CharonY

Is this a serious question? I hope you are aware that this is a sculpture, yes?

From what I have read, this is highly unlikely. Effectively, the Iranian government has deep roots and is not exclusively shaped around specific figures like for example Venezuela. I.e. even if citizens protest (as they did recently) there are multiple systems that can and have suppressed them effectively. Even while some more muted protests are still ongoing, there does not seem a good path for that to get more organized and gain traction. Often, decentralized powers are prone to infighting and self-destabilization. And as a matter of fact, one Iran strategy prior to the US actions, was to simply wait for the last Supreme leader to die as there was a decent chance that the more moderate forces would be able to gain power. This, of course went out of the window after the US attacks. Those attacks had a galvanizing effect on the hardliners and although Ali Khameini himself didn't want his son to succeed him, this is how it turned out. Also, Ali Khamenei was reportedly reluctant to finalize the steps to build nuclear weapons, but the current events have emboldened those in favor of it. In fact, now some see it as a prerequisite to ensure the existence of Iran, which, after the genocidal threats of Trump, unfortunately seems like a rational conclusion.

Good point. Good old Eisenhower, eh?

Maybe, though the question is who can absorb more pain. And even in a collapsed economy, I am not entirely sure what the scenario would look like in which the Iranian government would capitulate. Also, I am wondering how much that would actually change. While Iran had been able to get some revenue from the Strait, I do wonder how much this actually will meaningfully add. Also, would they actually seize Russian, Chinese or Indian ships? There is also a report that Trump wants to block all ports, which seems to be a bit of a tall order (but could also just bluster again). Either way, China will watch that with extreme interest, I am sure.

There is a third possibility. One that is based on a mix of stupidity and dementia, where there the logical calculus is based on what happened 5 minutes ago on Fox News. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to entirely trivialize it, but many of the explanations of decisions on that level generally follow some sort of logical framework that one might follow. Even if it is a value question (e.g. following the tabulation of cost and benefits) there would at least be some foundation for the discussion, even if there are fundamental disagreements. However, the foundation for Trump (less so for Netanyahu) are just not based on reality. I rather think, for example, that Trump did not really understand how tariffs work, and basically once he committed to them, he largely flayed around to see how he can leverages stuff. Perhaps he wanted to initiate a conflict as a distraction from political woes, but his "model" was basically that simply that the weaker one will not do anything to impede the stronger party. After all, that was his personal experience. I sincerely doubt that there was any deeper strategy and he likely simply didn't understand how an inferior party could exact pain by closing the Strait. What might be true with the Go analogy is mostly that he is very reactive. He tends to react in the moment, based on how things appear on media and just goes with it. But Go has an internal logic and you generally don't just mimic what the opponent is doing. Rather, he is demanding that the opponent concedes, without counting the score or even looking at the board.

Honestly, framing it around Go moves make it seem that there is a some sort of standard or acceptable strategic framework. But considering the flailing throughout the operation, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't another spur-of-the-moment decision. "Hey, they are taking the world hostage, why don't we?" The maddening thing is that the US military knew that this was going to happen, but in this case the folks in charge decide to treat it like a literal game. I fear we had a small time frame in human history where we actually took war seriously and as a net negative. Now we get desensitized just by keeping wars going in the background and then even folks like Hegseth glorifying gore and carnage. The dumbest timeline just got a major lobotomy.

To quote a famous strategist and deal-maker: No doubt. I am moderately certain that Trump is strategically not talking to Hegseth so that that one can take the fall. Also a lot of folks apparently were women and people of color, so we can see the true worth of DEI.

Fair. I guess my envy comes from the fact that there many unscrupulous folks out there making money tapping into that. My life would be so much easier if I could just getting paid for making stuff up. Heck, students telling me that with their degree they aspire to become youtubers and influencers is incredibly depressing.

Ain't that convenient, though. "Here is a product that we want to use for all kind of things so that we can train it to be better. However, if there is any liability of any sort that is entirely on you". For sure, that is the strategy of most large companies, but especially tech has been interwoven so strongly with society via things that folks interact daily, such as social media and now AI, so that the reward/harm balance is way out of whack.

He does. And doesn't care. That is the superpower of the new right. I am frankly a bit envious of that ability. There are ongoing EU investigations into interference by Musk/Twitter and other US companies into European election interference (which are not really subtle, considering that Musk virtually joined far-right party rallies). So of course it makes sense for them to characterize the interference with the interference as interference...

Did someone make any bets again just before the announcement? Asking for a friend.

I don't think that a better understanding of the history excuses the atrocities of the current government. What it does explain, however, is deep-rooted support in parts of the population that, at least originally were not based on irrational fanaticism as sometimes characterized. Historically, it led to different power structures within the regime, that were not exclusively tied to one person (like for example in Iraq). Some articles are discussing that Trump might have thought that Iran is pretty much set up like Venezuela, where decapitation could make sense in order to force compliance. But as he learned in real-time, the power structures in Iran actually run deep and the loss of the leader does in fact not cripple the system.

One of the things that folks tend to forget is that the uprising against the Shah was a popular one, and not really one driven by religion (initially). Quite a few folks that would be considered progressives were part of it, in an effort to overthrow the Shah. As part of this alliance, Kohomeini then promised things like equal rights, freedom of expression, democratization and even agreed to ensure that religious leaders wouldn't be in position of political power. Of course, that never happened, and when he realized that he was able to consolidate power, he did. And perhaps different to some other autocracies, who are very much focused on the person, he did create a deep system, that is holding on to power even now. But folks have to recognize how badly folks wanted to get rid of the Shah and it is not simply religious fanaticism that caused and sustained the current regime.

Nothing like threatening/conducting war crimes to hold on to power. Worked for Netanyahu.

While we are at variations on how surnames can be formed, I always found the Spanish one to be fun. There, folks have two surnames, based on the first surname of each parent. This can be interesting if the surnames are composites. Or if Basque names are intermingled, where the surname is based on the father's surname and the family town.

How do you define the "as we know" part? I think the oldest evidence of the custom will likely depend on how long written records have survived. My wild guess is that the development of surnames will coincide with the formation of sufficient large settlements which made it more relevant to distinguish membership to different families and might predate a lot of the written records (those that survived, at least). With regard to the earliest documented surnames, I randomly googled the Uruk period and found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushim_(Uruk_period)

Take away where? The white House is where all the crazies aggregate.

Yes, oxidation in principle is the loss, and reduction the gain of an electron. In biology, iron is often part of an enzymes that are involved in these processes where it switches between Fe(II) to Fe(III). But obviously there area also other types redoxenzymes. The broader point here is that this reaction is not "bad" as asked in OP. Rather they are a biological necessity.

It is not fundamentally bad. Oxidation is merely a chemical process and it also has many important biological functions. For example, we oxidize nutrients to create reducing equivalents so that we can generate energy (via oxidative phosphorylation). Rust requires iron (it is an iron (hydr)oxide. So that is not the issue. What can happen is that during respiration reactive oxygen species are generated. This is mostly due to leakage from the ubiquinon pool as part of the aforementioned oxidative phosphorylation. These species are kind of aggressive and can indeed lead to damages, unless they are dealt with the many mechanisms in cells to neutralize them (e.g. superoxide dismutases, catalases, peroxidases etc.). Nothing. If we stop oxidation, we stop critical biochemical processes and we just die. Not due to oxidation, but because our cells run out of energy (well and other critical processes). Redox reactions are kind of the essentials for metabolism. I mean, yes. Anything that is not made of iron will, by definition, not rust.

Perhaps interestingly, the number of meningitidis cases is also increasing across parts of Canada, in part likely associated with a drop in vaccinations but as with other sporadic outbreaks the precise reasons are usually unknown.

Huh, the URL should have been a hint to me, shouldn't it? Sorry I have been grading and I swear my own ability to read degrades with each student essay I am reading. History FactsWere People in Medieval Times Always Drunk?It’s often said that people during the Middle Ages, a period that lasted from roughly the end of the fifth century through the 15th century, drank beer instead of water because the drinking water at t

This is a rather common myth (I have seen in decades back in Scientific American). Here is an article about it https://historyfacts.com/famous-figures/article/benjamin-franklin-facts/

While I think the distinction might be important, it is also a fair bit more complicated. Both concepts are heavily debated in lit. Instinct, for example, has become a catch-all term in animal behaviour for many aspects that are likely entirely distinct mechanisms. Much of how we understand instinct is based on works of folks like Konrad Lorenz, which were great at its time and immensely influential. However, modern behavioural sciences, especially in conjunction with advances in the area of neurobiology, but also a much more individualized approach to behavioural observation. For example, for a time behaviour like head-scratching in bird was a prime example of instinctual behaviour (IIRC, it was about the crossing of a hindleg over the wing). In early papers parallels were drawn between how birds and other vertebrates do it, suggesting an evolutionary root how this "clumsy" behaviour is established and universal. However, in the 80s there were reports that this behaviour is much less universal, and especially younger birds will use a different method (leg under wing) and that depending on how they perch and where they center of gravity is, they will switch. So starting in 80s there was already some rumbling that things that appeared to be universal behaviour, and thus instinctual might actually be more learned and adapted to situations than originally thought. I have not been doing much research in that particular area, except occasionally grabbing some papers to have a good time, but it seems to me that though has gained massive momentum around the 2010s where behavioral scientist started to work much more individualized with animals, instead of the traditional approach (which I also learned as student) to create broad categories over large populations to make statistical analyses easier. The result was in many animals folks started to find evidence of higher reasoning (though there is bias regarding species being used, such as crows) and that the idea of an instinct has become much more nuanced. And because it is hard to nail down, it is something that (at least the papers I read) is not used anymore, at least in the formerly used way. Rather, it is being framed as a disposition towards certain behaviours, modified by learning (i.e. experience). Now, this is not to say that there are no hardwired-reflexive pathways, but where once animal behavior has been described as repetitive and instinctual, I think the research is changing its thinking about that. This is an analogous development to how we increasingly see the nature vs nurture debate or the role of genetics in complex physiological outcomes. Also as a side, it is a bit interesting to me that in the evolutionary psych area (which itself has issues) the older concepts of instinct seem to still be more prevalent than in behavioral sciences.

I think the title might be the wrong way around. What I mean is that first animals at some point developed the ability to: Which I interpret as the ability to intuitively make assumptions about the world around us. This is something we share with (I think) most animals to some degree. I think the ability for higher level reasoning came later, and the "motivated reasoning" is applying higher order reasoning skills to justify intuition. Obviously for complicated situations this approach is faulty as everyone recognizes, but doing more thorough analyzes is harder and often requires additional skills that many may be lacking. So the reasoning then defaults to the intuitive approach.

Not only that. When folks talk about honeybees, they often talk about domesticated species with a narrow genetic diversity. While there are efforts to protect them, often wild honeybee population decline. At least in part it seems that domestic honeybees exert competitive pressure on wild populations, and this could make things worse for them. Or at least not better. Edit: made the comment pre-merge. I am wondering about that. Wouldn't it only work if honeybee and wild bee foraging areas don't overlap? And considering that honeybees are also used widely as pollinators in Ag, wouldn't a strengthen honeybee population increase, rather than decrease pressure on remaining wild populations?