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The VC incentives behind the AI landgrab strategy

https://theredline.versionstory.com/p/why-cant-43b-in-legal-ai-investment
1•jpbryan•57s ago•0 comments

Your next primary care doctor could be online only, accessed through an AI tool

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2026/01/09/nx-s1-5670382/primary-care-doctor-short...
1•pseudolus•57s ago•0 comments

Local Email Debugging with Mailpit

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/mailpit-local-email-debugging/
1•mikece•2m ago•0 comments

Slowly booting full Linux on Intel 4004 for fun, art, and absolutely no profit

https://dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&proj=35.%20Linux4004
1•thunderbong•2m ago•0 comments

Putting the "You" in CPU (2023)

https://cpu.land/
1•vinhnx•3m ago•0 comments

Model predicts optimal cooling and aging for stronger, lighter aluminum alloys

https://techxplore.com/news/2025-12-optimal-cooling-aging-stronger-lightweight.html
1•PaulHoule•4m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Compliant WhatsApp campaign service after seeing businesses get banned

https://whateazy.com/
1•ADCXLAB•5m ago•1 comments

Lies, Damn Lies, and Semantic Versioning

https://medium.com/livefront/lies-damn-lies-and-semantic-versioning-2b6bc98ccff4
1•pinjasaur•6m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What's the best bang-for-your-buck agent?

1•emerongi•6m ago•0 comments

Humans made poison arrowheads thousands of years earlier than previously thought

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-made-poisoned-arrowheads-thousands-of-years-ear...
1•teleforce•7m ago•0 comments

Orient Express Routes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient_Express
1•tosh•8m ago•0 comments

Early-stage fundraising is starting to demand the outcomes it was meant to fund

https://thekylehudson.substack.com/p/why-were-pressing-pause-on-fundraising
1•kylemhudson•10m ago•1 comments

Show HN: PriceArb – find short-term mispricings in prediction markets (NFL)

https://pricearb.com
1•fullstackchris•11m ago•0 comments

Amiga Pointer Archive

https://heckmeck.de/pointers/
1•erickhill•12m ago•0 comments

Knock-to-Unlock Stripe integration vulnerability

https://railsbilling.com/blog/knock-to-unlock
1•brunosutic•12m ago•0 comments

Why robots still can't match humans – and what's holding them back

https://news.sky.com/story/why-robots-still-cant-match-humans-and-whats-holding-them-back-13492374
1•austinallegro•13m ago•0 comments

Probabilistic Software Engineering, Demystified

https://shiftmag.dev/probabilistic-software-engineering-demystified-7500/
1•taubek•13m ago•0 comments

MeshCore – Off grid mesh radio communications system

https://meshcore.co.uk/
1•janandonly•15m ago•0 comments

We Are Still the OS

https://www.gwendall.com/notes/we-are-still-the-os
1•ges•17m ago•0 comments

Xous: A Pure-Rust Rethink of the Embedded Operating System [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbWWGkyIBGM
1•todsacerdoti•17m ago•0 comments

Wordle Solver Tool

https://5letterlexicon.com
1•TheMashaBrand•17m ago•0 comments

This Week in Rails: January 2, 2026

https://rubyonrails.org/2026/1/2/this-week-in-rails
2•amalinovic•19m ago•0 comments

Why AI is pushing developers toward typed languages

https://github.blog/ai-and-ml/llms/why-ai-is-pushing-developers-toward-typed-languages/
1•mikece•21m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Challenging NYC noise cameras with acoustic physics arguments

https://nycnoisecameraticket.com
1•todaycompanies•22m ago•1 comments

Metabase Community Data Stack Report 2025

https://www.metabase.com/blog/metabase-community-data-stack-report-2025-key-analysis
1•mooreds•23m ago•0 comments

Designing an IPv6-native P2P transport – lessons from building I6P

https://theushen.medium.com/designing-an-ipv6-native-p2p-transport-lessons-from-building-i6p-b8ca...
2•TheusHen•23m ago•1 comments

Handling secrets (somewhat) securely in shells

https://linus.schreibt.jetzt/posts/shell-secrets.html
1•todsacerdoti•23m ago•0 comments

I built an AI that generates production-ready Shopify apps from a prompt

https://www.getviber.dev/
1•Gandalfgrey•24m ago•1 comments

Quick Start Guide for Bluesky-Curious Econ Lovers (2024)

https://aaronsojourner.org/for-bluesky-curious-econ-lovers/
1•mooreds•24m ago•0 comments

"Ungentrified" Craigslist may be the last real place on the Internet

https://www.wired.com/story/is-craigslist-the-last-real-place-on-the-internet/
1•nxobject•24m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Iran Protest Map

https://pouyaii.github.io/Iran/
169•breppp•17h ago

Comments

ukblewis•16h ago
This is very helpful, but it is sad that with the internet outages, it seems like there is definitely less data today
throwaway2026-2•16h ago
Obviously related. The protests are not organic. There are photos online of cash, and guns provided by Mossad. Iran is trying to get control by pulling the plug on the chaos.

Israel wants nothing more than another failed state filled with sectarian violence.

siltcakes•14h ago
Ironically there have been much larger real protests in Israel. Zionism has become completely unstable. The good news is that means it's close to failing, the bad news is that it will become even more desperate and violent as it perishes.
tuktoyaktuk•16h ago
Placing the comments for down votes.

What about all the ICE and school shootings, mass shooting maps for USA? That would be definitely helpful.

This post is example of American hypocrisy, double standards and propaganda.

If Iran does not have oil or natural resources these clowns do not even care.

stavros•13h ago
I took this map as a positive (Iranians protesting their totalitarian theocracy). I wish there were a corresponding map for the US, of Americans protesting their dictatorship. Alas, I don't know of any large protests yet.
Esophagus4•16h ago
I have so much admiration for anyone who protests a regime as oppressive and brutal as theirs.

Just by being involved, I imagine they’re in serious danger. So far, more than 550 people have been killed and 20k detained by security forces.[1]

Godspeed.

Edit: these death numbers are from an older protest and are inaccurate. Please see article / comments below :)

[1]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3kl56z2l4o

quietbritishjim•16h ago
That article says "at least 19 protesters and one member of the security forces have been killed", although that was as of a few days ago.

The numbers you quoted are from the end of the article, which is about the previous demonstrations in 2022.

(In fairness, it's confusing because BBC News articles put almost every sentence into its own paragraph, which I think is intended to help low literacy people read them. But it does make it hard to follow the connections between sentences that really ought to be together in a paragraph, like in this case.)

Esophagus4•16h ago
Oh, oops… thanks for the correction. Must’ve skimmed it too quickly.
Alupis•16h ago
Unfortunately we've seen protests like this before in Iran (perhaps not this widespread, however).

Shouting in the streets won't end the regime. The regime will either just wait it out, or clamp down with violence. The people will need to take more direct action if they hope for any change to come out of this - which unfortunately likely means more death.

Without weapons, the people of Iran will have a difficult time overthrowing the regime. This may highlight to some folks abroad the importance of the US's 2nd Amendment, and an armed civilian population - things we take for granted in the US, and some wish to abolish.

It's a nasty, depressing situation. The regime needs to end. The people of Iran, and the people of the world will be far better off without this regime.

I hope the best for the people of Iran.

embedding-shape•16h ago
> This may highlight to some folks abroad the importance of the US's 2nd Amendment, and an armed civilian population

I don't think this highlight that at all. Judging by what has happened so far, the people who have the guns join the tyranny rather than oppose it. Why would it be any different in Iran?

Alupis•16h ago
You can look at historical revolutions - going back to the beginning of time - to see your statement is obviously false. An armed civilian population is one that can enact revolution. A disarmed population is one that gets killed, beaten and controlled.
hannasanarion•15h ago
No rebellion or revolt had ever been successful without arms supplied from outside sponsors.

Random personal small arms that a bunch of people just happen to have at home are not enough to win a revolutionary war against a professional military.

Self defense pistols and hunting rifles don't win wars, artillery does.

zozbot234•15h ago
> Random personal small arms that a bunch of people just happen to have at home are not enough to win a revolutionary war against a professional military.

They're absolutely enough to tip the scales in favor of those within that professional military who would rather support the prospective revolution. Such people will definitely exist given a widespread revolt against a violently oppressive regime.

WillPostForFood•15h ago
Russian Revolution? French Revolution?
keketi•15h ago
How about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Nepalese_Gen_Z_protests#9...

September 9, 2025 - Protesters storm the Nepalese parliament, ransacking it and setting it on fire. Homes of leading politicians are also torched and the politicians themselves attacked.

Soon thereafter, the prime minister resigned along with other ministers and the president dissolved the parliament and scheduled a new election.

I think that counts as a successful rebellion or revolt.

runlaszlorun•15h ago
IoT and clean comms do.

Yes random small arms make quite a difference in many scenarios. I can say this with zero commentary on whether one feels society broadly should have more guns.

esseph•11h ago
Ehhhh.

I know a LOT of folks in the US that are regular citizens with plate carriers, night vision, thermals, suppressors, and forced-reset triggers.

A lot of them have better training that most leg infantry, and many are veterans.

actionfromafar•5h ago
Besides, if you start to turn random American cities into Gaza style rubble with artillery, the military will also break into factions.
rfrey•15h ago
But what do you do when the most vocal proponents of an armed populace support the tyrant?
esseph•11h ago
Then it's good to be a Gray Man/Woman.
Esophagus4•16h ago
I worry the same - a weak regime is a dangerous one, and I fear this will involve a lot of suffering either way for the people of Iran.
avar•15h ago

    > This may highlight to some folks abroad
    > the importance of the US's 2nd Amendment,
    > and an armed civilian population
British India, the USSR, East Germany, Francoist Spain, Apartheid South Africa, Communist Romania etc. etc. The 20th century is full of repressive regimes with even more repressive gun laws that fell due to protests etc.

The idea that everyone can show up at the protest with their AR-15, somehow defeat the state's security forces in armed combat, and that the result will be some enlightened republic is an American fantasy, informed by what's at best a selective reading of American history.

If it comes to that you're much more likely to end up under some warlord. Afghanistan and especially Africa are full of people who are well armed and where exactly that's happened more often than not.

zozbot234•15h ago
The actual idea is that this will give individual members of the "security forces" a plausible excuse to not repress the protests violently - which can be very helpful in shifting the overall incentives towards a peaceful transition of power.
blell•15h ago
Francoist Spain never fell, fyi. It was a much more popular regime than the rest you mentioned though.
mmasu•15h ago
I disagree with this - there have been overthrowings that did not require weapons in the field (i.e. Egypt, Tunisia), while widespread weapons were likely to cause civil wars (Lybia, Syria). In these cases however the role of the army was key in forcing the rulers out (and in Egypt to replace them), which might be unlikely in the case of Iran.
delfinom•15h ago
Except authoritarians can only clamp down in protests so much, working against them is economic and even regional social collapse due to running out of water. There's a lot building against them.

I actually hope western countries stay out, lest it gives support for nationalists to rally

the_gipsy•15h ago
How is that working out for America? Some lady got shot the other day by some out-of-control cosplay militia.
stavros•13h ago
But Americans have guns! They can overthrow a tyrannical government whenever they want! They just don't feel like it right now.
lbrito•13h ago
Bizarre that this is downvoted into gray. This comment is simply stating a fact
guerrilla•16h ago
This didn't work in Firefox.
hagbard_c•16h ago
Works for me, current Firefox nightly on Linux. Check your extensions, especially look at uBlock Origin is you happen to use it in 'advanced' mode - I had to allow fastly.net, cartocdn.com, tailwindcss.com and unpkg.com for it to work because I default block all 3d party content.
guerrilla•16h ago
146.0.1 on Arch Linux here. Disabled uBlock Origin; no difference. I don't have any other relevant extensions. DoH disabled. No difference in private window.
hagbard_c•16h ago
In what way does it not work? Anything relevant in the console?

This is what I get in the console for a working map, running Firefox 148.0a1:

   Download the React DevTools for a better development experience: https://reactjs.org/link/react-devtools react-dom.development.js:29905:19
   cdn.tailwindcss.com should not be used in production. To use Tailwind CSS in production, install it as a PostCSS plugin or use the Tailwind CLI: https://tailwindcss.com/docs/installation cdn.tailwindcss.com:64:1711
   You are using the in-browser Babel transformer. Be sure to precompile your scripts for production - https://babeljs.io/docs/setup/ babel.min.js:3:3121456
   Partitioned cookie or storage access was provided to “<URL>” because it is loaded in the third-party context and dynamic state partitioning is enabled. 2
   Cookie “__cf_bm” will soon be rejected because it is foreign and does not have the “Partitioned“ attribute. settings
   Source map error: Error: NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource.
   Resource URL: https://unpkg.com/@babel/standalone/babel.min.js
   Source Map URL: babel.min.js.map
guerrilla•15h ago
The map is just grey. The controls are there though.

cdn.tailwindcss.com should not be used in production. To use Tailwind CSS in production, install it as a PostCSS plugin or use the Tailwind CLI: https://tailwindcss.com/docs/installation cdn.tailwindcss.com:64:1711 You are using the in-browser Babel transformer. Be sure to precompile your scripts for production - https://babeljs.io/docs/setup/ babel.min.js:3:3121456 Source map error: Error: NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource. Resource URL: https://unpkg.com/@babel/standalone/babel.min.js Source Map URL: babel.min.js.map

hagbard_c•15h ago
Try to shift-reload the page once or twice, I've seen it pop up grey on a first load and appear on a second load.
guerrilla•7h ago
It eventually started working on its own. I changed nothing.
hagbard_c•4h ago
The site is hosted on a Github property so maybe it is just the 'normal' fluctuations of that site which causes these grey-outs. Microsoft has turned what used to be a rather quick and usable site into an undercooled jar of pink unicorn-infested molasses, alas.
chuckadams•16h ago
Running 146.0.1 on macOS in private window with no extensions. No map.
esseph•15h ago
Loads fine in Firefox / Android 146.0.1

And Fedora 43

redwood•16h ago
Inspired by the bravery of the Iranian people. Sad to see so little support and enthusiasm from the Qatar funded university student crowd.
_DeadFred_•8h ago
This thread is insane. WTF is going on here?
redwood•8h ago
This is what the kids are being spoon fed these days I guess. US = imperialism = bad. Else = good. So one dimensional. No empathy for the Iranian people who just want to be able to live with these same freedoms these kids don't even know they have. Pathetic
lbrito•16h ago
Sad how legitimate grievance is always weaponized and steered by bigger players.

Protesting the Iranian government is perfectly legitimate. Binding that with supporting a return of the equally brutal and corrupt shah is depressing.

E-Reverance•15h ago
How was he equally brutal
Aloisius•14h ago
That Shah died in 1980.
mkoubaa•15h ago
I can't decide who I despise more, the regime or the people cheerleading a revolution where a lot of innocent people will suffer
hurricanepootis•15h ago
I fear so much for the future of Iran. Iran needs to decide its future, free from outside powers. Iran's entire 20th and 21st centuries of paranoia and strife can be traced back to, partly (imo mostly), to British, Russian, and eventually American interference, meddling, and domination in the 19th, 20th, and 21st century respectively.

Iran will never have a happy store as long as it remains an "interests" for greater powers.

ukblewis•15h ago
Certainly foreign powers caused a lot of damage to Iran, but nowhere near as much as the Islamic Regime and considering that is what, I hope, we are witnessing the overthrow of. I think that we have cause to be optimistic
regularization•15h ago
What countries helped overthrow prime minister Mossadegh, who wanted to nationalize Iran's foreign owned oil, and installed a dictatorship?

What countries backed the mullahs against Iran's secular and left opposition, helping SAVAK kill the opposition?

In 1979 the US was working to prevent anti-anti-Russian forces from coming to power, not the mullahs.

derektank•15h ago
The clergy also backed the Shah’s auto-golpe in the 50s
hurricanepootis•15h ago
The clergy weren't explicitly backing the Shah, they were just fearful of anything like communism happening, since most communist countries/communists are aesthetes.

Iranian clergy as an institution starting coming into political power, really, around the time of the Russian-Persian wars, were one of the highest ranking Shia scholars in Iran issues a fatwa supporting the war against Russia.

dataflow•15h ago
Regardless of the powers that be, I don't see how it's possibly going to deal with the lack of water. Does a solution exist at all?
ropable•12h ago
I came here to comment on this specific issue. The level of unsustainable groundwater extraction and inefficient consumption by agriculture and industry in Iran is just wild.
defrost•12h ago
> The level of unsustainable groundwater extraction and inefficient consumption by agriculture and industry in Iran is just wild.

It's an important note that middle America is also currently speedrunning unsustainable levels of groundwater extraction and inefficient consumption by agriculture and industry.

They've just not yet hit dust .. but they have achieved significant depletion and the projections aren't good.

Interestingly both the Saudi's and the Chinese operate sizable ag operations in the US and export that s/water/food/ back to their home countries.

actionfromafar•5h ago
Extract resources and move on. Smart of China and Saudi to poop overseas.
Aloisius•15h ago
What's considered a "large crowd" or a "small crowd"?

Given there are only three categories, I'd expect large to be on the order of hundreds of thousands, but I don't think that is the case here?

esseph•11h ago
Millions

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg7y0579lp8o

zeofig•15h ago
It would be cool to have protest maps in another politically unstable middle eastern country too.
starik36•15h ago
What other middle eastern country is having protests? Haven't heard.
newspaper1•15h ago
Israel, and of course you haven't heard since its our government's entire reason of being to protect that terrorist state.
starik36•15h ago
That is some grade A nonsense. Israel is a democratic county and has been having regular elections since its inception. To label it as unstable is to show your bias.
siltcakes•14h ago
Israel is a genocidal terrorist entity. It's also wildly unstable. They've been having massive protests (even predating Oct 7th). The government is literally run by extremists and they have many apartheid laws to enforce Jewish supremacy, including the ability of any Jew to become an Israeli citizen and start voting (so much for democracy!). If only indigenous Palestinians were allowed to vote, it would be a democracy. A voting populous of imported Europeans is not that. Thankfully the Zionist project won't last much longer as the world has seen its true nature and rightfully turned against it.
hagbard_c•4h ago
Your entire (recent - I did not dig down deeper) comment history consists of fomenting against Israel, Zionists and Jews. I think Reddit is a better fit for that kind of rhetoric but your downvote-happy comrades seem to disagree. A shame, really, that the supposedly intelligent members of this 'hackers' forum allow themselves to be led by the nose by this or that faction just as long as that faction knows how to get them to feel virtuous. Intelligence, it seems, is not what it is cracked up to be. Narrowly targeted intelligence without wisdom is a sure path to creating the behaviour seen here,

Now begone to Reddit, foul fiend.

afavour•15h ago
Not to detract from the content here but I do find it very telling that posts about domestic US issues (including protests) repeatedly get flagged on HN, including just today[1], but there are currently two posts about Iranian protests on the front page.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46543457

mc32•15h ago
One aspect is that there has been little coverage by the media about these protests that have been going on for close to a couple of weeks and two, presumably the Iranian regular forces are repressing their protestors. People in the US are protesting against what the same organization, despite doing the same job under previous presidencies didn’t get protested as much if at all. If I recall correctly last year the current admin just beat the Obama admin on people deported in a single year.
beginnings•15h ago
obama deported way more if I recall recolec, its all about narratives tho
clanky•15h ago
It's about putting an unaccountable army of masked goons on American streets.
orwin•5h ago
But did ice agents murdered US citizens cold blooded in the streets?
mmanfrin•15h ago
"The same organization" is missing the context of it being made the 2nd largest military on earth by the current admin.
dragonwriter•15h ago
> People in the US are protesting against what the same organization, despite doing the same job under previous presidencies

ICE, CBP, etc., and the other agencies that have been deployed in what this Administration calls an “immigration crackdown” or “mass deportation effort” or a number of other variations which emphasize that it is a new and more forceful policy, were not carrying out either what that campaign is publicly characterized as by the administration, or the campaign of domestic terrorism against the American population, including murdering citizens on the street, that it actually is, under previous presidencies.

> If I recall correctly last year the current admin just beat the Obama admin on people deported in a single year.

Aside from demonstrating that the purpose of the campaign is not efficiently increasing deportation of people actually illegally present in the United States (a point that critics of the policy have no problem at all agreeing with), I’m not sure what point you think that comparison makes.

clanky•14h ago
You would think the fact that the ICE goons aren't actually being used for deportations would make these people start to question what they're actually for, but I guess if they were capable of that they never would have believed something like "migrants are the cause of America's economic problems" in the first place.
nozzlegear•14h ago
> People in the US are protesting against what the same organization, despite doing the same job under previous presidencies didn’t get protested as much if at all. If I recall correctly last year the current admin just beat the Obama admin on people deported in a single year.

This is not what people are protesting in the US, though it is a convenient talking point used by MAGA to dodge the issue of ICE deporting US citizens without due process, or straight up murdering them.

givemeethekeys•15h ago
My friends stop communicating when they visit their home in Iran. They did this even when their data and water were flowing.

I'll take the current state of HN over every other forum on the internet.

SilentM68•15h ago
Yes, it is very telling, indeed. Brings up nostalgic memories of Twitter, for me :(
clanky•14h ago
If it's helpful to note, Twitter was always intended to become what it has become. We need to return to organizing our own networks free of this control.
SilentM68•13h ago
Ah, but that's where our opinions differ. I'm a Twitter expatriate, cast out for daring to have a simple, different, honest opinion. Tried and tried, but the Twitter gods continue to ban me. If you look at my recent past comments, you'll note the negative Twitter influence that reaches, even here. Corruption is everywhere, in my view.
siltcakes•14h ago
There's been a very aggressive push to trump up this story across all social media by the Zionists. These threads are being heavily manipulate. Sadly it looks like Israel is going to attack Iran and this heavy push of propaganda on US social media sites is one of the first steps.
zozbot234•14h ago
> There's been a very aggressive push to trump up this story

> trump up

I see what you did there

siltcakes•14h ago
Unintentional but apt nonetheless!
lbrito•14h ago
Thanks for bringing this up, I'm just realizing the same now.

"HN is not a political forum" or "if you expect to see it on the news, it probably should not be on HN" is invoked all the time when there's a post about the US, but never when the story is about any other country.

prodigycorp•3h ago
You only see what's on the front page, not all the things that have been flagged off the front page.
swat535•13h ago
I think this is because anyone who understands the Middle East knows that the fall of the Iranian regime would be more consequential than the fall of the Berlin Wall, not because the Islamic Republic is a global power, but because it has been a central tool for China and Russia and a major engine of terrorism in the Middle East.

Its collapse would rip out a core pillar of their influence and fundamentally change global power dynamics.

clanky•13h ago
Why am I supposed to root against Iran when the United States used peace negotiations as a ruse to assassinate their scientists and then help Israel launch an unprovoked sneak attack?

The "terror in the Middle East" you're referring to, is that just them helping Palestinians to resist the relentless Israeli onslaught? Helping Afghans and Iraqis to expel American occupiers?

Libya and Syria are lawless hellscapes forged by the United States and Israel. Their allied Arab satraps in the region use slave labor to construct luxury towers and playplaces for the uber rich. Where does that figure in your formulation?

_DeadFred_•13h ago
So you are OK with expeling occupiers, and helping people resist, unless it happens to be Iranians for some reason? Oh yeah, because America bad?
clanky•12h ago
"America is bad" (in reference to the foreign policy pursued by its psychopathic ruling class) is generally a useful heuristic at this point, yes. But what "occupiers" are you even talking about?
_DeadFred_•12h ago
"Palestinians to resist the relentless Israeli onslaught? Helping Afghans and Iraqis to expel American occupiers"
clanky•12h ago
But what occupiers are you referring to in the context of Iran?
_DeadFred_•10h ago
The authoritarian theocratic mob occupying power that the people wish to take back for themselves.
clanky•10h ago
lmao no one believes this hasbara anymore
_DeadFred_•8h ago
Why are you using a jewish word at me for standing up for people that want to be free of religious oppression? Why do your comments appear to be 100% propaganda focused/unhinged in this thread?

Edit: Oh I get it. A special jewish word for jewish propaganda. Your a racist AND a propagandist. Of course you don't care, you appear to just be here to spread your propaganda and talk at people, not be part of a discussion on the map of Iranian protests. Hope you catch a ban.

clanky•8h ago
Hasbara is a Hebrew word commonly used to refer to Israeli propaganda, which you are spreading whether you know it or not, and I don't give one whit about your armchair psychologizing.
clanky•7h ago
In reply to your after-the-fact edit: Hasbara is specifically an Israeli/Zionist phenomenon, not a Jewish one.
breppp•15h ago
What was always intriguing for me in Iranian politics is the support for bringing back the Shah, a government which was not the pinnacle of freedom. It's either things are that bad, people are nostalgic or it's a narrative pushed by the Islamic Republic to defame the protestors (the last seems unlikely though).

Isn't there the possibility of just asking for a non-autocratic figure?

voidfunc•15h ago
Democracy is not just a switch you flip on or off. Iran has literally no cultural history of anything than autocracy. Monarch -> Shah -> Theocratic Dictator.

Its a very western view that Democracy is the pinnacle form of government. I dont think all cultures align that way.

breppp•15h ago
Even if that's the case, you would assume they'd not ask back for the previous problematic iteration.

I do agree that democracy generally fails in the middle east or anywhere there is a sizable amount of people that do not believe in democracy.

However, the current Iranian system is autocratic but it works really hard to mask it to appear democratic, so obviously the appearance is important to them and presumably for the people

zozbot234•15h ago
"Shah" is actually an abbreviation for Persian "Shahanshah" ("King of kings"), the very same title Cyrus the Great claimed. But the Shah's government in the 20th century was actually quite successful in modernizing the country, fostering a robust middle class, securing women's rights and gradually reducing the oppressive power of Islamic clerics in education and the court system. This is ultimately why those very same clerics ultimately pushed for an "Islamic" revolution which undid the bulk of those gains.

> Its a very western view that Democracy is the pinnacle form of government.

Not only a Western view: South Korea made a very successful transition from an initially authoritarian government to a real liberal democracy, and a very similar story in Taiwan. But the key there is "liberal", as in "classical liberal": protection of foundational rights actually matters a whole lot more than whether people are physically able to vote for a candidate on an election ballot. The latter is generally useless without the former, but it does help make popular sovereignty more robust once the former is in place.

geraneum•14h ago
That’s skipping over more than 100 years of recent history. Iran started transitioning to a democratic form of government with establishment of parliament after constitutional revolution starting from 1905. Twice, foreign super powers meddled and help derail it.
lossolo•14h ago
Iran was once democracy too, but in 1953, United States (CIA) and the United Kingdom (MI6) orchestrated a coup that overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister.

Mosaddegh had nationalized Iran's oil industry in 1951, which had been controlled by the British owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP).

So in August 1953, the CIA and MI6 organized protests, bribed military officers and politicians, and spread propaganda to destabilize Mosaddegh's government.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had fled during the initial coup attempt, returned and ruled as an authoritarian monarch with strong US backing until the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

In 2013, the CIA released declassified documents confirming American involvement, and in 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright acknowledged the US role, calling it a "setback for democratic government" in Iran.

Aloisius•13h ago
"Democratically elected."

Elections were about as democratic in Iran as they are in North Korea.

By the time the Shah dismissed the Prime Minister, Mosaddegh had dissolved parliament, was jailing his opponents, his party had turned against him and he was ruling by decree like a dictator.

lossolo•13h ago
Mosaddegh held a flawed referendum and used emergency powers, but by that point, the CIA and MI6 were actively paying off politicians, military officers, and funding mobs to destabilize his government, all while Britain was strangling Iran's economy with an oil embargo. His defensive measures didn't happen in a vacuum.

Comparing Iran's elections to North Korea..? Iran had a functioning parliament, multiple parties, and real political competition.

And "the Shah dismissed him" glosses over the fact that this dismissal was literally part of the coup plot coordinated with foreign intelligence agencies! Read files that CIA released.

And even if you think Mosaddegh was sliding toward authoritarianism, what replaced him? 26 years of the Shah's rule backed by SAVAK, a secret police that tortured and killed dissidents. The coup made things dramatically worse, not better.

zozbot234•13h ago
Mossadegh had repeatedly asked for dictatorial powers to be granted to him and then extended, even prior to any of these events. It's misleading to call the subsequent developments a "coup" when that government was de-facto undemocratic to begin with. Genuine democracy was never even in the picture.
lossolo•12h ago
> Mossadegh had repeatedly asked for dictatorial powers to be granted to him and then extended, even prior to any of these events

Mosaddegh requested emergency powers from parliament and parliament granted them. That's how constitutional systems work during crises. Many democracies have done this (FDR's wartime powers, for example). Requesting powers through legal channels isn't the same as seizing them.

> It's misleading to call the subsequent developments a "coup" when that government was de-facto undemocratic to begin with

This argument doesn't hold up. A coup is defined by how power is taken through force, bribery, and foreign intelligence operations and not constitutional processes. The CIA literally codenamed it Operation Ajax. Declassified documents describe it as a coup. The US government has officially acknowledged it as a coup. You're arguing against the people who planned it.

> Genuine democracy was never even in the picture.

You are basically settin an impossible standard. By 1953 standards, very few countries qualified as "genuine democracies" (the US still had Jim Crow). Iran had an elected parliament, multiple parties, a free press, and a prime minister chosen through constitutional processes. Was it perfect? No. Was it more democratic than most of the region? Yes

Even if we accept that Mosaddegh's government was imperfect, what replaced it? An absolute monarch ruling by decree with a secret police force. If your standard is democracy, the coup objectively made things worse, which is a strange outcome to defend.

zozbot234•12h ago
> Mosaddegh requested emergency powers from parliament and parliament granted them. That's how constitutional systems work during crises.

Except that there was no legitimate emergency and no crisis, in fact there was just the opposite: Mossadegh had just instigated an insurrection against the then-legitimate government and thereby forced the Shah to not only put him back in power but also to let him appoint a defense minister and a chief of staff - a clear violation of the prevailing norms at the time which delegated this appointment to the Shah. The request for an explicit grant of power of "dictatorial decree" then came immediately after that. This was a clear established pattern of trying to weaken Iran's existing institutional norms and center power on himself, not unlike the whole Germany 1933 playbook. That's very much not how democratic systems work.

lossolo•11h ago
What actually happened in July 1952, which you're calling an "insurrection" is Shah tried to replace Mosaddegh with Ahmad Qavam. In response, the Iranian public took to the streets in massive protests supporting Mosaddegh. The Shah backed down due to popular pressure and reinstated him. That's not Mosaddegh "instigating an insurrection", unless it's your definition of a population backing their elected prime minister against royal overreach. So unless we're calling mass protests illegitimate, this was democratic pressure working as intended.

As for "no emergency and no crisis", Britain had organized an international embargo on Iranian oil, frozen Iranian assets, threatened military action, and was actively working to destabilize the government. Iran's economy was being strangled. Dismissing that as "no crisis" is basically ignoring basic historical facts.

On the military appointments, yes, Mosaddegh sought control over the military, breaking from tradition. But given that the Shah and military officers were actively conspiring with foreign intelligence to overthrow him (which we now know from declassified documents) his concerns about military loyalty weren't paranoia. They were correct.

The Hitler comparison is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Hitler dismantled democracy and ruled for 12 years. Mosaddegh was removed by a foreign backed coup and spent his remaining years under house arrest. One of these is not like the other.

zozbot234•4h ago
Is it "royal overreach" when a prime minister voluntarily resigns and the king/queen then formally picks someone else (after negotiations for parliamentary support) to legitimately take that place? That would be news to an awful lot of people in the UK, among other places. When you explicitly resign from power, you don't get to take it back by force absent new elections. It's a done deal.
YmiYugy•15h ago
1. There isn't really a credible opposition figure for people to rally around. 2. It's a pretty young country. Most have never lived under the Shah.
HoJojoMojo•15h ago
I don't think there is a possibility. A democracy that isn't in the US' interest (and now Russia's) descends into autocracy as a defense against interference. A Shah is a compromise that gives them acceptability to the superpowers and a better life than an opposing autocracy.
endtime•14h ago
The shah has said publicly he wants to serve as a one year transitional leader followed by elections. Not sure what more one could ask for.
mabedan•1h ago
To believe that is … quite something
zugi•11h ago
I heard a recent underground poll taken before these protests showed about 1/3 support the Shah, 1/3 oppose him, and 1/3 are ambivalent. The government of Iran has silenced all of its internal opponents, and the Shah is the most well-known and most popular external opponent.

Even if they don't love him, a vast majority would prefer him over the Ayatollahs.

EDIT: Found the poll, last taken in 2024: https://gamaan.org/2025/08/20/analytical-report-on-iranians-... . The Shah is preferred by just 31%, but no one else even gets double-digits.

tim333•7h ago
The old Shah is dead and the current guy seems pretty moderate and in favour of secular democracy.
nullorempty•15h ago
Yea, keep this coming. A 2014 coup in Ukraine worked wonderfully!
sporkxrocket•15h ago
Why are we being subjected to so much Israeli propaganda on this site? This isn't Hacker News, it's an Israeli psyop.
clanky•15h ago
Unit 8200 thanks you for your attention to this matter!
hagbard_c•15h ago
Why is a map of unrest in Iran equal to Israeli propaganda? I'd say the Iranian population has more agency than whatever Israeli institution you'd accuse of producing this site, let alone going out in the streets of Iranian cities to protest the current regime.
sporkxrocket•14h ago
Well first of all a lot of these protest are pro Iranian government. Second, there are much bigger anti-government protests happening right now in Israel, but there's no state apparatus trying to bring attention to them (quite the opposite). An Israeli bus driver even drove over an murdered an anti-war protester. But most importantly, this is a coordinated effort to manufacture consent for Israel's next preemptive attack on Iran.
endtime•14h ago
You're wrong I'm so many ways it's hard to know where to start, but one obvious one is that the teenager who was run over was not an anti-war protestor, he was protesting a potential change to exemption from military conscription for the ultra-Orthodox. Not a peacenik. Haredi conscription is a contentious issue but framing it as anti-war is disingenuous.
sporkxrocket•14h ago
I mean, not wanting to be drafted into a genocidal army is anti-war.
newspaper1•15h ago
Be weary of taking this seriously. The Israelis are trying to drum up support for attacking Iran. It's pretty shameful that this is posted on HackerNews tbh.
clanky•15h ago
John Cleese, JK Rowling, and Eric Weinstein are all flogging this on X, it's hilarious. They've got all their best old codgers on the case!
newspaper1•15h ago
Not to mention genocidal venture capitalists like Shaun Macguire at Sequoia.
newspaper1•15h ago
The immediate flagging of any non-Zionist comment on this and the other Iran post is pretty wild. Mods can you please disable flags or at least do something about the clear manipulation happening here?
owebmaster•14h ago
They can flag it faster, does it help?
mkoubaa•14h ago
In any MENA related post I've just learned to use inverted ranking. Start at the bottom and go up. Might make a chrome extension to toggle that
siltcakes•14h ago
This doesn't belong on Hacker News, can we not push Israeli war propaganda please?
mkoubaa•14h ago
OP (breppp) posts nothing but political content. Such accounts should be banned.
lbrito•14h ago
Just gonna drop this, from dang a few days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378818

>we want most political stories to be flagged on HN, for a critical reason: if they weren't, then HN would turn into a current-affairs site, and that would not be HN at all.

See all the instances of "we do not want most political stories":

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Guess this is one of the exceptions!

clanky•14h ago
Unfortunately many of these people revel in hypocrisy, and believe it makes them superior that they are willing to use it when others aren't. Nevertheless always worth pointing out!
clanky•13h ago
Well it only took 4 hours but there's the flag.
vorpalhex•14h ago
Literally once in a lifetime chances for human rights in a regime that has hung several women for not covering their faces this year is a bit different then the latest CNN headline.
clanky•13h ago
The last thing Israel intends to bring to Iran is "human rights."
vorpalhex•40m ago
Israel would much rather the people of Iran look like the UK or Germany - employed, safe, happy, free - than the reign of terror of both Iranians and non-Iranians being attacked directly and by proxy.

If your antisemitism runs so deep you are willing to sacrifice the Iranian people to hurt the Jews, you are not a friend of the Iranian people.

iranianagent•10h ago
“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
orwin•5h ago
Protesting theocracies is a sacred duty for any self-respecting leftist. I rather have a monarchy than a theocracy, a dictatorship rather than a monarchy, an oligarchy rather than a dictatorship, and a democracy rather than an oligarchy.

That said: please also protest any inference from foreign power, whether they are an oligarchy, a dictatorship or another theocracy/ethno-state. If the current Syrian situation is believable, a revolution/coup from the base show better results than one supported by the US/Russia or local powers.