YZF
Born on August 07, 2012•5356 Karma
What does Iran still have to lose? Well, a lot. All their oil is exported through the strait that is now blockaded by the US. The regime while having survived so far and executing thousands of people is still vulnerable over the long term. Leaders can still be hit and potentially the penetrations that led to the success of the initial strikes is still there. Iran's energy sector which is what the regime needs to maintain control (pay salaries etc.) has still not been hit. Other strategic targets that are dual use have also still not been hit.
Iran is never going to capitulate, until it capitulates. Their rhetoric is going to remain that the US has no more levers and can't change anything, because admitting otherwise invites those levers to be engaged. There is some truth to certain individuals likely willing to pay a large price but it's far from clear how deep and wide that extends and what is the tipping point. It is possible that Iran can withstand an oil blockade and even a resumption of air strikes for a very long time but it's also possible they can't. I can't tell and I doubt many people can. There are analysts and various experts with all sorts of opinions.
EDIT: Some of you may remember the Iraqi rhetoric before the US invasion. Then when the US attacked Iraq it crumbled like a paper tiger. The US lost 139 people or so (the coalition lost a bit more) to take Iraq and the Iraqi army largely surrendered or ran away. Assad's huge army with tanks and fighter jets, supported by Russia, collapsed from a bunch of ragtag ex-ISIS guys on Toyotas. The Iranian regime is a lot weaker than what you'd think by listening to them talk because any projection of weakness is the end of them. Ofcourse the US Iraqi invasion ended up very badly after this tactical success and that's the actual problem. Defeating Iran on the battlefield - not so much.
Iran was considering a peace deal. I agree that the most plausible was they would reject it.
> What does Iran still have to lose? Well, a lot.
The US could do this, sure, but then Iran would have even less to lose. This might work if the US started small and threatened escalation to try to compel Iran, but the US started at massive escalation so any additional airstrikes are likely to be less escalatory and thus less of a threat.
Even worse, there is a fundamental problem with madman theory, if Iran believes they are dealing with a madman, then threats aren't effective because a mad man doesn't keep promises. If you think your opponent is not rational, then you should not expect them to follow cause and effect.
> Iran is never going to capitulate, until it capitulates. Their rhetoric is going to remain that the US has no more levers and can't change anything, because admitting otherwise invites those levers to be engaged.
I agree that we don't know exactly how much pressure is on Iran. Iran historically has been willing to suffer almost any cost. During the Iran Iraq war then sent enormous numbers of teenagers in human wave attacks over and over. It is my estimation that the current war with the US has helped to stabilize the Iranian government and that they benefit more from the war continuing than from a peace deal.
The only military lever the US has left on the table is an invasion of Iran. Maybe limited to the coastline or maybe complete regime change. Trump has not even attempted to bluff that he is doing this.
Iran does not think they are dealing with a madman. I don't believe for a second that they think that if all the demands made of them are met someone will harm them just for the fun of it. The maximalists demands. The problem is those maximalists demands run against everything this regime stands for. Not that those demands are bad for the Iranian people, they're actually good. What is true (and it's not a question of madman theory) is that the US and Israel will absolutely take some concessions and be willing to delay dealing with the rest of the problems. That is not irrational. That is 100% rational. And ofcourse the Iranians knows this as well. What the US and Israel want is a stop to the proxy wars, a stop to long range missiles, a stop to the nuclear program and a stop to "exporting the revolution". No workarounds or funny business.
I think the regime is very weak. Conditions in Iran are worse and a population that already wanted them gone now wants them even more gone. Their boisterous rhetoric is a sign of weakness that westerners misinterpret. The more they sound threatening and winning the more they are losing.
The "enemy of my enemy" concept suggests that even if the people hate their government, their immediate pain is being caused by the United States and Israel, so I'm less confident about that.
> Iran does not think they are dealing with a madman.
Iran does think they are dealing with a mad man, or at least a government practicing a policy (as the US administration's apologists have termed it) "intentional volatility".
A far more interesting issue here is the oil supplies available in the Pacific. Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia, and others are all ramping up production capacity. Non-OPEC oil production is increasing generally in response. This is likely to undermine the Middle East's ability recovery from current constraints as non-OPEC players gain clout in the markets.
Right now people are talking about China and California have limited supplies. But those are enormous, powerful entities that are deploying multi-pronged strategies to secure energy resources. Look at what they're doing and bet there. You also see developing countries retooling to support less oil-intensive economies, like increasing work-from-home options. Solar and wind are currently feeling weak without their subsidies but are exhibiting staying power as people look to move off more petroleum-dependent energy resources.
As for the tactical issue, the concept people seem to be trying to get at is "cost-per-kill". That needs to come down. Yes, we can kill drones with supersonic interceptors. But spending $6M to shoot down a $6K drone has terrible long-term economics.
We're going to agree to disagree. I know this is what "people" are saying about the US. But it's not what Iran thinks and it's not what the US is actually doing. This is what Iran wants you to think, as it weakens the US, and what it's going to say. Are you saying that the US will go to war with Iran if all the demands I listed were fully and transparently met? A by the way there is that Europe and Canada (e.g.) also don't think the US administration is "mad". Everyone is playing their little geopolitical and local political games.
I also doubt Iranians think their immediate pains are caused by the US and Israel. Some might but most don't.
I agree with you the energy crisis aspect is overblown (I think that's what you're saying). Supply increases in other places and alternative power sources can displace some usage- certainly over time. The other thing that's going to happen are more strait bypassing pipelines.
EDIT: So the problem isn't mad people or rationality. The problem now, as before, is simply that the Iranian regime is religiously and ideologically unable to give in. Giving in will likely result in their fall even if they were able to give in. This is what's driving the main dynamics here. It's not Iranian negotiation tactics or the US supposed not negotiating in good faith or being "mad". The "mad man" are those that believe that Iran is interested in giving in on its exporting the revolution and the destruction of Israel.
I think you need to provide some evidence for your claim. The US had a deal with Iran. A madman ripped up that deal, started a war with a decapitation strike, and is now attempting to negotiate a deal we already had before we spent billions of dollars killing school kids. The “People” you dismiss includes scholars, strategists, experts on international relations.
You could possibly explain trumps behavior as rational if you believe he is trying to avoid getting arrested for pedophilia, but that doesn’t build trust. In any case, the issue of competence comes up. Even if you could trust the person who renamed the Defense department to the War department, that person simply isn’t competent.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-kept-his...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-ir...
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/trump-...
Many including Trump have long said the deal was a terrible deal. You can disagree with that (and you'd be wrong) but I'm not sure how we get from that to your statements.
Enough evidence? What sort of evidence are you looking for? Can you provide evidence for your claims?
EDIT: Also can you prove that we are looking to get the "same deal" we used to have?
The JCPOA was set to expire on 18 October 2025 after which Iran would not have any limits on pursuing their nuclear program. Are you suggesting the US is seeking a deal now that Iran would pause their nuclear program until 2025? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal#Expiration
EDIT2: The JCPOA:
- Kept the Iranian regime in power with massive capital influx resulting in horrendous human rights abuse and 10's of thousands of deaths.
- Was being violate by the Iranians. Iran had nuclear sites at Turquzabad, Varamin, and Marivan, which they hid from the IAEA (something that was discovered after Israel stole documents about the Iranian nuclear program). Iran hasn't declared those sites and generally refused access to them for years after the fact. When the sites were eventually inspected years later (in 2020) there was evidence of undeclared nuclear material. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164291#:~:text=Iran%20...
- Was time bound and didn't address many other issues.
- Trump said he would withdraw from the agreement. That was his election promise. Trump also said on multiple occasions (and in fact it had been US policy forever) that Iran would never be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
Any rational person adding would agree that the US attack on Iran is in line with its long standing policy. They would also agree that Iran had no other reason for the amount of highly enriched Uranium they amassed other than the manufacturing of nuclear weapons. So I'm not seeing the irrationality here. Ofcourse if your position is that Iran should have nuclear weapons, should oppress their people, and should use proxies to attack others then from your perspective this is an unwelcome development. It's still rational though.
Sure, clearly not a madman if he tells you he's going to do it first. o_O
Whether or not actual mental deficiency is involved here is irrelevant; the strategy is the same whether performed intentionally or otherwise. Unfortunately, its track record is dismal in both cases.
Is Trump really trying to appear to the Iranians as being irrational here as a negotiation strategy? Is he saying "don't mess with me I'm crazy"? I would counter that he is aggressive and rational. He is saying I am willing to use force and he uses force. His use of force feels fairly rational within the stated goals of forcing Iran to give up their nuclear weapon program (as a minimum short term objective) with maximalists goals of either replacing the regime or removing their offensive capabilities.
If this is irrational, what does a rational use of force look like? Do we agree that without the use of force Iran wouldn't give up their nuclear weapons program? What is true is that the use of force has consequences and of course it would be better to accomplish your objectives without the use of force. Why can't we all get along sort of thing. But Trump (and not just him, many people around him) believe there is no path that doesn't involve the use of force. They tried a bit before and they seem to be trying now before using even more force. I happen to agree there was no path that doesn't involve the use of force and likely more force is going to be needed. The Iranian "we can't agree because we don't trust the US" is an obvious lie aimed at those who oppose US policy (both in the US and out of the US".
All that said, there is still a question of whether the US is willing to use enough force over a long enough duration to accomplish its goals. If the end result is force use, price paid, and a nuclear Iran with long range ballistic missiles, then it's a pretty bad outcome. This is the outcome many are pushing for.
EDIT: In terms of the Iranian lies. If they are saying we can't agree to "suspend our nuclear program for 10 years" because the US and Israel will promise not to attack us and then they will - they are absolutely right. The US and Israel will attack them. That's not a "trust" or rationality issue. We know the Iranians won't keep this agreement because they haven't kept any agreement. We know they won't allow the IAEA random inspections of any site and even if they did they're capable of hiding their activities. The problem is they are not sincere. If they were sincere they would offer and keep the conditions that ensure that they will not be attacked. If they actually suspend their nuclear program (doubtful) and instead build 100k conventional ballistic missiles that's a threat to Israel that is equal to the nuclear threat. And so ofcourse they would be attacked. For them not be attacked they need to actually give up on the religious/ideological ideas and they can't. You might say this is a very opinionated take but it's backed by evidence and with what Iran says on these topics.
It also doesn't work very well then either.
FWIW, I'm not arguing for either. I think it's pretty obvious this is 100% market manipulation and consequences be damned. In that light, this approach is working very well, just not towards an end that benefits most of us.
No one knows but the Iranian leadership. The Iranian leadership has been famously bad at modeling the intentions and motivations of other nations leaderships. A bolt of the blue decapitation strike, followed by the US having plan if Iran closes the straits which is the obvious response by Iran, does at face value appear to be the work of a madman. Now in the US we might conclude that Trump and Hegseth are just wildly incompetent and unprepared, but it seems likely to me that Iranian leadership see irrationality instead of incompetence.
Likewise the closing of the strait was no surprise. These sort of scenarios are planned for and there is zero doubt the closing of the strait was a scenario considered by the US and Israel military planners.
Not a ton we can say other than that. Maybe the US and Israel thought the blow would be so hard the regime would crumble. Maybe they thought Iran wouldn't dare. Maybe they thought that if Iran closed the strait they'd be able to reopen it by force. Indeed this could be where over-confidence, or incompetence, or inexperience, comes in on the US side. It's also that one can never fully predict how things would develop. There could have been over-optimism and under-estimation of the Iranians ability to withstand the air campaign or to effectively close the strait.
All that said, both sides are rationally pursuing their interests. Iran's regime wants to survive and it wants to keep building missiles and nuclear weapons and expand it's religious and political influence. The US and Israel want to put a stop to this before Iran has an arsenal of nuclear weapons mounted on long range ballistic missiles. Both sides will do their best to not tell you what they think or what their plans are (and the Iranians are definitely much better at this than the current US admin).
Assembler and linker are not part of a compiler. They are separate tools. They are also generally much simpler.
If you can truly write a C compiler in weeks then kudos to you. How many compilers have you written so far for how many languages?
I work for big tech and I would say a large % of developers are incapable of producing a working C compiler on any reasonable time scale, certainly not weeks, even with looking at open source. I'm sure they can download one and run it. Most developers today don't even know C or assembler. They don't know how to approach the C language spec. The top 5-10% of developers/engineers can do it but even for them it's non-trivial.
That depends on how you count. By number of programs that may well be right, but that's not what matters in terms of impact on the industry, as software value roughly corresponds to the number of people working on a particular piece of software (or lines of code, if you wish). By number of people/LOC most software is not in the "simpler than a C compiler" category.
There are plenty of open source compilers that I can copy and paste whatever I need to. I don't get why you think this would have any level of difficulty?
Of course I couldn't make a brand new compiler that was better than what's out there...
Just like a game engine, I could clone one of the thousands of engines out there pretty easily - making something better or novel would be difficult. Just making a bare bones clone of what already exists by referencing documentation and pre-existing code is relatively easy now.
Yeah, when I made a mediocre 3d game engine 20 years ago, it was brain breaking difficult work. I can make one infinitely better in a micro fraction of the time now because most of the hard stuff is done and can just be looked up now.
Do you not agree?
Sure. You can clone gcc and build it. You can close a game engine and use it.
Maybe if you include every application ever written, including every variation of "hello world", but if you are claiming that most serious production quality software could be written by a CS student who is simultaneously working on other classes, I'm gonna have to disagree with you.
Would you say the project is well architected? Clear boundaries? Or ball of mud?
How large is large?
Are there AGENT.md files giving good information that helps LLMs get context when looking at a certain area of the code?
Is it all in one repo? multiple repos?
Are there good tests?
I feel like these are some of the many variables that can make a difference.
I work on a pretty large project/code base, written mostly in Go, and I have pretty positive experience with LLMs. I take on fairly small chunks, I review and understand the changes. I also use LLMs to explore options and prototype quickly. They're also very good at fixing bugs, failing tests etc.
Yes, with generous budgets.
> They're also very good at fixing bugs,
Seeing opposite here too, they are like eager juniors 'oh the issue is here and here's a 5 page report why', and it's wrong... then you add more info and it goes to a different spot... repeat until you get tired and solve it yourseld, it is useful as a rubber ducky i guess.
> I work on a pretty large project/code base, written mostly in Go, and I have pretty positive experience with LLMs. I take on fairly small chunks, I review and understand the changes.
Great that it's working for you, I'm just pointing out there's a massive disconnect.
I would assume your work can be done by a junior engineer without any prior knowledge (except LLM md files) with same quality but less speed?
If yes, then great, perhaps that's where the disconnect is, complexity.
Also, if yes, which would be cheaper?, junior engineer or LLM?
x200 the speed of a junior.
It's interesting how far our experiences differ. I have heard from people working on C/C++ code bases that it's more challenging and I haven't tried the LLMs in these domains.
I do see people getting results even internally. Sometimes it's about getting to learn the tool. It's really interesting how we have this mix of "this is garbage" and "this is really useful". From my end I don't think I'm making stuff up or looking through some rosy glasses and I've been coding for 30+ years.
EDIT: I should add that when I use AI I already have a "shape" in my head of what I'm trying to get done. It's not like I tell AI something vague (like a user level issue) and expect it to fully understand a huge code base (though sometimes that also works). If I have a race I might have a Go race detector goroutine dump. If I'm refactoring I know where the work needs to happen. If I have a test failure I know what test failed and I usually have some idea of where to start.
I'll also add the resulting AI assisted code is good. I review it as it is being written and if there are issues (either functional or stylistic) make adjustments. All our code gets reviewed and all has quite extensive tests. Again this is at above junior level.
It's really amazing how different people have completely different experiences. I work on a massive code base and I thought AI would not be able to fix anything in at least a few years since the application is very complex and does not use well known frameworks. I was very wrong. In my experience, it fixes bugs better than I could, at least given a short time budget (which is always the case, if we spend too much time on each bug we just fix bugs slower than they get reported and we'd enter a death spiral).
I have worked on this code base for more than 10 years, touched every part of it, and I wrote large chunks of most systems, despite around 20 people working on it right now. Still, when I need to figure out something, now, I often ask AI as it is absolutely wonderful in understanding and explaining code, no matter how big the code base is. My team consists of 20 very senior developers, and I am their technical lead, so I think I know what I am talking about.
A junior would require at least 6 months of guidance to become productive in our code base, unfortunately, just because it's so big and it integrates with all sorts of external services, databases etc. I do understand that saying this is not really a flex, I would've actually preferred that my code base was so good even a junior developer could be immediately productive in it, but that's sadly just not the case. But perhaps, with the help of a AI tutor, that's actually possible now?!
If you think AI is at the level of a junior developer right now, I'm afraid you're kidding yourself.
In case you're wondering: we use Claude Code.
This is something I don't understand.
- If you have a bug, you need to fix it well as well as proper root cause.
- That way the bug never surfaces again and safeguards are added for that class of bugs.
- if done well over time it builds discipline and bugs only surface from new features or integrations.
I've never had an experience of a 'death spiral' that you mention.
> Still, when I need to figure out something, now, I often ask AI as it is absolutely wonderful in understanding and explaining code, no matter how big the code base is.
Sure, but you still dig into the code afterwards I assume, you don't blindly trust what the AI summarization tells you.
> If you think AI is at the level of a junior developer right now, I'm afraid you're kidding yourself.
It depends, small projects with well defined scope, yeah, it knocks them out of the park, what I'm working on, it's a bit disappointing, not for lack of trying.
Still, one other thing I'm noticing now... if my account were not anonymous I would likely need to think of possible repercussions for my 'lack of faith' and would probably post comments very similar to yours or not at all.
So I'll stop here.
Can you spend 3 months fixing a bug and doing nothing else? You always have a time budget, whether you know it or not, even for your hobby projects. Do you not have users reporting bugs regularly? Any large product will have bugs, I see the biggest companies with the best engineers maintaining open source repositories with thousands of bugs, and the list just keeps growing. Internal products are even worse. All you need for your bug list to keep growing is one bug taking longer to fix than the rate at which bugs are reported.
> if done well over time it builds discipline and bugs only surface from new features or integrations.
Yes, and we have a whole lot of features coming out every release. We have a very large product. That's why we keep adding "bugs"! Not because we're fixing bugs that had already been badly fixed previously, if that's what you're thinking.
You've never seen a bug spiral? I must assume you're new to this industry. Bug spirals have killed many companies. It's very common to have code that's so bad no one can touch it without introducing lots of bugs. Fix one bug, 2 new bugs are introduced.
Luckily, where I work we have a lot of tests so it's rare that we have regressions, so the main cause of bugs is the new features, especially big ones as it's humanly impossible to properly review thoroughly enough that there's no bugs. That's where I think AI will help a lot - but we're still trying to figure out exactly how. Simply letting the AI review everything is not enough. And as I said before, humans just can't spot bugs to save their lives, me included.
> if my account were not anonymous I would likely need to think of possible repercussions for my 'lack of faith'
That's weird to hear, HN is about 50% AI enthusiasts, 50% AI skeptics, at least that's my impression.
I was a skeptical until recently, but in the last few months of using Claude Code (and Copilot, but Copilot consistently performs worse), the LLM has become better than most humans IMO. I still write a bit of code by hand, though, simply because I can't help it and sometimes I know I can do things very fast anyway so why burn LLM tokens on the thing. But sometimes I try to "correct" AI code just to learn later the AI was right (normally tests pick that up - we instruct the AI to write comprehensive tests, and it does it well... I normally review mostly the test code and less so the implementation). I am almost at a level where I believe not using LLMs to write code professionally is akin to not using static type systems: you're refusing to let the computer help you for no reason. It's not about faith, it's about using the tools that make our jobs easier and our output better. I know not everyone is there yet, but I definitely feel like I am.
In what world would that be needed or accepted.
It generally takes 1-2 days to fix harder issues lile race conditions/memory corruptions. Regular bugs are much faster. All fixed correctly without AI.
AI just goes on a random path every time and in general fails to find the root cause unless you tell it explicitly what it is...
> I was a skeptical until recently, but in the last few months of using Claude Code (and Copilot, but Copilot consistently performs worse), the LLM has become better than most humans IMO
great that it's working on your end
"Is It Really Impossible To Cool A Datacenter In Space?" - Scott Manley
tl;dr -> not impossible.
I have to assume current architectures aren't optimal though, the idea that we stumbled into the one and only optimal solution seems almost impossible.
Real learning takes time. Someone with 3 years of experience writing software is at the beginning of their professional development.
Ofcourse time alone is not enough. But time x work x aptitude = progression.
The inflation of "senior engineer" makes us look to many like the McDojo black belts.