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December 13

President Obama’s children's racial identity

President Obama is considered to be by many as multiracial because his mother is white and his father is black. Michelle Obama is pretty much considered to be a full-blooded African American even though she may have a white ancestor in her lineage. So, is President Obama’s children classified as multiracial like their father or is their white ancestry too insignificant for them to be considered to be multiracial since they only have one grandparent who is white, President Obama’s mother? Willminator (talk) 03:27, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In so far as the question has any objective meaning, and we accept the notions of white and black as held in America, they are three quarters black, and one quarter white. You are quite aware of this, having asked the question. How multiracial is defined depends on the definition you want to use. We can't tell you what sense of that word is PLATONIC TRUTH. You have to provide the definition you want to use, and do the math yourself, rather than invite us to offer our opinions. Be aware also that WP:BLP applies to this question. μηδείς (talk) 03:35, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The long and short answer is you'd have to ask them. The operative term in racial identity is identity, so we'd have to know how Obama's daughters identify themselves. --Jayron32 04:46, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So, would that mean that in the case of Barack Obama, it is an objective truth that he is multiracial since he is 50 – 50? In other words, that fact is indisputable, not even by him. But in the case of his children, would that mean that it is subjective truth that they are multiracial, meaning that they can be considered multiracial or not based on their answers they would give, and both answers can be right since they are 75% black and 25% white? Willminator (talk) 05:03, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How sure are you about those percentages? Almost every modern "black" person in the US probably has some European ancestry due to the behaviour of slave owners towards female slaves. Many "pure bred" whites have different "colours" in their ancestry too, whether they know it, or acknowledge it, or not. It's just too easy to destroy arguments about "pure" racial issues. Most of the world (not just the USA) regards Obama as the first black President of the USA. That's certainly going to be a major aspect written about him historically. Your attempts to seek certainty down the multi-racial path are dangerous. HiLo48 (talk) 05:23, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not trying to do anything dangerous here whatever that means. I just want to understand what the minimum percentage in terms of background is to be officially considered or recognized as multiracial, as is evident on Wikipedia's list of multiracial Americans on its article about multiracial Americans, and where Obama's children would fall in this as examples. This is simply motivated by curiosity and wanting to attain more knowledge. Also, I'm just giving out the percentages based on how most people would perceive them as. Of course, they are just estimations in reality, not exact percentages. Willminator (talk) 06:17, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You are writing as if race is a definite thing. You need to look at our article Race (human classification), and some of the other sources linked to from there, to begin to understand the problems with that view. Personally, I think Multiracial American is a very bad article, again seemingly based on the kinds of certainty about what race is that you are exhibiting. And your use of the expression "most people" suggests to me that you need to meet more people. HiLo48 (talk) 11:15, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting silly. Words like multiracial are concepts invented by men to classify the world--not inherent truths. The OP is repeating the request that we identify something as a truth of nature that is a question based on human-invented concepts. The answer is, the children will be multiracial depending on your definition of multiracial.

The OP hasn't defined his terms, so we can't answer his question. μηδείς (talk) 05:30, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Obama's father's line is not known very far up the tree, but it was Kenyan, with no known European ancestry. However, his mother's line includes a black slave a couple centuries back or more. So, based on what's known, Obama is slightly more than 50 percent black. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:11, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there is an elaborate patrilineal genealogy of Luo lineages, to which Obama's father can be slotted in... AnonMoos (talk) 08:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Willminator -- according to the traditional U.S. one-drop rule, Obama and his wife and children are all black. If you're looking for an "objective" or "scientific" definition of who is black, then you won't really find it in currently-accepted mainstream science. However, Obama filled out his 2010 census form as black, not multiracial. AnonMoos (talk) 08:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The one-drop rule, as with the rumors about Warren G. Harding. Oddly enough, certain commentators who would have gladly invoked the one-drop rule in the old days, tried to have it both ways when they referred to Obama as "Half-rican" American. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:29, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Obama's white mother also had African ancestry many generations back, per African-American heritage of United States presidents. Genetic analysis shows that most African -Americans have some European ancestry, and few are more than 80% African. The cited article also discusses the common 19th century view that Lincoln's mother was part African. Lincoln claimed that some anonymous wealthy planter had impregnated his grandmother. Genetic testing sites often find a small African ancestry, such as 0.5%, in American whites who had many lines of their ancestry in the southern US a couple of hundred years ago, due to intermarriage with mixed race part-African people who were "passing" as being part Native American or Southern European. Edison (talk) 15:47, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So, are some of you saying that in reality, there is no such thing as multiracial, that one is either of one race or ethnicity, or the other? Willminator (talk) 22:48, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anybody is saying that. I think most people are saying that there is no workable objective definition of any of the terms ("black", "white", "multi-racial" etc) and the only reasonably satisfactory way to apply them are in terms of what each person defines themself as. --ColinFine (talk) 00:45, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some of us (at least me) take the view that seeing a single human race is a healthy thing to do. HiLo48 (talk) 00:54, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Willminator, it's like you're being willfully obtuse here. There are definitions of "multiracial" and "black" and "white" and any of a number of other identifiers. Those are real classifications with real meanings. No one has said that there aren't. The problem is, that you want the definitions to be different than they are. You want a person to be either black or white or multiracial or Hispanic or whatever in the same way that you can say that an object is either a tree or a table or a ham sandwich, and that every person would universally agree, at a simple glance, that something is either a tree or a table or a ham sandwich. Race and ethnicity doesn't work that way. It doesn't mean that someone isn't a particular race or ethnicity, however, you don't get to define for anyone else what their race or ethnicity is, and race and ethnicity are also does not have simple Boolean truth values. People have a variety of cultural groups they can and may identify with to varying degrees at varying levels, at varying times in their lives, for varying reasons. Cultural identity (race and ethnicity) is real, but it is not simple, and you keep trying to make it simple; that you can call a person "black and thus not white" in the same way you can say "that's a ham sandwich and thus not a table". It just doesn't work that way, and you can't simple place people into a closed box and keep them there. We keep trying to explain these nuances to you and you keep ignoring these explanations. When you ask "Is XXXX Black or White or Multiracial" or "Is YYYY Hispanic or not" based on some tiny set of arbitrary characteristics, or some arbitrary number of ancestors, your question is unanswerable because the premise of the question itself (that race or ethnicity can be deduced merely by counting ancestors) is completely and utterly wrong. That's not how it works. --Jayron32 04:20, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with everything you say, and I've said the same thing on the desks before. However, I'd like to pick it apart a little further. Take a statement like "Obama is black". No-one could reasonably argue against the truth of that statement. But what does it really mean? If self-identification is the only reasonable taxonomy, then what the statement is really saying is "Obama self-identifies as black." But does he? Has he made any such overt statement of self-identification? Does he need to, and if not then how else is self-identification communicated? --Viennese Waltz 08:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See the video of him filling out his 2010 census form or Dreams from my Father... -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:13, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think AnonMoos has answered that specifically for Obama. A more overt (and perhaps better) example is songwriter Johnny Otis as far as racial identity goes. But again, it is nuanced and complex. Cultural identity is not something that we can pigeonhole people into ourselves just to satisfy our desire to categorize our world in simple terms. Cultural identity is an important part of a person's life, and we cannot ignore it; we should honor it. But to do so doesn't mean we get to decide for a person how they identify with one culture or another. That's my main point. If Barack Obama feels one way or another about his own cultural identity (and indeed, that doesn't mean he feels ONLY unidimensional, but that also doesn't mean that he doesn't strongly identify with one particular culture or not) the point is that we should not oversimplify what is a complex and nuanced issue. --Jayron32 02:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Michelle Obama and Helle Thorning-Schmidt

I've heard (and think I saw) that there are images of Michelle Obama talking friendly with Helle Thorning-Schmidt just minutos before (or maybe after) those more famous ones were taken and thus disproving she was actualy jelous but I can't find them. Could you? Would that be a suitable article for Wikinews if they were found?--85.52.83.144 (talk) 10:25, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The fourth picture in this Guardian article? I'll let other more experienced editors comment on the Wikinews question, but personally I don't think it's relevant news at all. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:35, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It was a minor brouhaha for a day or two on shows like Entertainment Tonight. The much bigger story is how did that bogus sign-language interpreter got past everyone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:46, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Slightly relevant article here, if you're interested, OP. Dismas|^(talk) 11:57, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is no reputable source that claims Michelle was jealous. The photographer claimed that Michelle's stern look was purely a coincidence--seconds after the selfie, she started joking around with the others too. Also, only the ignorant believe that the selfie was somehow inappropriate for the situation. You can see a recording of the memorial service here. Notice how the mood was extremely jovial--people were dancing, laughing, singing (including many of the speakers), jumping up and down, and waving flags everywhere. --Bowlhover (talk) 20:28, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a BLP issue so we should be careful. There are multiple pictures posted by the Daily Mail with an annoyed look on MO's face. But making judgments on still photos is notoriously problematic. As for reliable sources, I am not sure what they would be. But comments are all over the written and broadcast media, so it is not like the professional comentators have remained silent. In any case, the issue is hugely unimportant, as is the "translator". This is tabloid, not encyclopedic material, for now. μηδείς (talk) 22:05, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anything I said comes close to violating BLP. For a reference on the photographer's account of the event, see [1]. --Bowlhover (talk) 22:13, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, it doesn't come close to violating BLP, because absolutely nothing meaningful has been said, by anybody. I'm not American. I've been away on holidays (that' a vacation to Americans) away from big cities and the like for the past week and a bit. I knew Mandela's death and funeral occured (couldn't miss that news), but what on earth did Mesdames Obama and Thorning-Schmidt do that was earth shattering? My guess is, nothing really. My measure of whether something is significant enough to be in an article is whether anyone will care in ten years time. I say no more. HiLo48 (talk) 23:04, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, when I said "we should be careful", I really meant to say I had read your minds Bowlhover and HiLo, and could see the stain on your souls. WtF? A caution is just a caution. μηδείς (talk) 01:42, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The tabloids constantly look for ways to make something out of nothing. Doing a selfie at a funeral was perhaps in poor taste, but that's about it. The fake interpreter is rather more important, not so much because of the comical nature of his "signing", but because it reveals a serious lack of due diligence on the part of the South African government. We're just lucky that the guy was able to keep himself under control enough to avoid bringing physical harm to anyone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:46, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cambridge applications

I recently had an interview to study History at BA Level at Hughes Hall college, and I was wondering this: the university says that there are 200 places available for their history course and 3 applicants for each place, making 600 applicants on average each year. If they were to make 350 provisional offers and 300 applicants met the requirements of their offer, would all 300 enrol or is this impossible because of the limited number of places? If they don't make enough provisional offers they run the risk that the course wont have the required intake. Do they create new places, offer alternatives or do they have a way of trimming down to only the very ablest students. I find the Cambridge and Oxford systems very unusual as admissions are decided by college tutors and not necessarily members of individual departments, which seems quite decentralised and haphazard way of coordinating their admissions. Any thoughts — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrandrewnohome (talk • contribs) 21:43, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Places" at Oxbridge are really rather vague concepts, particularly in subjects like History. If they have only 200 places but get 300 successful applicants, then yes all 300 will enrol. It just means you might end up in (for example) a series of tutorials with four students in them instead of three, and in a lecture hall that has more seats crammed in than it's generally designed for. (Or else they will just swap the lecture hall they already booked for a larger one...)

Yes it's all very haphazard. My college accepted six students per year in my subject in "good years", and only two in "bad" years, but of course had the same teaching capacity (number of tutors) all along.

Haphazard but quite effective! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:57, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting because in the case of Cambridge, it's not the "university" that makes you an offer, it's the "college". Generally, Cambridge will make about two or three offers for every one place, unlike other universities (besides Oxford) who tend to offer far more places than are actually available. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

December 14

Who initially owns newly printed US money?

When new US money is printed, who is the initial owner of it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.36.90.213 (talk) 07:58, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The initial owner of the actual pieces of paper is the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. These are then transported to the various branches of the Federal Reserve Bank from where they're issued to the public. Tevildo (talk) 09:39, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just to add to Tevildo's accurate response above, money that is newly printed normally just replaces old notes that are withdrawn from circulation and destroyed, plus a small amount to replace notes that have been accidentally destroyed or are being retained and are not likely to go back into circulation (note collections, one-time foreign travellers etc). Where the amount of "new money" exceeds this, the OP might be interested in our article Quantitative easing#Printing money. Dbfirs 12:14, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(After EC) The question is not about who owns the money as pieces of paper, but money as tokens with value. Say if a $100 bill is printed, who initially owns the $100 value and gets to spend it? When an ordinary bank lends out money deposited by its depositors, the money is still that of the depositors' in the sense that the banks owes them the amount. In the case of the Federal Reserve Bank, who, if any, is the equivalent of the depositors? --108.36.90.213 (talk) 12:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Would the equivalent of the "depositor" be the Treasury Dept.? Blueboar (talk) 13:56, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Federal Reserve System is our main article on how money works in the USA. See, in particular, Federal Reserve System#Central bank. Tevildo (talk) 14:09, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't seem right. Wouldn't that mean the US government can increase its "net worth", at everybody else's expense (by diluting the value of the dollar), just by printing more money? --108.36.90.213 (talk) 15:43, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed it does mean that - see fiat currency, money creation and Nixon Shock. Whether it's "right" or not is a political question that has no correct answer. ;) Tevildo (talk) 15:48, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Various foreign governments have done exactly that, and later discovered that all they really succeeded in doing was pouring millions of gallons/litres of petrol/gasoline onto the rampaging wildfire of inflation. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:56, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you give me an old 100 bill and I give you a new one and then destroy the old one, then nothing has been spent (other than the cost of printing it). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:26, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not talking about replacing old, worn-out bills; I'm talking about creating new money that didn't exist before. --108.36.90.213 (talk) 15:43, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to the points above, I'm not totally sure you understand fractional reserve banking or the money multiplier either. I'm not an economist but I think this simplified explaination isn't that inaccurate. The money that is lent out isn't really the money that is deposited. It's effectively new money. In the case of a demand deposit, the depositor can at any stage take their money back. The bank can't tell them 'oops sorry I lent it out'. The amount of money that is in the system is therefore actually increased since there's the money that is lent out and the demand deposits that can be due at any time. This sorta works most of the time, the problem is when there's a bank run and there isn't actually enough reserves to pay back all those trying to withdraw their deposit. (But a bank run also illustrates the point about there being more money in the system than actually exists i.e. the money owned to the people wanting to withdraw their deposits and the money that was lent out. The people withdrawing their money want their money back from the bank who legally owe them. The people who borrowed the money have that money, perhaps spent including paid to the people who deposited their money and now want it back. And the borrowers only have to pay back their loans in accordance with the terms they agreed to which doesn't include paying it back right now because the depositors want their money back.) Edit: Notice Aspro said something similar below. Nil Einne (talk) 01:39, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What I think the OP is referring to is: if a bank has a hundred million on deposit, it can request five times that amount in Dollar Bills from the reserve, on the assumption that their depositors will not all demand their many back at one. It is the old banking adage... Borrow long, lend short. In other words, long term investors provide the collateral that the bank can lend short term, in the hope that they will be able to make enough profit to pay off the initial investors and all the dollars they created out of thin air. This is why the US came off of the Gold Standard. It allowed the creation of money. So the US dollar to day is worth a fraction of its original value, when compared to its value under the original Dollar gold price.--Aspro (talk) 20:40, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Travel Accounts to Tahiti or Society Islands in the 1880s or 1890s

Are there any travel accounts/public domain books written about travels to Tahiti or the Society Islands in the 1880s or 1890s? I need a primary source to relate to the events of the "Leewards War," a period of native resistance to French annexation in the Leeward Islands of the Society Islands. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 14:22, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Noa Noa by Paul Gauguin chronicles his experiences on Tahiti in the early 1890s. I have no idea whether he mentions anything about those events though. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:02, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tahiti, the Garden of the Pacific, etc. (1891) - 30mb PDF. Haven't checked the text, but it may be of use. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:28, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

December 15

Ford, DuPont, Apple, Microsoft, PayPal, Amazon, Facebook.....

Earlier companies are generally called after their founder's names.

More recent companies are much more likely named differently.

I wonder if anyone has discussed this issue. -- Toytoy (talk) 00:19, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder too, because I'd like to know if your claim is true. The oldest company I can think of, the East India Company, probably wasn't named after Mr East India. HiLo48 (talk) 01:01, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here I'd thought you were trying to be ironic. Nyttend (talk) 02:20, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Generally named after founders... such as General Electric, General Motors, General Dynamics, General Foods, General Mills... Names of companies and brand names are always about marketing strategy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:08, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Probably more relevant than date-of-creation is the earliest form of the company. Companies founded by a person or a family have often carried that name, e.g. Kroger and Wal-Mart in retailing, or Carnegie Steel in heavy industry. When you start out as a corporation with multiple shareholders, it can be inconvenient to go with everyone's names; J&L Steel started out as the American Iron Company and changed its name only after Mr Laughlin bought out Mr Jones' original partner, by which time the company was already prominent. You also need to consider the company's business model: when you're doing business online or remotely, like Apple, Microsoft, PayPal, Amazon, and Facebook, your own name won't help and might be confusing (hearing it for the first time, you'd understand "Facebook" better than you would "Zuckerberg"), but when you're doing business face-to-face or otherwise much closer to the customer, it doesn't matter as much: you go to Mr Ford and pay him to build you a car, or a factory owner uses his company's library to learn that Mr DuPont is the guy who owns that chemical company and thus the guy he'll need to contact on that chemical purchase. Nyttend (talk) 01:31, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've nailed it pretty well. The name of a given company is going to be whatever its owners think is the right name at any given time. I was just reading about John D. Rockefeller, which is quite enlightening in many ways. One aspect was the company name - his name and his partners' names were on various early versions of their companies, but when they began to expand both his operation and his ambitions and goals, he changed the name to Standard Oil - a self-defining name if there ever was one, as it spoke to those ambitions. Both Wal-Mart and Sam's Club retain their founder's name. Other department stores do too. Sears, Macy's, etc. are obvious. K-Mart was originally under the name some guy named Kresge. Most if not all car companies started out as the names of their founders. It just happens that Ford was never acquired by someone. General Motors was a combination of several companies that were named for their founders, but the individual product lines retained their founders' names. Likewise with Chrysler, except there actually was a guy named Chrysler. And so on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:51, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Whether you use your own name is probably dependent on the uniqueness of the name, too. If your company goes by "Gates", people are more likely to imagine that you're a construction company, not a company selling a disk operating system. A less-common name, like Kroger, may work like a made-up name such as Kodak: people might never have heard of Barney Kroger, but once they're familiar with his company, it has instant brand recognition — "Kroger" instantly means a grocery store to them, but "Gates" may mean plenty of things unrelated to software. Consider also the issue of using first names versus last names. How many businesses go by someone's first name? Most of them are small restaurants whose owners serve local clientele, many of whom know the guy whose name it is; and even when you see a big firm with a first name, it can be a small restaurant that became big, e.g. Wendy's. Nyttend (talk) 02:20, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ray Kroc kept the name "McDonald's" as the name of his franchise after he acquired it from the McDonald brothers; as he said, "What are you going to do with a name like Kroc?" Dave Thomas, who got his start by helping save the fledgling KFC corporation, incorporated an altered version of his daughter's name to give an identity to his new burger company. Burger King, meanwhile, has no particular identity, but it seems to have done OK. As noted below, companies always have some kind of strategy in their naming. It's just a bit more obvious sometimes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:54, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Verizon" paid a good deal of money to have consultants create that portmanteau from veritas/horizon. (The significance of using the red, white and black of the Third Reich instead of the pacific blue and green of Bell Atlantic is less clear.) The use of v and z was supposed to be futuristic. This was discussed quite a lot in the press, as was the fact that the word as the company would have you pronounce it violates normal pronunciation rules. See http://verizon.com/about/name.html and for criticism and some background facts http://www.identityworks.com/reviews/2000/verizon.htm. See also rebranding, which mentions the firm that created "verizon". μηδείς (talk) 02:11, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Place names play a fairly common part in company names. The world's largest mining company, BHP Billiton, still retains an abbreviated form of the name of the place where it all began. British Petroleum has obvious geographic roots. British Airways is a bit of a give-away. I believe Kodak was chosen as a name that would be pronounced fairly similarly in most languages. Shell really was originally a company selling sea-shells. HiLo48 (talk) 02:26, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See "List of company name etymologies".

—Wavelength (talk) 02:39, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a list of wikipedia editor user names? μηδείς (talk) 18:33, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Special:ListUsers. Deor (talk) 19:11, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry, I meant giving their (self-reported) etymologies, in response to Wavelength's post. Most people seem to think my name means Mad Black Woman. μηδείς (talk) 20:12, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I googled [Medeis] and the first thing that came up was your user page with some sort of rebuke on it. That kind of thing is why I use the "NOINDEX" feature. It would be interesting if users put an explanation for their user ID's when they're not their actual names and are not necessarily obvious. Jack of Oz would be someone named Jack who lives in Australia. HiLo48 is also an Aussie, but the username is not at all obvious (not to me, anyway). And while "Medeis" sounds the name of a character from Greek mythology, it appears not to be. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:12, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm me! Hope that helps. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:58, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's an alternative form to the name Odysseus gives to Polyphemus in the Odyssey, so it could be considered to have a tenuous quasi-mythological connection. The feminine singular form would technically be μηδεμια. Mine is obviously "Anonymous" modified towards "Moose", with the additional constraint that my ISP only allowed usernames 8 letters long... AnonMoos (talk) 01:27, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone either link to or give the noindex markup? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 01:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do a quick "edit" on my user page and you'll see it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:08, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks. μηδείς (talk) 02:14, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My user name is the names of the two cats I had when I joined WP. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:58, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've never been entirely satisfied with my username, and have developed a handy list of alternative names should I ever decide to become someone else. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:56, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Most of those are good. I would avoid Enoch because it could lead to a infinite loop: "Knock-Knock." "Who's there?" "Enoch." "Who?" etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:15, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Explaining mine leads very quickly to having to deny the blood libel, so it's left as a (fairly easy) exercise for the reader. Tevildo (talk) 19:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ownerless land under common law

Imagine that a declining nonprofit organisation owns a piece of unused land but its members forget about it. Eventually the members decide to dissolve the organisation, and they donate specific possessions to various entities but never mention the forgotten piece of land. Under traditional English-and-Welsh common law, what would happen to the still-unused land? I can imagine someone gaining title through adverse possession, but not to unused land; is this a likely candidate for escheatment? The situation arises from the post-demise history of the American Colonization Society, which apparently forgot about an empty lot in Liberia after they dissolved and gave their documents to a US institution. I'm asking about English-and-Welsh law because it's the most recent kind of law that's probably applicable and yet well known: I don't expect any of you to know about Liberian property law, which presumably was founded on a combination of US states' property laws (but which ones is probably unknown to anyone except specialists in Liberian history), which were generally founded on English-and-Welsh property law. Nyttend (talk) 01:02, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have answered your own question with adverse possession and escheatment. The question of land that's unclaimed by any private or public entity is technically moot, since there is no claim. (The moment anyone notices that will likely change.) The usual caveat that local law will apply applies. Is there some specific jurisdiction you are looking for? Or a third option beyond squatters and seizure? μηδείς (talk) 02:51, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But I'm asking whether escheatment would be likely, since land possession is only mentioned in the escheatment article in a feudal context, wherein the previous tenant lost it by misbehaving: the article addresses escheatment of forgotten personal property but doesn't mention whether the same process could be applied to real property. My question addresses two jurisdictions (England-and-Wales centuries ago, as a remote way of understanding recent Liberia), and I was also curious if a third option might arise. I'm guessing that the Liberian situation got resolved by seizure for unpaid property taxes (see the article section that I mention), but that presumably wouldn't have been possible before 1910 in England and Wales. Nyttend (talk) 03:03, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Adverse possession is the most on point concept towards your central point. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who knew about English or American law on this board, let alone some despotic nation that's had four versions of government recently (i'm sure that wont' stop some of our more loquacious contributors from making guesses though). Shadowjams (talk) 08:40, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Under actual English law in England, such property devolves to the Crown as bona vacantia. I don't know what the position is in Liberia. Tevildo (talk) 10:17, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the input, Tevildo; good thing that we had someone who knew about English law on this board, especially since Liberia's a non-despotic nation with three forms of government in 1-2/3 centuries. Nyttend (talk) 19:43, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Non-despotic is debatable. It's non-monarchical. Let's just leave it at that. --Jayron32 22:12, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dangerous Goods Emergency Kit on aircraft

I just flew in the back row of a Turkish Airlines 737 and noticed the last overhead bin said "crew use only" and that it said it contained a "Dangerous Goods Emergency Kit" (or very similar wording - I should have taken a photo). I think I have a basic understanding of things that should not be loaded on a plane (acids, explosives, and so on) but I wonder a) what do they think they have to worry about in the cabin and b) what might the kit contain? Hayttom 17:01, 15 December 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hayttom (talk • contribs) [reply]

One potential danger is portable oxygen tanks, since, if they leak, they can pose a fire hazard, because things become far more flammable in 100% oxygen. Recently portable oxygen generators have eliminated the need for oxygen tanks, which allows people with reduced lung function to travel more safely. StuRat (talk) 17:05, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is such a kit, as sold in Australia - other kits tailored to specific national requirements are probably available. They contain things such as safety glasses, safety gloves, face masks, etc. The main risk in the passenger cabin of an aircraft will be lithium-ion laptop batteries and suchlike. Tevildo (talk) 17:13, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It also contains stuff to deal with spillages or leaking packages, some instructions for use at [2] MilborneOne (talk) 17:16, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

wunderbar Hayttom 18:59, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

December 16

Healthcare - Socialized or Privatized?

I've yet to form an opinion on whether healthcare should be socialized or privatized. I'm looking for two books, each advocating for one of the positions. Any recommendations? 74.15.137.253 (talk) 04:50, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You may also need a third book, advocating a mix of government and private involvement. That's a pretty common model. HiLo48 (talk) 05:12, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For an explanation of how the NHS was arrived at, read the Beveridge Report which recommended its inception. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:56, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's similar to the advantages of privatization versus socialization, in general. That is, privatization may do a better job for the rich, while socialization does a better job for the poor. StuRat (talk) 15:03, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You've got it right, and that's why the wealthy often oppose socialized medicine, as it runs counter to their core philosophy of Social Darwinism. (That's the "let them die and decrease the surplus population" philosophy.) There is also a somewhat middle ground, if you happen to be working for a company or other organization that provides health care benefits. I've often heard that referred to as "privatized socialism". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:30, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not only covers medicine, but all aspects of free market versus socialist policies: George Reisman's college textbook Capitlaism, available as a free download here: http://www.capitalism.net/. μηδείς (talk) 17:22, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- One unfortunate side effect of national health care that turns up here from time to time is the notion that people shouldn't go to doctors unless they "really have to", as otherwise they will be "bothering" the doctor. That puts the patient in the business of being his own doctor, which is human nature, for sure, but is nearly as risky as taking medical advice from anonymous internet users. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:38, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Really? As opposed to not going to a doctor because you can't afford it? Give me a break. Anyway, the OP asked for books. All I can say is, make sure to include plenty of European books to get a sensible point of view on these issues. 82.21.7.184 (talk) 19:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't seen many of the "medical advice" debates. I'm appalled at how often some editors talk about not "bothering" a doctor when you can find free advice [and worth the price] within Wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:46, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's a real issue. In Britain, which of course does have (broadly) free-at-the-point-of-use health care, there was a situation in which people would make regular appointments with a doctor for a chat about their general state of health, which became something of a burden on the system. Likewise some people would choose not to make appointments precisely because they believed it was their social duty not to overburden the system and waste the resources of the community as a whole. Both are real problems produced by such a system, and it is equally difficult for the health service itself to find an effective strategy to deal with it. The system potentially finds itself sending the confusing message "don't waste doctors' time if you think there's probably nothing wrong with you, but please don't delay in contacting one if you think you may have something wrong with you". Paul B (talk) 21:00, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless, Britain, despite the perceived shortcomings of the NHS and the heavily drinking Glaswegians, has a higher life expectancy than the US. 86.128.183.4 (talk) 23:17, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any evidence that 79 years vs. 77 years average lifespan (or 81 vs 80, depending on the chart) is a statistically significant difference? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes! Of course. Look at the sample size. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:47, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You'd have to run a statistical analysis to determine whether 79 vs. 77 in this sample is statistically significant. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:47, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I found some stats for counties in Britain at [3] (graphic [4]) - looking at the regionalization clarifies the complexity of such a question. There is certainly substantial homogeneity in individual regions of Britain, suggesting the number is quite significant (after all, a huge sample size!) yet the difference between regions shows that the difference is not just one country vs. another. Which leaves some question as to causality. Still, it's not a bad sign for the NHS. Wnt (talk) 04:25, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, I have not yet seen any evidence that knowing more about your health (even if it is not enough to do competent diagnosis) is a bad thing. My expectation continues to be that we all diagnose ourselves before any doctor does, because we all decide on our own whether to go or not before anything else happens. Wnt (talk) 04:27, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You may have more luck if you refer to so-called 'socialised' healthcare as 'public' or 'national'. Most British people would not recognise the term 'socialised medicine' unless they were familiar with the cliches of American political discourse. AlexTiefling (talk) 00:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Help figuring out original source for James Dubro

I found an archived full length piece about him at William Armstrong Percy III's website: 1st page, 2nd page. But I'm not having much luck in finding the original article, author, or publication (could be US or Canadian). Anyone up for a challenge? Sportfan5000 (talk) 07:18, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's Canadian, anyone have a clue? Sportfan5000 (talk) 22:14, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Great British Novel

What novels by British authors have been considered as the British equivalent of the Great American Novel? By which I mean, novels which capture some kind of unique British experience. English novel would be a starting point. --Viennese Waltz 15:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely all the Victorians in that article: Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, Eliot, Hardy, Trollope. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:43, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Or, for a more humorous take, but one that captures a moment in time, see: P. G. Wodehouse bibliography. Blueboar (talk) 15:46, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This thread at www.online-literature.com mentions Dickens, the Brontes etc., and also adds D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love and Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. More bizzarely, some contributors proposed The Lord of the Rings and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:45, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why either of those choices is bizzare... Did Britons stop writing quality novels after 1930? --Jayron32 18:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well in the first place, many would argue that those novels are not literary fiction. More importantly, they don't meet the criterion for a Great British Novel (which I've simply taken by substituting 'British' for 'American' in the GAN article. --Viennese Waltz 19:39, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In the Nineteenth Century, the great Victorian novelists: Dickens, Trollope (The Way We Live Now), and Thackeray (Vanity Fair).

In the Twentieth Century, only the great Kim and Brideshead Revisited. If you wanted to stretch a point, The Forsyte Saga and A Dance to the Music of Time, but both of those are multi-volume works rather than single novels, and second-rate compared to Kim and Brideshead.

The Twenty-First Century has got off to a cracking start with two novels that both inform and are informed by the state of the nation: Tony Blair's A Journey and Alastair Campbell's Dodgy Dossier. Eager fans of fiction await the report of the Chilcot Inquiry.

It's interesting that two wonderful novels - The Go-Between and A High Wind in Jamaica - are excluded from the 'English novel' article. So is John Fowles, intellectual in tone but now rather dated, perhaps. We could add Rupert Graves' novelisations of Seutonius -I, Claudius and Claudius the God - he (Graves) going progressively more bonkers as he aged, but his books hardly capture the contemporary zeitgeist. It's certainly true to say that the ambition and ability of English novelists has declined from the high Victorian peak; almost nothing written post-war (arguably, post-First World War) seems likely to stand the test of time other than the dystopian visions of Orwell and Peake (and, in the second tier, Burgess, Huxley, Wells and Wyndham).

(So, in answer to Jayron, above, 'Did Britons stop writing quality novels after 1930?', yes, almost completely, with the exception of Evelyn Waugh and L. P. Hartley.) Nowadays the public education system is so poor that the literature most indicative of the era is probably Jordan's novels (celebrities and sex), which, together with the oeuvre of Ian Fleming (alcohol and sex) and Jilly Cooper (a middle-class person's idea of an upper-class lifestyle and sex), define the interests of the age and also helpfully act as an aid to masturbation. 86.183.79.28 (talk) 20:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting that you mention Fowles. What inspired me to ask this question was reading Daniel Martin, which the blurb describes as "an exploration of what it is to be English". Perhaps a case could be made for that as a GBN, although it seems rather too fixated on a narrow subset of English life (Oxford, the theatre, the BBC, London flat, agreeable house in the country) to be truly regarded as representative. --Viennese Waltz 12:30, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You need to include Irish authors published between 1801 and 1921.
Sleigh (talk) 20:39, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ireland was never part of "Britain", though it was part of the United Kingdom. Still, if an Irish writer created a novel about British life and identity, it could reasonably be included. I should think there's no doubt about the book that would be top of the list for "Great Irish Novel" - Ulysses. But even though the book was "published between 1801 and 1921" (just), I can't see it being considered a GBN by many people. Paul B (talk) 20:46, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Irish life between 1801 and 1921 was British.
Sleigh (talk) 21:10, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Repeating yourself does not make your claim any more true. Look up the definition of Great Britain. Paul B (talk) 22:07, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively, look up the definition of British Isles. The word "British" has several different meanings, and it is not obvious which one of them the OP intended. --ColinFine (talk) 23:19, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly did not have Irish literature in mind. Paul B is right, Ulysses is the great Irish novel but no way can it be considered British. --Viennese Waltz 08:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See also Terminology of the British Isles for a more comprehensive insight into this can of onomastic worms. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:06, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the concept of the "Great American Novel" is itself so characteristically American that it's hard to conceive of a UK equivalent. The UK has produced great novels, but the idea that one of them might stand as a monolithic cultural testament would not be taken seriously by most people. AlexTiefling (talk) 00:39, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All of Dickens's novels stand as monolithic cultural testaments. Charles Dickens was fated in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
Sleigh (talk) 02:30, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fated to be famous. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:40, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What Jack is hinting at is that the right word is "feted". Clarityfiend (talk) 08:13, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll throw a contemporary work into the pot: Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very interesting question, Viennese Waltz. People don't really talk about the "Great British novel" - see this Guardian article[5], which poses the question: "The Great American Novel is one of the peaks of world literature, so why is there no British equivalent?" As it points out, "Britishness" is a rather amorphous and contested concept. There are, after all, three different nations in Great Britain, with distinct cultures and histories. I doubt the Scots and Welsh would regard an English novelist as reflecting their experiences.

Even if we just confine ourselves to seeking "the Great English novel", the diversity of experiences within England - class differences being particularly significant here - makes it difficult to select one novel. Regional differences are important too - the experiences of Londoners are not the same as the experiences of Northerners etc. Indeed certain great writers are associated very strongly with a particular region - Thomas Hardy is undoubtedly "the Great West Country novelist." Dickens is probably the closest England has to a national novelist, and he remains so popular and quintessentially English because he managed to capture a broader range of experiences than most other novelists - not just the rich, but the hardships and injustices suffered by the industrial working class. But it would be hard to anoint just one of his novels (perhaps Great Expectations or Hard Times if forced to choose?) - it's more his (large) body of work as a whole.

In short, there are lots of great British novels, but "the Great British novel" does not exist. Neljack (talk) 07:06, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Productivity

All things being equal, would an increase in national productivity lead to higher wages or cheaper products (or some combination of the two)? The reason I'm asking is, I'm wondering if a worker benefits from higher national productivity even if his hourly wage hasn't changed. 74.15.137.253 (talk) 23:21, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A productivity increase could result in higher employer profits with no wage increase or product price cut. A rise in productivity doesn't automatically cause a wage increase or price cut... AnonMoos (talk) 01:07, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That subject came up on the radio just today. Productivity is generally always to the benefit of the company, not to the individual. It's a practical result of the management philosophy of getting "more for the same, or the same for less". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It could result in higher profits, higher wages, no change, lower wages or lower profits. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:31, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Workers haven't gotten a real wage increase in a long time. →Σ σ ς. (Sigma) 03:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The next obvious question from that chart is why were wages and productivity seemingly linked at one point in time, but are seemingly decoupled in another period of time. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:33, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Probably a lot of reasons, but some of the more important would would be decline of labor unions, rise of globalism and "financialism", restructuring of U.S. tax codes to favor the wealthy (though this last didn't take hold until the 1980s), etc. AnonMoos (talk) 08:30, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Before globalization, labor unions could use any increase in productivity to demand higher wages and benefits, most likely at the next contract negotiation. But now the company is likely to lay people off instead, since they no longer need as many workers to do the same job. Combine this with the long term trend of sending jobs overseas, and increased productivity worldwide may be quite bad for the workers. However, if productivity increases in Western nations, and not in third-world sweatshops, then that might somewhat slow the outsourcing trend. StuRat (talk) 08:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Wolff suggests in this video that a labour shortage in the US ended around the time when the wages flatlined. →Σ σ ς. (Sigma) 09:48, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Right, and globalization solved the labor shortage, thus allowing US companies to pay lower wages. I advise young people to get degrees in areas which can't be offshored, like nursing (hard to change a bedpan from China). StuRat (talk) 10:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is hardly a coincidence that the outsourcing is done in countries where unionization would be next to impossible. Corporate-level capitalism is really nothing more than the feudal system in a three-piece suit. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:39, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The entire discussion above is a bunch of Marxist gobbledygook. Increased productivity in a free market leads to lower prices due to competition. Increased profits either have to be invested in capital, which requires laborers, meaning higher wages, or is drained off by the owners in unproductive spending by them, which is still recycled into the economy since they hire servants and buy things from productive employers. μηδείς (talk) 01:46, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- It doesn't work that way anymore, because it's no longer a "closed system". Why should they hire Americans at, say, 10 dollars an hour when they can hire Bangladeshis at, say, a dollar a day? And when they suffer a Triangle Shirtwaist-like fire, the golden rulers say, "Oh, well, whatever. It's the price of a 'free market' economy." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:45, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

December 17

Milestone as First Lady

Is Graca Machel the only woman in the world to serve First Lady of two nations: South Africa and Mozambique? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.228.43 (talk) 00:45, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

According to the article on Graça Machel, she is. There is also a note stating that "other women have been the consort in two separate monarchies. For example, Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122?–1204) was queen consort of France and later of England." ---Sluzzelin talk 01:02, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Queen Victoria was also Empress of India. Queen Anne was queen both of England and Scotland and, subsequently, the kingdom of Great Britain. 86.183.79.28 (talk) 04:33, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And George III was King of Great Britain and later King of the United Kingdom. George VI was the first monarch of the Statute of Westminster 1931 era, meaning he was separately monarch of 6 countries, and his wife Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) was consort of all 6. Their daughter Queen Elizabeth II, however, is queen of 16 separate monarchies, and her husband Prince Phillip is consort of all 16. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I guess a case could be made for Olga Havlová, First Lady of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic and later, after the dissolution, First Lady of the Czech Republic, but that's not a particularly interesting case. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:01, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why has no person or country succeeded at conquering the world?

Lots of people, organizations, or countries have attempted regional or even world domination, yet at the global level none ever succeeded. This is not for want of trying nor want of candidates. List of largest empires#All empires at their greatest extent suggests it is very difficult to control more than 10% of the world's land area, and nobody has managed to control 23% or above. It seems historically easier to control contiguous population centers (for instance in the Middle East or China), so although no ruler seems to have dominated more than half the world's population, several have controlled rather more than one third. Many other successful empires, including geographically dispersed trans-oceanic empires, have contained more than 20% of the world's population at their peak. So why were none of them able to use this position of strength to attain complete global domination?

On the face of it, such large and powerful empires would have had the ability to coordinate military and economic resources that would have overwhelmed their rivals - at least individually, if not collectively. Rivals in alliance would have faced organizational and trust problems with cooperation and coordination; those that stood alone could have been picked off. But in practice great empires seem to reach a zenith, which they may struggle to maintain, before declining again - a cycle familiar from art and in literature.

I know there are many theories for the rise and fall of empires - imperial overstretch, cultural, social, environmental and economic factors and so on. I understand that the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun contained such ideas, including considerations of the scale of military resources that can be marshalled by states of varying size. Theodor Mommsen laid out a "rise and fall" cycle in his History of Rome, and this was generalized to empires across the world by Arnold J. Toynbee in A Study of History. Joseph Tainter posits that decreasing returns to social complexity prevent large, organizationally complicated states from achieving the economic gains one might naively expect them to attain by their increased scale. Peter Turchin and Andrey Korotayev used mathematical modelling to show cycles can arise from a state's population growth and its (fiscal) ability to appropriate a portion of their production.

While I am aware of this theoretical backdrop, I don't claim any great familiarity with the cited works. Nevertheless, I don't think any of the above settles the problem of why the world has never been united by a single empire. For instance, why should whatever limiting factor is under consideration (complexity, fiscal situation, etc) inevitably bite before an empire has achieved world-dominant status? How does this relate to the (empirically fairly strict) limits of half the world's population, or quarter of its land-mass? On the other hand, the Great Divergence shows that one geo-political unit can massively out-accelerate others, in scientific, economic and military terms, and maintain this lead for multi-century timescales. If such a sustained flowering had occurred in a resource-rich region with a politically centralized system (e.g. during a stage in which Europe, China, India or the Middle East were unified, as all four largely were for at least some of their history) then would those "25% land, 50% population" limits been overcome? Looking at the combined extent of the European colonial empires on a map is suggestive, but I suspect some would argue rival, smaller-scale polities were a prerequisite for the Divergence in the first place. Is there any theoretical work on the maximal extent of empires that investigates these limits? Aside from the historical approaches I noted above, perhaps in the field of geostrategy, or more quantitatively world-systems theory? ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 01:47, 17 December 2013 (UTC) (Edit: Or related fields such as international relations studies, cliodynamics, military science...)[reply]

You could make a long list of people who wanted to conquer the world and tried but the world made fools of them all when they found out how big the world is and how little they were. Like when they got to Switzerland, or Russia. 71.246.153.121 (talk) 01:55, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Heed the words of Will Cuppy, who said this about would-be conqueror Erik the Red: "He had learned that there is no use murdering people; there are always so many left, and if you tried to murder them all you would never get anything else done." No matter how many enemy you kill, you'll never get them all. That's a significant roadblock to world domination. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, from a military point of view we may heed the words of General Montgomery: Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: "Do not go fighting with your land armies in China". It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives. Hansard, Col. 227 I do wonder whether military constraints, perhaps in combination with the accompanying logistical and economic issues, are actually the most problematic. It certainly seems consistent with landmass being a tighter constraint than population and is why I specifically asked if anybody could contribute any geostrategic insight. The imperial overstretch explanation of Paul Kennedy (The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers) goes into more detail on the financial problem of funding an imperial military. ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 02:25, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't your own quote from Montgomery answer the question perfectly? I'm not quite sure if you mean to ask something else, or what it all means. 71.246.157.200 (talk) 04:56, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Montgomery's comments are best described as stylized facts about one of the problems of world conquest - the sheer extent of the Eurasian landmass. This is a kind of consideration that I know is examined in more theoretical detail in the field of geostrategy. It would be helpful to know how seriously geostrategic thinkers rate the difficulty of dominating Eurasia, and how they compare it to other geographical impediments such as the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Further, "don't march on Moscow/fight in Asia" can't serve as a complete answer because it actually indicates a strategic strength of any civilization that does dominate large tracts of Eurasia. Several civilizations (Mongols, Russians, Soviets, various Turkic and Chinese peoples) have held such a near-impregnable space. Why were they not in a prime position to dominate the (known) world? Does this relate to the historical difficulty of controlling more than a quarter of the world's landmass? I'd be surprised if there have been no serious academic studies of these issues, in geostrategy, world systems theory or cliodynamics (which has certainly been used to examine the geographic spread of civilizations). ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 16:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan illustrate very well the problems with managing an empire. The US, by far the world richest and most powerful country, could not keep order in a poverty-stricken Iraq years after Iraq's army had been defeated. It couldn't defeat North Vietnam, a small and largely agricultural country with outdated weapons and no way to even reach America. The biggest problem with conquering the world isn't militarily defeating the strongest opponent; it's administering conquered territories and ensuring the loyalty of their inhabitants. ---Bowlhover (talk) 08:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The US could have won in Vietnam if it was less moral. Dropping multiple nuclear weapons would have gotten the job done, for example. As far as one nation conquering all, the Roman model seems to come closest to having worked, where they offer to incorporate conquered territories and give those nations sufficient rights so they don't rebel, combined with absolutely vicious reprisals on those which do rebel. The Roman empire seemed to lack some technology needed to conquer the entire world, though, like ships capable of crossing oceans safely.

Back to the case of the US, it probably could have conquered the whole world, back when it was the only one with nuclear weapons, if it was willing to use them on anyone who resisted. One problem is that the Soviet Union was able to use spies to steal the secret in short order, but, if that could have been prevented, it might have been possible. Then, to maintain control, enough people would need to be stationed in each nation to ensure that they couldn't develop any WMD capable of hitting the US. Of course, the US would be absolutely hated as a result of all this, as would any world conquerer.

But, here we are where everyone and their brother has a nuke, making world conquest impossible, unless some new technology is developed to render those obsolete. StuRat (talk) 08:52, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to think that making Vietnam an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland amounts to "conquering" it. If that's the case, I claim to have conquered the Moon. Also, remember that China and the Soviet Union both had nuclear weapons during the Vietnam War, so it's not clear that the US would win even if it did use nuclear weapons. --Bowlhover (talk) 18:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

They seemed about as resistant to surrender as the Japanese in WW2, and a couple nukes convinced them to surrender. I doubt if China or the Soviet Union would risk nuclear war over a nation as unimportant in geopolitical terms as Vietnam (despite the domino theory). Of course, it's lack of importance is also part of why the US gave up on it. StuRat (talk) 18:47, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ManyQuestionsFewAnswers -- The technological infrastructure and geographical knowledge of all the earth's major regions which would be necessary to support a world empire didn't remotely come into existence until the 17th century, and since the 17th century there hasn't been one nation-state which is overwhelmingly more powerful than all others. The closest was mid-19th-century Britain, but the mid-19th-century British had mixed and conflicting attitudes about large standing armies and accelerating colonial acquisitions. They were enthusiastic about using the Royal Navy to safeguard Britain's commercial prosperity (and also food supply, since Britain was becoming less agriculturally self-sufficient at that time), but launching armies into Continental Europe for any purpose other than brief selective interventions to maintain the "balance of power" was exactly what most Britons didn't want to do... AnonMoos (talk) 08:49, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wanting to rule the world is a form of mental illness. Any attempt is a major cause of unnecessary human suffering. Dreaming of ruling the world is a good example of "trying to get cow milk from a pigeon" like many of the questions on this page. 71.127.132.207 (talk) 13:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

AnonMoos: that's an interesting answer. Even without Early Modern technology and geography, there were some pretty sizeable empires, like those of the Eurasian steppes, or the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic civilizations that spanned Europe, Africa and Asia. Clearly without knowledge of America or Australasia no expansion there was possible, but was there a common factor that stalled their growth in contiguous regions? A related question is just why no one nation-state has been overwhelmingly more powerful than others (I know the headline for my question is world conquest, but it's this notion of an undisputedly "unipolar world" that prompted my question) after the 17th century. Why didn't one country, particularly one in a strong position like the UK was, simply race away from its competitors in a similar manner to how Europe outpaced the world during the Great Divergence? Britain's rivals may have struggled to match her, and some effectively "dropped out" (e.g. Spain), but several like France, Prussia/Germany and later the USA were at least able to keep up with the pace of British development. ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 03:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Who says the only way to "conquer the world" is through military force? What about a cultural conquest? Or is that too close to conspiracy theory to be examined. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

One should be free to examine it, the only drawback is it may become a waste of time as there is no end to the idle speculations. If you are not Roman Catholic and you visit Mexico on vacation, will you automatically convert to Catholicism by being surrounded and immersed in a Catholic country? Not necessarily. Too many humans seem to understand the world in terms of freedom of conscience to allow for that kind of phenomenon, because there is such a thing as freedom of conscience. 71.246.153.244 (talk) 17:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When I originally drafted the question I actually included "movement" or "ideology" as well as people and countries. I had several concrete examples in mind: the Roman Catholic church, Hinduism (which, before Christianity and Islam took hold, had once expanded very seriously into SE Asia), communism, liberal democracy (will it attain global dominance, as suggested by The End of History and the Last Man?) and a more particular interest in the early Islamic empires. But I decided to reduce the scope of the question, to prevent discussion creep (clearly unsuccessfully!) and maintain more focus on the political, economic, military and strategic elements. ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 03:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When you expand your empire you get more subjects but the number of loyal soldiers willing to fight for you doesn't increase at the same rate. You often have to use an increasing number of loyal soldiers from your "home people" just to control your new subjects. A large empire may have more resources to pay soldiers, but if they don't feel it's "their" empire and they have no natural loyalty to it then getting motivated hard-fighting soldiers without insurrection is difficult. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:54, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Let's extend the thought experiment on the United States and Vietnam and assume that the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Hanoi and the North Vietnamese government, what was left of it, then surrendered. The United States would still have faced the Vietcong hiding in the hills and across the border in Laos and Cambodia. The United States did try to bomb the Vietcong during the war, to little avail. Japan in World War II was kind of a special case because the people were abjectly loyal to the emperor, and the emperor and Japanese military elites realized that the best interests of their country lay in surrendering and in effect sold the Japanese public on surrender. Ultimately the only way to win a war, short of creating a radioactive wasteland, is to win over the populace. But the peoples of the world are too many and too diverse for a single nation ever to win the loyalty or even the acquiescence of all of them. Marco polo (talk) 19:49, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think Prime Hunter's point that "When you expand your empire you get more subjects but the number of loyal soldiers willing to fight for you doesn't increase at the same rate" is extremely important. The idea of some kind of proportional relationship between the size of an empire, the number of troops at its disposal, and hence its power, can be traced back to at least Ibn Khaldun and the Muqaddimah. A lot of the academic work on Rome suggested the unmaintainable cost of its frontiers as a reason for imperial collapse. But drawing up a very simple mathematical model, if the "strength of an empire" is proportional to its size while the "cost of empire" is proportional to the length of its boundary, then larger empires will tend to expand indefinitely and overwhelm smaller ones. This is because larger polities will tend to have a smaller ratio of perimeter to area. One problem with this model is that it doesn't penalize logistical overstretch - which perhaps should be weighted by available technology and distance from the imperial center. But a different refinement would be to note that recently acquired territory may not contribute to imperial strength. Clearly it takes time to assimilate a territory (and this may raise special problems if the territory is overseas, e.g. French "civilizing" attempts particularly in Algeria, which was administratively an integral part of the French state) and the examples of US weakness cited above might suggest that the imperial periphery comes at a cost to the core. I don't think this cost just applies for military "pacificiation" reasons. I recall reading, perhaps in a book by A. J. P. Taylor, that the Japanese expansion into Manchuria was in economic terms a strategic failure on the timescale of WWII. While Manchuria underwent rapid industrial growth, making useful contributions in steel production, the massive investment it required meant it represented a net drain on Japan. Payback time apparently lay far in the future, by which time the war would long be over. Since there is a tendency for more technologically and economically advanced states to expand at the expense of backwards ones, I doubt this example is unique. Can anybody verify the Manchukuo anecdote? Or cite any mathematical modelling of imperial expansion similar to the ones I outlined? I am sure I have seen that basic idea before. ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 03:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No-one's yet mentioned The Geographical Pivot of History, in which Halford Mackinder argued in 1904 that control of Russia (and eastern Europe and central Asia) was the key to world power. He summarised the theory as "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island controls the world." The reason it hasn't happened is probably that some of the "outlying" economies, notably the US, developed faster and had more equable climates (requiring less effort in climate control and mitigation), so that they could at least match the power of the "heartland". Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:01, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Right, this is great stuff thanks. Relates to my point about MacArthur's Moscow/China comments above - an idea I was familiar with but couldn't source. I have studied global economic history before (see e.g. Power and Plenty by Findlay and O'Rourke, The Growth of the International Economy by Kenwood and Lougheed) and seem to recall the development of the "New World" (Australasia and the Americas) required vast inputs of capital which the European "core" could provide. Before the development of the New World, any empire that dominated Eurasia - particularly from Europe to southeast Asia - would have been in such an overwhelmingly powerful position that it could arguably be described as world-dominant. But several empires had very strong geostrategic positions according to this analysis, without ever attaining that higher level of power. Have theorists suggested any explanation of that before the development of the New World? ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 03:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone with enough time, energy or interest could compile a list of big things who have "taken the world by storm". It would be a very long list, and would contain mainly names that were forgotten more quickly than they entered the world's consciousness. If they ever did. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The false premise here is that one conquers the world. The two exemplar empires here are Rome and Britain. Both offered a more liberal and rational rule to their "subjects" than did the original rulers of the states they subsumed. Both empires failed when they instituted socialist policies and controls that fatally weakened them economically. We'll have a stable one-world state when that state offers people across the globe better freedom and security than any alternatives. μηδείς (talk) 23:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's quite some definition of socialism you're going with there, Medeis. Roman empire. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:04, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't define socialism, but public games, the occasional direct payments of cash bribes, and the permanent grain dole to the lower classes were long established practices. The move toward the command economy in Rome began in the Republic with the government buying of wheat, which it sold with a public subsidy. By the time of Julius Caesar, one third of Romans were receiving free wheat. By the time of Diocletian there were full price and wage controls. Whatever you call it, statism, fascism, socialism, it all has the same effect. μηδείς (talk) 01:38, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You could call it "Nixonism", as Tricky Dicky imposed wage and price controls for a while, resulting in shortages of certain commodities. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:40, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone is interested in non-crackpot scholarship on the decline of the Roman and British empires, see decline of the Roman Empire and British_Empire#Decolonisation_and_decline --Bowlhover (talk) 03:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Because nobody with the desire to do so has been able to accumulate the knowledge, power, and loyalty required. This question is simply an invitation for debate. There is no answer. --Onorem (talk) 23:29, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I accept that the "headline" question was intended as an attention-grabber! But the content of the question is valid, and the rise and fall of empires is a legitimate subject of academic study. The question I was asking for refdesk help (in the traditional sense of a reference desk as a place to be directed to an existing corpus of academic study rather than "a place for people to speculate") was Is there any theoretical work on the maximal extent of empires that investigates these limits? I think that question can be answered. ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 03:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jehovah's Witnesses have published information about the removal of kings (http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200002149?q=%22removing+kings%22&p=par) and about the largest empire in history (http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2012443?q=%22largest+empire%22&p=par) and about world government (http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2012807?q=%22world+government%22&p=par).

—Wavelength (talk) 03:44, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When was Last Call Return (*69) introduced?

Someone asked this question on the talk page of Last Call Return several years ago, and never got an answer. I'm looking for the same answer, but it seems like posting the question there again would be useless. Anyway, Last Call Return is a code you can type into phones to see who called last. In the US, it's *69. I'm seeing a number of references to this in songs and movies from 1994 onward, but nothing before then. I was alive back in the early 90s, but too young to be making many phone calls, so I don't remember the introduction of this feature. Does anyone else? 67.142.167.23 (talk) 06:43, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

According to this article from 1995, the functionality was introduced in the US between 1989 (in Illinois) and about 1993 (nationwide). Hack (talk) 09:01, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seems a lot older than that, to me. Maybe some companies offered it before, but it became standard then. StuRat (talk) 10:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A number of features, perhaps most famously Caller ID, started to pop up in the early 1990s. It was, as I recall, kind of a regional thing until all the companies eventually had it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:50, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The feature became available about 1984 in my area. Caller ID was available in my exchange (in the US, the first three numbers of your 7 digit phone number are the exchange, the last four are the extension) a few years before that. Features like this were developed for and often test marketed by the state Bell companies. In order to have the feature, your phone number had to be routed through a local switch which had been upgraded to have the technology. μηδείς (talk) 19:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The equivalent service was introduced in the UK (nationally) in November 1994, for what it's worth. Interestingly, it seems that the service was turned on at the same time as "pre-answering" Caller ID display, which makes some sense. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:30, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Many of these services were linked to having a touch tone phone, which really didn't become widespread until the late 80s. More info at Push-button telephone. 184.147.136.249 (talk) 13:38, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

December 18

Is justified true belief knowledge?

It seems like within the context of Wikipedia the answer would be no. What do you think of the philosophy of [citation needed]? — Preceding unsigned comment added by The guy from the other day (talk • contribs) 13:28, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 197: / Line 197: @@
 *The equivalent service was introduced in the UK (nationally) in [http://www.telephonesuk.co.uk/history.htm November 1994], for what it's worth. Interestingly, it seems that the service was turned on at the same time as "pre-answering" [[Caller ID]] display, which makes some sense. [[User:Andrew Gray|Andrew Gray]] ([[User talk:Andrew Gray|talk]]) 22:30, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
+: Many of these services were linked to having a touch tone phone, which really didn't become widespread until the late 80s. More info at [[Push-button telephone]]. [[Special:Contributions/184.147.136.249|184.147.136.249]] ([[User talk:184.147.136.249|talk]]) 13:38, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 = December 18 =