Ah, but I can be asked about what I think and I will happily reply: I do not think the status quo of Iran is fine. I dislike Islamic theocracies and I don't think Iran does well in public freedom. I think it is a tragedy that Iran used to be closer to a democracy (yes, with a king and all, but still) and Western interference created the conditions for both a dictatorship and the horrible Islamic theocracy that came later and is still in power today.

I hope the Iranians get a better deal (hopefully without being part of some power game by external nations), because they deserve it.

I do not wish any families living in Iran to go through a "collapse", especially not a violent one.

See? If people reply to my comments with reasonable questions, I reply in a similar tone. When people go in full attack mode, they get worse responses. Which is the tone that HN should favor?

There's one common logical error we all often make, and it's becoming more relevant by the day. We naturally see things as being either a good choice or a bad choice. But in reality, you're often not choosing between a good choice and a bad choice, but between a bad choice and a horrible choice. So focusing on the bad choice being bad doesn't really therefore suggest that the other choice is any better!

Thanks. It's surprising to me that this needs stating, but it apparently does, here on HN.

Exactly. This is the exact logic people fail at when it comes to medication side effects. Sure, the vaccine has a tiny chance for this and that negative side effect, but you are not choosing between getting the vaccine and gambling on the side effect, vs not taking any risk, but gambling on not taking a vaccine and having a higher chance of catching the virus which has orders of magnitude higher chance for way worse side effects. It is a tradeoff with a quite clear better shot (pun semi-intended)

I don't think your analogy is right.

A vaccine has a small risk that it can cause harmful effects to a small subset of the population. The predicted outcome is very positive.

Societal collapse and power vacuums in Iran and neighboring countries have a high risk of resulting in harm to a large population. The risk is very high and it has happened before -- in the same country, even!

Collapse and revolutions, unlike vaccines, are a high risk gamble. They can, for example, result in the Islamic Revolution, ISIS or who knows what.

So I don't think the analogy works at all.

My point was more regarding the zero sum nature of these problems. Of course the “weights” are way different, but one situation is something everyone have experienced, so I don’t think it is a bad analogy.