I think generally people regard a harness as the system instructions + tools made available to the LLM (and probably the thing that runs the LLM conversation in a loop.) An agent is collectively, the LLM plus the harness.
Huh, I just did basically the same thing. My requirements were not due to spending $300k/yr on parsing (lol), but I was amazed how far I got just asking the AI for progressively more functionality.
My use case is a bit different. I wanted JSONata as the query language to query Flatbuffers data (via schema introspection) in Rust, due to its terseness and expressiveness, which is a great combination for AI generated queries.
The US have been fooled by Israel for the past... thirty, forty years at least? Look who Trump is sending around the world to negotiate on behalf of the US: two committed Zionists, personal friends of Netanyahu and past financers of the Israeli army. The other negotiators regard them as Israeli assets, plain and simple. While they pretend to "negotiate", Israel launches surprise attacks that have not been agreed with the US and that forces them to intervene.
Either Russian propaganda is leaking into US, or people are being so easy to manipulate it's becoming scary.
What's the deal the US not having agency? Lol
Russia was manipulated by NATO and they were fooled over and over again, according to the state propaganda - if that was true, why are they still stuck with the fool who keeps being fooled? Isn't that the sign of a deficient leadership?
Same applies to the Trump administration, until when will that narrative stick?
Because the "common sense", a big trope used by both states propaganda, claims that you can only be fooled once lol
The US has an eternal fool on the throne. Common sense also claims that you can only declare bankruptcy once, and never with a casino, yet here we are.
It is also very clear that both the US and Israel have very different mission objectives, which is why there's no way out for this admin. A long war may destroy Iran but will also help them in the long run - a war that they're eager to fight. Furthermore it has been established that Trump was goaded into this war by his benefactors, as well as Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman.
What Israel and US (and MBS) don't understand is that they've just enabled a country 3 times the size of France to go militant, in their backyard.
So funny that you moved the discussion from Israel to Russia. But after checking your comments I see that Russia lives rent-free in your mind.
> Either Russian propaganda is leaking into US, or people are being so easy to manipulate it's becoming scary.
Manipulation, double standards and bias are very difficult to avoid and an average human with a job just have no time to verify everything, so they just consume and the more they consume the more they believe in it.
I read somewhere that Bush made this awkward figure of speech not because he didn't know the idiom, but because he realized too late that he'd be saying "shame on me" on air, which is apparently a phrase absolutely Verboten by political media advisors (because it could have been taken out of context and used by his adversaries). In a way that says a lot about the political culture that resulted in a figure like Trump, I think.
There's still people out there that believe the west is a "democracy"?
People really think voting, elections, politics in general is even real and not a reality show/circus act put on for the masses?
If you don't see why Trump is worse than Kamala or Clinton would have been, I don't know what to say. The reputation of the US is in the gutter. Even European people are now openly expressing their hatred.
Even IF tomorrow would come a fresh "and super nice US president", Trump et al crushed so much that the damage is already severe and will be permanent for the future: US gov lost so much trust in more or less everything that was perceived as somehow reliable by others.
The damage is that big that -apart from BigTech- the US-industry will have a hard time coming
In fact no. It's well documented that the voters who put Trump in the White House weren't voting until Trump galvanized them. It's also been well known for centuries that white men are the single largest demographic in the US and that it is also the most fragmented one
>It's well documented that the voters who put Trump in the White House weren't voting until Trump galvanized them
It's even more well documented that Kamala is a "shallow-as-they-come transparently-just-a-puppet empty-headed political careerist", that even her own Party heads dismissed as inadequate decoration until Biden's faculties went even more downhill.
>It's also been well known for centuries that white men are the single largest demographic in the US and that it is also the most fragmented one
Which makes sense, since, native americans aside, it was such demographics that first populated and established the US, the overwhelming majority of the rest came later.
But it's irrelevant as an argument to what we're discussing.
There are plenty of excellent black women leaders - Kamala Harris was not one of those. Do not excuse the Democratic Party here with their dysfunctional internal infighting with just being down to racism.
Milquetoast uninspiring leader should still beat someone who outright hates everything about our country, divides rather than leads, and plans to sell our institutions for scrap value while putting the proceeds in his own pocket.
Although I think the people blaming it on racism are hopeful. The real answer is that it struck a chord with people who do not want women in leadership positions.
I remember reading an article when Harris was nominated, about how it was set up to be a "historic moment". Indeed, it was.
I hadn't heard that motive specifically, care to send any links that substantiate it?
(to be clear, the article was of course using "historic" in the sense of the DEI groupthink - since there's no way Trump could win then won't it be super historic to have a Black woman president)
(and disclaimer: criticism of DEI virtue signalling is in no way an endorsement of Maggot vice signalling)
This was not a move by Biden to position Kamala for a loss, but he certainly did not want Pelosi and the Democratic establishment to gloat on a win. Which is why he immediately endorsed Kamala for the presidency, right after announcing he was stepping down from the race.
Pelosi suggested there should have been an open primary after Biden dropped out. But Biden's endorsement ensured that they could not backtrack from Harris.
Selection as VP doesn't mean by default that the running candidate/party endorses the candidate. Most often, VPs are chosen because they are harmless enough to become opposition to them, as a concession to a former opponent, or in most cases to bridge the demographic gap and reach out to a particularly marginalized segment of voters who are not adequately represented in governance.
> she was a incredibly obvious choice and would have had a very strong likelihood of getting the nod had there been actual primaries.
Lol, hell no. She already lost the primaries multiple times. She was extremely unpopular. In the 2020 elections, running with Biden helped boost her profile slightly, but back then Biden was a much more stronger candidate and his choice of running mate wouldn't have mattered - Trump was extremely unpopular then.
While Democratic Party could have picked another candidate, to appease comments like this (I heard this too many times by a lot of very, very smart people so I am not demeaning your comment/opinion in any way) that other candidate would have been a white male
My point is that she was a poor candidate both times, and OP blaming this all on racism gives the DNC a pass when they really need to fix themselves. Obama would have beat Trump handily (a hypothetical), and not lost due to racism.
Is it strange that Obama and Harris are each only part black, but people refer to them as being black?
If we are like “black people can do everything” (which is true, of course), why are the political figureheads of that progressive dimension only half black?
And, beyond that, the black half of each is not even African American! Harris is African Jamaican, and Obama is African African.
If anything, in retrospect the birther thing back then seems like it may have been some absurdist well poisoning on totally valid criticism of Obama’s real heritage vs the media optics of same.
I thought civil rights was for African Americans? Why have all the political figureheads African Americans have, or have been, rallied behind, not themselves been African American at all?
> Is it strange that Obama and Harris are each only part black, but people refer to them as being black?
Yeah - the "One Drop" PoV was beyond strange:
The one-drop rule was a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of Black African ancestry ("one drop" of "black blood") is considered black (Negro or colored in historical terms). It is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in different groups.
> I thought civil rights was for African Americans?
It was for the benefit of anyone sent to the back of the bus, forced to drink from other fountains, lynched, etc. That included minorities other than "classic Black" and all the people treated as Black despite not appearing black.
I’m confused. From tone you seem to be comparing what I’m saying to the one drop rule as if this doesn’t support what I’m saying, but it does support what I’m saying.
They're not using it directly .. they're part of a wider society that has been using it less and less explicitily for hundreds of years - children speak as their paerents do.
What has faded is the habit of exactly breaking down the bloodlines of anyone of mixed blood - mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, hexadecaroon and such terms are no longer in common use in this epoch.
So your theory is that the people who seem to center their worldview on racial equality (along with equality of the sexes) are subconsciously using racist language?
I mean, that’s possible, but I think a more plausible explanation is that the bulk of them are just getting riled up by media and aren’t really paying close attention to what’s going on.
No. That's clearly your framing - don't draw me into your strawman.
> but I think a more plausible explanation is that
Or, that a majority people in the USofA that are described as black in the USofA have embraced that term, own it, and have used Black Twitter etc. while those adjacent to them ( the "progressives" ? ) use that term as for the most part the "black people" are comfortable with and haven't told them to bugger off and stop using it.
Late to reply, but assuming you are not American, Black folks in America are quite a spectrum of mixed race from their history. It's not unreasonable to call/identify themselves as black in this situation. I would not extrapolate to the extremes like some repliers are talking about "one drop", etc. That's not practically what the situation is.
> gives the DNC a pass when they really need to fix themselves
I've been saying this since 2016, when HRC ran on a campaign of calling her opponents sexists and then blaming Russia for her loss. Sadly, they just shuffled aparatchniks around instead of cleaning house. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was put on the House Appropriations committee after stepping down from DNC chair. Donna Brazile was rewarded with the DNC chairmanship after slipping CNN town hall questions in advance to HRC. I suspect that the self-reflection to fix themselves is just not in the DNC DNA, sadly.
America runs better when both parties are effective. Currently, neither are.
I talked about DNC governance and accountability after the 2016 primary, not denying that Russia conducts influence operations or that sexism exists in politics. Pointing to Russian interference in 2024 does not answer whether the DNC cleaned house after 2016, and it does not change the fact that Wasserman Schultz landed on Appropriations and Brazile became interim DNC chair.
Weird that you would divert main factual points into non-sequiturs and then accuse me of cognitive dissonance. If you are free of cognitive dissonance, you can now address the points I made, not ones I did not.
> There are plenty of excellent black women leaders - Kamala Harris was not one of those. Do not excuse the Democratic Party (...)
As a non-USian this blend of opinion just reeks of blame-shifting.
You guys have a two-party system. One proposed a candidate that continued Biden's administration. The other was this hot mess. You guys picked this hot mess over Biden's regime.
If you looked at Trump and somehow decided a second Trump administration was better than a continuation of Biden's administration, the blame lays square on you. Not on Kamala. Not on the democratic party. Not on DEI. Nothing.
We prefer to be called Americans, which is also the correct demonym; it derives from United States of America, and isn't used by any other country in English. If you can call someone from South Africa a "South African" instead of an "SAian," then the same logic applies to make someone from the United States an "American."
However, Canada and Mexico are also in the North American continent, so "North American" also refers to Canadians and Mexicans, and that's specifying which part of the Americas we're talking about. The term "American" can equally apply to someone living in Brazil or Peru (or at least "South American").
To my mind, it always strikes me as hubris for the USA to pretend to be the whole American continent.
To be fair, we also ended up with a proven con-man because Southern Democrats don't approve of gays enough to win the primary for Buttigieg and we ended up with Biden only 1 term.
This both sides thing is stupid. Though there's always some form of military actions under either Democrats or Republicans, Republicans consistently start unilateral (and illegal) wars that leave us in massive quagmires, leave power imbalances in the middle east, and destabilize things considerably.
> And they'll get wars and the same shit after they vote the other way too
Eh?
Are you seriously comparing the disaster that is Mango Mussolini to the likes of (practically any) former president of the USA?
My friend, if all candidates are crap, you vote for the one that will do least harm. And then look at reforming a political system which leaves voters with such a poor choice.
> In fact they precisely voted someone promising no more wars, no more foreign meddling, and so on.
In fact they voted for a convicted felon and rapist that lies to everyone as soon as he opens his mouth. A serial bankrupt that stole money from a charity.
That was all on the table and yet his voters said loud and clear: That guy, that criminal, that one full of hate and anger, who lies and does about everything if it is in his self interest, that's the guy that represents us best.
e:
"No more wars" didn't seem to be their main issue. Just imagine, Trump won the war after a week of bombing. The Iran regime is toppled and a US-friendly dictator is installed.
Are really sure his voters would not celebrate the war and great general Trump?
I'm sorry but this is silly. I didn't vote for Obama either time but there is no comparison between Trump and Obama. Nothing Obama did had the negative impact like Trump's attack on Iran.
If you take Russia as a boilerplate; never. Trump will "trickle down" the corruption to just enough people to keep everyone complacent and do as he wills.
I think "humiliation ritual" is a hugely important concept to keep in mind these days: It has a lot of explanatory power for the stuff we're seeing in politics. (For example, televised Trump cabinet meetings where the brown-nosing is almost beyond parody.)
A cult will demand members do things to "fit in", especially things that have a cost ("prove your sincerity") and also things which alienate them from the non-group. The latter is a ratcheting trap, leading to: "We are your only home now, nobody else will have you."
It’s the psychological effect of a Mormon mission. Spend two years getting hate from all angles, teaching you just how good your home, family, and church are. Every ex-mormon I know contemplated suicide on their mission. Every practicing Mormon I know has a story about “their lowest point” and how actually it was a really really good thing if you think about it sideways
> As long as their leaders care more about Israel than the nation they were sworn in to serve.
Trump's wars and military threats (Greenland, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, etc) have more to do with Trump's ties to Epstein than Israel's foreign policy. The extent to which Russia and Israel manipulate Trump with kompromat is to be determined.
So the Iraq war also was not tied to Israel's foreign policy? So it was just a coincidence that Netanyahu had been advocating for these wars? It was just a coincidence that the US got involved in last years 12 day war after Israel initiated the bombings in Iran?
Epstein represented the Rothschildes, the family that founded Israel. His girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is a Mossad asset. Separating Trump’s influence by Epstein from Trump’s influence by Israel isn’t possible. The two are intertwined.
So many people make so much money from it. I don’t personally this time but I did last time working for tech. Maybe I will again next time. This is the third time America been “humiliated” in my life and my life is awesome and getting better.
/s
But that is the overall sentiment if I had to describe it without pretense
Tell me: is the US supposed to stand idly by while the Iranian regime develops nuclear weapons? They pursue nuclear weapons of their own volition, by the way. There are paranuclear states and nuclear threshold states which have not pursued nuclear weapons and have delivered on providing for their people in every manner in which a human society needs. So what does Iran hope to achieve that diplomacy cannot?
At what point does it turn from a "disagreement" to a credible existential threat that an adversary cannot ignore?
Yes, I am fine standing idly by as Iran gets nukes, just as we did nothing when Israel got nukes, and we didn't really do much besides sanctions after North Korea got nukes. Of all these three examples of nuclear states, Israel is the only one that actually committed espionage against the US to obtain nuclear secrets, and we didn't bomb them.
The USSR also committed espionage to steal nuclear secrets from the US and we didn't bomb them either, so perhaps that is the secret? If you steal US nuclear secrets we "stand idly by" but if you develop the nukes on your own or by stealing someone else's secrets, then we go to war?
I'm really struggling to understand when someone getting nukes is reason to go to war against them, I don't see the other side making any rational arguments that don't boil down to "I don't like country X, and so want to see them weaker, but I do like country Y so I don't mind if they get stronger". But that's a very subjective judgment and should not drive national policy.
The USSR acquiring nuclear weapons was the closest humanity has come to complete annihilation. We were one bad day away from extinction during the Cold War. I'm not sure I would point to that as something we should do more of. Not to mention the potential for accidents and mistakes.
I don't think bombing a country should be the first course of action. Diplomatic action should leave no stone unturned. But if all of that fails, it is strategically advantageous and safer for the world to prevent countries from acquiring nukes by any means necessary.
If you set the example that the cost of pursuing nuclear weapons is unbearable, countries will find better things to do, like enriching themselves in more productive ways.
One of things the US could have done to stop proliferation was to actually honor its commitments it gave to Ukraine in the 1994 agreement in return to Ukraine agreeing to abandon their nukes. It didn't. Now a country sees that US is happy to bomb other non-nuclear countries, but not nuclear countries, and they doen't help even when they agreed to. There is exactly one lesson a country will learn from that.
It's a fair point, but I would flip this around a bit:
Ukraine wants nukes to defend itself from Russia (a nuclear power). Taiwan wants nukes to defend itself from China (a nuclear power). Iran wants nukes to defend itself from the US and Israel (both nuclear powers). India and Pakistan both want nukes to defend themselves from each other (both nuclear powers).
Now I don't want to get into a debate that it is really the benevolent Pakistanis fighting off aggressive Indians or vice-versa or that really Taiwan is the aggressor and that China is a benevolent neighbor, or that poor little Israel is just trying to defend itself from Iran, etc. Those regional squabbles mean nothing to me as I don't even care who is the "real" aggressor, all that matters is that you have two nations in conflict, and when there are two nations in conflict, it is not a stable situation to pretend that just one of them will have nukes but the other will not.
The moment one side gets nukes, the surrounding nations they are in conflict with will also want to get nukes. So as soon as the US got nukes, it's rival, the USSR, also got nukes. And as soon as Israel got nukes, it made it inevitable that at least a few regional rivals in the middle east will get nukes.
Trying to prevent this is guaranteed to fail. It does not matter what the government in Iran happens to be, as long as they care about their own survival, they know they need nukes as long as Israel has them. More importantly, attacking the nation before it gets nukes speeds the process of nuclearization along. Dramatically so. For instance, when Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear power plant, Iraq, which at that time did not have a nuclear weapons program, went full speed ahead trying to develop one. Because it highlighted that they were at risk of being destroyed as nation from a violent neighbor, and so the urgency of developing their own nukes increased. As soon as India got nukes, it became a top priority for Pakistan to get them. If you don't believe that, then you don't understand the world. It does not matter who you think is the bad guy in a conflict, what matters is the asymmetry.
Whatever will be the outcome of this war with Iran, the Iranians now know that getting nukes is priority one. It will happen within a decade, most likely within a few years. The only way to stop this would be boots on the ground and a long term occupation of Iran, which of course no one, not even the US, is capable of doing.
And then Saudi Arabia will want nukes to defend itself from Iran. That's just how this works. KSA will be the next nation to get nuclear weapons after Iran.
Trying to pretend that you can maintain a long running conflict in which only one side has nuclear weapons is incredibly foolish. Obviously this is not going to happen.
Most of European countries could have had nukes by now if they weren't stopped by the US/USSR; going by your logic it was inevitable once the UK and France had them the others would follow but they didn't. Of course at the time at least the American leadership was a bit more (forward) thinking than right now.
If you are the only person in the room with a gun, you have a huge advantage. With each additional person getting a gun too the advantage will be less, but it will still make sense to try to stop that process until everyone has a gun, and we are very far from that point. It is actually cheaper to try to stop proliferation than to build your defense with 'everyone has nukes now' in mind.
That is a very, uh, idiosyncratic reading of history.
You are conflating the Cuban Missile crisis of October 1962 -- which was the USSR placing nuclear weapons close to the US in Cuba in early 1962, in response to the US placing nuclear weapons close to the USSR in Turkey in 1961, and in your mind you have blended that crisis, which was a close call in which both sides ultimately agreed to withdraw their nukes, with the acquisition of nukes by the USSR 11 years earlier.
Yet when North Korea, India, China, Pakistan, South Africa, or Israel, got nukes this did not set off a crisis, it was the brinksmanship that set off a crisis.
Soon, both major powers in the gulf -- Iran and KSA will get nukes. Odds are this will happen within a decade. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
There are too many pressures forcing this to happen, not least of which is the clear understanding that these nations need to have nukes to prevent destruction by the other nuclear powers some of which are clearly hostile to them and bent on their destruction. It's why North Korea, which kept their nukes, is still around, but Libya, which gave up their nukes, has been dismembered. Just as a matter of self-defense and survival this is inevitable.
However what we can do is tone down the rhetoric of nuclear brinksmanship, threatening global war if a rival doesn't withdraw their nukes. That was the real lesson of the Cuban Missile crisis, which you have confused with Russia's 1949 achievement, or China's 1964 achievement.
Since no one is going to disarm their nukes, this is just something people have to live with. Threatening war over this issue is exactly what causes the risk of global catastrophe, not the spread of the technology, which is inevitable.
I never mentioned the Cuban Missile Crisis. You’ve misinterpreted what I said.
The USSR getting nukes in the first place lead to several incidents which were a judgment call away from armageddon. With the benefit of hindsight the correct call would have been to exhaust all options to prevent the soviets from acquiring nukes.
We just got lucky. Whether it was the Cuban Missile Crisis, the soviet early warning system malfunction in Sept 83, or Able Archer 83 in November, there was a lot of dumb luck.
Proliferation will bring the end of humanity. There will be too many actors, too many variables. You can get lucky with 2 actors. You can’t keep getting lucky. The only option is to ensure you don’t have to be lucky.
I assumed you meant the Cuban missile crisis since that is the only tenuous connection that can be made between "USSR acquiring nuclear weapons" and "end of humanity". If you generally meant "any nation acquiring nuclear weapons" then the statement would kind of make sense, but there is no reason to fear just the USSR, and not, say, the US, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, or North Korea. Maybe some information made it into the popular press about the USSR, but it is unlikely that there is something especially dangerous about the USSR compared to all these other nations.
And in any case, the genie is out of the bottle. There is not gonna be a situation in which a small group of nuclear powers endlessly bomb and attack other countries with impunity. The other nations will get nukes to defend themselves against the existing nuclear powers, it's just a matter of time.
I'm not sure what Iran having nukes does other than change the power dynamics in the Middle East to one where Israel can't bomb civilians with such impunity...
I think most people in the middle east will tell you that Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is bad. As I'm sure you're aware, they are a major supporter of terrorist organizations.
I'm aware that the present is informed by the past. 1953, like 1979, being a year in the past.
Discussing what terrorism is, in this context, is rather complicated. Especially speaking as a Brit, and knowing rather a lot of other dates, such as 1917.
It's surprising how many things that you would think are "cut and dried" are apparently in fact not "cut and dried", although granted it's much easier to identify instances that stray to one side of a boundary rather than another.
For example, the idea that bombing civilians is a war.
There was a deal, Trump cancelled. There were negotiations where the Iranian regime actually made big concessions. But, Trump administration was not interested in concessions and started a war with no real reason.
> At what point does it turn from a "disagreement" to a credible existential threat that an adversary cannot ignore?
It was not nearly this point. This was a point where USA, Israel and Saudi perceived Iran as weak and easier target. That is why the war started.
Iran has zero leverage. Any leverage given is an olive branch. Obama era diplomacy was the right path, Trump is a moron. But the bigger issue here is Iran's free-will pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is a choice they're making. They choose to pursue nuclear weapons, forcing the US to either take a diplomatic path to stop them, or intervene.
They don't have to build nuclear weapons! They're just doing that shit.
Well now they have to, given that a single nuke ownership (and its never a single one, is it) would prevent any such actions. I don't think anybody sane at this point thinks any sort of regime change is going to happen in this century.
The bigger problem is - current war won't prevent them from obtaining it. It may delay the date, but also will make them work smarter, hide things better and give them much more resolve. I can see ie putin helping them get through some technological or material hurdles, that would help him greatly in their war in ukraine.
We can agree that starting a war with Iran is sort of the magnum opus of the worst administration in American history.
But I do feel obligated to interrogate the idea that the US is responsible for this escalation. Iran is seeking to expand its power and influence in the region, and employs violent means upon people - even its own people - to achieve these goals. The regime is, fundamentally, amoral.
The US gets to decide if it wants to put a stop to that. But left alone, the world gets more dangerous the stronger the Iranian regime becomes. The same cannot be said about the United States. The period of history belonging to the unipolar US liberal order was probably the most prosperous and peaceful time in history.
That depends who you ask - Vietnamese, Iraqi, Afghani, heck whole middle east, almost whole north Africa? Chile? Nicaragua? Cuba? Russia? China? And so on? Not so much.
Generally US tries to represent freedom and democracy and be the force of good, but they often ending up representing it in pretty horrible and messed up ways which end very far from these ideals. Road to hell is often paved with good intentions, isn't it. So no, too strong US ain't very good for rest of the world, quadruple that with current leadership. I am not saying China or russia are better, or even equal, far from it, its rather loss in each direction.
Iran is a bit special in its absolute hate for Israel and a bit whole west, but thats purely wet dream of ayatollahs that came to power after 1978, till then they were regional friends and one of best western partners. That revolution weas triggered purely by utter incompetence of CIA and british MI6, so thanx guys for fucking up entire region for everybody.
I don't think there is a single country in this world who would welcome them becoming nuclear power - not russians, not chinese, and definitely nobody around them. But maybe its too much to expect from reality - it would require such a massive ground invasion that US is not willing to wage (and pay for) and it would take a nuke to NY or similar level to trigger it.
It was trump who killed off the original agreement. The IAEA was content with the way the inspections went, Trump just once again talked out of his ass.
That whole approach has a bad historical track record-- people tought WW1 "impossible" for the exact same reason.
Not only that, but the only way to do this is to stack the risk against yourself in the case it ever fails.
Just look at the EU/Russia energy dependency. There is good reason that no serious nation does this (intentionally) with actually vital goods like their food supply (not even among allies, really).
USA and Israel have brought this upon themselves. After decades of regime change operations in the region (usually for the worse), it is clear that any state that doesn't pursue nuclear weapons isn't really an independent state.
Do you know who doesn't get regime-changed? North Korea.
North Korea has the backing of the US' two most powerful adversaries, it was not a free pass.
The US can deploy a carrier strike group faster than any nation can build a nuclear weapon. And after seeing the hellfire unleashed on Iran, it is clear that pursuing nuclear weapons may not be the answer it once appeared to be.
Meanwhile, the so-called vassal states of the US - some of the richest countries on Earth mind you - haven't bothered to deploy nuclear weapons because we have no use for them.
Man, it seems much more like "must have" thing than it did just 2 years ago. And at that point it seemed more "must have" thing than it did 5 years ago. Trump does not mind nuclear proliferation anyway. If you pay Kushner enough, chances are they will even sell you a nuke.
> Meanwhile, the so-called vassal states of the US
I haven't seen that expression at all, ever. No one was called those state vasal states a year ago. And now, as fascists are in American government, it is becoming routine amount right wing. The logic seems to be that any former ally that does not start war with USA is a vassal or something.
> haven't bothered to deploy nuclear weapons because we have no use for them.
French recently announced change of doctrine, they will expand nuclear arsenal.
Well I won't deny that. Nevertheless, countries who "play ball" seem to have it pretty good. Awfully high cost to pay to stick it to the man in charge.
Take it to the final form. It's game theory. The US is promoting system that enables a Nash equilibrium. By playing by the US' rules you empower yourself and you empower those around you. And the US takes a service fee for operating the market.
The alternative is trying to fight that, and if you're picking a fight with the strongest player, you're playing to lose.
> Take it to the final form. It's game theory. The US is promoting system that enables a Nash equilibrium. By playing by the US' rules you empower yourself and you empower those around you. And the US takes a service fee for operating the market.
This is what an empire, that is competently run, should do. The US is not an empire, and it is not competently run. It has no attributes in common with empires of history. It does not occupy foreign lands, it does not extract taxes, it does not (directly) control foreign governments. If anything, in this case, the US is under the control of a foreign government.
Now it's threatening to invade NATO allies, and other allies are deploying troops to deter that; Which makes perfect sense because you cannot appease authoritarians.
The US is in fairly rapid, self inflicted, decline at this point.
I'm not American. There is a host of publicly available proof of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is not, and has never been, a well kept secret of the regime.
Pentagon made few reports that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons - I bet they have better intelligence that you. Their killed religious leader made fatwa that forbid having or using weapons of mass destruction. Surprisingly now when he is gone they can pursue it after being attacked. Also worth to watch many Bibi talks since 1980s where he sais Iran will have nukes very soon and this didn't materialize in 40 years.
You realize how much work has gone into ensuring that didn't materialize in those 40 years, right? JCPOA... Stuxnet?
The Pentagon agrees that Iran is not officially pursuing nuclear weapons. However, there are CIA reports that indicated there may have been covert operations taking place that were exploring cruder nuclear weapons. I imagine that was the basis for the US bombing of Iran in 2025.
> You realize how much work has gone into ensuring that didn't materialize in those 40 years, right? JCPOA... Stuxnet?
JCPOA agreement was nuked by Trump administration. No, I don't buy your arguments, If Iran would wanted to have Nukes would have it already made those in 5 years for sure. Kim didn't have problems for making those.
Also, by his logic they succeeded in thwarting Iran's efforts for 40 years without resorting to bombing civilians. So we still need to see proof for why this is now, all of a sudden, the only way forward.
Israel does employ a facade of a liberal democracy that aligns itself to some extent with Western culture. Though this is very much in decline and I think, generally, sentiment on Israel has shifted quite dramatically in the West in recent years.
Israel perhaps used to project that sort of facade. With Bibi and the authoritarian ultranationalists in government, combined with the lack of a written constitution restraining power and protecting rights (for whatever that would be worth), I think that facade is forever gone. Israel is descending into an expansionist theocratic ethnostate and rapidly illiberalizing. Just look at the recent criminalization of women praying at a certain holy site.
It all started with the war in Gaza. We, the West collectively, with the exception of only a few European states like Spain and Ireland, allowed them to perpetrate war crimes, which were rarely met with criticism, let alone consequences.
To me it started with the war in Iraq.
Made up story as excuse, expensive disaster as a result.
(Afghanistan was already not great, the Taliban were open to extradict Bin Laden, they just demanded proof first, but it was still sort of a international coordinated action.)
That broke the dam. Why should russia care about international law, if the US does not? When you are superpower number one, you lead by example. For better or worse.
Tangential, but one thing that really irks me is when people advocate for nuclear proliferation as a safety feature.
Aside from just the potential for accidents, one has to consider the potential for irrational actors or those who choose to employ game theory more recklessly. And when I think of Metcalfe's law, I feel this sort of horror about the idea of proliferation and the loss of control in communication (which was of course vital in preventing Armageddon during the Cold War.)
I think ultimately, future security will come from defensive technology and I believe that's the most noble pursuit for engineers wishing to leave an indelible mark on humanity.
There is of course no defensive solution against those who wish to build Sundial [0] or Poseidon [1]. Humanity appears to be unequipped to carry the mantle of life.
Your mistake is you think your point of view can be universal. It can't because "the game" you're talking about is already playing and if you were iranian being killed because you don't have the nuclear bomb, the only thing that would make sense for you is to have your own nuclear bomb. The same goes for any non white majority state which sees the return of colonialism and thinks the only way to stay safe from aggression is having the nuclear bomb.
You might like "The Bomb" documentary from 2016. "[It] explores the culture surrounding nuclear weapons, the fascination they inspire and the perverse appeal they still exert."
Although I agree with the general sentiment, but I'll slightly push back on the "nobility" of any engineering pursuit. Such things are highly amoral (not immoral) and context specific
Assume an "Evil" state worked on defensive technology that can foil any nuclear attacks against it. Now, this allows this "Evil" state to use it's own nuclear weapons without fear of retaliation. So in this example the innovation made in defensive technologies allowed for war and destruction
Well of course, which is why we prohibited the development of defence tech in the ABM treaty. But that doesn't stop non-nuclear states from developing anti-nuke defence technology. Perhaps the only reason why they don't is because it's harder than building a nuke.
I am saying giving up nukes allowed Ukraine to be attacked. Russia stopped there only because they are stuck. They would more westward until they would reach nuclear power.
Quickly growing war that USA started for no reason while threatening Cuba, Greenland and Canada is also a point here.
I am saying that USA wont stop attacking weaker coutries, unless they get similarly stuck. Likewise Israel, they will go on displacine hundreds thousands of people through the region - which they do literally now.
You are saying that all tge other countries should accept being sitting ducks for Russia and USA as they do what they do.
They're arguing in favor of MAD, which kept the US and Soviets from bathing the entire world in radioactive fire for approximately 45 years, and is the only thing keeping American and Chinese imperialism even slightly constrained.
If you have a better idea, we're all ears. Disarmament isn't an option, the destroyer is here so choose its form.
I'm not saying MAD is a bad doctrine, I'm saying it breaks down as the complexity of diplomacy increases quadratically with the number of nuclear equipped actors.
I'm Canadian. Things are good here. Obtaining a bomb wouldn't make life materially better for anyone in Canada, nor would it defend us against the US. Not to mention anybody could drive a nuke into the middle of Manhattan and detonate it and you'd maybe never know who was responsible.
The importance of non-proliferation cannot be understated.
Non-proliferation is a dead end. No one trusts the US to act in good faith. Any nation that doesn't get a nuclear warhead and point it at Washngton DC knows they're just one American Presidential scandal away from getting their teeth kicked in.
Yes I believe this was the line of thinking that has lead us to the invasion of Iran. So it doesn't appear to be a viable strategy. The US can dispatch a strike group faster than any country can build a nuke, let alone enough nukes to actually make a difference. North Korea only succeeded because of its close ties with China and Russia, and perhaps because previous administrations weren't so brazen as to invade them.
An alternative, as always, is to work towards our strengths as middle-powers. Remain steadfast in our pursuit of diplomatic and economic ties. Make the world too complex and intertwined to make invasions practical.
And of course, while Russia is the leader in this area, it's not the only country that could balkanize the US through "peaceful" means.
USA attacked Iran for no reason, because it was weak and Israel + probably saudi wanted so. It wont stop there either, it will go on to Cuba, Greenland and Canada. Meanwhile, Europe will become unstable due to new waves of refugees and expanding Russia.
USA dispatching strikes at will based on incoherent reasons, is just another reason why everyone needs nukes now. And they need them before they are an active target, because yes, it takes years.
And no, it is not about Iran being evil. Trump does not care about that at all. He even wanted to keep the regime as is (to the extend there was a vague concept of a maybe plan).
> Remain steadfast in our pursuit of diplomatic and economic ties. Make the world too complex and intertwined to make invasions practical.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. There is not a country on earth without a nuke that has not been either attacked or pays a lot (whether it’s taking IMF loans, or assenting to coordinated central banking policy etc)
I disagree with the other comments that you are necessarily advocating that everyone gets a nuke. Not every state has to be fully free and sovereign. The world has never worked that way (now of course the striving and tension will always be there, the world is dynamic and people forget that)
For me, I'll do the engineering work of designing a system, then give it the specific designs and constraints. I'll let it plan out the implementation, then I give it notes if it varies in ways I didn't expect. Once we agree on a solution, that's when I set it free. The frontier models usually do a pretty good job with this work flow at this point.
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