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2026-02-18 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Vance: Nuclear talks showed some progress, but Iran won’t acknowledge Trump’s red lines

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Posted by trailing wife 2026-02-18 2026-02-18 03:39|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [1808 views ] Top
File under: Govt of Iran

1 Just bomb all their shit and lets be done with this 50 year pain in the ass.

Posted by chris 2026-02-18 06:59|| 2026-02-18 06:59|| Front Page Top

2 Say nothing more and put them all to the sword.

Posted by Besoeker 2026-02-18 07:03|| 2026-02-18 07:03|| Front Page Top

3 exactly!

Posted by chris 2026-02-18 07:47|| 2026-02-18 07:47|| Front Page Top

4 An interesting match-up - rug merchants vs New York real estate developer, playing for how the future unfolds.
/me puts a chip on Donny from Queens

The game is Prisoner's Dilemma with "Just bomb all their shit and lets be done" being a very appealing strategy. There is a Nash equilibrium where everyone plays nice, but getting there will be a challenge.

Posted by SteveS 2026-02-18 10:26|| 2026-02-18 10:26|| Front Page Top

5 Prisoner's dilemma
proposes rational agents.

Posted by Skidmark 2026-02-18 10:31|| 2026-02-18 10:31|| Front Page Top

6 My thought as well, Skidmark. The Mullahs know themselves to be on a mission from Allah to conquer the world for the proper form of Islam, so whatever they negotiate must either forward that goal or be a lie or retrenchment to enable a branching path.

Posted by trailing wife 2026-02-18 12:41|| 2026-02-18 12:41|| Front Page Top

7 There's a personal angle for Trump and other members of the Trump administration.

After Trump saved Khamenei in June, Khamenei rewarded Trump with a fatwa.

If the regime survives in any form they will seek vengeance, Rushdie style.

Trump 47 ends in less than 3 years.

The personal safety of members of the Trump 47 administration might not be a high priority issue for a Newsom/AOC administration.

Posted by Elmerert Hupens2660 2026-02-18 17:21|| 2026-02-18 17:21|| Front Page Top

8 “ plus they’ll break any deal they sign whenever they want and say ‘what deal? ‘ but it’s a box we have to check so…”

Posted by Knuckles Grundy1702 2026-02-18 17:24|| 2026-02-18 17:24|| Front Page Top

9 Prisoner's dilemma proposes rational agents.

"Rational" means something quite specific in game theory. A rational player looks at the alternatives and chooses the one that gives the biggest payoff, as opposed to rolling dice or making a random choice. (Rational vs stochastic)

The Paleostinians are famous for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. This always bugged me because it didn't make sense in terms of human behavior. Given a set of choices, humans generally pick the one that gives the most value. In math-speak, they maximize their evaluation function.

One day in a flash of inspiration, I realized the evaluation function is the key. What if the thing being maximized is not the player's gain, but the opponent's loss? Rather than "I want to win", what matters most is "I want you to lose".

Take the October 7 Massacre, for example. For all the damage and loss of life the attack caused, the Paleos suffered worse. Gaza is flattened, the population displaced, and Hamas is getting squished. But now everyone hates the Juice for committing genocide and war crimes and famine and blah-blah-blah, so that is a net positive for the Paleos. According to their payoff matrix, it was a rational choice. It's the same thing with the mullahs and their apocalyptic end-times scenario.

tl;dr: Despite being murderous savages, the Paleostinians are rational. At least according to game theory.

Posted by SteveS 2026-02-18 20:32|| 2026-02-18 20:32|| Front Page Top

10 ^ You win the argument

Posted by Frank G 2026-02-18 20:56|| 2026-02-18 20:56|| Front Page Top

11 What if the thing being maximized is not the player's gain, but the opponent's loss? Rather than "I want to win", what matters most is "I want you to lose".

Now that we have all our terms properly defined… To us that choice is madness. But we choose life; they choose death to punish us with.

Posted by trailing wife 2026-02-18 21:22|| 2026-02-18 21:22|| Front Page Top

12 To us that choice is madness. But we choose life; they choose death to punish us with.

Yep. And that is going to be a problem.

Posted by SteveS 2026-02-18 22:53|| 2026-02-18 22:53|| Front Page Top

23:59 Bobby
23:39 Crusader
22:53 SteveS
22:42 Slats Spaick5462
22:03 Lord Garth
21:22 trailing wife
20:56 Frank G
20:32 SteveS
19:27 Frank G
19:22 Frank G
18:48 trailing wife
17:32 Skidmark
17:24 Knuckles Grundy1702
17:23 Skidmark
17:21 Elmerert Hupens2660
17:19 Skidmark
17:00 SteveS
16:49 Lord Garth
16:48 Beavis
16:27 NoMoreBS
16:26 SteveS
16:23 SteveS
16:21 NoMoreBS
16:12 Woodrow
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