> A children's block game is not going to help us build nukes or anything, so the sanctions excuse doesn't make sense especially since I already own it.
While I agree with that sentiment, and while I admit that I don't know exactly what the sanctions entail, it is quite possible that this is a legal compliance issue and not strictly Microsoft's doing. And of course it could also be a "better safe than sorry" policy when it comes to legal compliance.
It's not all about preventing the creation of nuclear weapons. It's also about making sure the common person in $SANCTIONED_COUNTRY feels the pain. User UncleEntity says it better than I could in a comment that is buried a few levels:
Iran is one of those dictatorships where the majority of the population already dislikes (or plain hates) the government, as we have seen in many demonstrations that have been extinguished through use of extreme violence by the regime.
Making life more difficult for ordinary Iranians isn't going to change anything as long as the army and revolutionary guard stay loyal to the criminals in power.
> Iran is one of those dictatorships where the majority of the population already dislikes (or plain hates) the government...
Right, just like the people of Afghanistan must have hated so much the Taliban, with their cruel and tyrannic grip on power... just waiting for a saviour like the Americans to bring them up to the modern age...
Well, we all know that's a load of bullshit now. The very moment the Americans left, without resistance of any kind, the Taliban is back. This happens again and again, in country after country, but people still seem to forget (or not even be aware of anything happening) and think everyone in the world wants to be like them, and when those in faraway places are not behaving like themselves it must be because they're being forcibly coerced by some maleficent dictator or some other imaginary villain.
Things are not black and white. Sure, some people in Iran would love a more West-friendly regime, but almost certainly, most would be horrified if their government suddenly started implementing laws to guarantee freedom of speech, legalize abort, separate state and religion, allow same-sex marriage and sex change operations, and a whole lot of stuff that's only preached by the West and is not at all accepted as good by most of the other cultures in the world... can't people just accept that not everyone thinks the same or want to be the same as themselves?? That goes against the Western's own modern values of being accepting of differences and not trying to submit other cultures to our own values and believes.
I don't think this is what they were saying. The political and economic state in Iran is about as far from Afghanistan as possible. Iran/Persia has a long history of national identity and has a highly organized society. Afghanistan is a tribal region and still does not have a sense of nation or really a mature sense of political identity. Iran is also a major power player in Asia with a far stronger economy, with a GDP in the top quartile in the world, and with one of the best performing stock exchanges in Asia in the last decade, while Afghanistan has for many years been the poorest country in Asia.
That said, Iran has a political structure that owes little to no obedience to the will of the people, with a non-elected supreme leader and guardian council (half of which are appointed by the supreme leader) who have the final say in all political decisions, so the actions of Iran should not be mistaken as the will of the people, even in the loose sense that representative democracies are.
Very valid points. But how would you be able to tell whether the majority of Iranians aren't happy with their Government with confidence?
I find that difficult to believe because, if that were the case, at some point, specially because of all the reasons you mentioned, the people would just get over it and kick the current Government out of office for good?! It may be bloody, but if the people really want it, it's not unreasonable to assume, IMHO, that the military would be onboard with it?? Once the military is on board, there's nothing the politicians and cleric can do to stop it as in a revolution, the only thing that matters is physical power.
IRI is likely in control of IRGC at this point. They summoned ambassadors the other week with FM completely out of the loop! The revolutionary courts just ignored the supreme court's judgment and sentenced Toomaj Salahi -- a rap artist that expressed the voice of the people in his dissident songs -- to death.
Many people in Iran hate their government, but they hate America more. At least the Iranian government always pulls out a “Death to America” rally as a distraction whenever it’s ion the rocks popularity wise. Internal protests show some discord, but it isn’t clear if that’s just cities and the government is still popular in more rural areas.
Maybe the population hates the dictatorship in the same way that pretty much every country hates their government.
Does that mean that they would cheer for a western take over of their land and economy?
It seems pretty damn unjust to indiscriminately punish people (the Iranian citizens) who may or may not even agree with what the government is doing and certainly have no power to change it in any case. Unfortunately I, too, have no power over my government or else I would lean on them to stop making life worse for people who did nothing wrong.
Yeah, it sucks. The only silver lining I see is that it seems this is the alternative to war, in which case people would be indiscriminately enlisted and killed. Maybe things wouldn't go that far either way but it's all I can think of.
Look at how well sanctions worked on Russia. /s. They sure backfired. Especially the USD based sanctions. The idiots who thought them up managed to do more harm to the U.S. than Russia with them. Just go ahead and send in real troops already. At this point, it’ll be better for the US economy and Ukraine.
Putin claims the US already pays mercenary forces from the U.S, UKraine, and elsewhere already. He also makes the claim that “talk about Russia using a nuke is just U.S. propaganda” from the government to gather consent from the general population to raise taxes.
It might be better, though, to keep open communication channels between average people in the two nations. The more you isolate people in $SANCTIONED_COUNTRY the more they get their information filtered by those in power. Iran is likely perfectly happy that Iranians have been cut off from Minecraft.
> It's also about making sure the common person in $SANCTIONED_COUNTRY feels the pain.
This is exactly it - otherwise the populace can just ignore their government's foreign policy decisions. There's consequences for being a bad actor on the global stage... and today that means no more Minecraft, of all things.
Perhaps the OP can write a letter to their representative and pressure them to work on easing sanctions...
Which is why I'm surprised the response is "sanctions" and not topple the government and install western democracy. It's what the countries imposing the sanctions want to happen anyway.
There's so much historical precedent for this working. If a consortium of Western militaries show up and say "join us fighting against your government or when we win you'll be killed/exiled as a traitor" the population will flip immediately.
It's not as if we don't do this already, we just quietly orchestrate violent revolutions and install people loyal to the west. This method would at least be more honest about it.
What historical precedent? Just in the last 3 decades you had afghanistan, iraq, libya and (ongoing) syria in the middle east alone showing how horrific the consequences of this type of meddling are.
> It's what the countries imposing the sanctions want to happen anyway.
Perhaps that's what the countries wish would happen - but there's dictatorships all around the world that don't enjoy the pointy end of the international community's proverbial sanction stick.
Iran simply has to stop being an international nuisance and people would happily return to doing business there.
In the past decade, we've had two US Administrations that desperately sought to warm relations with Iran. Ball is/was in Iran's court, and so far they keep forcing people to punish them...
These aren't really consequences for being a bad actor on the global stage, these are consequences for being deemed a threat to the interests of the military superpowers and their close allies, this is a very important distinction.
The interests might at times be veiled under a discourse of "rights" or "democracy" or whatever and at times this discourse might even be valid, however the underlying reasoning for it rarely lies there as the kings and his friends are free to do whatever they please.
Their government says that America is an evil spiteful bully. The apparent truth of that claim has now been demonstrated to any Iranian who plays Minecraft. You think the result is more Iranians questioning their government? I doubt it.
There are plenty of Iranians alive today that were around before the current Iranian government. Iranian youth are also much more "aware" of global politics than any generation before them...
I think it's difficult for most Iranians to not be aware of their government's decisions and actions around the globe...
Besides - what alternative would you propose? Just pretend everything is ok and business as usual? Bomb their government instead of using sanctions?
I would suggest creating sanctions that hurt those in power, meaning mainly old bearded men who probably don't play Minecraft. Ordinary people have no power to change anything over there, they get shot if they try.
I applaud sanctions because this time Iran simply went too far. It is completely unprecedented that Iran bombed the consulate if Israel. This is an incredibly reckless escalation of violence.
so lets get this straight, in your opinion, it's better for a state to fund a non state actor and direct them to do terrorist activities, than for the state to do it itself?
i.e. the terrorism should be condemned but the state sponsor of the terrorism has clean hands.
I'd argue just the opposite, the state sponsor of terrorism is actually worse than a state that takes action itself and doesn't delegate it to a 3rd party.
b) consulates are not military bases, so unclear why there was a meeting of Iranian Revolutionary Guard in that building if it was a consulate as you said.
c) It wasn't in Iranian territory
d) Iran is trying to build Syria as a base to attack Israel
e) Israel hasn't fired 300+ ballistic and cruise missiles in the Syria attack. The scale of the Iranian attack is absolutely enormous.
I'm sure these children, who just lost their beloved game character and in-game creations, are going to get right on the task of pressuring their government.
Not all wine and cheese is imported.
+ lack of imported wine or cheese should --eventually-- boost the appearance of local alternatives
+ lack of foreign video games? I don't think it's a cornerstone of the economy the way foodstuffs are. Will a local-grown alternative appear? Maybe; that depends on the local priorities and capabilities.
They also appear to be banning the country, not the people. People cannot play from Iran, but Iranians apparently remain free to play the game while outside the country. That suggests it is something to do with the provision of network services to Iran IPs rather than anything about the game itself being/sold used by Iranians.
If this was the case, wouldn't the VPN work? Reddit OP said that it didn't.
> Even VPN doesn't work. Because Microsoft has linked Minecraft to your Microsoft account and it's hardcoded into it that I am iranian. I tried VPN, and it still said it's banned in my country.
From my experience with and in Iran: every western sanction leads to more products and services from China. Life becomes a bit more difficult, yes. But the government does what it wants to do. And China essentially takes over the economy. At the expense of the West. Is the Western behavior wise? I do not know. Sometimes, I hear a "boom" in the air, coming from far away. Those are the bottles of champagne that Chinese entrepreneurs open to celebrate new sanctions on Iran.
So Roblox will take Minecrafts place? Trying to remember if they were Chinese owned. Theres definitely plenty of open source knock offs that are just as good.
First, sanctions on Iran have zero to do with its authoritarian government - the US has no problem selling to authoritarian governments - but rather the geopolitical conflict stemming from a slew of lovely US actions such as overthrowing the democratically elected leader of Iran and installing a repressive and brutal dictator which destabilized the country to a degree that the events of 1979 and after were possible.
The efficacy of economic sanctions is complicated and debated, but one can absolutely say there is little compelling evidence that they result in positive outcomes for anybody.
The U.S. funded and actively supported Saddam. We don’t mind trading with and funding dictators so long as they are our dictator. That said, the IRGC deserves to be eliminated and it is OK to sanction Iran.
The petty dictatorships are forming their own trading club: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea.
The combination of shallow + inflammatory on divisive topics is guaranteed to make HN discussion worse, at least for its intended purpose, which is curious conversation.
This was the reason why Cuba was kept out of the “organizations of Americas”. When they finally let this stupid reasoning go, it was too late. And Cuba was no longer interested in being part of the org.
Democracy is a doorstop for foreign enterprises and influence. The locals suffer.
That's not a dictatorship. It's a leader without powers to make laws. The leader makes decrees. And the leader is selected by a small council. It is akin to the monarchy in Britain.
Have a look at Wikipedia -- there can be a small group of people who are the dictators, doesn't have to be just one:
"A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no limitations."
It seems that most of the world (population- and GDP-wise) is drifting towards authoritarian rule with immutable Dear Leader. Russia, then Turkey, then China, India is arguably getting there too. You're placing Iran in the same bucket. Maghreb countries? Middle East? Central Asia?
As far as dictatorships go, Iran actually has some political life.
That would eventually make your position untenable.
Then you need a part which is only produced in China, or a chemical compound which is only produced in India, or you need a plane ride and it has titanium parts from Russia?
I expect a significant change of tone once you need to change your own usage patterns because of your principles. Or a straight out "fight dictatorships, but only when it's convenient".
I would be happy to see a long-term plan to phase out trade with China. Of course that couldn't change from one day to the next, but I wouldn't mind a plan to phase out trade with countries like China.
America doesn't care whether a country is a democracy or a dictatorship. Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship and America does business with them, even sells them weapons to murder Yemenis with. Iran was a democracy but America and the UK deliberately undid that.
In some ways that makes it worse. When Hamas abuses the population we can at least say that the majority of people have never had a chance to vote for anyone else. In contrast the Israelis chose Bibi. This is what the majority of the population wants.
Isn't there some form of governance that chose Hamas as leaders? I might not understand the distinction from how Gaza is governed vs. Israel though.
I'm also curious if the motivation for abuses as call it matters. I think there was some significant event that Hamas coordinated that then prompted a response from Israel?
A country doesn't become a dictatorship simply because not everyone is allowed to vote in elections. The US used to require land ownership to vote, then women weren't able to vote, and even now felons can't vote (at least in some states). None of those things meant that the US was or is a dictatorship.
I'm not saying "everything is just fine over in Israel". But the original context was about not trading with dictatorships, which Israel is not.
Yes, just like apartheid SA had free and fair elections.
Palestinians have no rights in their homeland, Israel invaded it and every time they take more land they simply claim the original occupants aren’t part of the country their home is/was in.
There's a lot to say about Israel, but what you said isn't true.
Israel didn't "invade" the land. Jews moved into the land legally, and then the rulers of the land at the time gave it to the UN to recommend what to do with it, given that there were two peoples there. The UN recommended splitting it into two parts, one for each people (the Arabs and the Jews). The Jews agreed to this plan, the Arabs didn't. The Jews then declared independence, and other Arab countries launched a war on Israel, urging the current Arab inhabitants of that land to flee, and return when the land is taken away from the Jews.
Some of the original Arab inhabitants fled (there are massive debates on whether they fled because of the urging of the Arab leaders, or out of fear). When Israel won the war, these original inhabitants were unable to return.
Other Arab inhabitants of that land stayed, and they and their descendants are now Israeli citizens, that have full rights and can vote just like any other citizen (Arab Israelis make up 20% of Israel).
So:
> Palestinians have no rights in their homeland,
Not true. 20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinians.
> Israel invaded [their homeland]
No, Israel didn't exist, and the Jews who came to Palestine weren't "invading" anything, they arrived legally for the most part (and many were turned away, even during the Holocaust, and ended up dying).
It would be up to Microsoft to say why they did it. It's probably buried somewhere in the sanction documents. [1] If Microsoft are complying with a sanction then perhaps they may have issues getting a refund, but could at least open a ticket to get an answer if they have not already. Maybe there is a corporate lawyer on here with experience in this matter?
I think the bigger point is that software you pay for, which requires a bannable login to use even the offline component, should not be allowed to exist.
It's possible to comply with sanctions and offer some services to people in Iran. It's been a while since I read the text, but I'd expect purchases and refunds are difficult, but allowing login should be ok in theory.
On the other hand, actually doing it is a lot of compliance work, and some hosts block traffic to Iran by default. Could be that something changed in the hosting and it's going to take attention and time to get it back to opened up. Microsoft should know better, but...
Sanctions sometimes ban providing services to people in countries.
Apparently Minecraft requires you to login (a service) to use the game. If the game was completely offline this wouldn't be a problem.
Barely a week goes by without some variant of "Iranian Hackers" in the tech/security press - maybe, inshallah, they could release a version that lets you play on Iran-hosted servers without needing to connect to the US for a login?
No, they don't need a 'new' client for that. That already exists. Since minecraft is basically open source, it's not really a secret that how to make a client that simply don't require login. (Surely you don't want to say it loud or legal team of MS is going to chase you hard, but lots of client just slip that function in silently)
Besides that.
The minecraft login is basically a license check allow you to join 'legal purchase required' server. And whether you want to enable the enforcement is up to server owner.
Open source means the developers release the source code willingly and encourage other people to use it. Minecraft is not now and never has been open source.
Minecraft is not an online game, it has a multi-player option sure.. but it doesn't strictly need to be online. There is a single-player mode since basically forever..
I'm not arguing your point, but this is the general state of gaming today. A significant portion of "single player only" games require you to be online, contain "online" content, and access to the game can/will be effectively removed when servers/services go offline.
It's a sad state of affairs that you can buy an offline game, and then the developer/publisher can push out an update that turns it into an online game and then disables your access to it
Half the point of sanctions is making the life of average people difficult so the leaders fear them revolting over not being able to play a game or, you know, feeding their children.
The other half is to reduce their ability to wage war on their neighbors.
Either way, the leaders are still sipping wine and eating cheese.
Honest question; has that ever worked? Cause I could see it just as easily weaponised by a sanctioned state to cause one to dislike "the west" more. Would you be more likely to overthrow your government when other governments start making your life more difficult?
You can use the US embargo on Cuba as a case study -- see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJETjgJM-Q4. The conclusion is roughly that the sanctions did not work, they only strengthened Cuba's relationship with the Soviet Union, as well as serving to unite the citizens of Cuba against a common enemy and thus consolidating support for Fidel Castro. Another comment makes the same point about Iran and China today
Sanctions may be a very weak measure when it comes to inciting revolutions. But in general, yes, sanctions against non-military goods do work to change the minds of greedy leaderships if they can be tailored to remove a sufficient part of their income. However, that is not always the case, e.g. in Iran it is rather a measure of the "we are doing as much as we can, more than sternly worded letters, less than violence or war".
> But in general, yes, sanctions against non-military goods do work to change the minds of greedy leaderships if they can be tailored to remove a sufficient part of their income.
Why are they not working to bring about regime changes in Russia and Iran, and why did they not work to bring about regime change in Cuba and Iraq?
Even for a moderately tech-savvy person, finding a usable crack of the most popular game ever is a treacherous task. Sailing the high seas as a layman is as risky today as it has ever been, especially after so many old hats (kickass, rarbg, etc.) have been decapitated by law enforcement.
The most effective anti-piracy tool today is to prevent communities from actually earning trust and moderating content trackers.
Minecraft is likely one of the easiest popular games to find a crack for in existence. You just Google "reddit Minecraft cracked launcher" and you'll find the popular choices.
Of course, you'll only be able to play on servers that do not authenticate accounts this way.
> Yes, but what are the chances the one you choose comes with malware?
These aren't 10 download, unknown group uploads. These launchers are used by thousands of people, and if you just go to the one with hundreds of upvotes on reddit it's the same risk as downloading any other kind of non-billion-dollar-company software.
Cracked minecraft clients have been around for over a decade at this point, and third-party minecraft launchers are not a niche thing at all. Compromises have happened, but that's not unique to Minecraft.
> Think of it this way: if I want to spread malware, what better way than a cracked Minecraft launcher?
Fake leaked songs, videos, new video games, Roblox/Fortnite in-game currency generators, video streaming sites with malware ads...
The abundance of pirated software and the absence of international copyright law in Iran makes it difficulat to argue for free software over there. As a free software enthusiast it made me always somewhat sad, when I used to live there.
AFAIK, you still can play offline with alternative launchers like Prism Launcher (you need an account to do the initial setup and download, but once everything is downloaded, you can add as many offline accounts as you want), and the downloadable server still has a "do not validate the accounts online" option which allows offline users to connect and play.
Not the most approachable option, but you can also setup a mod dev workspace and launch that way. Or download and launch the game directly with a `java -jar ...` comand.
Good thing Java edition is a trivial game to pirate. Microsoft stole my legit copy of the game by demanding I sign up for a Microsoft account and accept a new TOS. So I downloaded a third party launcher and commented out the account verification code. There are also prebuilt "cracked" clients of course.
Pirate servers with friends is more fun anyway, people can change their nicknames on a whim as they can on IRC/discord. And you don't have to worry about the built-in snitchware banning you for talking shit with your bros, or daring to be born in a country the state department is mad at.
One side effect of such bans is that when something stops working in Iran, you can't easily figure out whether it is blocked by the operators inside the country, or by the operators outside the country...
Instead of actually doing anything serious about the regime, they have chosen to do meaningless stuff that only strengthens the military dictatorship regime. I wonder what kickbacks the politicians get from literally helping them.
Im not blaming microsoft, im blaming the leadership and their half-assed policies. They are forcing microsoft to have there meaningless sanctions blocking minecraft for example
"Inclusive" really just means "we are going to make sure to include people we have no problem with". As Scott Alexander eloquently put it in his essay "I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outrgroup", this is because people's actual outgroup isn't the ones they are being "inclusive" to. Human nature hasn't changed, sadly.
I don’t play Minecraft, but I’ve noticed that there are plenty of what appear to be open source Minecraft clients and servers. Presumably one could connect an open source client to an open source server without any particular involvement from MS. It’s not even immediately obvious that doing so would infringe on any of MS’s rights.
So why do people, especially in places like Iran, use Microsoft’s Minecraft implementation? Is it just ease of use?
I had my children playing one of the open source Minecraft clones for a few years, but after they saw all their friends playing Minecraft, they wanted the "real thing". It's not exactly the same game, and don't discount the value of shared experience with other people. Minecraft is as much about the community that you play with, and it's hard to get people to play an open source clone that sits in this uncanny valley of looking and playing just a little bit different than Minecraft.
Also, the open source versions are usually MineTest based, which is less a game, and more an engine that you add mods to to make your minecraft. That's another added layer of complexity to deter beginners, even if more advanced players enjoy the freedom for customization
The obvious answer is that either you eat it up and build an Iranian community based on the OSS thing, or use a VPN and conceal your connection to Iran.
Just to clarify, no it isn’t theft. For most games and software that cost money, you never really buy it, but rather you’re buying a license to use it, with strings attached for rules on the possibility of being banned, of which there is usually some vague, overarching “if the company feels like it” or “if the government asks us to” clause.
Not saying that this is the way it should be, but at least read the ToS before agreeing to it.
It is known and at least somewhat documented that some criminal organizations have used video games "for children" for communication. US intelligence agencies see multi-player video games as a way for terrorists to communicate, so it makes sense they would sanction if that's their fear.
I've been pretty concerned about Microsoft since their quality is low and their customer service is AOL tier.
My kid loves minecraft, I've made some cool worlds, my wife is/was into it. I have realized that everything ends, and I think Minecraft is going to end before and of us 3. It has got to be Greed at this point? Minecraft becomes p2p or similar.
I'm really hoping the FOSS variants can catch up before its too late.
Minecraft is a psyop platform used to cultivate certain personality types, to be exploited by other organizations that buy the data. Many intelligence organizations built them specifically to use them for recruiting tools. Iran being blocked suggests to me that the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence was using it too...
So... when my daughter is building a train track and a house in the game, what specifically is the psychological effect that the intelligence services want?
While I agree with that sentiment, and while I admit that I don't know exactly what the sanctions entail, it is quite possible that this is a legal compliance issue and not strictly Microsoft's doing. And of course it could also be a "better safe than sorry" policy when it comes to legal compliance.