Agree that Mossadegh was imperfect but, in the eyes of many, Western meddling was a direct contributer to the revolution, opening the door for the Mullah regime. It exemplifies the hipocrisy of the US/British as they claim to stand for democracy while installing autocratic puppets around the world to meet their needs. They have dutifully deprived millions of the very self-determination they claim is one of their core values.

Agreed thanks for the insights.

This seems like an inaccurate representation of Iranian history so please feel free to elaborate. Sure Iran was an autocracy in 678 BC, not sure how that’s relevant to today, but Iran’s democracy was overthrown by Western powers when it tried to nationalize its oil in the early 50s. The West then installed an autocrat representing its interests until the revolution in 79.

In fact several Gulf countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar) had prodemocratic nationalist movements during this period that were purposefully squashed by the West.

The purportedly most democratic nations in the world have also been the most active in supressing democracy elsewhere. They’ve had to become very adept at talking through both sides of their mouths, as it’s easier to exert foreign influence / interference via an autocrat versus a messier and less predictable democratic process.

One can imagine that being told “a civilization will die tonight” will act as motivation for them to get one.

It’s not just about how useful the dollar is to Iran, it’s about making it less useful to other countries also.

If Iranian oil is back on the market there will be a lot of interested buyers. If it’s only sold in yuan or crypto.

The petrodollar wasn’t going to last forever youre right but there are many parties interested in ending it sooner than later.

What makes you think any or even all of those modalities would meet their energy needs before people start dying?

Energy independence is key to ensuring this never happens again. Maximizing utilization of renewables is key to that on a long ye horizon. But in the short term, they need oil.

How is it a victory if the best case scenario is exactly the state of affairs prior (ie. the strait of hormuz being open) to the start of this war? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say nothing was accomplished? I wouldn’t be suprised if Iran leverages greater geopolitical influence from this, that’s how incompetent Trump and the group of great American intellectuals currently in his government are.

This is absolutely true.

Even with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, Britain initially struggled to compete with the sheer quality and cost-effectiveness of Indian hand-woven fabrics.

They instituted a 100% tariff on importation of Indian fabric to support their nascent mechanized textile manufacturing.

This allowed them to hone the machinery by creating a sandbox to grow their new expertise in. The quality could not match what was produced by hand but the sheer volume and efficiency could easily outdo manual methods.

Over time as they gained political influence, they were able to point guns at and break the thumbs of the right people in India effectively eradicating Indias domestic textile industry.

They then forced Indian markets to accept British cloth with no tariff, making that consumer sandbox bigger.

Minus the colonial / coercive economics at the end there, this is an example of Britain using tariffs very effectively to grow their own industry while taking down a global leader in textiles (one that even the Romans wrote of 1500 years prior).

May well have played out the same without supportive policy, but the protectionism certainly helped them grow their own industry faster and the violent / coercive colonial element helped them remove a traditional, higher quality though analog/manual competitor sooner.

What America is doing is more of a dying empire vibe. Protection for the sake of clinging to the old and familiar way, with no plan or strategy to adapt for the future.

Depends how much the average consumer is paying attention. Many probably don’t know that every EV can use the Tesla chargers now.

The competition here is certainly constrained. Most car manufacturers are making less EVs due to decreasing overall demand and expirarion of federal EV tax credits.

The real competition is on the other side of the Pacific. Europe and Canada have accepted that on some level while the US continues to artificially prop up its EV market ex-China.

There are legitimate concerns don’t get me wrong. But the US won’t be able to hide from a more dynamic and competitive product forever.

Tesla has 35% market share in Norway.

France saw an increase in Tesla registrations by 203% year over year.

Sweden had a 144% increase in registrations. Denmark had a 96% increase.

In the US, the core demographic remains white male, ~48 years old, with a household income exceeding $140,000, particularly in conservative states (Texas/Florida).

Part of the problem is that competition is still lacking in many ways especially when it comes to charging infrastructure.

Yeah it’s not just Indians:

In 2025:

According to the analysis, Tesla achieved loyalty rates of 63.6% among Asian households and 61.9% among Hispanic households. These figures exceeded national averages.

Favorability / loyalty have dropped across all groups over the past several years.

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Always good to have standards. Any guy that makes racist jokes really. Even if you are racist too, one should remember that if he’s making racist jokes he’s likely a misogynist as well and looks down on you.

Large but young. A civilization as old as Iran’s will know a thing or two about real politik and how to utilize leverage. Iran could easily come out of this a regional power as it has been throughout history. China has also risen much closer to its historical global standing and India is accelerating in that direction also. We are watching an era of Western hegemony fade away and it is fascinating to see. Doubt it will be as bad as the fall of the Romans and 1000 years of religious dogma and anti-intellectualism but this is a high risk period for sure.

Israel might even be less eager to bomb its neighbours in general.

It’s even worse when you find out they’re not acting.

Passport strength is determined by a nation’s wealth and historical relations. Previously colonizing nations generally have a good relationship with each other and are wealthier so they allow relatively free movement, for example.

Sorry I should elaborate:

SWIFT operates as a centralized hub-and-spoke model. For a bank in Brazil to send money to a bank in India, the message must pass through SWIFT’s secure servers in Belgium, and the actual money often passes through “correspondent” banks in the U.S. or Europe.

BRICS Pay uses a Decentralized Cross-border Messaging System (DCMS). There is no central owner or hub. Instead, it uses a “fractal topology” where each participating bank manages its own node. This makes the system resistant to external interference or being “shut off” by a central authority.

SWIFT is not a payment system; it is a messaging system. It sends the “instruction” to move money, but the actual settlement can take 1–5 business days as it hops between multiple intermediary banks.

BRICS Pay is designed to be an end-to-end settlement system. By using blockchain and distributed ledgers, it can settle transactions in real-time (seconds to minutes) because it records the value transfer directly on a shared ledger rather than waiting for bank-to-bank reconciliations.

SWIFT is heavily reliant on the U.S. Dollar as the primary reserve currency. Most international SWIFT transfers require a conversion into USD at some point in the chain, adding exchange fees and making the system sensitive to U.S. sanctions.

​BRICS Pay is built specifically for Local Currency Settlement (LCS). The blockchain tech acts as a “bridge” that allows direct conversion between, for example, the Brazilian Real and the Indian Rupee without needing the U.S. Dollar as an intermediary.

Key here is decentralization and freedom from US hegemony.

BRICS is also making strides towards dedollarization and alternative payment systems (bypassing SWIFT) based on blockchain technology.

You guys don’t understand, this is Israeli style warfare. Do you know what it’s like to be thinking about your neighbour’s destruction constantly, to the point of you having to preempt your own darkest thoughts with a preemptive strike? It’s exhausting! Israel is a special case, it’s not like international humanitarian law is universal. Why can’t we just go back to the time when most people weren’t people? Ugh.

• Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner monologue