Even if 90% of the country marks the box against the regime, they’ll still announce a 90% 'landslide' victory. Voting doesn't matter, when you print your own outcome
I was born and raised in Iran with my entire family being there fighting the fight. I'd like to think I'd debated both sides enough to be able to make the argument for both sides. However, the inhumanity and corruption of the Iranian regime will be looked back upon in history with some of the most corrupt/inhumane governments of all time
Though President Ebrahim Raisi’s sudden death in May 2024 prompted a new electoral cycle with six vetted candidates, all were affiliated with the regime and loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, ensuring little real policy divergence. The Guardian Council filtered out all but hardline male clerics and a nominal reformist, creating the illusion of choice while reinforcing conservative dominance. Moreover, the presidency in Iran holds limited authority — ultimate power resides with Khamenei, who, since 1989, has steadily centralized control in his hands, rendering both elected institutions and their leaders largely symbolic. In short, the article contends that no matter who wins, Iran’s domestic and foreign agendas — especially its nuclear program and regional interventions — will remain unchanged, as they are guided by the Supreme Leader's ideology.
There are many reasons why you can have violence in the streets, especially in a climate of enormous foreign manipulation. An enemy state was setting off car bombs just a year ago...
What's really fun is how inconsistent they are with "request" limits, at least with the embedding API. The documentation says "X requests per minute" but what they really mean is "X documents per minute". But their reporting shows requests per minute. So if you are embedding multiple documents per request, you will start getting 429s but the usage dashboard will look like you are nowhere near the limit. Super fun.
(1) Cobol is still necessary
(2) Panic has not set in yet even though unix time ends in 6 years
(3) Elon is still not making money with twitter
(4) The multiverse is still not important
(5) Everything is a blockchain even though it still makes no sense
Not the OP, but I don't consider HN to be in the same category as say, facebook, CNN, twitter, anything with a feed for a few reasons. One is the lack of algorithms and dark patterns shoveling engagement-bait towards our way. Upvoted content, while not always pristine, tends to be better quality on average. Two, while HN is a great spot for "tech news", it pretty rarely has the "if it bleeds it leads" shock-bait type of articles that the alphabet networks do.
Lastly, this is a little of a life hack, but in the mornings I tend to glance once at the top 3 HN headlines; if there's no major "news-news" (ie not tech news) in the top three slots, then it's pretty safe to say that nothing historic like September 11th happened that day. It's a pretty peaceful way of checking that the world's continuing to keep on spinning. :)
> One is the lack of algorithms and dark patterns shoveling engagement-bait towards our way
HN front-page is certainly algorithm driven, it might not be individualized, but stories that displease the algorithm are down-weighted which, in effect, is a tacit promotion of stories the algorithm chooses not to penalize.
> it pretty rarely has the "if it bleeds it leads" shock-bait type of articles that the alphabet networks do.
I don't agree. HN stories are often baity, inflammatory, and contentious, it is not uncommon to see dang warning the comment section to keep things civil. The type of stories that hit HN aren't always the type we see in the wider media, but the level of toxicity is on par with every other social media site, if only mitigated by careful and rigorous moderation.
I also don’t consider HN to be in the same category as Twitter and Facebook. Another reason for this, on top of those you mention, is because identity is very weak here. I don’t have any persistent relationship with any HN commenters - I have no idea who you are or if I’ve replied to you before! That cuts out a lot of social dynamics that breed long-term feuding behaviour on other platforms.
I don't, nor do I consider it social media. I'm aware that we're socially interacting through the medium of HN, but when I say social media I mean things like twitter or instagram; I hope the meaning is clear. The reason I don't consider HN news is because I just see HN as just a link aggregator. By news I mean things like Fox News
When I fasted I ended up gaining weight after a while. My assumption is that my body knew I wouldn’t eat for a while so it would absorb the food and not digest it as effectively so that I can have more fuel.
What I do now is I randomly fast on random days and random times . It’s been more effective for me
