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Narrative Engineering alexbo.land/essays/narrati…

For the life of me, I don't understand why they think taking Kharg Island is such a great idea and I don't understand why they'd take such a risk by putting troops over there. Putting aside that the American troops on it would be constantly harassed by drones and that it would therefore create incentives to also take the coast, thereby increasing the risk of a quagmire, if you take it the Iranians will simply stop exporting oil through it. Sure, they will lose most of their oil revenue, but this would also increase the pressure on the market by forcing China to buy more non-sanctioned oil, which is precisely why the US has so far allowed Iran to continue to export oil. If you want to reverse that policy, why not do a "distant blockade" with the US Navy, instead of taking the risk of putting troops on the ground? It seems to me that, if you're willing to accept the rise in oil prices that preventing Iran from exporting oil would cause, this would be a much safer way of depriving it of that revenue. Also, I don't understand how they could keep the troops on Kharg Island properly supplied as long as the US Navy is scared of sending its ships through Hormuz, but if the goal of the operation is to force Iran to reopen Hormuz then it would still be closed by definition. Frankly, I'm skeptical that depriving Iran of its oil revenue would force it to capitulate instead of escalate things at this juncture, but even apart from that nothing about this idea makes sense to me.

The Manic Depression

The details:

Likely preparation H considering how bad they've shat the bed

IDF has to lose its munitions privileges

The reason why the US is allowing Iran to continue to export oil is because not doing so would make the situation on the market even worse and increase the pressure on Trump to end the war. Do you think that, if the US seized the ships that carry Iranian oil and kept the revenue from its sale (which presumably would require stealing from Chinese companies and pissing off China), the Iranians would keep filling tankers with their oil to make Americans richer and help Trump continue the war by cooling down the market? 🙃 Again, that's never going to happen because the US isn't going to risk stealing from China and I doubt many people would risk buying oil stolen from China, but if you did that it would defeat the purpose of the policy.

This would be sick, they should build it

"It's because of quantum mechanics" is one of those non-answers that sounds good to laymen without informing, drives me nuts. The real answer is that the mathematics of space filling curves are universal regardless of scale, from bones to galactic superstructures to cabbages

This is the insane thing Their goal is not resolving the shortage It's capping the price I.e. creating the shortage

Azadi Tower in Tehran, Iran 🇮🇷 Designed by Hossein Amanat in 1971, it blends Sasanian parabolic arches (inspired by Ctesiphon) with Islamic pointed arches, clad in 8,000 unique Isfahan white marble slabs.

Robotics of this type is a solved problem to the degree that undergrads will be putting stuff that beats anything they’ve demo’d here up on HuggingFace by the end of the year

SHE HAS A NAME!!!!!!! Eva Ramón Gallegos successfully eliminates HPV

So today Iran crippled world gas output for years, hit an F35, and knocked the power out in Haifa after hitting Israel's only oil refinery with a ballistic missile I think it might be time to say it - Iran is winning the war

yudkowski has the chance to do the funniest thing

thanks to AI our slow and humiliating national suicide will be punctuated by visual media that is so good even a dog could jack off to it