Iran War

[grumbler]

You're right.  Baron please open the gates to all the Russian troll bots some can become more enlightened

Sure.  Because that's the only alternative to self-censorship. 

No, but it is the absurd result of your position

I'd be fascinated to discover what your imagination has created as my "position." Your statement does not at all follow from what I have said.

[HVC]

It will be covered in all the awesome "deals" Our Benevolent Father of Business has negotiated on worse terms than we had before them!

Glorious American Victory postponed, Hormuz blocked again.

[The Minsky Moment]

While I do not know the United States well, I would think it is a dangerous path to thread, not primarily for electoral purposes, but for the Jewish minority that are Americans.

There is a weird and dysfunctional combination of arrogance, hysteria and intolerance among ultra-Zionist American Jews.  The arrogance comes from decades of illusory confidence from evangelical support for Israel which is more shallow and less stable than they imagine. The hysteria manifests as seeing anti-Semitic cabals anytime anyone anywhere has anything critical to say about Israel, which over the long-term only confirms the prejudice that Israeli national politics and Judaism are the same thing. It doesn't help that Jewish institutions like some synagogues get heavily involved in things like promoting settlement development in the WB, which then prompts protests, and then in turn reinforces the sense of siege.  That then fuels intolerance, manifested as attacks on vulnerable minorities, which is an incredibly foolish strategy for another vulnerable minority to take.

The ultras push strongly to mobilize Jewish influence and yes Jewish money to bend national politics in an extreme pro Israel direction, oblivious to what fallout may occur if that policy goes poorly for the US or if Israeli leaders take advantage of it at American expense.  They rally to MAGA and Trump based on pro Israel rhetoric and policy, heedless of how sustainable it can be to pursue Israel first policies in a movement whose core tenet is America first

It's frustrating to witness because it's like so many have forgotten what it means to be a diaspora Jew. They talk about the Holocaust and "never again" but without seeming to think about what conditions could bring such a thing about. A Jewish national homeland is no security against disaster - how could anyone familiar with the Biblical writings reach that conclusion??  They talk about anti-semitism — which in America most commonly manifests as a stereotype of clannish Jews manipulating politics and finance to pursue Jewish goals at the expense of American interest - and then proceed to do seemingly everything they can to reinforce those stereotypes.

[Sheilbh]

It's foolish to pretend that anything coming from the Russians should be taken at face value by third parties or anyone else.  This is not the first time Sheilbh has taken misinformation and treated analyzed it as if it were more valid than it is.  It is foolish not to call these things out when them happen.

Sorry I slightly missed the point on me doing that but sure, if that's how view it - and I'll do it again because I think that point is relevant to the world we live in and to our analysis of trying to make sense of it.

But I'm not sure what it is you're calling out. An expert on Iran described it because it is being interpreted by the regime in Iran in a certain way - which I think is interesting because my view is the way the Iranian regime is viewinng things is probably going to shape their behaviour, may point to how this new leadership class is shaking out etc. Whether Iran as a third party should be trusting what the Russian Securty Council or whether they're showing bad information hygiene seems to me entirely beside the point. According to the expert on Iran they are - so that is reality and relevant to what is happening there.

But also I fundamentally think the whole focus on misinformation and disinformation and the industries around it are at best a massive red herring. I think politically the idea that there's an epistemological solution to our problems is nonsense - I do not think we can fact check our way to better politics (or a politics that we on Languish would sympathise with more) and I think that focus is actually largely counter-productive. Structurally it relies on the very platforms generating the problem further increasing their power which, again, I think is counter-productive. Politically I think it fails because telling people their just wrong and idiots for buying a lie tends not to be a winning message. But also at a discourse level I think it just generates legitimate charges of hypocrisy because there is always spin and propaganda and biases and imperfect information - the better way than pretending we live in a pure world ourselves is, I think, how you analyse it.

And in my view whether it's true or not, it is relevant for thsoe reasons but also it is discoure and communication. We have entire disciplines that are very used to looking at communications of varying degrees of trustworthiness to analyse what was going, the mental universes of people involved and how they interact. This is literally the basis of all journalism hearing different pieces of information from different sources with different interests in talking to journalists, or the entire study of history. In many respects the vast majority of recorded information in all of human history is misinformation or disinformation - it has also been really important in shaping events and then the current and subsequent understandings of events. We should treat the world as it is now in exactly the same way. I'd go further and say that very often if you're not looking at discourse (including the misinformation and disinformation) then analysis is impossible. You're just listing a series of events.

I'd add that I also think a large part of this is just a product of underlying technological and material shifts. I think the mid-twentieth century world of "information" reflected limitations of broadcast and print technologies which produced relatively concentrated markets - the cost of entry was very high - therefore there was a limited range of information sources (and still mis and disinformation within that - and counter to it). I think historically since the print revolution (but also in counter to more oral traditions) it is a period with an unusually concentrated information space. The digitisation of print, then satellite and then the internet radically lowered the cost of entry and massively expanded the range of sources of information. We will not re-create the conditions of that information/discourse era (though new similar ones may emerge. It strikes me that a shift from search engines and a plural internet to generative search and AI interfaces may produce that because that is restoring a very high cost of entry - which (as is often the case) is double edged at best. On a what is to be done level - I'm not sure but I don't think it's trying to re-create models when the conditions that created them no longer exist.

[Duque de Bragança]

It will be covered in all the awesome "deals" Our Benevolent Father of Business has negotiated on worse terms than we had before them!

Glorious American Victory postponed, Hormuz blocked again.

Make Ormuz Blocked Again. MOBA
Does not that sound that great, I will grant you that. 

[Jacob]

Interesting thread on reddit where mariners are discussing Hormuz, including apparently some that are there right now or are drawing conclusions based on which ships pass through.

Obviously it's social media, so take it with whatever helping of salt you think is appropriate (or ignore it altogether), but I thought there are some interesting perspectives there:

https://www.reddit.com/r/maritime/comments/1sov57g/french_giants_bid_adieu_to_the_%C3%B3rmuz/

[Norgy]

While I do not know the United States well, I would think it is a dangerous path to thread, not primarily for electoral purposes, but for the Jewish minority that are Americans.

There is a weird and dysfunctional combination of arrogance, hysteria and intolerance among ultra-Zionist American Jews.  The arrogance comes from decades of illusory confidence from evangelical support for Israel which is more shallow and less stable than they imagine. The hysteria manifests as seeing anti-Semitic cabals anytime anyone anywhere has anything critical to say about Israel, which over the long-term only confirms the prejudice that Israeli national politics and Judaism are the same thing. It doesn't help that Jewish institutions like some synagogues get heavily involved in things like promoting settlement development in the WB, which then prompts protests, and then in turn reinforces the sense of siege.  That then fuels intolerance, manifested as attacks on vulnerable minorities, which is an incredibly foolish strategy for another vulnerable minority to take.

The ultras push strongly to mobilize Jewish influence and yes Jewish money to bend national politics in an extreme pro Israel direction, oblivious to what fallout may occur if that policy goes poorly for the US or if Israeli leaders take advantage of it at American expense.  They rally to MAGA and Trump based on pro Israel rhetoric and policy, heedless of how sustainable it can be to pursue Israel first policies in a movement whose core tenet is America first

It's frustrating to witness because it's like so many have forgotten what it means to be a diaspora Jew. They talk about the Holocaust and "never again" but without seeming to think about what conditions could bring such a thing about. A Jewish national homeland is no security against disaster - how could anyone familiar with the Biblical writings reach that conclusion??  They talk about anti-semitism — which in America most commonly manifests as a stereotype of clannish Jews manipulating politics and finance to pursue Jewish goals at the expense of American interest - and then proceed to do seemingly everything they can to reinforce those stereotypes.

Thanks for an informed answer.

The conflict that stems from the lack of a two-state solution poisons so many a political discourse. I am sure that there are both Arabs and Jews with lots of cash to splash into "public opinion".

Israel has called Norway an anti-semitic state. That sort of washes out who gave them the nuclear option. Yeah, it was Norway. The Labour Party loved Israel and bore the guilt of the nation for all the Jews that went on trains and ships "to the East". Norway did find diplomacy with Israel easier before Likud's rise. Meir and Dayan were "people we can talk to". Begin not so much.

The cabals these days are not Jewish, but mostly rather white "protestants" looking to enrich themselves, it seems.
And, I do not imply that there ever was a Jewish cabal.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting thread on reddit where mariners are discussing Hormuz, including apparently some that are there right now or are drawing conclusions based on which ships pass through.

Obviously it's social media, so take it with whatever helping of salt you think is appropriate (or ignore it altogether), but I thought there are some interesting perspectives there:

https://www.reddit.com/r/maritime/comments/1sov57g/french_giants_bid_adieu_to_the_%C3%B3rmuz/

Interesting - I find the Hormuz tracking weirdly compelling. Wish my dad was around as an ex-merchant navy captain just to get him to explain Hormuz to me

I've not seen much about them but really feel for the merchant marine crews on all of these ships. I think overwhelmingly now Bangladeshi and Filipino sailors and I suspect there's issues with supplies and just staying sitting for so long.

[Norgy]

During the Iraq-Iran war, the straits and the island of Kharg were rather dangerous.

Those that dared, like John Fredriksen of Norway, got well minted. He had a small tanker fleet, and just risked a lot on getting through. I think the Norwegian fleet mostly had gone over to being registered in Panama those days, however, some sailors were still Norwegian, like the bosun and the captain. They certainly did not like the risks.

I think Fredriksen's companies are valued at millions of dollars and pounds.

Fortune, sometimes, favours the brave. Only, his only personal risk was a loss of a ship. As far as I know, they went without any kind of insurance. Except for obligatory ones for the ship itself.