Curious to see what the economics of starship will shake out to be

Israel does this all the time. Prisoner / hostage swap is pretty much standard operating procedure. It’s why Hamas took hostages in the first place. Israel already traded back 240 Palestinian prisoners during the first truce back in November.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli–Palestinian_prisoner_exchange

What’s going on now is negotiations. How many prisoners, exactly which ones, etc. The specific prisoners is likely the more salient point because Israel has effectively an inexhaustible source of Palestinian prisoners. It’s a renewable resource. Meanwhile Hamas needs decades to plan a border raid so it can get a few hundred hostages to trade away.

After the 10/7 Hamas attack, one of the biggest fears that Israel had was that Hezbollah would join and attack Israel from Lebanon. Hezbollah is one of the most serious existential threats to Israel, so it became a priority to prevent them from joining the war with Hamas.

That meant stepped up rocket and drone attacks that was intended to signal strength and serve as a warning to Hezbollah. Of course Hezbollah did the exact same thing with rocket and artillery strikes against Israeli targets, also intending to signal strength. These cross border attacks basically started up immediately after 10/7 by both sides.

The attacks have escalated slightly over time, but have not escalated into full out war. Neither side really wants to go to war right now. Israel is focused with its war in Gaza and wants to keep Hezbollah from joining. Meanwhile it’s the perfect opportunity for Hezbollah to attack while Israel’s attention is split, however that has to be balanced by the fact the vast majority of Lebanese people oppose going to war because it would devastate their country that’s already in the midst of a many-years long economic, political and social crisis. So Hezbollah is effectively prevented from joining the war with Israel by internal Lebanese issues.

Most likely the border attacks will continue as they are without escalating into an all out war that neither side is really prepared for. Unfortunately the immediate result is that entire communities on both sides of the border have become internally displaced. The article mentions ~100,000 Lebanese have fled their homes in the border region. The numbers I’ve seen for Israel are also >100,000 people evacuated from their communities near the border.

Yes, that is how active sonar works. The ship emits a very loud noise and listens for reflections to map out the surroundings. Sonar pings can be very loud and can damage the ears of underwater life forms.

Wait, are you saying Bin Laden’s propaganda isn’t a good faith argument?

From the second paragraph of the article:

These remarkable findings position elephants as the first non-human animals to use a form of address that doesn’t mimic the receiver’s call, a trait previously observed in dolphins and parrots.

It appears dolphins have a “signature whistle” that they produce and other dolphins use this like a name. Sort of like if you enter a big room and yell out “Wazzup” and then everyone starts calling you Wazzup.

Elephants appear to be different, seems like they will name other elephants. Sort of like you enter a big room, the other people notice you’re short and everyone starts calling you Shorty.

Oh no, some people won’t take a side because they think things are complex and they don’t understand enough.

Oh no.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken on symbolic importance to many people. In one sense whatever is going on there is not really important for most of the world. It’s some kind of internal conflict/civil war with essentially neighbors beating each other up. But it doesn’t really affect anyone else significantly. And yet everyone has a take on who is right and who is wrong and the thinking is very black and white and absolutist, even if you really don’t know what’s going on or the history behind it or the stakes.

Contrast this with other similar conflicts that most people have no opinion on. Like Ethiopia-Tigray or the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. Most people probably haven’t even heard of this stuff and have no clue as to who is fighting who. Hell, how many people had the barest inkling of who Hamas was a week ago. And now they feel they can take some absolute morally superior position on the issue.

It’s because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become symbolic of who you are. The other conflicts I mentioned have no symbolic meaning or importance to people outside those regions. The Ukraine war is another highly symbolic conflict and that’s why it’s often mentioned in the same breath, but the myriad of other ethnic conflicts going on throughout the world are ignored.

The power of symbolic positions is that they strongly ensure group cohesion. You wear these symbols on your chest like a medal or a placard. They superficially resemble personal opinions, but actually they’re badges of membership. Most people don’t actually think hard about these issues or try to understand deeply what’s going on. Instead they are told what to believe and what to say by people that they trust and identify with. Once it’s clear what the “correct” position is, people will wear it with pride.

Deeply thinking about a complex issue is extremely resource intensive and most people just don’t care that much. We also want to clearly delineate things into categories of good/bad. It’s a natural heuristic that feels good. Once you know a thing is “good” you cheer it on. If a thing is “bad” you loudly denounce it with your peers. If a big thing happens, but you don’t know if it’s good or bad then you feel uncomfortable mental dissonance. Big things can’t just be left in a state of psychological limbo. You need to decide if it’s good or bad. And so we do, collectively.