Glad to see ancient Iranian culture featured here. People in the west have a lot of misconceptions about Iran. Persian culture is thousands of years old.
Iranian culture is beautiful. Food, architecture, music, literature. All corrupted by the ayatollah and fanatic religious powers that dominate the country. It is unfair to blame the west for its misconceptions when the outward presentation of that country is currently so anti-western, corrupt, and oppressive.
You do realize that western policies to this day have emboldened the mullahs in power? These sanctions just increase their control, and US govt obviously knows it. So much border trade occurs in spite of the actions, and mullahs garner more control. Nuclear deal was another case.
The Iranian regime is absolutely brutal at repressing revolt, the revolts are also violent but of course nothing can match a state apparatus that has to shut the country to the outside world to hide the massacre; the country has been in a state of civil unrest for the better part of the past 6 years and I count the Wikipedia estimates at some 4000 dead from the response of state actors.
Maybe if they didn't sponsor terrorism around the world, while oppressing their own people, they wouldn't get sanctioned? The find out part of fuck around doesn't mean they don't control their own destiny. Plenty of normal countries to look at for example.
The Us is a terrorist supporting inhumane regime that puts a pretense of being moral on the world stage. In reality it’s a very rotten country internally and as an American I really hope we can change that but all evidence seems opposite.
That's a weak argument, as we (the West) sponsor many terrorist or oppressive regimes as long as it is in our economic or political interest. The US sponsored brutal and even genocidal regimes from Guatemala to Timor.
Talking about morality and "fighting terrorism and oppression" is laughable.
There was no installation. Please stop repeating IRI's propaganda line. Iranian society was divided between nationalists, fundamentalists, and communists.
The "Ayatollah's" in fact started the mess by assassinating the previous prime minister (who is never discussed) who was also "democratically elected". This was not the first Islamist terror in Iran. Again this is before the counter-coup of '53. (Yes, the first coup detat was by the famous "democratically elected PM", Mr. Mossadeqh.)
Iran had a constitution that precisely defined the roles of the Majlis (parliament) and the monarch. This monarch was sworn in as king in the Majlis way before '53. Kindly explain how he was "installed" in '53 by the CIA.
The "Islamic Republic" is a blight in the history of Iran and Islam. Their little project of creating the Islamist Vatican is an abomination in Islam. Their ridiculous "Supreme Leader" is another abomination, both for Iran and again for Islam. Islam is the religion of deliberation of assemblies and no man is "supreme" amongst the Muslims.
> This monarch was sworn in as king in the Majlis way before ’53. Kindly explain how he was “installed” in ’53 by the CIA.
Basically, the Shah assumed direct rule in an autocoup (after a first failed autcoup) in an effort he was threatened with being deposted by the CIA into participating in, with US- and UK- and their Iranian pawns both orchestrating pro-Mossadegh anti-Shah demonstrations and violence, then pro-Communist anti-Shah anti-Mossadegh demonstrations and violence, and, ultimately, the pro-Shah military moves directed against the waves of violence and lawlessness that they themselves had sponsored.
The extent of Shah's concessions to US security concerns was allowing CIA to create monitoring stations north of Iran: listening posts. A section of the secret service in Iran (SAVAK) was specifically tasked with keeping tabs on Western intelligence in Iran. The second one, which was withdrawn after public pushback lead by Khomeini, was exempting American servicemen and workers (mostly aerospace in Isfahan) from legal jeopardy for any offences in Iran. That was rather toady.
(it's a question of power asymmetries. Really did the poor Shah have any choice? Related thoughts: Is the Japanese PM "Installed" by US? Is the UK PM a "puppet" of US?)
And to be quite frank, as an Iranian born, the assertion that some American (Kermit Roosevelt) gets off the plane with a briefcase full of dollars and overnight "installs" the constitutional king of Iran is bascially a hidden insult to Iranians. What sort of a entirely pushover nation are they, these Iranians? It's a bad propaganda joke.
Secondly, the fact remains that the roughly 14 years (60s-early70s) that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, yes as an autocract oversteppingn the bounds of the constitution, ran the place, Iran experienced its singularly most spectacular years in the 20th century. And the social progress, specially women's rights, are all due to the efforts of that man and his "regime".
US has nothing to apologize to Iran about viz a vis the Shah other than backstabbing a loyal ally in a time of crisis, and actively helping to usher in an entirely alien system, the "Islamic Republic of Iran"*, to power.
US chose Islamic Fundamentalism as a stretegic tool to further its geopolitical goals, and unleashed the hords on the world. US does need to come clean about that.
* (3 lies in one name, a world record!): It is not a republic. It is not Islam. And it certainly is not Iranian.
You can’t ethically sweep the atrocities of the Shah under the rug like kashf-e-hijab, and excuse him for merely overstepping a constitution. He attacked the fabric of Iranian society and humiliated the nation for the sake of pleasing Western masters. There’s very clear reason Iran ended up the way it did, and people who have the fantasy of returning to the shah era for “women’s rights” are really not thinking logically. Actually if you think the shah forcing women to uncover and make Iranian society naked was “women’s rights”, you are severely misguided.
Your regime has raped and keeps locked up the "fabric of Iranian society". Shah was no saint but he did not evoke perception of -evil-, which your regime fully evokes.
A taste of your evil minds is the ludicrous notion that a woman choosing to not wear a piece cloth clutched between her teeth like a bit make Iranian society "naked".
And you also you have your history wrong. It was Reza Shah* that "forced" the removal of chadors. The Shah in question here made it a personal choice. The rights mentioned were the right to work, and rights relating to marriage and children.
* some background on the history here. Reza Shah famously walked into a mosque and whipped the men [read mullahs] who had insulted his wife who had visited earlier. This 'right to insult and harrass women in public' is a "right" these men take quite seriously. They never forgave him for this offence and subsequently when they seized power, they chose a "civilized and godly" expression of their displeasure by dessecrating the remains of a dead man. And then they built a toilet over it. This is the retarded gang that currently occupies Iran. As I said, a historic blight on our nation.
This is so true. The original Persian culture is best preserved in India among the dwindling Parsi community. These are the original Persians who escaped to Gujarat, India during the Islamic colonization of Persia.
This isn't true at all. For hundreds of years, Parsis were almost purely culturally Gujarati. Also there's limited evidence that they "escaped", Zoroastrianism still had a large presence in Fars for a while after the Muslim conquest, and they were going to some of the largest mercantile ports in the world. Also there were lots of muslims that came from Iran to these ports as well.
Just a minor pet peeve but why not keep calling the language "Persian" in English? Just how it doesn't feel entirely right to suddenly start calling Spanish "Español" in English, or Swedish as "Svenska" and so on
It is so unfortunate. I am from Iran and I much prefer the current name. It's an ancient name that includes not only Persians, but also Medians, Partians, etc. Iran has been multi cultural since old times and it's nice to have an inclusive name. I believe after we throw the occupiers (mullahs) out, we have a lot of work to do.
The only weird thing with the name Iran, is that it literally means "The Land of Aryans" which got a bad rep after Nazis (rightfully so).
Yes the country is for ever Iran, for all iranians of different ethnicities. The connotation in tourists's mind about "Iran" has to change, were the country to be called Persia today, it would have the same negative sound to it like Iran (arguably) does for some today. Also, most people would be able to distinguish a nazi use of the term Aryan and it's original meaning so that's really not a problem with the name Iran
I know that you're not confusing this but as some others might: Persian language is of the Persian people (although there are many non-persian L2 speakers), it should rightfully still called that and should not be confused with the (settled at this point) debate about the name of the country as a whole
Something similar that confuses me is the recent shift from calling the river "Yangtze" in English to calling it "Yangzi".
Yangzi is the correct pinyin spelling of the syllables that "Yangtze" was meant to indicate. (Similarly, if you want to spell them in modern pinyin, you'd have Laozi instead of Lao Tzu/Tze, Sunzi instead of Sun Tzu, and of course Kongzi instead of Confucius.) But the Chinese name of the river is something completely different. What's the point of updating the spelling of the English name as if it were also the Chinese name?
My (open to correction) understanding was that "Farsi" has some use in referring to the Iranian standardization of Persian (as contrasted to Dari, its Afghani counterpart).
Both are correct. "Farsi" is actually the Arabic version of "Parsi" (meaning "Persian" in, well, Persian). As a Persian, I personally don't use "Farsi".
Yes, it is useful when you want to contrast Iranian Persian with other varieties used in Afghanistan, Tajikistan etc., but when talking about all of them together it is confusing.
Once I get a second passport I’m planning to go to Iran. I studied Farsi in college and visiting Iran has been a dream of mine for a long time. With the second passport I’m hoping it’s accepted so I can travel freely without a tour guide.
Iranian or Persian? One is a subset of the other and the other encompasses other people who has equally contributed, if not more, to the Iranian culture.
Check out Iranic people.
I bought into Bari Weiss' theory and the narrative she is making a lot of money from the substack and alternate journalism. I started consuming a lot of substack content; after a few months, I realized most of the substack content I got recommended were people ranting about social change happening in America. It is interesting to read for a few weeks. After a while, you will get tired of that narrative.
Today I saw a substack article on HN's top list from Jonathan Haidt, another guy in the same political spectrum complaining about social media and societal change.
My impression of substack is that, it is the platform of the disgruntled. Substack is a niche player, and never will be mainstream.
Agreed, the disgruntled are the only people willing to pay specific journalists with specific missions to effect change. Everyone else would just either pay a flat fee for general information about X, or would pay nothing.
I think that is more telling of the substack content you were reading, This is like people that complain YT feeds them more of the same content they watched??
If read a bunch of stacks that are complaining about social change why would you expect substack to recommend you sports content....
>>After a while, you will get tired of that narrative.
You may be suffering from a recommendation system flaw. I subscribe to several Substack newsletters and have no content similar to what you've described. Instead, I read mostly about economics and parenting.
Strongly disagree. I read finance news and stock writeups on Substack and the platform has a vibrant community in this category. Newsletters like Grit, Doomberg, The Science of Hitting, and others are doing great, valuable work and have pretty big followings.
I know in Twitter everyone is inflammatory, however a CEO should exercise restraint and show leadership, and hold judgement until facts are clear, in this case he clearly failed.
I didn't go to YC. My impression of YC is from news articles and hacker news. I believe that YC is good only if it helps you raise money.
Their advice is not worth it because advice is free on YouTube. Let's take PG; he often gives a lot of general and specific advice; he is a great writer and a fascinating mind. I enjoy reading his articles; they are outstanding, but they aren't any different from the many YouTubers giving advice. Unless you get personal time with YC staff, their services are not unique.
Do you need to be Peter Mckinnon’s apprentice to learn photography? No, likewise you don’t need YC.
Sounds like a combination of significant changes in student policies and enforcement over the last 40-50 years (accelerating in the last 20-25?) combined with very bureaucracy- and process-heavy set of enforcement mechanisms.
Editorializing a bit, this may reflect general social changes in the US - schools are seen as being "in loco parentis" though many of the students are legally adults, and parenting in the US has changed in the last 40 years from "go play at the park with your friends, but be back by sunset" to helicopter parenting and the very thought of unsupervised children at a park being something deserving of reports to Child Protective Services.
So, now the school is helicopter-"in loco parentis"ing, and covering its butt with paper to shield it from the actual helicopter parents.
Startup probably worked on Carmack’s request because they were afraid he will post a negative review or give negative review about the startup to his friends. A startup can’t afford to piss off a person like John Carmack, they might go out of business, because it might impact their ability to get new customers and raise capital.
Meta on other hand could care less about John Carmack’s opinion as it has no impact to their business. In short John Carmack’s opinion was ignored it had no impact for a large company.
The mistake John Carmack is making is that he thinks his views are special, they are not.
I work at a small company and customer issues or requests can be solved (or worked on) within a day because there's almost zero red tape. And it doesn't need to be Carmack pointing out the issue or delivering the request for it to be done.
Well, we had a lot of folks here at HN being mad at us for the shape of the cursor on our corporate site but we are still not out of business :)
Anyway, no, the report did not lead to a scramble. As a matter of fact, it was not even treated as critical because it was not “business down” and no event different than business down is worth introducing (even potentially) more problems that it is solving.
No, we weren’t afraid of a negative comment at SkyFi…we are focused on customer feedback and making things better. We treat everyone as if they were Carmack. If you read the whole thread he was still critical of our product and it wasn’t all roses and sunshine.
