Turn those lights off!

So I'm weeding our ancient and terrible collection of children's books for the first time in possibly ever, and I'm making a decision about a book about migrant workers by Sandra Weiner, called Small Hands, Big Hands. And I'm not 100% sure and I go to just see if there's anything out there about this book's being notable in any way so I do an open web search for

"small hands big hands weiner"

And then I look at my results for a moment

In mathematics, you often consider the two-dimensional plane - you know, the idealised flat two-dimensional object that extends infinitely - which can be real or complex (doesn't matter what that means)

On this, you can perform a mathematical operation called a "blow-up" (resulting in a more complicated geometry)

I needed to look up a formula related to this, so I confidently typed into the search bar:

"Blow up real plane"

Okay I am prior committing to this being the last of my "how far Tyler Cowen has fallen" posts because at this point it is just punching down; the above is embarrassing levels of him trying to play his Just Asking Questions™ shtick to own the libs without confessing to it. He is implying-without-saying that maybe some kind of war was necessary, in response to Iran launching more strikes in the strait:

But given their reckless behavior in what is supposedly a wonderful war outcome for them, what is the correct way to model what they would have done had Trump and Netanyahu not attacked?

The correct model is they would not be bombing the strait. The thing they did not do for forty years, very reliably, they would have continued not to do.

The terrible things that are happening now, do they not reflect an underlying equilibrium that would have emerged anyway within a few years’ time, or do we hold some hypothesis here of extreme path-dependence, suggesting the Iranian government would have been less bellicose on more or less a permanent basis?

Yes, we do hold that hypothesis! If we didn't try to overthrow their government and murder their leaders, Iran would have done what it had always done for the past 40 years!! Why do I even need say to this??

I certainly agree that the massive militarily escalations before the current war committed by the US and Israel may have changed the balance, sure, but...that isn't proving anything at all. Like. Yeah? That is what countries do sometimes when you bomb them, which we had already done to Iran multiple times!

Also, he has a whole thread on here about how "if the peace deal was so good, why is Iran striking again?" and buddy, we didn't sign it. We haven't signed a treaty! It isn't real! The war isn't over! The US bombed Iran last week!

Iran is not a stable actor by any means, total shitheel government, but there is just no way around the fact that the US is just as unstable. We are a government run by feckless liars, obsessed with fake grievances and weird reputational hang-ups, captive to mercurial domestic politics that could swing at any time. I have no idea how trustworthy the new leadership of Iran - the one we put in power after murdering the old crop of leaders in a surprise attack in the middle of us hosting negotiations with them if you recall - is going to be. Because trust is a two-sided relationship, and it currently has no space to be tested.

They might be unstable, I fully believe that is possible. But that proves none of what Cowen is trying to say here, as he is conflating the current government of Iran with the pre-war one with a level of blase indifference I can only describe as dishonest. And with no argument beyond "hmm maybe?" for his case - a strategy as universally applicable to any point as it is useless in proving them.