Comment by wfdsf2
4 hours ago
One thing I notice on here is very few people understand counter intuitive stuff.
As you said.. plenty of evidence where on the surface it seems good. But in reality it turns out to make the people in the region worse off.
That, combined with extreme short-termism and unbridled optimism. All three probably having a similar root cause.
And we see this across the board. A canonical one that remains prevalent: "If only people would've come out and voted for Kamala in 2024, we wouldn't be in this mess". But then if you follow the pattern, with the candidate she was and what she would've done, this would've secured an ultra-MAGA victory in 2028 (and likely already by 2026 midterms). One more extreme, more devious, more intelligent from the get-go than the current one. People like to cling to "but you don't know that for sure", which is true, but we do know that with about 90% certainty. Betting on 10% is an awful idea and is indeed what has gotten you to where you're at.
It's the single biggest reason for the huge power shift from the US to China. Almost anything that China does is based on long-term consequences. Pain today for gain over time. Of course there are counterexamples, but by and large this holds.
In this case, sure, many Iranians will be happy for a day - especially overseas. So that's what people focus on. People have entirely lost the ability to think realistically in years. Of course part of this is biological, we're monkeys. But there are many reasons to believe that this ability has greatly declined over the last 50 years, particularly in the West and especially in the US.