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I highly recommend this video: https://youtu.be/jIS2eB-rGv0?si=uEOmzYpsvYocDz6B https://youtu.be/jIS2eB-rGv0?si=uEOmzYpsvYocDz6B It explains that one of Iran's

I highly recommend this video: https://youtu.be/jIS2eB-rGv0?si=uEOmzYpsvYocDz6B https://youtu.be/jIS2eB-rGv0?si=uEOmzYpsvYocDz6B It explains that one of Iran's goals is to make the GCC (UAE, Kuwait, etc) uninvestable by making them non-safe and choke the Strait of Hormuz. This affects the petrodollar as well as American stock market since the GCC invest much of that oil money back into American companies. His other videos on Iran, Israel, and America through the lens of game theory are also quite good. It's a side you often you don't hear in mainstream media: https://www.youtube.com/@PredictiveHistory/search?query=iran https://www.youtube.com/@PredictiveHistory/search?query=iran He also explains in this video why a ground invasion of Iran is damn near impossible due to the terrains and how Saudi Arabia and Iran are connected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y_hbz6loEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y_hbz6loEo As someone who doesn't know much about the highly complex history, goals of the Middle East and the world, they're informative but I'm also open to people who disagree with this guy. Would love to hear things from all sides. Warning: The Youtube channel has a very doomish view of this conflict though. He thinks this is the start of WW3.

TheAceOfHearts 8mo ago
This guy's videos were immediately going viral after the conflict began. I enjoyed and found them educational, but I'm taking all of his claims with a grain of salt because I also don't know much about the region or its history. He talks very authoritatively which makes for compelling storytelling but conflicts of this magnitude require much more context to really understand.
- aurareturn 8mo ago
  I don't disagree. That's why I'm open to the opinions of others in this matter. I'm no subject expert.
chrismatic 8mo ago
While I agree with some of his sentiments the entire video reeks of half-baked conspiratorial thinking and shallow engagement with the facts. A quick tell is that the video's title includes "Game Theory", while only referencing game-theoretical concepts twice in an off-hand comment. In both instances the usage is plainly wrong. In general, he loves making big assertions without backing them up with evidence or explanations that go beyond hand-wavy examples.
- aurareturn 8mo ago
  Any thing he said that about the conflict that you disagree with?
  - chrismatic 8mo ago
    He makes quite a few quite controversial assertions without evidence or even bothering to explain them. At the top of my head and paraphrasing: - "The conflict is a game of chicken." Only in the vaguest sense in which any war or confrontation could be called that. - "The USA is not equipped to handle a war against drones and fanatics". Idk they seem more capable than any other nation save Ukraine given that those two things have been a major feature of their recent wars. - "Countries that are poor have more energy and are more cohesive". This is just demonstrably false, but he does not bother to explain why he thinks this. - "The US wants to break Iran into ethno-states that compete for water until they are all dead." He even admits that this is pure conjecture and hand-waves this as the game-theoretic "optimal" strategy which is completely bonkers. I do share his negative sentiment and outlook about the war, but there are way better critics that don't resort to this type of intellectual laziness.
    - aurareturn 8mo ago
      - "The US wants to break Iran into ethno-states that compete for water until they are all dead." He even admits that this is pure conjecture and hand-waves this as the game-theoretic "optimal" strategy which is completely bonkers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47245067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47245067 What do you think of this?
      - chrismatic 8mo ago
        I think that there is a huge leap between using the Kurds to do your fighting (like in Syria) and what he claims if you look at the map that he pulls up in that section.
- engineer_22 8mo ago
  Game Theory is the name of his class. He is a high school teacher. I agree his ideas about the conflict are only loosely connected to "Game Theory" in the Academic sense. If you engage with more of his content, he often repeats that he is probably wrong and exhorts you to think for yourself and make your own conclusions. His perspective on past and current events is certainly not mainstream.
timedude 8mo ago
Been following this guy for a few months now. On Iran i think he is right on the money. He also has some very good lectures about personal development.
- jvican 8mo ago
  He might indeed need some personal development himself. I followed him when the US bombed Iran's nuclear sites last year. He was involved in a controversy with his kid and turned into a dick, going into a charade against the Western education system, for being overly harsh to his kid in a public space and getting reprimanded for it. I'm not condoning his behavior, I wasn't there, but I'd take anything this guy has to say on personal development with a pinch of salt. By the way, he published a post of apologies in his Substack IIRC.
  - nerdyadventurer 8mo ago
    This is natural behavior as a father, specially from Asians. You do not know what actually happened to the kid, we too have done the same.
_DeadFred_ 8mo ago
The guy who thinks the Jesuit illuminati run the world? https://youtu.be/4Ql24Z8SIeE?si=csY0Jl19VYXNouk2&t=860 https://youtu.be/4Ql24Z8SIeE?si=csY0Jl19VYXNouk2&t=860
NalNezumi 8mo ago
I don't know about the guys take on Iran, but I came across his channel a long time ago regarding some predictions on things I work with + I think Ukraine war? And it was so handwavy and "cherry picking stats to fit a narrative" style of reasoning, it was hard to take him seriously when many predictions were proven wrong and not even sound. Granted, most YouTube analyst channels with ~=>500k subscribers usually do deploy exaggerated claims or "one parameter to explain everything" narrative (Zeihan, Varoufakis, Mersheimer, William Spaniel) so you should take their infotainment with a grain of salt. Current trendy buzzword is "Realism" and "Game Theory" so those two term are mired with wish washy handwaving. Usually, just like tech stuff, the actually valuable insight is not found in the blogs but the source material they refer to, because they have nuances.
- ifyoubuildit 8mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer One of your "YouTube analysts" is a professor that developed one of the schools of realism, so maybe that's why he's using that "buzzword". Edit: and varoufakis was the finance minister of Greece. I have no idea if he was any good at it or not, but your characterization is a little silly either way. Would they be more credible to you if they gave 2 minute soundbites in between advertisements for drugs and gold on cable news?
  - NalNezumi 8mo ago
    Maybe I should've added a line break between the sentence. I'm fully aware of prof Mearsheimers credential, and what realism is. I'm also aware that the biggest proponent of realism with the most power at hand, was Henry Kissinger. Not the brightest shining beacon. Their worldview is funny. A self fulfilling prophecy kind of take that is most often used to justify heinous behavior by saying "well everyone is doing it" and take a selective look at history and deriving some universal theory of international politics. So I think the "using one parameter to explain everything" is an apt description of him. A hallmark of pop social science gifter pattern is when they try to apply that one thing to everything. Mearsheimer isn't (wasn't?) that until the podcast fame inevitably asked questions to him that is outside his expertise and audience capture, inevitably, kicked in Edit: indeed. He was finance minister during the Greek financial crisis. With your appeal to authority Fallacy, Lizz Tuss should still be taken seriously because she was UK prime minister (that was out lasted by a lettuce). I like Varoufakis. He's at least consistent. His technofeudalism observation have some merit. But still his analysis comes from a limited scope, and (he's open about this) colored heavily by his communist stance. The point was: All those expert often have a compelling analysis, but the nuance is often lost in the medium such as YouTube. It's better to dive in to the nuance, critically examine it, and then listen broadly and repeat.
lysace 8mo ago
He is based in Beijing according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Xueqin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Xueqin. That matters. China would not allow him to broadcast things they do not approve of.
- ifwinterco 8mo ago
  Equally, were he based in the UK (or even the US during wartime, despite the First Amendment), he wouldn't be able to say things those governments don't approve of. So yes to some extent it might be CCP propaganda, but that doesn't mean it's always wrong, and the alternative is western propaganda, which is also sometimes wrong
  - lysace 8mo ago
    One difference is that in the UK/US it has in practice only applied during actual war time. I remember the instant switch in tone of reporting from the BBC the moment war broke out in 2003. And I have never seen it apply to individuals in UK/US. (Post WW2.) In China it's all the time. And the control is _so_ much stricter.
    - ifwinterco 8mo ago
      That is true but there are still some things that are illegal to say in the UK 365 days a year every year. One topical one which I won't repeat here for obvious reasons but it relates to the middle east
      - lysace 8mo ago
        So much is illegal to say in the UK. Let's just focus on [what is illegal to say in the context of] political/military analysis?
        ifwinterco 8mo ago
        There definitely is some relevant stuff, but unfortunately by definition I can't say what it is. Also I would point out that there is a lower tier of things that are not exactly illegal to say per se, but will still result in you being ostracised, probably getting fired etc. Especially if you're a university professor, academics probably have among the lowest freedom of speech of anyone
heraldgeezer 8mo ago
No way you are suggesting this guy... there is no way.

TheAceOfHearts 8mo ago

This guy's videos were immediately going viral after the conflict began. I enjoyed and found them educational, but I'm taking all of his claims with a grain of salt because I also don't know much about the region or its history. He talks very authoritatively which makes for compelling storytelling but conflicts of this magnitude require much more context to really understand.

aurareturn 8mo ago
I don't disagree. That's why I'm open to the opinions of others in this matter. I'm no subject expert.

chrismatic 8mo ago

While I agree with some of his sentiments the entire video reeks of half-baked conspiratorial thinking and shallow engagement with the facts. A quick tell is that the video's title includes "Game Theory", while only referencing game-theoretical concepts twice in an off-hand comment. In both instances the usage is plainly wrong. In general, he loves making big assertions without backing them up with evidence or explanations that go beyond hand-wavy examples.

aurareturn 8mo ago
Any thing he said that about the conflict that you disagree with?
- chrismatic 8mo ago
  He makes quite a few quite controversial assertions without evidence or even bothering to explain them. At the top of my head and paraphrasing: - "The conflict is a game of chicken." Only in the vaguest sense in which any war or confrontation could be called that. - "The USA is not equipped to handle a war against drones and fanatics". Idk they seem more capable than any other nation save Ukraine given that those two things have been a major feature of their recent wars. - "Countries that are poor have more energy and are more cohesive". This is just demonstrably false, but he does not bother to explain why he thinks this. - "The US wants to break Iran into ethno-states that compete for water until they are all dead." He even admits that this is pure conjecture and hand-waves this as the game-theoretic "optimal" strategy which is completely bonkers. I do share his negative sentiment and outlook about the war, but there are way better critics that don't resort to this type of intellectual laziness.
  - aurareturn 8mo ago
    - "The US wants to break Iran into ethno-states that compete for water until they are all dead." He even admits that this is pure conjecture and hand-waves this as the game-theoretic "optimal" strategy which is completely bonkers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47245067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47245067 What do you think of this?
    - chrismatic 8mo ago
      I think that there is a huge leap between using the Kurds to do your fighting (like in Syria) and what he claims if you look at the map that he pulls up in that section.
engineer_22 8mo ago
Game Theory is the name of his class. He is a high school teacher. I agree his ideas about the conflict are only loosely connected to "Game Theory" in the Academic sense. If you engage with more of his content, he often repeats that he is probably wrong and exhorts you to think for yourself and make your own conclusions. His perspective on past and current events is certainly not mainstream.

timedude 8mo ago

Been following this guy for a few months now. On Iran i think he is right on the money. He also has some very good lectures about personal development.

jvican 8mo ago
He might indeed need some personal development himself. I followed him when the US bombed Iran's nuclear sites last year. He was involved in a controversy with his kid and turned into a dick, going into a charade against the Western education system, for being overly harsh to his kid in a public space and getting reprimanded for it. I'm not condoning his behavior, I wasn't there, but I'd take anything this guy has to say on personal development with a pinch of salt. By the way, he published a post of apologies in his Substack IIRC.
- nerdyadventurer 8mo ago
  This is natural behavior as a father, specially from Asians. You do not know what actually happened to the kid, we too have done the same.

_DeadFred_ 8mo ago

The guy who thinks the Jesuit illuminati run the world? https://youtu.be/4Ql24Z8SIeE?si=csY0Jl19VYXNouk2&t=860 https://youtu.be/4Ql24Z8SIeE?si=csY0Jl19VYXNouk2&t=860

NalNezumi 8mo ago

I don't know about the guys take on Iran, but I came across his channel a long time ago regarding some predictions on things I work with + I think Ukraine war? And it was so handwavy and "cherry picking stats to fit a narrative" style of reasoning, it was hard to take him seriously when many predictions were proven wrong and not even sound. Granted, most YouTube analyst channels with ~=>500k subscribers usually do deploy exaggerated claims or "one parameter to explain everything" narrative (Zeihan, Varoufakis, Mersheimer, William Spaniel) so you should take their infotainment with a grain of salt. Current trendy buzzword is "Realism" and "Game Theory" so those two term are mired with wish washy handwaving. Usually, just like tech stuff, the actually valuable insight is not found in the blogs but the source material they refer to, because they have nuances.

ifyoubuildit 8mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer One of your "YouTube analysts" is a professor that developed one of the schools of realism, so maybe that's why he's using that "buzzword". Edit: and varoufakis was the finance minister of Greece. I have no idea if he was any good at it or not, but your characterization is a little silly either way. Would they be more credible to you if they gave 2 minute soundbites in between advertisements for drugs and gold on cable news?
- NalNezumi 8mo ago
  Maybe I should've added a line break between the sentence. I'm fully aware of prof Mearsheimers credential, and what realism is. I'm also aware that the biggest proponent of realism with the most power at hand, was Henry Kissinger. Not the brightest shining beacon. Their worldview is funny. A self fulfilling prophecy kind of take that is most often used to justify heinous behavior by saying "well everyone is doing it" and take a selective look at history and deriving some universal theory of international politics. So I think the "using one parameter to explain everything" is an apt description of him. A hallmark of pop social science gifter pattern is when they try to apply that one thing to everything. Mearsheimer isn't (wasn't?) that until the podcast fame inevitably asked questions to him that is outside his expertise and audience capture, inevitably, kicked in Edit: indeed. He was finance minister during the Greek financial crisis. With your appeal to authority Fallacy, Lizz Tuss should still be taken seriously because she was UK prime minister (that was out lasted by a lettuce). I like Varoufakis. He's at least consistent. His technofeudalism observation have some merit. But still his analysis comes from a limited scope, and (he's open about this) colored heavily by his communist stance. The point was: All those expert often have a compelling analysis, but the nuance is often lost in the medium such as YouTube. It's better to dive in to the nuance, critically examine it, and then listen broadly and repeat.

lysace 8mo ago

He is based in Beijing according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Xueqin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Xueqin. That matters. China would not allow him to broadcast things they do not approve of.

ifwinterco 8mo ago
Equally, were he based in the UK (or even the US during wartime, despite the First Amendment), he wouldn't be able to say things those governments don't approve of. So yes to some extent it might be CCP propaganda, but that doesn't mean it's always wrong, and the alternative is western propaganda, which is also sometimes wrong
- lysace 8mo ago
  One difference is that in the UK/US it has in practice only applied during actual war time. I remember the instant switch in tone of reporting from the BBC the moment war broke out in 2003. And I have never seen it apply to individuals in UK/US. (Post WW2.) In China it's all the time. And the control is _so_ much stricter.
  - ifwinterco 8mo ago
    That is true but there are still some things that are illegal to say in the UK 365 days a year every year. One topical one which I won't repeat here for obvious reasons but it relates to the middle east
    - lysace 8mo ago
      So much is illegal to say in the UK. Let's just focus on [what is illegal to say in the context of] political/military analysis?
      - ifwinterco 8mo ago
        There definitely is some relevant stuff, but unfortunately by definition I can't say what it is. Also I would point out that there is a lower tier of things that are not exactly illegal to say per se, but will still result in you being ostracised, probably getting fired etc. Especially if you're a university professor, academics probably have among the lowest freedom of speech of anyone

heraldgeezer 8mo ago

No way you are suggesting this guy... there is no way.