January 31, 2026
From blog to brawl
Guest Post from an Iranian
A desperate plea meets blackouts, visa fury, and a comments brawl
TLDR: An Iranian student’s plea about protests, internet blackouts, and lost futures sparked a fiery thread: sympathy for the oppressed, pushback on “bombs-for-democracy,” and a legal/moral clash over punishing officials’ families via visas. It matters because lives and liberties collide with how the world chooses to respond.
An anonymous Iranian’s guest post on Scott Aaronson’s blog landed like a grenade: protests, an 8 PM internet blackout, Starlink labeled “spy gear,” and students missing life‑changing deadlines. The author’s heartbreak over lost PhD chances and sanctions‑era doors slamming shut lit up the comments—and then the fight began.
The loudest chorus: outrage at Iran’s crackdown and sympathy for students crushed by shutdowns. But the thread split fast. One camp, channeling post‑Iraq war skepticism, warned against “bombs-for-democracy” talk—“2003 vibes,” as bink put it—arguing you can’t bomb a country into freedom. Another camp zeroed in on the post’s call‑outs of regime elites’ kids thriving abroad while locals are cut off. That set off a moral firefight: should the world cancel the perks and visas of officials’ families?
User jopsen played hall monitor for reality, noting rule‑of‑law limits: you can’t yank visas just for being related—unless governments name names and pass laws. Meanwhile, a third voice, Drupon, slammed any hint of targeting families as a line crossed—insisting it’s a losing, dehumanizing move. Between the heavy geopolitics, commenters tossed gallows humor about “spy Wi‑Fi” and the “2003 called, it wants its foreign policy back” meme. It’s a raw mix of compassion, caution, and pure internet chaos—exactly the kind of thread that keeps you scrolling.
Key Points
- •An anonymous Iranian guest post describes protests beginning in Tehran on 28 December 2025, driven by economic instability and inflation, and spreading nationwide.
- •The post claims protesters chanted against Ali Khamenei and that government forces killed several protesters.
- •It states Donald Trump said on 3 January that the U.S. would rescue protesters if they were shot, and that Reza Pahlavi called for demonstrations on 8–9 January.
- •Around 8 PM on 8 January, the government allegedly shut down the internet, leaving only Iran’s internal network; authorities reportedly label Starlink users as spies.
- •The author details severe academic impacts from the shutdown and sanctions/travel bans, citing missed deadlines and European screening policies, with a link to an ETH Zurich document.