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Comment by kilgoresalmon | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm just cynical but I have to assume someone will test the extent Iran can hold them to a payment if it doesn't want to stop maintaining the terms of the ceasefire to back up the demand?

(Edit- missing negative)

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They've blown up several ships so which ship owner will test them? Spend $1m on a transit fee or risk $90m on a new tanker.

Is the US seriously going to side with Iran on a missing payment? Assuming not, is the value of the ceasefire more than $1m for Iran if a ship slyly doesn't pay or the few million if one starts a trend? As I said I might be cynical but I see layered games of chicken where some people are surprisingly risk tolerant..

Iran's terms are all ships transiting the strait have to coordinate with its military. One would assume they are monitoring ship movements, and know which ones are complying and which ones are not.

The US doesn't need to "side with Iran" on anything: ship captains, owners and insurers are free to gamble their ships and payloads against Iran's resolve and strike capabilities, my assumption is they like to predictability make money, and not losing customer's billion-dollar payloads is part of that.

Having your ship blown up won't guarantee the US will consider the ceasefire violated, history is littered with post-armistice engagements and deaths.

All very reasonable.. But plenty of odd stuff happened in maritime during covid and plenty of odd stuff related to ghost fleet.. My point is not that Exon is going to save a million my point is that it is an interesting way that I think the cease fire would come to an end if it became a stable one on other fronts. I.e. the US doesn't have to choose based on anything but what is expedient to it wanting an end to the cease fire, a boat may be from the right country with the wrong organizational finances for the mounting costs so far, and so on..

What's the incentive for a ship captain to risk this? Even if they're more confident than almost everyone else that it's a bluff and think there's a 95% chance Iran does nothing, a 5% chance of you and your crew being incinerated is a crazy risk to take.

Would you go to your normal job tomorrow if someone who has a history of carrying out threats has threatened to kill you for it?

You can't imagine someone who would go to that job simply because the owner hired a bouncer and they have a different faith in authority or really mean looking bouncers than you?

I can spend 10 minutes looking at demographics and tell you the world is not explainable if the measuring stick is my own risk tolerances.

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