Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2008 August 20

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August 20

re Russia/Georgia conflict

If Georgia originally nvaded Ossetia, as your article says, why do you then it the Russian invasion of Georgia?Pgbeatty (talk) 00:19, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

It is perfectly possible for Georgia to invade South Ossetia (which was de jure part of Georgia) and for Russia to then invade Georgia. It is also perfectly possible for the second of these to carry more international significance. 217.42.157.143 (talk) 00:46, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

An invasion by Russian forces is surely a Russian invasion, even if there are other forces involved. Strawless (talk) 16:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Executive power

I have just read the following referring to the current Bush administration: "the unprecedented concentration of executive power by the White House" [[1]] (Nor is The Daily Show afraid of tackling what it calls "super depressing" stories, such as President George Bush's decision to approve the use of torture after the September 11 attacks and the unprecedented concentration of executive power by the White House.) I'm not American and don't understand: in what way is it unprecedented? Thanks for info., Alex --AlexSuricata (talk) 01:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Previous presidents (which is where the executive power is concentrated) were restricted by something called the Constitution of the United States of America. This one seems to feel that such restrictions do not apply. DOR (HK) (talk) 01:40, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

More specifically, see Separation of powers under the United States Constitution. The degree to which the Bush administration has explicitly flaunted Congress (declaring that laws passed did not apply to him) and the Judicial Branch is seen by many as being unprecedented. (Of course, a nuanced historian—or lawyer—can find precedent for anything.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course there's precedent... calling it "unprecedented" is a rhetorical device, you shouldn't take it seriously. It must mean that the reporter really, really doesn't like Bush's behavior. One glaringly obvious precedent is Abraham Lincoln's suspension of the right of habeas corpus and imprisonment of Confederate sympathizers without trial. Long before there was a President Bush (either one) there was concern about an Imperial Presidency. - Nunh-huh 06:01, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Yup. The combination of the Imperial Presidency with Bush Derangement Syndrome has made for some amusing, if historically naive, hyperbole. For better or worse (probably worse), the power of the presidency has been growing steadily since FDR, but some folks seem not to have noticed this until recently. Some of the geniuses who think Bush's actions are "unprecedented" probably like Woodrow Wilson! 24.172.156.74 (talk) 09:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The power of the executive did take a big jump with FDR but it took a bit dip down after Nixon. What Bush has done, and what his staff have encouraged fairly explicitly, is attempting to overturn the reforms that were done after the Nixon affair, where both the Courts and Congress attempted to introduce more checks to Executive power (e.g. FISA, FOIA, etc.). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

See also Signing statement (United States). -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:31, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Question!

What events were more "evil": Nazi Human Experimentation OR Unit 731?

I think it's Unit 731, personally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kvltgrinder (talk • contribs) 02:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

How evil something is is entirely subjective. The reference desk is not intended to be a site for subjective debate. --Tango (talk) 02:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd also go with 731, but there is no real 'good' or 'evil'. As aforementioned, it is completely a matter of opinion. Avnas Ishtaroth _{drop me a line} 03:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm more of "When in doubt, go with the nazis" kind-of-a guy. I recently read an article online that listed the top ten most evil experiments on humans (WARNING: the article is horrifying, don't read if you're not ready for it) and Unit 731 and the Nazis did indeed top the list. The author stated (in the third comment) that the only reason Nazis topped Unit 731 was that they killed more people. I agree, I think that the crimes themselves are so cruel that you can't compare them to each other, the only way to measure is in pure lives lost. 90.235.18.8 (talk) 14:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

My Acme Prototype Evil-o-meter overheated and melted when I fed this question into it, so no categorical answer is possible. Does the difference between "very, very, very evil indeed" and ""disgustingly, nauseatingly evil" really matter that much? You wouldn't want either to marry your daughter. Karenjc 21:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Roman Empire

in the days of the Roman Empire royalty would have a person taste test there food for safety before they ate it. What was the name they gave this person? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.129.85.220 (talk) 02:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what Romans called them but Food taster may be of interest and could be used in further searches. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Poison tester? Avnas Ishtaroth _{drop me a line} 03:46, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

A temp? Clarityfiend (talk) 06:31, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Intern? DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know anything about Roman culture, but as for the language, gusto is the Latin verb for "taste," so perhaps the term was something like gustator "taster."--El aprendelenguas (talk) 23:16, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Googling in Latin dictionaries indicates that praegustator, -oris, m is the term. We also got an article on Halotus, one of the more famous professionals in this job. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 11:36, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Right. A Google search [2] finds sources calling him praegustator. The term is also in the German version of Food taster: de:Vorkoster. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:10, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

law question

Conflict of Interest, how is this aplied in court as well as when and by whom? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duckclock (talk • contribs) 12:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you read Conflict of interest? Your question is currently somewhat vague. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:03, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Tigishsimon, it's an essay question, that's why it's vague. Please do your own homework. If you can do some groundwork first, we will help you with something you can't understand. We won't write it for you.78.148.49.125 (talk) 13:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

In court, conflicts of interest are essentially a matter for judges and advocates (that is, lawyers speaking on behalf of one side or the other). It's very unusual for a lawyer to arrive in court with a conflict of interest, because they have seen the papers in advance and know where they stand. But judges can find they have such conflicts and need to recuse thermselves. Strawless (talk) 17:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Meaning of life?

Why does life exist in the first place? Why is earth not just a giant pile of rocks like most planets that we know of in existence? Is there a scientific reason, not religious, why life has to exist. Maybe I am feeling melancholy, but I hate suffering so.... --Anilmanohar (talk) 13:31, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you read abiogenesis? (by the way, half the planets we know well are giant balls of gas, not giant piles of rocks) Algebraist 13:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Can someone give me the Cliff Notes version of the link above? --Anilmanohar (talk) 13:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

We don't yet know how life began. Algebraist 14:16, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Quick summary of abiogenesis:

Basically it's this: all life today comes from life that was here previously. You're the result of egg-cells from your mother and sperm-cells from your father. Plants grow from seeds. Cells divide. This is the way new life is made, from older life.

However, this process can't stretch back indefinitely. Go back further, waaaay back (a few billion years), there had to have been a primordial cell. A first cell, that started dividing, from which everything else comes from. But how did it get there? It can't have come from some earlier cell, because there were none.

Truth is, as Algebraist said, we have absolutely no idea. There are theories, but no one knows for sure. We probably will know, some day, but it remains one of the great mysteries of nature.

As for the question "Why earth, why not some place else? What makes this special?", that leads to something called the Anthropic principle. There is much debating and theorizing going on about that question, much of it deep and arcane philosophy, but it basically boils down to this: "Why here? Well, if life developed on the planet Zargon in the sixty-third dimension, there'd be a bunch of Zargonians asking the same question!" Well, sort-of. 90.235.18.8 (talk) 15:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Life rises out of complex molecules, you really need to read about biochemistry. Strawless (talk) 17:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

"Why life has to exist"—nobody says that it does. It doesn't exist most places in the universe. The only reason we are hear to wonder about it is because it did happen to exist here. But it's not likely common that a planet can support life—it takes a precise set of conditions. Our planet is the only one in the solar system that can support life at the moment. Nobody on Mars is asking this question because there's nobody there. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's an argument using the Drake equation: life exists in the universe because the probability of it existing is too high. The universe has 9*10^21 stars. Assume that one in a thousand have planets, which is probably too low of a value. Assume that one in a million of stars with planets have planets in which conditions are suitable for life. Out of these, let's say 1 in a trillion actually develop life. Even under these pessimistic assumptions, one would still expect 9 life-bearing planets in the universe. --Bowlhover (talk) 11:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and if we assume that 1 in a quadrillion develop life, then we should expect a small fraction of one life-bearing planet. At present we have no knowledge whatsoever of this probability (if such a probability even makes sense) except that it is not zero, so I'm not sure what this sort of argument is supposed to achieve. Algebraist 20:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

And a 1 in 1.5 chance of developing life would yield many more life-bearing planets. The argument answers the question "Why does life exist in the first place?" with "It may be because the probability of it existing is too high." I also disagree that "we have no knowledge whatsoever of this probability"; there have been many attempts at an educated guess, including by Drake himself. This webpages states:

"The scientific consensus, however, is presently shifting toward the opposite conclusion; namely, that unless conditions preclude the possibility of life altogether, life is likely to evolve. This view is supported by the discoveries of organic material in space [...] meteorites [...] and comets; of water (both liquid and frozen) on worlds other than the Earth; and, most significantly, of extremophiles, which thrive in what, to other organisms, would be extraordinarily hostile environments. The present consensus of astrobiologists suggests that fl ~ 1"

My estimate of one in a trillion is extremely pessimistic compared to 100%. --Bowlhover (talk) 09:36, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

first aid

what first aid should be provided after or during disaster? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.124.190.214 (talk) 14:05, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

in case of a disaster, my first aid is to aid my self and get the hell out of there —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.115.175.247 (talk) 14:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

See Emergency management. Strawless (talk) 15:53, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Russia's threats regarding the missle defense base in Poland

So i was reading in the news this morning that Russia's military leaders had the hilarious idea to warn of a possible nuclear attack on Poland regarding the missle defense base they are building there. I dont know how the leadership of the country would be crazy enough to let something like that slip out. I have noticed in the past of course that half of foreign relations with countries one is at odds with is a great big pissing contest, but something like that should have been dismissed as entirely unhelpful by any kind of government office that has any knowledge of proper foreign relations. What could this serve to accomplish? And more importantly what do the common people in Russia think of making ridiculous statements like this?

129.252.70.53 (talk) 15:02, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

How is this ridiculous? Nuclear war between Russia and the US is a possibility. Poland is now part of the US's defences in case of such a war. It would thus be natural for Russia, in the event of nuclear war, to attack Poland (and the UK, and various other countries) to weaken US defences. Russia has reminded Poland that this is the case. It's not as if Medvedev has said he might wake up tomorrow and decide to nuke Warsaw. Algebraist 16:05, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I think what Russia is saying is that if Poland helps the US with its missile shield, and then Russia feels the need to nuke the US but can't due to the shield, it will nuke Poland instead (or as well - once they've nuked Poland they can probably move on to nuking the US). I don't think this should come as a surprise to anyone - it's an obvious risk of hosting a missile shield for another country. Russia only said it as a fist shaking measure. --Tango (talk) 17:06, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

What the statement could serve to accomplish would be to make any other nation think twice about aligning itself with the US in a way that Russia finds militarily threatening. Russian authorities are reminding other nations that there are downsides to taking a hostile military posture towards Russia. I'm not sure how this is at odds with "proper foreign relations" when the United States and other major powers have always issued warnings like this. Probably many Russians are happy that their leaders are standing up to what they may see as Western bullying. Marco polo (talk) 20:24, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

As if they need reminding... they'd have to be pretty thick not the realise! --Tango (talk) 00:07, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I recall the US found itself in a similar situation before. It is far from ridiculous to be annoyed about missiles on your doorstep. Fribbler (talk) 20:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference between defensive and offensive missiles. This isn't really comparable. The problem, as Russia sees it, is (I believe) that this shield will allow the USA to launch a nuclear attack on Russia without fear of reprisal. Mutually assured destruction has prevented the use of nuclear weapons for the last 63 years, but that will no longer be the case if the USA is shielded (Russia may have more faith in the effectiveness of this shield that I do!). --Tango (talk) 00:07, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Nuclear missiles and kinetic ABM missiles are pretty different. (In any case, the Cuban Missile Crisis itself was spawned in part by the US putting nuclear missiles at Russia's border.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I know it's off-topic, but I just can't get over this factoid: once during a press conference, the Cuban missile crisis was mentioned and current White House Press Secretary Dana Perino had never heard of it! --Sean 14:45, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

It's important to remember that missile defence is only useful as a first-strike weapon, because it doesn't work very well. If the Russians were to launch a full-blown attack, missile defence wouldn't help. But if NATO attacked first, eliminating most of the Russian's fire power, missile defence could stop the odd rocket the Russians might still be able to launch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 16:53, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, the missile defense is for SRBMs. Russian ICBMs will face no problem hitting the United States. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 17:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I should point out that in the future, high powered lasers will be able to shoot down missiles and even bombers carrying nuclear weapons. They have the advantage of hitting at the speed of light, so they are a very effective defensive system. Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser, and Airborne Laser are working prototypes which have demonstrated this, and in the future, the lasers will be more powerful, and potentially they can be mounted on satellites to provide better firing arcs and other advantages. So the threat of nuclear weapons is mostly in the form of nuclear terrorism, which lasers and other missile defenses can't protect against. ScienceApe (talk) 15:57, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, maybe. If anyone ever gets laser defences working, people will start thinking about ways to counter them. In any case, for now and the near future, neither the US nor Russia has anything to prevent nuclear destruction at the hands of the other. Algebraist 16:03, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

They are working actually MTHEL demonstrated shooting down missiles and artillery. In the future, they will be even more powerful. There aren't too many ways of countering lasers other than using just launching more missiles and hoping you overcome the defenses through sheer numbers and dummy missiles. It's not really practical to armor a missile. Yes, like I said this kind of defense is still in prototype stages. ScienceApe (talk) 02:42, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Poland doesn't seem to have thought it out very well. If Russia fires some nuclear SRBMs in that direction (presumably at UK or France or Germany), Poland will have to destroy them either while they are still over an ally's airspace (Ukraine) or their own. The resulting airburst would kill huge numbers of people. No, of course, as Russia says, the scenario now will be that Russia will attack Poland first. It doesn't need missiles to destroy anti-missile defences, as a conventional armoured assault would do, but in any case, at such close range, nuclear missiles would do the job nicely enough, even with airbursts.--ChokinBako (talk) 12:32, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Liberal Democratic Party of Russia

Is Liberal Democratic Party of Russia somewhat proto--fascist political party? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 21:14, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, comparing the parties manifesto with the basic concepts outlined in the fascism article, you would have solid ground to stand on if you were to label them as such. Whether they would label themselves as fascist, I don't know. Fribbler (talk) 11:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

They certainly don't call themselves Fascists. They say they are Liberals. But the key to the party is in its leader, so I suggest you might like to read about Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Strawless (talk) 12:32, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey, the Nazis called themselves "socialists", East Germany was a "Democratic Republic" and Central African Republic was once an "empire". Go figure :-) Fribbler (talk) 12:41, 22 August 2008 (UTC)