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Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

It's not only because of sanctions. It's primarily because their leadership have deeply technical backgrounds. Most of my peers who ended up in policymaking roles in Europe (and in some cases the levers of power) all had a humanities or legal background and never worked in or adjacent to the tech industry.

Assuming Iran didn't follow the path that it did, Iran would have also ended up becoming a tech hub like Israel became today.

But this recognition should not be used to glaze a regime that has officially admitted to killing at least 5,000 protestors [0] in just 2 weeks and in reality killed significantly more people than that.

Being adept at understanding the applications of technology doesn't make one a humanist.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/iranian-offic...

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Iranians have a 5+ millennia culture of being highly educated, technical and creative.

That expertise wasn’t just gonna disappear in a couple of decades.

And yes, the Iranian regime is brutal and terrible. This was one time the opposition was strong enough that they may have had a chance and yet our fellow in chief decided to launch incendiary words, which only allowed the regime to paint the opposition as western funded, while not providing any actual support (there’s a reason Israel, which is at least led by competent leadership, kept quiet about the protests in Iran because they understand how their words of support would undermine them).

Iran is rich in natural resources(gas,oil), one of the richest actually. No country so rich can become a tech hub like Israel/Singapore (which just had no other options for development).

Agree with you on pretty much everything you have said. The background of policymakers in Europe really annoys me. Just to be clear, I wasn't glazing Iran or anything.

The background of most everyone in Brussels seems so wrong for the technological realities nowadays. I believe this sentiment is shared by a lot of people, and now it unfolds in Europe plainly lacking behind in technology. Which is such a shame given history of discoveries and advancement that was going on on the continent for centuries.

The whole European political elite and ruling class feels like a quasi-aristocracy (something the US is slowly moving into as well, with political dynasties and such) that is used to go to some big-name art/humanities place and then slide into the bureaucracy ladder. Totally detached people, and it's a pity because we really need Europe to be better.

The failures fall upwards into Brussels usually, sadly then you get very much second rate politicians that were even hated in their own countries.

I mean most countries send their failures there, also people who are not liked in the respective countries usually slip there for comfy jobs.

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