Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 April 13

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April 13

Muslim clothing

What justification is used by European countries which ban Muslim women from wearing the clothing required by their religion? They aren't harming anyone, after all. --70.129.184.122 (talk) 01:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Such clothing is not really required by their religion, it's more of a traditional custom. Occasionally someone argues that headscarves and veils should be banned because it violates women's human rights, but more often the reason is apparently simple xenophobia. People fear the unknown, and at the moment Islam is equated with terrorism, so anyone in a veil could potentially blow you up. It's funny, Catholic canon law used to be full of rules that Muslims and Jews should dress differently, so Christians could tell them apart and avoid intermingling with them. And now Europeans want them to be as dissimilar as possible. Adam Bishop (talk) 02:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

This is happening in Quebec as well, and the justification is to 'protect' their identity and make sure there is no fraud when requesting public services. And yet, they permit absentee ballots for elections by mail. It's all a big load, if you ask me, but this isn't the place for opinions... Aaronite (talk) 02:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

This really only applies (at least in Quebec) to the niqab and burqa where the face is partially or totally covered. And how often do you see that in Europe or North America? Personally I have only ever seen one person wearing a niqab, and never a burqa. It's hardly a big problem, but it distracts people from more important things they probably won't be able to understand anyway. Adam Bishop (talk) 02:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

See the articles (and where they lead) listed under Category:Islamic dress controversy in Europe. For Quebec, see accommodation for Muslim headgear Another one at Europe's border: Headscarf controversy in Turkey. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

We also have Hijab by country, including a short section on Europe. Turkey's always the one that gets me. It's not xenophobia, but rather a clash of internal cultures. And to answer the original question, some people do believe that headgear does harm others. In Turkey's case, Ataturk believed that headscarves prevented Turkey from modernizing. Buddy431 (talk) 04:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

We also have Reasonable accommodation (for the Canadian perspective). Earlier I was thinking of sumptuary law, which has some more links specific to clothing. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There are different aspects. One is the (somewhat, but not completely, patronising) argument that (most) women would not wear this clothing voluntarily, but only because of social or family pressure. Or, if they wear it voluntarily, it's only because of their cultural conditioning, and they wouldn't if only they knew better (you can see where the patronising comes in ;-). For school teachers, another argument is that teachers should not be an example for lifestyles associated with a strongly non-egalitarian society. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

See divide and rule, though that's just my opinion. A couple of quotes: Daniel Bacquelaine, the Belgian MP behind the bill there: "Wearing the burqa in public is not compatible with an open, liberal, tolerant society.", and Nicolas Sarkozy: "The all-body veil is contrary to the dignity of women. The answer is to ban it" [1]. I think the case being made by most people in favour of a ban is that wearing the veil is damaging in some way to society as a whole, that it facilitates some kinds of fraud, and that it is something imposed on women that restricts their liberty. Tinfoilcat (talk) 09:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Here are some arguments for making wearing a burqa illegal:

1) It hides the identity. This is particularly a problem when women want their driver's license picture to have their face hidden. Such ID is worse than worthless, as anyone can use it and claim to be that person. So, basically those women would have no ID at all. This just doesn't work in a modern society.

2) Terrorism. Suicide bombers wearing such loose clothing can hide a lot of explosives and kill many people. Since the identity is concealed, even a man and/or someone the guards would recognize as a terrorist could get close to their target.

3) Integration into society. In order to prevent a polarized society and eventual conflict, some degree of integration within the new society is necessary. This is the "melting pot" concept. Clothing is one aspect, as are language, customs, etc. Perhaps people who are completely unwilling to integrate into the new culture should be kept out. StuRat (talk) 10:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The OP says "They aren't harming anyone, after all". That point is debateable, since they are harming the woman who has to wear the thing. Women who wear it are excluded from most of society and are effectively owned by men. 78.147.232.11 (talk) 11:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

So where does that leave women who choose to wear the veil as a sign of their faith? Astronaut (talk) 13:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I have known Muslim women in the workplace who are very strong and assertive, yet wear a headscarf (though not a veil) as an indicationg of faith and modesty, and who would take offense to the idea that they are "owned" by men. And as far as that's concerned, how different is that "ownership" from so-called "submission" practiced by some Christian sects? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

A headscarf is of trivial importance compared to wearing a burqa or a niqāb. 78.149.114.89 (talk) 23:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't buy it as part of their religion, as most Muslims don't cover their faces. I believe the Koran only says that "men and women should dress modestly". It's more of a cultural thing, going back to the Arab tribes which predating Islam (along with many other misogynistic practices). That said, many Arab Muslim clerics have tried to incorporate these tribal values into the religion, as this allows them to spread their tribal values to other cultures, as if it was "the will of Allah". StuRat (talk) 13:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The whole religious vs. cultural thing is a bit of a straw man though. The Mr. 70.129 could have just as easily asked "why do they try to ban women from wearing clothing related to their cultural heritage" and the question, and answers, would essentially be the same. Buddy432 (talk) 15:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

At least in the US, having a religious basis for wearing certain clothes is more likely to result in those clothes being protected, as discrimination based on religion is banned by the Constitution. There's no such protection for clothing of "other cultures". StuRat (talk) 18:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

In the US, it wouldn't just be freedom of religion, but also freedom of expression. Obviously, compromises are needed. You can't hide your face for a driver's license photo. You can't use the religious argument there, as driving on a public street is not a constitutional right, it's a privilege granted by the state under certain conditions, including passing the test and having a proper ID photo taken. Schools might prohibit any kind of clothing they consider to be a distraction from the educational process. Employers might have similar rules. The military will require regulation uniforms while on duty. Lower-level governments will have "decency" laws. But in general in the US, clothing choices are none of the government's business. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK no country has or ever will ban any clothes except those that somehow violate decency laws. Schools on the other hand are perfectly within their rights to ban any clothes they wish. Most have school uniforms, and non-religion items such as hats and gloves are banned. If I made up my own religion and claimed that I needed to wear a hat all the time, I still wouldn't be allowed to wear it to school.--92.251.147.169 (talk)

Then I recommend that you read clothing laws by country, sumptuary law and hijab#Governmental enforcement and bans, which cover some of the many occasions where governments have banned clothing which did not violate decency laws. Warofdreams talk 22:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Further [2] [3]. It seems that the Belgian law may not happen at least yet, as the Belgium government has collapsed, although not because of anything to do with the proposes ban Nil Einne (talk) 16:23, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

America doesn't have a government?

Russian President Medvedev said in an interview[4] (comparing his own role in Russia with that of PM Putin),

"But I would say the most important and most complicated decisions I have to take myself. So we have the government which has its own competence. America doesn't have a government. The government itself generates the laws. The government is busy with economics and this is a lot of work, I used to work in the government for many years. I was the first deputy of the prime minister..."

I think he is contrasting the US system of a multi-branched entity called the "government" with the Russian system, which I gather is parliamentary, which in turn I think means what they call the "government" is what we'd call the "executive branch", and it functions like an agency that reports to the Parliament, rather than as an equal policy-making branch in its own right. But I still can't quite make sense of the sentence. What does it mean? Thanks. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 06:11, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The Federal Assembly of Russia is the legislature, so more or less equivalent to the United States Congress. The Judiciary of Russia likewise equivalent to the United States Judiciary. But the US Executive branch has no single equivalent Russian branch. The President of the United States is both the head of state and the head of government. In contrast the President of Russia is the head of state and the Prime Minister of Russia is the head of government. Perhaps what Medvedev was getting at by saying "America doesn't have a government" was something like, America doesn't have a head of government separate from its head of state. In Russia the president has to work with the "government"--ie, the prime minister, but in the US there is no equivalent "government" that the president must work with in this way. The issues relating to the Russian president and prime minister having to work together--how to deal with disagreements, responsibility, taking blame or credit, etc--do not come up in the US because a single person is both president and "government". I admit I am guessing here, and would like to hear a more knowledgeable response. Pfly (talk) 09:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

In a multi-party parliamentary system, "the government" typically refers to a coalition of parties which together controls the majority of the legislature, and thus elects the Prime Minister. In the US two-party system, this would just be called "the majority party", and only gets to pick some lesser offices, like Speaker of the House. So, if by "the US has no government", he means "has no ruling coalition of political parties", then that's quite true. StuRat (talk) 10:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

From the context, I think it's clear that Medvedev means roughly what Pfly said. He means that Russia has a government (headed by a Prime Minister) as one institution and a President as another institution, and the two have different responsibilities. In America, there is no government separate from the President, because the President is in complete control of the government. In fact, I don't think Russia is really a parliamentary republic, it's more like a semi-presidential one (as our article says), and the president does have substantial power over the government, albeit less so than in the US. But Medvedev is indeed emphasizing the "semi" aspect of it, and that Putin's authority and sphere of competence are separate from his own. Basically, he is being asked "Which one of you two is the boss?", and he is answering that each of them has his own domain. And this is technically true, although I somehow suspect that Russia is especially inclined to emphasize its parliamentarian aspects when Putin is the PM, and its presidential aspects when Putin is the President :).--91.148.159.4 (talk) 16:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Quibble: There are obviously a few parts of "the government" that the US president does not control, like the Federal judges themselves. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

In Europe, when we say "the government", we refer exclusively to the ministers and the prime minister. "The Governement" never refers to the whole series of public institutions like the parliament and the judges, only the ministers. Since there are no ministers and no prime minister in the US, Medvedev is correct in the European meaning of "Government", not in the American meaning of the same word. -Lgriot (talk) 00:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. I'm Bulgarian and I wouldn't dream of calling the judicial system part of "the government"; nor would a Russian, a Frenchman or anyone else outside of America, I think. In case there has been a misunderstanding - Medvedev and Gordon Brown do not have official control of the judicial systems, despite the fact that they are "heads" of their respective "governments". An American president has complete control of the "government" in the European (including Russian) sense. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 21:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

So how do you collectively refer to the whole series of public institutions like the parliament, judges, and ministers ? StuRat (talk) 05:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Here in Finland at least we just call the whole thing "valtio", or "the state", which works neatly since we have no state/federal distinction to consider. Ditto in many other continental countries. "Hallitus", or "the government", is the cabinet.--Rallette (talk) 09:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

If you irritate and inflame the cabinet, you get lots of important people making lots of hot air. Commonly called halitosis.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

"The state" is what Russians, Finns, Bulgarians, British people and probably most other people in the world besides Americans call the entire sphere of public institutions, I think. This does seem to translate to "government" in American parlance. Whereas the non-American meaning of "government" is indeed "cabinet".--91.148.159.4 (talk) 21:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The closest thing in American English to what Europeans would call "a government" is "an administration." The "Obama administration" refers to the president, his cabinet and the people in charge of the executive branch of the state at the time. However, it would be incorrect to refer to the "Obama government" because in the American system, the legislature actually does much of the governing rather than serving as a rubber stamp for the cabinet. Americans outside of political science don't generally use the term "state" to refer to the federal government because a "state" in the U.S. refers to the 50 entities that (along with DC, etc.) make up the country. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Just one remark - the legislature does not serve as a "rubber stamp" for the cabinet in the non-American systems either - in all these systems, the legislature and not the cabinet is the one that makes the laws (if this is what you mean by its "actually doing much of the governing"). What is true is that there does tend to be greater unanimity between the executive and the legislative branches in parliamentary democracies such as the UK than in presidential democracies such as the US and France, where the president and the legislature may have completely different agendas; but this is because, far from the legislature being a "rubber stamp" for the cabinet, the cabinet is bound to reflect the positions of the legislature, because the cabinet is elected by the legislature. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 00:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Er, no they're not. The cabinet is appointed by the crown on the advice of the Prime Minister. However, only members of the legislature may be appointed, unlike in the American system. FiggyBee (talk) 08:10, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

In theory, in the UK, the cabinet is "appointed by the monarch", but this has no significance. In practice, the cabinet is derived from and completely dependent on a majority in the House of Commons, and this majority determines the monarch's "choice"; in most other parliamentarian democracies, which don't have the UK's historical traditions, the cabinet is elected (i.e. voted on) by the parliament formally as well.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 22:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

history - John Wilkes Booth, a white supremacist?

I was reading the colfax massacre article and came across the line "This was enough for white supremacist John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Lincoln". This seemed like a bit of a stretch to me-was he actually a white supremacist?

I'm not asking if he was pro-slavery, his article seems to be pretty adament that he was pissed about the whole freeing the slaves thing, I'm asking if he was actually a supremacist.

Thanks in advance. flagitious 07:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be safe to say Booth was a white supremacist; certainly he shared the widespread belief that the best thing for blacks was life under white rule. From his final letter, printed in the New York times:

"This country was formed for the white, not for the black man. And looking upon African Slavery from the same stand-point held by the noble framers of our constitution, I for one, have ever considered it one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us.) Witness heretofore our wealth and power; witness their elevation and enlightenment above their race elsewhere... Yet, Heaven knows, no one would be willing to do more for the negro race than I, could I but see a way to still better their condition."

On the other hand, the sentence in the Colfax massacre article which you quote seems very much exaggerated, implying as it does that this particular decision, giving the vote to a number of black veterans, was the reason for Booth. Accordingly, I shall delete it.--Rallette (talk) 09:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any distinction between white supremacists and those who endorse black slavery. If there is such a distinction, it's that the white supremacists would settle for less than total slavery, perhaps just segregation or Apartheid. StuRat (talk) 10:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Lincoln himself, viewed from today's perspective, was somewhat of a white supremacist. But by standards of the day, he was liberal, and he absolutely deplored slavery. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:01, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep. Booth was a white supremacist. In other words, his views on race were fairly typical for American whites of his era, northern or southern. In our era, we often equate white supremacy with hatred and violence, but in Lincoln's era it could be paternalistic and compassionate. Even many white abolitionists took it for granted that whites were inherently superior to blacks. —Kevin Myers 13:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

You have to be careful using modern terms and concepts for historical events and people. Booth was probably fairly typical for his milieu. See Moral relativism. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:09, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"White supremacy" may be a modern term but it's an old concept. In scholarly writings it is routine to discuss "white supremacy" in 19th century America; I'd go so far as to say that you cannot understand Lincoln's era without understanding white supremacy. A typical citation, this one from Don E. Fehrenbacher, writing in the 1970s: "Lincoln in the 1850s did plainly endorse the existing system of white supremacy, except for slavery." Scholars debate the degree to which Lincoln was a white supremacist; with Booth, there's little room for doubt. He was a white supremacist, i.e. his views were fairly typical. —Kevin Myers 14:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Fairly typical for a pro-slavery person. Let's not forget that there was a huge anti-slavery movement and sentiment, even though even many of its members may be seen as partly racist by today's standards. It certainly can't be claimed that the average American of the time was pro-slavery as Booth was.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 16:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

---

In the political context of the 1840s and the 1850s in the US, giving blacks equal voting rights and full "social equality" was a controversial "advanced" position supported by only a distinct minority of the electorate in most areas (while usually a much larger section of the electorate, even in many areas in the north, would have been vehemently opposed to it). At that time, even many of those who were strongly opposed to slavery on moral and humanitarian grounds, and were thoroughly disgusted by Dred Scott, "bleeding Kansas" etc. were often somewhat uncertain or hesitant about giving full equal rights -- or at least argued for handling one issue at a time (i.e. fighting slavery first), without unnecessarily anticipating eventual future issues which would be controversial and divisive within the Free Soil party or the Republican party at the moment. Lincoln was among the uncertain and hesitant (especially before the war), but he made few explicitly racist statements, except during the Lincoln-Douglas debates (where he uttered what he thought was the necessary minimum of racism to stay a viable candidate in the 1858 Illinois Senate race, in response to the very racist Stephen A. Douglas's accusations of "Black Republicanism"), and it would be grotesque to try to lump together Lincoln with someone like David Duke. AnonMoos (talk) 18:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

But why is Lincoln hailed as some saintly hero when he wasn't crusading for equal rights, he was just against slavery? Would he agree with MLK's ideas for equality for all people regardless of color, gender or creed? Abolishing slavery was a pretty big step in the right direction, but it would be another 100 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, when equality for all became the law of the land.24.189.90.68 (talk) 02:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there was a high degree of equality, in the South, enforced by federal troops, during Reconstruction. StuRat (talk) 05:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Lincoln was a complex character, and is not easily pinned down. In a way, being assassinated was a good career move. He had more enemies than you can count, and one of them got him; but his death (as with that of JFK) allowed his successors to invoke his memory to push reform legislation through Congress. Lincoln's focus more than anything else was not so much about slavery but about preserving the Union - he had the vision and foresight to realize that fracturing the USA would weaken it in the long run. His Emancipation Proclamation, while it did nothing about the slaves at that moment, was a brilliant political stroke, as it made the war "about" slavery and held at bay countries like England which might have come to the south's aid otherwise. Maybe it would be better to say that Lincoln was a white "superiorist". That was by no means an uncommon view. T.R. used to refer to "our little brown brothers", and he was a liberal for his day. Race relations are complicated throughout our history. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

User 24.189.90.68 asked, "But why is Lincoln hailed as some saintly hero when he wasn't crusading for equal rights, he was just against slavery?"

The reason is: Because being against slavery was heroic enough. Lincoln wasn't an abolitionist, but he was the first person elected president who had repeatedly and publicly characterized slavery as morally wrong. He wasn't crusading for racial equality, but he was a consistent advocate for the principle that blacks were entitled to the natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By our standards that may be a mild position to take, but slaveowners found it so alarming that some slave states seceded even before Lincoln took office. Abolitionists were initially unenthusiastic about Lincoln because he wasn't one of them, but they eventually realized that he was going to advance their agenda more than they could have hoped. There's a lesson there about pragmatic adherence to principles. —Kevin Myers 06:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Lincoln was the first person elected president who had repeatedly and publicly characterized slavery as morally wrong - no, that's not true. Thomas Jefferson did so as well. Of course, as a slave-owner himself he was inconsistent about this, and later in life he did not stress this opinion very much. But the sentiment was doubtlessly there. "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism[...]" and "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever..." --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

As usual with history, the details matter, not just the pull quotes. My words "repeatedly and publicly" were carefully chosen. Like other slaveowners of the founding generation (e.g. Washington and Madison), Jefferson sometimes criticized slavery in writings that were not intended for the general public. The quote you give is from Notes on the State of Virginia, which was prepared for private circulation in France. Jefferson specifically warned against publicizing his "strictures against slavery" (Shuffleton edition introduction, p. xvi). He was alarmed when it became clear that his sentiments about slavery were going to be published in America; he initially hoped that his authorship would remain anonymous, or, failing that, that the book would be read by a select audience. As David Brion Davis said of this situation, Jefferson "would not take the risk of placing his own prestige squarely behind his antislavery views" (The problem of slavery, p. 178). As president and retired president, Jefferson was even more reluctant to criticize slavery publicly. According to Davis, "the most remarkable thing about Jefferson's stand on slavery was his immense silence" (ibid, 179). Perhaps Jefferson's silence on slavery was politically prudent for his time, but the fact remains that Jefferson, unlike Lincoln, was unwilling to repeatedly and publicly characterize slavery as morally wrong. —Kevin Myers 19:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I never said that Lincoln was some "saintly hero", but during the the last five years of his life he was the face of white moderate progressivism towards blacks in the United States, and the most prominent black political personality of the time (Frederick Douglass) supported his presidential candidacy in both 1860 and 1864, so it would be rather absurd to call him simply and only a "white supremacist". If you demand that people in 1860 be fully and completely anti-racist according to modern standards, then you would find that only a few theoretical "advanced" thinkers (without much practical political influence) would meet your standards of untainted purity. In this context, it's kind of useless to beat up on Lincoln for not being an immediatist abolitionist or uncompromising racial equality advocate, because no immediatist abolitionist or uncompromising racial equality advocate could realistically have been elected president of the United States in 1860, so whoever filled that office (if not Lincoln) would have fallen equally short by modern standards (probably even more so). Lincoln was no immediatist abolitionist, but by the standards of his time and place he was a moderate progressive, and he was issuing qualified public anti-slavery statements as early as 1837 -- when there was no possible political advantage for Lincoln (in his role as a state legislator from central Illinois) in being seen as any kind of anti-slavery advocate (and a lot of potential political liabilities -- see Elijah Parish Lovejoy). AnonMoos (talk) 08:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

WTO, World Bank and IMF

What is the eligibility to become a member of the board of the directors of 1. World Trade Organization, 2. World Bank and 3. IMF. --WTLop (talk) 08:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

These are international organizations made up of member states. Their dgovernance differs from that of private sector organizations. In the WTO, each of the members is in theory equal. The decisional organ is the Conference of Ministers; there is no inner council (e.g. nothing like the United Nations Security Council) as far as I can tell from the article. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund both have a Board of Governors, whose composition is proportional to the contribution of the various members to the institutions' capital. The governors are nominated by the member states who hold seats on the board (often, more than one country will poll their votes together in order to have enough weight to be able to appoint a governor). So, to answer the O.P.'s question directly, in order to be a member of the equivalent of the board of directors of the WTO, one needs to be the Minister of Trade of one of the member countries. For the other two organizations, one must be appointed by a government which holds a seat on the council of governors. Typically, the governors include former Central Bank presidents (for the IMF), senior aid officials (for the WB) and other former top-level bureaucrats. These are not jobs the man on the street can apply for. --Xuxl (talk) 17:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The Catholic church's influence on pedophilia statistics

I've often heard it said that the abused become abusers. If that is true, then it seems to follow that the pedophile priests that have been in the news of late have been creating abusers. And again, if the first bit is true, has anyone looked into how much the pedophilia problems that we have today have been started by bad priests? Basically, how much are they responsible for? Either world wide or for a single country will do. I'm not really sure how anyone could quantify this or if it has even been looked at but it came to mind yesterday while hearing more about the scandals. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 09:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be a flaw in the logic that "the abused becomes the abuser". If this was 100% true, and each abuser abuses several others, then the pattern of abuse would encompass 100% of society in just a few generations. However, AFAIK, the percentage of abuse isn't going up, although the reporting of such cases is. StuRat (talk) 10:18, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing new under the sun. If the abused become the abusers, then there's a good chance the abusers were once abused themselves. That's not to condone anything for a second; but there's still a bigger picture here, which does not have its beginning with modern-day bad priests. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Masturbation

We men are quite good at it. When deprived of sex men always do it. It is rightly said that 95 % men masturbate and 5 % lie ! What about women ? Do they do it as frequently or if at all ? And how do they do it ? Do they also ejuaculate ?(if yeah what ?) Jon Ascton  (talk) 11:07, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Did you not read the article you linked to? --TammyMoet (talk) 11:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Once the men are "done", even the ones who are "quite good at it", the women are just getting started. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I read that just under two thirds (60%) or women masturbate. One third (33%) of all porn viewers are women according to the same source. The source was a sort of educational poster about pornography, which I doubt you would find online.--92.251.147.169 (talk) 19:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

For the OP's last question, see Female ejaculation. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:22, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

K.L. Lebenau, 1945

Among a dozen drawings by Abraham Ryza (Lodz, 1920–Los Angeles, 2001) that depict the abuse of concentration camp inmates by SS staff, half are signed (lower right corner) with the initials "A.R.", the year "1945", and the name LEBENAU in block letters. Could this have been the name of a camp, or possibly a misspelling of Liebenau? The I.T.S. lists two camps with the latter name and none with the former - which I'm trying to pin down before checking alternate or variant spellings. -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There does seem to have been an internment camp in Laufen-Lebenau, Bavaria. Holocaust testimonies: European survivors and American liberators in New Jersey I don't know whether it is the same facility as the modern day JVA Laufen-Lebenau. Its history dates back to 1862. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:26, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

This [5] source says: "Nach den Aufzeichnungen des Laufener Stiftsdekan und Stadtpfarrer Peter Gries (1894-1977) kam vier Tage vor dem Einmarsch der Amerikaner, das war der 1. Mai, ein "Trieb" von etwa 230 KZ-Häftlingen, alle in erbärmlichem Zustand, aus verschiedenen Lagern in die Strafanstalt Lebenau.", meaning that shortly before the end of WW II some 230 KZ inmates were transferred to Lebenau, a prison in Bavaria close to the border to Austria. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:33, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Attica in the Threepenny Novel

In Fewkoombey's dream in Brecht's Threepenny Novel, why does the judge ask about Attica?--188.222.58.219 (talk) 12:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Has there ever been an atheist Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court?

20.137.18.50 (talk) 12:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Almost certainly. The question is if there ever was an atheist who was open about this on the U.S. Supreme Court. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, openly. That's what I meant, thanks. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 13:51, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

To elaborate, since most US voters are not atheists, people running for office might want to hide their atheism, lest it hurt their chances of winning elections. A Supreme Court Justice isn't elected, but is selected by people who are (the President and Senate), so might also want to pretend to be religious, to curry their favor. StuRat (talk) 13:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

According to our article, Felix Frankfurter was a non-practicing Jew, and regarded religion as "an accident of birth". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I would venture much farther than StuRat's timid "might". All American politicians claim to be people of faith. Unfortunately, it seems that for many American voters, being religious is a requirement for receiving a vote. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"All" is a pretty strong statement. I direct you to List of nontheists (politics and law) which lists a few elected Americans in the mix. In 2007, representative Pete Stark declared that he didn't believe in a higher power. He's the only openly atheist member of the U.S. congress. Buddy431 (talk) 19:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know about Stark, good find — but he is quoted in that MSNBC article as claiming he is a Unitarian, and it appears that the reporter interpreted this as referring to Unitarian Universalism, which our own article declares to be a religion (hence he still purports to be a "person of faith", in something). Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

That reminds me of the Tom Skerritt character in the movie Contact. He wanted the committee's votes to be the one in the spaceship pod thing. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 18:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

This page claims David Davis was "not a member of any church." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. Davis was kind of Lincoln's "kingmaker", and Lincoln returned the favor by nominating him to the Supreme Court. Lincoln was ostensibly Christian, but was also thought to be agnostic or even atheistic, and was likewise not a churchgoer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

On Killing (philosophy)

Why is it wrong to kill somebody? But please leave Religion and Law aside, because I want to get an answer that even an atheistic outlaw might understand. --95.88.26.239 (talk) 14:07, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, there's the fear of reprisal. That isn't a moral argument so much as a safety one, though. As for moral arguments, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" seems to apply whether you believe in god(s) or not. StuRat (talk) 14:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Or, put more succinctly and less problematically, don't do unto others what you wouldn't want them doing to you. (Which gets around the fact that just because something floats your boat, it might not others.) --Mr.98 (talk) 15:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec)You're asking why it's "wrong" to kill, yet you want to leave religion and law out of it. But "wrong" itself is a moral/religious/legal concept. If you want a practical answer, I would say it's because it's disruptive to society, which is why there have always been laws against it. As far as the moral aspect, let's reverse it and see what you think: What would be wrong with someone killing you? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Digression
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
} Biologically, if you are weak enough that your fellow humans are able to kill you, then it's good if you get killed before you pass your 'weak' genes down to the next generation :) 20.137.18.50 (talk) 14:51, 13 April 2010 (UTC) So all babies should be killed? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC) That logic doesn't really apply to a social species, like us. In order to act collectively, we can't spend all our resources trying to kill each other (and protecting ourselves from being killed). Imagine if all the ants in a colony were always at each other's throats. StuRat (talk) 14:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC) Lions have some degree of social order (of course nowhere near that of humans) and yet some male lions eat their own children. I'm not being mean-spirited, just hypothesizing. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 15:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC) Don't feed the trolls... --Mr.98 (talk) 14:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC) Agreed. Throwing food under the bridge is disruptive. 10draftsdeep (talk) 15:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC) Who's a troll ? If you mean Bugs saying "So all babies should be killed?", that sounds like a legit reductio ad absurdum argument against "killing the weak to improve the species". If he's being a troll, then so was Jonathon Swift, with A Modest Proposal. StuRat (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC) I took it to mean Mr. 98 was saying I was feeding Mr. 20, but he would have to clarify that point in order to be certain. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC) And his placement and tabbing would indicate he was responding to me, so I'm thoroughly confused. StuRat (talk) 17:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC) Aha, so we're both thoroughly confused. Maybe that was his objective. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:22, 13 April 2010 (UTC) The 20.137 comment I was calling trollish (it is an expression of Social Darwinism so idiotic that even Hitler wouldn't have agreed with it), and I was implying that both of you were feeding it.  ;-) --Mr.98 (talk) 23:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC) Roger. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Let's first make it clear that not everybody thinks it is unequivocally bad to kill people all the time. Even the Bible is usually considered to say it is bad to murder someone, which by definition a non-sanctioned killing. There is plenty of killing in there and allowed by our laws—states can kill, for example, in war, or often via capital punishment. Murder makes a lot of sense to outlaw for a society, because human beings take a lot of resources to develop and arbitrarily offing them leads to extremely unstable social situations. This is likely the main reason that societies disallow arbitrary murder, and the main reason that religions disallow it as well, whether or not they say this up front or not. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the Ten Commandments item is taken to mean "murder" specifically, and in a bit of circular reasoning, "murder" is "the unlawful taking of human life." When people call abortion, capital punishment or warfare "murder", they are technically incorrect. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:11, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, there's the "greater sin" aspect. If someone is threatening your family's life, and you shoot him to death, you may have sinned by shooting him, but the greater sin would be to let him kill your family. That, extrapolated to the national level, is a justification for war. I once heard William Buckley say, "There is no such thing as a 'moral' war, but there is such a thing as a 'defensible' war." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll reference the social contract, a theory often used to describe the role of government. Thomas Hobbes famously said that without government, human lives would be "nasty, brutish, and short". Because we ourselves don't want to be killed by others, we give up our right to kill on our own. I know you didn't want laws, but there's a lot of philosophy about government. The accuracy of the social contract in describing actual governments is disputed, but it's an interesting idea. Buddy432 (talk) 15:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Laws, or the "social contract", are as old as society itself. Putting religion and law aside is called "anarchy". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:11, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

In case I wasn't clear, I meant that the OP didn't want laws used as a justification for not killing people, not that he wanted anarchy. Buddy432 (talk) 15:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict with below)And strictly speaking, laws aren't as old as society itself. In many societies, the will of the king/chief/religious leader was enforced pretty haphazardly, without codified laws. The Code of Hammurabi went a long way towards the modern practice of actually having a "rule of law", instead of a "rule of whatever the person in charge feels like". That's one of the criticisms of the social contract: governments didn't really form by people getting together and saying they wanted a government. They formed because people with the most power subjugated everyone else. Buddy432 (talk) 15:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

<sign...> philosophical myopia. Look, in the animal world, animals will sometimes kill members of their own species. usually not - animals that fight to the death tend to die off early and fail to pass on their genes, so most animals back down before death - but it does happen. the reason it's acceptable in the animal world is that we're talking about the death of one animal, which is irrelevant to the species as a whole. With humans, though, there are the dual problems of mind and technology. if you kill someone, that will likely not be the end of it. their friends and relatives are likely to come hunting for you, and no matter how big and mean you are, you won't stand up to a wave of angry relatives, not unless you use technology (a sword, a gun, a bomb). so, now what do you do: kill off all the friends and relatives of the first person you killed, to prevent reprisals? kill off all the people of the same race/ethnicity of the person you killed, in case they decide you're going to hunt them, as well? kill off an entire nation, in case the nation decides to take reprisals for you killing one of their citizens? Humans have complex social bonds and emotional attachments, and it's a fair bet that if you kill one human you enrage a notable number of other humans, who will come looking for you, and the whole situation will escalate. You can be a serial killer or a terrorist, killing people at random to make it hard for others to find you, but the former general marks you as the lowest of the low and the latter invites broad reprisals against your own kith and kin, and the technology to hunt down and kill people keeps getting better and better all the time.

If you are a complete loner (no friends, family, or attachments) and the person you want to kill is a complete loner (no friends, family or attachments), and the two of you have a mutual desire to kill each other... then go find a nice corner out in the desert and have at it (because no one cares). otherwise you're not just killing a person, you're cutting into a large and complex social fabric, and the trouble from it won't end. --Ludwigs2 15:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

So he's asking why there is a law against it, yes? And I think that's pretty well covered. People freely killing each other could result in social breakdown and ultimately extinction. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

He is not asking why there is a law against it. The OP clearly excluded any legal explanation. Try to convince a atheist outlaw why he shall not murder. Quest09 (talk) 15:35, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, OK. Well, I'll keep it simple then: He shouldn't kill because someone else is liable to kill him in return. Unless he's OK with that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:42, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe put that a little more subtly: if one is killing for a reason or goal (anything from killing for money, power, or love to killing for the sheer fun of it) than one or more aspects of society are going to put a lot of effort -directly or indirectly - into making sure that that reason or goal is in vain. In the animal world, the logic "If I fight with, defeat, and maybe kill X, I will be rewarded with Y" works, because once X is gone nothing obvious stands between you and Y. in the human world the same logic fails, because removing X will generally dredge up a whole assortment of new participants dedicated to getting between you and Y (if only by mounting your head on a stick). Of course, putting it rationally like this is silliness, because most people learn (by the time they are 6 or so) that they depend on the society around them, and that society gives to people that play together nicely and withholds from people who don't. it's only in that 'adolescent rebellion' stage when people hold the erroneous conclusion that they have complete freedom of action (a necessary stage to break them out of family authority into existence in the greater wold, but not a stage that lasts in most). --Ludwigs2 16:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

And here's the basic problem: The OP didn't ask for practical reasons not to commit murder; he asked why it's wrong. That's not got to do with practicality, it's got to do with morality, which is a social concept. You may scoff at this, but here's a bit from Love and Death: Sonia (Diane Keaton) wants the two of them to assassinate Napoleon. Boris (Woody Allen), who has essentially claimed to be an atheist or at least an agnostic earlier in the film, objects on the grounds that "murder is immoral". Now, how do you convince an "outlaw atheist" that murder is immoral, i.e. is wrong? It does not compute! The best you can do is to try to appeal to his selfish interests. But does that make it "wrong" to him? No, just "not practical - fraught with consequences." That's different. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Besides the legal and religious aspect (that you don't care), there is the practical aspect (above) and also the psychological aspect. How would you feel after killing someone, even if you have a reason?--Quest09 (talk) 15:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Many would feel bad, some would feel nothing, some would feel good, depending on circumstances and disposition. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

As for killing causing the breakdown of social order, that's a good argument for why others shouldn't kill, but not so good of an argument for any individual, as a single killing isn't likely to cause the collapse of civilization (although they gave it a good shot with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand). StuRat (talk) 15:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Not so true as you might think. see Hatfield-McCoy feud, or other examples of clan or gang wars --Ludwigs2 16:31, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd argue from the point of view of valuing knowledge for its own sake. Killing somebody destroys knowledge (in the absence of extenuating circumstances, where the killing defends some other knowledge). If we accept that the creation of knowledge is our basic motivation, then that's a reason not only to avoid killing people but also to be cooperative and rational. I find I can get a lot of moral mileage out of this principle. Uh ... oh yes, this is a ref desk. I don't know if there's an appropriate article. Knowledge value, sort of, but it's not much of a read. 213.122.54.206 (talk) 16:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

ah, please... reducing people to their inherent knowledge is bordering on a religious/moral/mystical explanation. you might as well just go whole-hog and say that that killing another is tantamount to killing yourself, because you damage the inherent common experience we all share. I don't dislike that argument, mind you, but it is a religious argument, not a philosophical one. --Ludwigs2 16:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about. It's my philosophy, and I'm an atheist (and I don't see religion as in any way pro-knowledge, at least not in the modern world). There is a worthwhile clarification to make, though, about self-interest; I figure we have a duty to be more concerned about ourselves than about others, because we are more familiar with ourselves, and therefore better able to further the growth of knowledge by being biased towards our own interests than if we attempt to serve the interests of the whole world by proxy. 213.122.14.148 (talk) 10:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• You guys are overlooking the most obvious answer: If it weren't 'wrong' to kill people, everyone would be doing it. Want to take bets on how long the human race would last? HalfShadow 16:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, extinction, as I said. Tribal man realized the need for some order for the sake of survival, hence laws not only about murder but about theft and random violence and adultery and such stuff as that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

So, you all seem to agree that killing is only wrong ( - I do not mean morally or legally wrong - ) out of "fear" of reprisals (family, friends, etc...). However, what if nobody cares about Mr. X? Am I (a monkey with a weapon) "practically" justified to kill Mr. X knowing that he's got no relatives or friends??? --95.88.26.239 (talk) 17:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

No, whether they have people who care about them doesn't figure into it, for me, but whether they do good or evil does. StuRat (talk) 17:35, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't kill people ... because my crawlspace smells bad enough already. :-) StuRat (talk) 17:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Are you a serial killer? why would you want to kill such a person? the (fairly pointed) mistake you're making is assuming that one needs a reason not to kill, but one doesn't need a reason to kill. If this Mr. X is completely outside society, there's nothing he would have that you would want that would require killing him. if he has something you want, then he's not completely outside society, therefore you premise is wrong. If you are presupposing someone who is inclined to kill without reason, then no reason we give will stop him from killing - that kind of person gave up any pretense of humanity, and needs to be put down like a rabid animal. --Ludwigs2 17:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Which is why we typically execute serial killers. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I think we typically just imprison them. StuRat (talk) 17:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

In America, at least, they're usually prime fodder for the death angel. It depends on the state, of course. Gacy (Illinois) and Bundy (Florida) were sent to their just rewards. Dahmer (Wisconsin) got life in prison, which turned out to be not very long, as a fellow inmate clocked him a good one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

This question is impossible to answer unless we know what stops you jumping off a bridge every day. Why do you want to live? We can then tell you why it is wrong to kill. I could write reams on this subject bu am currently unwilling. Read Reciprocal altruism and Competitive altruism--92.251.147.169 (talk) 18:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't agree with this, see my answer above (which unfortunately has had the word "mystical" appended to it in my absence, making it easy to dismiss and overlook). 213.122.14.148 (talk) 10:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Too put it simply: in most circumstances, both you and everyone else will be more harmed by you killing someone than by you not killing someone. There are exceptions to this, such as killing someone who is about to kill you and a load of other people.--92.251.147.169 (talk) 18:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

---

Kant's Categorical imperative might make interesting reading (though it's explained more abstractly than necessary in the Wikipedia article)... AnonMoos (talk) 18:26, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the whole basis of the question is flawed. We're asked to leave aside moral, religious and legal paradigms. Yet, they're the only paradigms where there is such a concept as "right and wrong". In purely practical or utilitarian contexts, something either works or it doesn't, and right/wrong doesn't enter into it. For a person in a great rage, killing someone might work as an outlet for their feelings, at least until they realise that what they've done is irrevocable. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:18, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, the original question asked that only religion and law be left out, not morality. Of course, morality is very much intertwined with the other two, as many people have elaborated so far. Because of this, it is very difficult to pin down a set of morals for any particular atheist anarchist, as they probably vary significantly from person to person. —Akrabbim^talk 19:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. The word "wrong" implies divergence from what is "right", or some set of rules. You can't separate this from morality. We often hear people saying so-and-so is "morally wrong", as if there's a single Grand Set of Morals set in stone for all people at all times to adhere to. It does not work that way, and never has. Something may be terribly wrong in relation to a particular person's moral code, but quite ok for another person. Even leaving aside all the religious and legal issues, abortion would be a very good example of that. But is abortion a good example for this question, which is about killing "somebody"? It depends on your point of view. Some say abortion is the killing of a human being, and the whole panoply of rules about the killing of humans inherently applies to it. But some say it does not involve the loss of a human life, so those rules are irrelevant. Who decides who's "right" and who's "wrong" about this question? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't let religion hijack morality please. I will say it again, in most circumstances, both you and everyone else will be more harmed by you killing someone than by you not killing someone. There are exceptions to this, such as killing someone who is about to kill you and a load of other people.--92.251.147.169 (talk) 19:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Why would an "atheist outlaw" care about "morality"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Like most people you seem to think morality is some set religious rules, a sad side effect of the hijacking of morality by religion. Contrary to popular expectations, two people deciding not to kill each other because they are useful to one another is morality in the same way someone deciding not to kill others because they believe killing is inherently evil is morality. Morality is simply your code of conduct: "I will not harm him because he is useful to me" is a code of conduct just like "Killing people is inherently evil". I have no religious beliefs, and although I have no evidence I suspect you don't either, yet both of us have moral codes.--92.251.147.169 (talk) 20:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe Bugs is just pointing out the underlying absurdity in the OPs question, namely that "atheist outlaws" would presumably just kill people, because they are, well, "atheist outlaws", unless they were given a reason that is beyond law and religion. And that is a (perhaps not very) subtle case of hijacking morality in religion's name, if you ask me. TomorrowTime (talk) 20:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"I will not harm him because he is useful to to me" is not morality, it's expedience. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

EO has a good section on what "moral" means:[6] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

What you have in quotation marks there is what every single reason for being "moral" boils down to.--92.251.147.169 (talk) 22:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"Rights" and "wrongs" are tied to one another, or at least the basic and largely incontrovertible ones are. While everyone has a life, except colloquially-speaking, not everyone has the same property. When humans band together, as they always have, we being a social species, those with the most property want it protected. Thus systems are set up, with the greatest property-holders having the greatest influence. The "wrongness" of murder is tied to the wrongness of stealing. Stealing property can be facilitated by killing the owner. Thus when systems are set up to protect property rights, the prohibition on murder is a part of that system. The question could be asked why are there property rights. That question is not asked because our acquisitive and possessive qualities are a more innate aspect of who we are as creatures than our vaunted aversion to killing neighbors. And anyway it just sounds good to say we respect the lives of others. Bus stop (talk) 22:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

You're right that right and wrong are intertwined - one does not exist without the other. The dictionary definitions of "moral" equate it to "character". A person is not necessarily a good judge of his own character. I'm sure even Hitler thought he was a man of high character. Character is judged by the other members of the group, tribe, or whatever. And it's aided in that judgment by deciding on certain rules. You can try to exclude religion and law, but you can't exclude rules. The rules are society's agreement or "social contract" on what constitutes good behavior and bad behavior - a.k.a. "character". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Bugs, morality is the built in set of rules that humans have to say "this is (ethically) bad" or "this is (ethically) good". We're social animals and social animals need ways of holding their groups together and keep them working well. Religion pretends to be a source of morality, but it's not. If you extract and use the bible's morality you'll be behind bars pretty quickly. Morality is an inbuilt part of humans. There is certainly such a thing as a moral outlaw atheist - they tend not to break the laws that agree with their morality though. Human morality is also broken. Maladapted to the modern world, an example: just about everyone has this moral imperitive not to kill people - that's generally a good thing, but take the classic thought experiment A train has is hurtling toward a switch which you, upon a bridge over the railway, see is going to divert the train onto a siding on which a crowd of people are working -- many will die... but there's a man sitting on the bridge railing right over the lever to operate the switch, if you gave him a shove he'd either knock the switch into the right place or give the train reason to slow down before it careened into the crowd, thus you would be saving many people. That man, would be certainly killed though. Do you push him? The answer in 'normal' people is "no", of course logic tells us that the answer should be "yes". --Psud (talk) 07:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

To the OP: It is wrong to kill someone because we are a social animal and nature has kindly built into us a set of rules commonly called "morals". Due to those rules you won't need to convince the atheist outlaw as he will already agree with you that killing is wrong. Unfortunately morals aren't quite universal and it appears that there are people who don't think killing is wrong. The military (of just about any country) has put a lot of effort into working out how to convince normal people to believe that killing is not wrong. Perhaps some of their methods would work in convincing the few amoral outlaw atheists of the opposite. --Psud (talk) 07:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Bear in mind that murder may not be a crime in a hermit society. Interestingly enough, even in such a small group, the perpetrator is executed. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

This thread is already quite bloated as it is without me adding fuel to the flame, but here goes: "What's wrong with killing?" is one of the central questions of the extremely controversial book Practical Ethics by Peter Singer. I would do the book a great disservice in attempting to condense its arguments in a few sentences here, but if you're looking for a somewhat recent, relatively jargon-free and quite thought-provoking line of reasoning "that even an atheistic outlaw might understand", I'd say that book is as good a start as any. Even if you – as many do – disagree with his conclusions. Gabbe (talk) 11:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

My last chance to add something to this before it's archived. :) The question of (extra-legal, extra-religious) non-killing is ultimately tied to the question of (extra-legal, extra-religious) altruism in general. You shouldn't kill, because one part of being human is to look beyond yourself, to realize that there are other humans than yourself and to wish them well in the same way as you wish yourself well (perhaps not equally strongly, but ultimately in the same way). You know that you as an individual are limited synchronically (there is a world around you) and diachronically (you did not always exist and will not always exist). But there are countless other humans, and you value in them what you value in yourself simply because it is, ultimately, the same thing. So there is simply no logical reason to value your own life and yet not to value others' life. Even very egoistic persons, once they are sure of their own impending death, are able to extend their egoism, see part of themselves in somebody (relatives, friends) and wish that somebody well in the same way in which they would have wished it for themselves. Even if you are a professional murderer, you are likely to at least admire other professional murderers and wish them well; and a consistent extension of this sentiment to other commonalities you have with other humans will lead you to wish everyone life. Life is just absurdly limited if you are only interested in what concerns you, as an individual, personally and directly; this would be a truly unnatural blindness, a reduction of your imagination and power of understanding to that of an animal.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 22:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Monomyth

I am looking for any literature that are good examples of the female version of the monomyth. --Reticuli88 (talk) 15:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not exactly literature, but how about Xena, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Sailor Moon ? StuRat (talk) 15:54, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Reading the linked file puts me in mind of The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:31, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

If anti-heroines are acceptable, maybe the Fisherman's wife... AnonMoos (talk) 18:18, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)One of the criticisms of the monomyth is that it's primarily male-centered. The only female example that I recall Campbell using in HWTF is that of Daphne, who "refuses the call" by turning into a laurel tree so that Apollo wouldn't boink her. You might be interested in American Monomyth, which apparantly incorporates a female version more readily. These so-called "Heidi-redeemers" save their community through miricles and manipulation. Not sure of any examples. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand all the details of the monomyth, but does the story of Judith, from the biblical apocrypha, qualify? AlexTiefling (talk) 22:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems like it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Traci Harding's Ancient Future trilogy follows the pattern, with a female protagonist, but I wouldn't have called it 'good', so much as Mary Sue fiction. Steewi (talk) 02:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

From history, people like Boudica and perhaps Cleopatra VII may have been remembered to the present because they correspond to your monomyth - in other words they were female heros. See also List of women warriors in folklore92.29.104.157 (talk) 10:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

But both of them were ultimately defeated. A good myth has a hero who ultimately prevails. StuRat (talk) 18:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Everyone is defeated by death. It depends where you decide to stop the story. 78.146.249.204 (talk) 00:03, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The religious-minded would disagree that "everyone is defeated by death". StuRat (talk) 05:36, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

But they wouldn't be able to make a very strong argument. --Psud (talk) 07:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I just remembered that I argued in a Medieval lit class I took a few years ago that two plays by Hrotsvitha (Abraham and especially Paphnutius, which depict the conversion of repentant harlots), when viewed in the Campbellian monomyth lens, are better understood if the harlots are seen as the heroes rather than the hermits who go out to save them. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:36, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Medieval married names

When did women start taking their husband's name as their customary surname in the English upper classes? More specifically, did the wives of the Southworths of Samlesbury Hall take the name "de Southworth" as their own as early as the 13th century? —Akrabbim^talk 15:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

This article here might be able to answer your question: Family names. It notes that in medieval times if a man was of a lower social class than his wife, he would often assume his wife's surname; therefore it's safe to presume that it was during this same medieval period that women of all social classes took their husbands' surnames as their own providing he was not of an inferior class.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:02, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

White people in Africa

Are Zimbabwe and South Africa the only African nations that have significant white population? If not, then which other nations have white people in Africa? -- 16:30, 13 April 2010 76.64.52.208

There used to be significant populations of European origin in Algeria and Kenya... AnonMoos (talk) 16:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Angola and Mozambique as well. Many of the Indian Ocean islands considered part of Africa (Mauritius, Seychelles, la Réunion...) have significant European populations. --Xuxl (talk) 17:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I thought that the white people were expelled from Angola after independence.--Quest09 (talk) 19:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Probably not what you looked for, but people in northern Africa have fairly light skin; I'd call them "white" though not everyone would. The U.S. Census bureau agrees with me, though; they call Middle Easterners "white". This is perhaps the reason some people say "Africa" when they mean "sub-Saharan Africa". Jørgen (talk) 18:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Most northern Africans are certainly "Caucasian", though whether you consider that "white" or not is up to you. And WHAAOE: White Africans of European ancestry. Buddy431 (talk) 19:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Naturally, we have an article: White Africans of European ancestry. According to that, Namibia has the second largest white population, after South Africa. Warofdreams talk 21:04, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Copyright or restrictions on PDF-scans of old, now public domain, texts?

If I have understood things right, then old journal articles automatically become public domain 75 years after publication.

Now I wonder:
May a scanned (PDF) copy of a public domain text, somehow, still be restricted by some kind of "copyright"?
(Maybe because of the work spent on scanning and making the PDF-file? Or maybe because of the software used?).

In other words: Do I risk breaking some law or regulation, if I spread copies of a PDF file containing an 75 year old text, when I have no idea of who or where this particular file came from? or How about if I charge a fee for my effort?
--Seren-dipper (talk) 16:37, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

It depends on where you live. For Wikipedia purposes, see this link. In the US, it has been ruled by a court (see Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.) that a photograph of a public domain work is also in the public domain. In Britain, however, the National Portrait Gallery has done everything it can to assert copyright over its photographs of old, public-domain paintings it possesses. See this BBC story. To answer your other questions, you can charge for your effort, sure; but you probably would not be able to prevent others (via copyright law) from copying and distributing your work freely once they receive a copy. The 75 year rule is not absolute; see public domain; it can get complicated (some old copyrights could get renewed in the US for a certain period). For your own liability reasons, if I were you, I would make sure I could prove the journal was in the public domain before I commenced this. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Than you! :-)
--Seren-dipper (talk) 01:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

So is a 100 year or older text or image in Google Books fair game to add to a Wikipedia article? Edison (talk) 16:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Blue food

These photos set me to thinking of doing the same, but with the flags of Scotland and Norway. The trouble for both is the colour blue - I can't think of a blue or blueish foodstuff that is native to either country. The few blue foods I can think of don't match: blue corn, arròs negre, and blueberries are all foreign, and while I'm sure I could find a blue cheese from both countries, it doesn't really seem ideal. Brambles are really more purplish. Can anyone suggest a blue(ish) food that is (at least vagely) Scottish and ditto Norwegian? -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Wild bilberries collected in Norway.

I couldn't think of anything until you mentioned blueberries - apparently what we Norwegian call blueberries ("blåbær") is not the same as what is usually called blueberries in English - but Wikipedia has an article on Bilberry. I don't think these are grown for sale, though, so you'd have to wait until the fall and collect some yourself, though I'd think it perfectly acceptable to "cheat" and use blueberries instead (they are also marketed as "blåbær" in Norwegian supermarkets). Of course you have to take care not to crush them, as they are red on the inside. Except from that, I don't know. Some type of white fish might have a bluish tint but hard to integrate with other food. By the way, those pictures you linked to were really nice, good idea! Jørgen (talk) 18:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

[ec] Bilberries are native to both Scotland and Norway. Bluefish and Atlantic mackerel can be caught offshore and have bluish skins. Marco polo (talk) 18:31, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Also sv:Blodpudding maybe (more often seen in Sweden but I think you can argue for a connection to Norway). If you agree it is blue, that is. Or something else with blood in it, like nn:Blodpølse Jørgen (talk) 18:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Those olives used in the Greek flag on the WildAmmo site certainly don't look very blue. Deor (talk) 19:26, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Australia's doesn't even try to be blue! What food is the Australian dishflag, by the way? ---Sluzzelin talk 20:37, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it's meant to be an "iconic" Australian and New Zealand meat pie. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It could be almost any pastry, but the tomato sauce on the Union Jack (no relation) gives it away. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:35, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Also the meat that one can see through the star-shaped holes. :-) Deor (talk) 23:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

That's assuming you know it's a meat pie. The dark stuff could be fruit or all manner of other things. I still reckon the tomato sauce is the giveaway. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 01:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Would it be cheating to dye a non-blue native food? Googlemeister (talk) 20:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps not if that food is normally dyed blue (like maraschino cherries are normally dyed bright red or green). StuRat (talk) 20:33, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not like there's a committee that will fail my dishes for lack of authenticity, but I was hoping the ingredients to be apparent to the viewer without explanation. So if the dyeing were commonplace and traditional then that would seem fine - the squid ink used to dye arròs negre, or the saffron (?) to dye the rice in the Spanish flag would seem entirely in keeping. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:51, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, what's the foodstuffs used for Korea on that site? I can't make out what the middle circle is made from, and the divination lines on the sides look like sushi rolls, but that can't be right... TomorrowTime (talk) 21:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Gimbap, soy sauce, and I think gochujang. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:04, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I can see why I would confuse gimbap for makizushi, they do look a lot alike. TomorrowTime (talk) 21:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

These things are really very evocative of the native culture, food being one of the main windows we have to cultures. They also make light of the national flag, which is refreshing. Bus stop (talk) 21:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Apparently there is such a thing as Scottish heritage blue potatoes: [7] Marco polo (talk) 00:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice job on the tree for Lebanon ! BTW, the tomatoes in the Italian flag are not native to Italy, they are from America. However, they have certainly become associated with Italy in recent centuries. Now let's see you form all the points on all 50 stars on the US flag (out of mayo, presumably) or take on the Arabic writing on the flag of Saudi Arabia. StuRat (talk) 04:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That depends on what you mean by native. They certainly grow tomatoes in Italy and have done so for centuries, and even have some very well known varieties (See San Marzano tomato). I would guess if you go back far enough, most things in those pictures were not native to any of those countries at one point in time. --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I should point out that I found these photos, I didn't take them. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

If you take the photography in a slightly different spectrum of light, you can have all the blue you want. =) 88.90.16.251 (talk) 08:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Or have them flying toward the camera at a significant portion of the speed of light, so they exhibit a blue shift. :-) StuRat (talk) 19:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Coincidentally, today's featured article, Flag of Japan, mentions: ”In 1937, a group of girls from Hiroshima Prefecture showed solidarity with Japanese soldiers fighting in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, by eating "flag meals" that consisted an umeboshi in the middle of a bed of rice.” ---Sluzzelin talk 13:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Popularity of the EU within the EU

Why is the EU not that loved in the UK than in other parts of Europe? At first, I fought because they are paying for it, however, Danemark and Holland are also paying and despise that, the index of acceptance is much higher.--Quest09 (talk) 19:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Germany pays more than every other country. I don't understand that objection anyway. Why are people from, say, Yorkshire, happy with their money going to the home counties or Northern Ireland, yet not happy with it going to Bulgaria or Lithuania? Personally I'm not happy with it going anywhere, but as I have to pay it I don't mind where it goes so long as it's put to good use.--92.251.147.169 (talk) 19:42, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Your question is not phrased entirely clearly, but if you're asking why the EU is not embraced that enthusiastically in the UK, it has something to do with the legacy of a whole convoluted history; originally the UK refused to unambiguously place Europe above its Commonwealth and Colonial interests, then when it tried to join in 1963 and 1966, it was vetoed both times by De Gaulle. When it finally joined, France had entrenched things so that French agriculture was favored above all others, and the UK had to negotiate the UK rebate with great difficulty in order to avoid paying exorbitantly extravagant sums to subsidize inefficient French farmers. From the point of view of many average people, the EU is a remotely distant bureaucracy which seems to be chiefly concerned with such things as straightening bananas and creating "metric martyrs"... AnonMoos (talk) 20:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Because EU-bashing sells newspapers. So the newspapers print it, which reinforces the idea that the EU is bad...which makes EU-bashing stories popular in newspapers...and so on. Vimescarrot (talk) 20:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

That's certainly at least partially true -- but perhaps EU-bashing wouldn't get the same traction if it weren't for certain underlying attitudes which create a predisposition to accept negative stories. AnonMoos (talk) 20:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

My take on it was that they were happy with their trading arrangements under the British Commonwealth, and only joined the EU for fear of otherwise being locked out of the vast European market. That, combined with having to subsidize poorer nations and eventually losing the Queen on their money, made them a bit cranky. StuRat (talk) 20:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Except that the UK hasn't adopted the Euro, so we still have the Queen on our money. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That would be why I used the word "eventually". Or do you think it will never happen ? StuRat (talk) 17:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

IMHO, the UK joined the EU largely to weaken (and to destroy it if possible) it from the inside and very little else. Flamarande (talk) 20:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The EU definitely gets the blame for Black Wednesday. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 09:38, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

IMHO, the British hatred towards the UE is based upon their own culture and history. Remember that they live in an archipelago (a cluster of islands) and tried and only tried once to establish their own large European empire (by conquering the kingdom of France during the 100 year war). Afterwards they realized that any great continental power was a potential threat (a great continental European empire could conquer them). Therefore the great powers (the Empire of Spain, France, Austrian Empire, German Empire, Russian Empire) were always regarded with a certain degree of suspicion and whoever was the most powerful among them was considered (officially or not) the enemy that had to be fought, defeated and weakened. Check the history of British military interventions: most of the time they support the weaker power against the stronger one. A lot of medium continental powers meant that none of them could threaten the UK. That's why many peace agreements made with the UK try to maintain a balance of power. So how this sold to the unwashed masses? With the ideal of "our British Liberty is threatened by continental tyranny". They were right during WWII and this POV survives among their collective psyche. Flamarande (talk) 20:34, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Good answers from AnonMoos, Vimescarrot and Flamarande. And, on top of all that, they talk about us Brits behind our backs in funny foreign languages that we can't be bothered to understand - unlike those friendly people and distant cousins in the US, Australia, South Africa, India and so forth who we can understand and trust (some of the time). Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:22, 13 April 2010 (UTC) Note to US readers... the preceding comment may contain some irony. Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, not sure if that was a typo, but note although the people are called Danes, the country is called Denmark in English (Danmark in Danish). Also presuming you're referring to th moderne country, it's better called Netherlands since Holland may refer to only one part of it and so may be offensive to those in the parts that they don't consider to be Holland (similar perhaps to referring to England if you mean the UK). Nil Einne (talk) 21:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

But it's so much more fun to call them the Nether Regions. :-) StuRat (talk) 04:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Everyone seems to be addressing the question in terms of why the English (and it seems within the UK the Scottish and Welsh are more EU friendly) dislike the EU, as though this is the unusual position. It might be interesting to think about why other countries favour the EU? If they do, what do the surveys say? It was the French and Dutch who rejected the Constitution in referenda after all.

Obviously some countries gain financially, but what about Germany (war guilt?) or the Netherlands (drugs?). As an English Eurosceptic the main reasons I hear given for membership are free trade (which we've had for many years without needing a shared government), an imaginary future in which we are at war (or trade war) with both the US and China and a suggestion that belief in national sovereignty is a bit, you know, xenophobic. 92.14.216.25 (talk) 22:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the more likely scenario is that the EU and NAFTA will eventually join to become a trading block of the nations which have environmental laws, democracies, human rights, respect copyrights, don't manipulate their currencies, etc., against those that don't care about those things, like China. Perhaps Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and a few others might then join. The problem with the WTO is that it's too inclusive, and allows some members to get away with too much crap. I have no idea why China was ever allowed to join without first allowing their currency to float, for example. StuRat (talk) 04:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course, other's may wonder what's the point of a group containing the US, when they basicly just ignore most decision they don't like (using their force combined with a few peanuts to convince the small complainants to back down), which it should have been fairly obvious to anyone that they would do even before it happened [8] (SAFE Port Act#WTO dispute [9] (United States – Canada softwood lumber dispute) [10]. Of course the US isn't the only one I think most commentators expect the results of the Airbus-Boeing dispute to be largely ignored by the US and the EU. Nil Einne (talk) 01:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Well with the BRIC countries expected to over-take the rich western countries in the long-run perhaps politically it's foolish to exclude these countries (China in particular) from being in the club - they're already hugely important to the world eocnomy (haven't they had continually the highest annual growth in GDP for about 30 years? (ignoring silly tiny-nations)). Back to the original-question though...basically I find that people here (Uk) like to moan about the EU lots, but few people seriously understand the wider role of the EU and how it helps/hinders the UK and even less can make rational theories about the impact on the UK were it to leave the EU (which, with the exception of a few nationalist numpties, i've rarely heard be seriously proposed). 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's the whole point, the current WHO system is inherently biased towards nations like China, leading to a higher growth rate there, since it promotes free trade without requiring a "level playing field" in terms of democracy, human rights (like the right to organize unions), environmental protections, product safety, allowing currencies to float, etc. StuRat (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Also don't forget that the British have a unique history with a theoretically more liberal political tradition than that of the Continental countries. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

One needs to look at England's history. Twice within the last 200 years it was, apart from Russia, the only European nation to hold out against an overly-ambitious Continental dictator. Oh, here in Italy, the EU is thoroughly despised due to the doubling of prices following the adoption of the Euro.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Switzerland is small, but still a European nation... Googlemeister (talk) 18:15, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

As a result of the bitter conflicts in the past, I just don't think the English trust the German-French power axis that dominates the EU.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 18:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

William Warham, by Hans Holbein the Younger drawing

I have a William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger. And a hand written letter on the back of the frame telling about him. Can any one tell me how many of these drawing's exist.

If the picture to which you refer is this one, then the original appears to be in Elisabeth II's Royal Collection. As to how many copies exist, I suspect, counting those to be found in art books, the numbers are in the many thousands. Is the accompanying "handwritten letter" signed, and if so, by whom? Is the letter an original or a copy? Bielle (talk) 22:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Tablets of stone

Were there really tablets of stone brought down by Moses? And, assuming he (not God) wrote on them, how did he do it? Have any bits of the tablets ever been found?--BandUser (talk) 21:26, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The Tablets of Stone were, according to the bible, stored in the Ark of the Covenant, which disappeared when the Babylonians destroyed the temple. Neither the arc, nor its purported contents, have been found and generally accepted as the real deal, to my knowledge. Buddy431 (talk) 21:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There may well have been Tablets of Stone in an Ark, which is mentioned in Biblical texts that also refer to confirmed historical events. I think that nonreligious scholars accept that there is a fair possibility that there was an Ark in Solomon's Temple that contained inscribed stone tablets. However, these tablets are not known to have been seen in the last 2,500 years. If they existed, we know nothing about their origins. Most nonreligious scholars see Moses as a legendary figure whose story may or may not have been based, loosely, on that of an actual person. There is no source other than the Bible that confirms the existence of Moses, and most nonreligious scholars agree that the story of the Exodus is largely if not completely fictional. Marco polo (talk) 00:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

And, according to the Bible, was Moses up the mountain long enough for God to inscribe the tablet (say, 5 minutes) or long enough for Moses to do it himslef and claim that God did it ? StuRat (talk) 04:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Forty days and nights (Exodus 24:18), long enough for the impatient Israelites to build a Golden Calf. Buddy431 (talk) 05:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

According to Jewish sources the tablets were made of [blue] sapphire (not rock), and were not objects that could exist by normal physical rules. Specifically the center of letters (for example an "o") stayed in their proper place, but were unsupported by anything. And the tablets could be read correctly (not mirror image) both from the front and the back, yet the empty space of the letters went all the way through the tablets. Also they were square, not rectangles as is commonly depicted. The second set was made by Moses (not God) and he was allowed to keep what was left after making them. And that was his source of wealth (since he, unlike everyone else did not take anything from Egypt since he was busy retrieving Josephs body). Source Ariel. (talk) 09:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

To answer both the OP and StuRat, Moses made the second ones. Ariel. (talk) 09:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and they managed to misplace them. At some point, God must have wondered why He had selected such schlemiels as His "chosen people". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

To be fair though, they were (if the stories are to be believed) misplaced due to a successful invasion by a foreign power. Their god was supposed to be stopping that sort of thing from happening. --Psud (talk) 08:20, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Vote counting

Has there ever been a system where the counting of votes was speeded up by having multiple boxes (one per candidate/party) and then weighing the ballot boxes to find the winner? --Rixxin (talk) 21:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Since voting is a secret, it's unlikely they would have such a system, especially as you're allowed to split a ticket among 2 or more parties. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

They could easily have all the boxes behind a screen to avoid giving away the secret. And as for voting for more than one party, that depends on the system. In the upcoming UK general election there will be only one vote per paper, for instance. 92.14.216.25 (talk) 22:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, so you would be in a voting booth, and you would drop a ballot into one of two slots, let's say? When voting is over, you would weigh them. Keep in mind that before voting, you also have to weigh them empty, because what you want to measure is the weight of just the ballots, not the boxes too. Then what do you do if you messed up and put it in the wrong slot? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC) Sigh. Rixxin's queried system has no secrecy implications one way or another, so long as voters are able to insert their vote without being viewed. Neither is the ticket observation conclusively dismissive since in many elections there is one thing being elected and you have a single vote. I take it Bugs is presupposing that whatever voting system he's used is universally applied. I have not heard of Rixxin's system being employed - at least not for the election of members of government - and hazard a guess that there are a number of practical objections: 1) the weight of a single vote is probably much less than the expected variability of weight of voting boxes ... bottom line, it is not a system that'll work well at distinguishing candidates getting similar amounts of votes, and in any event requires a standard of weighing and box manufacture unlikely to be practical 2) the number of boxes required is in proportion to the number of candidates standing, which means elections with large numbers of candidates require large numbers of boxes (remembering that there may be many polling stations. 3) The system invites fraud to the extent that a person can drop more weight into a voting box - sand, coins, &c. To the extent that bug's comment was of any use whatsoever, it reminds us that there is a problem of enabling the voter to vote in secrecy whilst enabling the election scrutineers to police the box. Clearly it is difficult to facilitate both of these. All that said, my local supermarket has a system whereby shoppers are given a green plastic coin and invited to insert it into one of three containers, each associated with a charity. Some amount of money is given by the supermarket each month in proportion with the rough volume of coins in each container. It's not weighing, nor is it for the election of government members, but it is a quick & easy voting system along Rixxin's lines. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:34, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The usual snippiness from Simon, as well as a lengthy essay (speaking of "worthless"). So I'll just summarize with what I had thought about saying previously but had decided to elaborate a little bit: "Such a system would be rife with fraud and would otherwise be impractical." Any questions, class? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I apologize to the other readers here, for momentarily allowing myself to descend to Simon's level. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:49, 13 April 2010 (UTC) Oops, did it again. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

US elections typically have more than one -- sometimes dozens -- of races on the same ballot, so you'd have to have a lot of boxes. And speed really isn't an issue -- a stack of punch-card or optical-scan ballots can be counted in seconds, and electronic ballots in milliseconds. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

It's an interesting theoretical question. What he's describing is how, for example, grain is weighed - difference between full weight and empty weight of the truck is what the grain weighs. But for voting, it's clearly neither practical nor necessary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

And it's necessary to have a precise count of votes, but not of oats. PhGustaf (talk) 23:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Usually it's not necessary to have a precise count of votes, unless the poll is close, or a candidate is close to some arbitrary mark regarding future funding or something similar. Warofdreams talk 00:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

If everyone was voting at a single location, the weight system might be useful in cases where the vote was not close, as a way of getting a very quick result -- the heavier box wins. But in order to combine votes from multiple polling stations, you would either have to get accurate weights for every polling station, or you'd have to bring all the ballot boxes together to a central location (without mixing up which ones were which) and weigh them in large groups. Not very practical. And anyway, manual counting gets results quickly enough. --Anonymous, 06:15 UTC, April 14, 2010.

The proposed system has some similarities with the blackballing system. Provided the ballots were sufficiently distinctive and difficult to forge, it might not suffer greatly from fraud. While modern methods of vote counting are clearly superior, this would make some sense for an election more than, say, one hundred years ago, with a sufficiently large electorate. But, according to voting machine#Early History, even the first known proposal for some device along these lines envisaged use of a clockwork counter, rather than weighing the ballots. Warofdreams talk 00:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

According to Benjamin Graham, you're describing the long-term appreciation of a publicly traded company's price per share! He said (paraphrased), "In the short run, the stock market is a voting machine; in the long run, it's a weighing machine." 63.17.77.76 (talk) 04:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if it helps the OP but there have apparently been occasions in UK Parliamentary elections when scales were brought in as a secondary check on an election result. Upminster in 1979 was one such example. However, in those cases the ballot papers would have had to be separated by party already. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

As TS mentioned, hiding the ballot boxes (as needed if you want to maintain secrecy) is a good way to encourage fraud even without using weight. When you start using weight meaning people don't even need legitimate looking ballot papers you've got a recipe for disaster. Ballot stuffing is already a problem in some countries. BTW in discussions of historic contexts like 100 years ago, it's perhaps worth remembering that there were very few if any very large electorates and given the transportaton and communication barriers of the time and absence of TVs or even widespread radios, the benefit of having the results in say 10 minutes instead of the say 5 hours normal counting may take is questionable. Remember when it comes to electorate sizes, many places wouldn't have allowed women voters at the time, and also perhaps some other people. In fact it's not even the size of the electorate that matters, presuming you count in the polling centre (and if you don't the advantage of a weight system is even more unclear), it's the size of the polling centre that matters more then the size of the electorate. Given the low density of the time and the transportation issues, polling centres would generally cover a lot less people then then they do now. Nil Einne (talk) 01:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

People have always been keen to find information as quickly as possible, and as I say, design of the ballots - for example, using a distinctive token - could limit the frequency of fraud. Weighing the ballot boxes wouldn't rule out a cursory check that everything in the boxes resembled one of these tokens or, if the election was close, conducting a detailed check. Other technical issues are not hugely problematic - for instance, each candidate's box could be a different, standardised, colour, which would make it easy to transfer them to a central counting place without confusion. On the specific point of electorates 100 years ago, I suppose it depends what you call large, but in the UK, there had certainly been city seats where 60,000 or more votes were cast, and these would have had only a very limited number of polling stations. Warofdreams talk 09:27, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Queen Elizabeth (Bowes-Lyon) visited France in 1938

King George VI and queen Elizabeth went to France July 19 to 22, 1938. We have a clue they visited the city of Vannes (Morbihan) but are unable to confirm. Dhatier (talk) 22:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

According to a contemporary newspaper, the royal couple went from Boulogne directly to Paris, stayed in the capital for three nights, then returned via Calais, stopping at the Australian war memorial in Villers-Bretonneux on the way. There is no indication they went way out to Brittany. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That was quite the news day! Nazi Germany preparing for war, ominous mentions of Czechoslovakia, and Wrong Way Corrigan to boot. --Anonymous, 06:20 UTC, April 14, 2010.

Thank you. Dhatier (talk) 16:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)