6 ms·

I almost stopped reading at "neo-liberal", man that term is getting boring, especially when used in non-sequitur fashion like "The most severe disruption is whe

I almost stopped reading at "neo-liberal", man that term is getting boring, especially when used in non-sequitur fashion like "The most severe disruption is when the regime turns off all cell towers and all local Internet. They just pull the plug and it's game over for any neo-liberal smart-arse that thinks v2ray/tor/shadowsocks is the solution". WTF does that even mean? What does the author think it means?

dmos62 4y ago
> What does the author think it means? A detestable person that thinks he can circumvent the regime? Presumably a paleo-conservative (or whatever the opposite of neo-liberal is in the mind of the blogger) would not be so naive and would look at real "solutions", as opposed to the neo-liberal, who is interested in non-solutions. Pretty awful ideas floating around in this guy's head.
dmix 4y ago
I'm not sure what he means by that. Is it just a tongue-in-cheek description for the opposition to the Iranian party? Is it used by the party to describe pro-western people locally? Or is this just another overused Redditism?
- LastTrain 4y ago
  It is a play on neo-con, which is a term that was used to great affect in American conservative political circles to ostracize those who would cooperate with the opposition party - a.k.a. moderates. It is now used with similar goals by the American far left (to the extent that such a thing exists..). Both terms are often coopted by the the opposition party to demonize moderate counterparts. That said, it sounds cool to mouth-breathers so they often use it completely out of context, like this author did.
  - xhevahir 4y ago
    That sense of "neoliberal" is peculiar to American politics, as far as I can tell. I'd say it's more likely the blogger means a person who wants free trade, deregulation, etc.
    - LastTrain 4y ago
      I would say, given the sum total output we've seen by the author (a blog with two articles), they have no idea what it means, other than a vague sense that it is some kind of sick burn. [Edit - look, I know the term has an academic origin, but we aren't discussing academic papers, I'm talking about how it is abused everyday in the vernacular]
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    I've heard neocon many times, always in a different context. As far as I'm concerned, the word has no meaning.
    - xhevahir 4y ago
      I don't see how it's any less meaningful than "liberal," or "conservative." Each of these terms labels a set of family resemblances and is dependent on context.
      - hot_gril 4y ago
        "Liberal" is at least a really imprecise synonym for Democrat party in the US, ditto for "conservative" and Republican.
        xhevahir 4y ago
        There are other meaningful political categories besides the ones that designate parties. Irving Kristol, the closest the movement has to a founder, himself embraced the label. And it's pretty uncontroversial which people decidedly belong and which don't: Richard Perle is one, Pat Buchanan is not; Jeane Kirkpatrick and James Q. Wilson are, Samantha Power and Noam Chomsky aren't.
        hot_gril 4y ago
        To be honest, I'll have to take your word for it, because I don't know a single person you listed. Maybe they're from an older generation. Seems like this was a real movement but isn't so relevant anymore, and now people are misusing the term. Now "hawkish" or "interventionist" is pretty close to the old meaning of neocon. I'm willing to accept it as a term for a historical movement, but if someone tells me X newly relevant person is a neocon, I'll basically discard that.
technoooooost 4y ago
Pretty sure he's joking around using iran's regime terms to describe its dissidents
- hot_gril 4y ago
  The top says this, which doesn't sound like a joke. > The Internet is easily censored. The neo-liberals got their arses kicked. The big players like Google/Apple/AWS are partly to blame. China runs the GFI as a service.
  - killjoywashere 4y ago
    The point is the neo-liberals of Silicon Valley, who essentially adopt a policy of splendid isolation, have failed to protect democracy.
    - DeathArrow 4y ago
      Since when was their job to protect democracy?
      - nonrandomstring 4y ago
        Since the basis of their entire project [1] was given to them as the output of an obscure DARPA project ostensibly aimed at securing democracy in the world. It's not written into a contract, just a sorta "moral obligation" to, you know... not shit on the values of the people who put you where you are. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
        hot_gril 4y ago
        I agree that it's their job, I don't agree that they've adopted a policy of isolation, but whatever. It's just not a good way to start a tech article. The author mentioned some of the blocking methods, so that's cool.
throwaway894345 4y ago
Eh, I don't like neo-liberal either, but its usage here made me chuckle. I'm probably a "neo-liberal" since I generally believe in human rights (including free speech) and also that capitalism (for all its faults) has a dramatically better track record than socialism or communism.
- didibus 4y ago
  I was super confused by the authors use of neoliberal and I'm also confused by how you use the term. A liberal is someone who values individual freedoms and human rights. A neoliberal is someone who values deregulated economy, privatization of all things, free markets, free trade, and open economic borders. The Iranian regime would be a conservative one, where they value limited social rights that favor some social morals over the individuals own, like what women/men can and can't do, what you can and can't eat, what you can and can't drink, what you can and can't teach or believe in, etc. The Iranian economic model is a mixed bag, kind of a social-caputalist mix, with lots of state owned and managed enterprise, but also allowing private ones. That said it comes with a lot of regulations to have them enforce the conservative social norms.
spamizbad 4y ago
I think the author is suggesting global capitalism is effete when it comes to combating state-sponsored censorship.... which I think is true.
- LastTrain 4y ago
  The most generous interpretation so far, but the bar is low. To accept that applies here is to accept that what is going on in Iran right now is entirely being orchestrated by outside forces and the citizen protesters have no agency. I'm familiar with this worldview, and I know the ilk that spread it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pvg 4y ago
Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
unethical_ban 4y ago
I'm a liberal by most definitions but I didn't reject a decent technical article by presumably an advocate of political freedom in Iran because of my sensitive sensibility.
- LastTrain 4y ago
  Did your sensibilities keep you from reading the rest of my comment? Sadly, it didn't keep me from reading the article - which had no interesting information on the GFI in particular or even firewalls in general. I should have went with my gut on this one.
eternalban 4y ago
The Iranian regime classifies enemies ("counter revolutionaries" in the old days). We have the hypocrites "MEK", monarchists, a newly minted "meddlesome Shia" (mainly Iraqis but basically any Shia who disagrees Khamenei is God's Shadow on earth smh), and westernized youth "neo-liberals". So OP's sentence makes perfect sense actually. p.s. Basically the occupation theocratic regime of IR positions itself in its propaganda to demoralize Iranian resistance by prophecies of doom and gloom for Iran should it be cured of the IR disease: there is ISIS or Daesh [or "it will Syria 2.0"] (aka terror); there is that crafty prince in KSA that wants Iran to parition; there is the crafty sultan in Turkie (sic) that has pan turk on his mind; and should the country remain intact let there be no doubt that "neo-liberals" will do a Greece or whatever to Iran.
ogurechny 4y ago
It's just a media-friendly way to call people who believe that money doesn't stink, and that to each what he deserves. Which is true for most “successful” corporate functionaries whose exuberance naturally depends on that same tight control over user devices.

dmos62 4y ago

> What does the author think it means? A detestable person that thinks he can circumvent the regime? Presumably a paleo-conservative (or whatever the opposite of neo-liberal is in the mind of the blogger) would not be so naive and would look at real "solutions", as opposed to the neo-liberal, who is interested in non-solutions. Pretty awful ideas floating around in this guy's head.

dmix 4y ago

I'm not sure what he means by that. Is it just a tongue-in-cheek description for the opposition to the Iranian party? Is it used by the party to describe pro-western people locally? Or is this just another overused Redditism?

LastTrain 4y ago
It is a play on neo-con, which is a term that was used to great affect in American conservative political circles to ostracize those who would cooperate with the opposition party - a.k.a. moderates. It is now used with similar goals by the American far left (to the extent that such a thing exists..). Both terms are often coopted by the the opposition party to demonize moderate counterparts. That said, it sounds cool to mouth-breathers so they often use it completely out of context, like this author did.
- xhevahir 4y ago
  That sense of "neoliberal" is peculiar to American politics, as far as I can tell. I'd say it's more likely the blogger means a person who wants free trade, deregulation, etc.
  - LastTrain 4y ago
    I would say, given the sum total output we've seen by the author (a blog with two articles), they have no idea what it means, other than a vague sense that it is some kind of sick burn. [Edit - look, I know the term has an academic origin, but we aren't discussing academic papers, I'm talking about how it is abused everyday in the vernacular]
- hot_gril 4y ago
  I've heard neocon many times, always in a different context. As far as I'm concerned, the word has no meaning.
  - xhevahir 4y ago
    I don't see how it's any less meaningful than "liberal," or "conservative." Each of these terms labels a set of family resemblances and is dependent on context.
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      "Liberal" is at least a really imprecise synonym for Democrat party in the US, ditto for "conservative" and Republican.
      - xhevahir 4y ago
        There are other meaningful political categories besides the ones that designate parties. Irving Kristol, the closest the movement has to a founder, himself embraced the label. And it's pretty uncontroversial which people decidedly belong and which don't: Richard Perle is one, Pat Buchanan is not; Jeane Kirkpatrick and James Q. Wilson are, Samantha Power and Noam Chomsky aren't.
        hot_gril 4y ago
        To be honest, I'll have to take your word for it, because I don't know a single person you listed. Maybe they're from an older generation. Seems like this was a real movement but isn't so relevant anymore, and now people are misusing the term. Now "hawkish" or "interventionist" is pretty close to the old meaning of neocon. I'm willing to accept it as a term for a historical movement, but if someone tells me X newly relevant person is a neocon, I'll basically discard that.

technoooooost 4y ago

Pretty sure he's joking around using iran's regime terms to describe its dissidents

hot_gril 4y ago
The top says this, which doesn't sound like a joke. > The Internet is easily censored. The neo-liberals got their arses kicked. The big players like Google/Apple/AWS are partly to blame. China runs the GFI as a service.
- killjoywashere 4y ago
  The point is the neo-liberals of Silicon Valley, who essentially adopt a policy of splendid isolation, have failed to protect democracy.
  - DeathArrow 4y ago
    Since when was their job to protect democracy?
    - nonrandomstring 4y ago
      Since the basis of their entire project [1] was given to them as the output of an obscure DARPA project ostensibly aimed at securing democracy in the world. It's not written into a contract, just a sorta "moral obligation" to, you know... not shit on the values of the people who put you where you are. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
      - hot_gril 4y ago
        I agree that it's their job, I don't agree that they've adopted a policy of isolation, but whatever. It's just not a good way to start a tech article. The author mentioned some of the blocking methods, so that's cool.

throwaway894345 4y ago

Eh, I don't like neo-liberal either, but its usage here made me chuckle. I'm probably a "neo-liberal" since I generally believe in human rights (including free speech) and also that capitalism (for all its faults) has a dramatically better track record than socialism or communism.

didibus 4y ago
I was super confused by the authors use of neoliberal and I'm also confused by how you use the term. A liberal is someone who values individual freedoms and human rights. A neoliberal is someone who values deregulated economy, privatization of all things, free markets, free trade, and open economic borders. The Iranian regime would be a conservative one, where they value limited social rights that favor some social morals over the individuals own, like what women/men can and can't do, what you can and can't eat, what you can and can't drink, what you can and can't teach or believe in, etc. The Iranian economic model is a mixed bag, kind of a social-caputalist mix, with lots of state owned and managed enterprise, but also allowing private ones. That said it comes with a lot of regulations to have them enforce the conservative social norms.

spamizbad 4y ago

I think the author is suggesting global capitalism is effete when it comes to combating state-sponsored censorship.... which I think is true.

LastTrain 4y ago
The most generous interpretation so far, but the bar is low. To accept that applies here is to accept that what is going on in Iran right now is entirely being orchestrated by outside forces and the citizen protesters have no agency. I'm familiar with this worldview, and I know the ilk that spread it.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pvg 4y ago

Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

unethical_ban 4y ago

I'm a liberal by most definitions but I didn't reject a decent technical article by presumably an advocate of political freedom in Iran because of my sensitive sensibility.

LastTrain 4y ago
Did your sensibilities keep you from reading the rest of my comment? Sadly, it didn't keep me from reading the article - which had no interesting information on the GFI in particular or even firewalls in general. I should have went with my gut on this one.

eternalban 4y ago

The Iranian regime classifies enemies ("counter revolutionaries" in the old days). We have the hypocrites "MEK", monarchists, a newly minted "meddlesome Shia" (mainly Iraqis but basically any Shia who disagrees Khamenei is God's Shadow on earth smh), and westernized youth "neo-liberals". So OP's sentence makes perfect sense actually. p.s. Basically the occupation theocratic regime of IR positions itself in its propaganda to demoralize Iranian resistance by prophecies of doom and gloom for Iran should it be cured of the IR disease: there is ISIS or Daesh [or "it will Syria 2.0"] (aka terror); there is that crafty prince in KSA that wants Iran to parition; there is the crafty sultan in Turkie (sic) that has pan turk on his mind; and should the country remain intact let there be no doubt that "neo-liberals" will do a Greece or whatever to Iran.

ogurechny 4y ago

It's just a media-friendly way to call people who believe that money doesn't stink, and that to each what he deserves. Which is true for most “successful” corporate functionaries whose exuberance naturally depends on that same tight control over user devices.