In a lot of ways I feel the discourse that he means a nuclear attack buries the lede. This is not likely to happen.
What is more likely to happen is just as bad. Devastating civil infrastructure would put 10s of millions of lives at risk.
And even if one were to look at this from a myopic USA centric lens, has anyone considered how many of these people we were told needed liberation are now radicalized against us?
Contaminating the region with radiation including Israels supply chain and exports wasn't something on my bingo cards.
I guess Israel would just import everything from the US, and expect AIPAC to do it's job at increasing funding once it's own farming sector has been decimated.
Response from Iran: "Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it will respond outside the region and deprive the United States and its allies of oil and gas “for many years” if the US crosses “red lines” and attacks civilian facilities."[1]
"Iran has closed all diplomatic and indirect channels of communication with the United States, the state-run Tehran Times reported ..." US media does not seem to have picked up on this, but media in India and China have.[2] But the common source seems to be "Tehran Times", and it's unclear who runs that or where they get their info. New York Times, AP, and AlJazeera are not saying that. Xinhua has a one-line note with no source. The US White House says Vance is talking to somebody. Politico says Vance is on "standby".[3]
The markets dropped. He and his cronies are buying up stocks. Tomorrow he'll say Iran is negotiating and offering something amazing. The stocks will go up and they'll sell. Iran will say they have no idea what he's talking about. Wash and repeat.
If you 'vouch' or 'flag' things the mods don't approve of, it gets disabled on your account.
Confirmed in private conversation with dang [1], he restored it after I promised to behave, and now it stopped working again as I didn't properly toe the line.
Quite hypocritical to give power to the user with the tacit expectation that you share the same opinions and political bent as the moderation team.
---
1: quote: "I'm afraid we took vouching privileges away from your account because you vouched for too many comments that were unsubstantive and/or flamebait and/or otherwise broke the site guidelines"
What's truly shocking is that a large part of what got Trump elected in 2024 (and the world in this mess now) was that the GOP cleverly stoked the fears of transgenderism via local-market ad buys during the election. This very play was the reason for much of Trump's gains with various demo's such as black males and hispanics/latinos. So many of these folks were completely triggered by 'grooming' and the ideas that girls are having to compete against transgender girls in their sports. The fact that folks were willing to elect Trump so that a very small number of women wouldn't have to compete against transgenders, is sad beyond words. Perhaps this (will turn into) a lesson well learned, although voters have notoriously short memories. Sophistication of this type among the masses is sorely lacking.
The ruling class has us just where they want us -- so focused on & fearful of losing our little jobs that we don't have context around much else so that we can do a thoughtful job of performing as an electorate. This is how you elect a Donald Trump, as THEY have now learned.
What precisely are you doing other than posting stuff that pretends that a party in minority in both houses of Congress could actually stop a president, unless some politicians in the majority chose to join them.
And, as underwhelming as the press are, the facts are that surveys show that American's broadly disapprove of the war. Presumably because of what they have learned about it from the press and the opposition.
The people who are responsible are the people in power and their remaining supporters. Aided, arguably, by people who espouse cynical, self-soothing complaints that ignore what most people learn about civics in middle school.
Are you trying to say that the majority of dems don't support this war? Cause they do.
Also are you going to ignore the propaganda pushed by the press leading up to the initial attack? Or that they are still breathlessly parroting propaganda and self censoring right now?
The entire ruling class is responsible for this. The military carrying it out is responsible for it. Anyone in positions of power that have done nothing to stop this but post some strongly worded tweets is responsible.
The US government hasn't been in control of the People for decades and decades. Maybe even longer than that. It doesn't matter what "parties" have been in control. We all know why this war is happening, who benefits, who's lobbying for it, who they bought off, and who Trump answers to. We all know, but people are afraid to say it because they stand to lose once they're targeted for saying it. Voting hasn't stopped it. Party control of Congress hasn't stopped it. Presidents haven't stopped it. It's happening and this was the plan all along from both parties.
The question isn't what must be done; look to the very founding of the United States for wisdom on that topic. The only question is, do people have the collective courage to do it?
It's wrong to even frame this as a partisan question. When the leader of a democratic country threatens a nation of 90 million people with genocide, that should be the end of that government on that same day. Where is the entire US population? You hear nothing but crickets, what an utterly passive, terminally ill society.
Protests have been steadily breaking records each time they occur. Protests have been occurring across the country since he took office. This has all been widely publicized
The best example I've seen of things working correctly was with South Korea removing the leader that declared martial law. The South Koreans said nope to that, and removed the head of their government. They just had the moral fortitude to do it.
It is not quoted, it is summarized. You are quoting the first sentence of the post, but the certainty implied in that sentence is immediately undercut by the next; “I don’t want it to happen but it probably will”, and made even more muddy by the rest, which continues: “However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”
The world got so used to Don's deranged bravado, that I doubt that either china or russia have raised their DEFCON status equivalents, as they would probably do, should any other serious american president said the same thing.
Hmm. You just gave me a flashback to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. He was saying all these threatening things, and moving all these troops, but surely he would never do that, right?
Wrong, it turned out. Sometimes bluster isn't bluster. Or perhaps sometimes blusterers back themselves into a corner with their mouth.
How is Trump's threat the most extreme in this war? Hell, "a whole civilization might die tonight?". The islamic regime in Iran has explicitly set wiping out Persian civilization as it's goal, more than 50 years ago.
Iran's regime threatens to make life in the middle east essentially impossible:
I hate to break this to you, but before the current regime, the Shah was violently enforcing no burka/niqab dress codes. The Shah that was installed by the West
In a lot of ways I feel the discourse that he means a nuclear attack buries the lede. This is not likely to happen.
What is more likely to happen is just as bad. Devastating civil infrastructure would put 10s of millions of lives at risk.
And even if one were to look at this from a myopic USA centric lens, has anyone considered how many of these people we were told needed liberation are now radicalized against us?
Contaminating the region with radiation including Israels supply chain and exports wasn't something on my bingo cards.
I guess Israel would just import everything from the US, and expect AIPAC to do it's job at increasing funding once it's own farming sector has been decimated.
Response from Iran: "Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it will respond outside the region and deprive the United States and its allies of oil and gas “for many years” if the US crosses “red lines” and attacks civilian facilities."[1]
"Iran has closed all diplomatic and indirect channels of communication with the United States, the state-run Tehran Times reported ..." US media does not seem to have picked up on this, but media in India and China have.[2] But the common source seems to be "Tehran Times", and it's unclear who runs that or where they get their info. New York Times, AP, and AlJazeera are not saying that. Xinhua has a one-line note with no source. The US White House says Vance is talking to somebody. Politico says Vance is on "standby".[3]
A negotiated cease-fire seems unlikely now.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/4/7/iran-war-li...
[2] https://www.the-independent.com/bulletin/news/iran-mediators...
[3] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/06/vance-is-on-standby...
The markets dropped. He and his cronies are buying up stocks. Tomorrow he'll say Iran is negotiating and offering something amazing. The stocks will go up and they'll sell. Iran will say they have no idea what he's talking about. Wash and repeat.
As depressing as it sounds, this seems to pretty much sum up the objective of the 2nd Trump admin.
As anticipated - this post got flagged.
An existential crisis as big as this can't be discussed on HN?
If many people 'vouch' for it, it will get unflagged.
If you 'vouch' or 'flag' things the mods don't approve of, it gets disabled on your account.
Confirmed in private conversation with dang [1], he restored it after I promised to behave, and now it stopped working again as I didn't properly toe the line.
Quite hypocritical to give power to the user with the tacit expectation that you share the same opinions and political bent as the moderation team.
---
1: quote: "I'm afraid we took vouching privileges away from your account because you vouched for too many comments that were unsubstantive and/or flamebait and/or otherwise broke the site guidelines"
Unfortunately that's not the way it works. If it's [flagged] [dead] because of user flagging, some users can vouch for it to revive it.
But if it's merely [flagged] (with associated penalties keeping it off the front pages) there is no option for vouching to remove the penalty.
This one is currently [flagged] with no option for vouching.
1 reply →
This is what happens when there's no effective opposition. Where are the dems? Where's the press?
What's truly shocking is that a large part of what got Trump elected in 2024 (and the world in this mess now) was that the GOP cleverly stoked the fears of transgenderism via local-market ad buys during the election. This very play was the reason for much of Trump's gains with various demo's such as black males and hispanics/latinos. So many of these folks were completely triggered by 'grooming' and the ideas that girls are having to compete against transgender girls in their sports. The fact that folks were willing to elect Trump so that a very small number of women wouldn't have to compete against transgenders, is sad beyond words. Perhaps this (will turn into) a lesson well learned, although voters have notoriously short memories. Sophistication of this type among the masses is sorely lacking.
The ruling class has us just where they want us -- so focused on & fearful of losing our little jobs that we don't have context around much else so that we can do a thoughtful job of performing as an electorate. This is how you elect a Donald Trump, as THEY have now learned.
Where are you?
What precisely are you doing other than posting stuff that pretends that a party in minority in both houses of Congress could actually stop a president, unless some politicians in the majority chose to join them.
And, as underwhelming as the press are, the facts are that surveys show that American's broadly disapprove of the war. Presumably because of what they have learned about it from the press and the opposition.
The people who are responsible are the people in power and their remaining supporters. Aided, arguably, by people who espouse cynical, self-soothing complaints that ignore what most people learn about civics in middle school.
Are you trying to say that the majority of dems don't support this war? Cause they do.
Also are you going to ignore the propaganda pushed by the press leading up to the initial attack? Or that they are still breathlessly parroting propaganda and self censoring right now?
The entire ruling class is responsible for this. The military carrying it out is responsible for it. Anyone in positions of power that have done nothing to stop this but post some strongly worded tweets is responsible.
The US government hasn't been in control of the People for decades and decades. Maybe even longer than that. It doesn't matter what "parties" have been in control. We all know why this war is happening, who benefits, who's lobbying for it, who they bought off, and who Trump answers to. We all know, but people are afraid to say it because they stand to lose once they're targeted for saying it. Voting hasn't stopped it. Party control of Congress hasn't stopped it. Presidents haven't stopped it. It's happening and this was the plan all along from both parties.
2 replies →
I'd also ask what can we regular Joes and Janes do to avoid this disaster?
I can't think of anything other than going out and standing on a street with a placard. can we do anything better than that?
The question isn't what must be done; look to the very founding of the United States for wisdom on that topic. The only question is, do people have the collective courage to do it?
What are they supposed to do here, exactly?
Country wide strike would be a nice start.
20 replies →
The fatal flaw in our separation of powers is that even if congressional dems had a super majority, congress is powerless to enforce anything.
And the press has been covering Trump's rhetoric and the war pretty heavily.
So the "checks and balances" we were taught in school was just nonsense?
4 replies →
The press is owned by the billionaires that paid Trump's campaign.
They literally bought the presidency for Trump.
2 replies →
> This is what happens when there's no effective opposition. Where are the dems? Where's the press?
The US is functioning as a banana republic style totalitarian regime for a few years. Even Venezuela has a tougher opposition.
It's wrong to even frame this as a partisan question. When the leader of a democratic country threatens a nation of 90 million people with genocide, that should be the end of that government on that same day. Where is the entire US population? You hear nothing but crickets, what an utterly passive, terminally ill society.
Protests have been steadily breaking records each time they occur. Protests have been occurring across the country since he took office. This has all been widely publicized
The best example I've seen of things working correctly was with South Korea removing the leader that declared martial law. The South Koreans said nope to that, and removed the head of their government. They just had the moral fortitude to do it.
1 reply →
Why is the post miquoted?
It says: "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again."
Will. Not might.
It is not quoted, it is summarized. You are quoting the first sentence of the post, but the certainty implied in that sentence is immediately undercut by the next; “I don’t want it to happen but it probably will”, and made even more muddy by the rest, which continues: “However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”
Thanks, I guess that makes sense.
The world will be engulfed in nuclear hellfire, and Hacker News mods will be flagging final sign-off posts as too political.
Destruction for no good reason.
Even those who don't care about innocent lives recognize the horrible consequences for everyone else:
- Iran empowered to tax the strait of Hormuz indefinitely with high insurance
- Russia empowered with access to the middle east since the Iranians will have to embrace their only ally
Trump enablers are responsible.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47674286
That went quickly from "America the supposed liberator is here" to "America is going to genocide your entire civilization."
The world got so used to Don's deranged bravado, that I doubt that either china or russia have raised their DEFCON status equivalents, as they would probably do, should any other serious american president said the same thing.
Fucking clown.
Hmm. You just gave me a flashback to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. He was saying all these threatening things, and moving all these troops, but surely he would never do that, right?
Wrong, it turned out. Sometimes bluster isn't bluster. Or perhaps sometimes blusterers back themselves into a corner with their mouth.
How is Trump's threat the most extreme in this war? Hell, "a whole civilization might die tonight?". The islamic regime in Iran has explicitly set wiping out Persian civilization as it's goal, more than 50 years ago.
Iran's regime threatens to make life in the middle east essentially impossible:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/23/iran-threat-to...
Iran's regime threatens to kill every Iranian they can "before giving Iran back to Iranians":
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/16/no-sign-of-new-prot...
Another thread that got 'buried':
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47674286
Yeah, good luck with that.
I'm sure he'll follow up with bailing the ocean.
I take this seriously and it's made me sick. I can't get any work done when my stomach feels like its doing flips.
You're not alone. I keep hoping there's some sort of fire to put out at work so I can at least be distracted enough for a bit.
I’ve approved like a single PR today. It’s not great.
Yet another genocidal threat. Now Iran needs nukes. Congratulation on amazing diplomacy!
[flagged]
USA has enough firepower to kill millions of people in short to mid term without needing any nukes.
Israel is currently discussing a Hiroshima / Nagasaki model.
Source?
1 reply →
Taking down the power grid, water supply, and other types of things doesn't require nukes and would devastate the populace.
[flagged]
I hate to break this to you, but before the current regime, the Shah was violently enforcing no burka/niqab dress codes. The Shah that was installed by the West
> Women get acid in the face for dressing wrong, and protesters are killed in the thousands. Gay people are thrown from rooftops or hanged.
By your standards, civilization in the United States has been dead for a long time and shows no signs of revival.