palestinians. Chief Rabbi of Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehuda_Gerami has denunciated Zionist and Israeli policies.
""" It comes as a surprise to many visitors to discover that Iran, a country so hostile to Israel and with a reputation for intolerance, is home to a small but vibrant Jewish community that is an officially recognized religious minority under Iran's 1979 Islamic Constitution.
"Khomeini didn't mix up our community with Israel and Zionism - he saw us as Iranians," says Haroun Yashyaei, a film producer and chairman of the Central Jewish Community in Iran. """
At this point, Israel does not get to play victim anymore. It was not an innocent victim for a long time now. You dont really get to misplace and kill as many people and expect they will be nice to you back.
And that includes killings of journalists and doctors. That includes tolerance and celebration of settlers violence ... or the fact that settlers should not even be a thing.
Israel is not the only one engaging in those, Saudi and UAE and murderous too. But, like, common, most of what Israel does is ethical cleansing, expansion and intentional destabilization of other countries.
Israel is not a victim. It's a winner. It completely decimated the Iranian plan of encircling it with violent radicalized proxies, despite that plan being decades and many billions of dollars in the making. It is a country that since October 7th has decided that enough is enough and just dismantled its enemies one by one.
The countries Israel fight are declared enemies. Israel is a very convenient ally to countries that struck peace with it, but it's a really nasty enemy to have for those who have not.
There's something darkly funny about the reality being so demented that just describing it on HN gathers downvotes because it objectively sounds so awful.
The really crazy thing is just how few death cultists it really takes. The smallest minority of them have been busy radicalizing teenagers and biding their time for the past 20 years and this is what it’s come to.
If the US government neglects a section of highway until a city becomes unreachable by roads, there will be riots. The same city losing a train service? Totally expected, trains are supposed to suck.
The sorry state of American public transport is a self-fulfilling prophecy: everybody knows that public transportation sucks, and therefore nothing is done to improve it, because it's a waste of resource.
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