Shrike
19hr ago
No effect longterm when a student self-learns grit in a module.
I think these sorts of studies are really interesting but "giving kids a module on grit" is going to give you only limited information on the effects parents will have on their children over the course of a childhood.
But hey, let's get into them. Your first study I think is shaky in the sense that it relies purely, as far as I can tell, on subjective teacher ratings rather than even a cursory objective standard - and the study itself notes this problem. But regardless, it controls for environmental effects:
Such non-causal sources may be both genetic and environmental. For instance, the association may be due to common genetic influences (pleiotropy: the same genes affect multiple traits; MacKay17), or due to a rearing environment that is conducive to both cognitive and non-cognitive influences on school performance.
So if OP is trying to create a rearing environment that is "conducive to both cognitive and non-cognitive influences on school performance" this study, if it managed to control properly, would screen it out. Or in other words, if I'm reading it correctly, it doesn't say much if anything about the question at hand.
(It also says "it is well established that self-control and grit predict academic outcomes" so I stand by my claim that if you can choose this, you should.)
Finally, I think that 4.4% is not bad. If someone gave you a button and said "push this and you'll score four percent better on every test you take for the rest of your life, no downsides or other side effects" it would be obvious to push it.
Your second link says that grit is associated with positive life outcomes and can be influenced through school interventions:
Given the importance of grit for individual success and its apparent malleability through school-based interventions, it is natural to consider it as a promising target of education policy. Nevertheless, not all interventions scale up well. Several interventions are effective when implemented in smaller groups under strict quality control, but ineffective when they are offered universally under potentially less favorable conditions, so evaluations of scaled up version of programs that were effective at a smaller scale are of great academic and policy importance.
Needless to say, the OP's intervention is going to be implemented in a very small group; presumably he has no need for it to scale, unlike the people who wrote the study:
We ask whether improvements in students’ behaviors and academic achievement can be obtained through simple, inexpensive, easily implementable at-scale school-based grit interventions and the extent to which these programs can help to reduce achievement gaps of disadvantaged students.
Regardless, the study found small impacts for students at large and substantial impacts to Roma minorities. I agree with the authors:
This is remarkable given that our intervention was not particularly intensive, consisting of only one session a week for 5 weeks, and ended over a year before some of these impacts were measured.
(I will confess I only read through the end of the second section of this paper before posting because it is 44 pages long and I only had to read 5 pages to see that it was saying that at a very minor classroom intervention had lasting positive effects particularly for students whom could be expected to do poorly.)
Just like the other finding, this is a no-brainer if there are no downsides. Nor do either of these studies suggest that self-control and grit cannot be taught, particularly by parents over an extended period of time. For the state, there are probably going to be trades offs or financial costs to teaching these to children.
But OP is going to have to raise his kids one way or another. It seems to me that he might as well raise them to believe in grit and self-control. Even if the benefits on GPA and income are minor, developing a healthy internal locus of control can hedge against depression and anxiety, which is a good enough reason to encourage it in children.
Shrike
21hr ago
there’s no compelling evidence that activating “hard work” (in contrast to simply work)
Okay. I'm not really sure we have any real difference of opinion here, since by "hard work" I don't necessarily mean "psychologically difficult." For instance, in my example above, Carlsen probably likes chess, people who shoot in rifle tournaments typically like shooting rifles, etc. But the truth remains that for lots of things (like, to use another one of my examples, test prep) people often don't like doing it, but they will be better off if they do.
When you squint at what an elite performer
I mean, I don't really know why the bar here is "elite performer." The OP said he wanted his kids to learn about achieving success through hard work. He didn't say "I want my kids to learn that through hard work they could achieve anything they want."
Usain Bolt is at an extreme tail and we shouldn't teach our kids to emulate him (at least not specifically, unless they also show extremely rare promise as athletes). I want my kids to be able to sit down and do test prep (even if they don't want to) to get a better grade than the one they could already have gotten. I don't particularly care if they are a world-class marathon runner.
Shrike
22hr ago
The OP is specifically asking for advice on how to influence someone's early life, so (in theory) even if it's entirely correct that 100% of one's ability to do hard work is unchosen, OP could still succeed at giving his kids the ability to do hard work.
I think, intuitively, that it is common sense that you can choose to work hard, at least to a limited degree. I think most people have the experience of buckling down on an important or time-sensitive project, and easing up or even slacking off when things are less urgent (or when there's less external pressure), even if there's still work to be done. And so if you conceptualize "working hard" as choosing to buckle down relatively more and ease up relatively less, I think it's hard to argue that you can't "choose to work hard."
The question of whether or not choosing to do that consistently pays off commensurate to the effort is a much more interesting one and I think sort of depends on your goals. But it seems fairly clear that below a certain threshold of hard work (failing to study at all, to show up to work, etc.) you will suffer. And I think above a certain threshold of hard work, you will probably suffer too (if for no other reason than you need to sleep!)
Shrike
22hr ago
Iranians are complaining that the US is dropping mines in Shiraz, about a hundred miles inland. As far as I can tell, these air-dropped mines don't even have wing kits so their range is very limited. Here's pictures of Israeli F-16s (not stealthy!) kitted out with cluster bombs, which likewise are not short ranged weapons. Here's the DVIDS link to images from Epic Fury, and here's a B-52, an F-18, an F-16, and an F-15 loaded up with gravity bombs.
You can of course wave away the DVIDS photos as head-fakes but when combined with the mines it seems pretty reasonable to believe that the US is doing strikes inland.
Shrike
1d ago
The notion that “hard work” is a toggleable feature in humans which has a role in their success may be a useful glue to keep poor people quiet and make the wealthy feel even prouder, but it is the least proven of all the possible factors of socioeconomic success.
I don't think you need a study to show this. Try:
- entering a marathon, boxing tournament, or other physical contest without practicing
- taking a test without any preparatory work or background knowledge
- shooting in a rifle tournament without any prep
And see how you compare to people who put the work in.
Or take the time to speak to someone who's worked at a test prep center - contrary to what you might hear in the IQ reductionist space, test prep works (or at least that is what I have been told by someone in the biz). Similarly, look at professional classical musicians or Olympians: they don't succeed without practicing a lot.
Certainly there might be exceptions (savants, people with unnatural size and strength, etc.) but for most people your odds of success improve via hard work.
Magnus Carlsen
Isn't it correct that Carlsen's father was a chess fan who introduced him to the game at 5 and he's been competing since he was 8?
I definitely think that something like innate talent or genius matters, particularly around the tails, but if you can choose to be a person with an internal locus of control who believes in hard work you should prefer this as long as you can temper it with the understanding that there is not a linear connection between hard work and success.
Shrike
3d ago
I tend to agree with what you've said here. I will offer two notes: firstly, from what I can tell, Russia has historically been extremely leery of giving Iran anything that could actually hurt Israel). I am not sure, however, if this would rule out bulk Shaheds. Also, there is no reason Israel can't just build their own Shaheds. The US does it. So it's possible (if unlikely) that in 2036 the Gulf region is just "everyone has 500,000 Shaheds" which would be sort of funny in a dark way, I suppose.
Shrike
4d ago
Ukraine was already providing that?
Yes, it is, but when the Arrow missile program was launched in the 1980s that was not really anticipated.
We also haven't been able to test Standards in Ukraine, and we have in Israel.
it's nowhere near enough to replenish them quickly
Just on the Navy front, on some quick Googling, the reports are that we're looking to increase production of the SM-6 and SM-3 to a combined total of 600/year. At 100 SM-3s annually, that would allow us to replace our stockpile of around 400 in just four years. At 500 SM-6s annually, that would allow us to replace our stockpiles of 1500 in three years.
As I pointed out in my other post to you, we're increasing Patriot production to 2,000 year, which is pretty eye-watering as far as interceptors go.
especially given we'll need quite literally an order of magnitude more to 1v1 China, which is a credible threat that again, we were supposed to be pivoting to!
Yes, one of the first things I said about this war was that that was a likely fail state.
And now he's throwing that away... Why again?
Well, I am kicking around some theories, but I'm saving them for a top-level post I will never write at this rate.
Shrike
4d ago
There's a reason we are bombing their industrial defense production. And, from what I can tell, there's good reasons at this point to think that Israel will just keep bombing those production facilities, particularly if Iran does not agree to an arms control agreement.
But let's assume that "mowing the lawn" doesn't happen. Wanna see me do some really sloppy analysis?
Iran first started producing ballistic missiles in the mid-late 1980s, so completely destroying their production entirely sets them back by 35 years of infrastructure and production. However, that's a naive estimate, because part of what's difficult about ballistic missiles is accumulating the knowledge to build them. I think we can assume that the US and probably more especially Israeli are attacking that accumulated knowledge, but it's more difficult to do that than it is to blow up a bunch of static buildings.
One estimate I found guessed that Iran could build 300 ballistic missiles and an eye-watering 10,000 Shaheds per month in peacetime.
This works out, in a very, very simplistic evaluative way, of Iran having the capability to build the facilities to produce about, let's say, 10 ballistic missiles per month every year, building up from 0 in 1990 to 300/month today.
It's a bit harder to evaluate the Shahed, but let's just say that they started the program in 2016, since there is at least some evidence of it being used in 2019 (they may have acquired blueprints for a similar design around 2004 but I like 2016 since it gives us a nice round ten years). That suggests it takes a mere 1 year to build out the capability to produce 1000 Shaheds per month.
So if we assume for the sake of easy math that Iran has to rebuild their ballistic missile program entirely from scratch and progressively ramps up manufacturing, we find that their ballistic missile production ramps up like so:
Year 1: 0 stockpiled, 0 production capability
Year 2: 0 stockpiled, 120 production capability
Year 3: 120 stockpiled, 240 production capability
Year 4: 360 stockpiled, 360 production capability
Year 5: 720 stockpiled, 480 production capability
720 sounds like a lot, but the US will have built 3000 Patriots in that time at 2026 production levels plus the excess Patriots manufactured as the US ramps up from 600 produced to 2000 produced per year between 2026 and 2033. It's unclear to me what the Israeli production rates are, but 200 annually of Stunner and Arrow-3 doesn't seem insane. So in 5 years it seems plausible that the Israeli or even a fraction of US interceptor capability will be able to handle the bulk of the Iranian ballistic missile threat.
Shahed numbers will be considerably higher, however, since our estimate is that they are 100 times as easy to produce. So in five years, we can expect 72,000 Shaheds, right around the 80,000 my source gives as an estimate of Iran's stockpiles at the start of this conflict. But, BAE is producing 25,000 APKWS guidance kits per year, and last year a new Iron Dome facility opened in Arkansas that is supposed to be able to produce 2,000 Iron Dome rockets per year. That works out to around 125,000 APKWS and 10,000 Iron Dome rockets to intercept the 72,000 Shaheds.
NOW, I don't think there's really any reason to think that the US will divert every single one of their APKWS to Israel, but there are a lot of cheap anti-drone systems coming online now, like the Martlet (which is expected, I think, to be sold to countries in the Gulf, although perhaps not Israel) and Iron Beam, and this doesn't take into account other defenses (like conventional air-to-air missiles or even the 30mm on Apaches). So it doesn't seem impossible that even against Shaheds, in 5 years there will be a lot of cheap defenses proliferated in the region.
Obviously, this is a VERY CRUDE TOY MODEL that is likely significantly off from what we will see in real life. It doesn't take into account cost, either, and from what I understand Iran in particular is under some financial strain at the moment, although they also are building relatively cheap offensive weapons. But the fun thing is that you can plug in whatever numbers you want (e.g. 500 baseline ballistic missiles and 2000 baseline Shaheds in stockpiles, or a residual production capability, or larger production numbers for the US+Israel to represent increasing Patriot and APKWS production, etc.) and see how the math works out.
While I don't think this is "realistic," I do think it suggests that Iran in 5 years will probably be less capable than they were at the start of this fight as regards ballistic missile stockpiles. Meanwhile we can anticipate advancements both technologically and in production from anti-missile systems over in the next 5 years. So there's actually at least some reason to think that the balance of power in the region will shift if Iran's production capabilities are significantly reduced.
Shrike
4d ago
What is the upside here again?
"Live weapons test zone" is probably considered more of an upside by American MIC types than you would think. In particular systems like Arrow and David's Sling (which are both co-developed by major American arms manufacturers) are helpful to the US as they increase our technology and (at least secondhand) experience with ballistic missile interception, which is very important to maintaining the relevancy of the US military pretty much everywhere, as ballistic missiles are now a pretty widespread technology.
The US buying Iron Dome (which is now also being co-produced by American contractors) to fulfill their point-defense needs is an example of that dynamic running full circle.
Shrike
4d ago
Evangelicals have high birth rates, but also low retention rates into adulthood.
No, this isn't true at all. Evangelicals have the best retention rates among Christians, about three-quarters retention (and this includes evangelicals who switch to other Christian traditions, so the number of people raised evangelical who remain Christian is even higher).
Gays have lower fertility than straights, so surely we will have no gays at all within a few generations!
Ha ha, but while we're here, gays are significantly more likely to be party to a teenaged pregnancy than straights, so if the gay gene is real and gets flushed out of the gene pool, it's likely because of abortion, not because of their sexual preferences.
Shrike
4d ago
thé highly religious have a replacement birth rate.
Awesome. The source I grabbed had the number bouncing around a bit, but it's also a few years out of date.
Shrike
4d ago
in general progressive movements do tend to win out over more conservative ones
I think it's important to remember, when assessing this, that it's easy to skip over progressive defeats, because what's "progressive" is measured by what is progressive today and not what was always considered progressive. Few people remember to count temperance or eugenics or removing the age of consent when evaluating the progressive k/d ratio because those ideas lost out and quickly became no longer progressive.
Shrike
4d ago
I would love to optimistic here, but i simply don't see it.
I have good news for you!
Lets all face the music, Conservative America is simply going the way of the dinosaurs. We have a declining birth rate, religiosity is going down the toilet, marriage rates are going down toilet.
Nah. Religiosity seems to be leveling off and irreligiosity is holding steady or dropping. You flagged an article from 2019 on changing support for gay rights, but later studies are showing that the popularity of gay marriage may have peaked and its decline is driven by young Americans. And in Conservative America, the number of children is growing, driven by higher birth rates and the migration of families to Red States in the post-COVID timeframe. The highly religious have many more children than the irreligious, near replacement, and non-denominational/Pentecostal Christian denominations (who tend towards political conservativism) are likely to continue growing given current trends.
I don't think we should extrapolate wildly and irresponsibly from current trends now any more than we should have in 2010, or that things are all gravvy (for Americans writ large, or conservative Americans, or religious Americans, or what have you) but Conservative America is very far from dead, and is arguably the part of America that is furthest from dead.
Shrike
4d ago
You neglected eleven days ago to specify what kind of situation would make you say that the five week special operation is going poorly.
I think you have me confused with Shakes. I'm gonna have to get a real pfp or something!
"we got the Iranians to attack our allies with missiles" is not much of an achievement
You know, when you put it like that, you would sort of think the hostile-to-Israel types around here would favor the war more, wouldn't you...
Anyway: I think the operation so far has made progress in its goals: Iranian regional influence has been blunted. However, so far, I have not seen any evidence that the US has yet maximally degraded the Iranian strike complex. Today's CENTCOM briefing assessed that over 2/3rds of Iran's military production capabilities have been destroyed, for instance, so it seems clear that even US public-facing assessments are that Iran's capabilities are degraded but not destroyed. It seems possible to me that the US could reach something much closer to a systematic destruction of their capabilities the course of additional weeks or perhaps even days, although I think the Iranians are adopting a reasonably savvy defensive posture. As I said, without nonpublic information it is difficult to evaluate.
Shrike
4d ago
I'm not sure if you're ignorant or being actively disingenuous
Well I would like to think I'm more ignorant than disingenuous...
the passage on 2/14/2025 was covered by the initial ceasefire that didn't stick.
Oh good point, but in my defense, you specifically said
The Houthis agreed to stop attacking the US Navy, which were the only "US vessels" that even attempted to cross the Bab el Mandeb during Trump's term.
...which wasn't quite right.
So once again, you're proving my point.
Your point is that Rough Rider "does not represent any kind of influence on Houthi behavior," but the Houthis and the US reached an agreement (that cut the Israelis out) on May 6, 2025, when there was no Gaza ceasefire, correct?
and on the contrary, Lloyd's List reports that the ceasefire did basically nothing to increase traffic.
Lloyd's measurement (which only includes larger vessels) excludes ships that Admiral Gryparis might have included, but both articles did agree that traffic was still lower than pre-blockade numbers.
Lloyd's List reported in early September (so before the Gaza peace plan) that traffic was increasing, although incrementally, with August traffic increasing by 10% over July. Again, definitely lower than pre-blockade numbers, but the trend, I think, indicates that the May truce did nudge the behavior of shipping.
Regardless, what can't really be contested is that yanking Bibi's leash was more effective in opening Red Sea traffic than fighting the Houthis was.
This might be the case, although I suppose there's more than one direction to nudge Bibi - the May 6th agreement between the US and the Houthis happened the day after Israel began airstrikes on Yemen, right?
Israel is infinitely more pliable to American pressure than Iran or Yemen.
I really doubt it's infinitely more pliable. I understand the point you are making, it's just unclear to me exactly how pliable Israel is at the end of the day.
Similarly, the path to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open ran through preventing Israel from starting an unwinnable war, not in committing American forces to said unwinnable war.
In the short term, certainly. Over an indefinite period, as I said previously:
Because Iran is engaged in proxy warfare with the Saudis and Israel, we have no particular reason to believe that the US departure from the area would cause the regional crisis to cease, nor do we have a guarantee that Iran wouldn't do things such as blockade the Red Sea or Straits of Hormuz. In fact we know that Iran did this sort of thing in the past during their war with Iraq!
Of course it's reasonable to point out that that's a theoretical risk, whereas this is a real one.
Shrike
4d ago
until they are no longer able to reliably launch large, AD penetrating countervalue volleys any claim of victory on the basis of having degraded said capabilities is clearly hollow.
I tend to agree. But it's difficult to verify the current levels of Iranian munitions: smaller salvo sizes might indicate munitions destruction or merely conservation; larger salvo sizes might indicate healthy munitions levels or a use-it-or-lose it mentality.
So the war might end with the US claiming to have exhausted Iranian munitions stockpiles, when in reality the Iranians have thousands of missiles left. On the flipside, the war might end with the Iranians claiming to have barely felt it, when in fact the their final salvo in the war was their last gasp.
It's possible that the war will end in a way that makes it easy to determine the winner, but it also seems plausible to me that the war will end with both sides claiming victory and the real measure of that victory will be measured in subsequent behavior over years or decades.
Shrike
4d ago
Anyone that's actively launching missiles in a war is effectively "depleting their stockpiles."
Indeed, and as I said, the US depleting its own stockpiles is a big risk case in this war.
Iran still hasn't even begun launching it's most advanced ammunition, has the largest repository of missiles in the Middle East
I'd be interested in how you can be certain of that, and which specific models you believe they are holding back.
so it's not as if they used up their stockpile putting on a fruitless light show everybody else.
Yes, I agree with this. But because Israel and the United States pulled the trigger, they have the first mover advantage, which means that most likely this arsenal was less effective than it otherwise would have been.
Shrike
4d ago
Hmm. As I've said elsewhere, I tend to model people as rational actors, and I still think there's value in rattling the saber for Iran. But obviously alienating their potential allies more than their foes is a questionable strategy. Is there a good source you can share on the disparate impact?
Shrike
4d ago
Who is “we”, exactly?
Sorry, I could have been more specific. I meant Americans, particularly educated ones.
I don’t think there’s a ton of overlap between the circles who most criticize American hegemony and the ones which compare everything to Roman history.
Maybe you are correct. I definitely think there's a certain strain (maybe moreso on the right?) of people who at least opportunistically pattern-match contemporary issues, e.g. declining birthrates and the GWOT, with the decline of the Roman Empire.
Shrike
5d ago
The war has definitely depleted Iranian munitions stockpiles (even if we assume that US efforts to strike those stockpiles were 0% effective, which they were not, and all of that depletion is from launching them at all and sundry.)
The US said that (besides self-defense) preventing Iran from projecting power and completing a nuclear weapon were its primary objectives on March 2.
Destroying their navy and missile inventory is a means of preventing Iran from projecting power.
Without inside knowledge of how effective US strikes are, what Iran's stockpiles look like, etc. I cannot tell exactly how effective this has been, but it definitely seems like Iran's ability to project power has been negatively impacted.
Shrike
5d ago
This would be good for Americans in America, because we will not be top dog forever; in a century or two we may find ourselves in Iran’s place with a more powerful China attempting to oppress us and conquer us.
Just objectively, I actually think that America continues to be the single best-positioned country to dominate the future. We don't expect this outcome, because we think we are Rome 2.0 and our best past was behind us and we are an empire and that empire will crumble tragically at some point and we're just kicking the can down the road, but...that might not happen. The US and its successor states might actually be top dog ~forever.
I don't really put it past China to still be a contender in 100 years but right now the future does not look bright for them, or any of our competitors.
But while you are worried about the practical consequences if someone else is in charge, I am actually worried about the morally corrosive consequences of being top dog forever. Either way, I think we directionally share concerns about the consequences of US success.
But I don't actually think "Iran controlling the strait" would establish a powerful deterrence against future powers that plot unjustified wars without regard for humanitarian consequences. Either the Sunni Arabian powers will reroute all of their stuff through the Red Sea, rendering Iranian control of the Strait a nothingburger (thus minimizing the didactic value of Iran controlling the strait) or the Sunni Arabian powers will kick off a massive war to wrest control of the strait from Iran. If the US is not involved, this war is likely to be an extremely ghastly slog (just like the Iran-Iraq War) and short of the US intervention you oppose, it is unlikely the US could prevent this, as Iran cutting off Sunni Arabian oil exports is almost certainly a nonstarter for those powers, and they can buy arms from Russia and China if the US cuts them off. (China and particularly Russia would likely prefer to ally with an Israeli-Saudi coalition against the Iranians rather than the other way around; my understanding is that the Russians perceive the Iranians under their current leadership as erratic.)
If they succeed in forcing the opening of the strait, the US will likely receive partial credit for their victory given that the Arabians will likely start the war in easy mode (no Iranian navy left to speak of, for instance), which will justify US intervention. If they do not succeed in opening the strait, leading to a loss of the region's oil production (it's unlikely that the Saudis will be content to let Iran export its oil during a prolonged conflict) it will strengthen the United States over the long term as we will control a much larger percentage of the world's oil than we did pre-conflict.
In either case, it seems to me that the results are much more likely to be bloody and horrific than if the US compels Iran to seek terms in the near future.
You will object to my model inasmuch as it renders a US loss impossible. I disagree: it is actually possible to have a situation where most outcomes of a situation lead to a victory (e.g. if merely destabilizing the region is likely to lead to a success in either direction). However, I do think there are "loss conditions" for the US here. I think it is unlikely, but the war is not over, and Iran could still possibly inflict military losses on the US so severe that the US has to retreat unilaterally. And the US may have already lost from a broader strategic perspective (expended munitions).
Ultimately there is nothing more important than justice and securing peace
In my opinion, "securing justice and [a lasting] peace" is exactly the sort of maximalist thinking that drove, and drives, the neocons. Unless the fundamental problems of the region - intractable problems like the Sunni-Shia divide, and the competing national interests of different states - are resolved, all peace is likely to be to some degree temporary. There is a way to remove these sources of conflict, but it is fundamentally both horrific and unjust. Barring that, until Christ rules the earth, the other options are either settle for peace of a greater or lesser duration or for things like "nation-building" and "counter-terrorism operations" which are often of indefinite or extremely lengthy duration.
Mind you, I think that seeking honorable peace of a decent duration is a good and admirable goal. But I am fundamentally skeptical of the idea that "the US not being involved will bring about peace." There are specific areas where US action has arguably made things worse, or where US action has directly led to military conflict. But it does not follow that the US withdrawing from everything will create greater peace. It may increase peace for the United States - and that is not itself a bad thing! But it is not a magic button for world peace (and may be quite the opposite). Prolonged peace is not the default or expected state of humankind, and unless a single power becomes world hegemon, it is unlikely.
As a guy who would like to get out of the sandbox and who is concerned about the consequences of attempting US global hegemony, my personal hope is that Iran absolutely destroying all of our regional bases will make acceding to Iran's demands that we leave the region an easy "yes," that Iranian self-government will be restored, and that in the aftermath of that restoration the various parties in the region will be able to reach an amicable peace.
Shrike
6d ago
If you're saying we should not inflict unnecessary civilian casualties, and if there is a collateral damage, there must be a very good justification of why that was unavoidable - I totally agree. But "proportionate" doesn't sound like a very good term to use in such case.
Yes, that's what I am saying. Feel free to use a different word - I use it because, as I explained earlier, it's a term of art.
That's a tactical question.
Yes, I agree with this. But (if my priors are correct) the decision to hit power plants instead of weapons factories or communications facilities would be a curious one. I would guess that it would likely be easier to hit Iran's weapons factories and military communications nodes than to take out their power network.
I'm not sure that is inherently the case, of course. If Iran decentralized its arms production facilities and situated them in civilian neighborhoods and dwellings, for instance, bombing power plants would likely be both more efficient and more humane. So I agree with you that the facts of the case really matter, there's not some blanket rule saying you can't hit power plants.
"Nefarious plot" is a very apt way to describe "cooking the heads of US intelligence personnel with a sound cannon."
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