Nasser

Here to share my notes 📝 || Education is the answer || Nuance over ideology || US Foreign Policy || US-Middle East Relations

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

Ideology, once fully planted in your mind, has deep roots. Beware the ideologies that you possess, lest they end up possessing you.

[العنود 🇶🇦 @3nnadi]

Every time anyone from Saudi or the Gulf posts their traditional attire/culture they get thousands of attacks. If it’s Southern Saudi dress it’s “actually Yemeni.” If it’s Northern it’s Levantine. If it’s Western it’s Egyptian. If it’s Eastern it’s Persian.

The ultimate conclusion is that Gulf Arabs are apparently not allowed to claim any culture or history if there is any similarity with anyone. As if shared traditions between neighboring societies is some rare phenomenon.

What’s interesting is that this standard applies nowhere else. Tea originated in China yet nobody argues it isn’t part of Indian culture. No one argues coffee is not part of Italian culture.

The fez is shared across multiple countries and nobody insists it can only belong to one of them. The kaftan exists from Morocco to Central Asia in countless local forms and nobody treats that as a problem.

But when it comes to the Gulf, every similarity is evidence that the culture belongs exclusively to someone else.

The underlying assumption is this: Gulf Arabs are only allowed the image of the poor Bedouin wandering the desert. There is no shame in that image, but nobody has the right to reduce an entire people to a single archetype.

Anything sophisticated, diverse, artistic or historically rich must have been borrowed from somebody else. The possibility that Gulf Arabs developed rich traditions of their own, shaped the cultures around them, or may even be the source of some shared regional traditions is treated as unthinkable.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

"On French soil the marja (Khomeini), who had lingered in exile for fourteen years, became an international celebrity."

- page 424, The Fall of Heaven.

[Open Source Intel @Osint613]

French Foreign Minister: The Strait of Hormuz falls under international waters and must remain fully open to free passage. No country can impose fees or engage in extortion over transit through the strait.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

"Speak softly and carry a big stick"

- Theodore Roosevelt
26th President of the United States of America

[The Name of War @TheNameofWar]

"Diplomacy, the American way", a poster from the USSR, 1986

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

The Fall of Heaven by Andrew Scott Cooper. Chapter 20, page 400. Paperback edition.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

The Fall of Heaven by Andrew Scott Cooper. Chapter 20

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

Amazon is like Magic Johnson in 1990.

SpaceX is like Michael Jordan in 1990.

Michael doesn't have the accolades the same way Magic does at this point in time, but we can all see that he's about to become something the world has never seen before.

Valuation measures two things, perceived value in the present and perceived future value.

[Noah @antibearthesis]

One of these is not like the other:

SpaceX IPO: $2T Valuation
Amazon: $2.8T Valuation

SpaceX revenue: $18.7B
Amazon revenue: $742B

Explain this gap.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

CC: @RichardDawkins

[How To AI @HowToAI_]

Apple has published a paper with a devastating title: “The Illusion of Thinking”

It argues that AI models, no matter how brilliant they may seem, do not understand what they are doing.

They do not solve problems. They do not reason. They merely generate text word by word, trying to sound coherent.

Apple tested the most advanced reasoning models in the world on controlled puzzle environments. They tore open the internal "thinking" traces.

What they found shatters the narrative that we are getting closer to AGI.

Current models don't scale with complexity. They have a hard mathematical cliff. And they do not degrade gracefully. They collapse.

But here is the most unsettling part.

When a problem gets too complex, the AI doesn't use its remaining compute to try harder.

It just gives up.

Its reasoning effort actually declines. It stops thinking and starts guessing.

Then Apple ran the experiment that closes the casket on the reasoning debate.

They gave the AI the exact, step-by-step algorithm to solve the puzzle. The cheat codes.

All the AI had to do was follow the instructions.

It couldn't do it.

Performance didn't improve at all.

When the complexity gets high enough, these models fail because they cannot actually execute a logical sequence.

They are not reasoning. They are just pattern matching.

When you give them a simple problem, they overthink. When you give them a hard problem, they collapse.

Paper: The Illusion of Thinking, Apple, 2025

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

You mean the same convention that you did not sign hence you argue that you can do whatever you want in the strait of Hormuz?

Irans regime doublespeak and double standards would make Orwell proud.

[سخنگوی قوه قضائیه @IRJudiciarySpox]

توقیف کشتی های متخلف آمریکایی با حکم دادگاه صالحه و مستند به قوانین داخلی و بین المللی است. براساس کنوانسیون حقوق دریاها ۱۹۸۲، کشورهای ساحلی می‌توانند کشتی‌های کشور دیگر را به سبب تخلف از قوانین و مقررات داخلی و بین‌المللی در قلمروهای دریایی خود و یا دریای آزاد توقیف کنند.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

@BernieSanders Using the bulk of the savings in the city's coffers is not bringing it "down to zero". It's an unsustainable solution that works as a soundbite but fails as a policy. He is incentivizing a NYC exodus.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

@phildstewart Making a deal and actually managing to ship outside of the blockaded strait are two very different things. Iran's propaganda machine is better and projecting authority than actually enforcing it.

[Vaelor💥 @vaelor0]

If this became the norm it would be such an improvement from the modern education system

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the leadership of MBS has started a cascading series of bad decisions that are finally appearing on the political balance sheet.

As the majority of the economic projects spearheaded by the government have fallen one after the other, it becomes clear that MBS will have no choice but to revert back to Saudi Arabia’s factory setting, conservative Islam.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

The problem with the Arab Gulf countries calling for dialogue and return to diplomacy over a possible escalation is that they are thinking in short term stability. Long term stability would be horrendous for the region if the Iranian regime is allowed to limp out of this war with the impression of victory. Add on top of that their demand for control over the strait of Hormuz which in itself will create a cascading series of crises across the world if it is allowed to move forward.

War is not something anyone desires. But this regime doesn’t exactly behave in a way that expresses peaceful coexistence in the region.

[Alice Smith @TheAliceSmith]

Why are Marxists found more predominantly in academia rather than business or engineering or medicine? Because academic ideas don’t have to work in the real world.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

In 2017, MBS gave an interview with Al Arabiya wherein he stated the following "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a target of the Iranian Regime and we will not wait for the fight to be here in KSA, rather we will take the fight to Tehran"

Considering all the cancelled projects and now rolling back all the tough talk, it becomes difficult not to classify Saudi as an unreliable partner both economically and politically.

Hopefully they will course correct.

[Hussain Abdul-Hussain @hahussain]

By not responding to Iran attacks, Saudi Arabia foiled an ISRAELI scheme to start war between Riyadh and Tehran and destroy the region at the cost of thousands of Saudi lives, in a race in which the Saudis had no dog, according to the king's nephew and former intel chief and Amb to DC Turki al-Faisal.

It was the stupid Arab voices in Western media that questioned the kingdom's brilliant policy of not responding to Iran, which Turki calls "this is how Muhammad Bin Salman [MBS} succeeded."

Saudi losses are in the billions of dollars. Saudi oil facilities that Iran hit include:
- SAMREF refinery in Yanbu
- Khurais and Manifa oil-production facilities
- Ju’aymah gas-processing
- The East-West pipeline (Petroline)

So Saudi Arabia sends its air force after a poor Yemenite called Aidarous al-Zubaidi for defying them, but cower in the corner when Iran beats the crap out of them, and blame "Arab voices in Western media" for being the evil people who are trying to make Saudi Arabia fall for the nefarious Israeli plan to destroy the region.

This is not wise Saudi policy or leadership. This is cowardice and abandoning of responsibility, hoping that others will do Saudi Arabia's job for it.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

The irony behind this type of posturing is that while it seeks to portray an aura of strength and to show the world that the regime can still continue fighting. But facts don’t care about your posturing or your ideology, Irans regime is severely weakened and all this fake posturing does is create an incentive to permanently eliminate this regime once and for all.

[ابراهیم عزیزی @Ebrahimazizi33]

We warn governments, including microstates like Bahrain, that siding with the U.S.-backed resolution will bring severe consequences.
The Strait of Hormuz is a vital lifeline; do not risk closing it on yourselves FOREVER.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

The revolution was triggered because of taxes. By changing the history, she is trying to create a historical precedent that doesn't exist to justify her policies. The reason she needs to do that is because in the grand scheme of human history Marxism/Socialism can never give us a single successful example of taxing a society to a better standard of living.

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

@ProfessorPape The ‘Ocean Koi’ is part of Irans shadow fleet.

Meaning, Iran just raided their own ship.

@grok please verify my claims

[Nasser @Nassersnotes]

@libsoftiktok @grok is this true or misleading ?