The thing I feel like is really important to remember whenever thinking about the world and demographics is that most people are Asian. As in more people live in Asia then outside of it. Conversely when a headline or something mentions Asia, it is rare they actually mean the majority of the continent or people living there.
My favorite is when people say they like "asian cuisine" or "asian food". China alone has several distinct cuisines. Why do we act like this is a monolithic concept?
Because there was a lot of cultural cross-contamination between these countries, there is a huge overlap in ingredients due to climate similarities and trade between neighboring countries.
I group European & American food into their respective groups as well.
> Asia rolls out 4-day weeks, WFH to solve fuel cris...
Makes no sense, same with "I'm in a mood for asian food"
> Makes no sense, same with "I'm in a mood for asian food"
Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian food / cuisine even thought different is more probably closer to each other same like e.g. Polish and Spanish is closer to each other than to most other asian cuisine.
Asian countries developed with more overlap in basic ingredients, cooking techniques, and historical influence networks than Europe did. Historically there were 3 influence zones in Asia. There is a lot of pickling, fermenting, salting, drying. In Asia of these techniques were more or less unified. Fish sauces from different countries are Pepsi vs Coca-Cola level of difference.
> Polish and Spanish is closer to each other than to most other asian cuisine.
I'd say Polish has a lot of similarities with Asian cuisine. Sure, both have stews and sausages, but flavor profiles are very different: acidic vs sour.
I won't be able to tell difference between gyoza & wonton if they shaped the same, but surely I can tell difference between ravioli & uszka. Uszka is IMO closer to any dumpling from Asia than to anything European.
It's similar to how people say "Europe does this or that". Basically the part of their thoughts dedicated to that part of the world is so small that all they can afford is a tiny box, and everything has to go in there, reality be damned.
When someone outside of America thinks of American food, do you think they will think of Cajun gumbo, TexMex, Clam Chowder, or something you'd find on the menu at McDonalds?
Because that is how it's presented to "us". If the cuisine that we could access where we live was more diverse, we would think differently about the entire set (which is not happening for another set of entirely good reasons, but alas.)
Especially because it sounds like the Philippines is pushing for a 4 day workweek, but the rest of SEA is asking people to work from home, use less AC, take the stairs…
It's also Vietnam, Thailand, and unofficially Pakistan.
The reality is the bigger Asian nations like China, India, SK, and Japan that worked on building resilient alternatives after the 2022-23 ONG shock due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine aren't as dramatically impacted. The others didn't or were hit by other crises at the same time.
For example, in Pakistan's case, their government raised fuel taxes by around 33% because they didn't meet their IMF loan terms [0] but somehow found $11M to buy a private jet [1] for the CM of Punjab who is also the niece of the PM and the daughter of the former PM and Pakistan is in the middle of a war with Afghanistan [2].
Edit: can't reply
> gas cylinder booking...
The gas cylinder/LPG issue is due to consumer habits - induction and electric stovetops have been available in India for decades, but there has been a cultural aversion to adopting electric.
Even Indian Americans in the US prefer using Gas Stovetops over Electric for cultural reasons (eg. I've had my parents say the "taste" of food is worse on electric instead of gas stovetops despite living here since Clinton was president).
And dhabas and restaurants used to use coal briquettes or kerosene until those were banned in the 2000s-2010s for pollution reasons (much help that did /s) and to promote LNG and CNG, and will most likely revert back to those.
Additionally, India has shifted from Qatari to Omani LNG [3], which was what India was already using before the India-Qatar FTA led to a diplomatic thaw between the two.
It's the same situation in Vietnam as well.
> freight is pretty much fucked
Indian diesel prices are being subsidized and kept constant [4]. That said, this is a good forcing function to begin India's shift to electric trucks.
And freight and passenger rail is already around 98-99% electrified in India [5] which reduces the need for diesel.
> eg. I've had my parents say the "taste" of food is worse on electric instead of gas stovetops
If you are using the cooking technique of "bhunai" [1], which is quite common in South Asian cooking, there is a large difference in food quality you can make with an electric and with a gas stove. Gas stoves are able to provide higher heat at consistent levels, and you can tilt the pot to concentrate heat in one corner to intensify the cooking. So I don't disagree with your parents.
[1] bhunai is when you cook meat with spices at very high heat while rapidly stirring it. I think the willingness to burn the spices during this process is what sets this apart from similar techniques in other cuisines, but I am no expert.
There's currently a gas crisis in India. A country that had a $10 billion investment in an Iranian port to trade oil and gas directly with them, except they decided to become America's bitch and halted the project after American sanctions.
Anyways, everyone's affected - gas cylinder booking requests which usually take a couple of days to fulfill currently have a 30 day period to fulfill in some major cities. Roadside vendors are shutting down temporarily, as are many restaurants.
At least EVs have had a good success rate in adoption, so commuting isn't as much affected. But freight is pretty much fucked.
Again, this is a country that could have gotten a sweetheart deal from Iran, just like China, but apparently decided to become a little bitch.
Poverty doesn’t have the luxury to choose or take moral stands. When a dollar worth oil price fluctuation can lead to thousands going hungry for a day, you as a leader will do everything to avoid catastrophic sanctions.
The benefits of living in an authoritarian state. The CCP says "we will provide for cheap electric trucks" and it happens, no matter if that displaces tens, if not hundreds of thousands of workers in ICE car manufacturers.
I’m living in one of these countries. Abject failure from powers that be to even consider 4-day workweek as an alleviation. Not the first time it happens yet they learn nothing.
Calling Eurasia a continent would make more sense. "Asia" doesn't have a really sensical physical boundary. May as well say Mexico is a different continent from the US just because there's a big cultural and ethnic difference across the border.
The term "North America" almost always means US or US and Canada, hardly ever the technically correct "US, Canada, Mexico" except in things like NAFTA.
And "Central America" often means "Mexico and countries south that speak Spanish" even though LATAM might be a bit closer.
Other nonsensical terminology also existing would imply nothing about the usage of "Asia". That said, I'm not sure I see the same incorrect usage of North America as you do, either.
It's all Asia. Europe is in Asia. Europeans are West Asian. The traditional boundary of the Ural Mountains is a fabricated one. There is no reason to separate Europe out of Asia except for that "people that look like that go over there."
It's a somewhat vaguely defined region. It often excludes India and the Middle East. It always excludes Europe, despite there being no sensible reason to consider them to be two separate continents.
Consider this sentence from the article: "Asia is particularly dependent on oil exports from the Middle East." That's a bizarre statement if you take "Asia" literally. The Middle East is in Asia. Is Saudi Arabia dependent on oil exports from the Middle East? Is Iran?
Yes though Europe is a lot more culturally similar and has a shared government for the most part.
Asia has very distinct countries and in some cases is even at war even if it's a cold one. Like India vs Pakistan, India vs China, North vs South Korea, China vs Taiwan. And customs, languages and (where applicable) religions are more radically different than within Europe too.
It makes less sense calling it "Asia" than it is calling Europe "Europe" :)
At least in the case of "europe" it could refer to the EU (which obviously is not correct because it doesn't encompass all of europe). But when they are talking about "Asia"—what governing body would they even be referring to? It's obviously non-sensical.
> in the case of "europe" it could refer to the EU (which obviously is not correct because it doesn't encompass all of europe)
Not just that. If we get really pedantic, the EU is not only in Europe but includes territories in Africa (parts of Spain) and Asia (the entirety of Cyprus). And that's not even getting into the intercontinental shenanigans of France!
There's no reason for Italy and Iran/Iraq to be pronounced similarly. (Cf India, Illinois, Iowa, Idaho?)
But FWIW, the EYE-rack thing is because GWB (most prominently, but others before and after) intentionally mispronounced the name of the country, in a "real american" kind of way, and also to annoy SAD-dumb Hussein as a kind of "we're stupid but we're going to kill you anyway" kind of psyop. Or maybe just "we disrespect you in advance of killing you"?
Americans of other political persuasions usually pronounce the names correctly.
I've lived in over a dozen states and I've never heard either called anything other than EYE-(ran/raq) in conversation.
The extremely, I mean extremely rare occasion when someone pronounces it differently on TV, it's almost like they get side-eyed by other people as trying to "talk fancy".
It's a common pattern in HN headlines to assign agency to non-US continents and countries. We hear Europe and China doing stuff all the time as well. It's strange.
Isn't that a good deal more reasonable though? China, as a polity, does indeed have agency. It's strange to suggest they don't, as if only America can do things on the world stage.
Sure, the usages aren't all flawed. But it's far more likely to see "Europe" doing something than "US" doing something in the headlines in similar cases, I feel.
Same goes for China, if a couple of companies do something, often in the headline it's just the general "China" doing it. For example we'll see China doing something with EVs whereas for the US we'd see Tesla doing something with EVs.
If someone attributed something to Europe but the only a handful of nations, which didn’t even include the largest ones, were engaging in the behavior, it would also be incorrect.
“Parts of Europe” or “Europe increasingly” etc would be ok (the latter if there was an expected progression of these policies to other European nations).
Europe usually is (inaccurately) used to mean the EU. Even if not, it never seems to include the biggest European country by land area and population (even if you count just the European part of it).
I've long said that WFH is an easy win climate change solution that costs nothing, is well loved by everyone who participates (except management). Turns out in times like this, it's also an energy security measure.
I'm introverted but very glad I have the option of working from the office and being among fellow staff, we also have a lunchtime exercise club once a week. It's much better for my mental health.
In fact, I've added two days working outside of home instead of one because of the benefits. I think 3 days home/2 days office is the sweet spot.
We've been slowly creeping back toward being fully RTO, and my mental health has been in what I can only describe as "steep decline". I don't know if I pin it all on RTO, but it sure isn't helping the situation. I love my job, but hate the in-office requirements - I'm a systems admin.
Sorry to hear that. Being a sysadmin, I guess you're mainly interacting with systems rather than people and need to focus. They should exempt you from RTO except for the odd "all hands" meeting days.
I'm a software engineer in a Product Engineering team and it's about 75% hands-on engineering, 25% Slack/Teams interaction and alignments between people. I find being in the office helps to make connections with other staff in other teams (eg. bumping into people while making coffee in staff kitchen etc). I think thats important from a career perspective.
What's your commute like? There are many aspects to the RTO vs. WFH debate, but having to waste away 1-3 hours a day on the road, coupled with the energy use in the OP, really cancels out the mental health aspects of being in office. It even detracts from the amount of work done.
The London office commute is 30 minutes train and 25 minutes walk. I really like that balance as it gives me sunlight, exercise and fresh air.
I work from a library on the other day, thats a 30 minute drive. I tend to leave before 0700 when the roads are peaceful. My car is pretty fuel efficient, i try to hypermile it and get ~50mpg.
I get that, and a lot of people like to be social with other people. But just because 10% (made up number) like it, there's no reason to force it on the rest of the workforce (not that you are).
I encourage people who are remote but want human contact to rent a desk once a week at a co-working space.
For me personally, I want to do my work as efficiently as possible, in as little time as possible, and then have my social time, which has very little in common with my work and/or colleagues.
I might be an exception, but I get up very, very early and work almost right away, and I don't want to be on a roll and then have to pack up, get in the car at a terrible traffic time where (some) people are driving like animals, hunt for parking and then find a desk. That's a huge _tax_ on my productivity.
But I don't expect or demand that the rest of the world do this.
As a side comment, I would agree with you though, that 2 in the office is better than one. But I also had a very effective pattern around 10 years ago, where I spent 2 days in the office per month, and that worked really well for me (though those days were far, far less productive than my at home work days).
Now, if the world adopted a 32 hour, 4-day work week I would probably be ok with the office 1 day a week.
I love WFH but how is it a win climate change solution for anyone outside of the USA? If my office building WFH, instead of heating a building we need to heat 500 people homes all day. And most of the people commute by public transport.
So 500 people leave for office and turn off the heating at their homes, even if there are other people (kids, elderly) or animals (cats, dogs, birds) living there?
I know it's a meme on HN to say everyone likes WFH, but I (and many but not ICs around me) thrive more in person.
I am 100% more effective in person where I can dev and my desk and bounce ideas off if team mates around me verbally. This can be recreated in a remote environment by having things like a team Discord that folks sit on, but it can feel forced at times (just like communiting to the office I suppose).
My take might be heavily skewed though. I am in games and our environment is highly collaborative.
Yeah, I've always seen it as a hot potato issue. I think a lot of people who don't play ball on dealing with climate change aren't deniers, they just want the next guy to have to do the work. It's very, very hard to sell to anyone, "this is going to be incredibly costly and painful for you and you won't enjoy any of the benefits. Your grandkids might."
Agreed. I care enough about it to sell my car, stop buying stuff I don't need, give up most meat, and live in a small energy efficient house.
However I do know people who really do not care. They may say they care but their actions and voting record show that in fact they don't care (or don't want to make it a real priority). But those same people get very upset when they're stuck in traffic
WFH was great to begin with, but as somebody living alone, the isolation starts to have an effect after a while when you're 'working alone' too
And for many people WFH has other problems - if you're a dual-WFH couple in a small home, lack of home office space is a very real problem. (Although if WFH was a permanent thing, many people could choose less expensive places to live, and have more space)
Still, anything to eliminate a miserable and environmentally wasteful commute.
I would love to have a coworking-space-on-every-block (or in every building) where all the WFHers can go to be around other people (just not the coworkers)
but then again, vehicle miles travelled per-capita has been mostly increasing in the US since as far back as 1975. There could be a lot of confounding factors. Like astronomical housing prices in urban areas forcing people live very far away and incur more VMT at a faster rate than WFH decreases VMT. I'm no expert here, I'm just spitballing.
> is well loved by everyone who participates (except management).
So? The only people who matter are shareholders and their proxies (management). To everyone else: you don't matter as much as you think you do, quit being selfish and be happy you get anything at all. The world doesn't revolve around you.
It's too bad that countries only consider things like this to address a crisis in fuel costs. Why not enact measures like this to curb the pollution and CO2? I guess it says a lot about what humanity truly values.
I worked from home but a few times I needed to go to my parents house during what used to be rush hour. Less than 5% of normal traffic and fuel demand dropped so much that prices were lower.
My job went hybrid in 2022 and then return to office full time last year. Everyone hates it. It's a waste of time and resources.
Less pollution, less traffic means we don't need to use tax revenue to expand roads and less wear and tear means less repairs.
Take it one step further and give tax breaks to businesses that let employees work from home and close physical offices. Then this means less new office construction which can be used for housing to help the housing crisis. It's a win win for everyone except control freak managers.
Global climate change will make much of the world barely habitable, and devastate crop yields. Those living outside "the West" will far and away be the most adversely affected. Reducing CO2 emissions is an urgent global priority.
>Global climate change will make much of the world barely habitable, and devastate crop yields
There's no empirical basis for that statement, the people behind it have been making similar apocalyptic predictions for decades that never materialized, their models have no predictive power.
No it doesn't. That economoic activity when done from home, raises their local neighborhoods now where mom and pop businesses can thrive instead of competing in a costly rental market based on scarcity.
Optimizing performance management and labor cost controls is more important to those making these decisions than climate change. Misaligned incentives.
You can’t collapse countries and humans down to four sentences and conclude that’s what they value. Do you want to analyze the problem or throw quips at the wall?
> Why not enact measures like this to curb the pollution and CO2?
It does seem like a glaring contradiction, but it's actually not. In the West, at least, climate rhetoric is a tool primarily to discipline and control the masses through fear, with actual concern for the climate a distant secondary factor. This is why those elites can cry crocodile tears for the environment while also riding on private jets to private islands and staying mum about intentional environmental disasters caused in the ongoing wars (which they support, of course).
In the current fuel crisis, mandatory WFH is also an attempt to manage populations through controlled demand-destruction, which avoids more volatile forms of demand-destruction that result in unrest, like not being able to afford food.
From an (cynical) governance perspective, there is no contradiction here.
Over My whole life, 5 out of 7 full days of work always felt so daunting and almost dehumanizing.
But 4/7 is mentally close to half and just feels way different qualitatively. If you have a job you mostly like, 4 days a week feels really sustainable.
I've been working 4/10 schedule (4 days, but 10 hours/day, so I still work 40 hours). It's a HUGE perk, and is the biggest thing keeping me at my current job.
Happiest and most productive I've ever been was working 4/10 with a start time at 2 p.m. No morning sluggishness walking into work after lunch, zero-traffic commute, off Fridays so I'd still have a social life far, far away from morning people. Dated a nurse who also worked night shifts and just went on weekday lunch dates or closed down bars.
Long-term planning rarely hooks-up with reality until it's too late. It's abundantly clear "Asia" should spend the remaining 20% of their working week directly on ripping away their dependency on fuel.
My friend actually drives more when we switched to wfh. 10 miles to gym and back. 20-30 miles in misc errands and grocery shopping. Yoga class, kids sports.
Makes sense for short term damage control. However, I think in the medium and long term you end up having productivity hits from such measures.
I know its unpopular to say, but when I have my 2 programmers in office, we get sooo much more done than at home. Someone gets stuck and we don't message/call, we just talk.
Although, if you want to justify WFH, introverted-like people do not get the same level of benefit as extroverted-like people in this situation. The extroverted people will just start talking. The introverted people need to be asked.
I'd like to think that you see "my 2 programmers" as "my team" but I've come to expect phrasing like "when we have our 2 programmers in office". That perspective emphasizes that we're all in this together, rather than serfs working for the benefit of the lord.
The "my programmers" phrasing plays into my prejudice that one reason you like having "your programmers" in office is the exhilaration you feel in seeing them at your beck and call.
Sounds like you don't have a lot of remote work experience.
The majority of my career (years before the pandemic) has been remote work. I find in office work painfully slow. I pair program quite often remote, and when someone gets stuck we also "just talk". Honestly I prefer screen sharing to leaning over someone's shoulder (much easier to doing supporting work in parallel).
I find it really depends on the type of org though. Large corporate places do tend to suffer from remote work because so much of the work is performative anyway. Remote small companies and startups the velocity is very high, but you do need more senior people capable of independent work.
Especially when you factor in the easy of "after hours" work, the amount of emergency stuff I've shipped around midnight is incomparable to the 'in office' equivalent.
Though I suspect the key word here is "my 2 programmers", I find managers don't feel like their doing work unless they're physically watching it get done.
Not understanding how to run a remote team is not the same as remote teams not being effective in principle.
> I know its unpopular to say, but when I have my 2 programmers in office, we get sooo much more done than at home. Someone gets stuck and we don't message/call, we just talk.
The technology exists to "just talk" in high-definition audio and video. If somebody isn't asking for help when they're stuck that's a people problem, not a remote work problem. There are several possible reasons for their avoidance; if multiple people are exhibiting the same behavior it could be cultural (specific to your workplace, not the person's upbringing). Using physical presence to force their hand is curing the symptom, not the underlying cause.
> develop new technology, research culture solutions.
The technology and culture solutions have existed and been evolving for 20 years. It really sounds like your experience with remote work is not representative.
you can just send "hey you got 5 mins"? you have to do that in person. you do that on chat. nothing different. this is a made up reason. I do this all day, everyday
> if you want to justify WFH, introverted-like people do not get the same level of benefit as extroverted-like people in this situation
I'm introverted and did just fine in an office, because the company culture was that coworkers all talked to each other about how they preferred to work (preferably no more often than once a quarter) and then respected that. When we moved to WFH during lockdown, that practice continued.
I've also WFH at remote-first companies that did not practice, encourage, or enforce ICs communicating to find and document better ways to work together, and have not been served remotely as well by the result.
But I also am a bit reluctant to hire introverts for this specific (entry level) job. They will not ask for help to their and my detriment.
Being a bit casual and not making grand claims: I should hire Senior introverts and have them WFH. I should hire entry level extroverts and have them in person.
so you are accepting that you discriminate and acknowledging the in office unfavorably favors extroverts which is what everyone in this thread has been saying.
But would you be more productive in person? I am just describing my experience. In a 4 hour block, people will ask a dozen questions in-person. WFH, I'm lucky to get a single phone call despite begging them to call to ask questions.
I entered the workforce during covid, underwent a return to office mandate only to get a new job that is fully WFH.
I am easily twice as productive in my own hive than I am in the office. The office is full of distractions, noise, it is not as ergonomic as my setup at home and i get to waste 90min a day commuting.
In some very specific instances i see value in going to the office, productivity during everyday work is not among them
Terrible headline. “Asia” isn’t a thing apart from a region on a map. These are separate countries doing their own thing.
Equally annoying is when folks say “Asian” as an ethnicity. That’s glossing over a whole bunch of different countries that have relatively little to do with each other apart from being in the same general area on the planet.
Does this mean that President Trump is the (unexpected) champion of the remote working crowd? Not the hero we need but the hero we deserve, and all that.
Seems to be convention. If you search for "Russian war", the top hit is "Ukraine war", second hit "Ukraine-Russia war". Most results seem to mention both parties but when brevity is needed, the place where it's taking place seems to take priority over the belligerents
Just observing, not saying it's a good or bad linguistic practice
I suspect it’s mostly a naming convention. Wars are often labeled after the territory where the fighting occurs rather than the actors involved. That’s why we say “Ukraine war” or “Iraq war,” even though multiple states may be involved.
In this case, “Iran war” is a bit misleading because the conflict is largely a missile and proxy confrontation affecting several territories (Iran, Israel, and parts of the Gulf), not just one battlefield.
Personally, I find it clearer to name conflicts after the primary actors involved. For example:
Russia–Ukraine war
U.S. & Israel–Iran war
That makes the participants explicit instead of implicitly framing the war around a single country or location.
Point of view. If you are American its the war with Iran. If you are in most other English speaking countries you would go along with that. That said, I have also seen it referred to as "the Middle East war" and one headline calls it "Trump's war".
"Asia" didn't roll out anything. Thailand, Vietnam, The Philippines, and Pakistan rolled out independent measures.
The thing I feel like is really important to remember whenever thinking about the world and demographics is that most people are Asian. As in more people live in Asia then outside of it. Conversely when a headline or something mentions Asia, it is rare they actually mean the majority of the continent or people living there.
Not to mention that people tend to lump Oceania into it too.
My favorite is when people say they like "asian cuisine" or "asian food". China alone has several distinct cuisines. Why do we act like this is a monolithic concept?
Because there was a lot of cultural cross-contamination between these countries, there is a huge overlap in ingredients due to climate similarities and trade between neighboring countries.
I group European & American food into their respective groups as well.
> Asia rolls out 4-day weeks, WFH to solve fuel cris...
Makes no sense, same with "I'm in a mood for asian food"
> Makes no sense, same with "I'm in a mood for asian food"
Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian food / cuisine even thought different is more probably closer to each other same like e.g. Polish and Spanish is closer to each other than to most other asian cuisine.
Asian countries developed with more overlap in basic ingredients, cooking techniques, and historical influence networks than Europe did. Historically there were 3 influence zones in Asia. There is a lot of pickling, fermenting, salting, drying. In Asia of these techniques were more or less unified. Fish sauces from different countries are Pepsi vs Coca-Cola level of difference.
> Polish and Spanish is closer to each other than to most other asian cuisine.
I'd say Polish has a lot of similarities with Asian cuisine. Sure, both have stews and sausages, but flavor profiles are very different: acidic vs sour.
I won't be able to tell difference between gyoza & wonton if they shaped the same, but surely I can tell difference between ravioli & uszka. Uszka is IMO closer to any dumpling from Asia than to anything European.
A lot of the places by me have both a Chinese menu and a Japanese menu. Some even have a Thai menu.
So when you're going out for Asian food, it really is that. No sense in being pedantic here.
I went to a combo thai-chinese place once... Now I want sesame chicken...
It's similar to how people say "Europe does this or that". Basically the part of their thoughts dedicated to that part of the world is so small that all they can afford is a tiny box, and everything has to go in there, reality be damned.
Europe at the very least has one parliament that sometimes passes laws that apply to almost the whole continent
Globally, everyone does this.
When someone outside of America thinks of American food, do you think they will think of Cajun gumbo, TexMex, Clam Chowder, or something you'd find on the menu at McDonalds?
Isn't there a concept of regional cuisine like "Mediterranean cuisine"?
Because that is how it's presented to "us". If the cuisine that we could access where we live was more diverse, we would think differently about the entire set (which is not happening for another set of entirely good reasons, but alas.)
I don't know about that. Japanese food and Thai food have very little in common besides rice. Possibly there is some overlap in curry but not much.
Sure. And most people I knew are able to differentiate between "sushi" and "Thai curry".
Wait until you hear someone talk about "begging the question"
It's too broad a term - it covers too many disparate countries and ends up being like using Americas to refer to Canada and the USA or similar.
I read the headline and assumed it was "Japan and China" but it wasn't.
TBF the entire Western Hemisphere is about the population of China, so it's actually far far worse.
It is quite unclear how big China's population really is; see for example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFbMWq-xvXU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymmaYswXm78
The equivalent term is "The West."
Don't bring Valinor into it.
Just wait for "the Shield of America" too (bleh)
Especially because it sounds like the Philippines is pushing for a 4 day workweek, but the rest of SEA is asking people to work from home, use less AC, take the stairs…
It's also Vietnam, Thailand, and unofficially Pakistan.
The reality is the bigger Asian nations like China, India, SK, and Japan that worked on building resilient alternatives after the 2022-23 ONG shock due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine aren't as dramatically impacted. The others didn't or were hit by other crises at the same time.
For example, in Pakistan's case, their government raised fuel taxes by around 33% because they didn't meet their IMF loan terms [0] but somehow found $11M to buy a private jet [1] for the CM of Punjab who is also the niece of the PM and the daughter of the former PM and Pakistan is in the middle of a war with Afghanistan [2].
Edit: can't reply
> gas cylinder booking...
The gas cylinder/LPG issue is due to consumer habits - induction and electric stovetops have been available in India for decades, but there has been a cultural aversion to adopting electric.
Even Indian Americans in the US prefer using Gas Stovetops over Electric for cultural reasons (eg. I've had my parents say the "taste" of food is worse on electric instead of gas stovetops despite living here since Clinton was president).
And dhabas and restaurants used to use coal briquettes or kerosene until those were banned in the 2000s-2010s for pollution reasons (much help that did /s) and to promote LNG and CNG, and will most likely revert back to those.
Additionally, India has shifted from Qatari to Omani LNG [3], which was what India was already using before the India-Qatar FTA led to a diplomatic thaw between the two.
It's the same situation in Vietnam as well.
> freight is pretty much fucked
Indian diesel prices are being subsidized and kept constant [4]. That said, this is a good forcing function to begin India's shift to electric trucks.
And freight and passenger rail is already around 98-99% electrified in India [5] which reduces the need for diesel.
[0] - https://www.dawn.com/news/1979709
[1] - https://www.arabnews.com/node/26978/pakistan
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Afghanistan%E2%80%93Pakis...
[3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-gail-buys-oman...
[4] - https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/petrol-diesel-prices-to-rema...
[5] - https://infra.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/railways/ind...
> eg. I've had my parents say the "taste" of food is worse on electric instead of gas stovetops
If you are using the cooking technique of "bhunai" [1], which is quite common in South Asian cooking, there is a large difference in food quality you can make with an electric and with a gas stove. Gas stoves are able to provide higher heat at consistent levels, and you can tilt the pot to concentrate heat in one corner to intensify the cooking. So I don't disagree with your parents.
[1] bhunai is when you cook meat with spices at very high heat while rapidly stirring it. I think the willingness to burn the spices during this process is what sets this apart from similar techniques in other cuisines, but I am no expert.
There's currently a gas crisis in India. A country that had a $10 billion investment in an Iranian port to trade oil and gas directly with them, except they decided to become America's bitch and halted the project after American sanctions.
Anyways, everyone's affected - gas cylinder booking requests which usually take a couple of days to fulfill currently have a 30 day period to fulfill in some major cities. Roadside vendors are shutting down temporarily, as are many restaurants.
At least EVs have had a good success rate in adoption, so commuting isn't as much affected. But freight is pretty much fucked.
Again, this is a country that could have gotten a sweetheart deal from Iran, just like China, but apparently decided to become a little bitch.
Poverty doesn’t have the luxury to choose or take moral stands. When a dollar worth oil price fluctuation can lead to thousands going hungry for a day, you as a leader will do everything to avoid catastrophic sanctions.
Freight will eventually go electric as well. It's crazy how fast it's happening in China:
https://www.electrive.com/2026/01/23/year-end-surge-electric...
> It's crazy how fast it's happening in China
The benefits of living in an authoritarian state. The CCP says "we will provide for cheap electric trucks" and it happens, no matter if that displaces tens, if not hundreds of thousands of workers in ICE car manufacturers.
I wish India did this. Millions of copy paste workers, would ease up traffic.
Maybe a better title would say "Asian nations [independently] roll out 4-day weeks, WFH to solve fuel crisis"?
^ "Some" Asian nations.
It's still 5/6 day workweeks in the office in China, India, SK, Japan, HK, and Singapore. Same in the Gulf.
Well, the gulf probably won't be affected? As they can just be supplied by fuel truck or pipeline instead of ship.
I’m living in one of these countries. Abject failure from powers that be to even consider 4-day workweek as an alleviation. Not the first time it happens yet they learn nothing.
not only these, other asian countries are also falling into this fuel crisis.
Right? Weird title.
Right this is a terrible title. An equally bad and catchy title would have been Asia orders people to take stairs instead of elevators.
"Asia" is one of the dumbest archaic misnomers still in use by Western people
What do you call it? It's a continent, right?
Calling Eurasia a continent would make more sense. "Asia" doesn't have a really sensical physical boundary. May as well say Mexico is a different continent from the US just because there's a big cultural and ethnic difference across the border.
The term "North America" almost always means US or US and Canada, hardly ever the technically correct "US, Canada, Mexico" except in things like NAFTA.
And "Central America" often means "Mexico and countries south that speak Spanish" even though LATAM might be a bit closer.
Other nonsensical terminology also existing would imply nothing about the usage of "Asia". That said, I'm not sure I see the same incorrect usage of North America as you do, either.
It's all Asia. Europe is in Asia. Europeans are West Asian. The traditional boundary of the Ural Mountains is a fabricated one. There is no reason to separate Europe out of Asia except for that "people that look like that go over there."
The phrasing and implication is all wrong.
“4-day week, WFH roll-outs in Asia to solve fuel crisis caused by Iran War” is better.
The way they use it is what "Oriental" used to mean: East Asia: Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam etc.
It's a somewhat vaguely defined region. It often excludes India and the Middle East. It always excludes Europe, despite there being no sensible reason to consider them to be two separate continents.
Consider this sentence from the article: "Asia is particularly dependent on oil exports from the Middle East." That's a bizarre statement if you take "Asia" literally. The Middle East is in Asia. Is Saudi Arabia dependent on oil exports from the Middle East? Is Iran?
It's not really that different from "Europe", especially when you listen to Americans talk about "Europe".
Yes though Europe is a lot more culturally similar and has a shared government for the most part.
Asia has very distinct countries and in some cases is even at war even if it's a cold one. Like India vs Pakistan, India vs China, North vs South Korea, China vs Taiwan. And customs, languages and (where applicable) religions are more radically different than within Europe too.
It makes less sense calling it "Asia" than it is calling Europe "Europe" :)
At least in the case of "europe" it could refer to the EU (which obviously is not correct because it doesn't encompass all of europe). But when they are talking about "Asia"—what governing body would they even be referring to? It's obviously non-sensical.
> in the case of "europe" it could refer to the EU (which obviously is not correct because it doesn't encompass all of europe)
Not just that. If we get really pedantic, the EU is not only in Europe but includes territories in Africa (parts of Spain) and Asia (the entirety of Cyprus). And that's not even getting into the intercontinental shenanigans of France!
Can't expect Western media to write well. I saw a funnt reel today. It's Italy to Americans but Eye-ran and Eye-raq...
There's no reason for Italy and Iran/Iraq to be pronounced similarly. (Cf India, Illinois, Iowa, Idaho?)
But FWIW, the EYE-rack thing is because GWB (most prominently, but others before and after) intentionally mispronounced the name of the country, in a "real american" kind of way, and also to annoy SAD-dumb Hussein as a kind of "we're stupid but we're going to kill you anyway" kind of psyop. Or maybe just "we disrespect you in advance of killing you"?
Americans of other political persuasions usually pronounce the names correctly.
I've lived in over a dozen states and I've never heard either called anything other than EYE-(ran/raq) in conversation.
The extremely, I mean extremely rare occasion when someone pronounces it differently on TV, it's almost like they get side-eyed by other people as trying to "talk fancy".
It's a common pattern in HN headlines to assign agency to non-US continents and countries. We hear Europe and China doing stuff all the time as well. It's strange.
Isn't that a good deal more reasonable though? China, as a polity, does indeed have agency. It's strange to suggest they don't, as if only America can do things on the world stage.
Sure, the usages aren't all flawed. But it's far more likely to see "Europe" doing something than "US" doing something in the headlines in similar cases, I feel.
Same goes for China, if a couple of companies do something, often in the headline it's just the general "China" doing it. For example we'll see China doing something with EVs whereas for the US we'd see Tesla doing something with EVs.
If someone attributed something to Europe but the only a handful of nations, which didn’t even include the largest ones, were engaging in the behavior, it would also be incorrect.
“Parts of Europe” or “Europe increasingly” etc would be ok (the latter if there was an expected progression of these policies to other European nations).
This headline is similarly misleading.
Europe usually is (inaccurately) used to mean the EU. Even if not, it never seems to include the biggest European country by land area and population (even if you count just the European part of it).
China is a country so what is the problem there.
I've long said that WFH is an easy win climate change solution that costs nothing, is well loved by everyone who participates (except management). Turns out in times like this, it's also an energy security measure.
I'm introverted but very glad I have the option of working from the office and being among fellow staff, we also have a lunchtime exercise club once a week. It's much better for my mental health.
In fact, I've added two days working outside of home instead of one because of the benefits. I think 3 days home/2 days office is the sweet spot.
We've been slowly creeping back toward being fully RTO, and my mental health has been in what I can only describe as "steep decline". I don't know if I pin it all on RTO, but it sure isn't helping the situation. I love my job, but hate the in-office requirements - I'm a systems admin.
Sorry to hear that. Being a sysadmin, I guess you're mainly interacting with systems rather than people and need to focus. They should exempt you from RTO except for the odd "all hands" meeting days.
I'm a software engineer in a Product Engineering team and it's about 75% hands-on engineering, 25% Slack/Teams interaction and alignments between people. I find being in the office helps to make connections with other staff in other teams (eg. bumping into people while making coffee in staff kitchen etc). I think thats important from a career perspective.
The keywords that you are not saying are "is a sweet spot FOR YOU"
If it is a sweet spot for you fine, I am happy you found it. But DO NOT FORCE all of US who have different sweet spots to meet you at yours.
I don't think GP was forcing anyone to do anything.
Thanks pal, I was not forcing anyone... but I guess my wording made it sound "this applies to everyone!".
I put my comment out there to trigger just this kind of discussion.
Having the option of working from the office is a good thing. It's only being unnecessarily forced to do so that's bad.
What's your commute like? There are many aspects to the RTO vs. WFH debate, but having to waste away 1-3 hours a day on the road, coupled with the energy use in the OP, really cancels out the mental health aspects of being in office. It even detracts from the amount of work done.
The London office commute is 30 minutes train and 25 minutes walk. I really like that balance as it gives me sunlight, exercise and fresh air.
I work from a library on the other day, thats a 30 minute drive. I tend to leave before 0700 when the roads are peaceful. My car is pretty fuel efficient, i try to hypermile it and get ~50mpg.
I get that, and a lot of people like to be social with other people. But just because 10% (made up number) like it, there's no reason to force it on the rest of the workforce (not that you are).
I encourage people who are remote but want human contact to rent a desk once a week at a co-working space.
For me personally, I want to do my work as efficiently as possible, in as little time as possible, and then have my social time, which has very little in common with my work and/or colleagues.
I might be an exception, but I get up very, very early and work almost right away, and I don't want to be on a roll and then have to pack up, get in the car at a terrible traffic time where (some) people are driving like animals, hunt for parking and then find a desk. That's a huge _tax_ on my productivity.
But I don't expect or demand that the rest of the world do this.
As a side comment, I would agree with you though, that 2 in the office is better than one. But I also had a very effective pattern around 10 years ago, where I spent 2 days in the office per month, and that worked really well for me (though those days were far, far less productive than my at home work days).
Now, if the world adopted a 32 hour, 4-day work week I would probably be ok with the office 1 day a week.
I love WFH but how is it a win climate change solution for anyone outside of the USA? If my office building WFH, instead of heating a building we need to heat 500 people homes all day. And most of the people commute by public transport.
So 500 people leave for office and turn off the heating at their homes, even if there are other people (kids, elderly) or animals (cats, dogs, birds) living there?
I know it's a meme on HN to say everyone likes WFH, but I (and many but not ICs around me) thrive more in person.
I am 100% more effective in person where I can dev and my desk and bounce ideas off if team mates around me verbally. This can be recreated in a remote environment by having things like a team Discord that folks sit on, but it can feel forced at times (just like communiting to the office I suppose).
My take might be heavily skewed though. I am in games and our environment is highly collaborative.
and if you're talking to somebody who doesn't care about climate change just substitute "climate change" with "traffic"
In my experience, everybody cares about climate change. A lot of people just don't like the idea of caring about climate change.
But ya, probably best to just call it "traffic" then, and they might be more receptive.
Yeah, I've always seen it as a hot potato issue. I think a lot of people who don't play ball on dealing with climate change aren't deniers, they just want the next guy to have to do the work. It's very, very hard to sell to anyone, "this is going to be incredibly costly and painful for you and you won't enjoy any of the benefits. Your grandkids might."
Agreed. I care enough about it to sell my car, stop buying stuff I don't need, give up most meat, and live in a small energy efficient house.
However I do know people who really do not care. They may say they care but their actions and voting record show that in fact they don't care (or don't want to make it a real priority). But those same people get very upset when they're stuck in traffic
WFH was great to begin with, but as somebody living alone, the isolation starts to have an effect after a while when you're 'working alone' too
And for many people WFH has other problems - if you're a dual-WFH couple in a small home, lack of home office space is a very real problem. (Although if WFH was a permanent thing, many people could choose less expensive places to live, and have more space)
Still, anything to eliminate a miserable and environmentally wasteful commute.
I would love to have a coworking-space-on-every-block (or in every building) where all the WFHers can go to be around other people (just not the coworkers)
I agree, 2 days a week in office is optimal. If they could coordinate which days to reduce traffic then... holy cow dream world.
Don't forget about holders of commercial real estate debt and the owners of commercial real estate and restaurants who depend on foot traffic!
Except driving in the U.S. following the pandemic was significantly higher than driving before the pandemic even though WFH was much higher.
This claim might be true but it’s simply not showing up in the data which suggests that even if true, the effect is probably minor.
but then again, vehicle miles travelled per-capita has been mostly increasing in the US since as far back as 1975. There could be a lot of confounding factors. Like astronomical housing prices in urban areas forcing people live very far away and incur more VMT at a faster rate than WFH decreases VMT. I'm no expert here, I'm just spitballing.
> is well loved by everyone who participates (except management).
So? The only people who matter are shareholders and their proxies (management). To everyone else: you don't matter as much as you think you do, quit being selfish and be happy you get anything at all. The world doesn't revolve around you.
> is well loved by everyone who participates
You don't speak for me :)
I hate it.
It's too bad that countries only consider things like this to address a crisis in fuel costs. Why not enact measures like this to curb the pollution and CO2? I guess it says a lot about what humanity truly values.
We saw how much less pollution there was during the pandemic
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/04/8110190...
I worked from home but a few times I needed to go to my parents house during what used to be rush hour. Less than 5% of normal traffic and fuel demand dropped so much that prices were lower.
My job went hybrid in 2022 and then return to office full time last year. Everyone hates it. It's a waste of time and resources.
Less pollution, less traffic means we don't need to use tax revenue to expand roads and less wear and tear means less repairs.
Take it one step further and give tax breaks to businesses that let employees work from home and close physical offices. Then this means less new office construction which can be used for housing to help the housing crisis. It's a win win for everyone except control freak managers.
Some believe that few organizations are actually real-estate businesses masquerading as tech, restaurant or other types.
For those kind of business having full occupancy is more important than worker productivity.
Because the economic activity which generates pollution and CO2 also raises standards of living and provides for the needs of their societies?
Let me guess, you live in the West and don't need to worry about your family's basic needs being met?
Global climate change will make much of the world barely habitable, and devastate crop yields. Those living outside "the West" will far and away be the most adversely affected. Reducing CO2 emissions is an urgent global priority.
>Global climate change will make much of the world barely habitable, and devastate crop yields
There's no empirical basis for that statement, the people behind it have been making similar apocalyptic predictions for decades that never materialized, their models have no predictive power.
No it doesn't. That economoic activity when done from home, raises their local neighborhoods now where mom and pop businesses can thrive instead of competing in a costly rental market based on scarcity.
One is an immediate impact in your pocket, the other one has an impact lag that you count in years/decades.
Optimizing performance management and labor cost controls is more important to those making these decisions than climate change. Misaligned incentives.
You can’t collapse countries and humans down to four sentences and conclude that’s what they value. Do you want to analyze the problem or throw quips at the wall?
"Leave the petro-billionaires alone!" Seems to be the driving force
Imagine if the world had aggressively invested in renewables at any time in the past ten years!
> Why not enact measures like this to curb the pollution and CO2?
It does seem like a glaring contradiction, but it's actually not. In the West, at least, climate rhetoric is a tool primarily to discipline and control the masses through fear, with actual concern for the climate a distant secondary factor. This is why those elites can cry crocodile tears for the environment while also riding on private jets to private islands and staying mum about intentional environmental disasters caused in the ongoing wars (which they support, of course).
In the current fuel crisis, mandatory WFH is also an attempt to manage populations through controlled demand-destruction, which avoids more volatile forms of demand-destruction that result in unrest, like not being able to afford food.
From an (cynical) governance perspective, there is no contradiction here.
I wish we’d all go to four day work weeks.
Over My whole life, 5 out of 7 full days of work always felt so daunting and almost dehumanizing.
But 4/7 is mentally close to half and just feels way different qualitatively. If you have a job you mostly like, 4 days a week feels really sustainable.
I've been working 4/10 schedule (4 days, but 10 hours/day, so I still work 40 hours). It's a HUGE perk, and is the biggest thing keeping me at my current job.
Care to share how you snagged that?
Happiest and most productive I've ever been was working 4/10 with a start time at 2 p.m. No morning sluggishness walking into work after lunch, zero-traffic commute, off Fridays so I'd still have a social life far, far away from morning people. Dated a nurse who also worked night shifts and just went on weekday lunch dates or closed down bars.
Long-term planning rarely hooks-up with reality until it's too late. It's abundantly clear "Asia" should spend the remaining 20% of their working week directly on ripping away their dependency on fuel.
My friend actually drives more when we switched to wfh. 10 miles to gym and back. 20-30 miles in misc errands and grocery shopping. Yoga class, kids sports.
Do they live in an exurb
You could never do this in America because 50x judges would pile on and there'd be 100x lawsuits.
Makes sense for short term damage control. However, I think in the medium and long term you end up having productivity hits from such measures.
I know its unpopular to say, but when I have my 2 programmers in office, we get sooo much more done than at home. Someone gets stuck and we don't message/call, we just talk.
Although, if you want to justify WFH, introverted-like people do not get the same level of benefit as extroverted-like people in this situation. The extroverted people will just start talking. The introverted people need to be asked.
> when I have my 2 programmers in office
I'd like to think that you see "my 2 programmers" as "my team" but I've come to expect phrasing like "when we have our 2 programmers in office". That perspective emphasizes that we're all in this together, rather than serfs working for the benefit of the lord.
The "my programmers" phrasing plays into my prejudice that one reason you like having "your programmers" in office is the exhilaration you feel in seeing them at your beck and call.
Sounds like you don't have a lot of remote work experience.
The majority of my career (years before the pandemic) has been remote work. I find in office work painfully slow. I pair program quite often remote, and when someone gets stuck we also "just talk". Honestly I prefer screen sharing to leaning over someone's shoulder (much easier to doing supporting work in parallel).
I find it really depends on the type of org though. Large corporate places do tend to suffer from remote work because so much of the work is performative anyway. Remote small companies and startups the velocity is very high, but you do need more senior people capable of independent work.
Especially when you factor in the easy of "after hours" work, the amount of emergency stuff I've shipped around midnight is incomparable to the 'in office' equivalent.
Though I suspect the key word here is "my 2 programmers", I find managers don't feel like their doing work unless they're physically watching it get done.
Not understanding how to run a remote team is not the same as remote teams not being effective in principle.
> I know its unpopular to say, but when I have my 2 programmers in office, we get sooo much more done than at home. Someone gets stuck and we don't message/call, we just talk.
The technology exists to "just talk" in high-definition audio and video. If somebody isn't asking for help when they're stuck that's a people problem, not a remote work problem. There are several possible reasons for their avoidance; if multiple people are exhibiting the same behavior it could be cultural (specific to your workplace, not the person's upbringing). Using physical presence to force their hand is curing the symptom, not the underlying cause.
But it gets solved when we are in-person.
We could develop new technology, research culture solutions... or... meet in-person.
> develop new technology, research culture solutions.
The technology and culture solutions have existed and been evolving for 20 years. It really sounds like your experience with remote work is not representative.
you can just send "hey you got 5 mins"? you have to do that in person. you do that on chat. nothing different. this is a made up reason. I do this all day, everyday
I'm the manager. They do not send that message. They either are trying and never giving up, or... doing dishes.
I check in, and it ends up being story time about non-issues.
In person, its a 'hows it going?' and they say either 'good, still working' or 'stuck...'.
I would love if WFH was as effective. I could reduce my labor costs and probably have happier workers.
> if you want to justify WFH, introverted-like people do not get the same level of benefit as extroverted-like people in this situation
I'm introverted and did just fine in an office, because the company culture was that coworkers all talked to each other about how they preferred to work (preferably no more often than once a quarter) and then respected that. When we moved to WFH during lockdown, that practice continued.
I've also WFH at remote-first companies that did not practice, encourage, or enforce ICs communicating to find and document better ways to work together, and have not been served remotely as well by the result.
So you're saying we should only put extroverted people in the office and introverted people get to WFH? ;)
Honestly... maybe... I've thought about this.
But I also am a bit reluctant to hire introverts for this specific (entry level) job. They will not ask for help to their and my detriment.
Being a bit casual and not making grand claims: I should hire Senior introverts and have them WFH. I should hire entry level extroverts and have them in person.
so you are accepting that you discriminate and acknowledging the in office unfavorably favors extroverts which is what everyone in this thread has been saying.
That's not a global issue though - I have people who I have worked with for years, we're highly productive and we've never met in person.
Especially these days where it's soooo easy to chat, video call, share screens, etc.
But would you be more productive in person? I am just describing my experience. In a 4 hour block, people will ask a dozen questions in-person. WFH, I'm lucky to get a single phone call despite begging them to call to ask questions.
I entered the workforce during covid, underwent a return to office mandate only to get a new job that is fully WFH.
I am easily twice as productive in my own hive than I am in the office. The office is full of distractions, noise, it is not as ergonomic as my setup at home and i get to waste 90min a day commuting.
In some very specific instances i see value in going to the office, productivity during everyday work is not among them
I'm not sure that counting "How it's going?" as a productivity stat is the win you think it is.
Sounds like your problem is that management hasn't provided the right tools to be productive.
Go ahead.....
Sounds like a yes and you don't know how to manage.
We're going to get a 6-day work week, aren't we? :(
A better and more accurate title: “4-day week, WFH roll-outs in Asia to solve fuel crisis caused by Iran War”.
The government of asia rolled it out?
"Asia" is about 60% of the total world population.
I just hope they don't hold a grudge.
Terrible headline. “Asia” isn’t a thing apart from a region on a map. These are separate countries doing their own thing.
Equally annoying is when folks say “Asian” as an ethnicity. That’s glossing over a whole bunch of different countries that have relatively little to do with each other apart from being in the same general area on the planet.
Does this mean that President Trump is the (unexpected) champion of the remote working crowd? Not the hero we need but the hero we deserve, and all that.
I love WFH but I'd also rather we not blow up schools.
And all he had to do was make it too expensive to even travel to your usual working location.
Truly the hero we deserve.
Why are they calling it the "Iran war". It's more like the US/Israeli War. Or more specifically, the US/Israeli assault on Iran.
Seems to be convention. If you search for "Russian war", the top hit is "Ukraine war", second hit "Ukraine-Russia war". Most results seem to mention both parties but when brevity is needed, the place where it's taking place seems to take priority over the belligerents
Just observing, not saying it's a good or bad linguistic practice
I suspect it’s mostly a naming convention. Wars are often labeled after the territory where the fighting occurs rather than the actors involved. That’s why we say “Ukraine war” or “Iraq war,” even though multiple states may be involved.
In this case, “Iran war” is a bit misleading because the conflict is largely a missile and proxy confrontation affecting several territories (Iran, Israel, and parts of the Gulf), not just one battlefield.
Personally, I find it clearer to name conflicts after the primary actors involved. For example:
Russia–Ukraine war U.S. & Israel–Iran war
That makes the participants explicit instead of implicitly framing the war around a single country or location.
The US is involved in too many wars to call them all the "US war".
Fair enough. That's a reasonable answer.
Point of view. If you are American its the war with Iran. If you are in most other English speaking countries you would go along with that. That said, I have also seen it referred to as "the Middle East war" and one headline calls it "Trump's war".
I wonder what they call it in Iran?
There’s a special place in hell for people who vocally support working in offices.