On this day in 1953, the U.S. and British governments initiated a coup d'état against the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had been preparing to nationalize Iran's British-owned oil fields.
Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), later re-named British Petroleum, and to limit the company's control over Iranian oil reserves. When the AIOC refused to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country.
In response, the British began a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically and engaged in subterfuge to undermine Mosaddegh's government.
After considering military action, Britain opted for a coup d’état. President Harry Truman rejected the idea, but when Dwight Eisenhower took over the White House, he ordered the CIA to embark on one of its first covert operations against a foreign government.
The coup was led by an agent named Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. The CIA leaned on a young, insecure Shah to issue a decree dismissing Mossadegh as prime minister. Kermit Roosevelt had help from Norman Schwarzkopf’s father: Norman Schwarzkopf.
The CIA and the British helped to undermine Mossadegh’s government through bribery, libel, and orchestrated riots. Agents posing as communists threatened religious leaders, while the US ambassador lied to the prime minister about alleged attacks on American nationals.
Some 300 people died in firefights in the streets of Tehran.
Mossadegh was overthrown, sentenced to three years in prison followed by house arrest for life.
The crushing of Iran’s first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms. The anti-American backlash that toppled the Shah in 1979 shook the whole region and helped spread Islamic militancy.
After the 1979 revolution President Jimmy Carter allowed the deposed Shah into the U.S. Fearing the Shah would be sent back to take over Iran as he had been in 1953, Iranian militants took over the U.S. embassy–where the 1953 coup was staged–and held hundreds hostage.
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Overheard a snippet of phone conversation from one of my coworkers today:
"Obama being president, Kobe dying in a plane crash, Trump and COVID, that's too many things. That cant be a coincidence."
I desperately want to hear the rest of that conversation 👁️
Humans are really, really, really good at pattern matching. It's vital to language, tool use, our hunting and gathering behaviors, and our flexible ability to solve novel problems.
Unfortunately, evolution being as chaotic and messy as it is, we are often too good at pattern matching, and notice patterns that aren't really there, or aren't significant.
I've heard it said anecdotally that people who score higher on "intelligence" are more prone than others to delusions and false beliefs - Their ability in finding patterns leads them to find patterns that aren't there, and their ability in constructing arguments from evidence leads them to produce good arguments for bad conclusions.
I should note - I do not endorse the idea of general intelligence. I think intelligence, if it's a useful term at all, should be viewed as sets of interlinking skills and abilities. Some people can be strong in one set of abilities, like mathematics, while having limited skills in other abilities, like social interaction or physical dexterity.
I've had a massive internal struggle session about this line of reasoning. Part of what kept me in BJJ for so long was trying to prove to myself that I can "outperform a lazy genius." I've had all sorts of worries for my mental capacity like "the reason this is hard for you is that you're trying to emulate a GameCube game on your N64 hardware. You're not smart enough." It's replete with all the sort of brain worms you might associate with it.
At best, with a love and patience for myself that I wouldn't expect from others, I'd go back to video games for inspiration. I thought I wasn't smart enough to take a medium Cassandra Classic game to the late game where I thought the game would be fun. But the devs themselves talked about how the game is a story simulation and not a metric to be overcome. It was only when I was open to the idea of switching difficulties in the game did it sort of click that I didn't hate Rimworld, just the way I was forcing myself into using it as an IQ test. That moment clicked spiritually for me too. Hardship isn't a result of not being good enough, but part of your story. I was drunk on self-awareness trying to find some fictitious ultimate destination.
Chess is another big game because there's a critical thinking component to it. But for as far as any brain genius is concerned, there's a boat load of studying you need to do and a bit of systemized analysis of the board. You don't just look at your positions raw and make a big calculation. That's what computers do. Human games are lead by discussion, "what is the biggest weakness of my position? What is my opponent threatening? What other games have looked like mine? What does my prep work tell me about this position? Checks, captures, attacks?" It's a skill cultivated by repetition and assimilation of the culture. Having that kind of mind helps, otherwise there wouldn't be a 14 year old gm, but your brain, sans extreme cases, probably wouldn't bar you from a 1500 FIDE rating.
In my experience, not only with games but exposure to other people and situations, the hypothesis of brain power/general intelligence didn't hold up. I think games are a good medium to talk about it with for their critical thinking component. The world of the mind is too large and involved.
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Wild that things happen. Sometimes they happen instead of other things.
Thing to say if someone sees you taking on the phone but doesn't think you saw them.