Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 February 22

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February 22

IDF warfare

I have a general question regarding the current Israeli warfare which I couldn't find a satisfying answer to so far, in fact: If the IDF warn before each air strike on a residential building where hiding terrorists are suspected before actually bombing, all terrorists potentially hiding inside it (as well as their weapons and ammunition) will most likely be long gone in the tunnels by the time of the strike, right? So what is the actual point in still performing such a strike then once the element of surprise is forfeited? Hildeoc (talk) 02:18, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Is there some reason you would expect anyone to clearly state where they will attack? More, if the target is, say, a munitions dump, destroying it might be useful regardless of whether there's anyone there (and moving it would be very difficult). DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 03:02, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

@DOR (HK), cf., e.g., this BBC article. Hildeoc (talk) 05:18, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

We have an article on the related Roof knocking (apparently not used as much in the current round). AnonMoos (talk) 07:01, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

@AnonMoos: From that, what would you consider the answer to my actual question then? 🤔 Hildeoc (talk) 00:41, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Not AnonMoos, but: perhaps (wild speculation here) an unstated part of the operations, other than catching/killing 'terrorists', is to make the buildings permanently unusable and the territory unsuitable for future return by the residents driven out?

[NB: there is no doubt that there are real terrorists who are also members of, for example, Hamas, but it does not logically follow that all members of Hamas and similar organisations are terrorists, or that all individuals claimed to be terrorists or members of Hamas etc. are necessarily so.] {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.24.45.226 (talk) 13:40, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Reading in Israeli newspapers, it seems they believe that sheer destruction, even without casualties to the enemy, will act as future deterrent. However, it also claimed that each bombing has operational rational. Zarnivop (talk) 14:32, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Are there any country which same-sex marriage is legal, sibling with the same sex can also marry?

Are there any country which same-sex marriage is legal, sibling with the same sex can also marry? How about same-sex avunculate marriage? Also, in the states of America such that opposite-sex cousin marriage (first cousin, not second cousin or third cousin) is illegal, is same-sex cousin (first cousin, not second cousin or third cousin) marriage also illegal? 61.224.147.34 (talk) 08:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

We have several articles relating to the laws on consanguinity and incest in various parts of the world. Blueboar (talk) 12:00, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

It stands to reason that if in some jurisdiction both same-sex marriage and cousin marriage or some other form of consanguine marriage are legal, then so is their conjunction. Cousin marriage is legal in several US states, where same-sex marriage is legal everywhere. Avunculate marriage is permitted (according to our article) in some circumstances in the states of New York and Rhode Island. Other countries where same-sex marriage and avunculate marriage are both legal are (according to our articles) Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands and Norway. In most of these at least some forms of cousin marriage are also permitted. Japan allows first-cousin marriage and recognizes same-sex marriages of its citizens, but they need to get married somewhere else where same-sex marriages are legal, not in Japan.  --Lambiam 15:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Is there any place which opposite-sex first-cousin marriage is illegal, but same-sex first-cousin marriage is legal? 203.73.39.152 (talk) 19:31, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

King's weekly meetings with UK prime minister

If the King is on a state visit, is the weekly audience with the Prime Minister cancelled or do they conduct it via phone/video call instead?

Do the Counsellors of State ever hold audiences when the King is out of the country? 2407:4D00:3C00:865D:590C:2C84:5452:B02 (talk) 10:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

This 2014 article (not sure how reliable, but makes sense) says:

If either party of this unique relationship are not available to meet in person, then the Queen and the Prime Minister will speak by telephone.

The late Queen took to using Zoom during and after the Pandemic, so I imagine that this is now used instead of a telephone call. Alansplodge (talk) 11:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Presumably not over the normal internet though - that would be a cracker's paradise. I assume a government encrypted and run VPN. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, they have a good IT department. Alansplodge (talk) 12:04, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

AFAIK this was not and probably still is not possible. Part of Zoom's frictionless design it they use their own servers. There were a lot of concerns about Zoom (software) in its early days as mentioned in our article. See also [1] and [2].

As mentioned in our article, Zoom did eventually add support for end to end encryption [3] and later, bring your own key which may have reduced concerns somewhat although it still required some confidence that the Zoom software which is not open source didn't do something it shouldn't. (I know Zoom tried to reassure customers including governments so I don't know if they allowed them to view the source as some companies do.)

I can't find any recent guidance from the UK government but I think it's still the case that Zoom should not be used for anything where confidentiality matters. Note there is [4] in the US but I don't think there's anything similar in the UK although do see [5].

BTW, are we sure the queen used Zoom? I can see a lot of Queen used Zoom to chat to whatever articles, and I'm sure she sometimes really used Zoom but it seems she had a Cisco WebEx DX80 [6] and I think that has its own video conferencing so I wouldn't be surprised if she used that when possible, especially for one-on-one meetings with high up people in the UK government who I assume would have access to their own Cisco devices.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:16, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

This is why the royals created the Dark Web. Way back in Henry VI's time. "Shakespeare" made great use of it. It's obvious if you think about it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:01, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Good point, it's plausible that there's some sort of secure video conferencing system. Alansplodge (talk) 18:39, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

If I have to think about it, it's not obvious. —Tamfang (talk) 23:47, 25 February 2024 (UTC)