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To some degree, yes, but I would need to read up whether there is a direct to link to the current organization. I.e. how much of the support for the mujahedeen from the US, e.g. via operation cyclone, has influenced the subsequent formation of the Taliban (and one might also want to know whether the Taliban is a continuous entity, or whether there is some difference between the 90s Taliban and the current organization). IIRC there have been allegations that Bin Laden might have received support as part of the support for mujahedeen but I think the US rejected that notion. Otoh, the support from Netanyahu for Hamas just until shortly before the terror attack is well documented. I.e. there is a direct link to Hamas' capabilities and Israel's policies. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-prop-up-hamas.html I remember vaguely another article describing that Hamas was functionally broke around 2012, and how eventually the money trickling in from Israel kept Hamas alive and safe from internal challenges.

While there are true believers in this conflict, it does seem that from the top there are incentives to keep the conflict alive for as long as possible. It is well documented that Israel has supported Hamas at least since the 80s to undermine more secular forces in Palestine (https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/). And obviously, the conflict is the only reasons for existence of Hamas. A win-win where everyone loses.

Just to add some other comparative values, the average of school shooting related deaths in the USA is about similar to the total annual firearm-related deaths (murders and injuries).

I did an advanced search using "Alzheimer" as search term and used +Author and added your username. Second hit was:

I would be careful to assume that everyone critical of Israeli actions have the same stance. I think most (though likely not all) are alright with targeting terrorist leaders. While there is an ethical argument regarding killing in general, there is an underlying assumption that eliminating those threats will overall lead to less deaths and misery as a whole. The issue (to me at least) is how many collateral deaths are acceptable. 9/11 led to a proliferation of conflict in which almost any number of civilian deaths were justified as retaliation. This specific attack seems to be more targeted (hence my question) and while innocents were injured, it seems to be me at least less bad than bombing centers were Hamas are holed up with civilians. Sure, one can argue that Hamas is to blame (and they are) for using civilians as protection. Conversely, I still there is a moral cost to make knowingly killing those civilians. These are not simple issues where you can just point to some original sin to justify all associated costs. Each action (again, on either side) has a moral cost. And I do think that it is dangerous to justify, without limits, actions of any one side, just because the other is worse. Conversely, if one think that is justified, one has also to accept that without limits, these action will include the indiscriminate destruction of lives. We know that Hamas is fine with that. But I don't think that Israel should stoop down to that level. The reason why there are more expectations to Israel are, similar to the US, they are supposed to be the good guys. I think interviews from the holocaust survivors provides much needed context, where they on the one hand see Israel as a refuge from persecution, yet at the same time see eerie similarities in the Palestinian plight. There are a lot of articles, following events like 9/11, as well as in Europe after surge of antisemitic and anti-Muslim sentiments. Of course they are not uniform, but I do think that their experience and insights are critical on multiple levels e.g., https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2024/01/30/1227849885/a-holocaust-survivor-identifies-with-the-pain-of-both-sides-in-the-israel-hamas-

So you are saying that Israel should offer them citizenship?

Your are only looking at one side of things. Folks were forced to leave and some managed to get a new life. Others, returned and/or there was some process of repatriation. This is what happened after the Yugoslav wars. Eventually folks (voluntarily or not) returned and there was a process for that. Just because some managed to emigrate does not meant that magically the issue resolved itself without a lengthy and painful process. There is a reason Bosnia is no longer a war zone, and I am fairly sure it is not because people all emigrated and are now happy. I think the issue with this argument is that trying to extrapolate from a small cohort and does not address the issue from a systemic standpoint. After all, the countries (or their successors) still exist. Bosnia is still there. So is South Korea, Syria and so on. Jewish people are living Germany again and survivors obtained restitutions. In areas where there is now mostly peace (which would excluding Syria considering unresolved conflicts), it is not because one group fully displaced the other and everyone was fine with that. It is because they figured out a way to co-exist. In Rwanda conflicts continued between Tutsi and Hutu until a reconciliation process was initiated (rather than displacing one group and calling it a day). https://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/assets/pdf/Backgrounder Justice 2014.pdf I believe that without any form of reconciliation, folks on either side will continue in their justification of violence. In my mind, there are no simple solutions and I don't think that successful refugees (or emigrants) provide a model that could lead to lasting peace. Of course, Palestinians and Israelis have to contribute to a compromise, but that is hard to find if the current folks in power (on either side) are hellbent on killing any two-state solutions.

Agreed, should have specified that.

I think it is among Western countries a rather unique situation in the US. Guns elsewhere are something that are only carried for a specific purpose (e.g., hunting, sports). The USA it is the only place (I can think of) where folks think of it as a tool against other humans just in case.

I am not sure whether this argument really makes the point you are trying to make. I am not familiar with all of the examples, but for example in Germany and in the aftermath of Yugoslav war multiple things were done (albeit slowly), including return of property and/or reparation, prosecution of war crimes and it does include return of folks. Relatively recently the idea of reconciliation has become more prominent as an important part of lasting peace, resulting in structures such as the Yugoslav Commission for Truth and Reconciliation or the Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission. An important role of these efforts is to reconcile the different perspectives of the conflicts to avoid the propagation of conflicting narratives that result in future rifts and conflicts. So to answer your question, yes, to secure peace it is important not to ignore recent history, address the conflicting viewpoints and create a platform to address injustice, empowers communities to participate in the process and create honest and shared memories. I think some lessons can be learned from conflicts from former Yugoslavia (and similar conflicts, e.g. Rwanda). There are multiple aspects, but addressing power imbalance and sovereignty are important aspects, i.e. negotiations have to happen from a position as equals. Otherwise, there is a perception of procedural injustice which can endanger the process.

That would an extemely rare event as most mutations are neutral. And it is unlikely to be just genetic anyway. But of course mutations are also under selection, that is how evolution works.

You are aware that that these events are not that long ago and folks had (maybe still have) great parents with memories of that event? And that they still draw a direct line to their current situation (and issues such as illegal Israeli settlements certainly don't help the relationship). Also your example is a bit ironic as conflict within the empire even before the slow (hundreds of years) decline were rife with internal conflict of the conquered regions. And the successor states kept waging war for many years after that. During that time, the self identification of the people (including language and culture) have changed and their relationship to the Romans (either as successor or rivals) eventually diminished (after all, they could beat up Austrians now). I doubt that this is the timeline you are thinking about resolving it, though I hope. Edit: crossposted with StringJunky. Just an uninformed thought- I wonder how targeted this attack ultimately is. While any death of innocents is lamentable- at least in theory it doesn't sound like a mass-casualty attack. But again, I have not read much detail on it.

Look, rocks have been getting away with too much for too long. Why should we cut them slack just because they are mineral-based? We carbon-based life forms have to do all the moving and throwing and then we also have take the blame?

I think it is clear that Hamas and Hezbollah are in fact terrorist organizations, and stating it as such won't incur any modnotes for that reason. However, this is should not mean that any actions conducted by Israel should be deemed ethical. I will note that Israel should not be necessarily singled out in principle in the question of what responses are considered appropriate and how much collateral damage (which ultimately just means innocent deaths) are warranted for what level of perceived security (see the USA as an example). But again, it seems like trying to figure who is worse and therefore more entitled to killing folks, a race to the moral bottom. Now, there are uninformed folks who do glorify (to various degrees) Hamas actions, which is nothing but despicable, but again, that should not be a carte blanche for indiscriminate retaliation and other amoral actions (including actions in the West Bank. The conflict does not have a sole source and a sole perpetrator and one being the bad guy does not make the other one the good guy.

Well I banned them from use in our biosecure rooms for that reason. The contamination risk would be too high. But if I tried in BSL1 areas the fight would not be worth my energy.

It is a bit of an issue when one really wants to have a good vs bad narrative where both sides are engaging in unethical behavior. It too frequently devolves into a race to the bottom rather than stepping back and condemning the paths (plural) taken. Worse, alternatives (improbable and difficult as they might be) get drowned out.

I would think that carriers would also be a limitation in many areas. Not that I would need pagers in my lab. I'd just like to get folks using pipettors instead of playing with their cell phones every few minutes. Gosh, I feel old.

Huh, makes sense. I would ban cellphones from the lab, if I could.

I do wonder about safety of supply chains in general. With increasing complexity a lot of shady things can be hidden, it seems. I think in hospitals pagers are still in use. I was told by a resident (a while back though) that they prefer it over cell phones when on call, as they feared getting spammed and distracted and prefered to have a seperate system that alerts them to emergencies.

It seems that this might be a common theme to several of the discussions. I.e. starting off with non-standard definitions and then extrapolating from there. The issue is that it basically dismantles established frameworks around which discussions can be formed.

Mechanistically that rings true. I think there are multiple elements at play here. My suspicion is that social media exposure to consistent messages from divergent sources creates some sort of trust in the information (and folks might also trust their social network, though studies are a bit unclear about that). During COVID-19 we found consistent misinformation and conspiracy theories floated about and in many cases folks things are true, because the authorities are hiding "something". It certainly did not help that politicians weaponized expert opinion without much transparency or insight. We found that at least in quite a few cases, introducing transparency, showing goodwill and explaining the various factors did help to dismantle some of the conspiracy theories. There were of course hardliners, but to my surprise quite a few were more on the afraid side than true conspiracy believers. But I do agree, conspiracy thinking is easier and I do think that there is something that facilitates these things at an unprecedented pace. I hate to say social media as this smacks of lazy thinking, but I do feel that this is something that has changed our ability to think in ways that were are not really coping well with.

Thanks for clarifying. This is a distinction without consequence as any drop has to be within the same tolerance as new productions. I suspected that this is the part that of your comment and I tried to explain by amending my statement that: The point you are seemingly unclear about is that a) there are allowable variation in batch production and b) the product also has to remain within this tolerance during its shelf life (as per the guidelines). In other words if you take a random sample from the shelf and compare it to a fresh product the levels all fall within that limit and you would be unable to distinguish which is which. I.e. if you have a sample with 94% of its potency, it could be a degraded from originally 97% (which I think is what you think about) or it could be a new batch that started off with 94%. Assuming that I am not misunderstanding the guidelines somehow (and so far I am not seeing any information from your end that addresses it), it does mean that any medication pulled from a shelf has to work within the same tolerance as a freshly produced batch. In other words, you ignore the issue of tolerances in manufacturing and then make things up from there, gotcha. Again, this is not how the analysis works. I will note that the comment that started it was related to industrial guidelines regarding shelf life and while you were thinking about degradation within individual packages, I was thinking about the actual process (i.e. batch variation and stability testing) which fall under the guidelines. I have admitted that my initial language use was sloppy as I was taking the context under consideration without spelling it out, but again I have tried to provide context, which seemingly is continued to be ignored (and again, feel free to debunk them). OK that seems like a clear claim. Can you show me the guideline showing the differences in allowable limits and how they factor in the degradation in use. I have only done (blind) stability testing myself and was under the impression they were looking for the same tolerances. The only case I am aware of is tightening the tolerance for stability testing over manufacturing when degradation is faster than expected (the example I gave above for the thyroid medication was such a case). I.e. the stability values have to be tighter than the manufacturing tolerances, which seems to be the opposite to what you were stating.

Agreed. And I think it is true for most such theories. There is a mistrust in authorities and experts that drives these beliefs.

Considering it is Trump, likelihood ain't low that he would be golfing.

In that case I suggest your read up on the concept of significance in testing and revisit the references I provided. Specifically the quote I provided outlines what is considered a significant change: Or conversely it means, if those criteria are met, there is no significant difference within the product. I am not clear why this seems to keep tripping you up. Perhaps to clarify, and please answer really specific. If we test the product within its shelf life and do not see a significant change in all those criteria, how do you think does it affect potency? I believe that might be the crux why you don't think that following the guidelines would result in the same potency as fresh products (i.e. within error margins). (Just as a side note, there are some intricacies between potency and stability testing, but given that the very basics seem to be confounding, I doubt that this is what is meant and really is caused that many standards were developed on HPLCs). Please provide a citation for that claim. I will repeat another tidbit of information that you ignored, but which is important in this context (and which hopefully does not trip you up further. From what I recall, industry standards generally allow for variations of around 10% (though I assume there are exceptions, as noted). I do not have any regulatory documents for those (again, have never been involved in process control) but USP documents generally indicate expectations of 90-110% (USP documents are paywalled, but here is a doc referring to that). https://www.usp.org/sites/default/files/usp/document/FAQs/strength-stability-testing-compounded-preparations.pdf However, there are drugs requiring more stringent requirements, when degradation rates are uneven, such as for a thyroid drug: Again, note that there are upper and lower boundaries, which conform to the preparation requirements and are extended to the shelf-life. In other words, you can think of the potency of any product as a bell curve, with boundaries at 90-110. Following all guidelines would ensure that all products, fresh or on the shelf within the expiration date would fall into the same range. Now, obviously if you take a fresh product and test it once and then half a year later, test the same package again, you might measure but you would only know because you are drawing from the same package. If you were provided with a anonymous samples (fresh and shelf product mixed) you wouldn't know as all should fall within that range. Perhaps to shorten this overlong discussion, how about you simply find a regulatory document (or at least a paper that describes the regulation) that supports your claim that a lower potency than the accepted batch-to-batch variation during its shelf life is in fact acceptable (or at least contradicts the references I have provided) and that having it otherwise would be detrimental to health care (your second claim).