(...)

That way you don't lose their data just in case sanctions are lifted

It feels like I have to own all my data and not trust companies before it's decided I can no longer access my own data.

> Russian IPs are blocked here, due to your unjust and unprovoked War against Ukraine. You are responsible for the rape, kidnap and massacre of innocent civilians.

Which is to me an absolutely bonkers statement, clearly made by someone who has never even tried to research anything about my country. Someone who was clearly born into a democratic society and has lived their whole life in it. And has probably never traveled to countries with oppressive regimes and never made any friends there.

It's nothing but performative bullshit.

Damn ... :/

Yes it's annoying that people disabled your access because of your location, but at the end of the day it is what it is. US companies get hefty fines if they do business with Iran.

The only thing they can do is to make dictators more popular and provide them with an excuse for their economic and political failures.

When someone in Cuba is denied something because of Sanctions, they are not going to blame the Castro family, they are going to think, "Hey, Fidel was always right! those Americans are just a bunch of sadist psychopaths that are trying to destroy my country.

In general, a good rule of thumb in life, is that whatever policy people like John McCain or Lindsey Graham defend, the right position is the exact opposite of theirs.

First, there is the law, and many jurisdictions forbid me from providing any services to individuals and/or businesses in certain countries. See other comments here for details, but these are serious matters.

Second, there is my moral beliefs. I go through life trying to draw a moral line and if something is beyond that line, I take action. Your line might be different. You might be a forever-whataboutist, avoiding taking any action and always saying "but what about X or Y?", trying to point out that I am inconsistent in my actions or beliefs. Well I don't subscribe to whataboutism and I believe it is the cause of much of today's world problems. So I refuse to provide service to some countries, because I cannot stand idly while genocide happens. If your country is involved in genocide, target killing of civilians, or actively helps another country to do so, I do not want to deal with you.

Some will say that individuals are not responsible for actions of their countries. I disagree. For better or worse, the passport you hold brings with it certain benefits and obligations, and ties you to a country. That's how we agreed to run this world. If your country commits horrific crimes, it's time to take action: oppose the authorities, escape the country, apply for asylum, renounce your citizenship. Yes, I know all these are unpleasant and dangerous. So are the bombs your country is dropping onto my friends right now. Taking the "but individuals are not responsible" stance means that I have to watch as some people from countries that are killing my friends live well in safe places, standing on the sidelines and waiting things out, while keeping the option to return to their country once things blow over. Writing blog posts about the finer points of modern Apple design while people get raped and murdered by the army of their country. I don't feel that is right. There must be consequences if your country commits atrocities. Don't like the consequences? Don't let your country get to the point that it commits atrocities.

There was a lot of interesting stuff went into the article:

1. Microsoft:

> Back when I was a student, I got access to the Microsoft Imagine, and as a result, I got access to the Microsoft Store as a developer.

Then:

> Microsoft deleted my app, my developer account, and all those comments on my app supporting me and suggesting ideas on how to improve the program.. but I assume it's because of the sanctions.

Here, I got a novice question: Knowing this individual is from a sanctioned country, Why you are allowing him in the first place to put a lot of work to build an app but, after having some success, you destroyed him entirely?!

Also, suggesting ideas on how to improve the program after deleting my account is one of the most hilarious things I have ever read. It is a strong indicator that these emails are just templates built automatically with no soul or human touch. Yes, you heard it right: you are just a row in a table!.. but you still manage to have a PRIMARY_KEY!

2. Notion:

> Since It has been suspended permanently, there's still no option to get it back even by going outside those countries. Sorry for the Inconvenience. Take care.

Same as above! Why letting me build a base of data then one day, you delete it permanently without prior notice or the ability to export it then you apologize for the Inconvenience and tell me to take care of myself!

3. Mike Cardwell:

> I read hackernews on a daily basis

Oh, this made me relief a little bit! I hope Hacker News is neither being banned in any country nor blocking traffic from any country.

> Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians.

Blaming then punishing an ordinary citizen for arming a foreign country to kill civilians without clear evidence is so dumb.

Also, this reminds me of this post entitled Namecheap: Russia Service Termination (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30504812):

   Unfortunately, due to the Russian regime's war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine, we will no longer be providing services to users registered in Russia.

> However, later, GitHub announced that github is now available in Iran

Good News! read here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25648585

5. TIL

TIL about this 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons status code. I won't ever return this code for my websites, everybody, from everywhere, is welcome :)

Finally, I have a dream.. the dream to live to the day where a true open internet sees the light where the entire world have unrestricted access to the same online resources.

Then in 1962 suddenly another motive was added :USSR-missiles. The US blockade of Russian warships probably loaded with ballistic missiles on their way to construction sites in Cuba, was the closest brink of war yet. My Dad (ARMY) was on alert and packed to go.

With that resolved and no USSR missiles in Cuba the working motive for opposition fell back on (because Castro, Communism) and its economy was hobbled for years until neutral worldwide investors besides the USSR established ties. To this day Cuba is still on the edge with the lines shifting back and forth.

As has Iran since the Shah dynasty ended and American hostages were taken. So Cuba and Iran have lines stretching back into the distance. Probably you and I are young and it all seems so ancient. But Iran is a wealthy country now and (like us and the CIA) and it is now 'on our watch' to make sure money is not being funneled into the wrong places.

This nuclear thing annoys me but I'm a 'radical'. Aside from sweetheart deals and that 'other' country the US gave The Bomb by supplying their initial fissile material... since the USSR split anyone with MONEY has been able to acquire 1,2,3,+ bombs if they want them. "So and so is two weeks from having a Bomb" is generic Boomer slop to stoke fear and justify anything. And by all means if you have uranium, centrifuge uranium. And build out nuclear power.

Don't reply with an answer and place yourself in the crosshairs. But think on or find out for yourself, what number between 3% and 99% was Iran aiming for? If the number is on the higher side don't think in terms of [stupid] nuclear war, think in terms of money being wasted and having to deal with the most sordid people in the world to sell it. A bad direction. Things like this are both funny and sad, and hint at a world that might have turned out differently, better ( https://web.archive.org/web/20150518180531/http://en.wikiped... ). Time to revisit roads we had not taken.

for Iranians it's the same. and it's ground truth.

the sanctions actually are designed to push the people of Iran to change their mind and overthrow their gov. it's easier than starting a full-blown war against Iranian that will cause damage or kill U.S soldiers' lives. the sanctions are deliberately implemented to target the people and force them to follow the will of the whom established them.

Not really? The implication is that every choice has a 50/50 split of support. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

> should be solely in the hands of the individual, not the corporations

The businesses in the article are doing what they did because of legal sanctions on iran. Not because they are making political choices about who to do business with.

But your description of what companies should be doing is describing unfettered psychopathic capitalism. Companies that will break every code of morality or decency as long as it’s technically legal. Chromium in the water? Go for it. Even legality is just a speed bumb. If you can get away with it? If you can bribe your way out of it? Why not do it!

I don’t want to live in that world. Unfortunately that’s pretty much the world we live in already and it shows.

Just like it's not the people it's the government and their policies, there, it's not the people, but the government and the policies here.

I remember having compliance trainings that explicitly spelled out sanctioned countries. They are being enforced by compliance and legal departments in every company. There's nothing personal on either side here.

https://the-decoder.com/anthropic-bans-companies-majority-co...

I grew up in a country occupied by Russians. I really feel for the Ukrainians. Currently, there seems to be a social contract between Putin and middle-class Russians from Moscow and St. Petersburg - they will let him bomb Ukrainian civilians, as long as he shields them from getting really hurt by that war. They can continue living pretty comfortably, as long as they go along with it. To me, this just feels wrong. Yes, it is hard to change anything in a dictatorship. I know that from personal experience. But I believe that ultimately, citizens have the responsibility for what their country is doing. And if what their country is doing is destroying another country, I am OK with making them feel a bit of heat.

I don't know that much about Iran, but the part I know is that they indeed make drones that pound Ukrainians, including their schools and hospitals. Do I feel certain sympathy for Iranian commoners, who might not make those drones voluntarily? Sure. If I were in their place, I would probably not dare to resist, and I would make those drones. But I feel more sympathy with Ukrainians. And if anything could be done to make it harder for Iranians to make those drones, we should try it. Even if it's unlikely to succeed. Even if it makes the lives of innocent ordinary citizens harder. I hope that if I were an Iranian, I would at least understand that.

All sanctions are designed to hurt civilians, so that they may overthrow their government. Just a bullying tactic by the US with zero moral justifications, despite how it's framed by the media.

Their government, quite literally, does not represent them, their views, nor their interests.

If you want to fix “the Iran problem”, help their people as much as possible.

This is an absolutely mental take assigning blame on every civilian of a country. Sadly in probably his worst take, Linus Torvalds also said something in these lines while banning all Russian developers. While the action could be justified, this attitude is never reasonable, and I say that as a Finn with the same opinion about Putin's war of aggression as Linus has.

When a service drops a customer for _any_ reason, even if it was the customers own fault, it should become the absolute norm and a the minimum thing that the service would trigger the same thing they'd do when if the user triggered a manual data export off the service. Even for something relatively simple, like for example I didn't log in to my Spotify account for x amount of years and they disabled my account. The only way I could get my collected albums back was through support, and if I had been unlucky, they'd just deleted all my data.

This is NOT something that should be the user's responsibility. There is no norm for automating data exports off services, hell even Google makes you go through menus every time. Maybe time for EU to be useful again?

Your country is sanctioned. You are asking people to put their own freedom at stake so that you can have a Notion account.

Iran is supplying Russia with drones to attack Ukraine. The sanctions against Iran might be hurting people who do not deserve it, but they aren't some unreasonable act of aggression and you are complaining about your Notion account?

When you grant access/resources to expats of a hostile country, you have to limit them as if they were agents of the foreign country. Even if they like your country, you make them vulnerable to threats of torture/imprisonment of their loved ones back home.

Do they not understand that, instead of helping these people connect to the outside world and improve their life and their country, they are actually increasing the poor conditions and helping the regimes they are fighting against?

At this point it should be obvious to everyone, that western money is (transitively) keeping all the worst regimes alive.

People stopped buying south African stuff, as an apartheid boycott, can we get some china boycott going?

Do those sanctions even work? North Korea still builds nuclear weapons, Cuba still has a communist government, Iran is still a theocratic regime. You don’t start revolution by trade embargo. You start it by sending more jeans and heavy metal records.

Now it's just Iran/Cuba/North Korea, but you're essentially letting the increasingly aggressive American government decide who can or cannot publish software. The Americans are not afraid of adding their political enemies from allied countries to the sanction list, as can be seen when they decided to go after the judge in the Israel genocide case. Who knows who will be next now that they're blatantly cracking down on free speech.

The Apple app store/Google Play/Microsoft Store are great conveniences, but they must never be the only way to access software on your device. Apple's EU exception falls short for still requiring an Apple account to pay fees that no judge will accept when the first lawsuit hits. Sure, Epic Games has offered to pay those fees just to spite Apple, but Epic can only pay those fees to people they're allowed to pay.

Yes ideally we’d live in a world where this bullshit doesn’t happen. But it does happen, so our choices are to respond with the tools we have NOW or not respond at all.

That's the thing in a crony dictatorship: these people might not hold public office in name, but in practice they act under direct license, authority and orders of the dictator. We're already seeing this in Hungary, where close friends of the local de-facto-dictator Viktor Orban control almost all media and absolutely use that ownership to further entrench Orban's rule - it's hard to achieve political change when the media simply doesn't care about you.

And now, we're seeing the beginnings in the US, just from another angle - public kowtowing and open extortion, such as with Jimmy Kimmel who got cancelled after a threat to block a corporate merger, and it's not the first time either. And no, the fact that Disney walked back after their stock price took a decent dip doesn't mean that this is the last time such an event will take place.

By that definition Putin is a civilian.

More broadly: plenty of sanctions explicitly target military-only kit. Those are not “designed to hurt civilians,” though I guess a civilian working in a munitions factory might lose their job.

And you think this is a good thing? Like we should be consistent and support all war crimes instead of just some of them?

Just because we do bad things, doesn’t make it right to do more bad things.

Regardless, you don't have an answer to Libya's nuclear program being shut down due to sanctions, and South African apartheid ending due to sanctions. Do sanctions have a 100% success rate? No. But they have a much higher success rate than jeans and heavy metal.

A US baker cannot send cakes to Iran.

I was kind of surprised by the whole thing because he was currently employed at another company. We went so far in the process that he quit his other job and we had him in the office for his first day of work, had a big lunch with him and everything. We fucked him on that.

It's just a threat the fedcops get to use to force you to take a plea deal. It's basically a big boy version of how your local prosecutor behaves. Instead of filing BS charges that will never stick in an attempt to "mark it up to mark it down", the fedcops are more equal so they have

Every time you see someone on HN screeching about how we ought to have federal regulation and stiff penalties for whatever their pet issue is remember that this is what that looks like.

If only they applied something like this to the rest of the corporate world, companies would be far better behaved and polite

Let's be realistic here. There are no executives or board members who faced charges for prohibited transactions with Iran or NK. It's not like we don't have a steady stream of companies reporting that they inadvertently hired NK citizens remotely.

  > Yes, there are fines for American companies if they do business with Iranians.

Edited for clarity (thanks bloak)

You just open company in Brazil or Argentina and you can purchase whatever you want. Before 1989 communistic countries were overcoming CoCom restrictions in this way. Russia is doing this successfully since 2014. Surely Iran, North Korea are doing the same, this is really a no brainer and today and it is not even hard or costly, as nobody needs to physically travel, money transfers go through Kaiman, Netherlands Antilles, City of London Corp., etc. Nobody is able to track them.

More. Nobody even tries to hide anymore. Germany is openly purchasing Russian oil, branded as "Kazakhstani", through Druzba pipe. The Netherlands is buying Russian gasoline branded as "Indian". France is buying Russian LNG and it is not event trying to pretend that it is not Russian.

We will wait very long for those who will pay this $1M fine or go to prison.

Ha ha ha, it's so funny and harmless to make fun of people in prison, because they all deserve it, right? And the US is a free country?

Sorry but this just makes me incredibly angry.

Even more with Trump's current push to sanction the ICC.

But of course this veil can be pierced when it suits the administration, but not when it'd positively benefit the life of american citizens.

In your linked article Microsoft say they didn’t block “the ICC”, but also mention the “disconnection of an official”.

They were accused of blocking a single individual (the chief prosecutor), and the response is basically “we didnt block the whole organisation”?

"greatest"? Hardly. A charge was brought before the ICC from South Africa which required the ICC to investigate.

There are much bigger supporters of Hamas, the sanctions against employees of the ICC is just the current US government flexing its retribution muscles.

Women can be SA'd in prison by other prisoners, and additionally have to contend with the petty humiliations from guards taking unnecessary sexual turns that they wouldn't with men.

I can just point to a movie from the 50s-60s and then shout "but it's just a reference, it's just a reference so it's fine!"

Yup, sound logic.

This list includes Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, etc...

Not that only FPTP is terrible either - it is just what people evoke when they say "well xy people voted for this, right?". In more fair systems, the voted person or party may not even have been their first or second choice, so that on its own violates this notion again too, just differently.

Is always the subtext to statements like yours.

Your point only makes sense if the humour is general. But nobody's hoping on national TV when a female athlete trips going "ha ha she got Ted bundy'd, omg absolutely raped ha!" see how disgusting and vile that sounds?

But you know "pound me in the ass prison" is a cult classic (I still like the overall movie) and nobody would have any problem with airing it on TV.

No point arguing with humans tho, our species is lame.

Well they did intervene during the 1952 revolution. The secular democratic government wasn't very convenient so they basically undid the revolution and reinstalled the Shah in power. Then the second time the Shah was overthrown, it was done by Islamists, not by the secular elected parliament.

Who would give an honest answer here?

Tales from an insider don't help very much, because people will only report about their own bubble, the city/province/town they live in, their family and friends of similar interest and social status, their workplace, etc. Also, there can be a severe selection bias, people wanting to talk to outsiders on the internet or even leave a country are probably more often critical of a regime and its decisions.

So from the outside, the only sensible thing we can do is see the country as a whole, lump in the government with the people. Because we cannot really know if people think differently and who they are. We cannot isolate or punish "just the government". And if there were a majority against the current government, there would be a revolution at some point. If there isn't one, opposition against the regime just isn't strong enough.

Now we have a pacified populace that allows corruption to run freely and keeps repeating "violence is never the answer" while forgetting meaningful change almost always requires it.

Never forget we wouldn't even have weekends if people hadn't died for it.

I wish we never needed violence but it seems to be wishful thinking rather than reality. Will people oppose the next Hitler by ranting on Twitter and peaceful protests? Something tells me that won't work.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/kazakhstans-january-...

1. Hamas, an Iranian proxy, attacked Israel on October 7th 2023. Until that time, the death toll in the 100 years of Israeli-Palestinian conflict was about 10k Israels to 40k Palestinians. It since became 12k Israelis to 110k Palestinians. I don't think that proxy fulfilled its intention.

2. Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, attacked Israel on October 8th in support of Hamas. The ensuing war killed about 4k Lebanese. That proxy, too, seems to have failed in its mission to reduce the death tol..

3. The Houthis, yet another Iranian proxy, attacked Israel in support of Gaza. Since then, Israeli counter attacks killed several hundreds in Yemen. Not good.

Now these proxies are heavily damaged, deprived of most strategic capabilities and the death toll in the ensuing battles dwarfed all of the past deaths in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

The problem is that it works too well. As you can clearly see, the solution basically everyone individually applies is to stay clear of anything that might be an issue by several miles.

If you apply the same reasoning to things like private data handling, little things like just shipping stuff will be prohibitively expensive, as no one will want to handle private data like addresses and instead go to a provider, which will need excessive amounts of cash and red tape to do anything for taking on that liability. Building stuff will become impossible, as all of the current red tape will be exponentially expanded with liability checks against any possible pollution. Founding a company will basically never happen, because no one wants to risk 20+ years in jail - and if they do, they'll simply turn to crime, because if your risk profile is that off anyway, not paying taxes will just be a minuscule risk increase.

I'm not saying that there's no political incentive to ignore those issues and keep fines low, but piercing the corporate veil is the nuclear option and there is a reason it's used so little.

There's an Irish comedian who has a bit that goes like this "As an Irishman I don't have white guilt. At all. In Ireland we had potatoes on the ground. We picked them up ourselves. We didn't steal people from another continent to come do it for us. That would be insane."

I don't care what your history is. I care what you're doing now, and if what you're doing now is killing people over 80 year old beef (or anything else really) then I have absolutely no respect for you nor your history. Get over it, move forward. War should be a thing of the past at this point, we all share one planet.

This is the symbolic value of sanctions. It’s a part of coalition building and domestic messaging. (Though if you constantly do it this becomes less effective.)

It’s a classic team-building strategy: costly signalling [1]. You see it in mafias, but like, also when a softball team buys matching jerseys.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costly_signaling_theory_in_e...

Mostly because the USSR was the new enemy and Germany had to be an ally after WW2.

While the war was still ongoing there was carpet-bombing of German civilians, and some of the plans for after the war originally included complete destruction of industrial capacities, forced displacement of the population of formerly industrialized areas and forced labour for the whole population (google Morgenthau plans).

Notice how I didn't say "collective punishment" yet you put those words into my mouth and argue with that. Collective responsibility was was most definitely enforced on German* culture where it still echoes throughout the norms of education and political systems.

* West German really, as the East remained unreformed: which you can clearly see in the voting patterns today.

Mostly the military, from what I hear. The rest of the economy is in shambles [1].

No matter what: once the war in Ukraine is over by whatever solution, it's going to get nasty. Either Putin (or, more likely, his successor - the dude is old and it's by far not sure if he will be able to stay in power should the war end up bad for Russia) manages to turn around the economy once again from producing tanks and other instruments of war to a regular economy, or they'll keep it that way... and attack another country with all that firepower.

[1] https://kyivindependent.com/amid-dwindling-economy-number-of...

> Not really.

Yes, REALLY. In fact it can be even worse.

See the latest (June 2023) elections in Greece [1] (supposedly the cradle of democracy): First party got a 40.56% on a 53.74% turnout. I.e. around 22% of the electorate. Yet, this was adequate to yield a solid parliamental majority for 4 years.

Also mind that the election system had been changed to allow this travesty by the very same party and PM that won the June 2023 elections.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2023_Greek_parliamentary_...

Whether or not this is a useful/interesting metric is debatable, I suppose.

Swing voters / swing states / whatever the particular country-specific analog is -- this is a symptom of poor voting systems; unfortunately the people in power like how this works, and so it won't change.

It's also, at least in the US, a collective action problem: a state that tries to be more "fair" (doesn't gerrymander, perhaps awards presidential electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote percentages, etc.) will end up giving seats/votes to the "other side" more often than polarized states that stick with FPTP.

Then I recommend some history books. Family ties can be strong and the persecution of the jews was not always as violent and open as it was during the war. It was more systematic discrimination in the beginning, so of course people still travelled back and forth. Uprooting a whole family is not a simple thing.

"Some even line up to vote for sham Presidential elections of the Mullah regime"

What else they are supposed to do?

That is a small option of influence and they use it. You think the Mullahs would loose their power if people just would not vote for them? If that would be true, they would be a democracy.

Not sure how bringing a family member an iPhone is "benefiting the Mullah's system". It's a rounding error. And those family members are well aware that they can't get an iPhone in the usual way.

> I don't think a jew would have gone back to Nazi Germany to visit family

They might, though, despite the risk! And this isn't really a great comparison, since a Jewish person visiting Nazi Germany to visit family would run a high risk of being found out and sent to a camp (along with the family they're visiting) and killed. I don't think that sort of thing would likely be the case for an Iranian expat visiting family in Iran.

That is because they wouldn't be having a family in Germany since they would be dead

Some sanctions aim at military capabilities directly - but most just aim to throw a wrench into a country's economy overall. Which does hurt the population - but it also hurts a country's capabilities, which is the goal.

If North Korea wasn't sanctioned to shit, it would have had the resources to build not dozens but hundreds of ICBMs. This is undesirable, so North Korea remains sanctioned to shit.

This is the precise realpolitik of international sanctions, it's just not spoken out loud that often.

Don't believe me, some random commenter. Listen to the Professor of History and Grand Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College explain it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/B0k5ToABH7o

There is a recent study concluding that sanctions kill half a million people per annum: <https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1...>

I don't know what you mean by dictatorship but I'm not exactly adverse to applying the same term to the US, it being a one-party state with the audacity of having two parties, and either way, it's by far the most hostile and violent of contemporary state powers.

Iran is a theocratic autocracy. Only the autocrat and his supporters bear any significant responsibility for the actions of the government there.

Now search what happened to the Iran's democracy in the 70s and why their redemocratization stopped in the 90s.

Failing that, I don't know. I guess they'll have to figure it out as they go. All I'm saying is it's their country, their responsibility. And for example in the case of Russia there's clearly widespread support for Putin and his war so I'm not really expecting nor calling for them to do anything about it. I'm just saying I hold them responsible and I think the rest of the world should too. A leader is nothing without followers.

So they stories no fuel in Russia are just propaganda?

Sanctions punish ordinary people, many of whom are already suffering under the regime. So they end up opposing both an internal and an external enemy. In the long run, sanctions probably destroy and cost far more lives than wars. It's a sadistic way to try to crush an enemy.

Obviously untrue. Iran has 90 million citizens, and multitudes of that number do care out of principle. I am not trying to change your mind, but hope you would be more precise in your language next time to describe why you don’t care.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-nie...

Not saying Obama’s foreign policy was perfect, but he did do the Iran nuclear deal which lifted some sanctions, and started the process of normalizing relations with Cuba. Like so many other things, these were immediately undone by his successor…

I was under the assumption that in Western democracies, citizens have a say their government and its enacted laws.

We can't unfortunately assert the same for people of Iran since they don't live in a democracy.

Sanctions are designed to prevent an enemy government from profiting from our western economy. Sanctions are designed to bring hostile entities to the negotiation table. Sanctions curtail the worst behaviors of enemy nations because the sanctions deny those enemies money. Money is power. Little money = little power.

Well, it sounds like you should rise up against your government in violent revolution, then! After all, that's what's expected of Iranian, Cuban and Venezuelan people when the West destroys their countries with sanctions. Get to it!

People either voted, or decided that their vote was worthless enough.

You can quibble about whether a 3% threshold is "democratic" or not, but for all practical purposes if your movement can't get 3% you stand no chance of getting your policies enacted.

Democratic Republic, just like People's Republic, is actually a euphemism for communism.

What you are describing is "representative government" and "self government" not necessarily democracy. The will of the people is an abstract concept that is, depending on the issue, not always accurately measurable by equally weighted vote of a subset of the people that are enfranchised.

E.g. China sanctions a country then "China is not responsible for any deaths caused by governments that refuse to cooperate with them"

It's entirely the responsibility of each government to ensure the welfare of its own citizens. Anything more is purely goodwill. Anything less is treason.

You're just coping because the US/west is the predominant power.

Yes. About a third of the time [1].

[1] https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/863435/mod_resource/conte... Table 6.1 page 159

It kinda worked in Syria. The combination of sanctions, plus squatting on sovereign Syrian territory and preventing the government from generating income eventually left Assad's military so hollowed out that that the Turkish-backed rebel faction led by former Al Qaeda members was able to essentially drive to Damascus with minimal resistance.

>That's the theory, but has it ever worked?

The point is not to (directly) instigate regime change, but to influence the actions of the existing regime, as well as other state actors not under sanctions, by demonstrating to them how bad it can get. Make an example and so on.

The suffering of the civilians is not the goal of sanctions but a consequence of the choices their - legitimate or not - leaders make, and which ultimately impacts their ability to engage in foreign trade. No country has an obligation to trade with any other, so if civilians suffer after foreign trade is limited, the agency and moral responsibility is with the regime that failed to secure friendly trade relations. Often, humanitarian exceptions are carved out to limit this.

It definitely "works", in the sense that it's often the only tool available, along with positive reinforcements such as aid and support and the threat of stopping them, which is just another flavor of the same. It's hard to have a benchmark for something that "works" better, since countries are sovereign and by definition have disputes and don't blindly follow any established rules or rulers.

Like, during WW2 the UK was being bombed and ration books and supply shortages were the order of the day. They look back on their endurance of the conditions inflicted upon them as a source of national pride, have to imagine that is the case for many in the sanctioned countries too.

The West puts Russia in economic prison.

Russians suffer.

US is only a part of the system. Even if you remove US from the picture - EU alone would continue to sanction Russia.

I agree that the person you're replying to is getting a bit testy, but I think it's a bit justified, as you're being a bit obtuse here.

"Ideally" is irrelevant. We're not talking about ideal cases in these threads, so to bring up that word feels disingenuous. Yes, ideally people in a country where their government is doing bad things can peacefully replace their government with another one that won't do bad things.

But in practice, where in the world does that actually exist? Basically nowhere? So what's the point in bringing it up?

> Though I also don't think we can completely rule out the possibility of a peaceful revolution.

That's a bunch of weasel-word language. Sure, you can't "completely" rule out anything. But for most (all?) of the places under discussion, there's something like a 0.001% chance of that happening, which is far below the threshold of not even bothering to bring up the possibility.

Also it seems to be a common thing in Europe to refer to other's country populace OR government as plural 'You'. From my small sample size of 3, Americans were always confused by this and thought they were personally attacked.

Such hypocrisy.

So what is interesting is that this person is fully able to assign blame to individual Iranians for their government's actions but, one would imagine, is able to separate themselves from the actions of the US government.

I wrote "one would imagine" because there was no reply so we cannot say for sure. But my experience with Americans who do this "all Iranians/North Koreans/Syrians/Iraqis etc are bad!" thing is that they carve out little exceptions for themselves and the USA so that their reasons to hate others never seem to apply to themselves.

They are forced to work for for-profit companies for minimal pay, which is deducted by their living expenses and basic amenities.

And even then, it was only acceptable in 1999 because it was a joke about male-male homosexual rape (I doubt it would have been considered funny even back then if it was a joke about a man raping a woman), so on top of being a rape joke, it has some homophobic qualities to it.

(I do remember watching Office Space back in 1999 and finding that line hilarious, but that teenage version of me also thought saying "that's so gay" was a perfectly fine way to be negative about something. Times change, and people grow up and realize that some of the things they thought were funny were actually singling out marginalized groups in shitty ways.)

I think also your use of the phrase didn't really add anything to what you said. Certainly people in the in-group who both know that Office Space reference, and still think it's funny will get it and chuckle, but everyone else will just think it's a weird and/or offensive way to describe it. And leaving it out entirely doesn't water down what you said. If you still feel like you need to emphasize that it's gonna be a maximum-security prison rather than Club Fed, you can just say "maximum-security federal prison", and everyone will understand.

If you want to break that law, go ahead, I will support you all the way, and you will end up in jail anyway.

Democrats and anyone who has ever expressed an "anti-fascist/anti-fascism" opinion online - or attended a recent protest...

Their "regime" leadership has stated as much.

…we just had a hot war with Iran. It probably cost us less than our sanctions.

I’ll say this: you’re consistent in your position and I respect that. I just don’t think many people share the view that people getting physically torn apart by munitions is better than have a less-comfortable, possibly borderline, life.

Also in the assumption that a foreigner would or could get an Office Space reference, unless they live in a country America has already successfully culturally colonized.

The point is that the homophobic trope doesn’t add anything to the information given, while it does make it more likely to run afoul of homophobic censors in homophobic countries led by homophobes.

The only reason it's funny is because the subject of these jokes are men (so nobody cares), are engaging in something considered "gay" (which is gross and funny ha ha ewwww).

I don't expect things to change but I'd fight in that war if there was one.

> One could also flip your argument and consider the many decades of US narcoterrorism

I'd agree with you here, I'm speaking purely of diplomatic / trade related activities (i.e. tariffs, sanctions, etc.) - imo putting boots on the ground or funding insurrections are an escalation that 1. no longer respects the autonomy of a country/people 2. are equivalent to military action

There's of course still a lot of grey-zones but hopefully it clarifies my position.

> we ought to actually not submit to this 'world power'

Again I agree, WE (as private citizens) ought not to, however diplomacy and trade are careful games played between larger entities (corporations, governments, etc.). But on the flip side it also doesn't mean we have to go against everything the government does (i.e. it isn't inherently evil).

The tricky line (as in this case) is when the actions of those entities can have an effect on you (the private citizen) like jail time.

To be clear, I am not defending their system. I am suggesting democracy is not a panacea that automatically guarantees prosperity. Far from it.

No, but I would say it is a precondition for broad prosperity. When the wealth and power lies concentrated with small minority, they tend to use their power to keep it that way. If power is distributed, so will be the wealth usually. And yes, I do see some problems with western democracies as well.

More information on the "Iranian golden age of prosperity" you mentioned:

>During that time two monarchs — Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi — employed secret police, torture, and executions to stifle political dissent. The Pahlavi dynasty has sometimes been described as a "royal dictatorship",[1] or "one-man rule".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Imperial_S...

Even if there was a referendum in the US on whether to drone strike alleged drug traffickers or whatever, it's still a stretch to blame all Americans (with "your" language), because it's there's still a good chance that a given American visitor didn't actually vote for it.

As someone who grew up in Russia in the 90s, that McDonald's actually did wonders! The problem is that y'all figured that if you help people who say that they are "democrats" maintain control over the country, it'll all work out, somehow. What actually happened is that many of those people were grifters, some others idealistic incompetents who thought they had all the answers after reading Ayn Rand. On the whole, the people - who were very enthusiastic about the changes in late 80s - by mid-90s felt like they've been robbed, quite rightly so (read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization_in_Russia for some examples), by people now firmly associated with the West and with words such as "liberal". This is the big reason why Western-style liberal democracy very quickly became a marginalized minority political opinion in Russia, and why the likes of Putin could easily take power by promising people that they'll fix the mess.

I think most scholars of international law would disagree on the legality of unilateral economic sanctions, since they are likely to amount to interventions and as such violate sovereignty, and, of course, human rights of the people affected. You also seem to think of US sanctions as if they were in a vacuum and not a preamble to aircraft carriers, narcoterrorism and other JSOC responsibilities, and possibly nuclear warheads, or less commonly, explicitly genocidal actions.

Right, so you meant that South Africa disagreeing with the ongoing genocide in Palestine in which the US is a main offender amounts to sabotage of diplomatic relations. As for refusing to "negotiate [...] about tariffs", why would anyone? If I punch you in the face, shoot a kid in the face, and then tell you to sit down by a table and negotiate how much you should pay me for that service, would you sit down and act as if I'm a reasonable, rational actor?

If you are into that, good luck with that and hope that there will never be a retarted king. Because it all depends on whether the king is nice and capable, or not.

Is that the stability and rule of law I should look forward? And they are all not so long lived either btw.

Plots, intrigues and coup d'etat of people who think they would make a better king is still a thing.

And .. I do make the claim that a real direct democracy does not tend to centralisation of power, as there are check and balances, but politicians left alone surely will aim for that as it make governing easier.

So yes, I would unequivocally argue to any extent the intelligence apparatus was actually operating, not only golden era objectively justifies those measures, but even for lots of the troublemakers themselves, turns out letting criminals loose to take over the country actually makes things worse; many of such Marxist-terrorists who claimed they were mistreated under the old regime were treated much much worse, or lost their lives, during the first years of the Mullah regime.

Again with the "you". "We" did not flatten anything into anything; we were born into an unfair and broken system that we have no power to change.

So, you either take personal responsibility for enforcing sanctions yourself, or you admit that sanctions are a form of collective punishment for no reason. You can't have it both ways.

However, sanctions do have a symbolic value. And I also can't think of anything else short of military action to express displeasure.

I would say it is a bit more realpolitik than that. An "Evil" leader doesn't care about the common good, but all leaders need subordinates to carry out their orders, security forces to carry out their rules, etc. Sanctions are meant to put pressure on all those people. So either A; the leader changes their actions so as not to risk losing the people that turn their will into action, or B; those subordinates put someone else in charge that will play ball.

In retrospect, the astute mind would recognize the two may have just been interrelated. In fact, one may have been part of the plan to accomplish the other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during...

You can become politically active and try to convince others if you don't like current status quo, inaction is also a choice.

Unless you think US isn't a democratic country but authoritarian one(either oligarchy, technocracy or whatever - does not matter) then it is definitely not a philosophical disagreement, but lack of responsibility and wishful thinking.

It also doesn't say that they report being compelled to work. It says they receive benefits from working that they don't receive without working. The fact that voluntary workers get their sentences reduced doesn't convert them into involuntary workers.

That sounds like a positive, though: if Russia's advance into Ukraine has been slowed by sanctions, but everyday Russians aren't affected too much, I'd consider that a huge win. We shouldn't be punishing regular people for the actions of a their dictatorship government that they can't control.

It's working all right. These things take decades. Look at North Korea (first few years they grew faster than South Korea, and they had the more wealthy parts). Now their GDP per capita is around 600-1700 USD vs 33 000 USD in South Korea.

Russian industry is operating at only 81% capacity, largely due to labor shortages, which make sense considering that about 1% of its labor force join the military every other month. Russia is losing tank barrels, artillery barrels, and infantry fighting vehicles more than 10 times faster than it can manufacture new ones. It will likely never be able to obtain a third rotary forge, required for barrel manufacture, to expand its capacity. It has almost entirely cannibalized its old, defunct Soviet era stock. They are being kept afloat by China, NK, and Iran, but with a much-reduced capacity, and often much lower quality. For example, Russia relies on China for 70-80% of its microchips, but China is dumping defective microchips on them with a 40% failure rate.

Sanctions have absolutely had significant, direct, measurable impacts on Russia’s ability to wage war and sustain war. As for regular people, it is hard to think it hasn't affected then, given that last year inflation was 9%, interest rates are 21%, and disposable income is down 20-30%. That feels like a lot of belt tightening.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/11/21/half-of-russias-ai... https://jamestown.org/program/russia-exhausts-soviet-era-arm... https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-where-are-russias-... https://archive.ph/c17pk https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/is-202... https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-sanctions-have-reshaped-ru... https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/comme... https://osintforukraine.com/publications/microchips https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/18/russia_china_semicond... https://www.economicsobservatory.com/what-is-the-current-sta...

Did you speak with folks from Moscow or St Petersburg or from different regions? Life in the top 2 cities is kept as normal as possible at all costs; that is part of the Putin's approach to handling the elites (you can keep living your comfortable lives as long as you stay out of politics).

But elsewhere the quality of life took a big hit. Even in second tier cities. At least that is what I am hearing. My 2c.

I don't know the answers to those questions, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was "yes".

Manufacturing in general, actually.

Something which had essentially collapsed previously. Also, mining and other resource extraction - they’re necessarily rebuilding domestic production and becoming more independent.