Are we all fucked?

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Just regarding the timeline of things, reports state that the US first struck a desalination plant in Iran, a day before the latter struck one in Bahrain. Dangerous game all round.

[Bürggermeister]

An interesting insight on matters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl-sSsZnSP8

[Yung Led Zeppelin]

Thanks again Israel and USA, that's great, we all need this, great work freeing Iran

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-us-israel-war-news-2026

[The Butcher]

This post could have gone into the random thoughts thread but felt more appropriate to be in here. Bare with my strings of thought 

Iran war continues for a month - energy crisis builds - Europe past month have been taking Russian shadow oil fleet tankers, same with India with Iranian ones, America with Venezuelan ones.

Hard to see how the war ends - does Trump just say under pressure in 1-2 weeks time "That's it, we won." Doesn't Iran, with whatever is left of lower levels of leaders who are more than likely extremists just take a firm stance like "ok, we need a nuke asap." Trump will be told this is the likely path that the remaining Iranian gov will speedrun to having a nuke so Trump will be told that they should be encouraging the Iranian people to strike and takeover....but that prolongs the whole war meaning oil and world recession/depression, a good chance that it's going to be a whole lot worse than the 1970s. Inflation has potential to be massive - economies could literally stop - I see Thailand and somewhere are already making WFH mandatory to try lessen fuel demand. Some places already dry.

Iran in recent days are starting to target desalination plants - Bahrain apparently depend on desalination plants for 85% of their water. UAE/Kuwait it's 90%.  If Iran smash enough of these plants - 10s of millions with no water - you are talking mass migration influx into Europe akin to 2015. Also thinking globalisation will eventually fail by around 2040-2050 timeframe (due to demographics across the world) - this could help speed that process up.

Anyway...pretty sure we are all fucked...or am I just a complete rambling fool? 

Just to add to this - Iran can still broadcast where they will hit in advance and still hit it - and their attacks are increasing in the past 2 days compared to the low ebb of last week - most likely due to the main leadership being smashed up / lack of orders + command & control etc

For the US to control the straits they would need a lot of firepower + anti drone / counter measures - I'm just not sure that's there. Trump would take a lot of heat if one of their main ships got hit. Troops on the ground to me seem like a bad bad idea - again considering the drone modern warfare - see Ukraine/Russian war.

Concerned about future food prices but at least compared to the 70s the supply lines have more redundancy in them but fertiliser shortages will impact food prices. Seems like a turning point that hasnt yet been decided. At any point Iran could collapse, depends how deep rooted Islamic is and the leadership left but at the moment - doesn't seem likely. Afghanistan was 10 weeks and they were weak in comparison to the Iranians - all points to a prolonged war to me. Serious economic hit on the cards...jobs are going to get dodgy. This could turn ugly fast, prepare properly for that scenario, that's all I'll say.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

For the proper geeks among ye, a computational neuroscientist mate has been digging into the Claude code leak:
https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/116325668039992121

[Mooncat]

For the proper geeks among ye, a computational neuroscientist mate has been digging into the Claude code leak:
https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/116325668039992121

Just goes to show what a house of cards everything is built on 

For further tech geekery, there's been some weird stuff happening of late. The story about human braincells in a petri dish being trained to play Doom has been around for a bit now, but they've also managed to upload a fly into a computer. The fly is in the matrix...

Here's an article that mentions both https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/mar/16/petri-dish-brain-cells-playing-doom-cortical-labs

[mickO)))]

I see the hauliers, farmers and construction contractors are planning a big protest for Tuesday due to the Governments refusal to help people during this fuel crises yet they are still giving tax payers money away to other countries.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Let them protest at the US and Israeli embassies.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Or outside the Irish offices of these pricks:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-big-oil-reap-billions-iran-war-windfall-after-month-soaring-energy-2026-03-26/

[Emphyrio]

Loads of petrol stations have run dry around me. Crazy stuff. 

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Is that not just due to protestors blocking depots though? I'd heard there was no shortage on a national level.

[Goosebumples]

Loads of petrol stations have run dry around me. Crazy stuff. 

Aye same here, not too worried about the long run thou as its blockades rather than a genuine shortage I believe. Just spent 20 mins queung at the only one with fuel left, the panic buying was gas. Watched one aul wan spill fuel down the side of her car for a good minute before realising it was full...didnt even know that was possible tbh

[Emphyrio]

Ya, it's the blockade rather than actual shortage but it's almost eerie going to a petrol station and the pumps are all closed off. A weird pre-dystopia feeling.

[Goosebumples]

Ah yeah a bit bizzare alright. The first time I saw it happen was the day before the excise cut kicked in a few weeks ago, the stations around me held off on restocking and were all empty 

Driving through dublin yesterday was quite an experience, I left early and knew what I was getting myself in for so I wasn't annoyed but the general sense of road rage in the air was something else  kinda enjoyed the chaos of it all tbh

[Yung Led Zeppelin]

You cannot tax break your way out of 20% of the world's supply being taken offline, it's going to cost more, simple as that.

I don't see what extra is being achieved by forcing a fuel panic (it's tailed back 500m from the petrol station up the road from my gaff all evening) that couldn't have been achieved by a work stoppage - they are after all as they claim, bringing food and other essentials to the table. Is that not enough leverage? Why the fuck ensure no one else has fuel? Which everyone else is paying more for also?

Of course it will need government intervention to keep delivery infrastructure alive and I do respect them for standing up for their livelihood and trying to get the government to the table from their break during an obvious crisis period, but that's where it ends because I don't see any proper thought on display here that acknowledges the reality that it's just a massive US-Israeli fuckup that has changed material conditions. They can't work for free, they're going to have to charge more, and it's going to affect every single thing.

There's nothing we can do about that simple fact with out current setup of chasing the biggest margins through cheapest and quickest energy source. There is no magic button to press here and I'm not seeing anyone at all even attempt to drive that point home. That's why I don't really support the protests, because it's fundamentally fucking thick. The oil shock hasn't even hit properly yet either, but again, I don't see anyone discussing that seriously, just more hoping for business as usual.