The fact that it won’t have any record of calls I missed while the phone was off or didn’t have reception, although actually that’s probably the fault of the service provider. They can send me texts I missed. Why can’t they send me a list of missed calls?

FourPacketsOfPeanuts has already given a good answer specifically about Israel’s situation, but I want to say something about international law in general. Law may be written based on moral principles, but law is still not the same thing as morality. In our daily lives, we follow our moral principles because that’s what we believe is right, and we follow the law because otherwise cops will put us in jail.

The situation for a sovereign country is different - there are no cops and there is no jail. If other countries wanted to take hostile action, they would even if there was no violation of international law, and if they did not want to take hostile action, the wouldn’t even if there was a violation. Morality still exists (although morality at the scale of countries is necessarily not the same as morality at the scale of individuals) but the law might as well not exist because it is not enforced. It’s just pretty language that may be quoted when a country does what it was going to do anyway.

I’m not trying to imply that I think that Israel is violating international law. I’m saying that discussing whether it is or not is a purely intellectual exercise with no practical relevance. If I support Israel but you convince me that it is technically breaking some law, I’m still not going to change my mind. If you oppose Israel but I convince you that it is technically obeying every law to the letter, you’re still probably not going to change your mind.

Not really questionable - hospitals explicitly lose their protection if they are used for military activity.

Yeah, and while vegan imitation meat is delicious (so much so that even my meat-eating friends will happily eat it with me) vegan imitation cheese ranges from mediocre to terrible. And then it costs several times as much as real cheese too!

It was probably just full of garbage (which is also “limp” and attracts flies) and the idea of some cop having to cut it open and go through it because you called it in is sort of funny.

With that said, I have wondered about similar things. One time I saw a guy I thought might be dead but I waited a few minutes, he moved a little, and I figured he was probably just very drunk so I left. Another time I did go tell an NYC cop that there was a guy lying on the ground in the middle of a busy street, and the cop didn’t seem to care. Maybe I should have called 911 instead but I didn’t want to be officially associated with the situation.

I occasionally get into a state where I feel hungry but the thought of eating almost any food, including foods I usually like, is disgusting. I end up eating something really bland, like raw tofu.

Also, I didn’t have any cravings after I became a vegetarian. I was never seriously tempted to eat meat. However, I did eat a lot of cheese and now that I eat very little if it, I want cheese all the time. I’m not even hungry right now and I’m still salivating because I’m thinking about cheese.

My car. I bought a luxury car back when I was in grad school and it cost me a year’s salary used. I would tell anyone else not to do that, but over the years I have had so much fun driving that car. It’s a 2008 BMW 328i with a manual transmission and sports suspension (which makes it rather uncomfortable, but it corners so well). It has been breaking down a lot recently and I’ll probably have to get rid of it soon, which I’m not happy about. They don’t make cars like that anymore and even if they did, I can’t reasonably justify buying such an impractical car at this stage of my life. Maybe I’ll make another irresponsible purchase anyway…

I think certain antidepressants should be legally sold over the counter. They’re already prescribed to anyone who asks for them, but going to a doctor and asking for them can be really hard for a depressed person.

I’m the other way around. Only people born before the year 2000 can be adults. Everyone born afterwards is permanently a child and shouldn’t be left alone without a babysitter.

Conscientiousness and ambition aren’t the same thing but they are related, and conscientiousness appears to be uncorrelated or weakly negatively correlated with intelligence. With that said, I have met relatively few highly intelligent people who aren’t career-oriented; I can only guess about why.

A friend of mine is married to an intelligent, educated woman who simply doesn’t want to work. I don’t understand her - I would be bored out of my mind if I went more than a few months without a job. But I do sometimes envy my friend. He can support his family on a single income, and when he moves for work his wife has no difficulty coming with him. He can take jobs far from big cities because he doesn’t have to worry about being somewhere where she can find a job too. (Right now they live near the beach on an island in Florida.)

Meanwhile my partner and I have twice as much money as his family but we don’t even live together because I live near my job and she lives near hers. We’re both busy so we see each other once or twice a week. We aren’t just dating - we’re in a committed long-term relationship, but work comes first.

Very important.

• I want to be with someone I enjoy talking to.

• I admit that I couldn’t bring much to the sort of relationship where intelligence isn’t particularly important.

• Intelligence is heritable to a significant extent, which is important in case children are produced.

One downside (in a sense) is that this approach will probably lead to two very career-oriented people being together, which causes some problems.

Edit: I’m saying this as someone who is significantly above average on the sort of intelligence measured by SATs.

I like looking at pictures of naked people, so I’m grateful to those naked people.

Bring back Internet Explorer.

My theory is that psychosis due to self-imposed sleep deprivation causes some of the crazier things Elon Musk does.